They didn’t have much money but they remained very social animals. Much of their amusement revolved around family – my father was one of eight children, my mother one of four, so there were lots of aunts and uncles around to visit. Everyone seemed to have a piano in their house. Singalongs and performances were very much part of the family’s way of letting their hair down.
My father’s music provided another escape from the daily grind. When I was three or four I was incorporated into the band my dad had now formed with Uncle Bill, his two kids, Maureen and Barry, and his older sister, Auntie Ivy, on piano. We used to do shows at old people’s homes, village halls and places like that. I can remember travelling to suburbs like Pinner, though I can’t recall how the act was billed.
We used to bring the house down with versions of things like ‘Carolina in the Morning’, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, ‘Que Sera Sera’ and a song called ‘Get Out Get Under the Moon’. Dad and Uncle Bill were good at slapstick too. They would pretend to be acrobats, but would deliberately mistime their stunts so that they continually bumped into each other. They also loved dressing up. Uncle Bill performed a blackface version of A1 Jolson singing ‘Mammy’. They also used to do a variation on the popular ‘Egyptian Sand Dance’ routine. They would dress up in costume for it, even putting on panstick colouring. I’ll never forget the first time they did it. My father had gone to town on the make-up and he’d plastered his hair in Brylcreem and combed it down over the front of his face. He looked great, totally crazy. My mother was in the audience; she asked one of her friends: ‘Who the hell is that?’
‘It’s your Wal, Nona,’ she replied.
My mother nearly choked.
Our motto was to make them laugh, make them sing and make them cry occasionally too. It was my job to encourage the last of these in the routine that eventually became my major contribution to the show.
When he wanted to change the atmosphere my father used to sing a sentimental song called ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’. It was a lovely, lyrical song that showed Dad’s voice off to the full. As he started singing it would be the cue for me to stand up in the audience, walk to the stage and sit there while he sang this tribute to me. Audiences loved it, naturally. It was tear-jerking stuff. If only I had felt as if I was Daddy’s Little Girl.
It was inevitable that the first dog I called my own existed only in my imagination. My mother disliked animals intensely. As far as she was concerned dogs were messy, smelly creatures that moulted, left unpleasant odours and generally spoiled her spotless home. She had an uncanny ability to sense when I’d been within touching distance of a dog. It was as if she was equipped with a special radar. ‘You’ve been playing with those dirty creatures again,’ she’d scold me. If there was a golden rule in our home it was that my mother got her way. And so for the first fourteen years of my life, denied a dog of my own at home, I made friends with other people’s pets – and made do with an imaginary one of my own.
I can still picture her now. She was a lovely, long-haired little thing, with huge, doe-like eyes. Whenever she saw me her ears would prick up, her tail would wag and her face would break into a broad smile. I sometimes wonder whether Walt Disney had adopted her as his own imaginary friend. She could have been drawn by him.
Sometimes I called her Lady, more often than not I simply referred to her as My Little Dog. She used to appear whenever I felt hurt or lonely. As my childhood progressed, that meant she was an almost constant companion.
With my mum and dad it was always as if the world revolved around the two of them. I was filled with a sense that I somehow didn’t fit into their plans – or indeed anyone else’s.
We’d go to places then I’d be left sitting in a corner, with nobody to talk to. On holiday my mum would begin suggesting she and my dad should go off somewhere or other then say: ‘Oh we can’t, we’ve got Janice.’ They’d always want me out from under their feet. I was a nuisance because I stopped their fun. I was always made to feel I was in the way.
Even within the family I felt left out. I had cousins, but because my dad was the second youngest of his brothers and sisters, they were all much older than me. I can remember watching them and envying the way they played with each other. It always seemed that there was no one for me, I was always the person on the outside looking in. Whenever there was a family do, my mum and dad would be together, my cousins would be together and I would be on the sidelines.
My mother’s only interest in me lay in dressing me up.
Mum thought she wanted a child but what she really wanted, I believe, was a doll. She kitted me out in frilly, patterned dresses and fussed endlessly over my hair. I’m sure it pleased my mother that I was always being admired for my clothes or my hair; I had beautiful, tumbling ringlets. But to me it was a source of sadness that I was always admired for something else, never for myself.
So, from an early age, I had no choice but to make friendships elsewhere.
We used to spend a lot of time with my father’s brother George. He had a dog called Rex, a lovely, gentle creature. Back in those days nobody had pedigrees, they had mutts. Rex was a mutt, a mixture of all sorts of influences. He was black and tan in colour, not very big; he had a curly tail, long pointy ears and a slightly foxy look. He probably had some German shepherd in him. But he was a hugely affectionate dog, and he loved directing that affection towards me.
He’d always make a beeline for me and fuss over me. I can recall how, whenever I arrived at their house on the edge of west London near Heathrow, Uncle George would say: ‘Oh Rex, your friend’s here.’ Then, while the rest of the family were talking about their important lives, I’d sit stroking him or playing ball. It didn’t stop me feeling something of an outsider within the family. But it did stop me feeling so lonely.
If my passion for animals had a source, it was inherited from my father’s side of the family. My father liked animals himself. He had owned a dog called Gyp when he was younger and had worked with horses before the war. He used to say that he missed the old horse that pulled the cart on his bread round as a young lad in the 1930s. It had been replaced by a lorry. ‘No matter how hard I whistled it wouldn’t come to me like my old horse,’ he would joke.
But it was my grandmother and my Great-Uncle Jim Fennell who really made an impression.
My paternal grandmother, Mary Ann Till, was a remarkable woman. She had grown up as part of a traditional travelling Romany family in the latter stages of the nineteenth century. Although she had said goodbye to that life a long time ago, she still wore a traditional Romany cap and smoked a pipe. She always seemed to have a cup of black, piping hot tea cradled in her hands. I can recall sitting on her knee listening to the tales she told of what, even then, seemed like a lost age.
Her parents toured the country making and selling lace and working as knife and blade makers. It was a seasonal life. The men spent the winter looking after the horses and making blades and the women made lace. Then when the spring came they would tour the stately homes of England.
The image of the wandering gypsy has always annoyed me. My grandmother recalls a life where they were welcomed by the well-to-do ladies of the manor, who would buy the lace while her father worked on all the knives and scythes.
Animals played an important part in their life. Horses and dogs were crucial members of the family business and were treated with respect. In fact, horses played their part in bringing my grandparents together.
When my great-grandparents died, the family wagon was burned according to the ceremonial traditions of the Romany nation. My grandmother and her sister were allowed to keep some of the family’s possessions. But they themselves were passed on to another family for adoption. The