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A Lucky Life
John Tassell
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 John Tassell
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Contents
Chapter Eleven: Not Too Many Dragons
Chapter Thirteen: Round the World on The Grey Funnel Line
Chapter Fourteen: The Dream Car
Chapter Nineteen: Getting Serious About Antennas
Chapter Twenty: Travelling North
The Early Years
I was born in England in 1929. A son after three daughters, I was expecting a big celebration with champagne, music and dancing in the streets but it was all very quiet. ‘Perhaps I’ve arrived at a bad time’ I thought. This was very perceptive for a new born babe because it was a bad time. 1929 was the year of the Wall Street crash. Investors were jumping off tall buildings in pairs, a time of ultimate despair.
We did it very tough ourselves. At our lowest ebb, we had no food in the house, no money, no coal for the fire and a foot of snow outside! Things were crook but unlike Mr. Mc Cawber, who was always saying, “Something will turn up,” (but it never did) for us, something did turn up.
Next door had a load of coal delivered and Dad , thinking, they'll never find it when it's buried under a foot of snow, went out and with the big heavy wheelbarrow, brought it into their coal shed. However, being half starved, he collapsed. Mum and the lady from next door had to get him inside. They sat him by the fire with a cup of hot tea and Mum bathed his black frozen hands. Poor Dad moaned with the pain from his hands but their neighbour, showed his appreciation. He worked at a colliery and as part of his employment package, he was given a monthly, free delivery of coal and he made sure we had coal all winter
Dad left school in 1912. He was fourteen and he got a job at The Siemens Electrical Company. He was paid a penny an hour. Four and four pence for a fifty two hour week!
In 1914 Dad had his sixteenth birthday and started an apprenticeship with Siemens. The First World War had started and all the men were being called up. To young fellows like Dad and his mate Sid Pike, going off to war seemed like an irresistible adventure.
Intending to lie about their ages and volunteer, he and Sid presented themselves at the Stafford recruiting office but the medical officer was their family doctor and he told them to get off home.
Undeterred by this little set-back, they waited until the weekend and cycled to Wolverhampton, the nearest big city. They found the Army Recruiting Depot and joined up. They weren't even asked about their ages, The Army were taking all the cannon fodder they could get. So, they were rapidly, In the Army.
For training, they were sent to the island of Guernsey and joined, The 4th North Stafford Regiment. In January 1915, after four months of rugged training, Dad was posted to HQ and Sid was posted to the 2nd Battalion in France.
At HQ, due to his copperplate writing and accent-free speaking voice, Dad was employed in the office for general duties and to answer the phone. He was needed for this, because all the other men were from the potteries and their speech was unintelligible.
During this time, he had a letter from Sid, saying he had been sent to Mesopotamia. Later on Dad heard Sid had been killed in action there.
Next, Dad was posted to the 62nd Machine Gun Division and trained to be a machine gunner. After training, he was sent to the 21st Division and over the next two years, he saw a lot of action and was wounded several times: First at the Somme and later that year, the Somme again. Then at Passchendale Ridge, which was the worst. So, he had done more than his share but then he got a break.
It was decided to train machine gunners and make Machine Gun Companies. And … Dad was chosen to be one of the instructors! That was very good news, for that he had to be sent home to England! Wonderful! Home at last.
Dad had come from a very religious, Wesleyan Chapel, family and I had always assumed that he was very religious too. We were brought up to go to church regularly (C of E not Chapel) and Sunday school but in fact, Dad had lost his faith in the trenches. He decided that no God who loved his flock would allow such terrible things to happen. Appallingly awful nightmarish things, that haunted him all his life, and yet he was such a wonderful loving father. How he helped us and kept on helping us, long after we were grown up.
My three sisters and I were blessed. No one could have had more loving parents. Dads wonderful book Reminiscences, includes some details of his terrible time in the war, it is such a good read.
Besides being very religious, Dad’s parents were quite well-to-do. His father George was the area manager for The Singer Sewing Machine Company and he operated from the Stafford Singer Shop in Gaol Square. They had a nice house, a terrace but in the better part of town and big enough to raise five children in.
Dad was the eldest and we always thought it unfair that he had to leave school at fourteen and go to work, while his younger brothers and sisters went on to university.
Mum’s maiden name was Grace Ellen Tiviotdale. An intriguing surname name and she used to intimate darkly that her family had suffered and fallen from better things. Her father had graduated from the big Birmingham University and he was a surveyor-draftsman with the big city council. However, he had taken to drink in a very destructive way.
So ... fate had brought two victims of misfortune together. With a little better luck they both could have enjoyed a more comfortable start in life but who’s to say that they would have had a happier and more rewarding life than they eventually did?
Mum and Dad had been brought up in comfort but after their marriage, they lived in Genteel Poverty (or they would have been if they could have afforded to) but at that time it was a struggle just to survive.
Dad credits Mum for our ability to speak properly. She had a wonderful speaking voice and a lovely singing voice and she trained us to speak. I’ve always appreciated speaking properly but at times it’s been a mixed blessing. We were often thought of as stuck up, even though our extremely desperate circumstances made us quite the opposite. On reflection, being spoilt and well spoken sometimes gave me undeserved confidence. I seemed to believe I would always be forgiven my countless stupidities.
Our dear mother was tireless and full of fun, which is really remarkable, considering the very thin times we went through. These thin times, caused us to have to move about a lot but moving was no trouble for Mum. In fact, to her, it was adventure.
Dad would only have to come home from work and say, ‘We might have to move dear.’
She’d say, ‘Right’ and start packing!
Going back to Dad’s time in the Army, he survived the First World War. Well, he more than survived. When he got out, he was a highly decorated Crown Sergeant and only twenty one!
One story that became a family legend, was about one of his luckiest escapes. As a sergeant, he was marching his troop back behind the lines for a bit of R & R. When they came under shell fire, Dad ordered his men to dive into the ditch beside the road. When they were all in, he dived on top of them.
The instant he landed, someone landed on top of him, saying, ‘Shove up a bit mate.’
They were his last words, a shell burst overhead and virtually vaporized him. Whoever he was, he saved Dad’s life. Dad woke up in a field hospital and when, after weeks, he finally saw himself in a mirror, part of his hair had turned white and in his own words:
‘I had this flash of pure white hair on the front-left side of my head and all my life, it made me look rather distinguished!’ God bless him.
Then there was the cigarette case incident. He had this heavy metal cigarette case in the top left pocket of his tunic and it stopped a bullet! I know it doesn’t sound original but it was probably pretty original ninety years ago!
When Dad got out of the army, his reward for serving his country was unemployment. Luckily, his Dad was able to get him a job with The Singer Sewing Machine Company. He had to commute daily to the Singer repair and assembly plant at Wolverhampton. There, he was taught to operate and repair Singer Sewing Machines.
When he got home from work one day, his Mother said, ‘Do you remember that girl I wrote to you about during the war. The one your brothers nicknamed, ‘Tricky Tivvy.’
Dad said, ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Well, she’s going to her brother in Canada and she’s come to say goodbye. I persuaded her to stay the night, so she could meet you and Tivvy is waiting in the drawing room.’
Dad quickly cleaned up, changed and hurried down to meet her. He opened the door … and boom, there she was. It became a family-legend that some spark passed between them at that moment. She stayed until the end of the week and Dad took the rest of the week off.
After that, they met at weekends. They both caught a train and met in the middle. It was at a lovely village called Four Ashes. They did this for a few weeks, but then the company transferred Dad to Shrewsbury, so their courting had to continue by correspondence.
While Dad was working at Shrewsbury, some weekends he cycled the 22 miles to the Welshpool markets. After three visits, it seemed to him, there might be an opening for a Singer Sewing Machine Shop there. He spoke to the management but they were not impressed.
However, they did agree to supply him with stock and pay him a pound a week. He thought that was enough to start and found a shop and residence. Then he wrote to Grace, telling her he had somewhere to live and he would get a special license for them to marry. She came right over but by the time he had paid the rent and for the license, he was broke! Nevertheless, they were very happy and stayed married until after their 60th Wedding Anniversary. Dad lived on to eighty six and Mum lived to ninety.
Welshpool was a lovely town. It had a handsome castle and a beautiful park with wild deer roaming freely but it didn’t have buyers of sewing machines. To earn some money to keep going, he delivered mail to the farms around town for thirty shillings a week. Yes, on his bicycle, very early in the morning, through the rain and snow. Then things got worse!
God knows how they survived but undaunted by their poverty, the family continued to grow in number! Finally due to lack of business, they had to close the shop and return to Stafford. They stayed with Dad’s parents, who were very kind to us all.
After a few weeks, they moved into the flat above the Stafford Singer Sewing Machine shop in Gaol Square.
Over the next few years, they moved to many Singer shops in other towns and villages: Cannock, where I was born. Rugely, Burslem, Stone and Walton-On the Hill.
Considering the fact that they had had three daughters in quick succession and then had managed to be unproductive for five years, I’m pretty sure I was an accident.
However, Mum and Dad and my three sisters regarded my birth a red letter day and Dad got orders for three sewing machines on that day. So that would have helped!
Things got even worse at Walton, Vera heard Mum crying in the night and the next day she found out Dad had lost his Job.
Meanwhile, I was spoilt and pandered to by my parents and my three sisters. Of my sisters, Vera is the eldest and is known as the brains of the family. Alwyn is my middle sister and she is very smart too. Barbara is the youngest and she is the artist.
When she grew up, she started studying fashion art and dress designing at Stafford Art School. In time, she came to paint in oil and water-colour, sculpt in clay and she excels in all of them!
My middle sister Alwyn is famous for the time she was walking me in my pram and when we were at the top of a hill, she was buzzed by a bee and in the process of swiping at it, she let go of the pram. An idle onlooker would have found it difficult to suppress at least a giggle. There I was hurtling down the hill, accelerating at 32 feet-per-second per-second (gravity) with Olly in hot pursuit waving her arms and shouting. There was a fork in the road and a slimy green duck pond at the bottom of the hill. My pram and I became airborne and landed with a squelchy splash in the slime. In spite of Olly giving me this impromptu swimming lesson, my three doting sisters were my best friends and when they all went off to school. I missed them.
When we lived in Walton, a village in Staffordshire, the house was on a bend in the road and when my sisters went to school, I used to climb up the gate to watch them. The higher I climbed, the longer I could see them. Then one day I climbed so high I ran out of rungs and toppled over! I went head first into the cast iron water cock cover, putting a gash in my forehead. This bang on the head could account for my seeming to be from another planet for most of my early life and for my oddly idiosyncratic behaviour!
The head-bonk caused much running around and screaming but they eventually caught me. Whereupon, I was head bathed, elastoplasted and laid out in a darkened room. I healed up but had a rather intriguing vertical red scar right in the middle of my forehead. It was not long This gave me a horizontal red scar creating a forbidding sign of the cross, which I used to deter God-fearing bullies from bothering me, lest they found themselves struck down by a thunderbolt from on high.
This Holiness scam worked for a while but then the horizontal scar began to fade and I had to revert to my ability to do the 100 in 10.2. Besides banging myself on the head a lot, I had enjoyed poor health of various kinds. Plus, I used to walk in my sleep and wake up with screaming nightmares.
Seventy odd years later, I can until glimpse what made me scream. A flat sheet of something smooth would appear but then it would start to wrinkle and for some weird reason that would scare me to death.
I also had a very bronchial chest (the climate wouldn’t have helped that) and I was kept at home from school for a year. I’m sure I would have played on that. I was not fond of school. So, what with my screaming and coughing I must have given my poor parents such a lot of trouble and they were already struggling desperately.
In the end, the poor beleaguered doctor said, “Keep him home from school for a year and let him run wild, it might build up his strength,” and apparently I did run wild. Roaming all over the countryside, and poor Vera or Alwyn were sent to find me which they certainly resented. They would have had far better things to do with their time.
As well as that aggravating behaviour, I had an imaginary friend called Barney whom I talked to all the time. It used to drive Barbara nuts and it would have been another thing to worry Mum and Dad. But when Vera was little, she’d had an imaginary friend too, named Ali Bolkran. So, having already experienced the imaginary friend phenomenon, they figured it was fairly normal behaviour.
Things had been crook before but our stay in Walton was no picnic. Dad lost his job and God knows how we survived. We did find a basket of groceries on the door step and its contents kept us alive for a day or two. People can be very disappointing but what marvellous kindnesses some members of the human race are capable of.
We all think we’ve got problems but compared to the worry of four young mouths to feed, rent to pay and only dole payments to survive on, you would wonder why Mum and Dad didn’t go barking mad. Mum was indomitable, can’t even begin to guess how she kept us all fed.
Finally, some good luck. Although Dad had lost his job with Singers, he sometimes got customers by word of mouth, and he received an order for a sewing machine from a Mrs. Orchard. While Dad was demonstrating the sewing machine to Mrs. Orchard, her husband Joe asked him if he was looking for a job.
‘I certainly am,’ Dad replied.
It turned out Joe was the sales manager for what was known as, The Universal Grinding Wheel Company. It was widely known as, ‘The UNI.’
In1938 and Joe told Dad that the company had been given a government contract to supply Russia and they were putting on workers. He got Dad a job and things started to look up.
Working at the UNI, Dad learned to use a 20 ton press to press the grinding wheels into shape. They were made from a mixture of clay and an abrasive, such as emery or carborundum and after they were pressed, they were fired in a kiln like pottery. The clay melted and binding with the abrasive, the pressings became grinding wheels.
Now Dad had a bit more upstairs than the average factory hand and he wanted to make the most of his opportunity. Jobs were as rare as rubies, so if he ran out of work for his machine, he didn’t just stand around. No, he got stuck into cleaning it down and generally keeping busy.
This got him noticed and when the foreman was sacked for reading a newspaper in his office, for the third time! Dad was made foreman and eventually he was made manager of three divisions of the factory!
Of course this didn’t happen overnight but the job was the start of a reversal of fortune. The factory was near Stafford, which is right in the middle of England, and Dad had to cycle four and a half miles, to get to work from Walton and to get home he had to climb a huge hill! So ... we moved again, this time to the village of Doxey. Doxey was only about a mile out of town and just only the other side of the works cricket pitch from the factory.
We rented one of a row of six terrace houses, which had very primitive plumbing. The toilet was at the bottom of the garden and once a week the tin bath was put in front of the fire. The water heated in the kettle on the stove and the bath laboriously filled and … we were all processed through it! So you see it’s all true about the Poms weekly bathing habits.
As Dad was promoted, we began to prosper. Even to the extent, that when the big house,’ The Big House,’ across the street became vacant, we moved in! Now this was ‘Big Time.’ It had a large front garden lined with tall fir trees and a driveway which swept around to the backyard. We had three double bedrooms and a bathroom and toilet upstairs. A bathroom and toilet upstairs! Incredible and downstairs, there were two large front rooms: the Drawing room and the Blue Room, also a large kitchen/family room with a fuel cooking range and a scullery with a gas stove!
Even though the house was a very classy property, it had no electricity! That was not uncommon in those days. We had a gas stove and gas lighting and the gas pipes went to every room. Instead of light globes, we had gas mantles. They were shaped a bit like a light globe but made out of white material which glowed when lit. The gas would be turned on and a match struck and when it heated up, the mantle would give off a rather nice warm light. until, electric light would have been better. The back door opened into a glassed-in back veranda, which was like a hot-house and Dad was able to grow tomatoes and other good things out of season.
From the veranda, we stepped onto a paved back yard with an outside toilet and laundry. There was also a lawn with two huge cherry trees. They gave us pounds of beautiful cherries every year. They were so delicious Bar couldn’t resist them and ate so many they gave her a tummy ache.
Then there was a low wall across the back of the yard and beyond the wall, there was a long, double-width garden. It had several varieties of fruit trees, apples, pears, plums, damsons and so on. The Big House also had a cellar! There was a door of the scullery, and we stored our harvest down there. It was quite a large room, and every year and the fruit kept for months. The fruit trees were planted down each side of our very long garden, which, with advice from Mr. Walpole, the expert next door, Dad set about cultivating. He planted masses of potatoes, cabbages, beans, peas and so on. All of which were a big help with the food rationing. Some of the produce was not without cost. We had to exchange our potato ration for seed potatoes! Bad luck if a frost killed them. One morning, Mum watched Dad walk down the garden on his way to work.
There had been a severe and late frost in the night and he inspected his potato crop. The frost had burnt Dad’s young green potato shoots and he took out his handkerchief and mopped his tears. Poor Dad, the survival of his crop was vital to us.
Mr. Walpole was a rather mean and grumpy old fellow but he grew prized produce. I can still remember the day he called me over, and with a flourish, picked a ripe Victoria plum off his tree. He presented it to me and watched me devour it. There is nothing as good as stone fruit picked ripe off the tree and if he was hoping to enjoy my reaction, I’m sure I didn’t disappoint him. It was sweet and crisp and utterly delicious. With the juice running down my chin I’m sure I used up all the words in my boyish vocabulary.
Probably looking suggestively at the tree, I might have said, ‘Thank you Mr. Walpole that was delicious Mr. Walpole.’ He only gave me the one but I can still remember it. Well, stone fruit looks beautiful in the shops but these days they are picked while green and are as hard as bullets. When they finally soften they are tasteless mush. That must be the reason I remember Mr. Walpole’s beautiful Victoria Plum.
Also, the house had a remarkably effective convection system to heat the water. The cistern was in the kitchen downstairs beside the fuel stove. I can still remember the first time we tried it. When the steaming hot water came pouring out, Mum and Dad and the girls began whooping and shouting. I was very small and dopey at the time and I misunderstood. I had thought they were going crook but eventually realised they were whooping for joy at the steaming hot water pouring out!
The cistern was nicknamed Aunt Lizzie after Dad’s favourite aunt. Lizzie had been very kind to Dad when he came back from the war. He had been in a very bad way, skinny, run down, dirty and infested with lice. Aunt Lizzie had bathed him, disinfected him, fed him and put him to bed wrapped in one of her voluminous nighties. The nickname was bestowed because the cistern made loud gurgling noises, which was something it had in common with Aunt Lizzie’s digestive system!
We didn’t mind the gurgling, in fact it became a family joke but the system worked and we felt very posh, having hot and cold running water … and toilet facilities upstairs!
I think about this time, what with his promotion and position, Dad must have been feeling a bit flush. It was probably the first time he’d had money in his pocket. So one day, when he went out to buy the paper, there was a board up in front of the shop. It was advertising a family railway excursion to the Welsh seaside resort town of Rhyll.
God bless him, he could not resist the thought of taking us all to see the sea. He came home with a ticket and we were very excited but Mum was not pleased. She didn’t think he should have spent the money … and then when we had to share the train home with noisy drunken revellers, Mum was even less pleased. But dear Dad, as always, had only thought of us children seeing the sea for the first time and it was a great adventure.
In those days, workers were given one week holiday a year and after Rhyll, our amazing parents, managed to take us to the sea every year! How did they afford it? They must have saved their pennies all year but, how could they have anything left out of the weekly pay packet, with six mouths to feed and rent to pay?
However, they did it and they were great holidays. We went by bus and train to the Welsh seaside towns. They had such funny names: Aberystwyth, Abberdovey and Llandudno. We stayed at seaside boarding houses, which were just across the road from the sea. We walked along the Front with the wonderful smell of the sea and we played on the sand and swam in the salty water. We were so lucky to be taken on those seaside holidays and they probably had something to do with us all ending up living near the sea.
Speaking of walks, Mum and Dad had such energy. Dad worked five and a half days a week, then on Sunday, pushing my pram they would walk us miles and miles to other villages for picnics. We often went to a very beautiful area called Milford Hills. We would take a bus into town and then another bus to Milford. Then we would walk across the grassy plains and up over the high hills and down into the picnic area. It was lovely with flowering trees and a babbling brook for paddling in.
After playing and paddling and picnicking for a couple of hours we would start for home. I would fall asleep, poor Dad having to carry me back up over the hills and onto the bus for home. We needed no rocking after such a long day and Dad was up very early next morning to start another long hard week.
You would think he would have taken a day of rest, but no. They were truly remarkable parents.
As we prospered, we ventured further away for our seaside holidays. The most famous holiday resort town was Blackpool in northern England. It had everything: a very long beach with the famous Promenade, which had a fairground at one end with a Big Dipper, plus other rides, stalls and a show. The Blackpool Tower was in the middle, which everyone climbed for the terrific view. It had restaurants and cafes and the huge and wonderful Ball Room.
Then there were the, Illuminations, which were really spectacular. The full length of the Promenade and all the buildings fronting the sea and Blackpool Tower were all aglow with lights! It was really marvellous. In fact it was regarded by many as one of the wonders of the world.
There was a famous ‘Music Hall’ joke about Blackpool. Here in Australia we are used to all kinds of insects in our houses but in England it is regarded as a disgrace, particularly to find a flea in the house. So, when the seaside boarding house landlady was shaking the sheets out of an upstairs window. A man leaned out of the window of the boarding house next door and said.
‘That woont geh rid of t’fleas missus.’
She replied. ‘Norh buh it’ll make em dizzy f‘t night.’
Besides the sea-side holidays, they seemed to afford other indulgences, such as Christmas presents and the full Christmas ritual: the decorated tree, the re-stretched Christmas decorations across the rooms and after we were asleep, they would quietly enter our bedrooms and hang our stockings, full of presents on the end of our beds. I remember the excitement on Christmas Eve. To make Christmas come sooner, in the complete opposite of my usual behaviour, I wanted to go to bed early. I couldn’t wait to wake up and scramble down to the foot on my bed and pull my presents, out of the stocking.
Then, the special Christmas dinner, with the roast chicken and Christmas cake! I wasn’t mad about the fruit cake but I ate it as a penance for the white icing and the almond icing. Then when I was old enough, I used to go carol singing. We walked the streets in a group singing: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night and some of our neighbours would come out and give us sweets and mince pies. It was a wonderful time
Our village name was Doxey. I accidentally came across the word Doxey in the dictionary and was astounded to find that it was old English for prostitute! I must say I can’t remember ever having encountered any in Doxey. I was too young and dopey anyway.
Another good thing about Dad working at the UNI, it meant he had a reserved occupation. Grinding wheels were vital for the war effort and that meant he couldn’t be called up again. Thank God, well he’d more that done his bit in 14-18.
Also, Dad could go to the works canteen for lunch. This helped to eke out the miserly family rations but he hated the canteen food. It consisted mainly of great dollops of watery mashed Swede and pumpkin, so sometimes he would go home for a bit of toast and dripping (if he was lucky.) One morning, Mum was visited by a haulage contractor, who was dependent on Dad for putting business his way. A huge jovial man, he had arrived at the back door with a chicken! Now we’re talking rare. Mum must have had her intuition switched on that day, because on the off-chance that Dad might come home for lunch she put it on to roast. Not without a well developed sense of humour, when he did in fact, turn up she said coldly,
‘I don’t know what you’ve come home for, there’s little to eat here.’
‘I just felt like coming home’ he said forlornly.
‘Well go into the kitchen and I’ll see what I can find.’
He slunk into the kitchen and sat down disconsolately. Out in the scullery (the gas stove was in the scullery) Mum took the baking dish out of the oven. The chicken was surrounded by scrumptious roast vegetables and ... exercising her taste for the dramatic, walked in and with a flourish, put the whole thing down in front of poor Dad! It’s fair to say that he got quite emotional. Mum would have given him a big hug and kissed away his salty tears and then they would have sat down to a luxurious and totally unexpected and for that time, extraordinary lunch.
When the War started in 1939, I was ten and still going to school at St. Leonard’s. Ironically, although the war was terrible, it wasn’t all bad news. The economy picked up, as it always does in war. The UNI was very busy, well, grinding wheels were very important to the war effort. Plus the demands of war had the UNI expanding and putting on workers. This meant more promotion and responsibility for Dad and … more money.
The large estate next door, had been bought by the UNI so Dad only had to walk down the garden, turn left through the estate, past the cricket pitch and he was at work.
Dad’s prospering did not extend to him buying a family car but we all had bikes. My old one was worn out and I got a brand new one for Christmas. Being war-time there was no chrome and it was sprayed all black, which I thought looked smart.
Dad had taught me to ride my old one on an unused road near the factory and it was not long before I was riding it everywhere. With my friend Ellis we rode into town or out in the country. There was an RAF airfield near the village of Seighford and we used to ride out to a gate in the hedge, through which we could watch the Wellington bombers land and take off.
Back then there were very few passenger planes and they only flew from near the major cities, so until the war, seeing a plane was rare and to actually see them landing and taking off was very exciting.
Ellis and I became mad about planes and we rode out to the airfield to watch them often and as soon as we were old enough, we joined the RAF Cadets. This was great. We went one evening a week and did fitness training and learnt interesting things about aircraft. Then on Sundays we were taken out to an airfield and taken up in an old DC3 or a Tiger Moth, it was terrific. Even more exciting, we were taken up in a dual control glider and allowed to actually fly the thing! The idea of the Air Training Cadets was in the hope of recruiting us into the Air Force when we were old enough. Perversely, when I was old enough, I joined The Fleet Air Arm.
There seemed to be many things to entertain me when I was growing up. The big estate next door was an interesting place and certainly very odd. It had been owned by the same family for generations but they petered out (it was said) due to lunacy and disease caused by extensive in-breeding. One of the loonies had high walls erected with battlements and castle towers. They were cheaply made, the concrete augmented with strange filling, such as beer bottles. Green ones and brown ones, which were partly visible in the wall surfaces, Barbara and I cracked some of the bottles with a stone and used the cavity created to hide some of our little treasures.
Someone who had seen our nutty neighbours all together in a group said, 'They were shuffling along their driveway, some with one leg shorter than the other. All sadly deformed and misshapen' and my companion had said, 'Get a load of this shower.’ How cruel but many a true word spoken incest.
The UNI used the estate’s mansion for offices and a works club and it was there that I was introduced to billiards. Dad was an artist at billiards, he played with such finesse. To spin the ball he didn’t have to hit it hard, he just sort of caressed it and the ball would spin so far! With his help I became quite good but he had real talent.
Being away in the forces Vera and Alwyn’s rooms were needed by the factory to house specialists they had hired. But they billeted some strange fellows with us. One poor devil had an epileptic fit in the kitchen. He was a big bloke and he busted up the furniture, which terrified poor Mum, then he collapsed in the corner of the room. He was taken away and replaced by the cook from the works canteen. He brought us some nice things to eat but he didn’t stay long.
Then when, because of the bombing, children were evacuated from London, we were assigned a couple of rough looking lads. Thinking I’d have a couple of new friends my own age, I welcomed them but immediately, things began to go missing. Mum reported them and they were taken away and replaced with two others.
They were very miserable and unhappy but nicer. Well, it was a terrible time for them. They had been in the bombing of London: spending their nights in the shelters and now they had been taken from their parents, whom they might never see again and foisted on to total strangers, some of whom might be resentful and unkind. I don’t think they stayed long but they did make us realise how lucky we were.
The end of our garden gave onto sloping meadows where cattle grazed and there was a brook with watercress and minnows swimming. I showed all these things to the evacuees. Being from the narrow, mean streets of the London slums, they had never seen fields and cows and they were amazed. From the brook, the meadows climbed up through wheat fields, all the way up to Stafford Castle on top of the hill. The castle and the fields were a wonderland for them and running free and playing in the castle, made them smile but later I heard them crying in their beds. Still, they had a good time with us. We were kind to them and there was so much for them to do.
Our village was on a hill and in the winter, when it snowed we used to hurl ourselves down the sloping fields on home-made toboggans. Then when it thawed, the floods made the village an island but the thaw was often interrupted by a snap freeze and the flood water would become ice! More fun sliding and skating, then when the floodwater drained away, the ice took on the shape of the bed of the stream below and it sagged down where the streams were, creating slippery slides.
Besides all those diversions, on the other side of the village, we had the river Sow for swimming in summer and fishing. We had to cross the main railway lines to get to the river, which was against the law and dangerous but to us that was just a dare. The railway line was a major one, with four lines and they carried freight, passenger and express trains. The expresses were dangerous, because you couldn’t hear them coming until they were on you but we foolishly played on the lines and did stupid things: like putting stones and bits of coal on the line and then we’d hide in the bushes and watch the train’s wheels crush them. We also put a penny on the line to see how the train running over it made it thinner and wider. What stupid things we used to get up to!
I played cricket with my school mates in a sand quarry and football on the common in winter. Doxey was only a short bus ride or bike ride from Stafford, so we went into town a lot. Stafford was an important town, being the county town of Staffordshire.
The Universal Grinding Wheel Company, the Siemens Electrical factory and the W H Dorman engine makers were the three main industries in town but there was another manufacturing plant. The town was on a brine deposit! Yes, we had a salt factory. The brine was pumped up from below and boiled over fires which burned day and night. The water turned to steam which evaporated, leaving behind the salt.
Also, the brine had another use. We had an indoor swimming pool complex, with a twenty five yard pool. Also, the complex included a small hot brine pool and private hot brine baths which were very therapeutic. They were a boon to the old, infirm and no doubt the arthritic. On a cold day we used to sneak from the swimming pool into the brine pool and get in to thaw out. It was fun, because the water was so dense that you didn’t need to swim, you just floated and you floated very high in the water! It was very nice just floating about getting warm but you couldn’t dive in, the water was so dense you’d hurt yourself!
Of course the twenty five yard swimming pool was the main attraction and we all learnt to swim and dive in the town pool. It had a high diving board and a balcony all round for when they held swimming and diving competitions. It was a great asset and a terrific complex for a small town. We had many amenities including dances and concerts at the handsome Borough Hall, plus Saturday afternoon movies at the Odeon. It really was a great place to grow up.
Another good thing about Stafford was its location. We were away from the bombing. Only two bombs were dropped on our town! One was dropped on Siemens Electrical factory and the other one was dropped near our back garden at Doxey. It was jettisoned by a lone bomber, lost and running out of fuel. Dad was walking home when he heard the whistling of the falling bomb.
Instinct from his First World War experience took over and with a flying rugby tackle, he brought down a startled lady pedestrian. He kept her pinned down until it appeared that it was just the one bomb, then he helped her to her feet.
She rewarded him with an aggrieved look, tut tutted and well I nevered, trotting away all a-twitter.
The next day with my mates, we found the crater. It was about twelve feet across and about three feet deep. One of the blokes scored the tail fin, which was almost intact. Those two bombs were the closest the war came to us.
Dad had found my youngest sister Barbara a job at the UNI. After the war, Dad found me a job there too. That made Mum the only member of our family who hadn’t worked there! Bar wanted to follow her sisters into the forces but Mum refused to let her go and anyway, working at the UNI was a Reserved Occupation.
Mum said, ‘They’ve got two of our children and that’s enough.’ So Bar had to stay at home but in her spare time she was very busy painting and attending art school. She could always draw and paint beautifully and we marvelled at her wide range of artistic talents. She can draw, paint in water colour and oil and sculpt! And she excels at everything she tries.
Barbara had some luck working at the UNI. Dad ’s boss was a poet and had artistic leanings. He admired Bar’s painting so much, he gave her one day a week off to travel to Birmingham and attend the Birmingham Art School!
In 1938, when Mr. Chamberlain’s visit seemed to have averted a war, Vera asked Dad why he had put his age up in 1914 to join the Army. The fact that he had done so was a family legend, but we’d never asked him why he did it.
With a guilty grin, he said, ‘To get away from home!’
Growing Up
Vera and Alwyn being away in the services during the War, Barbara and I did things together, such as riding our bikes to places. For one big trip, we went to Welshpool, where Mum and Dad had started their married life. We rode to Stafford Station, caught a train part of the way and cycled the rest. We visited the Castle and saw the beautiful deer roaming the grounds.
However, riding back to the train we had trouble.
Barbara began to feel crook and eventually, way out in the country, we walked through a beautiful front garden full of daffodils to a house and knocked on the door. A very kind lady gave Barbara an aspirin and a drink of water. We had a rest and after a while Barbara felt better, so we set off again and made it home safely.
We did another long ride together and by this time my bike was not so new anymore. Spare parts were hard to get and my brake pads were worn. We rode miles and miles round Cannock Chase, until we turned down a famous long hill. Of course it was lovely having a rest from pedalling but the hill was so long that my brakes wore out! I went faster and faster leaving Barbara behind. Then the road got steeper and ... at the bottom it turned into a village with shops and a bridge!
Thinking fast, unusual for me, I decided that running into the hedge would be preferable. It might be painful but running into the village could be fatal. The hedge was growing on top of a bank which I ran into, thump. I flew over the handle bars and over the hedge, landing safely in the grassy field beyond. I was lying there dazed, when Barbara stuck her head through the hedge and asked, ‘Are you alright?’
In a quivery voice I replied, ‘I think so.’
Struggling back through a bit of a break in the hedge, I inspected my bike. The front of the frame was bent back and I couldn’t hold the front wheel straight because the front mudguard hit the bent frame. We realised that in that condition I would only be able to ride in circles! We decided that while this might have been amusing and entertaining, it wouldn’t get me home, I half carried my bike into the village and a kind fellow looked at it. He figured out that, if he removed the front mudguard, I would be able to ride it. Terrific, we thanked him and happily set off for home.
However, my bike had a little trap waiting for me I pedaled without trouble and we made good progress but then without any warning, the bike stopped dead and I was thrown over the handle bars … again!
We worked out what the trouble was: if I turned when the pedals were horizontal, the tyre would jam against the pedal arms, stopping the bike and abruptly ejecting me.
‘OK’ I said, ‘When I turn, I’ll just have to freewheel with the pedals vertical’ and I mounted and we set off very carefully. I fell off again but only once and finally made it home, more or less in one piece. I had worried that Dad would chastise me for bending my new bike but when he heard the story, he was very relieved that I’d made it home safely. God bless him, he sent it away to the factory and it came back straightened and repainted and looking like new. Dear Dad told us that something similar had happened to him but in Dad’s case, he flew over the hedge and wound up under a cow’s belly!
Meanwhile, The UNI had been expanding and going from strength to strength. Things were happening, keeping Dad on the go all the time. One day he had to report to the Chairman’s office. All the management bosses were there and Dad was told he had been made foreman of Number 4, 5 and 6 factories! He was, of course, very pleased and hurried home to tell Mum.
Dad’s promotion had come at a very good time. Mum and Dad had been thinking of buying the house! They travelled to Coventry and offered the lady landlord 1,500 pounds. She was not impressed but Dad pointed out that she had just lost her other tenant. The house had a self contained annex (flatette) on its left side, with its own garden. However, Dad found out the annex needed work before it could be re-tenanted. It only had one door and legally it was required to have two, an entry and an exit.
With the loss of her tenant, she agreed to sell. So, at last they became property owners. I expect Dad was the last of his siblings to buy a house. He was not really to blame for taking longer, all his brothers and sisters had a better start in life and considering his struggle, he’d done very well.
Surprisingly, he showed himself to be shrewd and mature in the business of buying property. He got one of his UNI friends to draw plans for a porch and doorway into the living room of the annex. He had it all done and there were now two doors, which satisfied the legal requirement. It only cost 100 pounds and he promptly sold the, now legal annex for 500 pounds, considerably reducing his mortgage!
Dad had two sisters, May and Kathleen (big fat Aunty Kath) and all of Dad’s family were fully Chapel brainwashed which meant No Grog. In fact, they were so indoctrinated into the teachings of the Wesleyan Chapel that they would actually shudder at the mention of beer or whisky. So when Kath married a scout master named George Lambert, Barbara wanted to get involved in the proceedings.
She asked Aunty Kath, “Can I be your Barmaid?”
All Dad’s family threw their arms up in horror saying, dreadful child, disciple of Satan and so on.’ The groom, looked at Kath as if wondering if he was marrying into a family of sin.
Of course little Bar had meant, Brides Maid but they were too horrified and shocked to work that out. When I heard that line of Allan Sherman’s “I’ll even let Aunt Mary hug and kiss me,” I immediately thought of being enveloped in Aunty Kath’s big soft breasts and being slobbered over by her sloppy wet mouth!
Vera remembers that Kath’s jerky husband fancied himself a comedian. She can still remember the huge embarrassment when he tried to put on his act. For his first item he’d cut out a large semi quaver and painted it black. So he stepped up on the stage and produced it with a flourish, saying, “I want to strike the right note.” Oh yes, it was a lead balloon.
Dad’s sister May was the poor spinster of the family and spinsters were pitied and devalued in those days. My memory of her is that she was rather severe and disapproving and very religious, so she was not much fun. I don’t think I saw much of Uncle George. He became an architect and moved away when he got married. Uncle Arthur however, broke free from Chapel in a conspicuous way. He became a design engineer and appeared to have been corrupted by University life. Corrupted to the extent that he discovered Pubs and girls! And … imagine the disgrace, he married a Barmaid!
Dad’s father, Grandpa George was a fine looking man, kindly but strict. Dad’s Mum was named Ada and she was inclined to be critical of our Mum. In other words, she was a Mother in Law. Although it seemed to little me that Grandma did a lot for us, and helped Mum a lot. But, there was an edge of disapproval to everything she said, which is hard for anyone to take and Mum became understandably resentful. Nevertheless, they were good people and they were very kind to me.
In all this idyllic childhood there was a discord. To be totally blunt, I was hopeless at school. Which was strange since all my sisters were so clever? It was said that when I was born, the nurse dropped me in the bath! This bent a rib out of shape, which might be the cause of my indigestion. Also it might have been why I had no powers of concentration. Off in a dream world most of the time. I can still remember the sort of things that used to happen.
The teacher would say, ‘Do you all understand that?’
I would say, ‘No sir’ and he would explain it to me again but while he was talking, I would be thinking, he’s not a bad sort of a bloke or something and I wouldn’t hear a word he’d said! It must have been very frustrating for the teachers and it was misery for me.
The first school I attended was in the middle of Stafford and across the lane from St Mary’s, a fine big church. The school and church were ‘Church of England.’ They were both built of sombre dark grey stone. After all the spoiling and nurturing I’d had at home, I didn’t exactly take to school. I cried oceans of tears when abandoned by my mother to the un-tender mercies of the stern faced teachers. Having survived until the morning break, I timidly found a quiet spot in the playground and tried to become invisible. Probably to me it seemed I’d landed in some kind of hell. Perhaps being punished for not eating my vegetables? I may have learned something but I suspect not much. Sickly with my bad chest it must have been this school I had a year off from.
Casting about worriedly for an idea of what they were going to do with me, Mum and Dad did send me to a better school. It was across the other side of town and it was called St Leonard’s. I seem to remember it was a good school and it must have drawn me out a bit because I got into a fight. And ... I was caned viciously about the bare legs by the headmaster for … discrimination!
Yes! How about that? Of course I was innocent (I wouldn’t have known what it was anyway.) There was a large kid of Chinese appearance who we stayed away from, for fear of being accused of picking on him. I think he came to play on this and he turned up one day with a lump of metal on the end of a piece of string. He was terrorizing the playground by whirling it round his head and hitting the children with it. This was causing injuries and much screaming and yelling was going on. He was getting away with it because he was a foreigner but when he came at me, I ducked under the string, punched him in his big fat belly and disarmed him. I was acclaimed as a hero but my reign was short lived. The headmaster, having heard only half of the story, appeared and administered a public caning.
When Dad saw the cruel welts on my legs and heard the story, he was understandably outraged. Taking time off the next morning, he visited the school and gave the headmaster something for his corner. As to his summary punishment without investigation, Dad shouted, ‘Even a murderer gets a fair trial!’
Alas, the school did not unearth any academic ability in me but I had shown some interest in working with my hands and St Leonard’s taught carpentry and metal work. So I continued my struggle but it would be fair to say, I didn’t trouble the examiners and it was probably a great relief to everyone concerned when I left school at fourteen.
I got a job at Siemens Electrical as an errand boy, which paid twelve shillings and six pence a week. This was followed by a job Dad got me at the UNI. I had to test the output of the abrasive crusher and be a part time helper (pest) in the laboratory.
This job didn’t work out either but undeterred by failure. I got an apprenticeship to become a design draftsman with W.H. Dorman, an engine manufacturer. With my school record they must have been desperate to take me on. Although, I suppose I was cheap labour and I could draw quite well. I had to go to a technical college one night a week, which was a struggle. The factory was out the other side of town and I had to get up very early in the mornings and ride my bike to work.
In all weathers, of course, rain, hail and snow etc. I remember that on frosty mornings, by the time I got to work my nose and lips were frozen and my eyebrows were white with frost. I used to go into the foundry and stand in front of the furnace, until I thawed out and regained the power of speech.
Apprentices spent the first four years in the factory, learning how things were actually made. This experience turned out to be useful throughout my life. I learned to use a milling machine, a capstan lathe, files, drills and taps etc.
The factory was a relic of the industrial revolution. No heating in winter, snow right up to the windows! I had to pick up things like camshafts, which were so cold that my skin stuck to the metal! Attempting to avoid surgery, I tried wearing gloves but this prompted the old inspector to say. “Eee’s a granny-reared bugger.” I came to hate it so much that I didn’t want to go to sleep at night, it seemed that as soon as I closed my eyes, instantly it was time to get up and endure another eight hours of misery. After three years of this torture I came home and told Mum and Dad, I’m going to join the Royal Navy! Dad sagged on his bones with relief. He must have thought, thank God, hopefully the navy can make something of him