Uncomplicated pleasures & the innocence of childhood

As an only child of parents who were only children – and whose mother had been fostered from birth by an unmarried lady – I had few uncles and aunts, no maternal grandparents, and of course no brothers and sisters. Was this an unusual situation? In many ways no doubt it was, and yet it has to be asked, “What would a ‘usual’ family be like?” My father, as an employee of British Railways, was exempt from call–up. Had he not been, I could well have never known him; and it is not inconceivable that my mother would have had to return to living with her foster mother. Because, without my father’s wages, it is next to impossible that my mother could have worked, brought me up, and afforded a flat. 

So it was that Jessie Squire, my mother’s foster mother, was the ‘aunt’ that I knew best. And it could well be said that I was the grandchild she never had, just as my mother was the child that she never had. The relationship, as I remember it, was entirely unproblematic. I liked visiting and sometimes staying at, her house; and I’m sure that she was equally happy during these times. Her house – semi–detached and bow–windowed – was in Elphinstone Avenue, Hastings (and was, I’m sure a ‘between the wars’ development). Everything about it took on a significance that can only occur in childhood. For example the front garden gate – wooden and half fan lighted – was painted, as I now see in my mind’s eye, in a perfectly hideous green. But no matter: it was aunt Jess’ gate, and entrance to a house that was much more homely and comfortable than our own near–austerity flat. Furthermore, there were such treats as bread and condensed milk, bread and Demerara sugar, bread and dripping, and – delight of delights! – breaded plaice, well–buttered mashed potato, and peas. This I would eat at the end of the bare wooden kitchen table. Almost, I can see myself as the subject of a Cruikshank illustration (though I have difficulty in conjuring how he would have depicted Jess). My mother told me that there was once one problem when I stayed with aunt Jess: “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you were going to give me a bath.”!

In my exploration of the house and garden, I remember two things that particularly fascinated me: cigarette cards, which I discovered in a draw; and a Victorian (or perhaps Edwardian) knife– sharpening machine in the garden shed. I cannot remember with any certainty what was depicted on the cigarette cards. I seem to remember a nautical theme – battleships and so forth – but if they were Players Navy Cut cards, then I may be remembering the striking packet design, as here illustrated. But they may have depicted footballers, coronations, or wild flowers. I will never know. As for the knife–sharpening machine, it seemed to contain an inexhaustible supply of light reddish–brown knife–sharpening powder. At least I

managed to get the stuff to spill out every time I played with this machine that looked for all the world like a mini organ–grinder. It frustrated me that I had no idea how to work it, and suspected anyway that it was beyond repair. This is, I think, a common frustration of children: to find something – like an old bicycle – and not to be able to get it to work!

One of my earliest of memories is of a present I bought aunt Jess, when my mother and I were on holiday at Ventnor in the Isle of Wight. I remember nothing of the journey, except for the tunnel under St Boniface Down on the approach to Ventnor. The coaches on the train were of the old compartmental, non corridor type; they also had no lighting, so that in the tunnel

Ventnor tunnel

we were in pitch darkness. And, until we closed the windows – the old heavy strap-type – enveloped in smoke from the engine. There was a man in our compartment, and I remember a vague fear that he might ‘do something to us’ . . .

I remember playing on the yellow sands of Ventnor with my bucket and spade; and if it rained while we were there it cannot have been sufficient to spoil our holiday. The present I bought aunt Jess was a Toby jug, in the colours of the Union Jack . . . Well, aunt Jess put some flowers in it and put it on top of the piano. But it was made of alabaster, and the water percolated through, and the paint began to peel off. I was mortified, but learnt from my mother years later that aunt Jess was quite relieved because she couldn’t stand this piece of latter–day tourist tat!

In later years, when Jess moved to a flat in Pevensey Road, Hastings, I would often visit her after school, and she would cook me an evening meal. I would listen to the Goon Show, while aunt was cooking; and after we’d eaten we’d play cribbage or rummy. I had no impatience to go, and I was not bored. These were pleasurable times: for me and aunt Jess. And, of course, a break for my mother.

Sussex days: 1923 to 1958

Dad, me, and Mum in front of the entrance
steps. Our 'front door' was at the side, well
out of sight of the road

I have written about my childhood before, but have said little about our living conditions. To situate this in time and place, I am writing (talking?) about the late 1940s and early 1950s in St Leonards–on–Sea, in East Sussex – in Pevensey Road, to be precise. We lived in the basement flat of a four–storey semi–detached house, built, I would imagine, between the wars (1st and 2nd, for as long as that will make sense to people). And I further imagine that we were living in what had been the servants’ quarters. And yet, can that have been true? It seems questionable, because each floor was a self–contained flat, with a very public and utilitarian staircase running up the centre. But perhaps each of the flats was served by the same servants. Certainly the coal was delivered – by horse–drawn lorries – to our capacious cellar; and so was presumably carried up to the other flats (we bought it by the sack load, and the work must have been as back–breaking for the men as the old metal dustbins). However, we did not supply the other flats, and I presume that they used electric fires (with one, two, three, or four bars).

Our flat was surrounded by an ‘area’ which took the form of what might be described as a trench, with concrete walls and base – about four feet deep and three feet wide. So that when you looked out of the sitting room windows at the back, your eyes were not far short of being on a level with the lawn. Quite why the house was built like this I do not know, but it had one great disadvantage: we were flooded beneath the floorboards after heavy rainfall – which in turn forced slugs to take refuge through the cracks. . .   

We had only one bedroom, and when I was too old for my cot, I had a bed in a corner of the sitting room – which also served as our dining room. Neither I nor anyone else thought there was anything strange in this arrangement: we did what we could in the space that was available.

Our kitchen was not very inviting. As I remember, it had pale green distempered walls and brown floor lino (I do not think any other colour was available at the time). Probably we had a larder, but I cannot remember. We did not have a fridge, and so shopped most days of the week. The pipes were of course lead, and seemed to favour the kitchen as a place to burst in the winter. We had a gas cooker, and my mother quite often used a pressure cooker, until one day it blew up and splattered its contents onto the ceiling.

Our bathroom was even less inviting than the kitchen. There were no niceties: just a gas boiler (geyser), a galvanised tub, a mangle, and a clothes horse. Washing machines and tumble driers were unknown to us; so my mother had to use the galvanised tub (which also served as our bath), and washing tongs to ‘agitate’ the dirt out of the laundry, by a kind of gentle pummelling – up and down in the water. Then: through the mangle, and onto the clothes horse; this was then hoisted up to the ceiling. Or if the weather was fine the washing was pegged out in the garden (and alas, it never gave any of that extraordinary aesthetic pleasure so often to be derived from Italian washing lines. Our washing hung and flapped dully, and that was it). 

Our toilet was one of the old fashioned chain–pull types, and quite efficient given that the tank was very high up, so giving a full flush. I used to give the chain three gentle pulls before the full pull – one of those odd, slightly superstitious things that kids tend to do.

One, quite small, room was given over to my father’s workshop (metalwork), in which there was a lathe, a drilling machine, and a grinder (as illustrated in the photo). Before that, he had rented a workshop in Hastings. He was a very fine engineer, and could make components that were accurate to within a tenth of a thousandth of an inch. (A book he wrote about screw cutting in the lathe has never been out of print since he wrote it thirty years ago, and an invention of his – the swing–clear boring tool holder –which is still made and used today). He also made a model cable car, which travelled from skirting board to ceiling in our sitting room. Such was the nature of our home!

(I should say that my father was an unruly youth. In one photo he looks as if he’s been pulled though that proverbial hedge and wears a scruffy pullover that might well have been a cast–off of Dennis the Menace’s. He was nevertheless very knowledgeable about chemistry – as also maths and physics – and took delight one day in placing an explosive cocktail in some local dustbins, which caused a terrific din and blew the bin lids sky high!)

We had a garden the size of a small allotment, and we also had an allotment. It seems we were still ‘digging for Britain’! I remember the pleasure of lifting potatoes – and took particular delight in a crescent border of double daisies and white alyssum, which I think we grew from seed: I see it in my mind’s eye to this day, and remember the heavenly sweet scent of the alyssum. I am so glad that there were no mobiles around – no ‘must haves.’ I would have liked a Hornby 00 railway set, but I knew we could not afford it, and never even considered pressing my parents to buy one. (Small tragedy: we had a green and yellow budgerigar called Gussy. One morning, as I was putting some millet into his cage, he escaped – straight out of the open window. I was heartbroken.)

We had a dog – a pedigree Scottish terrier – which we bought from kennels at Hadlow Down (just north of Lewes, Sussex). We were shown four puppies. All abounded with life, but one struck us as being particularly spirited, and so it was that ‘Angus’ came into our life. It is good for children to have a relationship with an animal, yet city life, working parents, and a too–early obsession – as only too often it is – with social media, make it increasingly difficult to give pets the attention they need and deserve. But my mother had no need to work, and so it was that Angus was never alone. My mother and I both took him out – and how excited he became when his lead was taken off the hook! Taking him for a walk was good exercise for both canine and human, and I never remember thinking of it as a chore. Of all the animals, dogs seem the closest to sharing human emotions. The cat is a cool animal, and goldfish seem hardly aware of their existence. But with a dog you can form a bond, and I remember years later, when I was a student and therefore away for weeks on end, that on my visits home Angus would become so excited that he would make himself sneeze – ‘schnuffing’ we would call it. However, we put him in kennels once – so that we could go on holiday. When we left his tail was between his legs, but on our return, he came forward briefly to greet us, and then immediately turned back. Quite clearly he had been enjoying the company of other dogs. To this day I remember my feeling of disappointment!

I was well occupied with play and exploration of my surroundings. Which latter consisted of the seaside, cliffs, woods, the complex system of twittens (paths between houses), parks, allotments, and the ubiquitous bomb sites. This is not to say that my mother exercised no control over me, but she certainly realised that life for me would have been a misery cooped up in the house week after week (and neither did she spend time anxiously awaiting my return). My friends and I climbed trees to as far as we could get . . . but I do not remember anything reckless in this activity: we were exploring the limits of what was possible – learning about our bodies and the physical environment. (Tom Sawyer was one of my favourite books, and I read it twice.) I spent a lot of time with my mother: shopping: for food, firelighters, and general household goods. This was rich time. I remember when my pocket money went up to 7/6! I learned from this – in practice – what economists call the ‘opportunity cost’: that the true cost of buying another lead soldier, was the extra piece of Meccano which I could not therefore buy.

My mother and me, pre–St Leonards days.
Location unknown

I grew up without television, and saw — very occasionally on a friend’s set — Muffin the Mule, Bill and Ben and the Flowerpot Men, and The Lone Ranger. Did I miss out? I do not think so. I don’t remember feeling any wish that our family should also have a television. As a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s I was very happy with radio. Though quite what it was that appealed to me in Billy Cotton’s Band Show and BFPO (British Forces Posted Overseas) requests remains a mystery to me! Other programmes, Life with the Lyons and The Clitheroe Kid, were of their time, and would not appeal now. Though Charles’s Chilton’s Journey into Space remains as exciting and chilling as when first broadcast. Importantly, I was not obsessed with ‘the screen’ – even though very excited by the cinema.

I was happy in this home, but happier still when we bought a semi–detached house in 1958: for £1,750. It was not until a few years later that my father earned the then magic figure of £1,000 per annum. 

_____________________________________

A note about my mother’s childhood and youth   

Mum as a child at Netherfield, Adult unknown

In the mindset of those involved, the birth of my mother was an acute embarrassment and inconvenience. Other words – impugning the complete innocence of my mother – were probably applied at the time. However, happily there seems to have been no shortage of money, and my mother was fostered with immediate effect to a lady that I called ‘Aunt Jess’ (Sophia Jessie Squire), and who had no blood relationship to any of the parties involved. The connection would seem to be as follows. The address of my maternal grandmother (Rose Catherine Hayes) was “The Bungalow”, Netherfield Hill, Battle, East Sussex; and it is clear that this was rented from the owner, who was Jessie's mother, Mrs Fanny Squire. This I know from a copy of Fanny's will, in which she leaves “The Bungalow” to Jessie. Fanny had two surviving daughters, Alice Maud and Florence Jane, but both had married; and my presumption is, that Fanny left everything to Jessie because she was fostering my mother, and was clearly in need of financial assistance. Probate was obtained in July, 1929, and totalled £328 | 7 | 8 (Three Hundred & Eighty–Two Pounds, Seven Shillings and Eight Pence).   

In 1932, Jess moved to “Brabans Cottage”, Staple Cross, another village in East Sussex, near to Bodiam and Northiam. Jess paid approximately £350 for the cottage (the current Zoopla estimate is £553,333). It is hard now to imagine how rural this existence was, and one of my mother’s most impressionable memories was of a German Zeppelin which passed low over Staple Cross. This fascinates me to this day: thinking that some of the villagers had never even seen the sea. Another memory was of seeing Queen Mary pass through the village (probably on her way to the hill town of Rye – the easternmost town in Sussex, at the edge of Romney Marsh. One other anecdote from this time: Mum and Aunt Jess used occasionally to go to the cinema in Hastings on Saturdays, but they always had to leave before the end – walking backwards up the aisle, trying to catch as much as they could – to catch the last bus to Staple Cross from Wellington Square. And on this bus there would be a man who had spent his day in the pub. He was met at his stop by his wife, who had a wheelbarrow to take him home!

In 1938 Aunt Jess moved to Hastings. Jess was dissatisfied by the offer she had received on the sale of “Brabans Cottage”, and instructed Godfrey West & Hickman (GW&H) to try and increase the price. Here are two relevant passages from GW&H’s reply:

“re “BRABHAMS COTTAGE”.

Referring to our Mr. Hickman’s call on you yesterday, when we submitted to you the offer of £425 we received for the above freehold property from our applicant Mrs. Small, and you directed him to inform this lady that you hardly thought this enough, but if we could persuade her to increase her offer to £430, we could close with her at this figure —

We are pleased to inform you that we have been able to do rather better than this, as we saw Mrs. Small again this morning and induced her to increase to Four Hundred and Thirty–five Pounds (£435), which we have accepted on your behalf, subject to contract and to vacant possession not being given for at least six weeks, which was in accordance with your directions.

So, an increase of five pounds: how hard it is to imagine this mattering now!

Click on image to enlarge

My mother and Jess at Lover's Seat, Fairlight, near
Hastings

The purchase price of the house in Elphinstone Avenue, Hastings, was £740). Jess took lodgers, and one of these was Ken Hart – Mum’s husband to be. (Aunt Jess kept a mallet behind the front door in case of invasion!)

During the war, my mother worked for a jeweller in Hatton Garden, and often had to walk past burning buildings, stepping over fireman’s hoses. In 1944 our family moved to Swanley in Kent. Unfortunately, this was right in the path of the doodlebugs (flying bombs), one of which landed in our road, and flipped me right over in my cot in the shelter. (I was born in April of that year at the Salvation Army Mothers Hospital in Clapton. Under religion she entered ‘Freethinker’ – and one of the nurses/sisters came round later to see what such a being looked like! She did not come from a bohemian family, and I still marvel at her courage.) My mother also saw the ‘Thousand Bomber Raids’ going over the town – the sky filled with aircraft in all directions. Once – some years earlier – when my father was on his bicycle, some lads called out, “France has gone, mister.” And my father felt a chill, as I can only too easily imagine.

My paternal grandfather, my step–grandmother (and Dickens & Nelson)

I have recently rediscovered some of the letters that my grandfather sent to my father, and these do have more than family interest. Here first is an insight into London schooling in the late nineteenth century. My grandfather left school in 1899. The family lived in Bermondsey, close to Tower Bridge.

I remember full well, that I left school on my 13th birthday, and the master told my mother, that I was a bright boy, but oh so lazy!  Of course it was very fortunate that I discovered what ignorance meant as soon almost as I stepped out of the school ground.  Of course one can never really make up for lost time.  But then one has to remember that the old London Board School never set out to make scholars.  As long as simple arithmetic and elementary spelling were assimilated, the job was done. Believe it or not though, I did not even get that far.

I have since made attempts amongst other things, to acquire a smattering of Latin, but with no success.  Fortunately I took interest in the French language, and this gave me my chance on the Continental. [Attending Railway Union conferences in Belinzona, Switzerland]

Click on image to read text 

Joe and his parents. Photograph by
W A Brown, 148 Camberwell Road,
London. The fashion suggests that
the photo was taken around 1889.
Quite clearly, the clothes have been
provided by the photographer, and
the family made smarter than ever
they actually looked in daily life.
They are not smiling because it was
impossible to 'hold' a smile for the
required exposure time

My grandfather did indeed learn French, and I am sure many other things at evening classes. I don’t think that he ever read Samuel Smiles’ Self Help, but he definitely embraced the ethos of Victorian self–improvement. His father was a goods–yard shunter on the railways, and Joe started off as a signal clerk. He worked his way up gradually, and eventually became manager of the Bricklayers Arms Goods Depot in south London. The depot was very extensive and of vital importance during WW2. Consequently it was extensively bombed and at times not too far removed from–war front conditions. Post–war Joe worked in railway offices at Victoria Station.

My grandmother died before I was born, and Joe remarried. He met his second wife as result of involvement with the Labour Party. Joe was a keen unionist, and his second wife (Joy) was what used to be termed a ‘silver spoon socialist’. She was a member of the Cecil family, and her father owned practically all the land around the village of Bletchingley in Surrey – that is until he successfully managed to gamble most of it away . . . Anyway, Joy was a truly committed Labour Party member and was re–elected as Labour candidate for the Rural District of Godstone & Parish of Bletchingley, Surrey – in the very heart of Conservative country – year after year. That was because people knew that she cared – and indeed she would willingly turn out in the middle of the night to help someone. During Neil Kinnock’s leadership of the Labour Party she was given one of two annually awarded Kier Hardy prizes for outstanding local political activity. Their marriage was amazing in a way: Joe from the working class, and Joy from the upper or ‘landed’ classes. Nevertheless, it worked wonderfully. Joe became quite the squire in a way – in Bletchingley – and I remember one Christmas his giving the post–boy a half crown. This was a gesture of genuine kindness, but also I think a demonstration of Joe’s standing in the community! 

Joe and Joy at Little Coldharbour, near Bletchingley, Surrey

This last section of correspondence between Joe and my father gives some of the family history, and this is where Nelson and Dickens come in…

On looking back I think it should be noted with some interest that both grandparents could read and write, which considering that state educational facilities of the early part of the last century, marks them as being a little above the average.  As a child I was very fond of Dickens (and I still am) and when talking with me [sic] to grandma [about a copy of Pickwick Papers which I had just received from a library, she remembered when it came out first, in weekly parts, and how “poor hart” [as grandma Hart always referred to grandfather] purchased a copy on the day of issue, and with what zest they both enjoyed reading it.  One of my boyhood heroes was Nelson, and you can imagine how widely I opened my eyes when grandma told me that she knew and had spoken with a man who had fought in Trafalgar under Nelson.  Another was George Stephenson, the power behind the steam locomotive, and it was a wonder to me how grandma could possibly got [sic] before there were railways!  From this starting point I elicited the information that when she first came to London, it was from the White Hart Inn at Lewes [Sussex], that she started by stage coach from about the year 1839.  Apparently, as was not unusual, she left the village to take service in London as a girl of eleven or twelve, but in what capacity or where, history is silent. 

There are only 245 words in this paragraph, but what wonderment they contain!

Click on image to read text

                             

     

Censorship by any other name

A very long time ago I read Santayana’s Persons and Places: Fragments of Autobiography. One observation has remained in my mind ever since. Santayana was  waiting for a train, and was in earshot of a small boy and his father. I cannot remember the exact question that the boy asked his father, but it was something along the lines of, ‘Does the railway line go on forever?’ Father was not prepared to enter into the spirit of this boyish – and far from stupid question – and consequently treated Son as daft. Santayana said nothing, but in his book tartly remarks on the effective suppression of the imagination and nascent enquiring mind of the young by such obtuse and deadening response.

The Yorkshire Schoolmaster at the Saracen's Head. 
Halbot Brown illustration for Nicholas Nickleby 

Well, I recently witnessed a similar form of ‘suppression’ in the setting of a pub in Brighton. I was sitting next to two men who were holding a general conversation such as is commonplace in pubs. After some twenty minutes or so a father and his son – aged about ten – came in. Son was given an orange juice, and – clearly keen to ‘explore’ the pub – came over to where I was sitting, and tried to say something to the two conversing men. He was brusquely dismissed. I put my hand out, and said that it was alright to talk if he wanted to. But clearly ‘the damage had been done’ and he returned to his father’s side. The two men then came up with this truly enlightened bon mot: ‘Never interrupt a conversation.’ This they repeated, so good did it sound to their ears. I commented that, ‘He was only trying to be friendly’, but this was met with an uncomprehending stare that probably mirrored that of Eugène Terre’Blanche. When I left the pub, I told the father that his boy had been upset by the two ‘conversationalists’. ‘Oh, really’, he replied (!). Clearly, there are many instances where all you can do is shake the dust off your feet when you leave... 

However, these were some men and a father (and of course there will be some women and mothers as well. But we need not end on a depressing note. An age ago in a park in Wandsworth I heard a small girl ask her father, “Daddy, do the birds sing because they're happy?” I did not catch the father's reply, but I could see from his body language that he fully entered into the spirit of his daughter's delightful question; and I'm sure that he encouraged her and nurtured her imagination – which must surely be one of the best definitions of education. 

Why the young view old age through the wrong end of the telescope

Rembrandt, Self–Portrait at the age of 63 (Detail) 1669 

I have only read some half dozen of Shakespeare’s plays, but I remember – in The Winter’s Tale – being particularly struck by Polixenes’ reply to Hermione when she asks what his boyhood was like with her husband Leontes:

We were, fair Queen
Two lads that thought there was no more to behind [to come],
But such a day tomorrow as today
And to be a boy eternal. (I, ii, 36)

These were exactly the sentiments of Richmal Crompton’s William Brown / Just William, who – with the ‘outlaws’ at his side, and his dog Jumble at his heals – felt that an eternity of

freedom stretched before him. And small wonder that, when a wily tramp offers to let the ‘outlaws’ into the ‘profession’ (at the consideration of (2/–) two shillings apiece), the attraction of endless roaming and the freedom of the road seems like a chance in a lifetime. Well, this was a road chosen by Walt Whitman, W H Davies, and Henry Thoreau (in his own way). But then they probably felt like Ruskin that although, ‘The world itself is round, and indeed more or less everything in it ...  human work ... is often very flat indeed.’

And what has given rise to these thoughts? That although most young people think it very desirable to live   a long life, nevertheless the old and elderly tend to be invisible to them. Not that this is surprising. It stems from an intense preoccupation with the ‘now’, and a lack of long experience of life. Not that everyone’s childhood is by any means necessarily a happy one. Some children may be sadly propelled into the world   of adult experience far too quickly. However, insofar as there are certain ‘fixtures’ these do tend to take on a kind of permanence in a child’s mind. So that a degree of sadness or plaintiveness is felt when, for example, granny dies, and it is no longer possible to visit a person and a house which has meant so much to us. Moreover, we seem to have a certain tendency to go on thinking that, whenever something good happens to us it is the first in an endless series – rather than a ‘one–off’, or the first of a limited number of such experiences. Hence the frequency of celebrity divorces: a fairly predictable result of dizzyingly unrealistic expectations... French chateaux and the yachts in the Mediterranean can anyway make for a remarkably tedious and empty life.

Well, I have strayed somewhat from the question of the perceived desirability of a long life. But my part–time work in one of the UKs biggest hospitals is very salutary in this respect. Twice a week I witness what  it can be like to reach the kind of age that the young think so desirable. And, truth to be told, it is not much fun growing old – if, that is, your health has seriously deteriorated. I remember my aunt Joy saying to me, ‘Don’t grow old, Peter.’ She would say this in a very matter of fact way, and without a trace of self–pity. She died in her early eighties in 1987 – just before the ‘great storm’ which tore like a fury through the woods behind her cottage. That same wood in which – in the 1950s – I had painstakingly severed the ivy from the base of every tree. (Some kids, walking along the footpath at the top of the wood, told me that I was on private property. Like a young prig, I informed them that, ‘I happened to be staying with the owners . . .)

There was always something magical about the view over the Surrey countryside from Joy’s cottage.   It is utterly indescribable. By chance, my wife and I were able to visit the cottage just a few years ago. It  was as if time had stood still. The landscape – and all its distinctive features – was as magical as when I first saw it in the 1950s. The general advice tends to be, ‘Don’t go back’, but in this instance it was as if I had never been away...  

Work experience

Giles. Daily Express 2 July 1964 — ‘...may I expect your homework to be at least partially legible.’

It seems extraordinary now, but when I failed the ‘pernicious’ 11 plus exam, and therefore attended a secondary modern school (in 1955), none of us were entered for O levels. I found out only recently that there was never any intention that secondary modern school pupils should be prepared for exams. We had – oh, wonderful system! – been ‘stamped’ at age 11 as being decidedly in the category of ‘limited expectations’. There  was to be no teasing out of ability or encouragement of talents: we were put into a convenient ‘social lump’. Fortunately, I had the lucky escape of enrolment at Hastings School of Art, and therefore was spared the tedium of most of the employment opportunities in Hastings – then as now, alas.

However, there is something else which seems extraordinary now. Which is that it was then possible to walk into the offices of, for example, a newspaper, and simply ask if there were any jobs going. And the reply might well have been, ‘Yes, can you start next Monday?’ No interview, no CV – just a quick ‘eye to eye’ assessment. If you were diligent, personable, punctual, and flexible you could then work your way up, learn a trade, become a skilled worker, and at the very least earn a reasonable wage. How stark is the contrast now! Between applicant and employer there is a thick wall of qualifications, written applications, CVs, and – if you are lucky – interviews. And yet, despite all these hurdles, hoops, and ‘safeguards’ there is still no guarantee that the most suitable candidate will be chosen.

No names, no pack drill, but I know of disastrous decisions which have been made by people nowise lacking in intelligence. The artificiality of the interview seems to be the main problem: instead of your being observed working and relating to other people, you have to attempt to describe how you do these things. A near–impossibility, I think. Moreover, a clever interviewee can sway the judgement of a poor interviewer – and there is not exactly a dearth of the latter.

Well, as light relief to all this, I was once asked by the son of family friends which school I had been to. This was a bit tricky, as he was attending St Pauls, London... Anyway, I was able to reply, ‘The Grove School, Hastings.’ Not surprisingly he had not heard of it, but it sounded well: The Groves of Academe, as might be said...

Endnote: I remember an unusual interruption to one of our lessons in my last year at the Grove school. Unannounced, the head master came in with someone from British Railways. There was    a vacancy for a porter at West St Leonards station: would anyone like the job? Immediately, a  hand shot up, and there it was: a lad employed on the spot! I remember at the time understanding exactly why he was so keen to get out of the classroom and start earning a wage. And I guess too, that he had made the right decision.    

Collecting stamps, delighting in maps, and taking risks

Do children still collect stamps? And when I ask that question, I have in mind a reasonably serious collection. Well, I do not know, but somehow I doubt it. There are too many counter–attractions. I mean, you cannot be ‘interactive’  with stamps, and there is nothing ‘virtual’ about them – they are so not cool!

As an adult, I have no interest in stamps, but as a boy I took much pleasure in slowly building up a collection of British stamps. And if that sounds dull, it was not so to me at the time. Moreover, it might even be described as a small manifestation of that passion for collection without which our towns and cities would be greatly impoverished for the want of museums and art galleries. How my enthusiasm for stamp collecting began, I cannot now remember. Did the Eagle comic devote some space to the subject? If so, it is lost to my memory.

Anyway, at school the geography teacher, Mr Duly, started a stamp club. One evening, a fellow enthusiast, Nigel Gosling and I brought in our collections for the other members to look at. After our albums had been passed around, Mr Duly said, “I think we can say that Gosling and Hart are not just stamp collectors, but philatelists.” Well, the envy was palpable, and I remember even at the time thinking that it was not very wise of Mr Duly    to praise us in this way. After all, if Gosling and Hart now walked on the ‘higher plains of philately’, where did this leave the others? Humiliated and discouraged, I shouldn't wonder.

Expectations at my secondary modern school were very low, and homework – as I remember – practically non–existent. However, I loved drawing maps, and would do some at home. These were marked by Mr Duly, and then handed back to me. I nearly always got √ 10/10 VG, on account of the carefulness with which they were drawn. And as none of my classmates saw them, there was no danger of being raised to the status of cartographer! In particular, I loved Ordnance Survey maps, with all their symbols and formalised graphic representations. The map may not be the territory, and the symbol not the thing symbolised. But to me as a boy this presented no problem, and I delighted in such things       as the red circle ● (station open), empty circle ○ (station disused); the fine hatchings delineating embankments; and soft yellow representing sand. All these conjured up landscapes  in my mind in a far more exciting way than photographs; and even those landscapes that I knew became – somehow – more atmospheric as a result of the map. The landscape and the map were both tactile, but in quite distinct ways.   

One more thing about Mr Duly.  I was summoned to his room one day and caned because he had seen me jump off the platform of a moving bus (as it was taking a left corner at a right angle). Now, this was not a wise action on my part: I fell over and sustained a badly bruised knee. However, I felt a sense of considerable injustice. I am quite sure that Mr Duly undertook this action off his own bat, and had not first consulted the headmaster. So I wonder now, did he take pleasure in giving me pain? In the light of what we now know – but was then hidden to the point of invisibility – his action can be classed as physical abuse (possibly accompanied by other unhealthy attractions to me as a boy). I do not know, and I may do his memory an injustice, but his action certainly vitiated our relationship.

However, children will take risks – whatever the fears of their parents. It is in their nature, and – from time to time – fatalities will inevitably occur. However, would we rather have dull, ‘play–safe’, conformist children? I think not. The tragedy is that we now have a combination of passive risk–taking – drugs – and extreme active risk–taking – as of tomb–stoning (jumping of high cliffs into the sea) and parkouring (jumping from one high building to another). It might well be wondered to what extent the ‘cotton–wooling’     of children has contributed to these extreme activities, and has fostered a heightened desire of the natural tendency to rebel. True or not, no measures will entirely circumvent the willfulness, waywardness, and sometimes sheer bloody–mindedness of adolescents and teenagers. These and other (often deeply frustrating and maddening!) characteristics are permanent aspects of the cultural environment of the young and impressionable.