Memories of a mis-spent youth

By Robert Parker

In what I write I wanted to try to share with the readers of my little book some of the events / happenings that had an impact on my life and contributed to my becoming the person that I am today.
Besides that, in those early years there were a number of people who featured very strongly in my life.
They were all wonderful people and I am keen that their lives are not forgotten.
All our lives have ups and downs, and all our lives have those moments which become influential, even formative, on us as individuals.
Moreover, most of us are able to reel off a whole host of amusing anecdotes. I include a few of mine here.
I hope that you enjoy what you read

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dolman Scott Publishers
• Release date: Nov 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915351197

Book preview

‘Come and see my nother daddy’

1946

Father smoking pipe

‘Daddy’s coming home today!!’

The whole house had been cleaned from top to bottom.

There was a bottle of champagne on the sideboard with four glasses, and a tray on the table, set with teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, and four cups and saucers. Grandma had baked a fruit cake, and it had pride of place on a cake-stand in the middle of the table. ‘Daddy’ had been away for a long time. First to Scotland, and then to Egypt. He was in the RAF, but the war was ended. It was 1946, and he had been de-mobbed and was coming home!

I was three years old, and didn’t know whether to be excited or not. Mum had told me about Daddy coming back home over and over again, but we seemed to have managed okay when he was away. ‘He is coming home on the train to Nottingham, and then on the bus. He will be here very soon,’ Mum said.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the front door, in the other sitting room. ‘Robert, come with me’ Mum said. ‘Come and open the door and give your Daddy a hug and a kiss.’ Obediently, I got up, skipped across the room, went to the door, and opened it.

I was quite taken aback. Who was this tall, handsome man in such a smart uniform? And look at his shoes. How they shine. Before I could say or do anything, Mother rushed past me, flung her arms round his neck, and gave him a big, lingering kiss. Then he picked her up as if she was a feather and carried her inside.

Tea was made, and cake was cut. Champagne was opened and glasses filled. I sat quietly on this stranger’s knee, and kept looking at him quizzically. Then, for the next hour, there were smiles and tears, and a great deal of laughter. Grandma Pem and Tweedy seemed thrilled to see him, but Mum, without question, was ecstatic. Suddenly, I turned to him and said, ‘Come and see my nother Daddy.’ Then I took him by the hand, dragged him from the sofa, and pulled him towards the next room. The other faces in the room were horror-struck. What on earth was Robert going to do?

I led him through the sitting room door and took him to the piano.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Look, this is my nother Daddy.’ I was pointing him towards his own picture sitting on top of the piano.

Mother had taken me into that room every day. She had held me in her arms in front of the piano, pointed at the picture, and said, ‘Robert, that is your Daddy’!!

The boating lake at Torquay

1947

Is there a problem? I wondered. Why have suitcases been brought downstairs and put by the kitchen door? I stood disconsolately by the kitchen sink and looked at the three cases standing there. The only time that I had seen a suitcase was when Dad had come home from the war. Was he going back?

Then Grandpa Harold appeared through the door to the stairs, and he was wearing his jacket. It’s only eight o’clock in the morning. He doesn’t usually go to the pub this early in the day, but he never wears a jacket to go anywhere else. But now my Mum and Dad have come downstairs, and Mum is wearing her smart coat, and Dad a jacket and tie. There must be something wrong. What can have happened?

‘Come on, Robert, let me put your coat on. We’re going on holiday. We are going to Torquay!!’ I thought that I knew what a holiday was: Mum had read me stories about people on holiday, and they seemed a good thing. ‘Yes,’ she added, ‘the sea at Torquay is beautiful. And there is a seafront with all the flower gardens. And there is a boating lake. We are going to buy you a yacht. A yacht is a lovely sailing boat!!’

I had never seen the sea, but only read stories about it. What an adventure it was going to be. I wondered if Torquay was as far away as Mansfield. It took a quarter of an hour on the bus to get to Mansfield!!

It took half an hour to get to Chesterfield railway station. Then all seven of us – me, Clare and Peter, Mum and Dad, Grandpa Tweedy and Grandma Pem, together with suitcases – hurried onto the platform to wait for the train. First, a London train came and went, with a great big red engine pulling at least ten carriages. It was quickly followed by our train. This time it was a black engine, but the train was just as long as the London one. I quickly discovered that Torquay was further than a quarter of an hour away. It was six hours later that we were getting off the train at the station at Torquay. I felt ravenous, even though Mum had taken a picnic to eat during the journey. As we walked through the station waiting room to the outside, Dad called a taxi. This was going to be another first. I had never been in a car before, let alone a taxi!! The driver jumped out and put two of our suitcases in the boot, and then strapped the third onto the roof. We all bundled inside. It hardly seemed worth it, because we had hardly got comfortable before we were there at the boarding house where we were to stay for a whole seven days. When my dad gave the driver two shillings and said ‘Keep the change,’ it did seem madness. The change might have bought me a couple of ice-creams!!

On the Monday morning, Dad took me down to the beach for a swim. Then, on the way home, he took me into a shop on the seafront and we bought my yacht. Well, actually he chose it and, of course, he paid for it. I would have preferred the large one with the two red sails, but the small one with the blue sail was lovely.

Tuesday afternoon and Dad suddenly announced that we were all going to go down to the boating lake and sail the new yacht, and then he added that, because afterwards we were going to go to a café for afternoon tea, we would all get dressed in our ‘finery’, as he put it. I looked very smart in neatly pressed short trousers, a fresh short-sleeved shirt, bow tie, and brand-new dark brown sandals.

We sailed the new yacht for around half an hour, and then Mum said that she needed to go to the shops for a few things for supper. I pulled a face, and she quickly scolded me and said I must learn that I can’t have everything that I want in life. ‘But I’ve only been able to sail my new boat a few times,’ I told her. ‘Why can’t I stay here at the lake?’

‘Let me stay with him,’ intervened Tweedy with a smile towards me. ‘I don’t mind if I stay at the lake’; and with that, Mum and Dad, Clare and Peter, and Grandma Pem all headed off to get the