The Stars Will Always Shine

By Bill Cook

The Stars Will Always Shine describes how life has changed in Britain from the 1950s until the present day.

It also details some of my hilarious travel adventures, particularly in America, and contains illustrations of some of my oil paintings.

Two decades of my life were spent fighting the establishment for justice with considerable success, hence my decision to leave the UK in 2010 to live in a remote cabin in Maine, USA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398457065

Bill Cook

Bill Cook was born just after the Second World War, growing up on a tough North London council estate littered with bomb craters. He passed the 11th examination and attended a technical grammar school, passing 8 GCE ‘O’ levels. He started work in the city of London when 16 years of age. His main passion is travelling…and freedom from this authoritarian world in which we all live.

Book preview

Preface

Like many others in these dark times of coronavirus, I am in lockdown spending my time recalling memories of the past, delving into happier times. I felt I had to write this book to remind myself what a fabulous world this is, even though it’s problematic for many coming to grips with the virus. Maybe my book will bring a smile or two to the reader, combined with my endless struggle with authoritarianism in the pursuit of justice. I sincerely hope so.

My thanks must go to Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, a spiritual guide to higher creativity. I had the good fortune to attend a three-month course on her book free of charge at Falmouth Library, Maine, a decade ago. Without her guidance, I would not have been able to write this book. In my opinion, Julia’s book should be taught in schools.

This book is dedicated to my beloved children, Sarah, William and Mark, also baby Christopher, who undertook the greatest journey of all aged four months.

Introduction

Chief Greylock

In 2010, I drove to the summit of Mount Greylock, in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, the highest mountain in Massachusetts. It was named after Chief Greylock, chief of the Abenaki. He successfully fought intruders in the early 1700s, French and British alike.

Unfortunately, when I reached the summit, it was raining heavily and a thick mist had descended, visibility just about zero. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. There was a sign saying, ‘Stop here to admire the view and take panoramic photos’.

This really upset me as it was a glorious fall and the leaves were the beautiful colours of the rainbow, stretching for miles in the valley below as far as you could see—or in my case couldn’t see. I, therefore, had to imagine what I was missing, making me as angry as Chief Greylock on the warpath.

There is a saying that the chief was so saddened by the actions of the white man in his valley he began to cry and his teardrops fell as rain. He certainly was sobbing his heart out that day, so was I.

All the chapters in this book are completely true. Stand by for Lesley…

Lesley

In the early 1990s, I met Lesley on a course entitled ‘How to Take Minutes’ at Enfield Civic Centre, North London, where we were employed. I worked in the depths of the basement where dusty files were stored, my position being records management officer. Lesley worked on the top floor, eleven stories above me in the local and national elections office. It was a case of upstairs-downstairs. We often bumped into each other on the stairs arriving at canteen break times together because the canteen was on the fifth floor, equidistant between our workplaces.

I cannot understand why my manager put me on this course as it had nothing to do with my job, but since nobody else in his section volunteered to participate somebody had to fly the flag. That somebody was me. Fortunately, I was able to sit next to Lesley, a godsend. She took pity on me, allowing me to look at her answers. She realised from the outset I was completely out of my depth, a struggling fish on the end of a hook. Of course, the course was Lesley’s forte.

At the end of the course, it came as a shock when my name was read out for excellent work. My embarrassment necessitated me to invite Lesley out for lunch, thus avoiding the canteen, which had a reputation for employing ex-hospital cooks. Also, I needed a beer or two to calm me down as I knew my manager, thanks to my success, would enter me for every nasty course going in the future. The London Borough of Enfield’s training policy ensured as many staff as possible had as many certificates as possible in as many fields as possible. Nobody though knew the whereabouts of the training officer. It may have been for health and safety reasons.

Weeks went past, during which Lesley and I became close friends. She always inquired about my latest course, but I sat there numb after suffering weeks of hell. The training policy in full flow meant my time was being spent on more courses than my job. The legs of my desk creaked under the sheer weight of dusty files which were halfway to the ceiling, the in-tray bulging, the out-tray empty.

Fearing an avalanche, I decided to take time out to visit my close friend Peter, who ran a sheep farm near York. I mentioned my imminent departure to Lesley the day I booked my leave. She implored me not to buy a train ticket, suggesting a ride on her motorbike instead. Apparently, she intended to visit her mother, who lived in Manchester the same weekend, thinking we could keep each other company. I was being offered a free ride, but on the other hand, had never ridden a motorbike before. Lesley assured me all would be well and not to worry. She would provide me with an open-face helmet. I foolishly agreed.

I turned up at the Civic Centre the following Saturday as arranged wearing my pac-a-mac over a couple of pullovers and jeans. Lesley handed me the helmet which she strapped on for me as I had no idea how to fasten it. Before pulling away, knowing I had never ridden on a motorbike before, she instructed me to lean over when cornering saying in no time at all I would get used to it.

It was a lovely sunny day. I leapt on the passenger seat grabbing Lesley firmly around her waist. She was well below me for two reasons. Firstly, she was only five feet tall. Secondly, her Kawasaki GPZ500 sports model was the only speedy bike she could ride because it had a low seat, enabling her to just about touch the ground with her feet, albeit with difficulty. Her long thick black hair flowed onto her lap.

We roared off and I instantly became frightened, thinking I was going to fall off the back of the bike. After a few minutes though I realised I would go forward, not backward, when braking and felt more comfortable. Following initial shouts from Lesley not to fight the bike and to follow her movements, my confidence gradually grew. I actually started to enjoy my first ride.

Lesley had raced on proper racing tracks. I appreciated however her agreement to abide by no racing manoeuvres with me on board because of my lack of safety equipment. I feared the skin on my knee caps would be shed in no time on tight bends. Conversely, Lesley proudly owned expensive attire, a thick black leather jacket, knee pads, boots and a full-face helmet. In comparison, I felt like Worzel Gummidge.

We sped up the Ml in double quick time, reaching the Watford Gap service station. Why it is called Watford Gap is beyond me as it’s nowhere near Watford and no gap there. At this stage, a light drizzle began to descend from dark clouds gathering above. Lesley said not to worry, they would soon pass over.

We decided to pop in for a cup of tea. Lesley told me not to look ahead. This was due to Hell’s Angels surveying me possibly thinking if I belonged to a rival gang or even worse, poking fun at bikers in general. Probably what saved me from jolly good chaining was Lesley’s immaculate gear. Her jacket was covered with badges of the rallies she had attended. Her Irish Mourne Rally badge took pride of place over her well-rounded left breast. In fact, there were more badges visible on her jacket than fabric. She was the first female biker to complete the gruelling Irish rally, but there again no other female had attempted it.

As we continued our 200 mile trip the weather worsened, drizzle turning into rain. Lesley remained cheerful saying it would improve, but looking at the heavy black clouds overhead I had my doubts. My clothing started to absorb water at an alarming rate, a puddle appearing on my lap. The wind increased. Minutes later I noticed ripples on my pac-a-mac, then waves. I asked Lesley how this trip ranked with her rally trips. She shouted back she had been on far worse.

However, we soldiered on bravely despite the rain becoming torrential after leaving the Ml. By this time I had a stormy ocean in my lap and was soaked from top to bottom. My pac-a-mac had put up a heroic resistance but started to surrender. It resembled a weary battle flag as it fluttered behind me, torn to shreds.

We reached Selby where the sky turned pitch black. Thunder and lightning descended from the heavens, leading me to experience one of the worst storms in my life in such a frightening way. It was becoming a nightmare being perched on Lesley’s bike in the open. She decided to press on nevertheless proclaiming she had never aborted a journey before. Then disaster. Lesley had a very poor eyesight having to rely on her super strong glasses. Without them, she was virtually blind.

Unlike me though she was wearing a full-face helmet which protected her, but due to the ferocious weather, her glasses had steamed up inside her visor. This necessitated me poking my head out from the shelter of her body every now and then to read the road ahead for her. I could only do this briefly because my eyes were taking a pounding from the storm, by now almost hurricane strength.

I peered over my shoulder to witness headlights as far as I could see way into the distance. Lesley was forced to slow down to 30mph. No doubt irate motorists had been honking horns in despair for miles, unheard by us due to the howling wind.

Without warning, we somehow arrived at disused Riccall Mines. To this day, I do not know how we got there. At last, Lesley stopped. She had to, it was a dead end. After dismounting we gazed at each other. Lesley’s expensive waterproof gear was sodden through and through. I was in rags. My stinging eyes were as red as a beetroot. I could hardly see. I asked Lesley again how this trip compared with her previous trips.

She replied, ’ Bill, my friend, this is, without doubt, the worst experience I have ever experienced on a motorbike.’ Then we laughed and laughed. At least we were still alive but only just.

The remainder of the trip was irrelevant, although it gave me time to reflect on my status as a biker. On only my first ride Lesley confirmed I had won my wings. I felt I would never reach Hell’s Angel status, despite being to hell and. back.

We arrived at Peter’s farm well after our ETA. Peter thought we had taken shelter from the violent storm, everybody in Yorkshire had. He was clearly shaken by our appearance. Lesley went straight to bed to rest for her next day’s trip across the Pennines. I was too terrified to sleep. The following day Peter and I waved goodbye to Lesley as she roared off. It had stopped raining by then, but huge puddles dotted the landscape. A farmhand inquired where Lesley was off to. I replied Manchester. He retorted she must be bloody mad.

I said nothing.

Vitus

In 1955, when I was seven, my parents adopted a German refugee named Vitus. He became the sixth member of my family.

Mum and dad were superb ballroom dancers. Indeed they met at a dance during the last world war, strutting the boards on dark nights illuminated only by searchlight beams. Such was their love for dancing my parents gave free lessons to neighbours on our Enfield council estate, enabling couples to meet, eventually marry.

Vitus was introduced to my parents by Tom, who lived on the next road. Tom was a large ungainly character, a farmhand better equipped for muck-raking the fields rather than waltzing across the thick carpet in our living room. My parents were extremely patient, they had to be.

Vitus lived in a wooden cabin a few miles away in Broxbourne and met Tom through family circles. In order to supplement the vegetables he acquired from the nursery where he worked, Vitus hunted wood pigeons in local woods using a powerful catapult he made with deadly effect. He was an experienced stalker with a lethal shot. In fact, he could have been a stormtrooper, not the friendly farmer from Bavaria. Had he notched up his kills on his catapult it would have disintegrated into sawdust in a matter of weeks.

Vitus was a lonely soul leading a solitary life because Germans were not very popular in Britain after the war. This became obvious to my parents. Our estate was built on bomb craters and a German rocket fell on nearby Waltham Abbey causing many casualties. However, he was a thoroughly decent person in his early twenties, stockily built and just under six feet tall with short thick black hair, very good looking and always a smile on his clean shaved face. His enthusiasm for life was refreshing and he was a joy to be with.

After several dance lessons, Vitus was invited to Sunday lunch and never stopped coming after that. He arrived on his powerful Triumph motorbike. We could hear him coming as soon as he entered the estate. When we rushed out to greet him, he put me on his saddle and handed out sweets. Of course, Vitus took pride in place at the head of the well-laid dinner table. After lunch, everybody walked to a park for a game of tennis.

I cannot thank Vitus enough for assisting me with arithmetic. Due to glue ears, I permanently sat in the dunce’s seat at the rear of the classroom, which made matters worse as I needed binoculars to see my teacher and she needed a loudspeaker to get through to me. My long-term suffering magically ended when one sunny day my ears popped. In no time at all, I began to rise up the class. Vitus played his part.

There were no calculators then and so you had to count with your fingers or use an abacus. Subsequently, you memorised your tables by chanting once two is two, two two’s are four and so on, right up to the twelve times table because in those days twelve old pennies made a shilling. Since I could not hear properly the chanting was useless to me. I may have had more success as a monk chanting for my supper in a monastery.

Vitus had amazing strength, hitting every tennis ball with all his might. When serving an ace the ball was invisible and you could only trace its whereabouts by listening to the thud as the ball embedded itself firmly into the wire mesh surrounding the court. I was only seven and without pliers left it to the adults to remove balls whilst I focused on the ever grinning Vitus.

Regrettably, Vitus hit as many poor shots as aces, he was annoyingly erratic. When returning service more often than not thrashed the ball over the perimeter fence into an adjoining brook. This is where I came in because my job was to retrieve balls as they landed on their way to a watery grave. Whilst paddling in the brook, I made friends with the tiny creatures from the stream bombarded from above. There were newts, tadpoles, sticklebacks, frogs and toads all fleeing for their lives. I did not mind and on some days when Vitus was in overdrive, stayed in the brook for most of the afternoon. No hardship.

As a treat the final ten minutes of the session became mine. The court had to be paid for as money was hard to come by since I was thin and scrawny, the only way I could lift the heavy wooden racquet was to use both hands and, therefore, can say I had a double-handed backhand before Jimmy Connors.

Before leaving the court I counted the number of aces served by Vitus by surveying the squares on the fence lined with nap from the balls. I jotted down the total much to the pleasure of the beaming Vitus and my arithmetic blossomed as the summer wore on. The wire fence managed to survive the season but sadly the balls had to be replaced monthly. Occasionally, there was more nap on the fence than the balls, some being reduced to bare rubber. If you were hit by a black missile it was excruciatingly painful and a red mark would be with you for a few days. The only answer was vigilance, coupled with lightning movement.

As time progressed my parents were able to afford a television, black and white in those days. After returning from tennis, we settled down to watch the Sunday afternoon film. There were many war films on then and I recall Reach for the Sky. Our legless hero Douglas Bader shot down Messerschmitt galore in his gleaming Spitfire. Naturally, a cheer rang around the room from me when a doomed German plane spiralled to earth in a thick plume of black smoke and when the dog fight was over our hero achieved his customary perfect landing on a bumpy field. He then proceeded to the local pub to get legless.

Vitus sat in his chair expressionless. However, he did have a treat one afternoon when The Red Baron was screened. The tables were turned. Groan upon groan echoed around the room as the dazzling German ace caused mayhem in the skies, the machine gun from his Fokker chattering destruction to the doomed British pilots. Vitus remained expressionless, but you could almost detect a faint smile on his lips. He dozed off, no doubt counting the number of aces he had served on the tennis court that afternoon.

Infant School

I clearly remember my first day in the infants when five. Having never left my mother’s apron strings it came as quite a shock since I had never attended nursery school. In those days very few mothers worked, they stayed at home to look after their children.

The big day came and Stella, my mum, took my hand to walk me down the road to Honilands Infants School, only a hundred yards from our house. She escorted me through the gate and we mingled with other tots starting school that day. This was frightening enough because I had never been in the company of so many children before. A hand-bell rang and a teacher ushered us to form lines in order to enter school. My heart missed a few beats as mum headed for the gate en route home, leaving me deserted. I was alone in the world for the first time.

Somehow, I managed to survive the day and was in ecstasy when mum came to the gate to pick me up. I mistakenly thought that was it, my schooling was over and life would be returned to normal, unaware the process would be repeated every weekday. What I shock the next day as I was dressed once more in my uniform.

It was by no means playschool. We were given a slate and chalk on which we wrote tables and words. By the time we left for the juniors, we knew up to the five times table and basic words. My literacy and numeracy had begun. Every day we recited our tables, repeating them over and over again and so they became embedded in our minds. If any words were misspelt, they had to be written ten times for memory purposes. The education system was based on the three R’s, reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic. What a godsend this would be in adult life. I suppose, the equipment and method would be likened to the Flintstones today, but they were tried and tested for the era.

One day, I was summoned to the room of the headmistress, Miss Clifton. I was told to bend over and she proceeded to tan my backside with a giant slipper, which she obtained from her enormous desk. The pain or should I say force, was with me for a day or two, unsurprising as she was built like a brick outhouse. To this day I cannot recall what I did, but I assume it was naughty.

Junior School

After a couple of years or so in the infants, it was time to move to the juniors, located in the adjoining building. By this time, I was walking to and fro on my own. Few crimes were committed then and children were safe to play outside unaccompanied. This was put to good effect. Nearly every road had its own football team and there were matches every weekend on the estate playing field. Due to lack of money, balls were made from rags to kick around on the road and street lamps served as floodlights in the evening.

The entrance for the juniors was opposite my front door. When a teacher walked up the path to the playground to blow a whistle for commencement of lessons, I could run into school to the playground before the whistle went. I was a reasonable sprinter due to soccer and it was a game, my speed versus the teacher. I had more ground to cover, but there again the teacher was walking.

Life continued with the three R’s; however, tables were up to the twelve times table and the words were more complicated. The Janet and John books became more of a challenge. We had our own wooden desks, with tilted lids, an inkwell and blotting paper. The writing implement was a wooden pen armed with a nib, which made a good dart. Inside you could store books and the goodies smuggled into class.

Monitors were appointed to distribute the third-pint bottles of free milk mid-morning. Fortunately, it was pre-Margaret Thatcher and the only items snatched from you were sweets if you were caught with them.

All was going well when out of the blue one-day disaster struck. My lungs clogged up suddenly with fluid and a strange gurgling noise came from my chest when breathing. It was congestion of both lungs and I became extremely ill, suffering from constant earache and partial deafness because my ears were blocked.

A major factor was the foul weather. Winters were bitterly cold and consequently, when coal fires were lit they combined with factories to form pea-soupers, vile acidic yellow fogs which choked you. I remember my father George venturing out into an alien world with a scarf wrapped around his face. He walked to Waltham Cross, a distance of two miles, in order to obtain medication for me from a pharmacy. On his return, a blanket was placed over my head and the medication dropped into a bowl of boiling water, the fumes enabling me to breathe more easily—my very own gas chamber.

Children today with glue ears usually have an operation whereby grommets, tiny tubes, are inserted into the ear to drain fluid. No such thing for kids living on council estates back then, so I suffered and suffered and suffered. As a result, my school progress plummeted and I became the dunce of the class.

Council houses were solidly built, but window panes were inserted into metal frames with putty to secure them. After a freezing night, there would be a thick layer of frost on the inside of the windows and my bedroom window served as my first easel. Winter scenes became realistic, such fun.

There was a coal stove in the downstairs back room, which heated the water in a water tank upstairs, also keeping the house mildly warm. A coal fire was in the living room and it was comforting to watch the coal burn in the grate, whilst thick black smoke curled its way up the chimney, irrespective of the fact the smoke escaping from the fire into the room didn’t help my lungs. It was a Catch-22 situation.

It’s impossible to record the suffering I went through, which strangely became normal after time. Then a miracle, one day my ears popped and I could hear properly again. Vitus had played his part and now it was catch-up time.

Knowing I was well behind with my schooling, as indicated by my school reports, my father started to read to me in the evenings. Instead of Jack and Jill though he read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped and by doing so, I became hooked on books. Dad pronounced each word clearly and slowly whilst placing a finger under the word so I could collate sounds to word formations. My fightback had begun, a