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

by Yvonne Young

  ‘I’ll have that later.’

  When in an old Cornish village, most folk accept that there are narrow streets with no pavements in certain areas. But Dad didn’t, he insisted on walking in the middle of the tiny narrow lanes, and when a car came behind him, he became highly agitated. He complained about the sea frets, the heavy-duty frying pan and about Alison’s cooking, but didn’t offer to contribute in any way. He got out of bed at 6.30am and banged his toothbrush dozens of times on the side of the sink (what was in there, the Adriatic?). He arranged the cutlery, crockery, the kettle, etc. all in regimental order, stirred his tea loudly, clanking the spoon at least ten times one way, ten times the other, and then in a circular motion rapidly for at least thirty revolutions.

  The World Cup was being shown on TV that week so Dad slipped into loner mode and didn’t bother going out with us on an evening for the rest of the week. He was perfectly happy, feet up on the coffee table, wearing his Santa socks in the middle of June. My brother deduced that he had been awkward on purpose to resume his habitual lifestyle. Crafty, eh? That night, the four of us went for a spicy Mexican meal – it was great! We went on to a live band gig, where we met another couple from Manchester – Dad wouldn’t like having to be in the company of ‘strangers’. After a brilliant night out, we said goodbye to the couple and went for a stroll around the beautiful streets. There was not another soul around so we went down onto the beach of a little cove, where all we could hear was the lapping of the waves as we stood without shoes in the cool water, watching the light from Godrevy Lighthouse going around in the bay. Peace, perfect peace!

  When we got back to the cottage, Dad was in bed so my brother David, being slightly merry, suggested we clank a spoon around in a cup for a while. We laughed at the orderliness of everything on the work surfaces and my husband noted the position of the kettle, next to the cup Dad had chosen: ‘Take the cup to the kettle, not the kettle to the cup.’

  Dad was always saying this so my brother promptly unplugged the kettle and put it in a different position. That was his way of gaining revenge for the bathroom routines and singing torture he had suffered on this holiday.

  ‘I come on holiday to relax and have a lie-in, not to be woken up at this unearthly hour, I’ll be doing twenty-five years after this,’ he said.

  The next day, David and Alison decided on a peaceful day at the harbour in St Ives – they hired a speedboat – so my husband and I asked Dad if he wanted to come with us on a trip to Boscastle and Jamaica Inn. He declined and so we had a stress-free day and met some lovely people who were on a Saga holiday. Claire was a widow and holidayed on her own; she was staying at the Porthminster Hotel and lived in Hull. Then there was a woman called Elizabeth, who was in her seventies, accompanied by a man called Colin, who we assumed to be her son, but he was about thirtyish and he was her husband. We were so pleased that Dad was not there to hear this! We had also booked another trip to Falmouth and Truro, to which Dad had agreed to accompany us. I secretly hoped that Elizabeth and Colin would not be there, for their sakes. Claire, however, was there and as we were talking to her before boarding the coach, Dad was hovering behind us. She lowered her head and quietly remarked, ‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but there is a rather strange man listening to us.’ I looked around to witness Dad standing sideways, his head inclined towards us. It would never have occurred to him to join in or present himself to her, ready to be introduced. ‘Yes, that’s my dad,’ I replied. She immediately offered a profusion of apologies. I told her not to worry about it. Dad made it quite clear that he didn’t appreciate her ‘intrusion’ by acting like a child, showing impatience and staring at her, narrowing his eyebrows and hopping from one foot to another, and so we continued with the trip as a trio.

  Dad had more or less decided to continue with his solitary walks around the coast, so we didn’t hear much more of the complaints until the last day of the holiday when we discovered he had made a complaint to the owners of the cottage about the frying pan. The train journey back was also no picnic as he complained as usual – the two young mothers with a young baby each didn’t best please him. The babies travelled with us for the next eight hours as the mothers sang repeated refrains of ‘The Wheels On The Bus’. We sat through more comments about the other passengers and narrowly missed being attacked, but otherwise remained unscathed. After we had dropped Dad off at home and collected his shopping and settled him in, we heaved a sigh of relief on the way home. We decided that we would never again take him on holiday, but day trips would be acceptable.

  * * *

  That year, we invited Dad as usual for Christmas lunch and picked him up at five past twelve, our agreed time having been twelve o’clock. After being admonished for being late, David muttered under his breath, ‘It’s not beam me up, Scottie!’

  We busied ourselves serving lunch while Dad drank a Baileys, watched Rising Damp and Duty Free. Throughout the day, his list of programmes included In Loving Memory, Only When I Laugh and Last of the Summer Wine. Although he had the money, he would not have a telephone or invest in Sky TV, even though he could watch all of his favourites on UK Gold.

  After Dad ate lunch, which consisted of turkey, roast and boiled potatoes, five veg, cranberry sauce and mint, followed by Christmas pudding in white sauce and two glasses of Asti, then endless supplies of nuts, chocolate caterpillar cake, etc., he remarked, ‘Well, I could have had that dinner at Fitzgerald’s for £3.95.’ What a cheek! Then he asked if he could take some turkey home in a Tupperware for the next day. As David took him back home at around 7pm, Dad took great delight in complaining to him about the paper cuts on his hands inflicted as he had put his Christmas cards in his pocket.

  We spent an enjoyable complaints-free Boxing Day and the next day, I arranged to spend a day in town with my friend Irene. We bought craft equipment, looked at fabrics, had lunch with Irene’s cousin in the Laing Art Gallery restaurant – a great day out. When I set foot inside the door back home, there had been a phone call from Muriel: Dad had complained to her about a sore arm and he was back in hospital. I rang the hospital and spoke to the ward nurse. She said that he was fine, enjoying his food, so to ring back in an hour.

  When we arrived at the hospital the nurse confided that Dad hadn’t been taking his tablets, hiding them instead, so they had to stand over him until he took them. David was angry and said to him in no uncertain terms, ‘Ken, that’s why you’re back in here again! You’re not taking your tablets and you’ll keep coming back until you’re dead, that’s what will happen, you’ll die!’

  ‘Have you got any of that turkey left?’ he said. ‘I thought you might have brought some in?’

  We stayed for just over an hour, then I explained to him that I was going to have a word with the nurse before I left. As I was speaking to her in the corridor, Dad sidled up to us and was earwigging, so she addressed him directly: ‘I was just telling your daughter about how you haven’t got much movement in your arms.’

  Gesturing towards David, Dad said, ‘He said that I’m in here because I didn’t take my tablets, is that right?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Ken, you must take them every day,’ she told him.

  After he was discharged, the fridge had been stocked by us once more, etc., etc., and we made a point of making sure that his medipack was fully stocked with tablets. We went for our own shopping and returned to Dad’s flat only to find that he had flushed the tablets down the toilet. We had spares and I watched as he put them in his mouth. He took a drink to help them down, then disappeared to the bathroom. We looked at each other knowingly: the old stoat had spat them out! Sure enough, this carried on until he again suffered another mini stroke. In the past, conversations with Dad had always been a mixture of fact, the present and the past, but since this latest episode, they became more rambling. And as usual, the things he told us were not meant for feedback, only as statements.

  We called on him one day after work and he was sawing through a long spoon, which was meant for us
e in tall ice-cream sundae glasses.

  ‘Dad, why are you sawing that?’

  ‘It’s too big.’

  ‘But you have about forty teaspoons, why do you need another?’

  ‘I bought this one in a charity shop because I like it.’

  I couldn’t believe it when David became involved in this.

  ‘Here, Ken, hand it over, I’ll do it.’

  But Dad still couldn’t relinquish the task fully and kept holding onto the saw. David continually asked him to let go. He sat there for around half an hour, sawing and sweating like a pig. At last it was through.

  ‘Ken, have you got a file?’

  Dad foraged in his toolbox and returned, file in hand. Another ten minutes was spent smoothing the edges and when it was finished, he retreated to the kitchen and we heard the kettle boiling. He came back in with a cuppa and the spoon was peeping over the top by a couple of centimetres.

  ‘It’s too big!’

  * * *

  Dad sent for free gifts from adverts in newspapers and magazines but had no intention of taking up the membership conditions. There were free pens for switching computer service providers when he didn’t own a computer and a free clock for becoming a member of a book club. He received the first book, paid for it and refused to accept any others as part of the agreement.

  Dear Mr Luscombe,

  You have accepted our free gift and ordered one book and haven’t ordered any subsequent books from our collection. If there are none from our titles which interest you, could you please advise us of any authors in which you may be interested.

  They were treated to a reply which told them to ‘F*ck off!’ The amount of times I gave up my break time at work to call companies to explain and get him out of it…

  We were treated to a selection of his mixed-up conversations, usually spoken when he had one eye on the television, sitting there wearing a ‘Free Nicaragua’ T-shirt, pontificating on all and sundry.

  ‘The woman from the Post Office left a card… Have you seen those featherless chickens, it says [the TV] that it will save the starving people. I think it’s just a gimmick for these fast food sellers. It’s a good pen – someone left it and I just picked it up in the bookies at Whitley Bay. I had a couple of bets on: 6–1 on Flying Romance. The other two went down, I put £1.00 treble on. I think the foot and mouth disease has been brought over here by the asylum seekers…’

  * * *

  As Dad’s dementia became more advanced, I applied for respite at the Connie Lewcock Resource Centre. The social worker arranged this and explained that they would assess him: he would be observed on how well he could make himself a cup of tea, understand his surroundings and a report would be made. He would only be there for one day, but when I visited, he called me all the names under the sun.

  ‘You’ve put me in here, you t**t!’

  ‘This isn’t permanent, Dad. The staff are only assessing you. And it’s to give me a break.’

  ‘So, you mean I can leave any time I like?’ he said, eyes darting back and forth. ‘Right then, I’m out of here!’

  He packed his bag and we took him back to his flat.

  There were numerous scares: he set fire to the cooker, the fire brigade were called, he continued to annoy the neighbours and fell off his bike as he weaved in and out of traffic. I honestly imagined this was how he would end his days, murdered by a neighbour or in a motorway pile-up.

  * * *

  A doctor at the hospital became interested in Dad: he was carrying out research and making a report on the elderly and Asperger syndrome. I attended a meeting after he had interviewed Dad and my part was to relate family stories and fill in a questionnaire. After the report was completed, I received a document with a breakdown of Dad’s condition, along with another half-dozen men who displayed traits and obsessions too. One man collected dozens of ties and never wore any of them, another wore nappies as he was afraid of breaking wind.

  Dad was finally diagnosed.

  Eventually he was assessed after many more falls and mini strokes. We chose a care home where he continued to wreak havoc. Staff simply put it down to dementia, little knowing he had always been like this. He collected carrier bags if he could get his hands on them and stuffed them under chair cushions; he was wearing a urinary catheter and if the staff didn’t change it to his liking, he simply stripped off and stood in the nip in the corridor until someone attended to him. He befriended a giant of a man called Ken, who had lost the power of speech and couldn’t feed himself. Dad watched him chase a pea around his plate then stepped in to feed him. The poor man couldn’t hold a regular cup and drank tea from a two-handled Tommee Tippee mug with a lid on and Dad held it for him.

  When I visited, he could be found picking the paint from the hand rails in the corridor. The man next door called Bill imagined that he was in a social club when he was in the dining room – he always asked me if I wanted a drink, rummaged through his pockets and brought out the white lining.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, pet, I’ve got no money – the bloke next door owes me £20 and I haven’t had my wages yet.’

  ‘It’s OK, Bill, here are a few coppers to keep you going,’ I said and he went off happy.

  There are some sad sights in these places: women holding dolls wrapped in crochet blankets, asking when the nappies are due to arrive, and people hanging around the door, waiting for a parent to take them home. One day, when Bill approached, he handed me a tube of sweets.

  ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘Yes, please, Bill.’

  Bill put the tube in his pocket and we continued chatting about how he had just finished his shift down the pit. He foraged through his pocket to find the sweets once more and brought out a pair of underpants. He was a canny soul, but he too began deteriorating. Usually always smart, his jacket was now covered in food stains and he regularly wore it with the hanger still inside and the hook at the back of his head.

  * * *

  One Friday, I was at work when the call came that Dad had slipped into a coma and I rushed straight there to be at his bedside. I stayed there all night, holding his hand with no response. Then, at around eleven o’clock, he sat bolt upright in bed, gazing at the ceiling with a look of absolute wonder, mouthing what looked like ‘Mam!’ I was in terror at this, only the light from a small lamp on. I’d never witnessed anyone dying before and wondered what it was that he could see in the room. I lowered my head while still holding his hand and he flopped down. Was this his time? I couldn’t tell, but all of a sudden when I felt the most fear, a warmth covered my whole back and I felt peaceful. There is no explanation for this: was it my system taking over to calm me, was there someone there with us? I will never know.

  What had Dad witnessed? Was it really his mother, or was it because his pupils had dilated and allowed light in so that everything appeared bathed in light? Surely, from what I knew, this happens at the moment of death, but he was still with us until the Sunday. He and my brother had fallen out and I rang to ask if David would come to the home. This he did and we both recounted stories to Dad from our memories. He opened his eyes and gazed from one to the other, his eyes were smiling and then he slipped into peace. We drew the curtains and left the room. Bill next door was in the hallway, shouting, ‘Someone’s pinched my sweets!’ and a woman was distressed as her daughter had gone down in the lift without her.

  I was not going to miss this place.

  * * *

  Dad’s possessions were taken out on a trolley – we didn’t want anything except the tapes which he had recorded when my brother was about eight. We took them away and that night, me and my brother put them onto an old recorder.

  ‘If I came into the room when he was recording,’ said David, ‘he switched it off.’

  We listened for most of the night. Dad was telling stories in German, French and Italian, telling jokes, singing his favourite songs. One tape was made around the time Mam had left him and the music was Cliff Richard’s ‘We Don’t T
alk Anymore’, Pagliacci and ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs’.

  Typically, there is a story about a fat woman who couldn’t get through the door to board a train and a guard pushed her from behind. Another of a very rich man on a huge yacht, who looks down on a tiny boat where the owner is cooking a juicy steak and the aroma wafts up.

  ‘Tell me, my man, how can you make such a lovely steak?’

  ‘When you own a small boat like this, you can afford to buy the best steak!’

  I’ve often pondered why I didn’t understand him despite the fact that he had Asperger syndrome: would it have made any difference if I had known this earlier? These two stories summed him up exactly – a loner, his obsession with overweight people and how he was happy to live with very little. Why had it taken longer to get over his death than that of Mam? ‘Because she didn’t make you feel guilty,’ said David. I still don’t know, but he was special in his own way and he taught us both to draw and paint. Now, my brother sells his amazing oil paintings and I tell stories.

  Thanks, Dad.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you firstly to my brother, David, and all my family and friends featured in this book, as well as Dave Morton of the Newcastle Chronicle, Mike Young at the West Newcastle Picture History Collection for your support and research on photos from the collection, Keith Fisher and Shawn Fairless for your help with the photographs, and the Discovery Museum, Tyne Bridge Publishing and Summerhill Books. Thank you also to Sarah Fortune at John Blake Publishing and Jane Donovan for your support and guidance.

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