One day we had company. My Mum announced them to me and my brother as being ‘off the stage’. I remember standing in this sunny room as the couple went into their act. The lady played the piano and the man sang. The song was ‘Blue Room’. They were on the posh side but they were quite good at what they did. (I had ’em sussed although I was only three.)
It was a good memory. It was music. Grown-ups always looked happy when they were singing. Especially when someone was playing the piano. Why didn’t they do this all the time?
I have fond memories of that place. I loved it. It was where my Dad lived. When I think of him walking about, or drinking a cup of tea, or working on his old van, it was all down in Kent, I didn’t remember him before that. I was too young. My Mum doesn’t have the same affection for the place. But it was different for Mum. To her it was where my Dad died. The day before my fourth birthday my Dad died of wounds from a 12-bore shotgun. I remember it happening but I was too young to take it in. Not see him again?
Dead? No! All dead people died before I was born.
It was his own hand that fired the gun. Nobody knew why.
We left the farm before the New Year and came back to Edmonton to live with my Nan, Grandad, and Great-grandfather.
Us kids, like kids do, adapted quickly once more to North London life. Mum earned money to keep us by playing piano in the pubs and clubs. Nan and Grandad helped bring us up while Great-grandfather Shaw, who was nearly ninety years old then, sort of acted the part of comic relief. He was a good old boy, five foot four inches tall and full of life.
He lived in the boxroom which had a smell of old stale pipes which I quite liked. He was music mad. He played clarinet in his younger days and would go out busking with my Mum on harmonium. I never heard him play clarinet, although he was supposed to have been quite good. I only heard him play the whistle which he played day and night, whatever the hour. I’d get private recitals in his room. He’d show me the scales, or play his latest piece that had just come through the door from Keith Prowse. Grandfather would be off, stopping every now and again to repeat a passage he felt needed improvement.
I loved every minute. When it was time for a break, he’d light up his old pipe and go into a story. Most times it would be about music. A brass band he’d seen years ago. He’d describe all the sounds and what they played. I could hear that band as clearly as if I’d been there. Then he’d ask me what I was up to, what new toys had I got? ‘New toy car? Let’s have a look.’ I’d go and get it. Grandfather would inspect it with wonder. Try it out with glee! Sometimes I’d say, ‘You can borrow it for a while if you want, Grandfather.’ ‘Thanks boy. Thanks very much. I’ll take care of it.’ He didn’t get on with his son-in-law too well, though (Mum’s Dad).
There was a thing in my house that was as important as the teapot or the gas stove or other household necessities.
It was the piss-pail.
He had one in his room. Nan and Grandad had one and me and my brother had one. We never had china piss-pots – didn’t hold enough. We had galvanised piss-pails. Great-grandfather and Grandad would argue never-ending over who’d got whose piss-pail.
‘You’ve got my piss-pail.’
‘No I ain’t, you silly old bastard!’
‘Daisy!’ Grandfather would shout to his daughter (Daisy was my Nan’s name, too). ‘Tell him he’s got my piss-pail!’ And so it would go on.
We kids had a white enamel piss-pail. It had a lid with holes on it. You could use it without taking the lid off, although I never owned up. My brother used to suss it when the lid felt warm, and I’d get a clump. I couldn’t see the sense in takin’ the lid off, as it all went in anyway.
The nearest school to me was Eldon Road School. I started there shortly after I was four years old. My brother Dave, nearly three years older than me, was already at the school, and I couldn’t wait to get there too. I begged my Mum to get me there as soon as possible. It must have been the glamour of it, big brother and all that, goin’ off to school with all the lads. The morning I started I did just that. Went to school with all the lads. Now big brother, who was supposed to be lookin’ after me, decided before we got close to Eldon Road that I was a bit of a nuisance and I was left to fend for myself. I’d got this Victoria plum my Mum had given me to take to school, and I decided to sit down against this wall outside the school gates to eat it. Some ol’ gels (who were jawing on their front door steps) every now and then looked over at me.
‘They’ve gone in, yer know,’ they’d say, and then get back to their jawing. I never took no notice and carried on eating me plum.
To me the novelty had gone. I’d been to school with the boys but I didn’t want to go in, and that was that. Sitting up against the wall eating my Victoria plum and thinking about goin’ to school was heaven. Goin’ to school was great, but now I’d been. Now I wanted to go home, and I did. Those questions about ‘Do you like goin’ to school?’ made sense. I did. I liked comin’ home from school too. But goin’ in to school was a different matter. Do you want to go to school? – that was all I was asked.
My Mum decided I wasn’t ready to attend school and I was kept home ’til I was five. Try again. I wasn’t mad on it though I got to like it. When I started going to Eldon (and going in as well) I thought it was alright. Some teachers I didn’t like, some I liked. My first teacher was an old Victorian trained lady named Miss Dames.
One day she was teaching us a poem about a ‘Teeny Tiny Key’ – ‘I know a little cupboard with a teeny, tiny key, and in there are cakes for me, me, me.’