The Gin Palace

 

Picture Palaces may have offered my mother and her sisters a taste of the kind of luxury that was totally absent from their impecunious lives in the 1920s and 1930s but for the previous generation or two, for the women of the late Victorian era that degree of lavish opulence was only to be easily found in the rather more socially challenging Gin Palace.   Whilst her daughters were to fantasise about unlikely encounters with the stars of the silver screen, Old Nan Constant considered such notions as Silly as Cats’ Lights and had always found her own solace and consolation by getting up close to the sumptuous interiors offered by purveyors of alcoholic beverages.   

Day to day life lived of necessity in surroundings that could at best be described as neglected, at worst as squalid, confidently led to a degree of alcohol dependence for some.   My maternal grandparents Margaret and Edgar Constant were definitely in that category, my grandmother at the forefront.   The little Constants were accustomed to being regularly left to their own devices whilst their parents drank in the nearest place that proffered mirrored walls and etched windows along with the tipple of their choice.   Their largely uncomplaining offspring were quite familiar with feelings of hunger.  The oldest two, Maggie and my mother, Nellie, frequently talked among themselves about food and how once they were grown-up they were going to learn to cook and would do so on a regular basis.   For their parents the sole place of relaxation over a decade or more was to be the gin palace or what passed for it in the local neighbourhood.   To step from the grimy pavements of North Kent onto gleaming tiles and into often quite exotic interiors was to leave life’s tribulations behind.  This the couple did on a regular basis.   Excusable perhaps for my grandmother who had spent large periods of her young life in the East End of London where her own mother, another Margaret grew to adulthood completely at ease among such places together with the Music Halls of the mid-Victorian era.

It is not completely clear when the Public-Houses of London, as distinguished from hotels, inns, chop houses and coffee rooms underwent the change necessary to transform from dingy abodes with sawdust strewn floors into something lofty and splendid.   There is no clear point when painted deal was lifted to polished mahogany, when small crooked panes of glass became magnificent crystal sheets, when basic, useful fittings were exchanged for luxurious adornments.  But along with these sensational conversions the middle aged, white aproned, overweight bartender also vanished and made way for smart young women, well dressed and smiling behind the bar.  These women were much envied by many of the female clientele and my grandmother longed to stand alongside them.  Just imagine working in a place where even the potboys were all at once handsome and dashing with cleaner aprons and more purposeful gaits than previously.

The very first purpose-built premises for the sale of gin had emerged in the late 1820s and before that the gin shops were quite small, often originally chemist shops as gin previously had medicinal associations.   Legislation had to change in order for purveyors of ale and wine to include it in their repertoire. The resultant and greatly anticipated saloons were based upon and emulated the smart new shops also being built at the time and fitted out at great expense with gas lights which a great many people considered to be vulgar.  Nevertheless this new-fangled lighting became hugely popular and Charles Dickens described it as perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the previous darkness that had prevailed for decades.  Little wonder then that Old Nan would later recall that her own mother and grandmother rushed hell for leather into the places that demonstrated it when it at last reached Bethnal Green.  But of course, as always the stories from the lips of our predecessors are half lost because they are never told at a time when we are most interested.  

Whatever the range of initial reactions from our antecedents, the newly created and ultra-smart habitations of gin vendors were central to ensuring that young women like Maggie Rearden and her future daughter were destined for a more exciting life or that is the way they came to view it.   Old Nan when in extreme old age still spoke glowingly of the most prominent of these bastions of alcohol.  Her most favoured still stand today and it is hard to know how much their magnificence has diminished over the years.   The Argyll Arms remains at Oxford Circus, originally built in 1742, parts of the place are scarcely changed from late Victorian times.  The mirrors which miraculously survived the Blitz are impressively massive.  The separated drinking areas still speak of the social divides of long ago when the upper and lower classes must not cross paths.   The place boasts spectacular wood and glasswork and rare surviving original fittings.  Maggie and Edgar, regularly frequented the place when en route to the races.

The Flying Horse that was once upon a time The Tottenham stands on the Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road corner.   Fondly recalled by my grandmother as also a Music Hall, the influence can still be seen in its design.  The Flemish Renaissance style of the exterior leads to a highly ornate interior with fine painted ceiling and elaborate murals of voluptuous nymphs by the celebrated Felix de Jong the leading Music Hall decorative artist of the times.   Old Nan recalled seeing the great Vesta Tilley there and sat alongside her mother as a small girl being as good and quiet as possible.

It is said that pub enthusiasts travel far and wide to see the stunning Viaduct Tavern in Holborn.   It was a favourite drinking place for special occasions for my Great Grandparents from soon after it first opened in 1869 and was conveniently situated by St Paul’s and therefore easily reached from Bethnal Green for a special night out.  Remodelling was carried out thirty years later and presided over by Arthur Dixon, a leading light in the Arts & Crafts Movement.  The exterior curves elegantly around a now frenetically busy corner and the interior is packed full with etched glass panels and large portraits that represent agriculture, banking and the arts.  There is an original Lincrusta ceiling, much admired at the time and a cashier’s booth where tokens were exchanged in days gone by to purchase gin or ale because the staff were not trusted to handle cash. 

My own feeling is that The Princess Louise in Holborn is still the most beautiful pub in London and a stunning example of what Victorian extremes could deliver.    It was built in the 1870s by the top craftsmen of the day and has more recently been recreated with outstanding authenticity.   Within there is an astonishing abundance of bright, fruit shaped tiles, glasswork and gilt mirrors.   For gentlemen a visit to the basement lavatory is a must to see the original tiled walls and fittings.

And still from London and still one of its most dazzling drinking places, The Punch Tavern in Fleet Street cannot be overlooked.   It was rebuilt in all its opulent glory in the 1890s by architects Saville and Martin and its extravagance is immediately apparent with the glazed tiled entrance and barrel-vaulted skylights leading to a bar that largely retains the original design.   A profusion of features survive from the mosaic floor and cut glass mirrors to the sumptuous tile work, ornate painted panels and pink marble bar.   A series of original Punch & Judy themed paintings from 1897 celebrate the fact that Punch magazine was founded nearby in 1841.

In the most forward thinking of the Gin Palaces special bars were often reserved for the use of ladies although it was understood that what were seen to be the more common and vulgar females of the city would not be permitted to enter and must stand alongside the men.   This my grandmother was happy to do on most occasions but when her Edgar had a win at the races and she was as a result wearing a new hat something inside her rebelled and she was apt to saunter into the forbidden areas, generally not being challenged.

 Many years later when the memory of the Gin Palaces was diminishing she would smile when speaking of them because they were magical places, allowing those at the very bottom of the social heap to effortlessly enter into dream worlds where anything was possible.  Even in the 1950s she maintained that you could keep your Picture Palaces because they were not a patch on the Gin Palaces from way back.   Anyone who disagreed was as Silly as Cats’ Lights.    Now I wish I had asked more questions!

Palaces For The Proletariat

I really can’t remember when Going to the Pictures, a term we were all familiar with, became Going to the Movies and sounded a lot more upwardly mobile.    Any cinema visit was certainly always referred to as the former when I was a child and well into my teenage years.   We York Roaders were avid Goers as and when we could afford to do so, whichever term was used.

In Northfleet there was only one cinema and it was called The Wardona and very popular with children because of the regular Saturday morning Picture Shows.   For sixpence apiece patrons aged four years and over could be seated by 9am and ready to enjoy the exploits of various cowboy heroes plus a number of lively cartoon shows, emerging into daylight again just a few minutes before noon.    Not that I was allowed to take part in this reliable weekend entertainment as often as I would have liked, the sixpenny charge being apparently Daylight Robbery.   Quite apart from that it was likely to be the Ruin of my eyes.    As I grew older I began to understand the reasons why the robbery by daylight seemed to apply more to us than others but the business of eye damage that my mother knew about and other mothers did not remained mysterious.

According to my grandmother The Wardona had started life as The Astoria and first opened in December 1929.   In its heyday it had an attached dance hall and a café that attracted couples from far and wide on Saturday evenings.   On weekdays after school, girls with mothers who were keen on them learning Ballet or Tap or sometimes both, had their regular dance lessons there.   I envied them just as much as I envied the Saturday morning picture goers but of course these activities were naturally enough another avenue where thieves and raiders lurked in daylight.

The first film I actually remember seeing was Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs in which the evil Queen managed to completely terrify me with the aid of her horrifying magic mirror.   My next major emotional trauma came via Bambi a little later when the forest fire and the fawn’s pitiful calling for his mother had me sobbing hysterically for more than a week.  I think at that stage my own mother began to re-assess the wisdom of these afternoon treats that were supposed to ensure that the mid-war years were more agreeable.   Our next matinee viewing concerned Mrs Miniver during which I was simply bored and complained bitterly enough to ensure that she was not able to benefit as much from the extravagance as she had anticipated.

We saw none of the above at The Wardona but always ventured further afield taking a bus trip into Gravesend.   There were four cinemas in Gravesend, The Super, The Plaza, The Regal and The Majestic and as far as my mother was concerned The Majestic was the grandest of them all.   She was often heard to say that there was no doubt whatsoever that they were issued the very best of the available films and the place itself was not only always clean and tidy with the ash trays reliably emptied on a daily basis, but you could listen to the wonderful Wurlitzer Organ just like the one played by Reginald Dixon at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.    In fact the organ she referred to was a Compton with a fully illuminated console and a grand piano attachment and it was by no means played on a daily basis.  The theatre had first opened in October 1931 with a film called Rookery Nook, starring a long-forgotten actor called Ralph Lynn.   Over the years it was to have a number of owners and changes of name but was always known to us as The Majestic. 

Over time the frisson of excitement associated with the place continued and the greatest thrill of all was going to see something special on a Friday or Saturday evening with both my parents whilst my brother was Minded by Mrs Bassant next door.   Then we might have to join a long queue outside and could observe the important looking usher in his striped trousers and black jacket strutting up and down and advising in loud tones that there were Seats In All Places.   This was a very reassuring cry because we were perpetually anxious that the much dreaded House Full sign would be displayed before our tickets were firmly purchased.

Films my father agreed to see were generally of a more edifying nature than those appealing to my mother who didn’t really mind what she saw because the occasion itself was sufficiently energising especially with a bag of sugared almonds in her purse.   Either way I remember The Grapes of Wrath, Rope and Miracle on 34^th Street.  However, the intricacies of most of what we saw simply passed me by with the exception of Fantasia which my father and I saw together one afternoon and where I was totally captivated by the music.

Old Nan, whose fondness for field work wherever it was available throughout the county, said she didn’t think The Majestic was much cop compared with the likes of The Pavilion Picture Palace that opened before the First World War in the very centre of Maidstone.  Her Edgar had taken her there on many a Saturday night during the Hopping Season.   And to be fair even that place, grand thought it was, didn’t have the edge always present at the old Scala in Dartford where she first saw film clips from the first World War.   What a Saturday night that had been to be sure, seeing their boys in the very process and action of war.  There in front of you so you could see with your own eyes and not have to look around for somebody who could read.  My grandmother, never having attended school at any stage in her life, was completely illiterate and as children we unkindly saw this as the bane of our lives when we were required to read the Daily Mirror headlines to her.

  But none of these places were a patch on that magnificent and breathtaking structure in North West London, the legendary Gaumont State, because that was a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one and undoubtedly fit for royalty should they ever decide to go there.  In fact The State seated an astonishing 4000 and its illuminated tower could be seen for miles around.  Its aim was to provide a comfortable and effortless pathway into the golden and glamourous world of Hollywood, a place that by then sat firmly adjacent to paradise for much of the clientele.

  The interior was designed in the ever more opulent style of the times ensuring that even those at the very bottom of the social heap such as us were afforded a glimpse of sumptuous magnificence simply by entering.  And although my grandmother might have initially doubted it, a visit to that celluloid world was absolutely permitted no matter which level of deprivation you sprang from.   Patrons could be certain that the staff in their splendid blue and gold uniforms would do nothing to prohibit a few hours of connection with the palatial surroundings just as long as a ticket had been purchased.

My mother was taken there by my father on the occasion of their engagement when they saw Gone With The Wind which was four hours long and they had tea and biscuits during the intermission.  The queue for tickets was so long her feet killed her in the smart new shoes with silver buckles.  But it was a worthwhile experience despite the journey on the back of the bike because she certainly was not a natural pillion passenger.   In a small way The Majestic in Gravesend put her in mind of The Gaumont State in a manner that places such as The Plaza and The Super never could.

My generation were to be suddenly and strangely much less affected by glitzy plush surroundings and were unconcerned as to how frequently ash trays were emptied.   We had no desire to put on a cloche hat over our Marcel wave and dress for a night at the picture palace.   Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino along with Greta Garbo and Mary Pickford had been flung well into the past and we had turned our attention to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Doris Day and Mitzi Gaynor,  Marlon Brando and James Dean,  singing along with them when fitting, discussing their life-styles and poring over fan magazines.    

Going to the Pictures had undergone a change and films now played as part of a continuous programme which meant that it was possible to forge a different relationship with the once glorious spaces in which we saw them.   Patrons could come and go during the day and evening and spend as much time as they liked, often watching a programme through twice.  Although Multiplex Mini-Cinemas were still well into the future, by 1958 perhaps Going to the Movies had almost arrived! 

No Aptitude for Gardening .....

Thinking back into what has definitely become the dim and distant past I have come to the conclusion that nobody in our family ever had much interest in gardening nor any real ability for it.   I can’t wholly blame this failure to engage with the wonderful world of horticulture on working class deprivation tempting though it may be because a great many of our neighbours in those narrow long ago Northfleet terraces managed to turn their little backyards into an enviable explosion of colour each year. Others produced a variety of vegetables and generously shared them with those who lacked the necessary skills to do likewise.   Our gardening skills, as previously documented in some detail, never amounted to much more than stripping Lord Darnley’s woods of primroses on a regular basis. 

Decades later when living in an idyllic acre of native bush in Kohimarama, gardening featured only on the periphery of life from time to time when the children decided they wanted to grow something and small plots had to be laboriously hewn to enable them to do so.   I took as little interest as possible but dutifully cooked and ate the resulting pumpkin and broccoli.  

Moving into this City Fringe Cutting Edge Complex once all three had definitely moved on into adult lives in various parts of the world, gardening could not have been further from my mind.   In fact it only crossed my consciousness when I noticed how others managed to make their Parnell mini-courtyards burst into radiance on a regular basis.   I needed to emulate them and so I put Himself in charge of the project and dutifully trailed behind him at the garden centre only occasionally demanding particular pieces of plant life which largely centred around the dramatic and formidable Yucca.   The information sheet warned that the Yucca was not altogether suitable as a patio plant because of the horrendous damage it could wreak upon the eyes of the unwary but I was able to ignore that advice until it actually happened.    Even then the Yucca wasn’t banished, simply treated with a great deal more respect.   Generally our courtyard was a moderate blaze of glory via Marigolds and Petunias and various other species that were reasonably drought and pest resistant together with a sensible range of kitchen herbs. 

I first noticed the difference some weeks after Himself died and I began to emerge from that initial distortion of normal life that extreme grief brings.  The Auckland Spring still hovered ahead of Summer when I sidled into Kings Garden Centre just as it opened and attempted to look confident among the astonishingly robust octogenarians collecting plant life following their regular morning summer or winter Orakei Bay swims.   I loaded my trolley with Petunias, the only patio plant I still actually recognised and then nervously checked the labels just to make sure.  An hour later and unduly anxious about the technicalities of the actual planting process I opted to simply place the Petunias in their allocated spots still in their plastic pots.

    A day or two passed before I admitted to myself that they did not look quite as eye catching as I had hoped and I hit upon what at the time seemed the brilliant idea of supplementing them with a range of plastic companions from the Two Dollar Shop.  A mere twenty-two dollars awarded me an astonishing array of blooms that appeared to have started life in the depths of the Amazon.   These I unhesitatingly and confidently planted in and around my slightly bemused looking Petunias.  Within an enviably short space of time and for very little cost I had become a courtyard horticulturist to be reckoned with and over the summer many an admiring comment was passed by impressed neighbours.    At times admittedly this was just a little embarrassing.     

          It has become rather more awkward since the sudden descent of winter which my Petunias greeted with a humiliating lack of resilience.   The comments from the keenest gardeners around me are now coming thick and fast, all impressed with my ability to tend and cultivate the vivid crop of tropical blossoms.   My aptitude for gardening is fast and alarmingly becoming legend!    

When Toys Became Politically Incorrect

   Toys were simply toys when I was a child and there were few to be found in wartime in the shops of Gravesend. That’s not to say they were totally absent of course and older boys being always drawn to catapults invariably made their own.   This fascination for weaponry had for many of them grown out of years of practice constructing bows and arrows, some of which were very effective. Many clever mothers could make Red Indian headdresses out of chicken feathers and were definitely expected to especially around Christmas time.   The less creative boys carried out in depth searches of local bomb-sites and gutters for odd lengths of wood or metal to rapidly convert into rifles and six-shooters.  Therefore the ongoing sagas of violence between various indigenous American tribes and the newcomers keen to destroy them were never in serious danger of disappearing.

   Knitting mothers turned their hands to teddy bears and there were many and varied patterns they could follow if necessary.   The particularly adventurous also produced elephants and monkeys and the unimaginative simply made snakes.     Sewing mothers trawled the haberdashery counters at Woolworths where from time to time forlorn little heaps of moulded and starched linen faces lay begging to be made into proper dolls and rescued from what looked like a serial killer’s fantasy world.   And, dare I say it, the now much maligned Gollywog was still regularly produced in the homes of Northfleet and Gravesend if the desired scraps of suitable colours could be found on the wool counter.  

   Back then we were as one totally unaware that Gollywogs should never have been permitted in any shape or form in the first place and that might have been because we did not actually see them as representing those we now call People of Colour.   Nobody bothered to kindly explain the history and provenance of these dolls to us as they might today.   If they had there is some doubt as to whether anyone would have listened.  Those thoughtless and inherently racist WW2 knitters might in a more sophisticated age have been selected for compulsory education on Woke Parenting but back then women were also busy doing shifts in factories replacing all the men already gone to war.    Considering the circumstances no-one would have seen the idea as a productive use of time and resources. 

    A number of my aunts were working at Vickers in Crayford, doing what my mother said was dangerous work and she wouldn’t do it herself for all the tea in China but they said the pay was so good it was hard to refuse.   I was glad she stayed home because those cousins with working mothers had to spend time with Old Nan being what was called Minded.   My grandmother was not terribly fond of her grandchildren and it was best to do as requested and firmly button your lip when at her house and sit as still as possible so you didn’t get what she called a Backhander.  She didn’t ever play games with us but she did talk to us about the past and said that during the First War female factory workers were called Munitionettes and that someone called Mrs Pankhurst had persuaded them to take up the work.  Mrs Pankhurst had thrown her lot in with a man called Lloyd George and for the life of her Old Nan couldn’t understand why he would trust her because being the cow she was, she had once put a bomb under his house.    She came to the conclusion it was because he was Welsh and the Welsh were known to have no sense whatsoever.   None of us found this a particularly interesting story.

   Overall we didn’t pay a great deal of attention to our grandmother’s assessments of social situations because she was known to lag well behind the times.   For instance it was to be years before she truly trusted the use of Penicillin, as late as 1950 telling us that a tea-leaf poultice for infection of any kind was as good a remedy if not better.   But much more importantly to me back then was that she had no ability or interest as a toy maker.

   My mother on the other hand was quite good at making toys when the raw materials for doing so were available though for this reason she didn’t completely blossom in this area until the post war period when her ability to produce a range of dressing up clothes out of crepe paper and old blankets impressed the entire neighbourhood.  At around this time of her creative notoriety more toys were slowly entering the country in time to fill Christmas stockings for those lucky enough to have been born into families with money to spare.   Many of them would almost certainly find themselves on the Banned list today.   Astonishingly Christmas 1948 saw a number of mechanical smoking dogs and cats.  These caused a lot of amusement though Uncle Harold said it was a bloody waste of good smokes.  As well as not understanding that Gollywogs were disgusting back then we thought that smoking was definitely acceptable if you could afford to.   I couldn’t wait to become grown-up enough to start which my cousin June said could be fourteen.

   In fact smoking was so acceptable that the toy cigarette had become much sought after and the most popular variety were those made of sugar that could be eaten before they were confiscated by the classroom teacher.   If you could acquire a discarded Wills Woodbines or Players Weights packet to contain them then all the better.   Over several years they were definitely much in vogue and when Jean Taylor and her best friend Wendy Selves somehow came by some that actually, in a truly magical manner, produced realistic smoke we were all most impressed even though they could not under any circumstances be eaten.  Keith Dyke tried to do so and was sick.  Molly from No 31 told me on the way home from school that although the smoke producing ones were interesting she would still rather have the edible variety any day of the week and I agreed with her.  

   As the war years receded factories got back into the business of producing toys once more and home made bows and arrows were among the first iconic items to be discarded for commercially produced ones.   This trend continued and toy guns for homicidally inclined young boys became many and varied.   My brother was particularly fond of those that could be loaded with reams of caps that were as noisy as possible and he happily roamed the neighbourhood with his friend of the moment, Hedley Davis, annihilating both the armed and the unarmed.  By this stage he was also the owner of various cowboy and Indian outfits courtesy of our mother which he generously shared to maintain his popularity.   Nobody expressed the slightest concern that this form of play, bent as it was largely on human destruction, was in any way undesirable.      

   In fact it was to be many years before some parents began to doubt the wisdom of it and misgivings wriggled their way into the minds of those who Meant Well.   The first time I stumbled across such reservations was at a Playgroup Mothers coffee meeting in Ladbroke Grove, West London.  It was 1970 and the end of Ladbroke Grove closest to the station had already become fashionable with the young and upwardly mobile.  The mothers were generally of the stay at home rather than go to work variety and the children all had fashionable names like Polly and Fanny or Samuel and Hugo.   One ultra-earnest young woman in a Barbour jacket who had furnished every room of her home from Habitat was gravely advising the group that she and her husband had quite decided that Oliver would not under any circumstances ever be allowed war toys and in fact at the age of four he had never expressed any desire to play with guns.   There did not seem to be overall sympathy for the stance as far as I can recall and toy guns were still one of the gifts of choice to hand out to all boys under ten. In fact it was rumoured that young Oliver was known for extreme violence towards other gun owners in his fervent desire to possess one.

  Change was definitely in the offing.  For two decades girls had been able to choose to own black, brown or white dolls and did so, and by 1970 Chinese and Minstrel make up sets were very popular.   It’s hard to imagine what might happen in toy shop aisles if such items made their way onto the shelves today.   It simply did not occur to well meaning aunts and grandmothers that a time would come when such toys would be fit only for the funeral pyre.   That doesn’t mean of course that these odd notions were totally dismissed and in fact at times they provoked a certain amount of animated debate but they were still seen as largely the province of Vegans and the those who supported the abolition of the prison system.   In fact there was more general approval for activists on the Circle Line who were at that time inclined to throw paint onto women unwise enough to wear furs.   

    A decade later when I had children with a joint obsession for Playmobil kits, a pirate ship sent from a relative in Germany complete with shackled slave did not cause any comment in New Zealand apart from envy from those with similarly addicted offspring.  We were in fact then a woefully un-Woke nation where war toys were still very much in vogue despite being harder to find in London.    By the late eighties those who lusted after Barbie could avail themselves of the Spanish Bullfighting version and did so for a number of years.   My daughter who as a general rule maintained that she hated Barbie at one stage in fact expressed an interest in one although she did so in a low voice.

   In the interim however the unhappy and bewildered Gollywog had reached the bottom of the Politically Incorrect Plaything heap and had even been removed from Robertson’s Jams.    He and his like had been whisked with enormous efficiency from the shelves of all Decent toyshops and even the Church Fete hand knitted variety was likely to find itself seized and destroyed and then adversely commented upon in local newspapers.  It was hard to believe that things could get worse but inevitably they did - so much so that in thoroughly modern 2021 sensible people look askance if the G word is mentioned at all and those who want to maintain their place on the Playcentre Parents’ Committee might even pretend not to hear you should it trip from your tongue. 

   Despite the general odium towards him you have to hand it to Golly because he never entirely disappears and is inclined to pop up with resolute regularity regardless of the decline in appreciation of him.  Every few months you can be sure to witness a Beautiful Media Person, fully Woke and filled with formidable venom, spitting out information that a version of this vile and racist toy has been uncovered yet again at another fund raising event.   A twenty second clip of uniformed persons oddly reminiscent of the Third Reich and intent upon ridding the area of all traces of the unfortunate toy might even flash across our screens or perhaps our imaginations.

   Either way we are assured that once again society is made a safer place for the playtime hours of the young and the Right Thinking Woke among us will breathe a joint sigh of relief.    But Wrong Thinkers like me and maybe one or two of you, who remember the Gollywog from his heyday can only extend a symbolic hand of comfort in his direction because it’s hard not to feel enormous sympathy for him.

Connie & the Ironing Incident

 

I felt compelled to buy the flat iron I stumbled across in a local Auckland junk shop twenty years ago and that compulsion was mostly because it brought back a rush of childhood memories.    Those memories centred firstly around Tuesday mornings and secondly around my cousin Connie and her school blouse.

            Tuesdays were ironing days at our house for years and that was because Mondays were wash days and usually most items were dry enough for ironing by Tuesday morning.   We had two flat irons, one substantially bigger than the other and they were heated on top of the kitchen stove in winter when there would always be a fire and on the smallest gas ring in summer when there wasn’t.  Both were on permanent loan from Little Nanny, whose real name was Great Aunt Martha Irons, and she lived near the station in Northfleet.  She was very old indeed and no longer did any ironing despite her name.   My mother said this was because Biddy, the downstairs lodger did all that was necessary in the hope that she would inherit the Singer sewing machine and the Bristol Glass and God knows what else when Little Nanny died.   I thought the other reason might be that the old lady seemed to own only two dresses, both made of black bombazine and they appeared never to be washed so unlikely to need ironing.  I didn’t mention this because I knew that Biddy was not to be trusted and out for all she could lay her hands on.

            When I was very young I quite enjoyed watching the ironing process especially when water was splashed onto garments resulting in dramatic hissing and clouds of smoke.   My mother talked a lot about the day she would be able to do the job Properly with an electric iron like the one her sister Mag owned, a Morphy Richards.   I learned that when you owned an electric model there was never any need to heat it via coals or gas because all you had to do was remove the kitchen light bulb and plug it into the vacant socket which is of course quite different from what you do these days.

            We did our ironing on the kitchen table, spread with an old blanket to save the wooden surface but Aunt Mag had recently become the owner of a new-fangled ironing board that you could fold up and place against the scullery wall once you had completed the job.   She had come a very long way from the humble flat irons that reigned supreme every Tuesday morning at our house but then I knew that she was wrapped up in herself ever since her Harold got that promotion down at Vickers.  It was to be some years before we progressed to an electric iron and that happened shortly after my father had blotted his copy book via yet another fling with a Fancy Woman. His assertions that there would be no further transgressions came with a substantial gift of repentance in the form of an electric iron – a Sunbeam which my mother maintained was a far superior brand to Morphy-Richards.   He said that the electric iron had been invented much longer ago than we might have imagined, in America in 1882 by someone called Henry Seeley but I didn’t quite believe him because it seemed unlikely that something invented so long ago would have taken quite as long to infiltrate into the riverside towns of North Kent.  He then elaborated on what the Chinese had used to do their ironing which appeared to be with shallow iron pans filled with hot coals and that also seemed improbable.   Once he progressed into sharing everything he knew about ironing days in the seventeenth century with what he said were Sadirons I was barely listening.  

            In fact after we became an electrically ironing family I gave little thought to the process for several years, not until my cousin Connie was blown across their Waterdales kitchen and according to her, very nearly killed.   Aunt Lou said it was because she’d been ironing in bare feet on a wet floor that in itself was because all the boys had traipsed over it after school and she should have had more sense.   My mother thought it was because Lou herself had always been too bone idle to set to like any normal mother and do the family ironing herself preferably on a Tuesday morning.   If she had only got her arse into gear then her Connie would not have been put in that position in the first place and it stood to reason.   We were frequent visitors to the Waterdales cousins and I never enjoyed the visits because there seemed to be far too many sullen and aggressive boys in the family and an unbending patriarch who thought that you were a child until you got married and produced children of your own and that children should be seen and not heard especially if they were female.   His downtrodden wife seemed to have always been completely suppressed and suffered from a variety of nervous conditions such as thinking there was a golf ball in her throat obstructing her swallowing mechanism and being quite unable to breathe for long periods of time.    I was never able to ascertain what my mother gained conversationally out of drinking tea with her.

            At this stage we visited at least twice a week because there were many discussions to be had as to whether I would be allowed to join Connie at Wombwell Hall or whether it was a waste of time and money to have me go there at all.   It had apparently been a waste of time for Connie to go to the Grammar School when she passed the Eleven Plus examination because she was female and therefore unlikely to need to be educated for a career.  At least Wombwell Hall catered for the girl who was going to get married and have children.   There she could acquire all the skills needed for cooking, cleaning, sewing and perhaps even child rearing.   Connie was not generally consulted about her future and was quite sensibly affronted at the fact that her brothers had been thought worth the investment of Grammar School uniforms.  Had she been asked her opinion about the path to take at Wombwell Hall, she said, she would have chosen the Commercial Course and she urged me to do so if I wanted more from life than a Council House full of children in the Waterdales of the future.   I didn’t need a great deal of encouragement because I had already decided that somehow or other some aspect of my future would involve shorthand and typing even if only for short periods. 

When I discussed the mishap of the iron with her, Connie placed the blame firmly at the feet of her father, the formidable Uncle Walter, my father’s oldest brother, who she said was too mean to buy her more than one school blouse.   She was some weeks into her first term at Wombwell Hall and being enrolled in the domestic course cleanliness and tidiness was of prime importance.  She maintained that it was impossible to be as clean and tidy as required with only one cream cotton school blouse unless it was washed after school on a twice weekly basis.  All very well but if she was to wear it again the following day this meant ironing it whilst it was still wet regardless of the state of the kitchen floor.   That might have been perfectly safe with an old-fashioned flat iron but the plugged-into-the-light-socket electric variety was a completely different proposition and it was absolutely necessary to ensure dry floors and preferably to own rubber soled footwear.

Rather thrillingly we were present when Uncle Walter was confronted with the facts of his only daughter’s near-death experience.   Aunt Lou had already collapsed into a soggy, tearful heap when he demanded to know who was responsible but before he could begin to direct his tirade of allegations in her direction Connie herself stepped forward with very straight back and shoulders, shaking her halo of blonde hair defiantly and looking like I imagined Shaw’s teenage Saint Joan might have looked.   In astonishingly loud tones she ordered him to stop bullying her mother though I think she used the word Hounding.   She would not have been in the dangerous position of doing ironing on a wet floor she said, had he allowed the purchase of two school blouses rather than one in the first place.   In short, if he had not been so mean.  So if anyone was to blame it was him.  

I found myself holding my breath because I rather expected him to slap her face for impertinence and order her straight to bed with no tea but he didn’t.   He lowered his voice and asked how much an extra school blouse would cost.   Connie said thirty-five shillings and then pocketed the two pound notes he slid across the table.   At her request I went with her to the haberdashery shop in Perry Street that sold school blouses, white for Colyer Road and cream for Wombwell Hall and furthermore didn’t close until five thirty.  It turned out that a suitable one cost a mere twenty eight shillings and sixpence and when I asked her if her father would be pleased when she came back with so much change Connie said No because she wasn’t planning to give it to him.    My open-mouthed admiration did not go unnoticed because she added that you never knew when you might need some other item for school, like a pair of lisle stockings for instance.  She further explained that she really didn’t want to fight for everything and a girl who went to Wombwell Hall would want to be a credit to the school.

The following year when I started the Commercial course within a very short space of time I began to understand what she had meant.

S I X M O N T H S ON . . . .

 

It’s now six months since he died and long enough for me to have largely come to terms with losing him – except that I haven’t.   I still wake up crying some mornings and I still walk around the house in conversation with him.   Although I have dutifully joined groups I am nowhere close to building that promised New Life. 

I constantly have to remind myself that I am not in a unique situation and that half of humankind experiences this emptiness and sorrow at some stage in their lives.  It doesn’t help much though and there are times when the separation feels limitless and the silence is intolerable.  

I frequently think back to the days before he became ill, those I call the Good Old Days, the time we thought would last for ever.   The problem with those days is that it’s impossible to appreciate their worth whilst you are living them.   I have begun to try to determine which of the forty-eight years we spent together were really the best ones.   Was it when the children were still small, in our bush paradise in Kohimarama when Patrick was a junior school boy and the younger two pre-schoolers.   Or was it when they were all slightly older and making plans for the future.

It was impossible not to develop a huge respect for Hank Harris.   He was a staunch and loving father yet he steadfastly refrained from interfering in his children’s lives and allowed them to do the things they most desired to do and carve their own paths.   He was an exceptional husband.  He believed in me and loved me unreservedly and never having experienced such unconditional devotion before in my life it was intoxicating.   And he loved Patrick, already four years old when they met, and he accepted his eccentricities.  Having been firmly rejected by his own father Patrick was ecstatic to be blessed with a replacement and returned his love with an enthusiasm that failed to wane with the passing years.

Hank was an extraordinarily good and decent human being who saw the best in everyone and marrying him was the single best decision of my life.   The years we had together were good years, the marriage was a happy one.    Naturally enough there were times when we fought, sometimes bitterly but we were able always to forgive and to forget with astonishing ease.   Gordie was completely aware that words hurled around in anger did not carry much meaning and he seemed simply unable to bear grudges and carry grievances around with him.   

Those terrible months when he was so ill were eased for him by his positive attitude to life and his dogged belief in modern medicine.   For me the increasing and insidious horror of that time was alleviated by the ongoing help of Sinead and Patrick who together went above and beyond filial obligation to give the kind of unwavering support that comes out of love and not duty.

And on good days we were together able to do some of those things that he enjoyed most and that made his spirits soar.   We dressed up in our finery and lunched out expensively at Cibo, just a short walk away.   We went together down to The Paddington for celebratory drinks and sometimes availed ourselves of their Sunday Roast!   And we sat in the midweek cathedral-like splendour of the Saatchi & Saatchi building for morning coffee.   Then those good days were suffused with hope and became firmly etched in memory and are now referred back to again and again.   They are perhaps almost in danger of becoming a part of the Good Old Days!  

Fantasy Places

 As far back as I can remember I had daydreams of fantasy worlds.   Even as a pre-schooler whilst listening to wartime broadcasting with my mother, still at the stage where I thought little people lived inside what we called The Wireless, I believed they went about the prime purpose of their lives after the programme finished and wondered what it would be like to join them.   Their names still linger within the furthest corners of memory, Alvar Lidell and John Snagge undoubtedly classy and elegant.  They presented important items of news and were given greatest attention by most of the adults in families like ours.  I had them going home to tiny houses very similar to those on The Overcliff at Gravesend.   Lord Haw Haw who I later learned was really called William Joyce who we hated and so jeered back at him whenever we heard his voice was forced by me to live rough under the railway bridge at Waterdales.   And Wilfred Pickles who wasn’t in any way stylish or grand but down to earth and with a funny accent that we certainly did not ridicule him for because he was largely one of us.  I gave him a cosy weatherboard cottage near the Three Daws.  

It was years before I abandoned the idea of these extraordinarily tiny people having lives on a different stratosphere and despite their size differential,  bearing strong similarities to Jonathan Swift’s Lilliput, a literary fantasy I encountered years later via Mr Will Clarke our inspirational teacher at St Botolph’s School.   Though certainly on a grander scale than Wirelessland Swift’s precise descriptions were delightfully reassuring that such places truly existed.   Why should Planet Earth be the only cosmos in any case?   Horses a mere four inches high, ridden by six inch tall Lilliputians many living and working in a beautifully described capital city called Mildendo seemed completely rational.  What could be more realistic, more believable?   Such details and a great love for Mr Clarke forced me to read on despite the fact that I found large tracts of the book incomprehensible and eventually put it aside for a future year.  

It was quite a revelation to find that the Bronte children, three of whom at least progressed to becoming greatly celebrated, spent a number of years weaving a comparable world of fantasy around a set of toy soldiers given to nine year old Branwell.  Sadly he, as he grew older he was mostly celebrated locally for his drunkenness and ability to cause mayhem at the village pub.   Prior to his alcohol binges, however, not only were the adventures of his soldiers, known as the Twelve Young Men, elaborate but so was the world in which they lived, Glasstown.   This world was mapped in its entirety by Branwell complete with mountain ranges, rivers and trade routes. Each of the siblings governed and ruled over one of the four kingdoms within of which the overall capital was Verdopolis.  They then went one step further into their joint flight of fancy and wrote down the adventures in miniscule and meticulous writing within the pages of tiny books, some of which can only be read comfortably with the aid of a magnifying glass.

When I discovered Mary Norton’s Carnegie Medal winner, The Borrowers, I was more than happy to set aside the latest Enid Blyton.   Her tiny people living in the walls and under the floors of possibly quite ordinary houses was a simply thrilling idea.  The fact that they seemed to depend solely on the huge human inhabitants for food, shelter and safety seemed unique to me at the time.   That if the humans decided to get a cat their environment would become so unsafe they would have to emigrate, exhilarating.   Little wonder then that these tiny folk were very wary of us.   I became an immediate fan and the travels of Gulliver were propelled even further into the future.  

Although my own painstakingly intricate imaginary worlds became ever more complex, changing imperceptibly to match my growing life experience, it did not at any stage occur to me to turn them into what we would now call hard copy.  I did keep notes at one stage as a memory aid but only because I wanted to avoid such blunders as my various mini-families giving the same names to their children.   Occasionally I made drawings of the wardrobe items of the most significant females and as the years passed I became keen on compiling plans of their country cottages and city apartments.   The cottages were always of the thatched roof variety with gardens sporting sunflowers, hollyhocks and daisies and clearly set in Southfleet or Cobham  but the apartments were more austere.  I only clearly remember one ten storey stone building overlooking a local bend in the Thames where cooking facilities were totally absent and all residents ate out at nearby five storey restaurant complexes, different cuisines featured on each floor.    Over time I realised that the buildings of my imagination had somehow or other all become life size, human style.  

As a child I was very keen to keep these constructed realms largely to myself although I did share them occasionally with Molly from No 31.   Her own alternative reality mostly featured California and Doris Day at that time, apart from a brief and terrifying invention called The Land of Scabs & Blood.   She was of a more robust emotional nature and much less fearful of inviting ridicule for this habit of venturing from the here and now whereas I continued to feel that endless invention was not something to broadcast to all and sundry.  It was to be a long time before I realised that fabricated realities become a pattern for a great many children.

My daughter without much prompting created Bearland and for several years wrote a stream of very similar stories featuring the mundane happenings of a tribe of teddy bears headed by Aunt Harriet and Uncle Henry together with their progeny and a great many first and second cousins.  Determined to learn to type, once she did so her output became astonishingly rapid though the story content did not change very much.    

The penny eventually dropped and when, decades later I devised holiday seminars for those children who didn’t mind what was essentially more school in the holidays, the Creation of Imaginary Lands became a regular feature over several years.   This seminar option was extremely popular with some who were only too anxious to reveal their ideas for others to witness via maps, models and stories.  It was astonishing to see how some children even devised complex languages with a proper grammatical structure which was certainly something that had never occurred to me at a similar age.   I was in my forties before I finally got back to the adventures of Gulliver.