Category: 60s

Wild, wild, wildebeest

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Do people still have room-dividers?

I didn’t in my Balham flat, but I would often go to friends’ houses where the kitchen had a series of beads and/or coloured strips hanging down from the doorframe, separating it from the rest of the house. 

What were they there for?  Was it to give an air of mystery to the kitchen holy of holies?  Hide embarrassing old relatives? Stop herds of wildebeest rampaging into the lounge?

Anyone going to the cinema in south-west London in the sixties would remember the ad for a local restaurant which advertised: “it’s so good, even the cook eats here”.  The reveal would be the chef, behind the dangling beads, literally eating his own lunch.

I think, budding cooks believed that the magic ingredient to a good meal wouldn’t be to add a selection of exotic spices, but to erect a series of dangly things.  Who needs Mrs Beeton or Fanny & Johnny if you’ve got the threads of Joseph’s coat hanging from your kitchen doorway?

How were these things created?  My belief is that many a room divider was made out of beads stolen from school abacuses.  This would explain why many people at my school could only count to five by the time they were eleven.

If there was to be privacy, you couldn’t knock, as your hand would go straight through – thus knocking over the embarrassing relative.  At least that would have saved her from the stampeding wildebeest.

Upper case twit

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I had to buy a new phone this week.

What they don’t warn you in the shops is that you’ll have to remember every password for every app you have. 

Having unsuccessfully tried Gerd Müller’s birthday, Alan Knott’s wedding anniversary and the square root of two, the words I no longer wish to see are “forgotten password?”.

Before phones etc., the last time I needed a password was in the early ‘70s, doing Am Dram in a Balham church hall, saying the words, “Open Sesame”.  (This would have been good if we were performing Aladdin; sadly, we were doing King Lear).

I never did CCF at school (I visited old ladies in Clapham, which was far more dangerous than being on a school field with fellow sixteen-year-olds with pretend guns), so I never had the chance to say, “Who goes there?”.  The key to getting into the houses of the old ladies was to simply answer “yes” to the question “Is that you, Mick?”.

The most complex thing you had to remember growing up was the combination on your bike’s padlock.

Back when we were kids, you didn’t have to invent a special word using upper and lower cases, a selection of numbers and liberal use of asterisks, exclamation marks and semi-colons.  Once I’ve mastered a way to remember such things, I shall be applying to work at Bletchley Park and you can all start calling me Alan Turing!

Outnumbered

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“It’s five to five; it’s Crackerjack”.

Any of us who have gone to work, and learned very quickly not to get on the empty smoking carriage of the Tube train as it pulled into Balham Station, would have been reliant on specific times and timings; we’d have been aware that nine o’clock was very important, but not half as important as five o’clock.

For me, at my secondary school, ten past four was the best time; the time the final bell rang, announcing the end of the school day. 

You had five minutes before the school the other side of our rugby pitch and their electrified fence, had their own bell rang.  Five minutes to leg it to the sanctuary of the bus stop, before your cap was either nicked, knocked off or made into a gag or, from some of the more creative boys, a doily.

Nearly fifty-years on since I left school for the last time, 4.10 pm still has a magic ring about it.  A sense of relief.  A time when I decided, shall I play football, perfect my leg-break or conjugate a few Latin verbs?  

TV, aside from just Crackerjack, taught you the time and numbers.  Six-Five Special taught you how to count backwards, as did 3,2,1; Beverly Hills 90210 introduced very big numbers; Blake’s 7 catered to the less numerate; Patrick McGoohan was determined not to help at all.

Although I can’t remember when News At Ten was on.

Clocking in

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Growing up, I would listen to aged relatives (it was that, or have your pocket money come to an abrupt halt) and wonder if any of them were related to Stanley Unwin?

I had a paternal grandfather who, if you asked him a question, would always answer with: “I’ll tell you for why”.  He was from north London, so perhaps, having been brought up south of the River, having far too many prepositions in a sentence was considered the norm?  Or perhaps he was a precursor to Google Translate? To paraphrase the Catchphrase catchline – “it’s good, but it’s not right”.

Where cab drivers dare not go after 8.00, my maternal grandmother, when asked the time, would answer: “five and twenty past” or “five and twenty to”.   Is this a generational thing and people in SW17 were taught to speak as if they were still living in Georgian London?

I bet, these days, no one is told “wait ‘til your father gets home”; as, with the advent of working from home, most fathers are already home, albeit working in a room which originally housed coal.

With raging inflation, I wonder much people should be paid for their thoughts?  Certainly not a penny.

And you didn’t have to do seven-years at medical school to give someone a taste of their own medicine.

Curiosity has been reported to the RSPCA.

Enjoy – or the rabbit gets it

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In the Balham ABC, during the ‘60s and ‘70s, the ladies serving the tea – which they poured from a great height above their heads – would slide the mugs across the metal counter; no words would be exchanged. You certainly didn’t say, “this tea has more of a head on it than my mum’s Guinness”.  If you did, you’d find yourself, and your accompanying iced bun, in A&E. 

What the tea ladies never said was “Enjoy!”  Nor did they say it, which seems commonplace in coffee shops nowadays, with incredible menace.

There is clearly no alternative to not enjoying it.   If you don’t, the barista will find you and creep up beside you, as you’re devouring your blueberry muffin.

They will ask, if you had to state your level of enjoyment on a scale of one to ten, it must be eleven. Or else! 

Iced buns were the only pastry option in the ABC on Balham High Road.  There were no croissants as many of the people serving there still had very raw memories of the Hundred Years’ War; the thought of having to speak French was abhorrent.  These were the days before sell-by dates. If you couldn’t eat it, you could use it as a weapon and reenact the Battle of Agincourt on Balham High Street.

Saving the bacon

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At sixty-six, I tend not to get invited to as many sleep-overs as I did many years ago.

Within my Balham block of flats, there lived another family with kids my age.  If our respective parents went out, I would sleep in their flat.  I loved it; and loved it for one reason: crispy bacon.

My friend’s dad was a salesman for a toy manufacturer, so there was always be the best new toys in their flat.  However, you can keep Flounders; Happy Families and anything involving attaching something to a magnet and a bit of string, it was the morning fry-up I looked forward to.   I probably already had high cholesterol at six!

I didn’t need waking up the next morning, as the smell of frying bacon would waft into our bedroom.  Auntie Sylvia (she wasn’t my real auntie) could have won countless worldwide competitions for cooking bacon.

However, before the morning food fest begun, we’d still have fun the previous evening – staying awake (to the babysitter’s probable annoyance) until 9.30 – which we thought must be tomorrow already!  We’d plan night-time expeditions to the kitchen – although, I did think to myself, we’d better not eat all the bacon or anything which would have made me still full the following morning.

At sixty-six, I’m still getting up at midnight, only not to raid the fridge – or to find Penelope Plod, the policeman’s daughter. 😊

Legion’s disease

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I was ten when my parents left me in a hall I’d never visited before; with kids I’d never met; playing games of which I’d never heard.

Was this some sort of punishment?  Had I been awful in a previous life?  Was this Karma for not tidying my room once too often?

I stood (and wished it was a burning deck, such was my desire to be somewhere else) by the entrance of this hall near Tooting Broadway. 

“Ok, Michael, have fun, we’ll see you in a few hours”.  

Was this what it was like when you joined the Foreign Legion?  Being in the British Legion club was clearly the first step.   My parents had signed a document ensuring I’d be in Marseilles before sunset.

The other kids clearly all knew one another from their schools; Cubs/Brownie packs or the Balham & Tooting sub aqua club for under tens.   I knew no one.  Even my imaginary friend was away for the weekend.  This was one of the few times I regretted being an only child.  If I had known, I’d have bought a sibling off the Freeman’s catalogue.

The pain went on for several hours.  I took part in none of the games.  I spoke to no one.  I hid in the toilet so many times, one of the adults asked if there was a urologist in the hall?

After four hours my parents returned.  I was given a piece of cake.  I did say thank you, but also told the organiser – thrusting my Victoria Sponge towards his face – “this is how revolutions begin”.

Tiger, tiger – hiding in my grass

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It is “No Mow” May.

This is blindingly obvious if you step outside your house and are confronted with what appears to be Epping Forest; no one has mown the communal streets seemingly since the last Ice Age.

I never had “No Mow” Any Time Period growing up in my fourth-floor Balham flat.  Mowing wasn’t easy, four floors up.  We were so far up, off the ground, it was more fly-past then Flymo.

I’m wondering, when they eventually get round to cutting the Serengeti-type grass outside my house, what they’ll find?  Butterflies; bees; beetles?  Most certainly.  However, it has grown so high I wouldn’t be surprised to see hordes of wildebeest; the lost city of Atlantis or The Borrowers living there.

In the ‘60s, I’d wander over Wandsworth Common with my Observer Book of Birds.  During this time, it seemed south-west London only attracted pigeons and sparrows.  I was twenty-eight before I saw my first robin – unless you count Burt Ward.

My father, having been brought up in Marylebone (famed for its birds of paradise), got very bored trying to bird-watch with me, so we used the book as a goalpost. 

From trying to be Peter Scott, I hastily had to become Peter Bonetti.  Equally handy trying to spot cats.  And talking of cats, outside my house, I could have a family of Siberian Tigers living in the undergrowth.  This would explain why Siegfried and Roy have moved in next door.

Eva Brown

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In the kitchen of our Balham flat in the ‘60s, my mother had eight brown jars containing all manner of exotic foodstuffs: ginger; cloves; nutmeg; cinnamon; marjoram; mint; parsley and thyme. 

Because of my utter loathing of boiled fish in parsley sauce, I’d hide the jar marked “parsley”.  I couldn’t watch any episode of The Herbs without the fear of coming out in a rash.

What puzzled me, as a kid growing up, was why the contents of these jars were never used? 

My diet was very formulaic; I had the same thing most days; most weeks.  But cannot remember my Saturday evening smoked haddock being supplemented with a sprinkling of nutmeg; Sunday’s roasts rarely featured ginger instead of Yorkshires – and whose cloves were actually in that jar?  The Borrowers? (At this point I’d not learned how to spell “clothes” properly).

Brown was a popular colour in our flat:  Brown three-piece suite; brown carpet – with both parents being heavy smokers, it tended to hide the burn marks (and an unruly Flake packet); brown coffee pot; brown cups and saucers; dark brown sideboard and stereo.  The only brown not there was Eva Braun.

My dad had a brown suit.  He could hide his head in his jacket and my mum wouldn’t spot him sitting on the sofa for hours.  

So, when sometimes says to you, “brown is the new black”, send them off for a colour blindness check.

Pomp and circumstance in Balham

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Listening to “Zadok the Priest” last week during the coronation, reminded me of one of the many times I’d sung it.

To celebrate various Royal happenings during the 70s, our Balham church twice put on pageants.

Because I could sing and act I was involved in both.

Having won the RE prize when I was ten, I believed I was a shoe-in for any major acting part (in fairness, this should have been given to Neil Pearson, a Tooting resident when we were all growing up – and marginally better actor).

We regularly inflamed the vicar’s anger by messing about during rehearsals.   This wasn’t helped by one line in a sketch where the vicar’s daughter had to deliver a line: “Peter, pass me your crutch”.  When you’re a teenager, and you hear the word “crutch”, it’s similar to hearing the word “sausages” when you’re six.  Sadly, for the vicar, we were all still mentally about six.

We sang many choral pieces in the two pageants – all of them related to royalty. But, for me, the best thing to come out of it was through a fellow chorister from Jamaica.  During the rehearsals and singing “may the King live forever”; “amen, amen, amen” and “alleluia” more times than you can shake a stick at, my West Indian mate taught us the entire lyrics to “The Israelites”.

If the vicar had known he’d have torn up our shirt and taken away our trousers, as the great Desmond Dekkar suggested.