The Co-Op's Got Bananas

by Hunter Davies

  Because we were deemed to be officers, we were each given a tent, and a batman who brought tea in the morning. We were also allowed entry to the officers’ mess. The food was excellent, and the drink. Quite a few of my fellow officers seemed to be pissheads, who could drink all night. Many had drunk their way round other terrorist hot spots around the empire over the last few years. Staying with them was a learning experience in so many ways. For example, in my sheltered life I had never tasted a whiskey sour. It was excellent.

  There was a Major Trevor-Roper who was very keen on his drinks, and also very helpful. He turned out to be the brother of Hugh Trevor-Roper, professor of history at Oxford, where of course Margaret was studying that very subject and had even attended his lectures. The Trevor-Roper family came from the Scottish Borders, so we could talk about that as well, over the whiskey sours.

  We had to get up early several mornings, which I found hard to do, in order to accompany a patrol of Fusiliers when they went off on what they called ‘soft-shoe patrols’. This meant creeping and dodging around the still-darkened back streets of early morning Nicosia. We – or I should say the soldiers, for we tried to keep in the background – were looking for snipers and also knocking on the doors of alleged terrorists. But mainly, like us, their object was to avoid being shot at. One soldier would guard the other, standing with his gun at the ready, looking down the street, while the other would peer through windows and doors or into alleys. I never actually saw a gun fired in anger, fortunately, but the possibility was always there. There had been enough booby traps and deaths of servicemen.

  Now I look at some photos I’d forgotten I ever had – presumably taken by a War Office photographer – I see that I travelled in open army trucks, with armed soldiers. We must have been an easy target. I look about fifteen. I am wearing a sort of khaki semi-military floppy hat, not to denote status but to keep the strong sun off my head.

  Now and again in the evening we went into Nicosia with some of the off-duty officers, heading for the bar of the Ledra Palace Hotel, which was very swish. Brian and I also wandered around the town centre, looking for stories, interviewing expats who were working there, in bars or playing music, asking first if they were from Wigan, or similar. No point in having people not in our circulation area. Training does work.

  I also have a photograph of me with a large group of ordinary soldiers, handing out letters. They also look about fifteen. Most were, of course, about my age. But for my asthma, I could quite easily have been one of them, either in Cyprus or another trouble spot, going round with a gun, getting shot at.

  Reading my Cyprus cuttings book now, I see I made no attempt at any political analysis of the situation. But I did interview Sir Hugh Foot, the British governor and commander in chief, and faithfully repeated some of his uplifting banalities about our brave lads. My main job was to write about the soldiers, what they were doing, what life was like for them, who they were. In one story I did manage to drag in a Shakespearean quotation from Henry V – the obvious corny one about Agincourt, stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood. My A-level Eng lit had not been wasted.

  I also wrote a little piece about the things the soldiers were constantly asking me: ‘How are Man United getting on? Is it snowing yet in Manchester? Tell them to send out copies of the pink ’un.’

  But otherwise, I can’t believe I wrote any of these stories. They don’t sound like me. I also can’t believe now, looking at the dates on the articles, that I was only out there for two weeks. Two weeks! It seemed at the time that I had been out there for six months at least, for so much happened, so many new experiences. That, anyway, was the impression I liked to give for the next few years, that I had been out there for months. Oh yes, I have seen service. I have been a war correspondent, you know.

  Reporting from overseas, travelling the world, still appears so glamorous and so desirable to many young journalists. But from my observations since, I would say there is a type of war correspondent who is doing it to escape himself, his or her responsibilities and weaknesses. They often have shambolic home lives, bills unopened, taxes not paid, boring paperwork left ignored, wives, girlfriends and children neglected, left behind when the next call comes, which often they engineer, dying to get away, leaving all their daily, annoying problems behind, desperate for the next fix, the next surge of adrenalin. They get depressed when they return and nothing much is happening, when partners nag them; they then drink too much, hang around the office, doing less and less. Not all foreign reporters are like this, of course, or even most, but it does take a special personality to cope with the demands of always being on alert, ready and prepared to fly off – and it does attract a certain sort of character.

  And it is true some get killed in the line of duty, or kidnapped. The danger is always there. I have known and worked with several excellent war reporters who never returned.

  Being a foreign editor based permanently in some nice foreign capital, as opposed to a war zone, does not of course carry the same risks. And I did fancy that for a few years. It looks a fabulous job, when you are stuck back home on the reporters’ desk, going nowhere, answering the phone, while some jammy bastard has a big by-line as our New York editor, or Moscow editor, his picture on the front page, free accommodation and a generous expense account.

  In reality, when I have visited them, they have been full of moans and petty grievances, worried about things being schemed and plotted back in London, while they are not in the loop, out of sight. In the capital where they are based, the home press get the best invites and the exclusives. They are just one of the foreign pack, occasionally thrown crumbs, no officials really know them or care what they write or are interested in what they are doing.

  If I had known all this, or believed it, back in 1958–59, it might have stopped me fantasising for so long about somehow, somewhere, getting myself sent abroad again. I also didn’t know at the time, as none of us did in the UK, that some of our brave lads in Cyprus, and also in Kenya, had possibly, maybe, in fact probably not been as honourable and honest as they should have been. And the press went along with it, turned a blind eye, did not report, or investigate, or were not aware. It is only in recent years that allegations of torture by certain British troops, of Mau Mau and EOKA suspects, has begun to appear – and resulted in court cases.

  The British press, and the nation as a whole, were as gung ho, trusting, obedient and wildly patriotic and flag-waving as the servicemen and the authorities. Today we have become more cynical and suspicious of our leaders, in politics, the police and the military. We no longer naturally assume that Britain is the home of fair play. Is this because there are more cover-ups, more corruption? Or is it just that we hear about it now because we live in a more open society?

  After my return from Cyprus, I kept in touch with some of the families of Lancashire Fusiliers I had met out there, hoping for any human interest stories for the paper. There was one soldier who had been badly injured while I was there. I went to see his mother once a week, to find out if she had heard anything. She had no phone, so I just arrived, unexpectedly, and ingratiated myself, being sympathetic and ever so concerned about her son, my friend, but of course mainly hoping she had received some news that I could turn into a story.

  All reporters have to learn to be two-faced. I liked to think I always did it naturally, and that both faces were genuine. I was and am genuinely fascinated by everyone, desperate to hear their story, their biography, their thoughts, but of course it is also a trick, a ruse. You are conning your way into their trust, their lives, making out you are going to be their best friend, forever. That’s what they actually begin to think. But of course you are not. Once the story is over, or comes to a halt, you are off, on to the next.

  I remained in contact with Brian Hitchen for a few weeks after we came back from Cyprus, having an occasional drink with him after work, though the Chron and the News staff rarely mixed. He was telling me one evening about a girl he had been chatting
up while doing the calls, a girl on the switchboard at one of the big hospitals, whose job it was to provide updates and answer press queries on injuries. He had been talking to her every morning for a week, naturally trying to ingratiate himself with her, as we all did, in order for her to tell us things she should not. He had chatted her up so well, been so amusing and interesting and flirtatious, that she’d agreed to meet him after work.

  There were no Facebooks or mobile phones or instant images or dating sites, so until he met her he had absolutely no idea what she looked like or how old she was. I think all she told him was the colour of the hat she would be wearing that evening. Next time I saw him, he told me what happened. He had positioned himself across the street from the hospital exit he knew she would use. He managed to spot her before she saw him – and decided she was so ugly and ill-dressed that he turned round and left, without speaking to her. I thought this was the most appalling behaviour. He argued that it might have been cowardly, but it was best for her. It didn’t waste her time on a relationship that would have gone nowhere. So I suppose he had a point.

  Brian left the News not long afterwards and joined the Daily Mirror, becoming their man in Paris and then a war correspondent, covering all the big international events over the next few years. I only ever met him again once, just a few years ago in London, at some event. I could not believe it was him. That slim and dapper young man I had once known briefly some forty years earlier had put on about five stone, had a bull neck and no hair. We had an awkward conversation, in which I tried to reminisce about our time in Cyprus. He didn’t seem to recognise me or even remember me. No doubt I too had totally changed.

  Brian ended up as editor of the Daily Star and then latterly as editor of the Sunday Express, and was awarded a CBE in Mrs Thatcher’s resignation honours list in 1990.

  In 2013, I read that he and his wife had died in Spain, where they had a holiday home. While crossing the road, they were both knocked down, sustaining injuries from which they never recovered.

  26

  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

  I went home to Carlisle for Christmas 1958, not long after I had returned from Cyprus, taking presents for my parents and also Margaret. She was home for the vacation from Oxford. I had brought them all things I thought were unusual, not to say unique, ethnic gifts of the sort you never saw in Carlisle – small items of decorated pottery, pots and small plates, covered in Greek mythological figures. Rather artistic, I thought. Margaret did not quite agree.

  I also brought a present for myself. I had so loved the whiskey sours every evening in the officers’ mess that I asked one of the officers how it was made. He said something about Angus Stewart, who I thought at first must be the officers’ mess barman, or perhaps the brand of whisky they used. It was, of course, Angostura bitters, which I had never heard of before, an alcoholic drink containing spices and herbs.

  The officer very kindly slipped a small bottle into my bag. It had a rather outsize label and I carried it carefully all the way back to Manchester. Margaret was there, on my return home, to welcome our hero. She started to unpack my bag for me – but the smell put her off. The bitters had somehow leaked and every item of clothing was stained pink. It never came out, despite endless washings. Good job I had not taken my best Danish tweed jacket to Cyprus.

  Margaret had met my parents quite a few times by then. My father was always at his charming best when she was shown into his bedroom. He hummed and whistled and was on his best behaviour. All a pose, of course. But it had taken a while for my mother to properly warm to her.

  The first time I took Margaret home, my mother had naturally offered her a cup of tea. ‘No thanks, Mrs Davies, I don’t drink tea.’

  ‘You don’t drink tea?’ my mother said, sniffing, a sure sign of disapproval. ‘I’ve heard it’s very good for you.’

  ‘No, Mrs Davies, I hate tea.’

  ‘Oh, just a wee one. Won’t do you any harm. It’s freshly made, the teapot’s on the stove.’

  The teapot was on the stove from first thing in the morning till last thing at night, so the latter was true, but it was rarely very fresh, just continually boiled up, all day long.

  This pantomime conversation was repeated every time Margaret came to the house. My mother would immediately insist on offering Margaret tea, despite being told often enough that Margaret did not partake. Either she believed there was nobody who didn’t like tea, so if she offered it enough times Margaret would see the light, or her memory was going. All three probably.

  I did tell Margaret off for saying she hated tea, no need for that, it was provocative. Just say, ‘No thanks, Mrs Davies, how kind’, as nicely as possible and move the conversation on quickly.

  My mother loved everyone, welcomed everyone, but she couldn’t understand Margaret. She was also suspicious of Margaret’s reputation as a bluestocking and intellectual. My twin sisters, Annabelle and Marion, just a year younger than Margaret, had heard of Margaret’s academic achievements while they had been at the Margaret Sewell. I think they half-felt they might be looked down upon, having left school at fifteen with no qualifications, which of course was not the case. They knew that Margaret’s background was the same as ours and, in fact, her dad was a blue-collar worker, whereas ours, when he had worked, wore a white collar.

  Annabelle had gone from school into the office of bookmakers, Downie’s, while Marion was working at a tyre factory, on some sort of machine. My younger brother Johnny had become an apprentice electrician. He had a struggle getting any sort of apprenticeship, having gone to such a small and basic secondary modern. Fortunately, my mother had pulled strings.

  This is a family joke. How could my poor old mother pull any strings, when she knew nobody, knew nothing about how Carlisle worked? But by chance she needed to have a minor electrical job done in my father’s room, another plug installed for his radio. It was done by a man in the next street, Mr Kelly. When Johnny was failing to get any kind of apprenticeship, she knocked on Mr Kelly’s door and asked him to take on her son. He presumably felt sorry for us, knowing the family circumstance, and so agreed to take on Johnny at fifteen as his apprentice, even though he did not really need one.

  Johnny was let go at the age of twenty-one, when he had finished his apprenticeship, as Mr Kelly would have had to pay him a proper wage, which he could not or would not afford. This was normal at the time, and there was no protection. But Johnny did quite quickly get another job, as an electrician for the State Management.

  So that Christmas time, 1958, all three of my siblings were still living at home, but at least they were working. Tony McMynn, the lodger my mother had taken in, who had had half of my bed, had moved on. It was a few years later that my sisters and brother, in turn, decided to study at night school, get some qualifications and start proper careers. It was as if all three had been asleep, or had told themselves they were not academic, were no use at learning, had been rubbish at schoolwork, unlike Margaret, and even me. Though I could never call myself an academic role model.

  Marion and Annabelle always made faces when I mentioned Margaret. If I happened to say what she was doing at Oxford, such as acting in a play, or that she had made her own gown for my June Ball, they would satirically say, ‘Oh, she is so clever, your Margaret, is there nothing she can’t do?’ Then they would roll their eyes at each other and try not to snigger.

  My mother could be just as bad. According to Annabelle, when she and my mother came through to Durham for my graduation ceremony at Durham Cathedral, Margaret and I were ahead of them in a queue to go in. And we were holding hands. My mother exchanged glances with Annabelle, pointed at our hands, then they both made faces and rolled their eyes, while my mother mouthed, ‘Oh help.’

  On my visits home, ever since going to Durham, I had begun to realise how much I was growing away from my family. I even started to think that really I had never been close to them, had no intimate relationships, no connections with them, which was worrying. I did not want to
think or admit such thoughts. I did love my mother so much, though it might have been pity as much as anything.

  I did not fight with them, apart from physical fights with Marion when we were much younger, or argue with them. With my sisters and brother, I never seemed to have anything to talk about. I put this down partly to being the oldest, doing things long before they did them. It probably began at grammar school, when they thought I was now on a different route to them, becoming a different person.

  I was relatively closer to Annabelle. She was pretty and presentable, always good in social situations, and everyone always loved her. I did invite her once to a Durham dance, as I had no partner at the time, and enjoyed showing her off. I can’t remember inviting either Marion or Johnny to visit me at Durham. Was I ashamed? Oh God, I hope I wasn’t.

  This was always a problem in an age when so few people went to university from working-class families. You change socially, intellectually, culturally, whether you mean to or not, or whether you are aware of it or not. Those left behind, in your street, in your family, in your town, will often think you have changed, become lost, fancy yourself, have new airs and graces, up your own bum, which you will deny. Your accent changes, mixing for the first time with so many other accents. It’s not that you want to disguise your own origins but in order to make yourself clear and understandable. Naturally, I don’t think I consciously altered my accent, but going home to Carlisle I was aware, when I heard myself talking to old friends, that I no longer sounded quite like everyone else.

  One aim of university is, of course, to change you, educate you, give you fresh perspectives and outlooks and experiences, so you are bound to emerge different at the end, otherwise what was the point?

  People of my generation did often have a feeling of alienation from their roots as a result of going to university. It was foreign enough to them when they first arrived, till they acclimatised, but remained totally alien to those at home. I suppose today this does not happen to the same degree. Going to ‘uni’ is the norm, which the majority of teenagers aspire to, and in turn many of them will have parents and grandparents who have themselves been to university, who don’t see it as an unusual experience, remote from normal life. All the same, it must still happen. You are bound to feel cut off from your family, when you move away, emotionally and not just physically.