‘Why did it end? Oh, I don’t know. We had one of our usual arguments – he was very possessive of me and always worried I’d go off with another bloke. But this argument was just a lot bigger and it lasted a lot longer than the rest and we never got back together,’ she says. ‘I started seeing my husband soon after. Ted disappeared and my husband came along – nice car, wonderful job – he had everything and I was married to him twelve months later. I had grown up with nothing and I wanted to have a different life.’
Ted’s version of the break-up was very different and, as Iris says, steeped in his fear of Iris leaving him for another man. According to Ted, both of them were holding down two jobs – Ted had left the Army by then and gone back to working double shifts at the Deritend from six in the morning to ten at night, while Iris was working at Elwell’s during the day and at the Hippodrome cinema in the evening. One day Ted came home from work early and Hilda asked him if he was ok. Ted told her that he didn’t feel right and so had finished work early. Hilda cooked him something to eat, he had a bath and then he decided to go into Wednesbury to see Iris. He drove down on his pink scooter – a DKR Dove – and waited outside her work to surprise her. But instead, according to Ted, he watched Iris come out of the cinema and get on the back of the motorbike belonging to one of Ted’s friends in the Army. They had words and the engagement ring went over a garden wall at the bottom of Rydding Lane. Ted didn’t tell anyone and went straight to bed as soon as he got home.
The next day, Hilda got up to make breakfast and start the daily chores. She went straight for the boys’ bedroom and pulled open the handmade curtains, where she found Ted still in bed. She had no idea why he hadn’t gone to work and was just about to start quizzing him, despite the fact he was pretending to be asleep, when suddenly there was a loud bang coming from the front of the house as the gate slammed shut and someone started hammering on the front door. Hilda peered through the curtains in the front bedroom and saw that it was Iris’s nan making all the noise. She went down to calmly open the door and started to speak, but didn’t get a chance to say a word before the woman launched at her:
‘I wanna see your Teddy. I wanna know what he’s said to our Iris. Hers crying her eyes out and she won’t go to work.’
Hilda still had no idea what was going on and shouted upstairs for Ted to come down and explain himself. Ted came down the stairs in just his trousers, put his bare feet into his shoes, calmly put on his jacket and walked past the two women stood on the step. ‘I dow wanna talk about it. I’m going,’ he said.
That was the last time Hilda and the family saw Ted for over three weeks. Everyone was distraught and worried – even Iris who told Hilda she hadn’t seen him but didn’t give the whole story about the row and the concerns she’d had before they split up. Then one Sunday dinnertime, Ted’s nan came over and told Hilda that he was safe with her. The whole road must have heard Hilda exhale with relief. ‘Just give him some time,’ she said.
The next day Hilda went over to Walsall to try and persuade Ted to come home, but as soon as he saw her coming up the path, he walked out the back of the house, too embarrassed to be seen like that by his mum.
Eventually, after a number of failed attempts, Hilda finally managed to persuade him to come home. She warned everyone back at Kent Road not to say a word about Iris to Ted and on the night of his return, while the rest of the family were sat in the front room, Ted opened the front door and went straight upstairs to bed without speaking to anyone. He stayed in his room for days. It was a low point for the whole house to see Ted in that state. His sister Jane says: ‘After a while he got over it, though – and that’s when he really started to enjoy his life.’
But no one really knew until years later how deeply the end of the relationship had affected Ted.
On the face of it at least, things soon went back to normal for Ted. His National Service had ended after a lively eighteen months, and everyone was relieved to see him getting on with things. But what they didn’t glimpse lurking beneath the happy-go-lucky demeanour was discontent: Iris’s observations about Ted’s tendency to feel anxious were well founded. To Ted, everyone else seemed to have their lives sorted – jobs, partners and children, a clear life plan, but his structure had fallen away. He didn’t have the discipline of the Army, he didn’t have a house or a car or anything really; all he owned were his records. Ted wasn’t so much driven by making money or having material goods, his enjoyment in life came purely from making people happy – from entertaining and looking after everyone, which was unusual at a time when things were tough and the world was very much ‘every man for himself’.
The late 1950s and early 60s were a relatively prosperous time across the country, but nevertheless making ends meet was generally very hard for a lot of normal families. Ted still witnessed Maurice and Hilda watching every penny and he continued to make sure that any extra he had went into the household. Leaving the Army had been a blow for him, and returning to the factory, seeing all the old faces still there, plugging away to make ends meet, felt like taking a step backwards. His brothers and sisters were growing up and one by one leaving the family home. Life slipped back into a familiar pattern: the only thing missing was having Iris as his girlfriend.
That said, it was impossible for Ted to fully close the door on that relationship, mainly as Iris would still come round the house to see Hilda. The two women had formed a strong bond and neither was ready to cut the other off completely, despite the break-up. Ted tried to take this in his stride and was relieved that these visits would often take place before he finished work. However, there was the odd occasion when Iris’s perfectly timed exit didn’t quite pan out. It all came to a head about a year or so after the couple had split up and Ted came in from work to find Iris still there. He went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, as he did every night he came home, and handed everyone a mug of steaming tea, everyone except Iris.
‘Where’s mine?’ she asked.
‘In the kettle. You can make your own,’ he replied.
The hurt between Ted and Iris still ran deep in him, so he clutched on to a new daily routine to bring him order and structure. He wasn’t remotely interested in finding a new girlfriend and instead started spending time with his brothers – down at the club and out and about. His brother John remembers: ‘After he came out of the Army, Ted would spend hours polishing his shoes – so much so that you could see your face in them. If I was going somewhere with the school, he’d show me how to tie my tie. He’d say, “Come here, you. You ay going out like that. I’ll show you how to do a tie,” and he’d sit there and show you how to do it.’
Friday night was the real performance though – everything had to be absolutely perfect and even his handkerchief would be pressed and placed across the top of his jacket pocket in a neat line.
Before he went out, Ted would make sure that Hilda had given him the once-over: ‘What do you think of this, Muv?’
‘Looks alright, Ted,’ she would reply.
Then he’d head back upstairs to finish getting ready. A few minutes later he’d be back in the kitchen with the handkerchief refolded in a different style – this time with three points to it.
‘You think this one looks better?’ he’d ask.
‘Well, yeah, it’s alright,’ Hilda would say, not really paying attention.
This performance would usually repeat itself until Maurice looked up from his newspaper and bellowed: ‘FOR CHRIST’S SAKES, it’s a bloody handkerchief!’ But in spite of this, he was delighted to see his son looking the part. He’d watch Ted walk out of the front door and up the path with quiet delight, often turning to his wife and saying: ‘Look at him, our Hild. He walks down that street thinking he’s a bloody millionaire! He might not have a penny in his pocket but he’s singing and whistling to himself like he hasn’t got a care in the world.’
A well-turned out appearance became