ME: Yes, I was buying one for the band. I also bought some mutes and an aluminium hat mute. BERYL: YOU went downstairs and you went on playing the trumpet and the manager came down again and asked if you could put a mute in as you were deafening the customers.
ME: What else?
BERYL: We went for a picnic. I had a gang of friends. You remember? Remember Curly, my sister?
ME: Yes, she was very cockney.
BERYL: That’s right. She was there and my friend Irene. We went by bus and you hung a beer bottle out of the window on a string. You had the conductor in fits of laughter.
ME: What kind of person was I? I can’t remember.
BERYL: You were a very nice young man, you were always smiling, and you always wanted to do something different from anybody else.
I daren’t ask her if I’d showed her my post-war reserve underwear. As Beryl spoke, it all came back. I remember the Corner House if only for the three-string orchestra, still lost in the 1900s, ploughing into Fritz Kreisler’s repertoire while I ate scrambled egg on toast. Beryl didn’t know what terrible danger she was in. We sat at night and listened to Harry Parry and the Radio Rhythm Club with Benny Lee. I also remember now that her mother made sensational roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for a Sunday lunch. I now know that I was, in my mind, living a dream life. I was floating on other people’s emotions, and only concerned with my own which were very childlike, naïve, and basically, deep down, there was a yearning for recognition. Recognition of what is not clear, but I know there was some goal in my life to be fulfilled. Sometimes I thought it might be as a painter, but mostly it was as a musician, maybe as a composer. None of these materialized, except in a minor capacity.
Beryl and I also made a flying visit to see my parents. She says my father answered the door and said “What do you want?”
I said, “Don’t you remember me? I’m your son.”
“Ah yes.” He called, “Kiddie,” (my mother) “come and see who it is.”
My mother came out, drying her hands and said, “Oh son, I had a premonition you were coming, I’ve just baked a nice ginger cake.”
I didn’t stay that night. Having found out where they lived and seen that they recognized me as their son and a ginger-cake eater, I returned for the last but one week.
And so to that occasion. A third-class from Charing Cross to Reigate. How nice was the buttoned upholstery of the compartments on the old Southern Railway. I’ve a carriage to myself and I settle back with the Daily Herald. It’s a sunny day; my eyes wander from the paper to the window. Lewisham Junction — and ‘the Government are to increase the sugar ration’ as we speed through Catford. By Sydenham, ‘Burnley have drawn with Queens Park Rangers after extra time’; as we pass the Crystal Palace Towers, ‘Mr Attlee is saying that demobilization is to be speeded up’ at Croydon. An old couple get on. They reek of Sanatogen. “Young man, does this train go to Reigate?” Yes it does, ‘and Mr Attlee went on to say that there will be jobs for all returning soldiers’ and ‘Tickets, please, all tickets please’ says an Inspector. I show him my rail warrant. “On leave son?” he says, cutting a V in the document. He has a son in France as Purley Junction flashes past. He’s in the Marine Commandos. Yes, madame, it definitely goes to Reigate. The Inspector leaves, his steel clippers mincing in his hand, hungry for tickets. The old couple sit close together. He is thin and bald, and when she takes her hat off, so is she. They are worried about Reigate. Does it go there? Yes it does! Yes, yes, I’m sure Mr Attlee is going to Reigate. “He says all war criminals will be sentenced to Reigate.” Reigate Grand Station, and we get off on to the deserted platform. “Is this Reigate, young man?” Yes, this is Reigate young man. With kitbag, pack and trumpet case I catch the Green Line bus that drops me at the bottom of the hill. I gasp and stagger upwards. Betty, oh Betty, what did you do to my manhood?
A car stops. “Want a lift, Sergeant?” A moustachioed Major with a face like a dismantled sink pump.
“Yes sir,” providing he doesn’t want to rattle me knackers.
“On leave?”
“Yes sir, from Italy.”
“Oh, you missed all the bombin’.”
“No, I’ve never missed the bombin’. Ha ha ha ha ha hooray Henry.” He drops me at the very gate. 40 Meadow Way, Woodhatch.
“Thank you very much sir,” and if I ever see you again, it’ll be two weeks too soon.
I turn to see my mother’s white face at the parlour window, looking for scandal. I see her mouth the words ‘Oh, it’s Terry’ and appear at the door. “My son…My son.” Good, she remembers me! “You came back, despite the ginger cake,” she says. “When are you going back?” Can I come in? Would I like some tea? “Oh my son, my son.” Good, she still remembers me. “Your telegram said today or tomorrow.” Yes, so I’ve come today, but yesterday, today was tomorrow, so what’s the problem? The 6x4 box room is all ready for you. A single bed with a pink eiderdown, a steel cream painted fireplace blocked with newspaper, a bedside table with barley twist legs, a po, a dressing-table with a cracked mirror, a cane chair painted silver, a standard lamp with an oil cloth shade with pirate ships on it. A ceiling light with a white globe. There are no windows. “It’s the best we could do, son.” She hugs me again. What a memory she has.
But wait, where is my father, Captain Leo A. Milligan RA RAOC Retired? Why wasn’t he standing at the gates with the Irish wolfhounds on a leash, his saffron kilt blowing in the Reigate winds, his piper at his elbow playing ‘Danny Boy’, and holding out the traditional bannock.
“What are you talking about, my son, has the war done this to you?” Of course, he’s at work, I forgot.
I hang up my clothes in the cupboard. In one corner is my poor brother’s pre-war suit — you can see the coat hanger through it. There’s his shirts, his Marks and Spencer’s flannels and his sports jacket which must have been dead a year.
Would I like some tea and fruit cake? She’s made the fruit cake special, because ‘You’ve always liked it.” Wrong, fruit cake gives me the shits. We have it on a tray in the front room. “It gets the sun in the afternoon.” Mum is looking well, she is fifty, she’s survived three crowned heads, seven crowned bodies and eighteen cats. Brother Desmond? He’s fine, he’s in the Ox and Bucks. How thrilling. He’s stationed in Hamburg, and has piles. He writes regularly, boringly, but regularly. His letters say, “Can you please not send me any more fruit cake?” I asked her why Dad left the army. “His old firm Associated Press and Slavery wanted him back as soon as possible to work him like a nigger” at 7 pounds a week. In doing so he had lost thousands of pounds. He would have had to do one more week in the army to qualify for an officer’s pension, but then he was Irish: a nation of people given to leaving the army one week early. Mum has to go and get dinner ready. I’m left to the wireless and those books from my boyhood, now on foreign shelves. Music While You Work is fighting to escape from our one-valve wireless. I put my feet up and blow the Players cigarette smoke into the air, helping to foul the room, darken the ceiling and prepare my parents for lung cancer. Though I can’t see the hole, I’m bored, I need action! I leap to my feet and walk briskly to the fireplace. No, it isn’t enough, I still need action, so I walk briskly back again to the couch. Outside it has been, as father said, a ‘Golden Autumn day’.
By the time he returns it is a dark rainy night and he’s been working like a nigger. I welcome him home dripping wet and shagged out. My dear dad, home from the office, home from the wars, home one week too soon for his officer’s pension. He was something special, both clown and romantic, kind and gentle. He smiles that smile which twists halfway up the side of his face, showing his huge teeth with the gold filling.
“Ah my son, my son,” he says. So he remembers me too. “Well, well, son, home at last eh?” Yes, I’m home at last eh. It’s amazing that after two years away we don’t have anything to communicate. After “how are you keeping”, I ask him how he is keeping. He says “Fine, fine,” and I say “Fine, fine.”
Well, well, home from the wars eh, son? Well, well, yes, and I’m fine, well, well, my son home from the war. When mother comes into the room it becomes “our son home from the war.” I save the presents until after dinner. “Thanks son,” says Dad, lighting up an Edward the 7th cigar, while my mother clutches rosary-blessed-by-the-Pope-number-sixty-seven. My Father: “Must hear the nine o’clock news.” He’s just come from bloody Fleet Street and he wants to hear the news! Would I like a sherry? We all make a little toast, they to my home-coming, and me to the man who assassinates the vintner that markets the sherry. It’s like rat’s piss. So, sipping my rat’s piss, we talk about the empty years between. “The Associated Press are working me to death,” he says. If that is true they should pay him more. “The Americans work the British like niggers. And that is the end of the nine o’clock news.” Dad and Mum retire. He has to get up early to be worked to death like a nigger.
It’s too early for me. There’s nothing wrong with Reigate, there’s always the streets. “There’s a nice pub over the Green,” says Mum. OK. The key is on a string in the letterbox. Don’t be late and ruin your health. Yes, The Bell, I’ll go there for a drink. You never know. It’s full of stockbrokers, and what appears to be a Morticians’ Convention. I alone am in uniform. The medals do it. Was I in the Invasion, son? Yes, I was killed the first day. What will I have? A whisky and a blindfold. They won’t let me buy a round. I am really quite a nice young man. What’s that decoration? That’s Mentioned in Despatches. Why? I don’t know, someone just mentioned me in despatches. Sometimes they mentioned me in the canteen, sometimes in passing, sometimes in the Naafi, on this occasion in despatches. Time gentlemen please!
I walk out and smell that damp autumn musk. It’s misty and cool. I make my fun-loving way across the Green to 40 Meadow Way.
“Is that you son?” Yes Mum. “Have you ruined your health?” No mum. “If you’re hungry there’s plenty of bread and cheese in Sainsbury’s in the High Street.” I hear my father snoring, plaster falls from the ceiling. 40 Meadow Way, Woodhatch, is not for the faint of heart. I sleep soundly, and in great purity.
Father working at A.P.
Dawn Over Reigate and 40 Meadow Way
Father has left at some unearthly hour to work like a nigger. Mother tells me he had a good breakfast. “Porridge, it gives a good lining to your stomach,” eat it all up son, it will do you good. I bet you missed your mother’s cooking, didn’t you son. Now, have I any dirty washing? She’s doing a boil today. Yes. I proudly show her my collection of post-war underwear. “What are they son — floor cloths?” She boils them. Several disintegrate and float to the surface as froth, some survive but die later that night.
A lazy day, endless cups of tea, smoking. “You’ll ruin your health, son.” Fruit cake, the shits, and Primo Scala and his Accordion Band on Workers’ Playtime. How can people work with that noise? Twenty accordions playing those digital dysentery numbers with thousands of notes spewing out to show off their technique. Monte Ray sings in a strangled nasal castrati voice. The afternoon turns into evening.
I nip out to telephone Betty Cranley and her body. She’s booked a room at the Admiral Owen Inn in Sandwich as Mr and Mrs Cranley. Can she buy a cheap ring to make it look official? Why not? Would she like me to wear a top hat and hurl confetti in the receptionist’s face? Don’t be a silly sod. She says we can go for long walks. What is she talking about? I replace the melted phone and get dressed again.
“Is that you son?” Yes, it’s that me son. “Wipe your feet, it’s very muddy outside.” More tea, fruit cake and the shits. It’s dark now. My mother is saving electricity; she’s cooking in braille in a blacked-out kitchen. Footsteps on the path and Red Indian war dance stamping. It’s my father’s shaking-the-mud-off ritual.
“Is that you kid?” says Mother. She thinks he’s a goat. Dad comes in shagged out from working like a nigger. We’ll have to move nearer into London, the journey is killing him. How terrible, first his firm now the journey. When am I going back? He takes his shoes off his Fleet Street weary feet. His shoes are going home, this hole is letting the rain in, and this one lets it out again. He can’t understand it, they cost twelve shillings and they’re only thirty years old. I cheer him up, I have brought him a nice bottle of Tokay. He likes Tokay: it speaks of gypsies and caravans in the woods with leaping bonfires and bare-shouldered girls. Supper is boiled hake. He sips the Tokay appreciatively.
“Ah, a fine wine, made by bare-shouldered gypsy girls leaping over bonfires.”
When am I going back? I must leave them on the morrow, I’m to be married in Sandwich. What am I talking about? You be careful in Sandwich, they warn, it’ll ruin your health. Father must hear the nine o’clock noise. We all sit facing the fretwork front of the battery set. We twiddle (yes twiddle) the knobs and home in on Alvar Liddell. Coal production is up! Quick, open the champagne. Ernie Bevin has piles and is going in for the operation. There’s trouble in Palestine, there’s trouble in Indo China, there’s trouble in 40 Meadow Way, Reigate, the lights have fused. My father is in the broom cupboard. Who made these bloody silly fuses? Ah, he’s done it. He screams as 240 volts flow through him, through the house and onto his quarterly bill, and that is the end of the news.
I spend a few more days with them. Every night my Father returns from the Associated Press, looking more and more like a nigger. In the evenings we talk about the future. I say I don’t think there is one, this is really life after death. How can a nice Catholic boy say that? No, I must return to the Woolwich Arsenal dockyard and work hard and wait for promotion or death. I tell them that my workshop at Woolwich Arsenal is now a giant bomb crater. Quick, the nine o’clock news, hurry. Coal production is now going sideways. Ernie Bevin has had his operation and I’m going to sleep. “There’s a po by the bed, son.”
Saucy Sandwich
The train to Sandwich takes me through the Kent countryside. All is russet with pale gold sunshine glistening on autumn-damp trees; through the Kent orchards, the trees heavy with the red green and yellow fruit. 1930s men are up splayed apple-ladders taking in the harvest. The curving line loops round Sandwich bay to the little station. There, not waiting for me, is Betty Cranley. The little cow!
I fiddle my way into town and get to the RAF depot. Like Simon Legree I burst into the kitchen and catch her. She’s rolling dough for a pudding. So this is how you treat me. While I’m on the platform being lovely, you’re rolling dough for puddens. She’s sorry, she was put on duty owing to one of the staff being taken suddenly something or other. Would I like a cup of tea and some fruit cake? How nice. Does she know ‘Lae thar piss tub darn bab’? I hang around until she comes off duty. It wasn’t easy in an RAF kitchen full of WAAFS, all in the prime of cooking puddens.
She’s gone to tart up, and reappears radiant in her skyblue uniform, buttons blazing, all smart and ready to be married in the Admiral Owen. What a dirty little devil I was. I am about to be led astray by this naughty girl. What’s this, two Sergeants sleeping together? What does KRs say about this. We don’t care. We sign the register before a cow of a landlady with that ‘we know what you’re going to do’ look. What time would we like calling. I say December.
It was hell, folks. Betty threw me on to the bed and had her way with me. She used cold compresses, it was no good, I was getting weaker and weaker. I tell her I’ve got a headache. She can cure it she says, jumping up and down in a fever of sweat and pudding. In the morning she is bubbling with life, as I lay like a geriatric on my death bed, white and feeble. I must get to some Eggs and Chips soon, or a monastery. By day I lay in bed dreading the nights. She returns, strips off, and standing on the bed head, dives on me. When the woman comes to make the bed, she doesn’t notice I’m in it. Twice she puts me in the laundry basket. Oh thank God, it’s time to go back to Italy, dear. This is our last night, she says, we must make it last. She makes it last, I don’t. I slept through the last bit.
The Admiral Owen — where I aged 30 years in a night
. The room of naughtiness is marked with an X.
Morning has broken, and so have I. It’s goodbye! She helps me dress. I am on the platform, a cold wind blowing through the seams of my trousers. Will I write to her. Yes. Soon? Yes, I’ll start right away. She can hear the train coming, have we time for a quickie? No. The guard helps me on the train. Am I her Grandfather? The train pulls out. I wave, and she is soon lost to view. I must rest and get my strength back so that I can get off the train unaided. It’s eighteen miles to Frisky Folkestone, the sun is setting, and so am I. I’m ruining my health.
Folkestone
I report to a huge requisitioned transit hotel on the sea front, stripped of everything except the floor. I report to the Orderly Sergeant, check documents, yes the boat leaves at 0900. Bunk beds to infinity, one dull light bulb illuminates the gloom. The room gradually fills with leave-spent soldiers. Here is the historic handwritten record of those exciting days in Funny Folkestone:
A day in Folkestone
What a filler! I knew it would come in useful one day.
On board the steam packet, we pitch and toss on the grey spume-flecked waters, heading into a chill wind, laced with face-pecking rain. Some walk around the decks, I stay in what in better days was the saloon dining-room. Now it’s just tables, chairs, tea, buns and fag ends. The eyes blink, the mind goes into neutral, the throb of the ship’s engines. It’s rather like taking a boat to the Styx. Alas, it’s worse, soon it’s Crappy Calais and the excitement of No. 4 Transit Camp with its damp beds and go-as-you-please urinal. A visit to the Hotel de Ville. Beans on toast cooked by a French chef made our journey a little more bearable.
Strange I never mentioned my travelling companion’s name; and from what I remember, I’m glad. Next morning it’s raining in French. It will do le garden bon. I’m glad to be on the train heading for Italy. The leave was an experience — it was like a flashback to 1940, and trying to compress it all into four weeks. We leave the dripping eaves of Calais, through its still slumbering populace. It’s only seven-thirty and dark. My God, it’s those Sergeants. They’re all sitting opposite me again. And I don’t have Len Prosser to talk to — he’s on the train ahead.
Memoires 05 (1985) - Where Have All The Bullets Gone Page 14
