Category: Balham

In an effort to improve me, my dad would take me, on wet Sunday afternoons, to places of interest.

We’d take the coach from Balham High Road and visit south-east England stately homes, castles (usually in ruins) and majestic gardens.

My thoughts, while walking round these places, would be: I’d love to slide down THAT staircase; where would you put the boiling oil to dissuade uninvited guests and what magnificent begonias (I  was a teenage boy)!

And why did most statues only have one arm?  Had they all been in some ancestral scything accident?

For me, the places which housed the Earls of this and the Dukes of that held no appeal.

I wanted to go to the Gift Shop: the treasure at the end of the National Trust-owned rainbow.

I wanted to get a tea towel with Churchill on; a mug decorated with Sir Philip Sidney poems and Kendal Mint Cake sponsored by Rudyard Kipling. 

Oddly, I would also buy coloured slides.  Strange, as I didn’t own a projector.  Perhaps I secretly hoped I’d be invited to someone’s for tea, where the parents had a slide projector and would ask, “does anyone have any slides of Ann Boleyn, some eleventh-century turrets or flowering clematis?”.    Remember, I was entering adolescence 😊

Everyone back on the bus, please.

During the Sixties, as I’d walk from my Balham flat towards Wandsworth Common to reenact famous Gerd Müller goals, I’d wonder at some of the imaginative creativity in the gardens along the way.

Many people clearly took great pride in sculpting various shapes and sizes on the bushes in their front lawns.  

One day, on the way to the common with my football tucked underneath my arm like Anne Boleyn’s head, I noticed that there was some vigorous pruning activity going on.  However, the tools being used were tiny.  I wasn’t allowed scissors as a kid, but I think I could have got away with playing these, such was their incredibly small size.

At this time we were being read The Borrowers during school.  The town where they lived was never mentioned; now I had living proof.  As I passed this house, they were, like the gardener in Bill and Ben, temporarily absent; but, to me, The Borrowers clearly lived in Balham. 

In addition to the tiny scissors there were tiny pliers; tiny wire-cutters and a tiny penknife.  Obviously, Swiss Army knives didn’t come in XXS.

There were never any competitions held down the street but, for me, the giant cockerel at number sixty-nine always won it.

Growing up in Sixties London, I remember having a Bakelite telephone; it would double as a stage weight should the local Am Dram troupe ever need it.

I was nine in 1966 when the change from letters to numbers began.  Overnight, Balham became 673 (Patrick McGoohan would have been horrified).

It was at this point that people thought about getting a novelty phone.  Having a Mickey Mouse phone was very popular.  I desperately wanted one so I didn’t have to say “Balham 0557” and could – quite legitimately – answer, “Hello, Mickey”.

Having had a phone which took up half the sideboard, smaller phones were suddenly the rage. Trimphones, with their distinct ring, was one such model.

I had a friend at school who could mimic the ringing of these phones.  I often went plane spotting with him and he’d cause havoc at Heathrow making his sound and seeing all the people working on the customer services desks answering their phones wondering why no one was at the other end.

Some people would regress and buy phones which existed at the beginning of the century.  The only problem with that was that you felt obliged, when answering the phone, to sound like you’re narrating a Pathé News story.  

Whatever phone you had, it was better than waiting for the party line to finish, pop next door or go to a public phone box.  Never did get those French lessons.

Going to London cinemas in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I always admired the many talents of the usherettes.

I secretly wanted to be one, but never had the upper-body strength and didn’t suit a hat.

Holding a very steady torch was imperative for the usherettes; strong wrists were needed, as was the ability to wave it like King Arthur’s sword.  The proficiency to say “don’t!” was paramount in the usherettes’ armoury.  Don’t spill ice cream; don’t throw Kia-Ora over the balcony and, if you were sitting near the back, don’t touch that, you don’t know where it’s been.

During the B-film or travelogue, the usherettes would be training their neck muscles to support their intermission wares.  Several hundredweight of tubs can play havoc on your spine.

Having multiplication skills were also key; tubs were very expensive.  You’d needed to be an economist to work out what four raspberry ripple tubs would cost – and have a mortgage adviser on hand.

I cried a lot as a kid in the cinema (the Balham Odeon heard more wailing than the walls in Jerusalem) – I blame Dumbo.  It wasn’t helpful having a giant torch shone at me, as if I were escaping from Colditz, with a strict woman on the other end of it saying “don’t cry, it’s not real” – although I felt it harsh my mother had to treat me like every other audience member.

I realised from an early age I’d never make it as a top-class athlete.

This didn’t stop me holding my own Olympics.

I was incapable of walking like a normal person as a kid.  I’d run everywhere – forever trying to improve my leg-break bowling action, while whistling the theme from Patton or The Big Country.  I’m sure Richie Benaud did the same.  Whistling was the sixties equivalent of wearing headphones

For me, the whole of Balham High Road was mentally a cricket and/or football pitch; the pavement, my own Olympic Stadium running track.

If I was walking to school in Tooting or skipping to the Balham ABC for a cup of tea poured from the height of a small diving board, I’d pretend people in front of me were part of my race.  I’d set myself a challenge to overtake a set number of people before I’d get to the Balham Ritz cinema.  My prize being an imaginary Kia Ora.

As I walked, so I perfected my David Coleman impression.  

I’d use the cracks in the pavement for hopping, skipping and jumping as I emulated a triple jumper.   There was never much sand lying around; I invariably ended up in St James’ Hospital with twisted  ankles.  Still, I was a winner, as I never saw another pedestrian trying the same thing.  In my head, they were automatically disqualified. 

And it was the things in my head which fascinated the psychiatrists at St James’.