I was Born at a Very Young Age

By Bob Francis

For many people, memory is often triggered by a sound or a smell. For me, the very earliest one is of sitting in my pram and being aware of a tantalising aroma, wishing I could have some of whatever it was, but unable to communicate the fact because I was too young to talk. I have amazingly good recall, but as I’ve got older, little bunches of memories are slowly being snuffed out like candles, so I decided to write a few anecdotes down before what passes for my brain, packs it in altogether and I become a cabbage. My story started off small, just like me, and grew over the years...just like me!
I wouldn’t say that being able to remember a conversation that happened 50 years ago, word for word, is an advantageous thing because I also remember, in vivid detail, most of the times I’ve made complete and utter fool of myself, which I’m sad to say, add up to more than a few. I wish I really could forget about them, but sadly, I just have to live with the affliction and remind myself that everyone else has probably forgotten about whatever it was that happened at the time, so why worry?
I’m no saint and I regret that I’ve hurt people in my life, not least of all myself by being a complete idiot at times, but I like to think I’ve learned something, even if it was the hard way. It’s been a rough ride but I have had some fun. I’m no Ernest Hemmingway or Stephen King, just an ordinary guy with a good memory and this is, as far as I am concerned, a true account of my life from my earliest years, until 1991 when I left the UK. Part 2 will follow...one day. Bob Francis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Francis
• Release date: Mar 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463247044

Bob Francis

Robert (Bob) Francis was born in Eastbourne, England in 1957 and has been (amongst many other things), a butcher, chef, milkman, bus conductor and driver, truck and coach driver, driving instructor, window cleaner, DJ, comedian and presenter, tour guide and licensee. A “jack of all trades, but master of some.”He teaches English and international cookery and is also a professional wine taster.His hobbies are editing the magazine for a British Classic Car club, writing, cooking, building guitars, and restoring old cars.He plays trumpet and trombone, sings (badly) plays the washboard and blues harmonica, speaks fluent Italian and is “quite good” at some other languages, but by his own admission, repeats the same old rubbish in all of them.He has lived with his long-suffering partner Jeanne, at Lake Garda in Northern Italy since April 1991.

Book preview

I was Born at a Very Young Age

Copyright 2019 Bob Francis

Published by Bob Francis at Smashwords

ISBN: 9780463247044

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all who helped with this epic and added their comments and on occasion, the odd correction or two where my memory has indeed failed me, a rare occurrence I might add. Many thanks go to my long-suffering partner Jeanne, and my best friend Jon Scott.

About the author

Robert (Bob) Francis was born in Eastbourne, England, in September 1957 and has been, amongst many other things, a butcher, chef, milkman, bus conductor and driver, HGV1 driver, driving instructor, window cleaner, DJ, comedian and compere, tour guide and licensee.

He teaches English and international cookery and is also a professional wine taster (drinker) and a long-term member of O.N.A.V. the Italian National Wine Tasters Organisation.

His hobbies are editing the magazine of a British Classic car club, writing, cooking, building guitars, and restoring old cars. He reads and writes music, plays trumpet, sings (badly) plays the washboard and blues harmonica, speaks fluent Italian and is quite good at some other languages, but by his own admission, repeats the same old rubbish in all of them.

He started writing his autobiography in 2003, which is now into two volumes, which, he admits, will probably never be finished. He has lived with his partner at Lake Garda in Northern Italy since April 1991.

Foreword

For many people, memory is often triggered by a sound or a smell. For me, the very earliest one is of me sitting in my pram and being aware of a tantalising aroma, wishing I could have some of whatever it was but unable to communicate the fact because I was too young to talk. My father had just come in through the front door which was behind me, carrying something under his arm and shortly after this the aroma of whatever it was, hit me, and I wanted some!

I have amazingly good recall, a few years ago I would have said it was photographic but as I’ve got older, little bunches of memories are being snuffed out like birthday candles, so I decided to write a few anecdotes down before what laughably passes for my brain, packs it in altogether and I become a cabbage. My story started off small and grew over the years. It has taken all these years, simply because I didn’t have time every day to sit down and write.

I wouldn’t say that being able to remember a conversation that happened 50 years ago, word for word, is an advantageous thing because I also remember, in vivid detail, the times I’ve made complete and utter fool of myself, which add up to more than a few. I wish I could forget about them but to no avail so I just have to live with the affliction and remind myself that everyone else has probably forgotten about whatever it was that happened at the time, so why should I worry?

We’re all different in the way that we perceive and recall. Take ten people at random and show them a short video clip of some event or other and leave it for a while, a few days, a week, maybe a month and then ask them to write down an account of what happened. Few versions will tally. The basic details, time, place, characters etc. will probably be correct but the accounts of who said what and did this or that, will probably be quite varied and when shown the original video clip again, those recounting the moment will be amazed at how wrong they got it, thus some people’s versions or memories of events may differ from mine so I pray I’ll not be taken to task by anyone who says That ain’t right!

In some cases, I’ve changed a person’s name to protect their identity and, in others, I’ve deliberately omitted them where the individual/s concerned, or their families, may perhaps question the veracity of my comments. Where an individual really did get up my nose and I’ve said who it was, it’s because it really did happen like that and I have made sure that I have plenty of corroborating evidence to back my claims before anyone decides on a law suit!

I’m no saint and I’ve hurt a few people in my life, not least of all myself by being a complete idiot at times, I probably still am, but I like to think that I’ve learned something, even if it was the hard way. It’s been a rough ride but I have had some fun. I’m no Ernest Hemmingway or Stephen King, just an ordinary guy with a good memory.

Bob Francis. 30th July 2021.

Contents

The Early Years

Early Friends

Early School Days

Nan Hunt

Nan Francis

Old Town and St Mary’s School

Christmas

Back to the Plot

Other Friends

The last Junior School Years

Ratton School

Turn the other cheek

Turning back the clock

More Teachers

Stig and Norway

To Scandinavia

Back to when I was ten

I’m sixteen now

After school and early married life

Zebedee

On the Buses

Inspectors

Other Colleagues

After the buses and other stuff

Moving House

Danny and the butcher’s shop

On the Milk

Rexy’s Roadshow and meeting Penny

The beginning of the end

Breaking Point

A New Start

Back to 1985 if you please

BSM

Driving Instructors’ Tales

The Archery Tavern

Flying with Jim

Falling apart at the seams

Meeting Jeanie

The Saga of the Escort

The Final Straws

The pits, clawing my way out. Bye Bye UK

GLOOP

I was Born at a Very Young Age

The Early Years

I was in my pram; I suppose I was too young to know that’s what it was at the time but there was definitely a hooded canopy behind, above and surrounding me and what seemed to me to be insurmountable sides. I could see out of it as I was propped up in a sitting position and had a view of a hallway with a door to the right and a set of stairs to my left. I could see down the hallway at the end of which was the kitchen where my mother was moving about. The door opened behind me, flooding the hall with light and my Dad came in. I distinctly remember that because he looked to see if I was awake and tickled me under the chin which made me giggle.

I don’t know if it was lunchtime or early evening but there was a wonderfully appetising smell which emanated from a packet that he was holding and I wished I could have some of whatever it was. Later, when I grew a little older, I learned that it was the smell of fish and chips with vinegar on them, wrapped up in newspaper, something we seldom get these days (wrapped in newspaper I mean) but the aroma is unforgettable and one which starts me salivating at the very thought of it. More about that later.

I was born at a very young age; I suppose we all are really. In fact, I was about 8 ½ months old when I took my first tangible breaths of the atmosphere that surrounds us, although I daresay in those days it was probably somewhat cleaner than it is now. 8 ½ months? Yes, if you look at it the way the Chinese do, from the date of conception.

My mother, Doris Marian Hunt (9/12/1931 - 18/5/1982) and my father, Brian Ronald Francis (3/8/1932 - 9/1/2016) had married on Saturday the 22nd of Dec 1956 and had spent their honeymoon over Christmas with a short stay in the Victoria Hotel, Victoria, London, it was (and still may be) just across from the station.

I know there’s a Victoria Station Hotel there to this day so maybe that was it. It was all my mother’s father could afford as he’d paid for the reception and everything else, my father’s family not contributing a bean. There were reasons for that though, not least of which, my father came from a family of ten children and his father was a self-employed window cleaner who suffered from tuberculosis and was seldom able to work.

My parents were married at St Mary’s Church in Hampden Park Eastbourne, by the Rev Donald Campbell, who steadfastly refused to call my father by his given name of Brian and called him plain Francis, for the simple reason that he had never been christened, so, at the age of 24, not long before the wedding, my father had to go to the church along with witnesses, and was christened Brian Ronald. What a palaver! They don’t bother with that sort of thing nowadays.

I was born two weeks prematurely at two minutes past midnight on Wednesday the 18th Sept 1957 thus scotching any rumours of my alleged conception and subsequent birth outside wedlock. There are probably some disgruntled cretins who may wish to persist with the theme but perhaps they mean the word bastard in another sense, whatever, I care not a small portion of faeces about their feeble opinions and will permit proverbial sleeping dogs to continue with their canine fancies and not seek to disillusion the said cretins’ beliefs with the truth, quite plainly because Aquila non capit muscas (you can look that up for yourselves). You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, nor an idiot the error of his ways. You can try but it seldom has any effect.

Not only was I an awkward little bugger by deciding to make an inappropriately early exit from my comfy amniotic nest but, apparently, I was also a pest whilst I was in my pre-natal state i.e. in utero. I’d caused my mother no end of problems, including amongst my many misdemeanors, six months of morning/afternoon/evening sickness, yes, all day… dangerously high blood pressure and just to top it all I refused point blank to turn myself head down and steadfastly insisted on sitting firmly on my backside. This is something I’ve tried to do ever since whenever possible - but only if it annoys someone, otherwise it’s no fun.

It was probably the sudden rush of blood to my head that started me off on my break for freedom because no sooner had the doctors manipulated me from the outside in order to orientate me correctly for birth, my mother almost immediately went into labour and I was born about 36 hours later so I was told and, just to add injury to the fact that it had been extremely long and painful labour for her, despite being a very small baby, just 6 lb. 12 oz, I succeeded in ripping my poor mother’s perineum to shreds in the process, the practice of episiotomy apparently not being common in those times, leaving new mothers to be mercilessly torn to shreds by the exodus of their young.

Digression.

Apparently, the practice of episiotomy is not so common in the UK these days as it has been found that natural tears tend to heal more quickly and without problems of over tightness later. My wife (my 1st one) was episiotomised when both of our sons were born and she’ll testify to the discomfort afterwards. Here’s a funny thought, we males spend 9 months trying to get out, then from puberty onwards until too feeble to try, or care, we strive to get back in. Sorry, we’re only a few paragraphs into this and I’ve already made my first digression… I do that a lot, beware!

Not only had I caused all these problems before my birth, but there were more to come. I was jaundiced, quite a nice yellow in fact! If we’d lived in a yellow house with yellow carpets, furniture and wallpaper, they’d not have been able to find me! I couldn’t take the colostrum from my mother’s breast as it made me vomit, thus I had to be bottle fed with some sustaining draft until I was able to take milk.

I’m sure that draft must have been beer or at least had alcohol in it because I’ve been addicted to the stuff ever since I was able to pass for 18 at the off-licence and when in my early teens, rob the wine cupboard under the stairs of the homemade cider and wine that neither of my parents ever drank. It was a bit pointless making it really mind you, I didn’t think so at the time.

By the time things had cleared up and I was a normal colour, I had become quite familiar with the rubber nipple and refused point blank to accept the real ones of my mother! In fact, I spat them out and wouldn’t suck at all. I don’t have a rubber fetish, in fact, I don’t like either the smell or the taste of the stuff, so I’m sure it couldn’t have been for that reason that I insisted on the bottle.

The nurses even tried holding my nose to make me open my mouth and then clamped me unceremoniously onto her turgid breast which, unbeknown to me at the time, was filled with all the nourishment I could possibly need to keep me in health, but no, stubborn little bastard (there’s that word again) that I was, I spat it out, so the poor girl had to go around in extreme discomfort for a couple of weeks until the hormones that she naturally produced to encourage milk production began to subside and the manufacture of the life sustaining enrichment which I so badly needed, ceased. If only I’d known! Mind you, had I known I’d probably have refused it anyway, just to be bloody minded and awkward.

Mother was stacked a big girl. These days the average British bra size is… what? 34B? Well, if we are to believe what historical research tells us, in the 50’s the average was about 36B. My mother’s vital statistics were 44D-22-36 and she was 5ft 8" barefoot. She was quite a formidable woman and handsome looking too. She wasn’t stunningly pretty but had quite a regal poise. I think she was handsome enough and if a similarly elegant young woman was to be found in my bed and I was capable of any action, i.e. opening my fly did not produce a similar effect to a dead parrot falling off its perch, I’d give her at least 72 hours to get out.

With the natural increase in the size of a lady’s mammary glands during gestation, and what with mother already being rather large, can you imagine the size she must have attained? No, nor can I, but she said it was humongous and that if she’d tripped and fallen over forwards, she certainly wouldn’t have injured her face. She said that whilst she was waiting for her breasts to go down again she had to lean backwards to balance whilst walking.

It was like carrying a couple of sacks of potatoes on my chest, she said. I’m sure my dad liked them even if she did not.

You may consider that to have been rather a candid thing to say to a young boy - as I was when she told me - but we were always open and honest about sexuality, the birds and the bees and that sort of thing. Mum never pressed anything like that on me, like… sitting me down impromptu and explaining everything, she just waited until I asked something, and she’d tell me. I feel that’s the way it should be too, with no cloak and dagger stuff. I asked her why ladies had bosoms and men didn’t, so she told me. She didn’t branch out into where babies came from, she waited until I wanted to know. Fair enough!

My mother only wanted one child; she’d expressed that quite plainly to my father before she’d married him, being an only child herself, although this wasn’t the only reason that I remained solo. During her pregnancy she’d suffered from dangerously high blood pressure, almost pre-eclamptic in fact and thereon for the rest of her short life she had to be on constant medication. The doctors warned her that to have another child would be very risky for her, if not fatal, so I was the only one and that was that.

I think one was enough anyway, especially after they saw what they’d ended up with as the fruit of their labours! In fact, I’m sure that when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother instead of me! High blood pressure or hypertension as it is referred to, although it is still a dangerous condition, can be controlled very well with medication nowadays. 60 + years ago it was somewhat different. I have it too although the major cause of mine is that I’m overweight, in fact, I’m what would be termed as morbidly obese, but never mind, I can always go on a diet. Easily said…

Eee’s gorra Mardy mouth on ‘im that wun, said the midwife to my mum whilst she was in the Upperton Maternity hospital in Eastbourne. She came from the Midlands and was referring to the hard and determined set of my mouth.

Yoo’ll ‘ave trooble wi that wun mark mah words, ‘ee’ll never lissen turra word yoo say an’ ‘ee’ll learn th‘ard way, yoo’ll see, ‘ees gorra Mardy mouth on ‘im ee ‘as!

Apparently, the expression meant that I would be Willful and sulky or difficult. It’s still used today although not generally known much outside the Midlands and Manchester area where someone would be referred to as a Mard. It was always assumed to be a corruption of marred ("mar'd or marr'd as Shakespeare wrote it) also Mardy, Mardarse Mardypants, another similar term is Nesh. Today’s interpretation of the term is slightly different to that which applied a few years back but it basically meant, one who’ll always have his own way, is very determined, and won’t be told". Boy, was she right!? I’m not sulky or sullen and do not muse when I cannot have my own way though, I just bide my time until I can manipulate things in such a way that I DO get my own way.

I will have my own way, no matter what, no matter how much it costs me for better or worse.

I won’t listen, end of story, your comments will fall on deaf ears etc.

I make mistakes, often, but when I do, I try to learn from them but it’s no good telling me I’m doing it wrong, whatever it is because you’re talking to a deaf man. I’ll do it my way and learn from it - even if it is the hard way. It’s how I am and I cannot change it even though I wish at times that I could, it would make my life so much easier. Having said that, I’ve changed a bit over the years, I used to be like that but I’m a bit different now, having learned that every now and then it just pays to cave in!

My mother and father, long before my emergence into the world, had met at dancing classes which used to be held in the reception room which doubled as a dance hall above the Marine pub in Seaside, Eastbourne, which is still there to this day. They were both keen ballroom dancers, something they kept up until my mother’s illness which began in1980 although we were unaware of it until New Year’s Eve 1980/81, and her subsequent and untimely death in 1982 at the age of 50. We’d often go to dinner dances when I was a boy and see couples take to the floor, lumping and bumping their way around it like dodgems at a funfair and then my mother and father would rise to the occasion and the show would begin.

It really was something to see. They’d glide effortlessly across the floor as if their feet had gossamer wings and they were flying along on invisible clouds, so lightly and smoothly did they move. Eat your heart out Strictly Come Dancing my Mum and Dad were brilliant! They were a perfect harmony, Yin and Yang, locked passionately together driven by the secret rhythm of practiced lovers, which of course, they were. I was too young to see it like that then but now it seems relevant.

They literally made love to the music. Other couples would stop dancing to watch them, fascinated. Mother taught me to dance from the age of six and although I never really developed the naturally fluid movements of my father, I still became quite good. Dad was a real artist though and a joy to watch. I was so proud of them. He still danced at the age of 81 when his back allowed, as he suffered from osteoporosis in his final years.

That’s my Mum and Dad, I’d proudly announce to anyone close enough to hear, who didn’t know already.

Mother, being a big girl as aforementioned, was a much sought-after dancing partner at the classes, not because the boys necessarily wanted to dance with her but because they could use the excuse of the close contact of ballroom dancing to have a good grope! This made her somewhat wary, especially having had a fairly strict upbringing.

She disliked the clandestine mauling and, at times, having an erection rubbed against her. I don’t blame her either, I wouldn’t want some spotty youth feeling me up, gender notwithstanding (mind you, I wouldn’t mind a pretty 18-year-old at the moment – a girl of course). Mum brooked no nonsense with anyone however, she wasn’t at all forward or promiscuous, nor was she shy about anything in particular, but she wouldn’t suffer being treated like a plaything or taken for granted, and that it was alright and acceptable because it was only meant in fun.

My Dad, on the other hand, was very shy. His nickname given to him by his brothers and sisters was Cocker because he had a habit of holding his head cocked to the right. This was because, from the age of six or seven, he was not sure after so many years, he’d been blind in his right eye. Exactly how it came about he couldn’t remember but he was hit in the face with a cricket bat by another boy whilst they were playing. He said the boy’s name was Arthur Ottley and he was a nice boy and not spiteful so he’s sure it was accidental. In later life, I knew his sons, Paul and Mick (I think I was Mick) and they were decent guys. Like father, like son.

My uncle Ernie, dad’s eldest sibling, said he couldn’t remember exactly what happened but dad was just too close and took a hit from the bat, which sadly put paid to his ambition to join the RAF. Since the accident, he quite visibly cocked his head to the right to enable him to see better and, probably subconsciously, hide the right side of his face, part of which, the right upper cheek bone and the eye, was markedly sunken in, plus the fact that his right eye was a greenish grey colour and somewhat flat and glassy looking compared to his good eye which was deep blue.

Even to the end of his life he still held his head this way: it was so that he could see better with his good eye, look ahead more easily and have a wider field of vision. I had an accident with an angle grinder in the early 90’s. It was my own stupid fault because I wasn’t wearing goggles and a piece of the grinding wheel broke off and hit me in the left eye. Although I’d instinctively closed it, or more likely just happened to be blinking at the time, the piece was moving at high velocity and whacked me on the eyelid, causing shock damage to the left eyeball and retina.

I subsequently recovered from it and had to have a small amount of laser surgery to re-attach the part of the retina that had dislodged, but it meant I had to go around with one eye covered for a while, and true enough, I could see ahead better by turning my head to the left, as it was the right one that I could see out of.

When I see a straight line with my right eye, I see it as a straight line but when I see the same thing with my left eye it has a tiny break in the middle which is just blank in my vision, however, I’m so accustomed to it now that I hardly notice it. Dad had to give up driving in his 70’s because he had a cataract on his good eye (he’d have had problems getting one on the other eye as it was made of plastic…) and although he was always a very careful (and sometimes annoyingly slow) driver a Sunday Driver, he began to feel a little unsure at times and decided it would be wise to stop before he either had or caused an accident. He’d never had an accident but had probably seen dozens in the rear-view mirror. He was 82 when he had the cataract removed, and was able to see better than he could ten years before, but he eventually became very weak and feeble as he also had three different types of cancer.

He had Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, bladder cancer and some other kind of tumour which was slowly growing on his back. He couldn’t feel that one at all as it didn’t cause him any pain so he didn’t worry about it but it did make it uncomfortable for him to lay on his back, which was probably a good job in a way because when he did, he snored like a hog. There comes a time for all of us to stop driving or operating machinery whether we’re experienced at it or not and sometimes it’s for the best, although I know he missed having a car to tinker with. The blood cancer got him in the end but at least he went peacefully and with no pain, a small mercy.

Let’s get back to the plot. The dancing instructor put my father and mother together as class partners because he was just a few inches taller than her and for the purposes of dancing, they were the perfect height for each other, plus the fact that they were both very diligent pupils and would be able to help each other to learn more quickly than if they had had to make allowances for large height differences, i.e. length of stride, or one of them being a dimwit, which neither of them was I’ll hasten to add.

Mother liked him at once, not because he was stunningly handsome (although he was quite good looking as a young man) but because he was shy and reserved and didn’t try it on. After he’d got over some of his initial shyness she found that he was kind and sensitive and after she’d got used to his bad eye which she soon didn’t notice any more - after a while, a physical defect is just a part of someone that you begin to accept and don’t notice any more than you would if it were a pimple on the chin, it’s there but it’s not important, she became fond of him and so on and so forth. I’m the result of that!

Their dancing instructor was in regular contact with talent scouts that used to come and visit the classes every now and then, searching for couples who showed promise, with the prospect of going on to have professional training and my mother and father, to be, were asked several times if they were interested in taking things a bit further.

Doris would have gone for the offer of being properly trained and dancing professionally but Brian, who was always conscious of his looks due to his sunken face and glassy eye, declined. If there had been such a thing as the National Health in those days, it didn’t get fully off the ground until 1958 or thereabouts, he could have had it put right, but an operation before then would have been private and very expensive. Neither he nor his family had the money.

In the days when dad had the accident, a doctor had to be paid for his services. Dad’s family was large and didn’t have a lot of money if any. Dad just had to be bandaged up (with vinegar and brown paper to quote the old nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill went up the hill) and hoped for the best. I remember early in 1964, he had an operation to remove the damaged eye as it was in danger of becoming infected due to necrosis and to have facial reconstruction to rebuild his cheekbone.

He went around with an eye patch for about a month, looking like a pirate. All he really needed to complete the picture was a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder but later on he was fitted with a false eye, I suppose I’d better call it a prosthesis, which was very realistic and attached with tiny magnets to a nylon eyeball which had been put in place of the original. It was actually attached to the muscles that moved his eye, which meant that when he moved his left eye, instead of staring straight ahead, the right eye also moved, not quite as much as the other one, but it did look quite convincing. Regarding the dancing, it was a shame really that they didn’t go pro but there again I may not have been born if they had, good news for the world maybe but not such a nice prospect for me, so maybe all’s well that ends well, not that it’s over yet, God willing!

At the time of my birth, Mum and Dad were living with my maternal grandparents, William George and Alice Annie Hunt, at 32 Brassey Avenue in Hampden Park, which is where my earliest memory comes from, it was the hallway of my grandparent’s house where my pram was parked, just inside the front door. We lived there whilst they tried to save up for a deposit on a flat/apartment, and when I was just 6 months old, we moved to No 2 Barden Road in Seaside, Eastbourne, where we lived for about 18 months. It was a converted house and we had the upstairs flat, which included the front door and hallway, the downstairs tenant entering via what would have originally been the back/kitchen door.

Dad worked at the time for Frank Vincent of Pevensey Westham, which was his home village in Sussex, where you’ll find the Roman/Saxon built shore fortress, Pevensey Castle, he was born not 100 yards from the castle I, just a few doors down from the pub, The Royal Oak and castle. Dad’s job was an apprentice television and radio repairman/technician and then later for Beeneys as a TV-Ariel rigger.

Mum, until her 6th month of pregnancy, had worked as a professional seamstress called Jayne which used to be in Grove road and later moved to 44 Meads street, which is where she worked, a very swish area of Eastbourne. When we lived in Barden road, she used to work part-time, serving in the evenings at the fish and chip shop opposite what used to be called the White Hart Pub, which is called Busker’s Bar (2020) in an area of Eastbourne which is generally referred to as Christ Church, at the crossroads of Seaside, Firle and Cambridge roads. I vaguely remember being taken there and seeing her working behind the counter. There is an Indian Take-away and a Kebab shop there today but I’m sure that one of them was a chippy in those days and is the one where she worked.

Oddly enough I have no memories of Barden Road, perhaps nothing of any significance occurred there to imprint something in my mind. Often, it’s a smell or a taste that will trigger a memory. When I had my first whiff of fish ‘n chips I remember my grandparent’s hallway vividly, indelibly printed on what passes for a brain, but I couldn’t speak so I must have been younger than 6 months because that’s when we moved to Barden Road and I was still too young to talk. I uttered my first words when I was about 8 months old and was jabbering away like mad at 15 months. It’s unusual to start talking so early and my eldest son also started to speak earlier than was considered normal.

Apparently, 10-11 months is most common so perhaps he inherited it from me although he’s certainly made a success of his life so he can’t have inherited much else. My parents had looked forward to me learning to talk but I’m sure they ate their words when I did, such was the rate of my prattling! I talked nonsense then and am frequently accused of doing it now, all of which is probably true.

I also remember that when Dad came in, probably coming home from work, I heard my him calling out to my Mum. Doddy! He always called her Doddy as a pet name. She hated her real name because, in comedy films or plays it always seemed to be the frumpy daft types or dumb blondes that were called either Ethel, Olive, Dolores or Doris. Mum was tall buxom and like dad, blonde (although she did colour her hair when she was younger which is why she appears to be dark haired in the photos I have of her) but she certainly wasn’t stupid! Then that delicious smell hit me. I love fish and chips! Where I live there aren’t any fish and chip shops and even if there were, they wouldn’t know how to do it properly. These days even the newspaper doesn’t smell the same because the ink no longer contains lead and the print doesn’t come off on your hands, and that’s no good, is it? Just not Cricket old chap!

Digression.

Every now and then I’ll go to the local supermarket and find a decent piece of Sea Bass, or maybe some Cod. They also often have a type of Asiatic Perch which has light pink flesh and comes in large fillets Persico Asiatico. It’s very delicate in flavor and extremely delicious when cooked in proper crispy batter. I use this whenever I can and cook it with new-potato chips the thickness of my thumb, and that’s quite chunky. MMMMM. If only I was younger and had the money to start it up, I’d open a fish and chip shop right here and make a bloody fortune, plus I could have fish and chips every day!

The batter must be done right, now listen, I know what I’m talking about so don’t argue... Plain flour, water and salt and a small amount of baking powder, or of course use self-raising flour. No egg! We’re making fish ‘n chip batter here, not pancakes or Yorkshire pud. Once mixed to the consistency of double cream, keep it in the fridge overnight so it’s really cold when you coat the fish, which should be coated with flour before dipping it in. Allowing the batter to settle for some hours after mixing it up lets the gluten in the flour go aaahhhh and smooth out, like keeping red wine a few years before you open it (it allows the tannin to polymerise, there yah go, a free wine lesson!). The same goes for Yorkshire pudding batter too. That’s the way to do it! Those who know will say it makes no difference, but I’ve always found that it does. Don’t argue with Mardy.

Oh dear, I digressed from the digression…here’s some more. Better still, make the batter with beer, or even Vodka if you can afford it, then it frizzes up when you drop it in the oil, the alcohol evaporates away so there’s no alcohol content in the finished item and, that’s crispy! It’s especially good if you put a teaspoon of Colman’s mustard powder in with it.

In Nov 2005, I visited some friends in Nottingham, Mapperley to be precise, and when asked what I’d like to eat upon arriving, I said: I’d love some fish and chips. So, Rob (my friend) took me to the local Harry Ramsdens. I took the Harry Ramsdens’ challenge, the Big Plate and ate the bloody lot! I had a huge lump of Skate with processed peas (they MUST be processed, or mushy, altho’ I don’t really like mushy peas myself) ‘n chips. I got the certificate to prove it too" Hahahahah! Fatguts forever!

Right, back to the plot then, finally. Not long after my 2nd birthday, we moved into number 37 Brodrick Road, Hampden Park. A family called the Richardson’s (some of whom I’m still in touch with) lived at No. 39. At No 35 Brodrick road, lived a Mongol girl, or perhaps I should be more politically correct and say a Down’s Syndrome person whose name was Sylvia Turner. She struck terror into me as a small child by being not only extremely fat and ugly and unable to speak properly, but she was also, and this is to my knowledge unusual for a Down’s person, vicious and spiteful and used to spit at me and throw stones. Down’s person or not, I only ever knew her as a MONG! Okay, this is a non-PC thing to say but let’s talk about it whilst I’m in the mood for it.

Political Correctness as far as I’m concerned just causes confusion bigotry and stupidity, or as they say in Oz It’s all a crock o’ shit. A spade is a spade, not a digging implement. If you’re an Indian or a Pakistani, you’re an Indian or Pakistani, not an Ethnic Asian; it’s a load of absolute crap. It’s bollocks as far as I’m concerned and should be abolished. Paki means PRIDE, or PURE, in Hindi and Urdu and if you want to offend a Pakistani, call him an Indian, or vice versa.

A black man is a black man although I get somewhat confused when someone who is light brown says he’s black, but who am I to argue? Nevertheless, as far as I’m concerned, he’s black and not African American/English. I’m white, of Anglo-Saxon stock with indeterminate French origin, which is what the name Francis means, of France, but I am considered to be an indigenous Englishman. If a Jamaican or some Pakistani calls me Whitey or Honky I don’t really get offended about it, but I’m not allowed to call him a Coon, Rasta, or Paki or call a north African a WOG without being taken to court and charged with being a racist. That’s not right, is it? One rule for them and a separate one for me? Fuck off!

I personally think Nigger is a derogatory term and one I wouldn’t and do not use on principle. The history of the word nigger is often traced to the Latin word Niger, meaning Black. This word became the noun, Negro (Black person) in English, and simply the color Black in Spanish and Portuguese. In early modern French, niger became negre and, later, negress (Black woman) was unmistakably a part of language history. One can compare to negre the derogatory nigger and earlier English substitutes such as negar, neegar, neger, and niggor that developed into its lexico-semantic true version in English. With me so far?

I wouldn’t call a black man a Nigger out of respect for him as a human being even though he may be Negroid in his physical/racial characteristics, just as I wouldn’t refer to a Pakistani as Paki unless I knew him well enough for it to be a jibe or a jest between us and both of us knew it wasn’t being used to offend. Lissen ‘ere you Paki git, is an example, it would be said in fun and we’d both know it, but I just get sick of all the pettiness that doesn’t serve any purpose other than to make people’s lives a bloody misery, that and the stupid laws that allow ethnic minorities to take advantage of it and play on it to the discomfort of others who would otherwise be relaxed and just get along with them instead of having to watch every word they say and think twice before opening their mouths when in their company. It’s a bit like walking on thin ice, never knowing when it’s going to give way beneath your feet. Okay, moan finished, for now...

Let’s get back to the plot again, that last bit was an unannounced digression just to see if you were paying attention. Sylvia, or Sylvie as I knew her, was afflicted by Down’s Syndrome, a Down’s child, Mongol in old terms. She was probably in her 20’s but had the mental age of a three-year-old and used to throw stones at me over the garden fence, which was chain-link.

I told Mum and Dad about Sylvie chucking stones but it was taken with a pinch of salt because they saw me throwing them too and thought maybe that I could have started it. I was probably only throwing them back but perhaps it didn’t seem that way to them at the time. In truth, although I don’t remember this too clearly, it may have been that I was so terrified of her that I threw things at her to make her go away.

It was only after Mum and Dad saw the big wooden clothes-line prop from next door come sailing over the fence, narrowly missing me, that my dad went to complain. The father of the girl said he sympathised, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It wouldn’t make any difference him trying to reason with her as she was responsive to neither rhyme nor reason. Short of having her committed to an institution, which the authorities didn’t seem to want to do, there wasn’t much he could do to control her. Nowadays someone like that would be put in a supervised home straight away but we’re talking about the early1960’s and social services weren’t what they are today.

So, Dad spoke to The Artisan’s Housing Society, that owned the row of houses. Shortly before that he’d almost fallen through the floor of their bedroom into the living room as the supporting joists were rotten, and after reporting that too we were moved down the road to No13 and that was that!

Up until only a few years ago, I had a terrible fear of Down’s people even though I knew they wouldn’t harm me and it’s only in recent years that I was able to come to terms with it by making very good friends with the son of one of my Italian musician friends (who sadly died during the flu epidemic in February 2018, he was only 66). He’s a lovely kid, his name is Fulvio. I say kid, he’s in his late 30’s now but I’ve known him since he was eight years old.

He’s not too heavily afflicted by his condition and is brainy enough to play complicated computer games and is actually quite a good drummer, he’s also intelligent enough to know that he’s different from other people, and why. He’s very affectionate and is a lovely person but it took a long time for me to come to terms with my fear of these people and it really does show how childhood experiences can shape your character and feelings in later life.

Mum and Dad during the late 70’s used to take groups of mentally handicapped older kids (by this I mean that they were in the 18-40-year age group) but had mostly the mental ages of 8-12-year old’s, to a local country club Kings (where I later on DJ’d and compered on the odd evening or weekend, and learned sound engineering from the technician there), for Sunday lunchtime dancing and Cabaret. They also used to run discos for them at the handicapped day care centre, Hazel Court. More about that later, but whenever they brought some of the mentally handicapped children home with them, I used to make myself scarce because I felt uncomfortable around them. I didn’t like them, but didn’t understand why.

The disgraceful thing was that when my mother died, after all the good things that she’d done for the mentally handicapped, only one of the parents of the twenty or so kids at the day care centre had the decency to come to her funeral. I will say no more for fear that my profane expressions of dismay and absolute disgust may drive you from these pages without reading any further.

As a toddler though, I was terrified of this girl and even just to hear the name Sylvie conjured up an image, or perhaps triggered a subconscious memory in my mind for many years afterwards of an immense mewling thing with bulging eyes and lolling tongue (which was what she looked like to me) drooling and gibbering unintelligibly. To a small child such as I, she was terrifying!

I forgive her now, of course, it wasn’t her fault and was a conception defect that gave her an extra copy of chromosome 21, but I couldn’t have possibly been expected to know that when I was three. To me Sylvie was Godzilla. I just wonder what she would have done for a face if ever King Kong had wanted his arse back.

No 13 Brodrick Road to which we moved was more or less opposite Taylor’s sweet shop. This was just along from the local village hall and library, which is still there to this day. There was a ladies’ hairdresser next to Taylor’s and when we lived there, mother used to do private work for the proprietress making ball gowns and evening dresses. There used to be a pub, which was, in fact, a hotel too, on the corner of Brodrick Road and Brassey Avenue, it was called The Trust House Hotel but although I don’t remember seeing it, I can vaguely recall the fence posts and chains that surrounded it.

The hotel was demolished in the late 60’s or early 70’s as it had been derelict for many years. Later, when I was in my late teens and early twenties and working on the local buses, the bottom (Village end) entrance to Brodrick Road where we stopped was always known as Trust House Corner even though the pub hadn’t been there for many years. The "Brassey Parade shops that were subsequently built there on the site remain there to this day.

There were only two pubs in Hampden Park at the time we lived there. There was The Lottbridge Arms (The Grotty Lotty) what a rough old dive that was, it has since been demolished and several blocks of flats have now been built on the site. It was once a fairly decent pub but went into decline from the mid 70’s onward. There was also the Parkfield, which has now been turned into a supermarket, it’s a Co-op now, at least it was in December 2019. Poor Dick and Poppy, the landlord and landlady there for many years must be turning in their graves.

Hampden Park bowling club used to have their annual dinner dance at the Parkfield, my grandad William George Hunt was the president of the bowling club for a few years. Mum & Dad often provided the dance music for that. When I was older, I often did discos there for parties and weddings. Poppy liked my show because I didn’t play Too Loud and she could hear what the customers were saying to her at the bar so I more or less became the resident disco there because whenever anyone booked their hall for an event, an 18th or 21st party, engagement or wedding, whatever, she’d encourage them to book me for the evening’s entertainment. If they refused, the price went up! Good old Poppy, bless her.

There’s also the Railway Club in Hampden Park, but that was and still is for members only so doesn’t really count. I went there in Nov. 2013 and it was very nice, I remember doing a disco there when I was 16 and still at school, it was just a tin hut then. Now, sadly, there is no pub in Hampden Park at all, the nearest one being the Seven Sisters in Willingdon which is run by my 2nd ex-wife Penny, who has been there for donkey’s years.

Behind the Village hall and library right opposite No13 Brodrick Road where we lived, was a large patch of waste ground upon which we were forbidden to play, but did anyway. It’s now where the local community health centre and doctors’ surgeries are situated, there’s also a Tesco’s - they get everywhere. This was built on the site of a laundry that used to be there – or so I’m informed by a Facebook group about the history of Eastbourne. Not 50 yards from us, next to the Post Office on the opposite corner to the Trust House was a corrugated iron Tin Shack construction that housed the Toch H social club.

There is an expression As dim as a Toch H lamp. The Toc H used to have a dim yellow Aladdin’s lamp as its emblem. The lamp is still there on Toch H signs these days but is now blue and quite bright. The expression means to be dimwitted, slow on the uptake and comes from Not a bright light. The noble efforts of the Toc H were to offer activities and get-togethers for those who found (and find) this sort of thing useful in times of stress and need such as WWII, a bit like occupational therapy. It was frequented by ex-servicemen too. It is a Christian charity and not unlike the Sally Ann (Salvation Army).

Apart from being a social club Dad didn’t remember very much what it was all about, there was also a shoe repair shop there, housed within. This was run by an old boy from Roseberry Avenue, which was just across the road on the opposite side of Brassey Avenue on the corner of which, between Roseberry Avenue and Elm Grove, stood Hampden Park butchers, which is at the time of writing, a kebab shop. Anyone who has a computer, which is more or less everyone these days, or a mobile phone, can look up Hampden Park, Eastbourne, UK on Google Earth and see the roads and places I’m referring to, the wonders of modern technology eh?

The butcher’s shop, one of two in the village, was run by a chap called Tom, who was the cutter, and his partner Reg Turner the counter man and delivery chap, who wore a wig. What a wig it was! He was as bald as an egg but boldly wore this Irish regardless of how obvious it looked. He had a huge aquiline nose and his head looked like a freckled pink snooker ball with a red-veined Dairylea cheese wedge attached. Mum didn’t like him much because he was somewhat of a ladies’ man and often made sly comments laced with innuendo of the sort of thing Sid James would come out with in a Carry-on film, so he was shunned by my mother and hers alike. The other butcher’s shop was called Ingram’s.

Getting back to the plot, which I seem to have lost again, the Toch-H, which was a corrugated-iron-roofed and clapboard building, was knocked down a few weeks before the school summer holidays of 1965. I can’t remember what they built there in its place although I’ve probably passed it hundreds of times since, but when it (whatever it was) was being built it was a constant source of entertainment for us youngsters as we’d play hide and seek in the foundations of the building site, running across the gangplanks placed across the foundation trenches and playing in the piles of sand. We must have been the bane of the builder’s lives as we’d kicked half the sand into the trenches but we didn’t know we were doing anything wrong: we were just little kids having fun.

We had a long, concreted back alley that ran the length of the terraced houses. It was made of prefabricated concrete slabs with tar strips between them which, when the weather was hot, melted and we used to pick it out with iced-lolly sticks and get it all over ourselves and our clothes, getting mightily chastised by our parents.

The alley was just wide enough for the council dustcart (refuse collection) trucks to be able to go down it although there were some passing places along the alley, they’d then turn around at the end where there were some lock-up garages. This alley was where we would all play, safely isolated from the road.

I remember the days before the big automated dust carts came around the back alley. Our dustman was called Mr Barnes and he had an electrically driven dust cart which may have been a Smiths Cabac, a bit like a milk float, and had a cab at the front and curved side sections behind that lifted up, hinged from the middle, a bit like an old-fashioned car bonnet that opened up like wings and Mr Barnes would pick up the dustbins from outside the front gates on a Tuesday morning and empty them into the stinking mire within. Pooh!

Whenever he came along Mum would offer him a cup of tea which he would happily accept in his huge grimy mitt with a Ta Missus and a single toothed grin. He was absolutely filthy and stank to high heaven! I often wondered if he still smelled like that when he wasn’t at work. I suppose he didn’t, but I know plenty of folks even now that stink regardless of what they do, mainly because they don’t wash or change their clothes, smelly unhealthy bastards.

I remember when he lifted the sides up and emptied a bin into the dustcart, there was always a profusion of tea leaves, cabbage leaves, fried egg-whites and fag ends (that’s cigarette butts to non-British readers) just like there are always tomato skins and carrots in puddles of vomit (or always seem to be anyway). It’s probably my imagination but the thought of that smelly old thing always conjures up these images in my mind.

Nowadays with the rubbish being separated, or supposedly so, bottles, cans, paper and organic stuff all go into separate containers for individual recycling, but back then it was all bunged in together and dumped into a landfill site. For years, The Crumbles, which is a length of coastline to the eastern end of Eastbourne, was always used for this as it helped build up the land where the sea used to continually flood in at high tide.

Today the area is a housing estate and marina, the marina was built where Hall & Co Aggregates had excavation pits from where they extracted the gravel that they later graded and sold as ballast and building material. These served as the perfect base for the marina, being 25-30ft deep. I, as a teenager, found a couple of old oil drums and a door, lashed them together to make a raft and went paddling about on one of them totally unaware of how deep it was whilst an idiot school friend called Chris Welch decided it would be fun to bombard me with rocks! I could swim well enough but never had to because I didn't fall in, but it was still a dangerous and silly thing to do.

I remember the Eastbourne central golf course, a nine-hole job, which was at one time, some years later, the Lottbridge Drove landfill site, a flat marshy central dividing area between Seaside and Hampden Park, Old Town and Langney. As the rubbish was not separated so thoroughly then, it fermented and released methane gas which could be dangerous if not dispersed, so there were long pipes driven down into the mounds which had been covered with soil and later, turf, to release any buildup of gas. Sometimes we’d see workers going along, opening the release valves and setting fire to the gas that was released. At night you could often see jets of flame four or five feet high.

Dad, after we’d moved to Brodrick road, took a job with the Water Board as a road ganger, digging out and filling in the holes in the road that had been dug, to repair burst pipes, repairing various sections or laying new ones. My Grandad Hunt was a foreman there and got him the job, it being safer than climbing up on people’s roofs putting up TV ariels. He ended up with forearms like Popeye, he didn’t like spinach tho’. He used to use the pneumatic drill and the Whomper! This was an evil looking machine which was a cross between a huge single cylinder two-stroke motor cycle engine and a giant hammer.

The top part had a cylinder head, carburettor and cylinder/piston. The ignition was controlled by levers, and the bottom part instead of being attached to a con rod and crankshaft was connected to a huge metal foot. The operator would start it bouncing, and when enough compression had been built up he would fire the thing by pulling on a lever and the piston would shoot out at the bottom with enormous force, sufficient to pack the rubble into the hole that was being filled or to compact the tarmac, and if he was stupid enough to get in the way of it, the operator’s foot too, which was why Dad wore steel toe capped boots.

When it was fired, it used to make a noise that sounded like Whomp! (although it was more of a Chuff) and leap up into the air, so the operator had to be very strong. It was probably called a compactor or something like that, but Dad always called it a Whomper. I’m sure there are some of you that remember this machine and everyone knows someone who knew someone that was loading one onto a lorry and hadn’t turned off the ignition switch. The thing fired and crushed in the head of the loader. It probably never happened, of course, although like so many old wives’ tales, we’ve all heard the story many times. Still, it WAS a bloody dangerous machine!

Dad went to work on his pop pop this was a grey Mobylette moped that he’d bought from a fellow worker on the water board, and every evening when he came home, I’d run up the garden path to the back gate and open it for Dad so that I could get a luggage