Category: General

There was one instance of which I was quietly proud, apart from graduating, that is. I say ‘quietly’ because I never told anyone and had forgotten all about it until now. We were in Second Year Structures and the lecturer was warbling along about testing bridges with strain gauges and how it was essential to set up the system , run a train over the bridge, record the whole business and then shift everything and start again so every structural member of the bridge was tested under a rolling load.. Having come from a recent background of electronics I could see that it was simple to set up a triggering circuit coupled to a wire recorder, (tapes were not in general use then,) and with that system you only had to send the train over twice, once to record, once to check. It seemed so simple.
I went along to the lecturer with the idea and he said it was already on the market, it had been invented the previous year. At the time I was rather pleased with myself. Later I came to two conclusions, and they are the reason for including this here, inventors are always finding someone has beaten them to it and secondly, it is the man with a foot in more than one camp who is most likely to produce the ideas.

My brother-in-law and I decided we would walk from Ballycastle to Coleraine by every inch of the Coast, instead of sticking to the roads. In those days we would hike in the Mournes, and the Antrim Coast at weekends, and with rationing still a serious consideration, our pack weighed about forty pounds because we had to take nearly everything with us.
It was our habit to eat a prodigious breakfast and a colossal evening meal and only an orange or grapefruit and a bar of black chocolate for lunch – after all Liza owned a sweet shop, so sweet rationing was not a worry. We stayed in YHA hostels which varied tremendously in quality and facilities from the luxury of the new one at Dunluce Castle near the Giant’s Causeway to the hovel at White Park Bay.
We were sitting above White Park Bay, that beautiful stretch of sand, which is now so popular, but then was hardly known except to walkers and locals. The hostel was as primitive as they come, especially the men’s dormitory which was little more than a cottage with a packed earth floor. It was towards evening and we were anticipating the great fry we would soon be sitting down to, probably consisting of eggs, ham or bacon, tinned beans, a steak and the usual potato bread and soda bread, an Irish fry would never be without. The problem was the eggs.
It was my turn to scavenge and I set off up the hill to a small farm. I knocked the back door and politely asked the woman who came if I could buy some eggs. She looked at me very suspiciously and then said she had none. As the place was surrounded by hens I was convinced she was being economical with the truth, but that was that.. I duly reported back to HQ and Ted laughed.
“They think you’re the Ministry man checking up,” he said, adding, “It’s your accent.” To prove the point he then went up and came back with a hat full of eggs.

The following year, before I realised what was happening, I became embroiled through offering an opinion, something which always heralds trouble. Some of the men were wondering what sort of show to put on, I had said that every year there was the same procession and we should be putting on a static show of some sort, slap stick, something to gather the crowds and collect more money, provide ourselves with a captive audience. To cut a long argument short I was inveigled to join another ex-serviceman in An Olde Time Boxing Match. We were to wear combinations, I was to black my face and wear a Fez, I was the Great Mustapha. He was the British challenger – five foot nothing of cheeky chappy.
As part of the procession we set off with our seconds and marched from the University to the centre of High Street, there was an open space left by the demolition of buildings which had been bombed during the Belfast Blitz.. In the meantime some of the gang went ahead and set up a ring.
The performance predictably followed the usual circus ring craft, although we were probably not as crafty. A lot of water was thrown about, punches were thrown and of course, Mustapha must-ave-a beating – which he duly received. To finish it all off, absolutely cold sober, but with adrenaline running high, I obtained a crate and, standing on it in the middle of the main thoroughfare, brought Belfast to a halt with community singing.
When I arrived home, soberly dressed, sat down for the evening meal and when everyone else was gathered, Liza, my Mother-in-law, started to tell how she had been in Town, how the students were gathered in High Street and there was this idiot, standing on a box in his underwear and black face, holding up the traffic and conducting the crowd in a singsong. It was some time before I enlightened her who the idiot was. In the cold light of day and without the stimulus of adrenaline, I agreed with her, he was an idiot.

The Sweet CheatAt Queen’s I came across a very talented conjurer who was a medical student. I believe that he had sat his finals at least four times. In those days there did not seem to be any limit to the number of chances one had to qualify. The reason for the repeated sittings was that he always passed his written examination but when it came to the Orals, where as the other students had a nominal 15 minutes he was in there for ages while the examiners went over the whole syllabus again.. They were not, like the students, aware of the scam, but they obviously had their suspicions.
When he entered the examination room he would arrive early, find his desk and then scatter granulated sugar in a wide circle so that he would hear the crunch of the invigilator’s feet and have time to palm his cogs before the man was close enough to discover the cheating. Years later he and his wife were the Toast of the Town with their joint conjuring and illusion acts and to be seen regularly on TV.
FISH BY THE HUNDREDStrangford Lough, to my eye at any rate, is one of the most beautiful inland seas I have ever seen with its variety of both wild life and topography, and the extraordinary access to the Irish Sea which is so wonderful to behold when the current is at its fastest. Sitting on a seat near the Ferry pier at Portaferry, watching the ferry and the other craft crabbing, up-stream, half across the tidal race, and then being borne at speed back down, gliding rather than sailing for the far shore is not totally singular to this estuary alone, but it is both uncommon and beautiful to witness. It is like a water-borne ballet.
At Portaferry is a Marine Biological Station affiliated to Queens and it was here that we stayed for a week at the end of Third Year to study the mysteries of triangulation surveying and a better place could not have been found, with the drumlins bordering the water and the clear sights from one side of the Lough to the other, from eminence to tower, from hill to shore. It was a week of hard work, it is true, with a little drinking, a great deal of horse-play, no parenthood – and fish, hundreds of fish
We were camping out at the Biological Station, or that was what it seemed like. With the war just behind us austerity was the order of the day and the accommodation was primitive. We ate at the local hotel and much of the diet seemed to be fish.
One evening four of us rented a boat with fishing rods and lines and were surprised, or perhaps I should say that not being a local and acquainted with sea fishing, I personally was surprised to find the bait consisted of coloured chicken feathers instead of worms or spinners. It was quite late when we set off and the Lough was bathed in a glowing sunset, with the trees and castle on the Strangford side silhouetted against the dying sun.
We left from the small slipway just South of where the Ferry-port is now and were careful to inch along close to the shore for fear of becoming embroiled with the whirlpools and currents of the race. Two rowed and two fished. Both were done in a desultory way because we were out for a relaxed row more than anything, fishing was an adjunct to keep the passengers happy, until, that is, the patron saint of fishermen, or maybe St Jude, the patron saint of the afflicted, took a hand just as I lifted the rod. From then on it was carnage. It didn’t start out that way, there were a few fish, often more than one at a time on the line, and then suddenly as far as they were concerned, it was as if I was offering a little something the others didn’t have, my feathers, clearly, were better than sliced bread.
I was catching lythe, a form of pollack; mackerel and a fish known locally as blochan, but I suspect it too, was a sort of pollack. I had reached a catch of about fifty, but the rowers were insistent we should see how many we could catch. I stopped at one hundred, I felt we had been excessive, but in those days fish were there to be caught and the word environment had not the hallowed meaning it has today.
We allowed the tidal race to float us back to the pier with very little effort from the oars and there, we were met by the fisherman from whom we had hired the boat. When he asked us what we wanted to do with the catch, in our magnanimity we told him he could do with it what he wished and then we headed for the hotel bar and the fishing story we had been honing ever since we had stopped rowing.
With my stories there is always a rider, in this case it was the uncouth remarks of the other students, couched in earthy terms, which put the final touch to the evening. When I, and my companions, started telling of our piscatorial exploits we were nearly lynched. We, or maybe I, had been stupid. I had not thought of the possibility that the fisherman would immediately try to sell our catch to the hotelier at a discount, ensuring yet more fish on the menu.

HOW SCHOOLS CAN MOULD CHARACTER When I was on board a corvette in Belfast Harbour, talking to the wireless operator while repairing a set, an officer stuck his head into the office and said “Williams…” and then he stopped.
“I thought you were Williams, ” he said, “You sound just like him.” I smiled, he left and I got on with the job. Then Williams turned up. I discovered I knew him, he had been in my class at school. It was strange meeting him under those circumstances, and later, thinking about what had happened it led me to believe that schools have a stronger moulding influence on their pupils than they are credited with.
In our school, situated as it was in the heartland of the cockney accent, every Friday during a pupil’s first term, all the new entrants were gathered together and taught phonetics and what amounted to elocution. We mimicked the vowels, the consonants, silly phrases about cows, peas and pace which stressed the difference between what was said inside and outside the school. We mimicked the master, Oxbridge to the teeth, so we too were now receiving an Oxbridge slant.
To extend the theme of mass moulding even further, both geographically and educationally, when I started at Queens there were only a few English students, most were Northern Irish with just a smattering of foreigners and members of the Commonwealth. Out of forty of us I believe there were something like fifteen of us who were ex-service, many married, some with children, all on grants, all with only one chance, no second bites of the cherry, all ambitious with ground to make up, all studying like mad. For the rest, they were straight from school and within a few weeks they found we were a force to be reckoned with.
>From my perspective as an outsider, both from origin and age, I discovered unconsciously that the men and women who had come straight from school seemed to fall into categories conditioned by their schooling. Their attributes and outlooks seemed the same within each group and yet so disparate group by group. Without being specific, there were schools which produced people who were relatively innocent to a point of being almost naive. One group could have been classed as puppyish; another had the insouciance of the English Public School. There were some who had suffered such a strict and rigid regime that now they were out from under the repressive supervision, they did not seem to know quite what to do with their freedom. There was a tough crowd, polite but hardy, nothing would get past them and there were others who seemed so reserved as to be non-existent.
To generalise is unfair to the individual, and probably many would not agree with my assessment. However, the fact that I have convinced myself that I discovered this apparent segregation in attitude and approach, and that I believed it to be true at the time, must say something for the mass moulding of character and the responsibility the teacher has for the end product of his school.

THE TRIALS OF PARENTHOOD,
They tell me the purpose of university life over other modes of education is that it broadens the mind as well as the backside, the latter from hours of sitting in the Stack, mugging. In the first year Linda was too young to know she even had a father so I was able to take part in a lot of what went on in the college, but with time, her needs and those of Sophie were greater and as they came first, something had to give and rowing was the first to go.
Loving boats I naturally joined the Rowing Club and became a Fresher Oarsman, the lowest in the pecking order. We had racing shells and practice shells, these were the boats with the sliding seats and out-rigged rollocks similar to those used on the Thames on Boat Race Day. Then we had rowing boats variously termed the tubs or the punts in which we, the raw recruits, were trained, but the problem was that the people who were to teach us lowly creatures were also part of the first and second eights, so we had to wait until it suited them to teach us, after they had had their own spell of practice, and that could be anything up to four hours later, during which time one did nothing but chat in a desultory fashion.
There were other sides to rowing like going to the pub and watching a certain member chew wine glasses for a bet, but by and large apprenticeship in rowing like apprenticeship in anything else was merely a matter of learning to like being a dog’s-body and, at the age of twenty four years I found it hard. I graduated to rowing Bow, that is the oarsman farthest from the Cox, (perhaps it was something I said, or maybe some other reason), and I loved it, but it still entailed waiting nearly all day for the chance to get out in the boat. Why, you might reasonably ask, did you not clear off about your business and return four hours later? A sound question but unfortunately it does not take into account the vagaries of human nature. With only a few eights and as many tubs and a hoard of would-be Rowing Blues, there was strong competition for places and it could well be that the whole organisation of the afternoon took place just when you weren’t there.
I enjoyed those days on the river, I was tall which was good, I could handle an oar, which was essential and I was keen. When the tide was in we would row right down to Belfast Harbour, other times we went up as far as the weir and down to another, but the real pleasure was all in the rhythm. When everything was going well there was a poetry about the way the boat responded and we responded to it, which has to be experienced to be appreciated.
Alas, while the youngsters could relax in the boathouse, I had plumbing and paving and presents for the parties on my mind and worse, on my conscience. With the deepest regret I gave up after a year.
In second year we began to find our feet and in due time Rag Day came round when students commit mayhem and for some reason they get away with it. I was still cautious and not a little conscious of my advanced age, so I opted for the coward’s way out, collecting door to door in the morning and just making up the numbers in the afternoon. I was allocated a rather wealthy part of town and found that the greatest part of the job was walking up miles of driveways for a token pittance.
I knocked on one door and a strange young, married lady opened it, when I shook the tin she explained she hadn’t her bag and I should go round to the side entrance which I did, mystified nonetheless. In due course the side door opened and to offer the tin I would have had to enter the hall. When I left for the Navy my mother warned me never to enter a compartment where there was a woman on her own, and then she went on to lay out all the options open to the girl, none of which was in my interest. With this warning I stood at the door, arm and tin outstretched. With a strangely arch smile she offered me coffee inside. I refused.
When I returned to my mates I was chided for being chicken.

Staying with us in this expandable house where all were welcome was yet another member of the clan, Old Ned and he and Linda often had a running battle. He was close to or in his nineties and behaved like a child himself. He sat in the corner of the room behind the door leading to the scullery in a cane armchair. Alec occupied the one on the other side of the fireplace. Linda would sit on the floor and play with her wooden bricks, building them higher and higher, as carefully and meticulously as she still does things, with the result they reached considerable heights when one considers her age and dexterity.
Ned was lame and walked with a stick. He dozed a lot, but when he was awake he would reverse his stick and hook the handle round Linda’s tower and topple it, at which time he would cackle with laughter and she would get cross. She was resourceful, nonetheless, and on one occasion waited until he was a sleep with his head supported on a hand, itself supported on an elbow, on the arm of the chair; then she attacked. She drew back the door behind which he sat and then hit his hand with it as hard as she could. The shock must have been devastating, he complained to everyone as they entered the house I have a feeling the toppling stopped after that encounter.
Ned was both a character and a knowing old devil. He was Liza’s father. In his late eighties, tall but stooped, severely rheumatic, lame and rheumy of eye, he was nothing if not amenable. His gratitude to his daughter and son-in-law, for taking him, in were expressed almost daily.
He set out on his travels round the world on a sailing ship. He had served his time as a joiner and ship’s carpenter in the shipyard in his home -town shipyard at Carrickfergus where he had also learned to drive a ‘Donkey Engine’. The type of Donkey Engine he was referring to would be called a steam driven winch or capstan today. A ship, with square rigged sails, had been launched and the skipper was looking for a carpenter cum donkey man, and Ned rushed home to tell his mother that he was applying. Back at the yard his boss recommended Ned and, in short, off he went to sea to sail in a sailing ship round the Horn, with all that implied in hardship in those days.
Ned And The HaircutBecause he was so lame the time came when he could walk very little; so Liza employed a hairdresser to cut his hair at the house. It seems the visits were too far apart to suit Ned and one Sunday, when the rest of the family were out with the children for a walk, Ned insisted that I should cut his hair in spite of my protestations that, not only was I not qualified in any way to do so, the result would be a disaster. Nothing would deter him and I, still complaining, put a towel round his neck and proceeded to operate in the best way I could with the cutting-out scissors.
When I had finished, or rather, when I dared not take any more off, we went through the ritual with the two mirrors, as in a reputable hairdressers. Ned was delighted, I was relieved and for a while he kept eulogising my many talents, the greatest of which was as a hair-cutter supreme – unfortunately his eyesight was not of the best. In due course the rest of the family returned and he immediately showed off his tonsorial transformation, explaining who had done it. I tried to intervene and explain that I had been press-ganged against my will, but the hoots and roars of laughter at the remnants of the poor old man’s white locks, drowned me out.
I have never seen such a transformation, it was lightning, it was quick-silver, it was instantaneous and it was virulent. Now I was cast in the roll of the villain who had taken advantage of a poor old pensioner and made a mess of his hair. Fortunately his memory span was as poor as his eyesight and next day all was sweetness and light once more.
I have implied he was an old rascal, which he was. He would sit in his corner and think up statements designed to shock and there were none he liked to shock more than maiden lady visitors.
The family always had someone on duty in these circumstances – they knew him of old.
There was an instance, when a lady of similar background went to talk to him about his travels round the world and he admitted having visited quite a few places in the Southern Hemisphere, ‘Like that sharp place,’ he said. ‘You know, wallop you’re arse with a razor.’ He was referring to Valporaiso, and we were sure he knew the name as well as his own, he was just out to stir the pot, it was all the fun he had left
Linda and the flowers Linda and I had a problem with the word ‘flowers’, which for me illustrated better than anything the working of the child’s mind when it came to language. Linda, shortly after she started to talk, called flowers, ‘swowers’ She was in the garden with me while I was working, and was hunkered down smelling the flowers which were quite profuse, they were a border of pinks which had a lovely sweet smell. I unconsciously mimicked Linda’s interpretation, as some stupid parents do when they shouldn’t and was immediately reprimanded. I had referred to the flowers as ‘swowers’. Linda’s face suddenly became stern, as if chiding a child, and in a strong, loud voice, filled with emphasis, she said ‘Not swowers, swowers.’

One Christmas, shortly after poor old Ned had died, my nephew, Ian ,came to stay. His visit coincided with that of my mother. We always had Christmas Lunch rather than a dinner in the evening and after everything was cleared away it was our custom to walk round the district to settle the corporate stomach before the next onslaught. We were not alone, it seemed that half North Belfast were out trying out their Christmas presents, there were tricycles, new prams, dolls, and on the older people the regulation tie or pullover. I had elected to stay in with Ian and finish the clearing.
We then sat either side of the fireplace and chatted. The room was resplendent with Christmas decorations and Christmas cards on every available level surface. Suddenly I noticed the fire was nearly out and if the family came back, feeling righteous but cold, this would be frowned upon. I went in search of the paraffin to sharpen it up. The can was empty, but not for the first time I decided to take the risky course of using turpentine.
Back at the fireplace I added fresh coal sprinkled turps and then discovered that the Christmas cards had usurped the matches on the mantelpiece. By the time I returned with a box several seconds had elapsed. Through all this time Ian had been standing beside the fireplace watching the proceedings silently, taking all in but reserving judgement.
I struck the match and offered it to the fire. For a second nothing happened and then, between Ian and myself, a sheet of the most orange flame I had seen in a long while came from the fireplace and out some four feet into the room and then just as quickly returned up the chimney. Ian’s expression intrigued me momentarily, once I was over the shock of our personal flame-thrower. It was not so much the expression as the lack of it. He stood there and his head followed the progress of the flame out of the grate and back in with total equanimity, with total trust in his stupid uncle John. What had happened and what had been completely predictable was that the chimney and the fireplace, together with an area within the room had become filled with evaporated turps, while I was looking for the match.
The next phase was less dangerous but much more troublesome. For an instant after the flame had disappeared there was silence and then there was a rumbling like one hears standing in a house built over the Tube Railway in London when a train is passing below. Soot, buckets off soot descended into the grate, into the fireplace and spilled out further. Not only that a cloud of the stuff settled on every available surface throughout the room.
Above, a wavering voice was trying to question what was going on. My mother was in bed with a severe migraine and her bedroom shared the same chimney stack so she had been party to the rumble. I said there was nothing to worry about, knowing full well there was and proceeded to clean up which really meant a full Spring Clean of the place.
Ian and I sat back with a newspaper over the fireplace to encourage the fire into life, when there was another rumble and yet more soot. The moral would seem to be that if there is no choice between using turps or suffering the disfavour of the family then the latter course is safer, and also that some nephews should regard uncles and their decisions with a keen suspicion.

LIZA
Not only I, but anyone who had heard Liza sing in the fifties and sixties could not have failed to be certain that if she had been born thirty years later, when talent was more appreciated and there were more opportunities for talented people to succeed, she would have been a renowned opera singer. She was a soprano with the sweetest of voices.
Generous to a fault, not only with material things but with sympathy and encouragement, short, with a smiling face, over weight, hardworking and selfless, she sounds like a paragon, which I believe she was. She put her family and then her husband’s family before all else and worked for them all until she was quite old.
She had a sense of fun and a sense of humour and she liked a rough house. Once, she and I were having a wrestling match, but being plump and short, there were few places I could grab her without being imprudent, with the result that she, strong, hefty, and not afraid to be rough had me at a disadvantage until we arrived in a situation where she had me pinned to the wall with her shoulder, weak with laughter, unable to continue the battle.
Those were great days! On the radio there was ITMA , we avidly followed the exploits of Paul Temple, the detective, and the Saturday Night Play was a must. The first TV programme we ever saw was in the house next door when they bought a nine inch, black and white set for the Coronation of Elizabeth. We, some other neighbours and the owners of the set were all crushed into their breakfast room, entranced.
Alec and the Shop Part 1
In 1921 the family, Liza, Jimmy and Sophie moved from Alexandra Park Avenue into the shop which they had purchased as a source of employment for Alec, James’s brother. He suffered from spinal curvature and as a result was undersized, with a severe hump on his back to torment him through life. Apparently when he was very small his sister Agnes, not one of the greatest intellects, had dropped him twice, when once he had fallen under a moving cart, it was this which was held responsible for his disability. There were so many indignities people suffered in that condition, from the cheeky remarks of ignorant children being funny in front of their friends, by being bold enough to run up, say something offensive and run away, to the insensitive people who touched his poor back because they thought it was lucky to touch the hump of a hunchback.
The shop was one of a row, bordered or one side by the grocers in which I had telephoned the Castle in my days as a Wireless Mechanic, on the other by a fish shop and then the butcher’s shop owned by the Johnsons, including Jim Johnson of Covent Garden Fame, the tenor who sang throughout the world after he had been discovered and dragged from behind his counter. At rush times, over all the years the family owned the shop, when I was available, I served behind the counter. The shop was a tobacconists, news agency and sweet shop, which expanded its trade to carry cards, toys, and all the allied temptations every anniversary could muster. Easter and Christmas were the times when remaining open was finally justified. It took the takings of those seasons to provide the jam, otherwise they might just as well have closed.
Anyone who has not served in a sweet shop has absolutely no idea of the work and frustration meted out to generate such small returns. In its most simple terms the system operated as follows and I believe that today, with petty pilfering being the norm rather than the exception, life is even worse. We’ll say three children enter on their way to school. Things become rowdy between the two without money and they have to be watched in case they are after a freebie or two. In the meantime, moneybags, with his two or three basic coins has his eyes roving over the stock to decide which selection will be most profitable. After a few hints from the service side of the counter he decides, and inevitably it is bound to be the heaviest jar on the top shelf. It is brought to the scale, the bag is selected and opened and the top is taken off the jar, – Hold everything! There ‘s a change of heart! No, not the humbugs, instead he will have the brandy balls. Still trying to keep a watchful eye on the other two who are now getting up to date with the contents of the new comics at the back of the shop the sweets are weighed out, put in the bag, change is given and the jar replaced. With gross profit of the order of twenty percent to cover all the overheads, the family worked hard for the living and without the shipyard at the back of it I believe the shop would have foundered in those early days.
I can see Alec now, standing in the doorway of the shop, cigarette in hand, shoulder against the jamb, one leg crossed, taking bird-like drags on the cigarette and nodding to the regulars as they passed the shop. All his actions had a quick, staccato movement. I don’t think people appreciated the pain he was often in which sometime made him fractious. Liza and Jimmy certainly did, they had attended him after the numerous operations he had been through, but many didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt and some of us who knew, could still lose patience, even knowing and appreciating his disabilities.

York Road suffered damage in the Belfast Blitz and the Family went to Carrickfergus to stay with relatives, ultimately returning to No 18, yet another numerical address. It was there that I met Sophie, and there that we lived until we moved a few hundred yards to No 15, not three streets away.
There were two aspects of the shop I found both surprising and amusing. One was the sale of Christmas cards and the other was the effect of television on sales. Some months before Christmas Liza would go to the wholesaler’s to chose from a vast selection of cards what she believed her customers would buy, she would order what she was sure she could sell and leave the rest to chance. That her choice did not coincide with mine or Sophie’s, was of no matter, she knew her stock better than we did. In due course, some time in late November or early December the boxes of cards would arrive and then the fun started. We, Liza, Jimmy, Soph , some times a friend called, say Lorna, and I, would sit round the breakfast-room table and open the boxes and take out one of each of the types of cards for sale. From that point on it was like a Dutch Auction. The manufacturer would have a recommended retail price and we would assess what the market would stand. Occasionally we marked up cards by at least fifty percent and sometimes we dropped the price because we knew the customers would not pay what the manufacturer thought the cards worth. When the arguments and discussions were over we would get down to the boring job of pricing each card at the corner in pencil. Liza was inevitably right about the pricing, but in my experience she never had the courage to order enough and the nearer we got to Christmas Eve the more difficult it was to buy extra cards, and the ability to mark up became less, more often in the later stages we had to cut the margin, but having cards was essential as they brought people into the shop.
I could never understand the mathematics used by the advisers to the promotional departments of sweet manufacturers. On several occasions the shop was warned, by the routine travellers, that there was to be a TV promotion and we should stock up with the respective bars, packets or boxes. In one case it was Mars Bars that were being promoted. Liza duly stocked up to the tune of two hundred percent extra and yet, with such a common commodity we were without stocks within a few days. What I found extraordinary was, both the impact the advertisement had, but also that when we went to the wholesaler’s, he too had run out
TOYS When Linda was old enough to be invited to children’s parties we were presented with yet another financial problem, how to keep up with the Joneses. The children Linda played with came from homes across the social spectrum, but as the trend was set by the more affluent, all toed the line, with the result Linda would come home laden with bits and pieces. Not only that, but she had to take presents which were on a par. We, as I have repeated often were skint and dependent to a great extent on the generosity of Jimmy and Liza, so when it came to funding Linda’s, and later Lizzie’s, presents, both to take and to give, I had to find a solution. At that time James came home from work with pieces of rough sawn timber, which had originally been part of long lengths used as templates to pattern the plates for the ships. He cut these, when their useful life was over, into manageable lengths and brought them home for firewood. In the first instance, using this wood, I made Linda a small Irish cottage with a hinged back, opening front door and a little porch round it, all on a small board and decorated with roses growing up the sides and round the porch. The next venture was to make small simple jigsaw puzzles out of the ply obtained from tea chests, with the pictures from colouring books. Very soon Linda could do them, picture-side down. These prototypes in the end solved our problem. It was not possible to buy wooden jigsaw puzzles with or without big pieces in those stringent days and dolls houses were scarce too. What had started as an idea in the end turned into a mass production industry with the houses and puzzles also being sold in the shop.
The next requirement was an assembly line and armed with a treadle sewing machine base, a grinder head-stock, some steel channel, I made a circular saw cum-lathe and produced the houses and other items by batch methods. True I have a nick in the bone of one finger where I inadvertently put my finger into the saw, but Sophie was never party to that bit if carelessness. Later the machine became electrified instead of the laborious treadling and later still I made dolls from broom handles – long lengths of dolls on the lathe, head to foot, with their arms from doweling and wool for hair. Not only had we solved the problem of the presents we now had a minuscule income.