One difference between dad and I was that he thought that commercial broadcasting was brilliant and I usually preferred BBC programmes. I thought that even when the BBC showed american imports like 'Star Trek' then the BBC television programmes were more formal, informative and engaging than their equivalent programmes on ITV. But since the television was dad's and the new and expensive colour license was paid for out of his wages then his view, that ITV did light entertainment better and with less condescension than the BBC, always won when he was around. I was often tempted to get out of the armchair I was in and leave the room when he changed the channel mid BBC programme in front of us, but that looked like sulking. I had to careful to not be seen to sulk at other people's choices. It was 'bad form' to appear to sulk whilst I was being kept in comfort that I could not pay for myself, where I could not choose differently. My leaving the room when dad changed the channel would have made dad mildly aware of opinions he did not share, but not uncomfortable enough for him to regret his choice of entertainment at that moment. Other people were contrary, for not being like him. He was always himself.
As for me, I hated the adverts for the same reason that dad liked them. He could afford the goods advertised, and get them if he wanted to. Particularly the beer that was advertised with great machismo. For being kept on half the pocket money of other boys, both in the parental house and at the boarding school I could never afford anything that was advertised. Though with the pocket money, my four years younger sister was probably on the same money. The idea was that we should be treated as equals. The fact that my contemporaries were different to her contemporaries meant nothing to Mother. We were both children, therefore not adults, therefore we were both the same inside regardless of our actual age or different gender.
It was hard to accept being squashed into the parental household in the many different ways that there were to shrink us, none of which seemed to apply to dad. My understanding lagged well behind my reactions. When I felt angry then the anger itself actively crippled me. One of my parent's commandments, which they flouted when it suited them, was 'thou shalt not be angry'. If any one said 'It's not fair' in the parental house then another person would pipe up 'Well it is not raining, so what is your problem?'. We sure knew how to make heavy weather out of life for each other when we wanted to.
Some of my sense of frustration came from simply feeling trapped, watched to make sure my responses pleased my watchers. In theory I had a future where I could choose for myself, not feel watched, and not feel frustrated. That future existed somewhere outside of the present binary choices of pressure from the boarding school or pressure from the parental house. But how that future was could be found could only be guessed at. Where I was gave me no clues how to get there. In both places children were rather passively talked to as of they were seen and not heard. Decades later I would later I would rephrase this binary bind of 'being cared for' as a more active 'being watched and not listened to'. But at the age of fourteen, going into being fifteen, my forced passivity and my forced understanding of everything in passive terms seemed to be the only understanding that there was.
For being at the boarding school for three quarters of the year whatever I knew about Gran and Grandad came in letters and phone calls from Mother. Mother always interposed herself between me and them. After going to the boarding school I rarely went to stay with them, or saw them in themselves. I still treasured the memory of staying with them at age ten and finding a push bike my size in the farm sheds next door. I remembered how good I felt for finding my balance/learning to ride a bike 'on my own' and going round in small circles in that farmyard. The last bike I'd had was from my parents. It was a blue and white bike for a six year old with an extra small wheel either side the rear wheel so I could not fall off it. I had outgrown it quite quickly. With my grandparents I could, and did, change in myself. I could see my parents on slightly different terms from how they wanted to be seen, with me firmly subordinated as a small part of their unit.
But at the boarding school Mother was my sole connection to the parental house and beyond. Nobody else wrote or rang. Whatever was actually going on in the town and with family I was locked in to by what Mother's version being the only version of events I could get. In the parental house I was her helper and she was my minder, so I was just as trapped there. There seemed to be no way of loosening the grip Mother had on me, partly because when Mother seemingly did so well out of the arrangement and dad got what he wanted-having nearly as little to do with me as he wanted, then even as I was openly losing my sense of choice that was all that was open. Nobody could get close enough for long enough to question my parents wisdom over me.
The near-neighbours close to my parents house who were most open towards us were always the newest people to live on the street. They were the people who were least aware of all the old grudges between families that had accumulated down the years through which everyone shut down good will with each other. But change was coming, and with it came some small hope. A new childless couple moved in to the house opposite ours across the street in the last year. Bill and Marion were younger than Mother and dad. But they were close enough in age that the age difference became a positive force. They had an optimism and easy charm about them. Mother took a shine to them and sought welcome in their home soon after the arrived. Dad was more neutral about them, but he noted how their presence on the street had made Mother feel better which eased his mind. They stayed on the street for only four years. Billy worked in a steel works twenty miles away. Marion seemed to be quite glamorous, down to earth but not downtrodden because she worked in a job where she got paid. Clearly, for not being a mother, she looked after herself better than motherhood had left many of the women of the street, Mother included, able to do to look after themselves.
Billy and dad had one thing in common, both had jobs that were being newly automated. Bill worked at a steelworks, dad in the local factory. Both places were changing their work practices. Both Bill and dad got new jobs and new work titles, to replace old jobs. Both places of work were now owned by the government. When the government bought up many old industries to keep manufacturing going through reinvestment, it had tried to do away with the messiest and dirtiest of the old jobs that these factories had done in the past under different owners.
For dad it meant going from being a plater's mate wielding bits of plate metal for large boilers so that the plater could solder and bolt the plates of metal dad moved to dad becoming a machine operator, pressing buttons as required to on large machines, covered in plate metal where I doubt he knew what went on behind the cover. Because nobody knew. He was more reassured to have a job then he was curious about what was going on behind the scenes.
I don't know how we got through that summer. That no event gave way to outright violence did not mean that we felt far closer to violence than we wanted to be. The older I got the emptier the promise and purpose of life seemed to be. The thing that comforted me most was playing my own choice of music, on my own if possible.
The most lasting and accurate expression of those times was a family photograph taken at a wedding for one of dad's relatives. It showed our family, the three of them, loosely grouped on the steps of a large church after the wedding service. They were stood stiff and awkward, only slightly apart from each other, with me stood some distance from them looking in a different direction whilst dressed at my best but still ill dressed for the occasion, as if I was kept by them. But only just.
For being at the boarding school for three quarters of the year whatever I knew about Gran and Grandad came in letters and phone calls from Mother. Mother always interposed herself between me and them. After going to the boarding school I rarely went to stay with them, or saw them in themselves. I still treasured the memory of staying with them at age ten and finding a push bike my size in the farm sheds next door. I remembered how good I felt for finding my balance/learning to ride a bike 'on my own' and going round in small circles in that farmyard. The last bike I'd had was from my parents. It was a blue and white bike for a six year old with an extra small wheel either side the rear wheel so I could not fall off it. I had outgrown it quite quickly. With my grandparents I could, and did, change in myself. I could see my parents on slightly different terms from how they wanted to be seen, with me firmly subordinated as a small part of their unit.
But at the boarding school Mother was my sole connection to the parental house and beyond. Nobody else wrote or rang. Whatever was actually going on in the town and with family I was locked in to by what Mother's version being the only version of events I could get. In the parental house I was her helper and she was my minder, so I was just as trapped there. There seemed to be no way of loosening the grip Mother had on me, partly because when Mother seemingly did so well out of the arrangement and dad got what he wanted-having nearly as little to do with me as he wanted, then even as I was openly losing my sense of choice that was all that was open. Nobody could get close enough for long enough to question my parents wisdom over me.
The near-neighbours close to my parents house who were most open towards us were always the newest people to live on the street. They were the people who were least aware of all the old grudges between families that had accumulated down the years through which everyone shut down good will with each other. But change was coming, and with it came some small hope. A new childless couple moved in to the house opposite ours across the street in the last year. Bill and Marion were younger than Mother and dad. But they were close enough in age that the age difference became a positive force. They had an optimism and easy charm about them. Mother took a shine to them and sought welcome in their home soon after the arrived. Dad was more neutral about them, but he noted how their presence on the street had made Mother feel better which eased his mind. They stayed on the street for only four years. Billy worked in a steel works twenty miles away. Marion seemed to be quite glamorous, down to earth but not downtrodden because she worked in a job where she got paid. Clearly, for not being a mother, she looked after herself better than motherhood had left many of the women of the street, Mother included, able to do to look after themselves.
Billy and dad had one thing in common, both had jobs that were being newly automated. Bill worked at a steelworks, dad in the local factory. Both places were changing their work practices. Both Bill and dad got new jobs and new work titles, to replace old jobs. Both places of work were now owned by the government. When the government bought up many old industries to keep manufacturing going through reinvestment, it had tried to do away with the messiest and dirtiest of the old jobs that these factories had done in the past under different owners.
For dad it meant going from being a plater's mate wielding bits of plate metal for large boilers so that the plater could solder and bolt the plates of metal dad moved to dad becoming a machine operator, pressing buttons as required to on large machines, covered in plate metal where I doubt he knew what went on behind the cover. Because nobody knew. He was more reassured to have a job then he was curious about what was going on behind the scenes.
Up to the government buying up the factory there had been work on that factory site under the ownership of one extended family for nearly 100 years, until the family's leadership had been exhausted. Since they would be paying out either way the government bought the factory to stop the mass unemployment that would following any closure. The fears of the depression of the 1930's were strong enough at the time to justify the purchase. They also kept the unions happier and government statistics looking healthier, for a while at least. The factory was incorporated into an expanded British Leyland, a company that started out just making cars. Now dad's factory was under the umbrella of a group that was making many more vehicles than just cars, and it was even better at masking the losses it made.
Occasionally dad had to go on strike. His attitude to the unions was at best ambivalent, at worst deeply hypocritical. The union negotiated his pay whether he wanted them to or not. He would attend the meetings they demanded he attend, but more out of solidarity with his friends in the factory than any stance or personal conviction. He sometimes implied to his family that given chance he could negotiate his own pay rise with his bosses, by himself. He disliked the union negotiating for him. I was not going to be the one to point out that that what he said was false bravado on his part. He liked bravado and the more false it was the more he liked it. For being less physically demanding and much cleaner his new job left him physically healthier, which he would sometimes see as a licence to drink more.
Dad being on strike led to me first sight of the inside of a dole office for 'family relief' as Mother phrased it. The rules were that when a man was in strike there was welfare money for his wife and all the children and the bills, but not for him. The man who was on strike was meant to claim the money. My dad being my dad, he sent Mother to claim the money for everyone except him by herself whilst she was looking after us. So me and my near ten year old sister had to wait in side room whilst Mother went to this very pokey little office in a side street to find out what forms she had to collect, how she had to fill them in out, and where dad had to put his signature for her to get the money. She did it all but she was extremely embarrassed at having to ask for what she thought of as 'a handout'.
Mother saw nearby this side street that there was a large car park and the town's first Kwik Save store. Soon after we ventured in there and the aisles were wide enough for me to almost waltzed with the trolley to the music from the loud speakers down them. The aisles were absurdly wide, there was not much that Mother could find that she wanted in this factory sized space, though she could have found more for looking further. But I thought that the space itself was wonderful compared with the cramped living space of the parental house and the waiting room in the dole office.
Dad being on strike led to me first sight of the inside of a dole office for 'family relief' as Mother phrased it. The rules were that when a man was in strike there was welfare money for his wife and all the children and the bills, but not for him. The man who was on strike was meant to claim the money. My dad being my dad, he sent Mother to claim the money for everyone except him by herself whilst she was looking after us. So me and my near ten year old sister had to wait in side room whilst Mother went to this very pokey little office in a side street to find out what forms she had to collect, how she had to fill them in out, and where dad had to put his signature for her to get the money. She did it all but she was extremely embarrassed at having to ask for what she thought of as 'a handout'.
Mother saw nearby this side street that there was a large car park and the town's first Kwik Save store. Soon after we ventured in there and the aisles were wide enough for me to almost waltzed with the trolley to the music from the loud speakers down them. The aisles were absurdly wide, there was not much that Mother could find that she wanted in this factory sized space, though she could have found more for looking further. But I thought that the space itself was wonderful compared with the cramped living space of the parental house and the waiting room in the dole office.
As part of the new regime the factory had an open day where the public could wander round. I saw the factory, everything was in it's right place and absolutely tidy. For the sheer size of the place it looked impressive. But from the wide open spaces we all saw nobody could have any comprehension of how the factory worked or what went on there.
Dad could have said the same of how my school worked when he attended the annual open day there. But the entertainment was better. The school always chose Football Cup Final Saturday as their open day. For the sake of the pupils the school wanted give the impression of maximum parental unity. They knew that making working class fathers pay attention to the prospects of their boys was near impossible. Many of us were there because our father's attention span went anywhere but near us as we were. Whilst many fathers had black and white television sets at home the school had a colour television. There could be no better draw to attract them to the day than for them all to watch the cup final in colour with each other, with a buffet of tea and sandwiches on hand for the hungry. This allowed the Mothers to see the staff and for the staff to bamboozle the mothers afresh with overused phrases about how well the boys were doing and what bright futures they had. The staff could do this partly because of how limited their present life was for many of the women who the staff were talking to. Open days everywhere were designed to be over-optimistic with the truth.
That summer Bill and Marion probably knew when Mother was coming to visit them by noting the speed at which dad left the parental house for the pub. The faster he walked the worse his mood and the sooner Mother would be over for some cup of tea and chat, and a break from me and my sister. Probably Bill excused himself when he sensed that Mother needed 'a woman's chat', and since he had to get on with dad anyway it was better he knew less of what was said behind our front door. Mother could say more to Marion when they were briefly alone than at any other time, not that she would have said much with the parental house looking back at her, across the road.
The point about the arguments that dad started was that usually his logic was false but the anger behind it was genuine. Once he started none of us could get him to separate the logic from the anger. This made us fearful and illogical in the end. It was his illogicality that made Mother argue before me and my sister, falsely in my belief even then, that her allotment work was 'feminist' in nature. True she was the only female allotment holder, which was feminist as far as holding an allotment went. True it gave her a space that was her own when in the parental house dad controlled so much, but if feminism was about anything then it was about cutting down overbearing men so they were a more reasonable size. In that respect nothing, no action or idea, in the parental house was ever in any way feminist. The nearest we got to any sort of feminist belief was for the three of us to each quietly believe that dad was more childish than any of us were.
Previously Mother would have to had to have waited until it was time to go to the allotment for respite from dad being overbearing, but if Marion was in and able to receive Mother at shortish notice and be the friend Mother needed then it was progress, a big improvement. Maybe it came out of one of their chats that Mother was encouraged to start making other friends for herself too, albeit friends in need more than people she might lean on.
That summer Mother got her first paid job outside the parental house, her first job since she had been single and worked full time when was her own person. A local scrap yard owner, a very modest looking millionaire, saw the local future and decided to be part of making it work better. He bought the large end house of a street three streets away from us. The front looked out onto a busy main road and the ground floor was a business premises. The upper two floors were a very large flat with a living room bisected by a chimney with a passage either side of the chimney. A kitchen and bathroom were down a few steps at the rear of the house. Neglected and unloved as they were, they were still very easy to rent out in a tight housing rental market.
Mother started work in the shop two afternoons a week, cash in hand. The shop sold second hand white goods, fridges and cookers and whatever else came up at auction that was cheap and serviceable which would help families survive the next recession, the glimmers of which were already apparent. He had looked into the Dept of Social Security grants system and saw how claimants got grants for new-to-them basic white goods as they replaced worn out goods or moved house. He thought the goods he sold would attract the money of social security recipients, who more than any other sector in local society had to count their pennies to make their pounds go further. He thought that social security money was as good as money from any other source. He priced his goods competitively and made sure he was value for money to anyone who bought, including the price of delivering the goods to their new homes. Mother had to mind the shop, clean the dirty ovens and fridges that came in, and show customers round what new stock had been put out for sale. When he knew the stock was clean, he, rather than Mother, tested the stock to make sure it all worked. She also took deposits off people and details for the delivery of the goods. The shop premises was that under-developed that it did not even have a phone fitted, though there was a small back office, so she was saved the trouble of taking phone messages and having to write them down accurately which she might well have felt nervous about doing. She kept this job for decades, even during the time when much later she went on to officially work as a part time cleaner, she kept the shop work job. Allotments apart, the work she did minding the shop was the work position that she held the longest throughout her life.
What interested me and my sister when Mother started there was whether and when any second hand record players and records might come in. Mother was customer number one when the right ones arrived. And they did, Mother got a Dansette record player that played Long Players for the living room of the parental house, and my sister got a mini Dansette type record player for her sole use in her room that played only singles. Mother also found through the shop a battery operated singles record player that I could take to boarding school, where to play the discs they were dropped in vertically, and they played vertically. The first record I bought from the shop was a single, 'The Little White Bull' by fifties rocker turned all round entertainer Tommy Steele. More up to date pop music on cassette, and a portable cassette deck apiece eventually followed.
Mother also made new friends in other places. She had been doing shopping and laundry for a nominal fee for our oldest next door neighbour since she arrived at the house newly married, fifteen years earlier. She found two recently retired ladies of limited mobility who lived in nearby in flats reserved for the elderly. One of them, Mrs Rumbold, had been my lollipop lady in infants school. It was not that much extra time for Mother to call by on the way to the shops and get a shopping list from them and money to cover do their shopping with hers. Their shopping was much less than hers was. When I was there I was sent from the parental house with their shopping, receipts, and any loose change that was due. Mother also did home baking for them along with baking for us. A ground rice tart with home made jam at the base was the pastry of choice for the ladies.
The point about the arguments that dad started was that usually his logic was false but the anger behind it was genuine. Once he started none of us could get him to separate the logic from the anger. This made us fearful and illogical in the end. It was his illogicality that made Mother argue before me and my sister, falsely in my belief even then, that her allotment work was 'feminist' in nature. True she was the only female allotment holder, which was feminist as far as holding an allotment went. True it gave her a space that was her own when in the parental house dad controlled so much, but if feminism was about anything then it was about cutting down overbearing men so they were a more reasonable size. In that respect nothing, no action or idea, in the parental house was ever in any way feminist. The nearest we got to any sort of feminist belief was for the three of us to each quietly believe that dad was more childish than any of us were.
Previously Mother would have to had to have waited until it was time to go to the allotment for respite from dad being overbearing, but if Marion was in and able to receive Mother at shortish notice and be the friend Mother needed then it was progress, a big improvement. Maybe it came out of one of their chats that Mother was encouraged to start making other friends for herself too, albeit friends in need more than people she might lean on.
That summer Mother got her first paid job outside the parental house, her first job since she had been single and worked full time when was her own person. A local scrap yard owner, a very modest looking millionaire, saw the local future and decided to be part of making it work better. He bought the large end house of a street three streets away from us. The front looked out onto a busy main road and the ground floor was a business premises. The upper two floors were a very large flat with a living room bisected by a chimney with a passage either side of the chimney. A kitchen and bathroom were down a few steps at the rear of the house. Neglected and unloved as they were, they were still very easy to rent out in a tight housing rental market.
Mother started work in the shop two afternoons a week, cash in hand. The shop sold second hand white goods, fridges and cookers and whatever else came up at auction that was cheap and serviceable which would help families survive the next recession, the glimmers of which were already apparent. He had looked into the Dept of Social Security grants system and saw how claimants got grants for new-to-them basic white goods as they replaced worn out goods or moved house. He thought the goods he sold would attract the money of social security recipients, who more than any other sector in local society had to count their pennies to make their pounds go further. He thought that social security money was as good as money from any other source. He priced his goods competitively and made sure he was value for money to anyone who bought, including the price of delivering the goods to their new homes. Mother had to mind the shop, clean the dirty ovens and fridges that came in, and show customers round what new stock had been put out for sale. When he knew the stock was clean, he, rather than Mother, tested the stock to make sure it all worked. She also took deposits off people and details for the delivery of the goods. The shop premises was that under-developed that it did not even have a phone fitted, though there was a small back office, so she was saved the trouble of taking phone messages and having to write them down accurately which she might well have felt nervous about doing. She kept this job for decades, even during the time when much later she went on to officially work as a part time cleaner, she kept the shop work job. Allotments apart, the work she did minding the shop was the work position that she held the longest throughout her life.
What interested me and my sister when Mother started there was whether and when any second hand record players and records might come in. Mother was customer number one when the right ones arrived. And they did, Mother got a Dansette record player that played Long Players for the living room of the parental house, and my sister got a mini Dansette type record player for her sole use in her room that played only singles. Mother also found through the shop a battery operated singles record player that I could take to boarding school, where to play the discs they were dropped in vertically, and they played vertically. The first record I bought from the shop was a single, 'The Little White Bull' by fifties rocker turned all round entertainer Tommy Steele. More up to date pop music on cassette, and a portable cassette deck apiece eventually followed.
Mother also made new friends in other places. She had been doing shopping and laundry for a nominal fee for our oldest next door neighbour since she arrived at the house newly married, fifteen years earlier. She found two recently retired ladies of limited mobility who lived in nearby in flats reserved for the elderly. One of them, Mrs Rumbold, had been my lollipop lady in infants school. It was not that much extra time for Mother to call by on the way to the shops and get a shopping list from them and money to cover do their shopping with hers. Their shopping was much less than hers was. When I was there I was sent from the parental house with their shopping, receipts, and any loose change that was due. Mother also did home baking for them along with baking for us. A ground rice tart with home made jam at the base was the pastry of choice for the ladies.
I don't know how we got through that summer. That no event gave way to outright violence did not mean that we felt far closer to violence than we wanted to be. The older I got the emptier the promise and purpose of life seemed to be. The thing that comforted me most was playing my own choice of music, on my own if possible.
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