Month: June 2021

You can usually tell a person’s age by their name.   In the ‘90s I worked in a hospital shop; my co-worker was called Dorothy – she was about 100.

Because of the success of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, published in 1945, many boys were subsequently called Thomas, Gordon or Percy (being called Percy made you tougher at school); although Duck and Fat didn’t take off as much.

I would sit in Balham Library in the late ‘60s devouring these books wondering why I was called ‘Michael’?  Had my mum had a visit from an Archangel?  Did she aspire to buy her underwear at Mark’s?  I so wanted there to be an engine called Michael.

The Famous Five, published shortly before Thomas, would have had an influence on girls being called Ann or Georgina (the consumption of ginger beer surged during this period too).

With the advent of TV, I wonder how many twins were called Willy & Jenny or Bill & Ben or Ron & Reg (little known characters from Tales of the Riverbank)?

When I was born, in 1957, the top girls’ names were Susan (90% of our class were called Susan, including a couple of boys); Linda; Christine and Margaret (everyone wants to be called after a princess).  Michael was the 4^th most popular boy’s name; David, John and Stephen being the top 3 – all four named after Kings – England, Israel and Heaven.

I got off lightly, as modern culture is hugely powerful with childrens’ names.   Michael is preferable to Kylie, Peppa or Laa-Laa and given The Lone Ranger was at the height of its fame when I was born, I could easily have been called Tonto.

One of the first books I remember reading was Ladybird’s Tootles the Taxi (an early Dostoyevsky work, I think). 

The book included other vehicular stories, aside from Tootles, who, stated in rhyme, why he wasn’t going south of the river after 8.00 pm.  I was a fan of Mickey the Mail Van (he doesn’t exist anymore as he’s been replaced by delivery drivers who send you a text saying you’re seventh in the queue, although the sixth is in Truro, so don’t hold your breath) as we shared the same name and Willie the Water Cart as his name (when you’re four) was comedic (although that never quite worked with Willie Whitelaw).

My love of this book was a consequence of having gone in a taxi, aged two, having had my fingers caught in a Tooting toy shop door jamb.  I cried (obviously) but shut up the moment I was in the cab.  Luckily my fingers were saved by a janitor with a couple of old plasters and a needlework kit working at the now defunct Balham hospital, St James’ – you wouldn’t have trusted any of the doctors there. 

In later life I once asked a cab driver if their taxi was called Tootles.  I never asked a second time, although I was told, for the best part of an hour, how Mrs. Thatcher would have handled COVID.

My next book was Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin, which was a shame, as it put me off boating for life.

Car window activity has waxed and waned over the years. There are fewer things happening on car windows; even tax discs have gone.

During the ‘60s, I would travel in a relatively naked Ford Popular with my parents in and out of Balham with nothing more than “AUG 64” displayed in the bottom corner of the windscreen.

As things developed, people would add where their car had taken them (we had a sticker proclaiming ‘VENTNOR’ – I’d have preferred something more exotic like Vienna, Vietnam, the Viking Coastal Station).

People then began adding their names (it was always a couple, having BILLY NO MATES plastered, in a green laminate, across the top of your windscreen wasn’t ideal); you’d walk down the streets and see RENÉE RENATO; BURKE HARE; ADOLF EVA and suchlike adorning the cars.

Behind the names, dangling, would be a pair of furry dice the size of which looked like they’d come from a Brobdingnagian Monopoly set.

I could never understand the use of a nodding dog (usually an Alsatian) – hardly a deterrent to car thieves.

Furry dice has since been superseded by worry beads (with the state of my driving I should have a Vatican’s worth of rosary beads hanging from my rear-view mirror) or tiny fir trees, like the ones The Borrowers would use at Christmas.

Nowadays you know how many kids people have ‘on board’; their other car is a Dinky and, if you’re Scottish, a sticker saying ‘ÉCOSSE’, as the French dislike the Scots marginally less than they do the English.

Growing up in my Balham flat I didn’t exactly share rooms with Fanny and/or Johnny Craddock.  While my Mum had many kitchen utensils, she rarely used about 98% of them.

She had a percolator, but this percolated so infrequently, rather than have a sprinkling of chocolate, you were more likely to receive a smattering of dust on your freshly-brewed coffee.

My mother never baked, so the Kenwood Chef might as well have been in Kenwood rather than Balham, although it did make a rather good door stop – unless you were allergic to meringue which would sometimes form on the doorknob.

The things which did get the most use, if only by me using them to explain the offside rule to a very disinterested mother, but rather than adding some literal spice to our food, was the collection of brown (everything was brown in kitchens in the ‘60s) pottery herb and spice containers.

Such was the lack of use we, were more likely to get attacked by Parsley the Lion, weed on by Dill the Dog or assaulted by Bayleaf the Gardener than see any of them in the ingredients at mealtimes.

Mum’s piece de resistance was her egg ‘n’ chips; luckily she never added bergamot!

If you’d have asked her what she liked best about coriander, she’d have said Ena Sharples; Henry VIII was her favourite turmeric and she thought holy Basil was a local priest.

Chive anyone?