Category: 60s

Wall to wall entertainment

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Music was very important to me growing up.  The bedroom wall in my Balham flat was bedecked with singers cut out from Fab 208.  The life-sized picture of Clodagh Rogers did dominate the wall; this didn’t leave much room for Melanie, Aretha Franklin or Nancy Sinatra (nothing wrong with having eclectic musical tastes).

I’d inherited some records from my grandparents: the 1939 classic “Underneath the spreading chestnut tree”; “Caruso’s greatest hits” and a full set of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.  Therefore, the desire to have my own music was paramount.

I bought a cassette player.  I also bought several C60 tapes to record on.  I declined to buy a reel-to-reel tape as I believed this would make my bedroom look like the IBM building. 

I’d plant my microphone in front of the TV during Top of the Pops – sadly I’d not only record the song, but I’d also record my mother asking “what’s this bleedin’ row?” .  DJs on the radio would interrupt the songs by talking over the start and finish of songs.  At night, I’d try and record the Radio Luxembourg top 20 underneath my candlewick.  My mother would enter my room (without knocking) and say “I hope you’re not doing what I think you might be doing?”  I was ten and my eyesight was bad enough.

Eventually, as I got older, and with more pocket money, I could buy actual records.  I’d buy the Top of the Pops and Hot Hits albums.  My mother knew why.

Bugger Bournemouth

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In 1963, when I was six, I visited Bournemouth.  I vowed never to visit again.  The trip from my Balham flat to the Dorset coast was a succession of disillusionment.

There’s nothing wrong with Bournemouth per se, but my multiple bad experiences there left me very biased against it – however Alan Whicker may have praised it in future programmes.

This was the first holiday I can remember. I stayed with my paternal grandmother in a rented flat by the beach.  My grandmother had a food allergy – insomuch as she was a dreadful cook.

On my first visit to the seaside I was stung by a bee.  This was very painful; the only way my parents would calm me down was promising me a part in the next series of Emergency – Ward 10.

In the sea there was a boy of similar age.  I asked him if he knew Keith Ranger (a boy in my class)?  I was amazed and hugely disappointed that he didn’t.  Even his parents explaining that this random child went to school in Leeds still made the fact incomprehensible.  It was only, several years later, when I purchased my first Red Rover, I realised that the morning commute from Leeds to Balham may have been tricky.  Especially if you missed the connection at Nottingham Bus Garage.

During my “holiday” my maternal great grandmother died.  I was told she had gone to join the angels.  I was about twenty when I realised, not having seen her for a while, that “The Angels” were not a pop group who were on the road a lot.

I’ve got some lovely plums

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There was no scanning of items in the Du Cane Fruitier, the greengrocers opposite where I was brought up on Balham High Road in the ‘60s.

What there was was a giant, dirt-covered cash register where, if your bill came to anything involving a halfpenny, you’d need several hands to press the keys down to display the amount.

There was no “bag for life”.  You had a string bag, a bag you’d bought years ago during a holiday in Ventnor or a basket on wheels. 

Rather than you packing the fruit and veg, they’d be poured into your bag.  If you were lucky they’d be wrapped in a paper bag, so flimsy, it would have disintegrated by the time you’d transferred your purchase into your vegetable rack.  The greengrocer was determined to get you as earth-covered as he was;  I think they were on commission from Lux, Camay or the local pumice stone makers.

I loved the signs in the greengrocers, especially as I was very short-sighted as a kid.  I couldn’t miss the six-inch high white sign displaying 1/6 in some gothic script.

My mum would invariably do the shopping in hot pants.  Looking back, the greengrocers must have thought I was a bit of a hinderance, especially as my mum would insist I was her little brother.

To be fair, she never went to look at the special cauliflowers they kept out the back.

Those were the daze

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The moment my Bullworker arrived in at Balham flat in the late ‘60s, was the moment I believed I could win Opportunity Knocks.

Every Friday I’d watch the programme and get inspired by the weekly winners. 

Given I was only 11 in 1968, I could hardly go on and sing a song about nostalgia as Mary Hopkins did.  (She was very good in the ITV show where she played a ghost detective).

I’d have sung Mother of mine, except there were so many things my mum did which were either a secret or couldn’t be mentioned before the nine-o’clock watershed; plus I haven’t got the legs to wear a kilt.

Science was not a strength of mine at school; even learning very elementary physics, I could not understand how the “Clapometer” worked.  I assumed there were a team of hamsters working it from behind?  The louder the claps, the more the hamsters ran on their wheels?

I look back and think about the Muscle Man, Tony Holland, and the fact he might have had more credibility if he’d had another winner’s name – Bobby Crush. 

Still, we did learn that someone saying “and I mean that most sincerely, folks” probably didn’t.

Vote, vote, vote.

I am abseiling

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Easter egg hunts were always precarious when you lived in a fourth-floor flat.

I knew the 1967 Easter in my Balham flat was going to have a hint of danger when, instead of getting an egg full of Chocolate Buttons, I was given a book entitled “Successful Abseiling”; a set of grappling irons and Sherpa Tensing’s autograph.

My parents could have put the Easter eggs in the communal gardens, except my mother believed there were killer coelacanths in the ponds.  There were garages round the back of the flats, but there was the ever-present danger of being run over by a Ford Consul as you bent down to gather up a hidden egg.

For me, my mother had put fifty-odd eggs, dangling on bits of string, outside my bedroom window.  It looked like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, only Nebuchadnezzar never lived in south London.

The demand for the sugar rush chocolate gives you made me eager to climb down the face of the flats.  Having attached the guide rope to my very sturdy Dancette record player, I was ready to descend. 

The window open; my Dusty Springfield LPs safely removed from the record player and with me about to leap to claim my eggs, I heard a knock on my bedroom door; my Nan had arrived with an egg filled with Smarties. 

So, can someone tell Sir Edmund Hillary I’m not coming out to play, please.

Happy Easter.

None of the fun of the fair

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I never went to a fair while growing up ‘60s and ‘70s.  

If I wanted to see bearded ladies, there were plenty of nonagenarians living in my Balham block of flats whose LadyShaves had clearly run out of battery before rationing was introduced. 

I wouldn’t have trusted myself on any shooting range.  I was more Mother Kelly than Ned. 

Already having 36 glove puppets in my bedroom precluded the need of the addition of a four-foot high teddy.  

I would feel nauseous just looking at various rides, so going on any – even an innocuous-looking giant tea cup – was never going to happen.

If I wanted to look odd in a mirror, I’d simply eat more cake.  

On Clapham Common there was often a fair with its accompanying circus. 

The smell of sawdust brought back memories of what the school caretaker would bring into a class when a school dinner hadn’t agreed with a fellow class member. So, the likelihood of me entering the Big Top was remote.  

I remember being at the top of the Monument  aged 11 and realising I’d never be an acrobat.  

I think local dentists were in league with the fair organisers as I don’t recall candy floss and toffee-apples ever being recommended foodstuffs by the British Dental Association. 

I could never have been a lion-tamer, either;  I’ve watched Mr Benn and it’s not as easy as he made it look!

Send in the clowns.  Actually, please don’t.

Overstepping the mark

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I have a step counter on my watch and am obsessed with how many steps I do each day.

I look back to when I was a kid, a time when the word “school run” was something you’d do if you bunked off, I walked everywhere (when I wasn’t running).

They suggest, like eating five pieces of fruit (pineapple chunks and Jaffa Cakes don’t count), that you attempt to walk 10,000-steps a day.

I think I’d have achieved this walking to and from my Tooting school from my Balham flat.

Sometimes I’d skip; sometimes I practiced my bowling action while humming the main theme to Patton: Lust for glory.  I was a mixture of George C Scott and Richie Benaud. 

Couple this walk with running around like a maniac during playtime, the 10,000-steps were invariably achieved before Double Chemistry.  Road Runner meets Pipette Man.

However, all that walking and playing football in the playground during playtime, with school shoes on, gave you an appreciation of how Margot Fonteyn must have felt.  At least I never had to wear a tutu. 

My fitbit also monitors my sleep; what it doesn’t tell me is why I no longer dream about Claudia Cardinale every night.  So, modern technology, not all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s Sunday morning, only another 9,995-steps to go.

Having someone else’s cake and eating it

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Today is Mothering Sunday. 

When I was a kid, this meant cake.  Not made by my mum – her two favourite things were Guinness and John Player Specials; you could scour every cook book by the Galloping Gourmet and you’d struggle to find any recipe combining both.

At my Balham church the vicar’s wife was on a par with Fanny Craddock (only without the scary make up); she would make simnel cake for people to take after the morning service.  I would always try that end-of-party-trick of asking if I could take a piece for my mum too?  I’m surprised I’ve never had to enrol in Weight Watchers.

The idea was that you were actually meant to take the cake home to your mum.  Mine would have been too engrossed with her latest Jean Plaidy novel, or still been in bed with “one of her heads”.  Throughout my formative years I was always thought my mum was some sort of hydra.

At my church I sang in the choir.  Although, I started late and was never a choir boy, therefore, I missed out on all those sixpences I could have earned singing at weddings, shillings at funerals and ten bob for an exorcism.  I did make up with this lack of earning by eating cake.  It would have been rude not to.

So, to all the mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers out there, thank you, and just a small slice, please.

Piano splinter group

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I had piano lessons for two-weeks.  Sadly, this didn’t qualify me for being the next Liberace; although I am fond of a giant candelabra.

My great aunt was my teacher as she possessed a baby grand in her Balham flat.  Although her violent teaching skills were reminiscent of the role Harry Andrews played in “The Hill”.  I’ve still got splinters embedded into my hands from the smashed rulers over my knuckles.

Her husband, my great uncle, was an amateur band leader. His piano was his pride and joy and would cover the keyboard with an old copies of Melody Maker. 

I’d always look at this protective paper (when not being assaulted) and wondered why, in 1970, I’d never heard of anyone in the charts and wondered why, each week, Marie Lloyd’s Oh! Mr Porter was still number one?

Not knowing the paper was never changed, but anxious to keep up-to-date with popular music, I once asked for this song in my local record shop.  I was disappointed to hear it was no longer available, but did I want Chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep instead?  I decided not to as this sounded more like a disease or type of birdseed than a song.

So, I was destined never to be the next Liberace; also, I’m not allowed near matches.  Plus, to me, Quavers remain a type of crisp rather than a form of musical notation.

Are you sitting uncomfortably?

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Watching children’s TV in my Balham flat was a great way of establishing which career I might (or might not) follow.

Monday’s Picture Book asked children, “Do you think you can do this?”  Well, no, because it is lunchtime, I’m only four and I’m on my break; I can erect a box girder bridge after my afternoon nap.

Tuesday’s example showed Andy Pandy – a man in a clown suit, whose only friend was his Teddy.  As an only child, I could identify with this; for many years, my best friend was a glove puppet.  Living in a box didn’t appeal, though.

Living in a flowerpot with an inarticulate neighbour had even less of an attraction.  Coupled with forever being on the run from the gardener would have meant I’d have had totally frayed nerves by the time I was ten.

I always felt with Rag, Tag and Bobtail on Thursdays was a recipe for social disaster. Hedgehog, mouse and rabbit respectively – you’ve only got to be living near a cat and it’s Goodnight, Vienna (where Mary, Mungo and Midge was set).

Which left Friday – you’re running out of days for any career guidance inspiration.

Did I want to work on a farm?  Did I want to be subservient, as clearly Mr and Mrs Scrubbitt were?  Watching The Woodentops ruled out potentially being a vet, cleaner, farmhand, twin-child psychologist or spotted dog. 

It would take several years before I found my métier.   I eventually became a dragon, making soup on a remote planet.