Cobbled Streets and Penny Sweets--Happy Times and Hardship in Post-War Britain

by Yvonne Young

  ‘Yup?’ (Are you up?)

  ‘Mup!’ (I’m up.)

  ‘Yup yit?’ (Are you up yet?)

  ‘Mup noo!’ (I’m up now!)

  Their mother would then shout, ‘Lena unt Fran, downstairs to clean the kitchen!’

  We were well into Tamla Motown – ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’, ‘Bernadette’, ‘Too Busy Thinking About My Baby’ – and Mam was taking herself off to live shows. She went for her usual Friday night hairdo, which was lacquered so much it looked like bell metal. A metal comb with a tail on the end was used to poke it into shape after a night sleeping in her hairnet. Hair, the Musical, was showing at the Theatre Royal and Mam went along. At the end, folks were encouraged to dance in the aisles – they threw tiny pieces of confetti into the audience, which became trapped inside her set.

  ‘Mam, aren’t you going to comb all of that out?’

  ‘No chance! I only paid for it today, it can stay there until next Friday.’

  * * *

  One day, I met up with Freda in town and she invited me to her mother’s caravan at Amble, a little seaside town. She went there most weekends with a couple of her mates, Lynn and Ann. They all had boyfriends, but definitely only for the season: holiday romances. ‘Everlasting Love’ was in the charts and I paired up with a lad called Ian, which surprised everyone as he was classed as a loner. A fisherman with a scooter, he was muscly with curly black hair and definitely the quiet, brooding type. Most of the conversation was held by me and after the first date, I thought that was it as there wasn’t much feedback. I chattered on regardless and was taken aback when he asked to see me again. Looking back, he was a bit like my dad.

  We tagged along with the others to The Schooner and were definitely not popular with the local lasses as they saw us as a threat, taking away the local lads. Freda confided that Lynn’s lad only ever surfaced to meet up with her when he could come back to the caravan – we could feel the vibrations coming from the bedroom! He had a car with the registration TUP 634 so he got the nickname ‘Tup’. Ian’s nickname was ‘Meat’! I found that very odd and never called him by this name, but I could see where it originated – he was built like a brick shithouse as the saying goes. Very sweet, though.

  ‘Once you’ve been out with a lad from here, they expect to meet up with you every time you arrive,’ said Freda.

  I still wasn’t sure that I had made sufficient impression to warrant this, but sure enough, there he was at the harbour.

  I bought a suede waistcoat with tassels around the hem, cowboy-style, which fastened with two strips at the front. I wore it with a short-sleeved yellow shirt and suede skirt. Freda borrowed it one night without anything underneath, she was just about inside it. Unfortunately, she had used Immac cream on her underarm hair and hadn’t washed it off properly. Massive stains were slimed all over it, so I let her keep it. I didn’t suppose anyone would notice what was round her armpits when everything else was on show! We danced to The Byrds and The Yardbirds, but Ian wasn’t up for that so I joined the lasses on the floor and he didn’t seem to mind. But I was beginning to feel that this relationship wasn’t going anywhere when I caught myself wondering what Catherine, Lena, Joan and Jacky were doing – watching a live band at the West End, most likely.

  I didn’t go back to the caravan, but I did see Ian about six months later when I had begun seeing a new boyfriend. He was standing on the platform of Grey’s Monument in town. Usually the space is taken up by religious preachers, Ban the Bomb, animal rights activists or Women’s Lib groups. I’ve seen rows of knickers strapped around the base of the structure. In the old days, there were brackets which held the trolleybus wires. There he was, looking around: was he meeting some new girl or had he been looking for me? With a new boyfriend, I felt uneasy as I hadn’t told him that I wouldn’t be back to see him. I’m sure he saw me, but ever the coward, I slinked away into Grainger Arcade to Windows music shop to look for old Jimi Hendrix hits in a purple haze.

  John was, as the local saying goes, ‘As tight as a fish’s arse, and that’s watertight’. He never put his hand in his pocket to pay for anything and was continually borrowing money, which was never paid back. The kind who allowed his mates to buy all the rounds and left his own until last, then made an excuse to leave before his turn. I wasn’t into sleeping around with lads, I didn’t want them to buy me a meal anyway as I thought this meant they might imagine that I would pay for it in some way. I could never understand why lasses said, ‘If I don’t sleep with him, he said he would chuck me.’ As if there was a decision to be made here. Tell him to bugger off then was my way of thinking! I couldn’t bring myself to form that kind of a relationship unless I loved the lad, so to this day, I don’t know why I did with John. He wasn’t very intelligent, or good-looking or even fashionable – we just seemed to drift into dating. Why did I sit there with his mates, knowing that he would sink as many pints as he could and we would be glared at when he said, ‘Right then, we’re off now!’ I didn’t accept drinks from them for this reason but it was embarrassing to be going to the bar for my own when he was cadging from all and sundry.

  The final straw came when he explained that as he lived with his aunt, she would be very upset if I became pregnant, so if this happened, could I bring the child up at my parents’ home and not mention this to her? Stuff that, I thought.

  I finally woke up and began dating someone else.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Divorce

  When my brother David was born in 1971, Dad didn’t bother to visit him and Mam on the ward and did nothing to prepare for their release from hospital. I painted the kitchen and tried to tidy the miserable flat for Mam, but couldn’t help with her feelings of despair. She had been working and had a life apart from Dad, but now she was the trapped one. Being a strong woman, she soon made her own lifestyle and she loved my brother and did her best for him. But she wasn’t a natural mother, I knew this, so she took him to relatives in much the same way as I had been brought up. She did attempt to join in with playgroup activities though and volunteered to take the children to the cinema. They were only three years of age and the film was on dinosaurs. They were thoroughly enjoying this and went ranging around the building, impossible to control and round up, so she didn’t go back!

  It wasn’t long after this that she began going out with new men. Her selfish side always grew stronger when she was in a longer-term relationship. A fella called Alan came on the scene; he was older than her and had two twenty-something children. It was near Easter time and Mam took my brother to Woolworths to buy some chocolate eggs. She bought two of the most expensive ones in the store, but they weren’t for David. He was only six years of age and he couldn’t understand, neither could I or my mam’s sister Ellen. But Mam was so taken with this man that her own son came last.

  Ellen was furious: ‘Doreen, his kids are adults! Why are you buying eggs for them and leaving your own son out?’

  Mam took me to meet him: he was a divorcé and lived on his own. He answered the door and went straight into his kitchen, where he was ironing. There were six piles of pressed socks, underpants, shirts, trousers, handkerchiefs and tea towels. They were set exactly the same distance apart in towers on his bench, precisely folded. As she walked across his lino in her stilettos, he cried out that she was making marks on the flooring. She ignored this and proceeded towards the patio doors, which led to the garden. It was raining.

  ‘You must see his garden! He has lovely plants.’

  ‘No, not today, it’s muddy outside,’ he said.

  He was becoming increasingly agitated as she pranced about like a teenager across his highly polished floor, creating little bullet prints as she went. I made my excuses and left, knowing these two were the exact opposites – I couldn’t stand the tension. She was the kind who would take her tights off and shove them behind the nearest cushion, drape underwear across the bath and only iron when she needed something to wear. The relationship didn’t last long and to
my surprise she was devastated. I had never seen her so mismatched with anyone as this Alan, so totally besotted.

  * * *

  David was also taken to Butlins for his holidays and Mam enjoyed all the preparations – what they would be wearing, etc. One of the new T-shirts she had bought for him was decorated with a Jungle Book motif and she warned him not to wear it before the holiday. When Mam came back from work, he was out in the street doing just that. There was such a fight, but Dad couldn’t see what all the fuss was about: it was only an item of clothing. He never understood why other people had views different to his own.

  At Butlins, Dad was excited to travel on the monorail. It was a piping-hot day and Mam insisted my brother wore a suit – a grotesque blue with scalloped white cuffs – which he hated. She was walking around in a T-shirt and shorts. Dad rolled the jacket up and hid it under the seat with the intention of going back for it later in the day. When they returned, it was gone and hadn’t been handed in. Of course, Mam went spare, but the holiday went on as normal – we played the usual games with the Red Coats (my favourite was ‘Chuck the Pirate in the Pool’) – until Dad caught a stomach bug. They were piled into a taxi and taken home, then he went to hospital. His eyeballs were yellow and he had passed a gallstone.

  * * *

  My brother told me that one day, when he was at Rutherford School, Stephen – the local bully – was shaking him and his friends down for money. They said they didn’t have any, but one lad, Billy, was really scared and showed it. Stephen spat on his hand. There was a covered-in alleyway running from one building to another and it was used on rainy days to prevent pupils from getting wet, so it was nicknamed ‘The Cupboard Way’ but people avoided it because it was the perfect place to be shoved around. So, one day, Billy didn’t want to use the alley and they were walking along Grange Road to get to school when Stephen approached. He was a good-looking lad and loved being fancied by the lasses, all except one who didn’t fancy him. This girl was always cuddling my brother – who was only twelve at the time – and she used to ask him if he could get an erection! She was sixteen. For all he tried to avoid her, she was always hanging around him. Stephen was jealous and pinned my brother up against the wall, punching him.

  ‘Stay away from Vicky!’

  Once more, David’s saviour turned up: Terry worked in the garage across the road from Rutherford School and came to the rescue.

  * * *

  With so much going on around her, Mam was distraught – she blamed her husband and could take no more. There was a big argument and she threw an ashtray at Dad, which smashed in his face, causing it to bleed. It was one of those sapphire blue glass shells with a silver tray underneath in a shell shape.

  Mam had been suffering pain in her side for quite a while before anyone was informed of this – unlike Dad, who reported every last twitch and sneeze. She was admitted to hospital to undergo a gall bladder operation in about 1976 and he never once visited. When she came out, she weighed only seven stone and looked terrible. I was married to my husband David by then and she came to stay with us for a couple of weeks so that I could look after her. When she returned home, Dad wouldn’t change his routine at all to help her: he put two teacakes on the table and went out! In time she did regain her strength, but no thanks to him.

  They had an argument before the holiday that year and when she refused to go, he went on his own, which suited her fine. She applied for a flat at the Suttons Dwellings, got it and moved half of the furniture and some other things out while he was away. When Mam moved into her new place, she left it to me to explain to my eight-year-old brother that he wouldn’t be living at Hampstead Road any more from the following week.

  My brother David stayed with us for a while and then while the divorce was going through, he stayed with Dad for three days and with Mam for four days every week. He was only eight years old at the time. This arrangement was not in the least bit comfortable for my brother: PE kits left at one house, forgotten, rushing up and down the village between homes. The divorce was a quickie as neither contested it and she moved out into Suttons Dwellings on the top floor of an estate of flats.

  At first, Mam was lonely in the new flat as she had no neighbours around her to be friendly with, so she fell into attending Spiritualist church meetings. I went along to one of those meetings and although it seemed to give folks some kind of comfort, I myself found it very disturbing. The speakers picked someone at random from the congregation to impart some nugget of information. As I’ve always had a very active imagination, once the light went out at bedtime, I held the covers over my head!

  Mam then gave up Spiritualism and became a member of an evangelical church, where she met some good people. They held coffee mornings and craft days. So, was this a radical change? But no, she also ventured into singles clubs, where she met Bob. He approached her and asked if he could buy her a drink, they sat chatting for a while and then when he went to the bar, another woman advised, ‘You can’t get rid of him if you go out with him once. Steer clear, pet!’

  Mam soon found out the meaning of this after initially ignoring the warning. They dated a few times and he offered to decorate her flat and baked her cakes as if to say, ‘Now you have no option but to like me’. There was an excuse to call every day. When she became aware of his controlling character, she attempted to finish it. This idea didn’t appeal to Bob, so he stalked her and walked backwards and forwards outside her flat. He joined everything she did and even became a member of her church, where he watched every single person who was friendly with her. He persuaded her to stop going, but she simply adopted another church – another evangelical establishment – which annoyed him even more as she began accepting American students into her home to stay while they were studying religious subjects in the UK. He gave the impression that he was OK with it to the young people but once more attempted to put a spanner in the works by asking her out on the nights she went to church. That didn’t work so he went along with her.

  Each time I visited, he opened his Bible – which was full of bookmarks – which gave the impression that he too was very religious. Both Born-Again Christians, as such they complained about every other sinner. I once pointed out that Mam had had affairs and cheated on Dad.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t do that sort of thing now! I’ve repented and I’m forgiven,’ she told me.

  Bob persuaded Mam to give up her TV set and preached to my brother, quoting passages from the Bible that spelled out the evils of smoking, drinking and gambling. David disliked him intensely and so moved in permanently with Dad. Mam wasn’t settled in the Dwellings so she applied for a bungalow near the city centre, was successful and moved in. This was very attractive to Bob, so he proposed and they were married in 1994. However, the marriage only lasted three years as Mam became ill and was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. Bob was genuinely upset and I felt sorry for him.

  * * *

  Dad still arranged his possessions in strict order, and even had his meals at exact times. If David went in to start cooking, he moved things around, putting things away before my brother had finished with them. But David thought of a way to avoid this interference: he waited until Dad sat down to eat before he moved into the kitchen. Even then, he would run in to see what was being moved around out of position.

  Dad told David how when he was in France with the army during World War II he had come across a deserted mansion, previously inhabited by Germans. There were rifles on the floor. He picked up the rifles and emptied them of all of the ammunition into the chandeliers and walls. No doubt the Germans were blamed for that – it will be written somewhere of the Philistine Germans who destroyed a lovely French home.

  David spent most of his time either out with friends, at college, drawing, or in his room, drawing. Dad often had panic attacks, which caused David to cancel lectures. He even managed to throw a wobbler on the day of an important exam. My brother made him promise that it was serious this time – if so, he wouldn’t leave unti
l the doctor came. He left the room to get him a drink of water and returned in time to see Dad jump sprightly out of bed to the bathroom to wash his hands. After that, David decided enough was enough.

  David’s complaints were always met with, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, you can move out.’ And on this day, David did. He informed Dad that he would be moving out at the weekend – he had a flat with his girlfriend, Alison. He didn’t go back to see him for about a year, but decided to ask him down to the flat on one occasion for tea. Alison made a chilli meal, Dad said he didn’t like it and left the food. Another time, she made chicken in mushroom sauce. He scraped the sauce away and said, ‘Next time I come, give me sausage and chips, not this woman’s food! And no Chinky-type foreign crap!’ David and Alison had given him a chance and once again, he had blown it – they didn’t visit him for years after that.

  I always bought him Christmas presents, but he never bought us any and said if he didn’t like what I had bought – ‘I won’t wear this’, ‘Not likely to eat that!’

  Had he never heard of saying thanks and taking things back to the shop after Christmas, which is what regular people do, or even donating the gifts to charity?

  * * *

  Dad regularly went to Butlins on his own, where his favourite haunt was the ballroom. Various dance partners were enlisted, but he didn’t socialise with them once the activity ended. He met a woman called Margaret there. She explained that it was her first holiday since her husband had died – he had worked for the Coal Board (in the offices) and had a good pension, so she was comfortable. Then there was Vera – a retired music teacher, she enjoyed musicals and variety shows, so couldn’t be better for Dad. She had four grown-up children, three of whom had their own families, and a son in his late thirties still at home.