Misadventures

by Sylvia Smith

  I dedicate this book to my parents, who had

  the good sense to start a family halfway

  through the Second World War.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  My Father

  My Mother

  The Family Tree

  Childhood

  Childhood Pets

  1950-60: My School Days

  1952: Rinty

  1952: Miss Gee

  1954: Trixie

  1954: Roller-Skating

  1955: The School-teacher in the Forest

  1958: My First Kiss

  1959: Beth

  1959: Brian

  1959: Jennifer

  1960: Carol D

  1961: Hazel

  1961: Mick

  1961: Linda W

  1961: Carol C

  1962: The Wrestler

  1963: Ursula

  1963: The Beautiful Waitress in the Italian Restaurant

  1963: Gloria

  Women Travelling on Their Own in the Sixties

  1965: A Family Health Problem

  1965: Jean Pierre

  1966: My Twenty-first Birthday

  1967: Pierre

  1967: Patrick

  1967: Kathy

  1967: The Lady in the Rain

  1967: Anne

  1968: Jackie

  1968: Alan

  1968: David

  1968: Eric

  1969: Pat

  1969: Bob

  1970: John H

  1970: Heracles

  1970: Heracles’ Friend Chris

  1975: Peter

  1975: Pauline

  1975: Josie

  1977: The Man at the Funfair

  1977: Hilary

  1977: John S

  1977: Lorraine

  1977: Nasrin

  1978: Betty

  1979: Glyn

  1979: Sam

  1979: Malcolm

  1979: Brian G

  1979: Club Row Sunday Market

  1980: Mr and Mrs P

  1980: Michelle

  1981: The Indian Shopkeeper

  1983: Aunt Milly

  1983: Ghalib

  1983: Jenny H

  1984: Ian

  1984: Janet

  1985: The Probation Service

  1985: My Investments

  1985: Elaine

  1986: The Neighbours

  1987: Brian R

  1987: Pat

  1987: Ginnie

  1987: Andrea

  1987: Jenny F’s Night Out

  1987: Lynne

  1988: Barbara

  1988: Paula

  1988: Martina

  1988: The Little Boy

  1989: Shaunagh

  1990: June

  1990: Maureen

  1990: The Car Crash

  1990: Old Bill

  1992: Cheryl

  1992: Ide

  1992: Ali

  1992: Paul C

  1992: The Grope

  1992: Jean

  1992: The Borrower

  1992: Roogie and James

  1993: Paul

  1993: The Flower Seller

  1993: Ron, Bill and Richard

  1993: Denise

  1993: Marion

  1994: Miriam

  1994: Virginia’s Mugging

  1994: Dr Shah

  1994: Mrs Murphy

  1994: Mrs Murphy’s Holiday

  1994: Raf

  1994: Steve

  1995: Cousin June

  1995: The Old Duck in Sainsburys

  1995: The Black Man in Tesco

  1995: The Man

  1995

  Praise

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Every story in this book is true. It was either something I had experienced or heard about.

  MY FATHER

  My father was born on 17th March, 1906 in Walthamstow, London, and named Reginald John Smith. He was forty years old when I came along. I was his second child. My brother, Brian, was born the previous year but died of convulsions when he was three days old. As my mother had difficulty coming to terms with his death the doctor told my father to start another baby immediately. I am now fifty and my father is a grand old man looking forward to his ninetieth birthday. He is extremely fit and active, looking ten years younger than his age.

  My father worked as a skilled wire worker until his retirement. He made fireguards and cable grips by hand but today the same job is done by machinery. He also worked a seven-day week for many years of my childhood to support my mother and me. Despite this we were quite poor, sharing a house with another family until I was twelve. We lived in the downstairs two rooms with a separate kitchen, and used the communal bathroom upstairs. Once I had settled down to school life my mother found herself a job in a factory and we eventually moved into a rented house on a three-year lease. It was an older-style property without a bathroom. Every Saturday my father would heat up the boiler and lay a copper bath on the kitchen floor, and we would take turns to bathe. Shortly before the lease expired the landlord decided to sell his many properties and offered the house to my father at a very low price. Both my parents were working so his proposal was accepted. My father also took advantage of a government scheme to modernise such homes and had a bathroom installed at half the usual cost. A few years later my grandfather died, leaving my father a large sum of money, which he used to pay off the mortgage and buy a brand new Morris 1100 car. My parents named her ‘Nellybelle’ and would drive to the coast every Sunday in the summer with my father sitting on a cushion at the steering wheel as he was too short to see through the windscreen without it.

  He finally retired from full-time work and found himself a part-time job cleaning cars in a local garage. Unfortunately as he grew old he became very absent-minded and would sometimes go to work wearing one brown shoe and one black. On one occasion he wore two ties around his neck.

  * * *

  My father had a habit of smoking in the car. Whilst driving the short distance to work one morning he threw his lighted cigarette butt out the window but unbeknown to him the wind blew it back in again. Some minutes later he saw smoke coming up from underneath him and looked down to see his cushion was on fire. He stopped immediately, threw the cushion onto the pavement and jumped up and down on it until he had put the flames out, in full view of a very interested group of people standing at a nearby bus stop.

  He eventually gave up his part-time job as it became too much for him and he sold his second and last car because he could no longer afford to run it.

  All his life my father had been an honest man but as the old-age pension was hardly enough for him to live on he tried to do everything as cheaply as possible. He needed a new jacket but found he couldn’t afford a brand new one so he shopped in the second-hand clothing store a bus ride away. Once he had selected his garment he looked for an article less costly. On finding a satisfactory figure and making sure the assistant wasn’t looking he swapped the price tags, pinning the lower one on the jacket he wanted.

  As my mother contracted arthritis my father would do the weekly shopping and any errands. These excursions were sometimes hazardous. Whilst standing at the top of the stairs on a hopper bus he lost his balance as the bus swerved and he fell down, landing in a heap by the doors. The other passengers very gently picked him up.

  On another occasion he bought a four-wheeled shopping trolley because it was something to lean on but on the way to the supermarket he tripped over the wheels, banged
his head on a brick wall, fell on to the pavement (knocking his spectacles off) and found he was bleeding from a small wound over his right eyebrow. A kindly young couple saw his plight and drove him home, placing his empty trolley in the boot of their car.

  His last accident was in the snow as he approached the High Street. He slipped on the ice and badly cut his hand. At the same time an ambulance arrived to take an elderly lady to hospital. She had suffered a far worse fall but the policeman on the scene said to my father, ‘You might as well get in too.’ So he went to hospital and had his wound dressed but he didn’t telephone my mother. On his return several hours later, minus the shopping again, she was very relieved to see him.

  Whilst temporarily living at home I went into my parents’ front room to see the one o’clock news on their large, colour TV set. The newscaster basically said, ‘The Town & Country Building Society has merged with another building society. There is absolutely no need for concern from its depositors, this is simply a merger.’ My father jumped out of his seat and said, ‘I’ve got five hundred pounds in that place! I’m going up there now to get my money back!’ He dashed up the stairs to his bedroom, put his outdoor clothing on, picked up his deposit book and precisely four minutes after the broadcast he charged out of the house saying to my mother, ‘I hope there isn’t a queue.’ An hour and a half later he returned. I asked him, ‘Was there a queue?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘there wasn’t anyone up there.’ I asked,’ Did you get your money?’ He replied, ‘Yes. They gave me two hundred pounds cash and a cheque for three hundred pounds.’ I thought to myself, ‘For God’s sake don’t tell him cheques can bounce.’

  A past boyfriend said of my father, ‘I feel sorry for him living alone with two women.’

  One morning in early March my mother was selecting clothing for a dark wash in her automatic washing machine. She said to my father, ‘Reg. Take those trousers off. They’re dirty and they’re going in the wash. Go and put another pair on.’ My father went upstairs and changed his trousers, giving the offending pair to my mother. In the afternoon I decided to wash my jumpers and I had a look at my father to see how clean his one was. It looked very grubby so I said to him, ‘Dad. You can take that jumper off and give it to me because I’m washing mine out and your one is filthy.’ He replied, ‘I’ll take it off tomorrow.’ I said, ‘No you won’t! You can take it off now and go and get a clean one.’ He did as he was told.

  MY MOTHER

  My mother was born on 14th December, 1912, and named Lilian Violet Parsons. She was thirty-two when she gave birth to me. She is now eighty-two. She suffers mildly from arthritis and copes well with severe tinnitus. Despite these obstacles she is quite happy and outgoing.

  My mother bought me expensive toys when I was a child. I can remember beautiful dolls, a costly pram and tricycle, all of which were far nicer than anything my friends were given. In later years I discovered this annoyed my father, who had been trying to save at the time.

  Whenever my parents rowed my father would refer to one episode in their marriage that had annoyed him. In 1944 my mother had been evacuated to Newcastle to escape the London blitz as she was pregnant with me, leaving my father on his own. She saw the most beautiful baby carnage and didn’t hesitate to buy it. Towards the end of her pregnancy my father journeyed to bring her safely home and was furious to find he had to collect such a large item. They returned by train, storing the carriage in the guard’s van until they reached London. Then my father had to negotiate the Underground with its steep escalators, and a long bus ride home.

  I was ten years old and my mother decided to have my fine hair permed. As soon as my hair was washed it went frizzy and stayed that way until the perm grew out several months later. She then chose to have my hair curled again, with the same result. After this second disaster to my great relief she thought it a better idea that I should only have a good cut.

  I was eight years old and my mother returned to working full-time. After school I would have my tea with the family living across the road. When I was aged twelve we moved to a rented house and I became ‘a latch-key kid’, letting myself into the empty house to wait for my mother’s return.

  My mother was always very family-minded. I can remember frequent trips together to see her two sisters living in Barkingside and the occasional weekend visiting another sister in Gillingham, Kent.

  One of my aunts told me of an experience my mother had at the age of eighteen. She was staying with a married sister and answered a knock at the street door. For the first time in her life she saw a black man. She screamed and slammed the door shut. My aunt had to apologise to the man, who was simply a travelling salesman, selling brushes and dusters.

  Both my parents were great bingo fans. Every Friday night for several years they would play in a local hall. They were quite lucky and came home with some large amounts of money. One evening my mother won the jackpot. The manager called her onto the stage to give her the prize money. He said, ‘If you can tell me who is the current President of the United States I will give you an extra fifty pounds.’ My mother was very flustered and self-conscious at facing an audience and her mind went blank. She blurted out the first name she could think of and gave ‘Truman’ as her answer. The manager said, ‘I’m sorry, but the correct answer is Lyndon B. Johnson.’

  THE FAMILY TREE

  MY FATHER’S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

  Both sets of my father’s grandparents tasted wealth. His paternal grandfather owned an inn, which provided a good living for many years, until he became an alcoholic. He eventually lost the business through his drunkenness and became bankrupt.

  My father’s maternal grandfather was a ladies’ hairdresser. He owned a salon and had a horse-drawn carriage to take him to the houses of rich clients. He too was quite successful but there was a fire in the salon and it burnt to the ground. As the property was not insured he also became bankrupt.

  My father was one of nine children, but three of them died in infancy from childhood illnesses.

  My grandmother told my mother her doctor used to criticise her husband for giving her too many children. The doctor told him, ‘You are not giving your wife time to recover before you start another pregnancy.’ This didn’t deter my grandfather, who continued getting his wife pregnant. My grandmother also said she would jump down the entire staircase in her house in the early stages of pregnancy in the hope of losing her unborn child.

  MY MOTHER’S SIDE OF THE FAMILY

  My mother’s grandparents were a mixture of nationalities. Her maternal grandmother was a Jewess married to an Irishman. Her paternal grandmother was a Dutch woman married to an Englishman, providing the family with an English surname. Neither set of her grandparents had money.

  My mother was one of eight children, but my grandmother experienced several miscarriages.

  My grandfather was a seaman, leaving his wife to cope alone with the upbringing of their children during his lengthy absences. He died when my mother was thirteen, with a brother and sister younger than herself. My grandmother collected a large sum of insurance money upon his death and placed a deposit on a family-sized house in Barkingside. Her two eldest married daughters moved in with their husbands, helping her to pay the mortgage. Unfortunately my aunts eventually vacated their mother’s home for rented properties, which meant my grandmother was unable to pay the mortgage with herself and three children to support. She lost the house. In later years it would have been a good investment for all the family.

  CHILDHOOD

  My fondest memory of childhood is when my mother and I used to visit her two sisters in Barkingside on a hot summer’s day. Both aunts lived in separate farm bungalows on the edge of a huge cornfield.

  I can remember getting off the train at Fairlop Station and walking the ten-minute journey along Forest Road to my aunts’ homes. My mother and I would pass the farm cottages where my Uncle Jim used to live, then the piggery with the pigs grunting away behind the long hedgerow of blackberry bushes. The cric
kets would be singing in the grass and only the occasional car would pass us.

  Once at the bungalows one of my aunts would supply a glass of orange juice and I would wander into the back gardens and look across the golden carpet of the cornfield.

  Sadly my aunts are now dead. Their homes have been sold to outsiders and are lost to the family forever.

  CHILDHOOD PETS

  Throughout my childhood my parents supplied me with a variety of pets. First of all they bought me two-dozen goldfish and put them in the tub of an old boiler we kept in our back garden. Unfortunately it didn’t have any type of window so my fish could only see the sky and spent their time swimming in the dark. I fed them daily and in the summer months all was well. During the winter, ice formed in a thick layer over the water. My father knocked a hole through it enabling me to put food in, but after a few days of swimming in freezing water I found all my fish dead, floating underneath the ice. This did not deter my parents. Instead they bought me four goldfish in a small bowl and placed it in our lounge. Once again I fed my fish daily, but sadly they grew tired of their confined living quarters which forced them to swim continuously around in circles and they would jump out of the bowl, landing on the lino. When I saw them do this I would quickly pick them up and return them, but unfortunately one by one they tried to escape whilst I was at school and unable to ‘rescue’ them.

  After the deaths of my fish my parents bought me a tortoise and housed him in our garden shed. I fed him a variety of salad and would allow him to go for walks along our pathway. As winter approached my father explained that tortoises hibernate during the cold weather. He made a nest using straw and an old shoe box and put my pet in it, piercing the lid several times so that it could breathe. He placed the box in a dark corner of our shed and told me not to touch it until the end of March when my reptile would wake up. I looked at my tortoise in the spring but he was quite obviously dead.