Moon Boots and Dinner Suits

by Jon Pertwee

  School rules stated intelligently that pupils should only go out in threes, two girls and one boy, or two boys and one girl, so, whichever way you looked at it, you always finished up with a ‘gooseberry’. Even your mate was loath to leave you alone with your girl. ‘All very well for you,’ he’d say. ‘What about me? What am I going to do?’ Exactly the same thing applied to a two-girl situation. Girls or boys, the old saying ‘I don’t think much of yours’ couldn’t have been more applicable.

  It is often believed that in co-educational schools, sex is rife, and that the incumbents are permanently ‘at it like knives’. I can assure you that in my day this was far from the case. The ‘three’ rule was closely observed and young love blossomed gradually, companionship and respect taking preference over fornication.

  But there was one influence in the school that Paul Roberts could well have done without. His name was Peter Schamasch, a French boy well schooled in sexual matters, as his elder brother on his hols would, as a special treat, stand him the occasional short-time ‘session’ in one of Paris’s many brothels. Peter tried hard to bring the atmosphere of these seamy ‘palaces of sin’ back with him to Frensham Heights, and one night crept downstairs to the girls’ landing, with three horny virgin boys he had recruited. Finding the room and its anxiously awaiting inhabitants, Peter and his cronies popped into the various beds of their chosen loved ones and proceeded to get down to some heavy petting, their bags of goodies and ciggies ‘for after’ placed neatly on the bedside tables. Before any actual insertions could be made, Paul Roberts and Mrs Roberts walked into the room. ‘Well, h-h-hello! And w-w-w-hat have we here? A f-f-f-feast in the dorm? C-c-can w-w-we join in?’ The sheepish eight shot bolt upright in their beds, the male participants’ passions shrinking into insignificance.

  ‘Y-y-y-yes of ccccourse, sir,’ stammered Peter giving a commendable yet unintentional impersonation of the Head.

  As I heard it, they then handed round the goodies, smoked the ‘ciggies’, and were bundled unceremoniously out of the room by the Roberts, with a ‘Well, th-th-that w-w-was f-f-fun, we m-m-must do it again some day.’

  The next morning during prayers, Paul announced a school holiday, to be spent at Frensham Ponds. There were to be races and games galore, and a good time to be had by all. By midday the ‘Schamasch night-owls’ were wilting somewhat, as they seemed to be the first picked for any of the more strenuous activities, be it athletics, games, running messages, climbing trees or chopping wood. By 6:30 we were back at school exhausted and happy, but the ‘Schamasch gang’ looked a little wan, to say the least. ‘I’ve g-got a g-great idea,’ said Mr Roberts after evening prayers, ‘l-let’s go on a na-na-nature ramble tonight, eh? W-w-what about it, P-P-Peter, you and your f-f-friends would appreciate that w-w-wouldn’t you? You l-l-like staying up late at night.’ At last the dawn! Suddenly we realised what the old fox was up to and that night, in the company of two other masters, he hiked that poor exhausted bunch of youngsters over half the county of Surrey. Around three o’clock in the morning they could take no more and collapsed in a damp heap on a log. ‘What’s th-this, g-g-giving up so s-s-soon?’ he enquired with what seemed like sincere concern, but before Peter could reply, went on, ‘You know P-P-Peter, the o-o-older I get the m-m-more I realise that ni-ni-ni-night-time is really b-b-best occupied by sleeping, d-d-don’t you agree?’ Last seen, he had hoisted the most junior member of the sex-club on to his back and headed back to the school, where as a man of middle years, his own bed was frantically beckoning.

  There was a real teacher of men! Who could fail to respond to such simple, albeit wearisome, psychology?

  *

  From a very early age, I have always had a ‘thing’ about motorbikes. Michael owned a round-tanked 350cc Sidevalve BSA called ‘The Green Bile’, and I hankered after its like, desperately! So imagine my delight when I found that a mile or two from the school there was a large motorcycle garage run by three of the best grass-track riders in the country, Len, Sammy and Alan. At weekends whenever I could get away, I cycled over to the nearby race meetings to cheer on my heroes and inhale that wonderful smell of Castrol ‘R’, like a ‘Bisto’ kid.

  On one of my visits to this garage, I spied a little black-tanked 250cc SOS trials bike. It was short and stubby with high handlebars and an almost straight-through exhaust. With its knobbly trials tyres it was a little beauty and I foolishly asked, ‘How much?’

  ‘To you, as a you’re a friend, five pounds,’ said Len. I should’ve known better, but I promptly bought it. Taxed and insured third party (whatever that meant), it came to seven pound ten shillings. Three shillings short, I was ‘trusted’ by friend Len and not feeling too guilty about ‘whitish’ lies concerning driving licences and previous riding experience, I wheeled the little monster out into the road to take her for a spin. She started on the thirteenth kick and bursting into a snarl, shot off in a perfect ‘wheelie’ nearly landing me flat on my back. Fighting to keep this mechanical version of Shadow under some sort of control I wove my way down the road towards Frensham Ponds, in spurts, jerks, and the crashing of gears. The expression on Len’s face as I disappeared from sight was one of undisguised horror, for plainly this young idiot had never ridden a motorcycle before in his life. Roaring round a blind corner less than a quarter of a mile from the garage, I came to a T-junction. There was a low flint wall facing me belonging to the cottage behind it. Completely out of control I shot across the road, hit the wall, and knocked myself unconscious. Worst of all, I badly damaged the wheel and front forks of my precious machine. The occupants of the cottage were having tea in the garden when I joined them, from over the wall; and upon my regaining consciousness, sent for the doctor, who not only arranged for Len to collect what was left of my prophetically named SOS motorbike but also put my pushbike on his luggage rack, drove me back to school and promised to tell the Headmaster that I’d taken a toss over the handlebars of my (unfortunately for the veracity of the story) strangely undamaged bicycle.

  Paul Roberts proved to be most solicitous and concerned at my ‘cycling’ accident and visited me in the san with many words of comfort.

  At the end of that term, on my last day at Frensham Heights, we were queuing up to shake hands and say goodbye to Paul and his wife, when that funny twinkle came into his eye as he said, ‘Well, go-go-go-goodbye, Jon, d-d-do take care of yourself on that bl-bl-bloody motorbike of yours, w-w-w-on’t you.’

  The old fox had outwitted the hounds once again. I loved him and wish there were more teachers of his calibre alive today.

  There is a strange codicil to add to that story. Some fifty years later I was driving my son Sean down to his new school Pierrepont near Farnham, in Surrey, when, just as I was about to turn into the school drive, I vaguely became aware of a familiar cottage with a low flint wall and a small side road facing it. There was a sudden flash of remembrance of that heartbreaking day all those long years ago when I had rammed my newly bought motorbike headlong into such a wall. Could it be the self-same one? Stopping the car, I ran back to the T-junction and retraced the route I imagined my bike had taken before it struck. This manoeuvre brought me directly to the spot where the wheel and the front forks of my beloved machine had hit. There, for Sean and I to see plainly, was a badly chipped brick and a splintered flint as new and as fresh as if I had collided with it yesterday.

  *

  And so with a final burst of ‘Dei Gratia sum quod sum’, considerable relief and little education to speak of, I hang up my school cap forever and move briskly to the next age.

  Chapter Four

  I first donned my professional hat – number five in Shakespeare’s list – before I became either a soldier or a ‘serious’ lover. The fifth hat should by rights, be that of ‘The Justice, in fair round belly with good capon lined.’ But what I actually put on, was I suppose, the cap and bells, becoming what I’d always wanted to be, an actor. Unfortunately acting as a calling is not exactly renowned for its justice, nor for po
ssessors of fair round capon-lined bellies, for it is a fact that we strolling players frequently stroll more than we play – and you don’t get paid for strolling!

  However, completely undeterred by this, and a ‘mature’ seventeen, I announced to my father in 1936, ‘Dad, I want to be an actor.’ My father, having been an actor, at least didn’t have those peculiar notions of the stage that some people still firmly believe in – that all actresses are grossly immoral, that all actors are effeminate, and that everyone connected with the theatre lies in bed stoned until noon, with two or more other people drinking champagne. He therefore received the news with commendable calm, reflecting no doubt that my academic prowess hardly fitted me for politics, science or the law, and contented himself by quoting George Moore who said, ‘Acting is the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all.’ Dad was by then of course a Writer.

  *

  For my chosen and now parentally approved profession, help was offered by my Uncle Guy, a teacher at the Central School of Dramatic Art as well as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and as such, a friend and confidant of the principal of the former school, Elsie Fogarty. Small in build but a giant in personality, Miss Fogarty was a lady who struck terror into the hearts of all who came before her, but as a dramatic and voice teacher she was unsurpassed and had coached many of the ‘greats’, including Laurence Olivier. Uncle Guy was of the opinion that if I could only get past an interview with this she-demon, the audition and subsequent entry would be a doddle. So, employing all his wiles, he talked Miss Fogarty into seeing me.

  I had prepared a piece taken from one of Uncle Guy’s many works, The Reciter’s Treasury of Verse, and presented myself clean and bushy-tailed to the great lady’s office for inspection. She looked up at me towering above her for what seemed like an eternity, and then said, a trifle disparagingly, ‘Humph!’ My confidence began to ebb.

  ‘Hand me that chair, if you would be so kind,’ she said. I did so and, grabbing a newspaper from her desk, she rolled it up into what I could only assume to be a club with which to strike me, and stood up on the chair. Now eyeball to eyeball she commanded, ‘Open your mouth.’

  I did as I was bid, having no idea what was to follow. She then took the tightly rolled newspaper in her right hand, my chin in her left, and thrusting the paper into my mouth, said, ‘Now bite hard.’ Bewildered, I bit. ‘All right, you can let go now,’ she said tetchily, endeavouring to extricate the roll from my dental grip.

  Getting down from the chair, she took the bitten newspaper over to the window to obtain a better look at it, and after studying the indentations from all angles, announced her findings.

  ‘You’ve a malformation of the mouth, young man. Your teeth are set incorrectly in your jaw, causing your tongue, which is too big for your mouth, to stick through your teeth instead of resting behind them. The result of all this is a very sibilant ‘S’. I’m sorry, I’ve no place for you here at my school, and I would strongly advise you to take up another profession.’

  With this firm pronouncement, all my ambitions, my hopes and my dreams went sailing out of this hell hag’s window. Then becoming firm of purpose I thought, ‘I’ll show her. Just you wait and see – I’ll show her!’

  As a consequence I auditioned for, and luckily (for there were numerous applicants) was accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, to which, during my early days, I commuted daily by train from Caterham, where I was then living.

  By this time I was the proud owner of a 150cc James 2 Stroke motorcycle, and one morning having ridden it down from the house, left it by the station padlocked to a lamp-post. You can imagine my chagrin, therefore, when I returned one evening to discover that not only had my motorcycle gone, but so had the lamp-post! If it wasn’t the Council that had taken them away then it must have been a thief, and if that was the case what was the thief after? A new motorcycle or an old lamp-post? Luckily for me the motorcycle was found a few days later lying in a bed of hollyhocks, but of the lamp-post there was never a sign.

  One Sunday I found there was to be a ‘Grand Talent Competition’ at the local cinema, and I decided that the prize of one pound was a very sufficient incentive to enter. I had, a few weeks before, purchased an astonishing new invention from America called a ‘UKA’, a ukulele with a box of buttons attached on the neck to the frets. This enabled you, by depressing one of twelve buttons, to play a complete four string chord. The speed and accuracy of the chord changing was prodigious and your ‘UKA’ playing could, with practice, be made to sound as good and look as proficient and dextrous as ‘Ukulele Ike’ or George Formby. My entry for the contest was therefore effected, and singing Leaning on a Lamp-post and The Window Cleaner with great zest and élan, I was declared a popular winner – popular, that is, with all but the other competitors, who were unanimous in their condemnation of my employing a ‘gimmick’ to facilitate the chord playing.

  Came the Grand Finale, where, as the winner, I was invited to step forward and once again entertain the audience with my humour, musicianship and song.

  But the devil had been at work, and I was not halfway through my hilarious rendering of Window Cleaner when the ‘gimmick’ suddenly became detached and fell slowly off the neck of the ukulele, to swing on one of its now broken strings, like Dick Turpin on a gibbet. As I was incapable of playing on four strings, let alone three, my performance came to a shuddering standstill, and to the accompanying jeers and cries of ‘That’ll show you, Faker!’ from the delighted contestants, I gathered my broken junk together and hurriedly made for the exits.

  *

  I had always thought of Granny as being indestructible, so when that ample, bosomy lady began to fade away into nothingness I was completely shattered, even though I was a teenager at the time and old enough to understand and accept the fact that this beautiful creature I loved so much was being eaten away by cancer. Week by week, living as I was at Caterham, I watched her disappearing from my sight until she was so bodiless and fragile that I wished I could have taken her upon my lap for comfort and consolation. Being the valiant soul she was, she fought the demon, tooth and nail, but when she realised the battle was lost she accepted defeat with grace.

  ‘I do not wish to die upstairs where I am alone and can see nothing. Please put my bed in the sitting room where I can look out on the garden and talk with the boys.’

  So it was done, and there she lay getting more and more skeletal, her dear face becoming transparent and bloodless as her life ebbed away. One morning with the garden door open to a beautiful day and the flowers ablaze with life she gave a deep sigh and gave up her own.

  Uncle Guy and Michael went off to Caterham to see the undertaker and make arrangements for the funeral, leaving me alone in the house with Granny, for I wanted to stay with her. On tip toe, as if not to waken her, I went to the side of her bed and drew back the sheet that covered her wasted face. She looked quite serene and at peace, with the trace of a smile crinkling the corners of her mouth. For the first time in months she looked quite free from pain. ‘So death can’t be that bad,’ I thought. Bending over I kissed for the last time the now cold lips of the one person in my life who had shown me nothing but unadulterated love. For me, the summer of 1936 was a dark one.

  *

  With Granny’s death, I moved back to Dad’s home and commuted to and from RADA from number 86.

  In order to save the bus fare of a few pennies from Goodge Street tube station to South Kensington, I frequently walked the three miles plus home, often making a detour through the infamous ‘Shepherd Market’. This beautiful corner of old London was, and still is, the workplace of ‘ladies of the night’, and as such was a great visual attraction for a virtually virgin boy such as myself. Just to be approached and spoken to by the beautiful ‘young’ ladies was a thrill in itself, albeit a vicarious one. They ‘sashayed’ their way up and down the streets, resplendent in shiny black very high-heeled shoes, form-fitting dresses and silver-fox capes, and seemed to me to be the epitome
of glamour. Such was my naivety that for some time I genuinely believed that they were taking their dogs for a walk.

  One day, I was stopped by a coloured girl of around twenty-five, the most exotic creature on whom I’d ever clapped an eye. She had long straight black hair that reached below her waist, and the full-fledged body of another Dorothy Lamour.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Looking for a nice girl?’

  ‘N-n-no thank you,’ I stammered, ‘I’m j-j-just on my way home.’

  ‘What a pity,’ she replied. ‘Perhaps another time.’

  ‘Y-y-yes of course, a-a-another time,’ and with that interesting and witty rejoinder I sped away, scarlet in my confusion.