HOLIDAYS

At the age of four, during the summer I was taken to the seaside for two weeks. Our location was a chalet on stilts at a small resort near Clacton. The holiday appeared to start out in dull weather. On arrival, the sun came out and remained for almost every moment of my waking day. My mother had the knack of managing the best two weeks of sunshine for the entire year.

  I was fascinated with the basic living conditions; water came from a communal standpipe in the dirt road. There was no mains drainage; water from the washing-up was simply chucked on the garden. What fascinated me more was the lavatory. Each dwelling had its own shed at the bottom of the garden; inside was what appeared to be a small oil drum with a wooden lavatory seat on top. To get the bucket collected you needed to display a letter C on the front of your chalet. Early in the morning, a group of men came round with a vehicle that resembled a large dustcart and dealt with the bucket. It was possibly at that moment I decided on a line of work when I grew up. An engine driver was not for me; this early morning work was going to be my choice.

A small local shop was available to buy all the groceries we needed. Most mornings I was treated to bacon and egg, fried almost in the open air compared with the dusty air of London. The breakfasts were wonderful. The other favourite treat was to have a small mousse that came as a small frozen block. There were instructions to let it thaw for a period before eating. I never managed to let it completely thaw before eating it.

I had inherited the skill of being able to stay out in the sun without getting sunburnt. My skin never turned red, it went from my slightly tanned look to almost dark brown in a matter of days. To keep the sun off the back of my neck, I was equipped with a desert-type cap with long white flowing tail and a clear green see-through visor. It worked for most of the time, however my active play meant it was often off.

Eventually the holiday ended and we returned to London. It was another year before we returned for a second two weeks’ holiday, and again for most days my mother had managed to pick fine weather.

One problem with holidays and longer journeys with my mother was coach travel. With a limited budget, travel by coach was often the only solution. Knowing my difficulties lasting on a coach journey of three hours or more without visiting the lavatory, my mother had solved the problem until I was five by insisting that I wear waterproof pants under my trousers. After a protest from me, I was soon told it was either obey her or not go on holiday. I followed the orders but they never were needed.

Travel sickness always affected me. Even if I had apparently not eaten for many hours, my ability to produce an amount of sick that gave the impression I had recently had a massive meal was always a mystery. Often our journey would end at that point, sometimes miles from anywhere. Following such an incident our travel was often by local bus. I was completely fine from that point on.

HOW TO PASS THE TIME

In the flat in London if my grandmother was busy I was quite content to look out of the front window to see what was going on outside. If we had been on a main road, there would have been plenty to see, but as our road was quiet I had to pick certain times of the day to look outside. The rag and bone man was possibly the most interesting; as we were almost at the end of a road he often used to stop to see if there was any other trade around before turning into the next road. None of the adults had been able to explain why he was still called a rag and bone man. Although he might accept old clothing and rags, there were no bones on his horse-drawn cart.

On occasions when I had been out shopping, I had been allowed to pat the head of his horse. The call that he yelled out as he went along the road was simply not something I could understand, until on one of the occasions that I was patting his horse he explained that the call was for the goods he was after. Some people used to leave things on the kerb for him to collect. Almost opposite there was an old lavatory cistern that had been left out, I was waiting to see him pick it up. A man walking along the pavement glanced down at the cistern, possibly wondering what such a thing was doing in the middle of the pavement, and did not notice the lamp post that he now walked into.

  My earliest experimentation with electricity must have been at the age of around five. I was fascinated by the shapes of light that were made in the electric fire. Part of the fire had a plastic type of cover that was meant to represent coal. To give the effect of the coal burning, a couple of bulbs were inside that gave a reddish glow. At some point, I had managed to remove the coal-effect part, followed by one of the two bulbs.

The fire had not been on for very long so it was only warm to the touch. Soon the bulb was in my hand. Looking at the end I saw that it had three small lugs on the end, rather than the normal two I had noticed on other light bulbs. For curiosity, I now put my finger into the area where the bulb had been removed from. At this young age all I could describe was the feeling of a person grabbing you and immediately jolting you. For a short while, I was rather stunned. There was no real pain, just an odd shaking sensation; I replaced the bulb, followed by the cover. There was no feeling that I wanted to cry, it was just a stunned sensation. Keeping quiet saved me from getting into any trouble. None of the adults found out about my latest bit of inquisitiveness. The 240 volts that went into me for that short moment could have done real harm, but at that age, I simply put it down to curiosity.

Continued

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