My 5th birthday was in August 1958, and became 7 in August 1960. A lot went on in this period, both for me and in the wider world.
These years saw the first commercial transatlantic jet flight by a de Havilland Comet, the start of BBC’s Grandstand, Blue Peter and Juke Box Jury, the opening of the Preston by-pass (Britain’s first motorway) by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the Notting Hill race riots, opening of the first Little Chef diner and launch of Dr Marten’s Air Wair boots, the first Paddington book by Michael Bond, and the launch of the revolutionary Mini (car).
Margaret Thatcher and Jeremy Thorpe were first elected to parliament, Prince Andrew was born, Lonnie Donegan’s ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ reached No 1 in the charts, and 60,000 CND protestors, including Bertrand Russell, demonstrate in Trafalgar Square against nuclear weapons. Plus lots of stuff happened outside the UK, for example Castro’s revolution in Cuba, the first credit card, integrated circuit and computer game, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens were all killed in accidents, the Dalai Llama escaped from Tibet to India, first US soldiers were sent to Vietnam, there was the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was abducted from Argentina, Hitchcock’s Psycho was released, and many African nations obtained their independence from the UK or France.
But none of this made any impact on my life in Barnstaple.
The family
We still lived on very little money. Dad’s business, Atlantic Coast Studios, moved to Barnstaple, which meant he was away a bit less. But I note that so many of my diary entries are about what Dad was doing, and never about Mum.
Dad’s projects tended to be ways of saving money by making things – toys to sell at Christmas, masses of DIY around the house and so on. So he was always busy doing stuff, and Mum was always busy doing stuff too. They were both incredibly energetic people, but I can’t remember either of them doing activities with us except when we were on holiday, or when we went on outings to the beach. We were left to our own devices, which was just fine.
Pat was 12 and 13 at this time, and still suffering so much from asthma.
More on Pat around this time!
The not-particularly-sad announcement of the death of Brian’s rabbit on June 25th 1959. Brian’s was black, while my rabbit was brown (or grey) and white and was called Loppity. They lived in the shed in hutches that were far too small. I used to go out and cuddle Loppity after I had been told off for something, but he/she didn’t get much attention, although they were occasionally let out onto the lawn.
I have no memory of where this photo was taken, or how we got to play on an old Austin Seven. I’m 2nd from left, Brian on far right, no idea who the others are.
But I didn’t play with Brian much, as the 3+ year age-gap was far too big – this must have been a rare occasion I was allowed to be there.
Playing with friends
Even when I was 4 I used to go out on my own to play with friends who lived in Trafalgar Lawn. Jonathan Smeddle lived at No 3, while the big house at No 4 was divided into flats.
No 4 Trafalgar Lawn in 2004 – now the Masonic Lodge. David Evans lived in the top flat, and he actually had a TV, and I used to go there and watch Boots and Saddles – the start of an overwhelming diet of American cowboy programmes that filled my childhood.
The extension of the left was the home of a rather shapeless old lady in baggy stockings, like a Monty Python woman, who rejoiced under the name of Mrs Trollope. I remember running past her door in fear, but she was occasionally kind and threw sweets out of the window when we were playing outside. I suppose there must have once been a Mr Trollope.
The VAN! Transport at last
The family finally got mobile when Dad got a Ford Thames 300E van in 1958, registration 98 ATT – a good Devon number plate. Three gears, a crank handle, and someone had to sit in the back on a cushion. I loved sitting in the front seats, presumably on Mum’s lap, with no seat-belts of course.
The van featured in many diary entries.
This is what the van actually looked like, although ours had a cream lower half.
Playing on my own
I spent a lot of time playing on my own. I spent ages driving cars around the floor, but also had complex battles with model soldiers and knights, in which everyone ended up dead. I had an extensive collection of small teddy-bears – Mum gave me a cake-stand that made a perfect bunk-bed for two of them, just as I shared with Brian, and she provided fitted bedding too. I don’t remember ever doing anything ‘creative’, just living out a fantasy world.
Getting around
I inherited my tricycle from Pat – as in the picture. I really loved that machine.
Pat remembers that once the tricycle got stolen from outside the library, and Mum reported it to the police, and amazingly they found it up at Forches Estate. They presumably knew who to go to.
I had a library card, and from around 5 or 6 I used to go to the library on my own, as I didn’t need to cross any roads. It was ½ mile, and mainly through Rock Park and along Taw Vale – a really pleasant route which I must have done so many times, I knew every mark and line on the pavement. Apparently I was too small to be visible and so the assistants would just see the books appear on the counter, and exchange them for my library cards. I was rather a fixture there, and I think they sent me a birthday card.
It looks like I was about to get a ‘new’ bike in May 1960, aged 6. A two-wheeler, as I had learned to ride on Trafalgar Lawn on a friend’s bike – I remember falling off a few times, but then the exhilaration of realising I could ride a proper bike.
Television at last!
I think we got TV in 1958 – in any case it had clearly broken down by March 1960. We were connected to ‘the Relay’ (British Relay Wireless and Television), which was an early cable TV! We paid for this separately, and allowed us to get BBC and ITV without our own aerial. The device had a small screen and of course was only black-and-white, and worked off valves and so you had to turn it on a few minutes before you wanted to watch it, to let it ‘warm up’.
I watched as much TV as possible, particularly the vast diet of cowboy programmes that was screened then; Boots and Saddles, Lone Ranger, Bronco, Wells Fargo, Tenderfoot (called Sugarfoot originally in the US), Laramie, Bonanza, Rawhide (with a young Clint Eastwood), and even Wagon Train, although that had women in it and didn’t have enough shooting. These shows were produced by the hundred, and their restricted budgets could not manage the scenes we really relished, with hordes of whooping ‘Indians’ chasing a stage-coach before the cavalry arrive. I can still sing some of the theme music – not difficult for the Lone Ranger, which I so enjoyed watching nearly 30 years later with young Kate.
Outings and Holidays
Now we had a van, we bought a brown camouflaged ex-army bell tent, which I think must have been a WW2 Mark 5 circular tent, designed to house 1 commanding officer, or 15 men. It was a big effort for Mum and Dad to put it up on their own, requiring a tape measure to work out where to put the pegs, and a 3 meter pole in the middle. It was made of thick brown canvas, and so was always dark inside. Total weight was 40kg.
And then we had ancient wood and metal camp beds – the sort of thing that Baden Powell used in the Boer War. And we took a wooden chest for holding kitchen stuff and cooking on – it all must have been backbreaking work, so no wonder we tended to stay somewhere and not move again. I supposed we kids were supposed to help, but were probably just a nuisance.
The pole fitted into the grommet (as in Wallace) fitted into the canvas, and one night in a storm the grommet broke and the tent collapsed over us. I can’t remember being particularly alarmed, and hardly woke up as we were still dry. But the search for a new grommet was talked about for ages.
Seeing this reminds me that I used to sleep along the front seat of the van, while Brian slept in the back. But eventually we must have got some more camp beds and we moved into the tent.
The idea of a caravan was clearly an optimistic thought, as I thought sleeping in a caravan would be the ultimate pleasure. We never did get one.
I enjoyed camping. Mum and Dad were enthusiastic tourists and we would trail round local sights, especially if they were free, but we got dragged around ‘stately homes’ so presumably paid for these. I don’t think we ever ate out, but had an occasional ice cream. The children were included in the budgeting, and we all conspired to spend as little as possible.
There were day-trips as well. I do remember the excitement of going to Exeter, 40 miles away. There was my first excalator, and then the stuffed giraffe in the museum.
On the road to Exeter, the big treat was to spot the ‘old man’. He was a famous local character, who lived in a caravan in a field near Umberleigh, but used to spend his whole time by the side of the road, usually wrapped up in oilskins. There was no pavement, and he is supposed to have been knocked down at least once. I remember stories that he had been a crossword-puzzle setter or similar, who had had a breakdown.
Anyway, one day he was not there any more, and the trip to Exeter lost some of its interest.
I was attending Sunday School, and this diary entry must have been an outing to Westward Ho in July 1959. The vehicle I am struggling to portray was presumably a green Southern National double-decker. There must have been a mob of small kids running wild, and I suspect not many adults.