It seems that desertion continued to be a theme in Arthur’s life.
Toward the end of 1921, he left the Denaby Colliery and the family moved a few miles away, to Swinton. Mum was eleven at the time, and Auntie was six. As Arthur became increasingly busy with his poetry, music, and entertaining, my mother became more accomplished at the piano—and in 1924, at the age of fourteen, she left school to pursue her piano playing full-time with a private tutor, and just a year and a half later she had passed the London College of Music’s senior-level exams.
Mum now often accompanied her father on his tours, playing at many provincial concerts. She took part in several early radio broadcasts from Sheffield, and by the time she was sixteen, she was teaching music. Listed among her students for that year is my aunt, though the lessons didn’t last long for several reasons—one being an acute sibling rivalry. My aunt was proficient at the piano, but music inspired her in other ways, namely to dance. Though untrained, she used every opportunity as a young child to dress up in her mother’s clothes to improvise and to dance whenever possible.
All this information came not from my mother, but from my aunt and from research. Other than telling me she had passed her exams at an early age—she gained her LRAM and ALCM degrees—my mother never spoke about those years. How she felt about her studies remains a mystery, and I do not know where she took her exams. Given that the family was so poor, I cannot imagine who paid for her lessons in those days. Even if she had a scholarship, which I believe she did, I never saw her actual diplomas: she never displayed them, never had them framed.
IN THE SUMMER of 1926, Granny Julia took my mum and my aunt to Hersham to visit her own mother, sweet Great-Granny Emily Ward. This was apparently a bucolic holiday for the girls, and they discovered the joys of the countryside and all that it had to offer compared to the mining towns where they lived.
Great-Granny Emily took in washing for the more affluent villagers. The tradition of “wash day” was backbreaking, rigorous work and was typical of the hardship and poverty the family endured in those times. Weather permitting, washing was done outside in the garden. Two enormous tubs with washboards and the requisite bars of yellow carbolic soap were set on trestle tables. Buckets of boiling water were constantly carried to and from the house. Sheets, pillowcases, towels, etc., were set in heaps on the ground. Whites went into one vat, colored items in the other, all to be soaked, scrubbed, then set in baskets while the tubs were emptied of their foamy suds and filled with fresh hot water for the rinsing process. Clothes were pegged on lines strung between two apple trees. Sheets were laid out on convenient bushes. In the evenings, the sweet-smelling laundry was brought indoors and made ready for ironing the next day.
My aunt recalled the fun of bringing in frozen shirts and pajama tops sparkling with a silver sheen of frost, the sleeves stiff and straight, which she used as dancing partners while she cavorted over the frozen cabbage stumps.
The following morning, sheets were carefully folded and set on the kitchen table to be used as a soft base for the ironing of clothes. No ironing boards then, and the irons themselves were heavy and had to be constantly reheated on trivets that swung over the fireplace.
ARTHUR, MEANWHILE, WAS performing for club audiences in various towns in the north of England. He bought a set of drums, which he taught himself to play, and when he thought he was proficient, he hired the local church hall. With my mother playing the piano and her mother at the entrance collecting the admission money, he began to run a series of profitable dances.
This new era meant that he was invited to many social gatherings. Granny Julia became hopelessly out of her depth in this more sophisticated company, so Arthur started going alone.
He was seldom home, and one morning, predawn, Julia tiptoed out of the house with her girls and left Arthur, probably because of his infidelities and alcoholism. They took the first train, returning to Hersham to stay permanently with Great-Granny Emily Ward.
Granny Julia quickly found a job as a maid for a Mr. Mortimer, who allowed her and the children to live in. Arthur remained in Swinton, but then tragedy struck: his new lifestyle had driven a wedge between him and his family, and his casual liaisons with women resulted in his contracting syphilis. He traveled down to Hersham, and perhaps realizing that she was unhappier without him than she was with him, or knowing that he was ill and in need of care, Julia took him back and the family was reunited for a time. Arthur’s vitality quickly dwindled, however, and he became thin and lethargic. He was admitted to the Brookwood Sanatorium in Woking on November 16, 1928. He died the following August, at the age of forty-three, with the cause of death given as “Paralysis of the Insane.”
I think my mother mentioned this period in their lives just once, giving me only the bare facts. Later, I begged my aunt Joan to write about it, but she shuddered and said, “Why would I write about something so terrible? That place, the stench, the people…screaming, demented.” She must have been traumatized, given that she was only thirteen at the time, but I sensed she was also ashamed and loath to discuss this with me. Syphilis was certainly not “genteel.” The heartbreaking consequence of Arthur’s actions was that he infected Julia, and shortly thereafter she, too, became ill and died just two years later. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that my mother’s grief was so transparent and lasted so long.
TWO
OVERNIGHT, CHILDHOOD ENDED for the girls and the business of survival began. The early demise of their parents changed forever the course of my mother’s career, for she now became mother as well as sister to Aunt Joan, assuming the role of full-time caretaker and thus cementing what had always been present—their larger-than-life sibling rivalry and a total dependency on each other.
They moved from Mr. Mortimer’s house and took a bed-sitting-room to be closer to Great-Granny Ward, who provided them with lunch, ensuring they had one good meal a day. Finding the room was comparatively easy, until they mentioned they would be bringing a piano and a set of drums. It was only after a great deal of cajoling and the promise that Mum would teach the daughter of the house to play the piano that they finally got the room. All they needed now was some money. They calculated their assets and decided they couldn’t sell the piano. But what should they do about the drums?
My mother said, “Right Joan. It’s obvious you must learn to play them. You watched Dad often enough, so let’s give it a try.”
They launched themselves on the local Women’s Institute. The sight of a skinny fifteen-year-old girl, clad in pink velvet, black stockings, with long red hair secured by a white ribbon à la Alice in Wonderland playing the drums was apparently too tantalizing and people closed in, staring curiously.
When my aunt complained about this, my mother said, “Play louder—bang everything you’ve got!” And it worked. The money started rolling in.
The girls began to play a number of highly improbable gigs, from genteel afternoon and evening parties to a rather risqué nightclub in a once-venerable old mansion called Mount Felix. When eventually one of the flats in this building became vacant, they were able to rent it. It soon became apparent that most of the turnover for the club was acquired by providing drinks after hours, and one Saturday night the place was raided and they were all driven off to the police station in the local Black Maria, the police van.
Aunt was still attending school, and when the kindly headmistress learned the girls were trying to survive on their own, she arranged a scholarship for Aunt. Other employments included a stint in the chapel of a local convalescent home, where Mum played the harmonium and Aunt worked the bellows—Mum often exhorting Auntie to “Pump harder!” They often laughed at the contrast between their pious pursuits at the beginning of the day and their sleazy nightclub occupations in the evenings.
A dear friend once described them to me: “You cannot imagine the impact those two girls had on the sleepy villages of Walton and Hersham. They were a sensation! They had a strange Northern dialect, they were marvelously
attractive, vital, self-confident, with this wonderful red hair—and each brilliant in her field.”
One of their employers suggested that my aunt should be taught to dance properly, and kindly offered a letter of introduction to a good school in Wimbledon. Somehow my mother got my aunt to the audition, where she was asked what she could do.
“Well, I don’t actually do anything special,” Joan replied. “I express what the music seems to be saying.”
“Then we’d better have some music, hadn’t we?” the auditioner suggested, and commissioned my mother to play.
It was decided that though Aunt was very late starting, especially for ballet, she had ability and could make a good all-rounder. Terms were discussed, and in exchange for arriving at 10:30 A.M. to tidy up the studio, dust and plump the cushions, attend to the cleanliness of the cloakrooms, wash up, serve tea to guests in the afternoons between classes, and be a general dogsbody, Aunt received her tuition, doing so well that after a few weeks she was dispatched to Balham in South London to teach a tap class on behalf of the school. Mum was also to play for two afternoons a week.
The year before their father had died, the girls had come to the attention of two decent young men: one, Edward Charles (“Ted”) Wells, my father; the other, Arthur Cecil (“Bill”) Wilby, later to be Joan’s husband. My dad was two years older than my mum, which would have made them just nineteen and seventeen when they first met. After the girls were orphaned, the lads pitched in to provide them with a fish and chips supper twice a week, with Lyons French Cream Sandwiches for “afters,” often explaining that they’d bought too much food and needed someone to share it with.
MY FATHER’S UPBRINGING was equally impoverished. His paternal grandfather, David Wells, had been a coachman for a Lady Tilson of Guildford, Surrey, and later he’d been a caretaker for the Wesleyan Chapel there. He and his wife, Fanny Loveland Wells, were natives of Middlesex and Surrey, respectively.
Fanny’s relatives had a shop in Hersham called Loveland’s, which made deliveries around town with a pony and trap. Fanny and David had one son, David Wilfred Wells. Young David, my grandfather, was a carpenter/joiner. He was one of the first to be on the City and Guild’s list of qualified carpenters, and builders would give him jobs around the village. During a bad period of unemployment he cycled from Hersham to Wales—about sixteen hours away—in order to find work.
Dad’s maternal grandfather, Mr. Charles Packham, was a skilled gardener. He and his wife, Elizabeth, raised six children: Mary, Susan, Charles, Ellen, Caroline, and Elizabeth Packham.
The youngest, Elizabeth, was a kindergarten teacher when she met and married David Wilfred Wells, my paternal grandfather. David and Elizabeth Wells had four children: Frank, the eldest; Ted, my father; Robert (Uncle Bob); and a daughter, yet another Elizabeth, but always known as Betty.
Frank, I was told, was a dear man and a magnificent craftsman, but he died at the age of thirty from meningitis and I never met him. In addition to being a carpenter, Frank was a teacher, which eventually influenced my dad to become a teacher himself. Bob, the third son, was thought to be the “brains” of the family, and became leader of a research team in a firm called Hackbridge Electric in Hersham, which made huge transformers.
Betty, the youngest and the only daughter, was born mentally handicapped. I don’t know the exact cause, but it was said that her mother, my Granny Elizabeth Wells, had tried to abort her. The child was a terrible burden on the family. Though apparently pretty, she couldn’t speak and was given to fits and rages. My father could never have friends over to the house because of her disruptive nature. At a young age she was placed in a home for the handicapped, but when Granny Wells went to visit her, she was filled with such remorse that she brought the child back home. Betty eventually died at the age of twenty-seven. It’s my belief that Betty had a powerful impact on my father, coloring forever his perceptions of women as being somewhat needy and fragile.
After the 1914–18 war, there was a subsidy scheme for young people wanting to buy houses. My grandfather, David, applied for and received a grant of £70. He bought a plot in Pleasant Place, Hersham, and with his sons and some builder friends he built a two-story house he called “Deldene.” It was primitive: three small bedrooms upstairs, plus a living room, scullery, and an outside toilet. Fireplaces were the only source of heat, and the one in the living room had a trivet, which swung into or away from the fire, upon which a kettle was placed for boiling water or cooking. Next to it was a cast-iron baking oven, which, as I recall, was also heated by the fire. There was a bath of sorts—a pump took water from the copper tank downstairs and conveyed it to a tub—but the water was only lukewarm. My dad and his brothers preferred to swim in the rivers Mole, Thames, and Wey for their ablutions. Having covered themselves in soap, they would plunge into the river and rinse the suds away.
Dad received a scholarship to go to Tiffin Grammar School in nearby Kingston, and he enjoyed his time there very much. His first job was at the Hackbridge Electric Factory, presumably before his brother Bob made his way up the corporate ladder there. Dad disliked Hackbridge intensely. It was hot, dirty, noisy—there was no fresh air and he felt trapped indoors. He began drifting around building sites, working as a journeyman/craftsman with his father. Sadly, Dad’s father, David, died at the age of forty-five, from colon cancer.
After a while Dad had to return to factory work because there was much unemployment and it was hard to get building jobs. He became a mechanic, but took evening classes at Kingston Tech in order to obtain his building certificate. Later, when his mother suggested he should follow in Frank’s footsteps and earn more money, he passed his teacher’s qualification finals with distinction. He became a full-time teacher at age twenty-four on Boxing Day, December 26, 1932. On the very same day, at St. Peter’s Church in Hersham, he and my mother were married.
My mother once told me that Granny Julia had said to her on her deathbed, “Whatever you do, don’t marry Ted Wells.” It was probably because he was so very poor. Mum also told me that she married Dad because he was a rock, because he adored her, and because it was safe.
Dad was officially a “practical handicrafts teacher,” giving lessons in woodwork, metalwork, basic construction, engineering, and so on, but he subbed for other teachers—teaching math, English literature, and grammar. The schools weren’t big enough to employ a full-time specialist teacher, so he spent one day a week at each of various schools, bicycling some two hundred miles a week from Hersham to other villages in Surrey. He taught evening classes as well. At one time he owned a motorcycle, but he sold it in order to help my mother and Aunt Joan keep a roof over their heads after the death of their father.
Part-time and substitute teachers were only paid by the hour. At the end of the 1932 term, he took home the princely sum of £11, which had to last until the end of the following month—two months in all. Eventually he was offered a full-time position at the school in Shere. His pupils were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen; boys, who were old enough to be responsible handling dangerous equipment, but who, in many cases, were mere country lads with plenty of natural teenage aggression. Dad was good with them all. Being an amateur boxer, he could take on any one of them, and a couple of times he almost had to. He played football with them, kept them interested. He earned their respect and was a popular teacher.
My mother augmented their meager income by giving piano lessons and performing. Aunt Joan, ever-present, had started her own dancing school at a place in Walton, which was Miss LeMarchand’s Primary School by day, but accommodated her classes in the afternoons and evenings. She, too, added to the coffers by moving in with my parents when they rented a small house called “Threesome”—so named perhaps because of their joint occupancy.
How they managed I’ll never know, but somehow they were even able to take the odd vacation—usually on the South Coast around Bognor. More often than not, “Uncle Bill” Wilby went along, too. The old car was stacked high with a te
nt, cooking utensils, a Primus stove, collapsible beach chairs, food, blankets, and pillows. There are hilarious family stories of their adventures, including the time when the Austin 7 took a countryside humpbacked bridge a little too fast. It sailed into the air and landed hard, breaking an axle and bringing most of the contents down about my father’s shoulders, pinning his face to the wheel. They were only halfway to their destination, and I gather my mother was none too pleased, sitting on the luggage at the side of the road and complaining mightily. My father flagged a ride for Mum, Aunt, and Uncle Bill and sent them on ahead, after which he trudged several miles to the local garage to seek help.
I WAS BORN on October 1, 1935, at Rodney House, Walton-on-Thames’s maternity hospital.
The very first thing that I can recall was when I was perhaps two or three. I remember standing in the middle of the staircase, neither up nor down, and telling my mother that I wanted to go to the bathroom.
“Well, come on down,” she said, to which I replied, “No.”
“Go on up then,” she said.
Again, “No.”
I obviously wanted her to come and attend to me.
“Well stay there, then,” she said. So I did. And I peed in my pants.
I was wearing a little brown woolen outfit, which quickly became extremely uncomfortable. I think I had a tantrum, so nothing about the incident was successful.
THERE ISN’T AN awful lot about my mother that I recall from my earliest years, other than it seemed to me she was away quite often.
I do, however, remember very specific things about my dad…wonderful things. He treated me and my siblings as his beloved companions, never dismissing or talking down to us. When one or other of us provoked, he only had to say “Look, Chick—” in a patient, weary voice, and we would understand and back off. He told me later in his life that he had once whacked my brother Johnny—and when the boy said, pleadingly, “No more, Daddy, please,” he had been devastated and vowed never to do it again. And he didn’t.
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