formulative years

Memories like the Corners of my Mind

One of the earliest memories I have is walking across an iron bridge back from Neasden Hospital with a squeaky voice. I had just spent about a week there having my tonsils out as a circa 4 year old. On reflection, and as Neasden Hospital, now a housing estate, was near the North Circular Road, the Iron Bridge was the North Circular road near Neasden Lane and opposite where Ikea stands now.

Willesden was a nice place then , early 1950’s. Immigration transformed the area in the 70’s and 80’s. Brent Council formed in 1965 on the break up of the London County Council, demolished a lot of it. The white population changed to multicultural black population. I hate going through there now a days. It is so depressing. Poverty exudes, black people hanging and sitting around outside in the street. Pubs closed, the White Horse on the corner of Church Road and Roundwood Road no longer. The White Hart where my sister Pat and her new husband Mick held their Wedding reception in 1962, gone. They used to have Go Go dancers there lunch times in the 70’s. The 2 churches are still there. One dates back to Norman times. I always marvelled at it as a kid walking past. As a kid that’s what you did…….walk. I walked to school. I walked to the shops. There were few cars on the road. Those that were parked sporadically were distinctive designs, like the angled Mayflower and the Austin Cambridge. The Wolsey, the Riley, The Humber Super Snipe. The list of old names goes on. My first car was the Ford 105e Anglia. The one with the inverted rear screen. Cars had rear fins and wing mirrors. They also had defective engines. Quality was poor by comparison with today’s cars. But they were distinctive, and recognisable by shape, not name badge.

I went to Oldfield Road Junior School, after Essex Road Nursery. I lived in Essex Road (49 in 49), I had been born in the front room. My biological father had left apparently when I was one, after saying to my Mum previously, I will be a footballer. Well I never had a male role model. Not till Mick met Pat , my only sister, at the Locarno dance hall in the Strand. The Locarno is a theatre these, days venue for the Lion King. Mick and Pat are still married, a remarkable achievement. My Mum worked at Essex Road Nursery as a cook. I don’t know how she was ever a cook, before Jamie Oliver’s time obviously. One of my favourite past times as a child was to pull Christmas tree pine needles out of my custard at Easter time! Hair out of the gravy all the time. Poor Mum, she had bad eye sight, she only saw what she wanted to see. Our home was a total mess, made worse by dogs we had, who did not like being left alone all day. Any carpet we had was always scratched and chewed up. I do not exaggerate. The living room was always a disaster zone. I was ashamed to bring any school friends in. We also had an outside toilet in a yard, another embarrassment. We lived downstairs in a private rented ground floor flat. I don’t know why we did not live in a council flat. I think Mum was too proud and also ignorant of the welfare state. I remember always being dragged round to the county court in St Marys Road Harlesden. I would sit on the seat in the clerk’s room, there was a big counter. My Mum would ask for a court order to get my Dad to court to pay the alimony. He never did. When he turned up I never saw him. He only turned up on a warrant. Apparently he told the court I was not his child. He had walked out before on my Mum after when my only sister Pat was about 4. She is 8 years older than me, a Gemini born in 1941. Whereas I am a Leo. But as for astrological characteristics my father is a Leo too, so endeth any parallels, I hope, though I am not so sure. Certainly I am proud, and any stubbornness I put down to principles, principles I set myself at my formulative years.

Anyway we were poor. I remember passing the 11+. I did not even know I was sitting it. I got a bike from Fudges next to the White Horse. Blue straight handle bars. I eventually rode it after my Mum ran behind holding the saddle, for days. Yes, embarrassment crept in at a tender age. I walked to Willesden County Grammar School in Doyle Gardens Harlesden. I used to walk through the cemetery in Roundwood Road and then through the adjoining Roundwood Park. It was about 30 minute pleasant walk. I remember traipsing through the fallen leaves at the start of a new year. Yes, in those days we had an autumn and the leaves were down in early September. I knew the names of most of the trees, not Harry or Fred, I mean species, my favourite was the Horse Chestnut tree, and its conkers. I suppose all kids like them. I used to study the names on the graves too and how old were they and when they died. I used to try to find the grave that had been there the longest time. I used to look at the cars as I walked to school too. Something I learned only recently was that my father’s parents were buried there in 1962. I did not know that even though I knew them and I walked past them almost 6ft under every day. Something else my sister told me recently ad nauseum was that she left me outside the post office in a pram, and only remembered when Mum asked where I was. So life could have been different. Throw a double six and land on another square and have another roll of the dice.

At Oldfield Junior I can remember our class teacher Miss Bassleigh. She must have been 50 odd. I respected her. I remember hating spelling, but surprised myself, when I had to stand up and spell out loud words like MEAN, and I got it right, much to every one’s astonishment around me, including my own. But a nice smile from the teacher. I used to like doing IQ tests, I think I had a quotient of 153. Miss Basslieigh used to write on my reports every year that I needed to come out of my shell. On reflection, I was a loner. I used to watch TV and read factual books. I did not go to a library, I don’t think Willesden had one. Mum used to buy me the Knowledge. A weekly supplement in colour that built up to encyclopaedia in folders. I would spend my days reading that and Football annuals. I would watch Boycott and Edrich open the batting for England on the TV. My favourite was Ted Dexter, the captain, he played for Sussex too. He would always score fast runs, then get out in the 70’s. I hated it when he got out. But good old Boycott would be there 2 days running, they never got him out. These were the days of Fiery Fred Trueman (Yorkshire fast bowler) and Derek Statham his Lancashire counterpart. England ruled the world in those days. We must have lost sometimes, but I don’t remember.

Getting back to Oldfield Rd School……………my road Essex Road was next to Curzon Crescent, a massive council estate built in the 30’s. It was horrible and dangerous. People would aim milk bottles at you from their balconies. Yes we had milk man deliveries in electric milk floats. We also had electric trolley buses on overhead cables and tram lines too. Billy Elliot was from Curzon Crescent. He was the school bully. Bigger than everyone else helped. He never did anything himself, he did not need to, all he had to do was look. But, he did have henchmen like Danny Jones. He was smaller and weedier, but really nasty. One day after morning playtime, I was climbing back up the concrete stairs lined by brown and cream tiled walls. Danny Jones started wrestling me from the back. Why I don’t know. By the time I got to the top of the stairs and with a teacher onlooking only, I let go with a right hook as I turned to fend him off me. I connected. Amazed, truly my first ever punch. Danny Jones went all the way down the stairs and never got up. He was taken to hospital, and did not come to school for about 6 months. I was about 10 in the 4^th year, it was autumn. The upshot was I never got into trouble, I guess they viewed it as self defence. Billy Elliot paraded me around the school yard as his new number 2, huge arm around me. He was about 5’6” and fat I was 5’ and a skinny 5 stone. I was in awe, and so was every other kid. It was all white at my school, there were a few Irish families in the locality. Now they have renamed Oldfield as Leopold. That was the name of the secondary school my sister went to.

I also remember standing on the corner at lunch time one day outside Oldfield school waiting for my sister. She used to work at Boots the chemist in Harlesden by now, having left secondary school at 15. Some bigger older kid from another school, came up to me and started hitting me with a towel, I guess he had been swimming. After a few minutes the 7^th Cavalry arrived round the bend. I heard a screech of brakes and my sister yelling out, “get off my little brother” and as her bike sped past, she launched herself from the saddle on the back of the unsuspecting bully, game over player one! It was just like John Wayne and Geronimo on the Saturday morning flix, at the Granada next to the White Hart. The cowboys were always cheered and them pesky redskins were always booed, with great laughter and merriment. The 1^st film I saw at the Dambusters in Clacton, on our yearly weekly B&B holiday. It was all b&w in those days. Our 1^st TV was b&w and we would all sit on the floor looking at ballet. That was all there was. We had to switch it off before the epilogue and the national anthem. Mum would insist. Then the screen would go pin to a shrinking white dot. Later on my mum would be seen asleep every night slumped in front of the TV. She did 3 jobs at one stage morning, day and evening. Her highlight was the wrestling on ITV every Saturday.

Poor old Mum, she died October 29^th 1991 about 7.30am. She had always phoned me when I was divorced on a Saturday afternoon and left a message that used up the 30 minute tape on the answafone. She knew I was playing football. But she always wanted to speak and not listen anyway. I wish I had kept those tapes. One of the reasons for writing this is a legacy. At her funeral I made a speech on the basis I did not want her existence on the planet to go unnoticed. By the time I wanted to keep, not wipe, the tapes, she had fallen too ill to communicate further. 6 strokes and 6 months later she was dead RIP. 74, she had a hard lonely life. She would always take me to Hampstead Heath on a Sunday on the 266 or the 260 trolley bus. I had to squat low in the seat to get a half fare from the conductor. I had a toy yacht and always sailed it on the horses pond near the Jack Straws Highway Man’s pub. I loved that. Hampstead was so open with the trees and grassland, Mum even tried to bowl, and I would act out Geoffrey Boycott forward defensive batting. She always wore a colourful frock on Sundays. Though most of the time she embarrassed my sister in Boots the Chemist. She had bad eyesight, so would speak to all manner of customers and staff alike as to the whereabouts of Pat, she’s the supervisor you know” she said proudly. Poor Pat would be hiding round the back store room. I liked comics and Mum acted the part of Mr Blimp arf arf, though she never quite conversed with a pillar box. I remember Pat and Mick collecting Mum and I from the Cornwall train at Paddington station once. Pat said we were dressed like refugees. I think we only had one suitcase, so we had to wear all the clothes for the week, yes 3 jumpers, all at once………. Probably had not washed for a week either. That was the holiday in a caravan park on the Lizard cliff edge. We had Chum, a big brown hairy bundle on four legs and always panting. Another dog used to terrorise him every day then on day 5, a la Danny Jones style, Chum finished what had been started. He grabbed the dog in his jaws by its tail and literally swung the dog from side to side yelping. That dog did a huge detour past our caravan after that, with Chum sitting and panting outside in the sunshine, the wind blowing his coat.

Chum saved me once. From the Essex Road Gang, about 12 strong. They chased me after school down the road. I guess they resented a grammar school kid in uniform. Only 4 of us at Oldfield passed the 11+. By the time I got to the front door the kids were close behind me, shouting and waving broom sticks etc . Chum was always poised like a coiled spring and always excited, so the noise had brought him to a peak. As I opened the door, Chum was there panting, I said go get them Chum and he did, woosh he jumped over the gate and hit them as if they were ten pins, strike, they were fleeing in disarray up from where they had come with me looking over the gate waving, Chum caught up with Johnny Doyle and grabbed the rear of his trousers and in true comic style action ripped the back on his trousers off, with the trophy still in his mouth and his tail wagging as he trotted back to me. Those kids never went near me ever again. Good Boy Chum.

But Chum alas turned on me one night, when he wanted my wagon wheel chocolate, and attacked me, then attacked me again later when I was in my bed. I was about 12. The Vet said he had got jealous of Mick and saw him as an intruder, but maybe he just lost it in his head. Poor chum had to be put down. He had already eaten my grass snake that I had just bought. I knew it was him, when I came back with a metal cage, No grass snake and Chum’s stomach doing an impersonation of a washing machine, and a mouth that was firmly closed and in need of alka seltzer. He had also attacked the hamster, Goldie, who tried the Great Escape and sort refuge from its canine preditor behind the TV covered in dust………..I told you it was grubby.

I had spent time decorating, I painted the small hall and wallpapered it once age 17 while News at Ten was on. My first demolition was age 12 the grate fireplace. I nuked the front hedge, painted the outside of the house. Zapped the antnests in the back yard with molten plastic, true bombing raids. Set fire to the Castle I had just built with matchsticks fired from toy cannons. At 14 I even set fire to the door of the outside toilet when a spark got into the suitcase of fireworks. Mum Pat and Mick were all sitting there when I eventually ran in as a smoking joe after taking in initial shelter in the said toilet as rockets climbed the walls and ceiling, and bangers bombarded the smoldering door, before in true Towering Inferno tradition, I lept to sanctuary through the flames. All Mick did was smirk and my mum thought it was all of my traditional display! I liked games. Mick had introduced me into Subbuteo table top flick football. He bought me 2 teams as a Christmas Present. I had discovered there was no Father Christmas at age 5 when I woke up one Christmas morning at 3am to see my mum and sister putting presents at the foot of my bed. The same bedroom when I woke one night to see the bogey man sitting on a chair behind the door. I never have a chair facing a bed anymore. He had long blonde hair and long red coat and he had a hideous laugh. Every night after he used to step loudly pace by pace down the hill from the Church in Church Road to Essex Road. He had big vivid red lips too.

I had lots of games to take my mind off the boggy man and stop me from hysterical crying. I asked for a lolly on a hot day once, and mum refused thinking I said lorry. But I had Monopoly and soldiers and guns, bats and ball. I would play right foot against left foot and right hand against left hand against the toilet wall. I would play games myself versus myself, and take each player in turn or play left hand against right hand, ambi dextrous huh!!!! Multi talented, they don't know the meaning of it !!! arf arf. I would climb onto the toilet roof, fell off once, cracked my head open, never been the same since. I climbed to the top of next door’s cherry tree swaying in the breeze, overlooking the rooftops. That was in Aunty Solly’s garden, she lived in the dreaded Curzon Crescent, but her house was private and posh. She was a neighboutr not an Aunty, but this was the world of discovery I was brought into. Confused you will be. I was 12 before I realised my Mum’s version of events was not always accurate. For instance, attaché case, really meant suit case. She asked for a marriage licence at the Post Office one, and was told of her misspelling by the teller. Only to repeat Colonel Blimp style that oh it’s not marrage it is M A R R IIIIII AGE…………arf arf!!

Yes I liked the Beezer and the Beano, Desperate Dan and his Cow Pie, Dennis the Menace. I also liked the Charles Buchan football annuals. Mick was teaching me how to be a goal keeper, and narrow the angle, dive at the oppositions feet, all glory.

My world was one of discovery and reactment. I was clever at passing tests and exams because I developed a photographic memory, I literally turned the pages of the books I had read in my head when asked a question, in order to give the answer. I had no father figure. I only got into trouble with the law when I got a scooter and became a late Mod with Parka, mirrors, racks and chrome panels on a Lambretta TV175.

Pulled up and chased regularly by the uniform men. Accused on swerving round lollipop women and Tony Macedo on the back giving her a V sign. Even dressed in school uniform with a prefects badge on, did not get me off a not guilt plea, fined £15.

To be continues, stay tuned to this channel……………….