Sometimes, if one of us had a birthday, or had Christmas money to spend, we would go to Hamley’s toy shop in Regent Street. It was from there that I chose, by grace of Ray and Daisy’s friend, Rudolph Messell, who was rich and liked to give big presents, something that was destined to become my most prized possession. This was a Super-de-luxe Conjuring Set by Ernest Sewell. It came in a big box that cost nearly two pounds and contained some very sophisticated pieces of equipment with which I looked forward to impressing rapturous audiences.
Rapturous audiences were not readily available to small boys of eleven, but there would soon be a ‘window of opportunity’ – Grandad’s party.
George Lansbury’s seventy-seventh birthday party might have been a rather muted occasion because he was at what must have been the lowest point in his long political career. At the Labour Party Conference in 1935 he had suffered a vicious personal attack from Ernest Bevin, who had, in effect, called him a traitor and accused him of stabbing the Labour Party in the back. The Party faithful had not rallied to his support and he had resigned from the leadership.
Such a shattering blow would have broken most politicians and left them bitter. It is a measure of George’s greatness that his spirit seemed to be quite undamaged and he was his usual jovial, grandfatherly self.
Grandad’s birthday party had always been quite an elaborate affair which was attended by all, or certainly most, of his large family. Usually thirty or forty people turned up and I am told the occasions could be a bit tense, often for reasons that were more political than personal. Ray couldn’t abide Party-line Communists and every year of Stalin’s reign made him more contemptuous of them. Equally he had little time for the far right wing of the Labour Party, which our uncle Ernest Thurtle represented. He could also be less than respectful of Labour activists who affected what they thought were working-class accents in order to show that they were down-to-earth trade-unionists. To cap it all, Daisy’s eldest sister, Annie, was a Christian fundamentalist. She wasn’t really on speaking terms with any of them except perhaps her sister Nellie, who worked at Collet’s bookshop and wasn’t quite a Communist, though her youngest sister Violet very definitely was. So at one level the party was festive and full of fun, while on another it was fraught with submerged implications, turned backs and barbed references. Apparently John was sensitive to these tensions and found them a bit alarming. I was totally oblivious to them and so, I believe, was Grandad. He and I simply enjoyed the party and joined in with gusto.
At this particular party I was especially excited because, after a deal of campaigning, it had been established that I would be permitted to entertain Grandad and the party with one, just one, of the tricks from my amazing new conjuring set – but I wasn’t to muck about and waste time. That was fine by me and I set it all up most carefully. The moment came and my parents, sighing indulgently, apologized to the assembled guests and craved their indulgence while their tedious son showed off with his conjuring trick.
Everybody sat down and I began the trick, which was the best one in the box, involving a tall magic goblet. I didn’t waste time. I borrowed Grandad’s engraved gold watch which had been presented to him by the Borough of Poplar. I lowered it carefully into the goblet on to a bed of cotton wool and after a few deft passes transformed it into a half a pint of hot coffee. I had in fact improved the trick. In order to add verisimilitude I had earlier slipped a lump of yellow soap into the coffee with the result that as I was pouring it proudly from the goblet into a mug, something round and yellow slurped in with it.
Grandad gave a bellow and shouted: ‘Cripes! The little tyke’s done it again!’ – or words to that effect.
Suddenly there was a lot of noise. Grandad was demanding his watch back, Daisy was shouting for a kitchen towel, Nellie was denouncing me, John was looking on the floor. Everybody was talking very loudly and urgently, while I, the only sensible person there, was fumbling for the soap in the mug of coffee in order to get it out and show that it was only soap. I recovered it successfully but, for some reason, Grandad didn’t seem interested in soap and went on shouting for his watch. I could make his watch reappear but not by dismantling the trick and showing how it worked – no proper conjurer would ever do that. I consented to bring it back, but only by going through the whole trick again in reverse.
So then everybody had to sit down again and be still and quiet while I poured the soap and coffee carefully back into the goblet, placed over it the various covers and false tops, intoned the necessary incantations and finally, with a proud gesture, revealed the watch, still ticking, on its bed of cotton wool. It had been a good trick, and I, personally, thought it had gone rather well.
II. Time Out.
You might think that settling down in a large comfortable house might have reduced Ray and Daisy’s love of travel. Not a chance. We had hardly been there a year when the time came for us to pack our rucksacks and set off into the unknown.
Our journey started at dead of night. We took a taxi all the way from Finchley to Millwall Docks on the River Thames. There in the darkness we stepped down on to the glistening cobbles of the quay and, clutching our bags, gingerly made our way up the gangplank towards a square of yellow light in the middle of a black shape that was the SS Margharita, a small cargo ship bound for Denmark on the morning tide.
I was put to bed in a bunk in a cabin made of painted iron. When I touched the metal walls they were warm and felt as if they were alive with the faint vibrations of the ship. Nothing special seemed to be happening and I may have slept. Then, much later I think, the judder of the engines starting up nearly shook me out of the bunk, and later still, after I had got used to the gentle thudding, the ship gave one blast on its hooter, a blast which sounded in my ear as if it had been blown through the pipe beside my pillow. That woke me with a jolt.
I was too excited to try and sleep any more, so, as grey light had begun to be visible through the porthole, I put on some clothes and, climbing down past my sleeping brother, stepped out of the cabin. I made my way along the iron passage which served the eight or so passenger cabins, climbed a companionway, pushed open a small mahogany door and felt the sharp cold air on my face. The world outside was dark grey – uniform, uninterrupted grey. I shivered. The air didn’t seem to be foggy because I could see blurred lights not far away, but it could have been misty. It was too dark to be sure.
Hanging on to the dewy rail I inched my way along the deck. Above me a door opened and a benign face with a peaked cap over it looked down. It was the Captain. He was on the bridge.
‘Yerwll ber cerld,’ he said, ‘erts werm erp her. Cmern erp.’
I must explain that although, like most Danes, Captain Jørgensen spoke good English, he also followed their habit of using only one vowel.
I accepted his invitation and joined him on the bridge. This was a pleasantly warm small summer house with large windows. The only occupants at that early hour were Captain Jørgensen and his Queagh-like cat, who was sitting on the window sill looking out at the greyness.
Keeping one hand on the wheel the Captain reached out with the other and pulled a high stool to the window. ‘Yerurly,’ he said, ‘sert dern.’ I sat on the stool, put my elbows on the window sill beside the cat and we sat there, watching the morning arrive.
For no reason that I can identify, this was to be one of the happiest mornings in my short life, and the memory of it has stayed with me ever since. Perhaps this was a special time because at that moment there was nothing else I had to do and no other place where I should be. Of course I could have stayed in my bunk in the oily-smelling cabin, but if I had done so I would have missed the very gradual painting in of form and light that was the coming of the day.
First, very slowly, the slate-grey flatness which was the water took shape. Then I began to notice that a sort of glowing was filling the air, as if it were being lit from the inside, and against it ripples and reflections began to