The world I was born into

During my life the world has turned from analogue to digital, from writing letters to WhatsApp, from black-and-white to colour (actually this is not true, it was colour back them too).  But it all happened slowly in real time, so it’s only by looking back is the magnitude of the changes made clear, like climbing a long hill.

My birth

I was born on August 16, 1953 at the Highfield Maternity Home at the top of Victoria Road, Barnstaple.  Dad wrote in the family history, “I do remember we had had friends in for a meal that evening and I noticed Fay getting a bit uncomfortable as the evening progressed, but it was not until they had left that she said she thought she ought to be getting up to Highfield. Typical of Fay that as we had no car at the time, she walked rather than let me call a taxi. She made it safely and David was born later that night, again to the formula of “mother and baby are both doing well”. “  Dad presumably stayed home to look after the other children, so did Mum really walk on her own?  That would be typical of Mum, who would not admit of any weakness in herself (and was not very good at dealing with it in others).

It still seems rather transgressive to think of one’s own conception – it’s not only teenagers who find it difficult to think of their parents having sex.  It must have occurred in late November 1952, when Mum and Dad were living with minimal heating in The Lodge, Trafalgar Lawn, Barnstaple (see later).  And maybe my existence is explained by the weather: “The month had a very cold second half with snow and some severe frosts; very cold overall. .. It was probably the snowiest November in England since 1919.” 

What was going on in the world I came into?

When I was born in August 1953, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister, Elizabeth II had just been crowned, and the country was still living in the shadow of WW2, although sadly there were no bomb sites to play on in Barnstaple.  Rationing of sweets, sugar and butter had ended earlier in the year, but meat was rationed until 1954 (by cost rather than weight, at 1s 2d a week, around £3.50 in current terms) and bread did not come ‘off the ration’ until 1955.  It was simply unthinkable to leave food on your plate (and for me it still is).

It was an good year for books. The first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, had been published in April by Ian Fleming, closely followed by the more important first Molesworth book, Down with Skool, by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle.  New films included Calamity Jane, Roman Holiday, Disney’s Peter Pan, and It came from Outer Space.  Crick and Watson announced they’d discovered the structure of DNA, the first summit of Everest was achieved by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, and John Christie had been hanged for the murders at 10 Rillington Place a month before I was born.  More positive developments included the start of the Samaritans phoneline by Chad Varah, and the introduction of Matchbox toy cars by Lesney (see later).   Those born included Andrew Wiles (mathematician), Sebastian Faulks (novelist), Tony Blair, Michael Portillo, Diane Abbott, Peter Mandelson and Alistair Darling (politicians), Victoria Wood, Les Dennis, Gryff Rhys Jones (comedians), Mark Thatcher (convicted criminal).  And me.

In the wider world, Dwight D Eisenhower was inaugurated as 34^th President of the United States, Joseph Stalin died, the Korean War ended with no peace treaty and the country divided roughly as it had been in 1950, there was a CIA- and UK-backed coup in Iran against the democratically-elected government in favour of the Shah, and Jomo Kenyatta was sentenced to 7 years in prison for the alleged organization of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya.

All this was a long way away from The Lodge, Trafalgar Lawn, Barnstaple.

My family

The video below shows me as a solidly-built baby and toddler. It was mainly taken by Dad, and features Mum, my older brother Brian (then 3) and sister Pat (then 7), and Scrubber the cat (who was male).   The beach shots are easily recognised as Croyde, and feature Dad with hair.

Christmas 1955.  At the Tomlinson’s in Park Lane, where we always went at Christmas. Left-to-right; Mum, me on Dad’s lap, Dad, Brian, Granny Baker (see below), Pat in front of Mavis Tomlinson, Aunt Wo (Rosemary). 

I’ve got my thumb in my mouth, a habit that left me with protruding front teeth and having to endure a brace later.

Our home

We lived right next to a main road into Barnstaple, with a kitchen door opening directly onto the pavement.  Mum used to put me on the pavement in a little orange chair so I could watch the traffic go past, which I loved. People used to stop and ask if I was alright, which of course I was, although must have breathed in some fearsome fumes – petrol still had lead added to it. I wish I had a video of the traffic going past in the mid 1950s – no wonder I got to know every make and model of car in great detail. I describe my childhood obsession with cars elsewhere, but I knew all the makes, and Mum apparently used to push me around car-parks to keep me happy. 

Plan of the Lodge, showing the alterations when Mum and Dad moved there in 1950(?).  The ‘whited’ areas of the plan also showed later construction of a third bedroom, but when I was small there were 5 of us living in a small 2-bedroomed bungalow.  We three kids were in a room around 9’ by 11’ (3 by 3.5 metres) – Brian and I were in a bunk, and Dad built a partition so that Pat had her own space, barely larger than her bed.

We had a gas stove, and a Rayburn which was constantly warm.  There was a lower section which was for warming plates, and the door was left open and Scrubber that cat used to sleep in there.  He even had a blanket, which I think caught fire at some point. 

I do remember baths on Sunday evening, once a week whether we needed it or not. Pat had first go, and then Brian and I shared the water afterwards.

There was one paraffin heater in the sitting room, and there were some small electric fires in the bedrooms, but I can’t remember them ever being used.   So it must have been cold until we got central heating.

Mum did all the work in the garden – it had previously been the tip of a butcher, so there were piles of sheep’s skulls, and lots of pieces of broken crockery, which fascinated me, as I always dreamt of reconstructing something, but never found matching pieces.

There was no lock on the front door, and just an inside bolt that got closed at night.  So during the day the house was left unlocked, which at least meant no worry about keys.

Grandparents 

My Grandparents lived next door to each other about a hundred yards up the road, an arrangement I thought was the norm for everyone.  Gladys and Cecil, Dad’s parents, lived in No 9 Newport Terrace and Lottie (Charlotte), my mother’s mother, lived in No 10.  Dad’s mother was known as ‘More Gran’ (heaven knows why), and Mum’s mother was known as ‘Granny Baker’.  Cecil was just Grandad, and I remember being a bit nervous visiting him. See the family history section for more on my grandparents.

This arrangement happened because Gladys’ father had owned the whole terrace, but gradually over the years the properties had been mortgaged and sold.  The remaining property was No 10, and it was convenient for Granny Baker to rent it. 

Money

We had very little.   Dad was scraping a living in an art and design business Atlantic Coast Studios in Bideford, commuting 9 miles every day by bus.  Dad later wrote: “we were chronically short of cash.  This is one of the reasons that we are woefully short of photographs of David as a baby, but fortunately a few exist in colour on cine film. Looking back I find it hard to understand how Fay managed to cope on such short commons. There was physical help from Fay’s mother, just up the road, and gifts from the family, but the bulk of the burden fell on Fay, with less assistance from me than there should have been, I am sorry to say, considering the matter in retrospect.”  [link to Dad’s memoirs]

Nobody else had much either, and we lived the slightly meagre middle-class existence that was so common then.   I never felt deprived of anything, but it did make me rather frugal, and I am still trying to overcome that.

Growing up

My sister Pat reports that I used to sleep in a wooden cot in Mum and Dad’s room, and once got my head stuck between the bars, resulting in “a red-faced baby screaming its head off ‘.  I then learned to pull myself up on the bars, and progressed to a wooden play-pen where “we could all throw toys into the ‘cage’ periodically to keep you occupied!”

I used a lot of baby-words, which stuck in the family and were still around decades later – Mum used them until she died.  Pat reminded me of Hoo (hot), Blummie (car), Woo (water), Ging Ging (Fire engine), Wooty-wooty (red Indian). Just saying them now brings back a feeling of years ago.

Entertainment

We didn’t get a TV until 1958, when I was five.  My parents used to go take it in turns to go to the cinema regularly – Barnstaple had the Regal and the Gaumont, each showing double bills, changing twice a week, requiring a huge output of (generally mediocre) films.    

The family did not used to go to Saturday Morning pictures, which was considered a bit common.

The great treat was listening to ‘Childrens Favourites’ presented by Uncle Mac (Derek McCulloch) on the BBC Light Programme (later to be Radio 2) on Saturday mornings.  He used to play all the wonderful novelty songs – The Runaway Train, Nellie the Elephant, The Laughing Policeman and so on (although I have always found the last one rather disturbing), which I subsequently imposed on the children.  With no means of recording the programme, that was the only opportunity there was to hear these songs. 

We did have a ‘gramophone’, which only plated 78 rpm records, made of brittle shellac.  We even had the ghastly Laughing Policeman as a 78, until I broke it.   But it was only used for comic songs, and Mum only ever listened to the Light Programme.  We were not a cultured family.

Pat reports that I used to have long involved tea-parties for my teddy bears, using a tablecloth on the floor and Pat’s yellow porcelain dolls tea-set (of which I think I have a faint memory).  It kept me occupied for hours.

The images below show that Mum was energetic in her fancy-dress designs. I presume I am Noddy, although I look particularly gormless.  Brian and Pat had clearly had a lot of care taken over their costumes.

Holidays

Health

In my first week I was apparently taken to Exeter for a blocked tear duct – I wonder how we got there? Then it was taken for granted that we would get all the infections early on; mumps, measles, chicken pox, etc. In the UK in 1953, there were around 500,000 cases of measles, and around 242 deaths, presumably mostly children.

There was a small slope between the dining-room and the kitchen and when I was 3 I fell over when I was carrying a glass, and there was blood everywhere.  I think I have some memory of being pushed to Casualty at the North Devon Infirmary, which was just down the road.  I had stitches in my right ring-finger, and there is still an obvious scar and the top joint does not function properly.  

Religion

David Armstrong, a kind bachelor with a chronic laugh, was the family retainer for the Chanters who lived in a big house nearby – he had been Major Chanter’s batman in the war and now looked after the family.  He was apparently once linked with Aunt Wo.

John Waterhouse a friend of Mum and Dad who was an actor and playwright. Pat remembers “I was about 3 and Dad was making records and l think he, mum and John were acting short plays which maybe John had written, and may have been recording them. They were all reading their parts and Dad was doing the sound effects.  Lots of heavy music, much noise and John laughing hysterically. John moved away, but for a long time he continued to send me a 2/6 postal order on my birthday, and I remember the effort of writing thank-you letters, which has fortunately become easier with email.

From his 2013 obituary in the Cyprus Mail, he had some success, wrote farces, co-wrote a 1963 London Palladium show The Man in the Moon, starring Charlie Drake (now mainly remembered for his novelty song My Boomerang Won’t Come Back), and wrote the script for the film She’ll Have To Go featuring Bob Monkhouse, Alfred Marks, Hattie Jacques and (bizarrely) Anna Karina, Jean-Luc Godard’s wife and star of the French New Wave.  Unfortunately, the Radio Times Guide to Film describes the script as ‘slipshod’, although I watched it recently and there were some genuinely funny bits.