Chapter
Sixteen - Let's All Go Down the Strand
Cathy and Paul were coming up to their A level examinations and Cathy was very keen still to go to Bath to study music. Paul wanted an Art degree. He was wonderful at art, both drawing and painting.
I began to wonder what to do with my life now that Cathy was planning to go to college and for the first time I did not have to consider which schools to be near to or to worry how she would visit John. I was soon going to be free in a way, but all mothers know its very sad and strange when their youngest child flees the nest. I felt I was at a crossroads and perhaps it was time to do something completely different.
Over the years, I had often been to visit Jenny and Herbie Parkhouse in Hove
at weekends and Ted had met them too. I really liked Hove and Brighton and I
suppose having been born in a seaside town it did rather appeal to me perhaps
to return seawards.
First I had to make sure that Cathy and Paul were going to be able to study in
Bath. It was not all plain sailing. Cathy was fine and was accepted, but Paul
had to do an Art Foundation course first and for this the Borough would only
give him a partial grant and said he must attend a local college. I explained
ad nauseum to the Education office that Paul had no home and that I was
thinking of moving away so he would no longer be staying with me. We had quite
heated words and I wrote letters too and in the end they agreed to give him a
very minimum grant to live on but to allow him to go to the college in Bath.
This was something like £17 a week, which was totally inadequate. Cathy would be getting about £40 a week. I realised the only way they would manage would be to pool resources and live together. Their rent would be at least £25 a week. Nowadays students do not get grants at all, but have to take out loans and end their college careers in debt, which is very sad. So really they were lucky to get grants at all, but I didn't see it this way at that time.
Anna, meanwhile, went on being the perfect lodger but I worried sometimes about how tired she was. She ate her frugal meal and often retired to her room and went to bed before 8 pm. Eventually she must have been worried herself because she went to the Doctor who said she had ME a new disease which some doctors did not recognise at that time. She was told to have a break for a while and then work part time only. This was sad for me too. She went home to Brighton and so I no longer had a lodger and my financial problems increased again.
Lynne had a lot of problems around this time. She had actually managed to
give up drinking and was so much nicer for it. The trouble was that it caused
friction between her and her husband who seemed irritated and wanted her to be
drunk at the same time as he was, I suppose. One day during a row he pushed her
down some stairs and hurt her arm and she was so angry that she took the
children down to her mother in Bournemouth as it was holiday time and they did
not have to go to school.
Unfortunately her husband was so distressed by their departure he went on a
severe drinking binge. He was only 32 but apparently had a form of cirrhosis of
the liver and he collapsed and went into a coma. Of course she hurried back to
his bedside but he never regained consciousness and she held his hand until he
died. The sensational newspapers went to town on the scene at the funeral when
her mother-in-law accused Lynne of killing her son.
After her husband's death Lynne started drinking again and although I was sorry for her, I gradually got fed up with her telephone calls bragging how she and her friends had smashed glasses in a pub and kept saying how funny it had all been. She and her children had moved out of her mother-in-law's house and were living in temporary council accommodation. I lost touch with her and tried the number she had given me and also rang her mother in Bournemouth but her mother said she had fallen out with Lynne and they were also not in touch any more. A friend of mine said she had read in the 'News of the World' that Lynne was still drinking and living somewhere at the South Coast.
Jennifer was doing a Summer season at the Byre Theatre at St Andrews in Scotland. Unfortunately I had not seen her in 'Agnes of God' during the previous season, in which I heard she was extremely good in the title role. It was a long way for us to go but Barbra and I went up by train for the weekend to see her in 'Way Upstream' an Alan Ayckbourn play. She and a few other actors were sharing a house there for the season and she introduced us to a man called Roger who was playing the part of the evil devil type in the play. He seemed very nice and although older than her, he was not as old as Trevor had been. He was divorced and showed us photos of his two children, aged 4 and 6. I was slow to realise that they were becoming a couple, for some reason it just did not occur to me until a while later.
He told us he was buying a house in Brighton with his share of the proceeds of his divorce as his ex-wife was very comfortably off. It seemed a coincidence that I should meet another person who was intending to move to the Brighton area, especially as Anna had gone back to her home there too.
In the play, Jennifer had to take her clothes off for a second together with the young man in it, then there was a blackout. The play was meant to be allegorical and the two young people whose names were Alistair and Emma were meant to be symbolic of Adam and Eve and the final dive into the river with no clothes was symbolic of going back to the Garden of Eden and innocence.
It was hardly a nude scene, the whole thing was over in a flash. However someone in the audience wrote a letter to the local paper objecting to this scene. He ended his letter, saying 'Don't put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington, if she has to take off her clothes'. Jennifer was rather unhappy about this and when Barbra and I were on the train returning to London, a parody began to emerge in my mind. As the man who had written the letter had put his address in the paper it would be easy to answer him. I told Ted about it and he was also inspired to write a parody.
My one went as follows:
'Don't put your thoughts upon the page, Mr Summers, Sir
Don't put your thoughts upon the page,
Ayckbourn's words may not convey to you the feelings in his heart
But your words might hurt the feelings of my daughter in the part,
So don't seize Mr. Summers, Sir, Please Mr Summers, Sir
The chance to put your thoughts upon the page.'
This was Ted's:
'Don't get yourself into a rage, Mr Summers, mon
Don't get yourself into a rage
Though you think you have a valid point
You quite misunderstood
The part you thought was naughty
Was symbolic more than rude,
Hear my pleas, Mr Summers, mon,
Please, Mr Summers, mon
Don't get yourself into a rage'.
Ted by the way had like so many other people in my life, gone into verse. He wrote the following to me, not in simple doggerel, but in iambic pentameters, and I thought it was very good.
'It's taken an eternity to write,
This little ode I send herewith to you
It's taken me all day and half the night
To try to tell you of my feelings true.
I never thought that I could ever write,
Yet you have always told me that I could,
And so, encouraged by your great foresight,
I penned these lines, which really are quite good.
And so my love, how can I make you see
That knowing you inspires me to heights
Which hitherto were quite unknown to me -
Although they tend to keep me up at nights!
I knew by then that Ted would never change his mind about London or grow to like it, and perhaps deep down I felt that eventually he would get tired of driving such a long way to see me, whereas if I lived in Sussex he would not mind so much as Kent and Sussex were his favourite counties of England. There was also another reason why I felt it might be better to get away from Walthamstow. This was because I was still not far from John and Woodford and still felt I would be happier if there were less risk of bumping into him. I had not told his parents about meeting Ted, I suppose I hoped John would meet someone first so they would feel happy for him and would not then mind as much about my finding happiness. Barbra and Alan actually did know about Ted and we had even attended one of Cathy's concerts together but I knew Barbra would never say anything, quite apart from the fact that she knew that I knew she was still seeing Alan.
I did not want to deceive Nanny and Granddad but also did not want to hurt them. I always felt that they still hoped there would be a reconciliation between John and me and finding out I had someone else would be final. I decided that as soon as John found someone new, I would tell them immediately. The children I knew would not mention Ted to John, not that there was any reason why I should not have someone in my life, but as almost every bit of news about me was like a red rag to a bull where John was concerned, I think all of them had realised it was better to keep quiet about certain things.
There was one funny occasion where Cathy was at a concert in Walthamstow on a Saturday night. I asked Ted to sit separately from me and we found chairs at the side of the hall about 10 feet apart. John stood at the back of the hall, but at one point moved around to the side, perhaps to see better. I don't think he realised I was sitting there as the hall was dark and he stood about half way between Ted and me. At the interval when the lights came up, Cathy came round to see us and with a brief flash of panic in her face, took in the situation of Ted, John and me being so near to each other.
She acted correctly though by ignoring Ted completely and speaking first to John and then coming towards me. John went home during the interval as Cathy's main part in the concert was finished. Then Ted and I moved our chairs together for the rest of the concert.
Anyway, what with one thing and another, I began to feel that something was almost moving me towards Sussex and the coast.
At about this time I first read 'The Henry Root Letters'. I thought they were very funny. If you are not familiar with them, a certain journalist pretended to be a boring crass man called Henry Root who had made his money in fish, and he wrote letters to famous personalities, political figures all over the world and royalty with outrageous suggestions and requests. He attached a pound to each letter as a sort of bribe and knew that this would force people to answer if only to return the money. He asked Prince Charles to come and look at his council flat as he was planning an 'open day' as they do in stately homes and castles, he wrote and told various famous people that he would be visiting them with his family the following Saturday for tea, not giving them time to respond and prevent him, had they been genuine letters. Sometimes he wrote to foreign countries' fascist leaders and pretended to be congratulating them on their 'firm' treatment of dissenters. Anyway you need to read the book to understand properly.
When everyone at BT received a letter at home from the Corporate Director thanking us all for our contribution to the firm and congratulating us on the enormous profits that BT had made that year, it gave me an idea for a Henry Root letter of my own.
Here is a copy of parts of the letter dated 5 June from BT which inspired me to respond, and my reply which of course had to be anonymous. I thought I would be fired if anyone found out it was from me. So of course I never knew if the recipient knew about Henry Root or maybe just thought the letter was from a lunatic.
'Dear Colleague,
I visit most Districts and Headquarter units every year, meeting as many BTUK people as possible. Even so, this letter is the only way I can personally thank you, and everyone else in the division, for the hard work you've all put in to help improve the quality of our service to customers. ...............(further long paragraphs on subject of quality).............
I'm sure that. with your help, this will be an even better year for our customers. In the meantime I thank you again for your contribution to last year's successes'
My reply dated 8 June:
'Dear Mike
I was most gratified to receive your 5 June letter expressing appreciation of my efforts in the past year. I must point out that many other people have also contributed in some small way towards the success of our Business so I do hope you have written personally to them too. Fair is fair, as my Uncle Henry always used to say.
It is very nice to know that the speed and accuracy of my typing have at last impressed the folks at the top, and although I would have appreciated a more tangible expression of your gratitude, (I realise you are probably still in the process of sorting this matter out), your letter is very comforting in the meantime.
On the subject of quality, my younger son, Darren, does not seem to be
enjoying the sort of 'quality of life' that we mothers hope for in our sons. He
has a great interest in telephones, taking them to pieces regularly during his
many idle moments, and then losing bits of them. This proved very awkward until
we hit upon the idea of buying an extra handset and locking it in the bureau
drawer. But I did hope you might be able to advise me of a way in which young
Darren's enthusiasm for telephones could be directed into a more useful and
profitable channel. I would love to see him with a career of his own before he turns
30 and there are only 14 months to go now
.
We are in the process of moving house at the moment (hence the lack of address
at the top of my letter), but as soon as we are sorted out, I wondered if I
could bring Darren around to your house one Sunday when you aren't too busy, to
chat informally over a 'cuppa' about his possible future in BT. (I think an
office environment would unnerve him in the first instance as he is extremely
sensitive). I will write again later when we have moved, to arrange a suitable
date.
I do hope you don't feel I am being 'pushy' in suggesting this, but as one
of the caring people that my Uncle Henry used to assure me were in top
management at BT (he was always getting involved in heated arguments on this
topic), I think you will agree its the
least you can do to help me, in view of my contribution to the success of our
great and profitable Business.
Yours sincerely
Felicity Ann Root'
I had told my mother I would try to come to Durban every year as long as I was working at BT and this year, 1989, Ted said he would come with me.
We met at Heathrow Airport. I went straight from work on the Airbus and he had come by taxi from Tunbridge Wells. I posted my Henry Root letter at Heathrow so the postmark could not possibly be connected with me, a silly precaution I suppose as BT had a quarter of a million employees.
I wanted Ted to go on a South African train and sample the luxury of it and also see the beautiful South African countryside. We had a few hours wait at Johannesburg and so Nova met us and took us to her lovely house in the suburbs, as usual complete with swimming pool. It was large and vaguely Spanish in style and had a lovely granny-flat attached to it. Then she drove us to the railway station. We had dinner on the train and met two girls who were going down to Durban for their annual holiday. I thought it was interesting for Ted to meet such different types of South African. They could not have been more different from the elegant cultured Nova. They were quite excited over us and even tried to help Ted with his money by putting their hands into his wallet to draw out coins to show him. I think they were hoping for a wild time in Durban and their voices and accents were strong and raucous. Still, Ted always likes meeting pretty young girls and who can blame him?
My mother said she would get Ted a room along the passage in her block of bachelor apartments. Ted said he had been to most continents and was pleased to add Africa to the list. It was very nice for me and I had a much better time than on previous visits as every night when my mother went to bed, Ted took me out to dinner in different restaurants. Durban was so very cheap compared to London and he was very impressed with the food. We had Chinese, Indian and Greek food on different nights. He even took me to dinner at the very posh Royal Hotel one night. My mother's Indian friend, Rajie, went with us some nights. South Africa was becoming more and more liberal and there was no problem any more going to hotels and restaurants with a non-white person. Ted met Graham for the first time. Laina was back in Durban in her yo-yo-like way and still seemed to feel she had some authority over Graham. She organised an evening and dinner at her flat for Graham and Sue (and the baby) to come as well as Ted and me. I thought it was very funny that Graham should be so apparently unconcerned about an evening with three of his women.
The funniest part of the evening is when we went into Laina's bedroom and en suite bathroom and Laina and Sue started critising Heather, the third wife. Laina hated her of course because she felt Heather had broken up her marriage and Sue hated her because Heather wanted so much money for Richard's education that there was little over for her and little Martin. I felt like someone at a tennis match watching and listening to them both in turn and yet being completely out of it. I had never even met Heather and had no axe to grind at all.
It was nice that Ted was able to meet my South African friends that he had heard so much about. Apart from Nova, we also went out to dinner with Dawn and the raucous Eric, and also met two of her grown up children. Eric was estranged from the other son who had left home after a row. Eric was very touchy about England and English people. Perhaps he felt they looked down on him. He adored his native land being from Afrikaner stock and wanted everyone else to love it too. He seemed very excited over having Ted there and told him all sorts of stories of his adventures in the bush and about killing snakes, including one on the rafters of his roof.
Dawn was still a very quiet person and I realised I had known her longer than anyone else in my life as we had first met at the Convent when I was six years old, long before I got to know her again at Girls' High School. Dawn cooked beautifully and we had the most wonderful food. I do not usually get excited over meat but the lamb definitely tasted better than any I had tasted in England.
Clare had moved up to Pietermaritzburg with her family but she came down for the day and we all went to lunch at the marvellous cheap cafe on the beachfront near my mother's flat. I could tell she was contented and enjoying her life. She and Ted got on very well too.
My mother also liked Ted although she did not see very much of him. I spent all day with her every day and apart from the day Clare came down to Durban, Ted went out sightseeing, sometimes on his own and sometimes with Rajie, returning at about 6 pm. and I think he enjoyed sightseeing, although the mysterious East and places like Indonesia interest him more.
In August, just before Cathy and Paul set off for Bath, I put my flat on the market. Property prices were high at this time and if I had sold straight away I would have made an enormous profit on the flat I had bought four years earlier. I had paid £41,000 and now it was valued at £75,000.
However it did not sell quickly at all although I had many viewers.
Cathy and Paul went off to start their student life in Bath and I went there
several times, helping them to carry things and making sure they had the basic
necessities to manage. They moved rooms about three times before settling in a
small house in the Oldfield Park area of Bath sharing with other students. When
they first left Walthamstow and I had to walk home after work to the empty
flat, I used to get nasty stomach pains which took me by surprise. I knew that
the youngest fledgling leaving the nest could be traumatic, but was still
surprised at my reaction, as I was very happy for them about the way things had
turned out. After several weeks, the pains wore off!
Sometimes I visited them with Mary, Barbra or Ted. John also visited them often of course. I loved Bath and felt it was so beautiful it almost made me feel tearful as the train wound its way into the station. Over the years I began to think of it as my second home. While I was waiting to sell the flat, I managed to get some temporary lodgers whose rent would help with the mortgage. They were all student barristers whom Lynette had found for me. Lynette had always wanted to be a barrister even when I knew her at the Union and at BT and had been studying Law for years. She was finally in Rooms at Grays Inn. She put a notice up there where students would see it and my first two lodgers were, would you believe it, an Arab and a Jew!
It worked about as well as you would expect it to. M, the Jewish boy was a good cook and A, the Arab would not soil his hands by doing anything at all in the kitchen so he paid M to cook for him. If M wasn't there, A just ate chocolate. Once there was a flaming row between them because A would not even clear up or wash his plate. A was apparently extremely rich and hiding from his family after a row. I charged him a pitifully small amount as the room was small and he seemed desperate but he was not a nice person at all, in fact he was quite sinister. I found out somehow that he was getting money from his family solicitor by saying that I was charging him about five times the correct amount. He never explained the true circumstances of his family estrangement. I found him once in the middle of the night making international calls on my telephone with the gas fire on full and dressed in white shorts with a baseball cap on his head.
When one morning I found he had disappeared, leaving a note that he had
borrowed my rucksack and would return it later, I felt really happy and
relieved to be rid of him. He never returned the rucksack and left me with a
£400 telephone bill which stunned me when I received it a month or two later.
The Jewish boy was really nice. He only wanted temporary accommodation as he
was moving into a flat with his brother in North London but he had a sideline
as a comedian. On one occasion, he sat Ted and me down in the dining room and
did his act, which was very funny. We wondered if he would incorporate this
humour into his Court performances later in life. My final and nicest barrister
lodger was Liz. She was from Bermuda and I really liked her but she wanted a
proper flat to herself and soon moved to a flat in Clapham. The first serious
purchase offer I had for my flat was from a Nigerian chap called Colin
Two-Four. It was not actually spelled like this but I thought it was at the
time. Prices seemed to have dropped by about £2,000 almost weekly and I had to
agree to sell for £63,500. But there were many hitches and at one point I
thought the buyers were going to back out.
At weekends Ted and I and sometimes visited Jenny Parkhouse and walked around
Hove viewing various flats, and speaking to various Estate Agents. I wanted to
be very close to Hove station as I would have to commute to work every day and
eventually found a basement flat only about three minutes walk away. It had two
bedrooms and an open plan lounge/kitchen, so it was considerably smaller than
my lovely Walthamstow flat.
The garden was lovely and secluded and the flat was nicely decorated with a period fireplace that had not actually been used for years. By getting something smaller I would have the difference in the price to pay for the removal and various fees and charges. My flat sale and purchase however took a very long time due to many hitches, mainly caused by the Two-fours as I still think of them. I even ended up paying for their survey of my flat as well as having to pay for my survey of the Hove flat in the normal way. The Two-Fours agreed to purchase in October 1989, and I found the Hove flat not long after, but I did not actually move until June 1990.
Between these two dates several things happened. Two good events that were important to the world took place but personally I had eye problems. At the end of November while serving coffee to a meeting in the office, I suddenly found I couldn't see properly out of one eye. It was as if a curtain had been drawn over it. I was very frightened but did not say anything at work. When I got home I looked up my medical book and realised it must be a detached retina from the symptoms. I telephoned Moorfields Eye Hospital and told them what had happened but did not say what I thought it was as I know medical people do not like patients to tell them anything but rather to explain symptoms and wait for the doctor, Godlike, to explain everything to them, or in some cases, not to explain. They told me I must come in first thing in the morning to Outpatients. I thought I might be kept in, so took my nightie in my handbag just in case. I also phoned Linda to tell her what had happened.
By 11 am the next day I was in the ward and was operated on at 4.30 pm that afternoon. I had been told that my retina was torn and a buckle had to be attached to the back of the eye rather like a patch to cover the tear. They did not comment on the fact I had my nightie with me. Perhaps they thought I always carried it about! During that day I phoned various people and told them what had happened. June from the Accountants quite nearby bought a toothbrush for me and brought it to the hospital. When I left the hospital a day or two later, I had to go home in a taxi and felt very sorry for myself. I had a dressing over my eye and bumped into a doorway in the kitchen and burned my arm as I was carrying a bowl of boiling water ready to cool and clean my eye as instructed. Later the nice lodger came home and luckily for me, he kindly made me some food when he realised I had not eaten and was upset.
The first operation failed and my eyesight was very distorted and although I occasionally went out in the car with Ted, I had to put part of a black dustbin liner over the right lens of my glasses, which was not a pretty sight. Two weeks later I went in to Moorfields again but the second operation was delayed for about four days. I got to know many of the others in the ward mainly having cataract operations and helped serve lunches to them and tried to make myself generally useful. It was heartwarming to see people coming back from their cataract operations so quickly, perhaps half an hour and being so joyful at being able to see again. They no longer had to have a general anaesthetic so were not ill afterwards.
One of these ladies was a Mrs Newman who was the widow of a past Vicar of Hythe in Kent. She was the same age as my mother. She told me she was the granddaughter of Lord Avebury who had started the idea of Bank Holidays in England. When I had my operation she was very kind and held my hand when I was coming round and was very sick several times. It is boring I know to discuss operations so all I will say is I had a very miserable Christmas and New Year, the second dose of anaesthetic so soon after the first made me very ill and Barbra, Alan and Ted came to take me home on Christmas eve and had to hold me up to get to the car. Luckily Ted cooked Christmas dinner for Cathy who had come home from college for the holiday period and at New Year we went to Mary but I slept a lot of the time and was in a lot of pain.
When Ted had to return to Kent after his Christmas break, I was invited down to Hove to stay with Jenny and Herbie but spent most of the two days I was there asleep. I was also anxious about being too far away from Moorfields. I began to think it would be easier to move in to the hospital permanently so many things went wrong in those early days. I had infections and inflammation, watering eyes and stitches that came loose and hurt and during the following months I had to go both to day clinics and also finally back in the ward until everything was sorted out. The whole saga continued for about eighteen months although the problems were not continuous, and there were weeks and months during this period when everything seemed to have settled until another stitch worked its way through and caused me further pain.
I should mention that people were very kind to me in the first weeks after the operations. Pam from Woodford came and helped me wash my hair while I held a towel over my eye so no water would get in, Michael bought me a complete box of sterilised swabs from the chemist, not just the packets I asked for as they were used up so fast. Amanda, who had left BT and was no longer in touch with JG, brought round cooked food to heat and eat and Barbra introduced me to the idea of talking books by bringing me a few from Barbican Library. I did not at first have a personal stereo so played them by inserting the cassettes in the large tape player and then going back and sitting on the sofa to listen.
The only problem was that listening always sent me to sleep so it took a long time to follow the complete story. When there was a loud click at the end as the tape stopped, I woke up and had to get up and rewind back to the last part I remembered and try again. Of course within minutes I was asleep yet again. Whenever people tell me they have sleep problems I tell them to try talking books. Even now, I always take my personal stereo and a tape to bed with me. No matter how interested I am in the story, listening always sends me to sleep very soon. Sometimes I think its psychological. I lie down, put the earpieces in my ears and go to sleep before I have a chance to press 'play'.
Jennifer was in the pantomime at Portsmouth over that Christmas period so I did not see her very often during that miserable period. We booked to go to the panto at the end of the run just before I returned to work but even then the bright lights and noise worried me. I returned to work in February but the Occupational Health people at BT said I could work very short days at first.
The two good things that happened between November 1989 and my move to the
coast the following July, which were important to the world, were that the
Berlin Wall was dismantled in November and that Nelson Mandela was released
from prison in early February 1990. I thought it was amazing that Communism and
Apartheid changed so dramatically at around the same time. Linda was on holiday
in Berlin at the time of the rejoicing at the ending of the Wall and brought me
back a piece of rubble from it.
I was very excited and interested as was the whole world to see Nelson Mandela
emerge so much older yet so dignified, a real statesman and yet he had not had
much practice at dealing with crowds and fame, having been hidden from the
world for so long.
By 1990, Michael who had moved about a bit over the years between the Colchester area and South Woodford, now became a sort of informal evening caretaker in a flat above a medical centre in the Dartford area of Kent. He worked at his normal job during the day and went home to this enormous flat at night. It was a modern building and there were conference rooms and two bathrooms as well as the kitchen and large main room. His friend's doctor father ran the medical centre and was pleased to have an honest person to live above it and be there at night. I was worried he might be in some sort of danger as it was in an isolated location and I knew that a place like that might easily be burgled by drug-seekers.
For the annual visit to South Africa, I had arranged to go with Mary and Barbra in late May. Naturally when the trip was first planned, I thought my removal to Hove would have been complete and I would have been settled, but as it turned out it was much more complicated and I had to authorise the Solicitor to arrange exchange of contracts and completion in my absence and to deal with Jennifer if necessary. Jennifer I should mention at this stage had recently moved in with Roger at his Brighton house so at least she was in the right area. Everyone of course thought I was following her down to Sussex whereas I had been thinking about it since around the time she had first met Roger in Scotland, and yet she actually reached the South Coast first.
Because I realised my house move would take place while I was away, I had to put all my furniture in storage before departing. I left one bedroom furnished for the Two-Four little boy as arranged and was also leaving the gas cooker so I lived in the almost bare flat for a few days, with just a portable television and a few plates and cups. It gave me a very good opportunity to tidy and clean ready for the new people. I always like to leave things pleasant for new people like making sure there is soap and toilet paper in the bathroom and a small hand towel and a few cups and saucers and perhaps teabags in case their things are difficult to find in the initial muddle. Then for the last few days before leaving for South Africa, I moved in to Mary's spare room where I had stored so many of my possessions years earlier when planning to leave John.
The three of us went by Sabena Belgian Airways and had to change planes at Brussels and Johannesburg. My mother had just left her flat and moved into a cheap boarding house. I can't remember the reason for this move, but it meant I had to stay in a hotel with Mary and Barbra. We went to a very cheap downmarket place. They could have afforded better but I couldn't. We had two rooms and a lounge between. The food was rather poor and I could see from the other people there it was a perfect place for the less affluent South African holidaymakers to come with their families. On the first evening there, after I left my mother at dusk (she was absolutely terrified of my leaving too late to walk to the hotel in daylight), we were given tickets for a free drink in the Ladies' Bar at the hotel as it was our first night, so we went into the room on the left which was labelled 'Ladies Bar'.
It was on the left of the foyer and we walked in quite happily to be confronted by a dark scene reminiscent of one of the 1940s films set in Cairo or Morocco. At any moment Sidney Greenstreet or Humphrey Bogart might appear. There were women sitting around as dubious looking as the 40s heroines in those sort of films who wore tight red dresses with cigarettes in their mouths and their legs crossed on high barstools, only this lot were not as glamorous. There were men in there too. There was a stunned silence when we three walked in. We were given a drink and sat at a table at the far end. Gradually the conversation began again, but we just hurried up and got out as quickly as possible. I think we were meant to get our drinks in some other bar. The 'ladies' mentioned in this must have been 'ladies for hire' only.
Laina and Rajie both took us out on several occasions in the evenings. In the daytimes Mary and Barbra went sightseeing and we all met back in our rooms at about 6 pm. The Indian management and staff were enthralled by us. We were the only foreigners as far as I know and the reception clerk told the others that they called us the 'Golden Girls' and were even more excited when they found one of us had a mother. We didn't know which Golden Girl they thought each of us was (except for me with the mother of course). I think they probably thought Americans and English were the same anyway.
Laina wanted Mary and Barbra to go to a real South African barbecue called a 'braai'. She only had a flat so she asked Graham and Sue who were renting a house with a big garden quite far out of Durban to organise one for us. Graham was still trying to build it up with bricks when we got there. We took meat and Sue or maybe Graham had made other South African delicacies like boerewors, koeksusters, putu (I don't know how you spell it) as well. It was a very nice evening and it was very kind of Graham to oblige - again he had three of his women there at one time.
Mary and Barbra wanted to see Table Mountain and Cape Town so they were
there for about four days and during their absence I had dinner with Dawn and
Eric and also with my Uncle Archie and Auntie Marge (Archie was really my
father's nephew due to my grandmother's two marriages so the nuns who were my
aunts were his great aunts).
It was funny to think of having a holiday in Durban and then going to Cape
Town. I suppose Mary and Barbra thought of it as one country whereas in terms
of distance, it was like having a holiday in Scotland and then going to Spain
for part of it.
I really hated my mother's new place. There were bin liners stuck over a window instead of a curtain, there was barely any furniture and it was very shabby and in a narrow scruffy little lane fairly near the beach but in a now distinctly poor part of Durban. The North Beach was where the better off people went. A social worker that saw her told me she could go into new sheltered housing in her own little flatlet where she could cook or have meals provided as she wished. We went to see it and I thought I would be so much happier if she were living there.
She agreed to move in but was not particularly enthusiastic for some reason. We went up town together to buy curtaining for her window. It was more difficult than ever for her to get about and her eyesight was very poor, but we managed to get the bus to the shops and back. The shops seemed different, less affluent, more teeming and downmarket, more Third World I suppose. New shopping centres with the posher type of shops had been developed all around the suburbs of Durban and not many white people shopped in the town centre any more and I felt more conspicuous than I had previously. I suppose it always feels vaguely threatening to be in a minority, even if it shouldn't.
I was always very careful with my valuables in South Africa. My mother had had so many things stolen it was unbelievable. Once she left her nightie on her bed and went just outside her door, leaving it open naturally, to look over the verandah and her nightie had gone when she turned round and returned to her room. I wore my passport and money round my neck under my clothes all the time and at night I slept with things inside my pillowcase under my head. The others thought I was mad, but perhaps understood better when Barbra lost all her little gift trinkets she had left in the hotel room and Mary found her suitcase top slashed and had to buy another one in order to pack for the return journey.
This was also the time when I lost another of my South African school friends. Sue had never forgiven me for not being able to accommodate Dave in our Leytonstone rooms and now Hillary asked me to take some huge mounted paintings of hers to London for an exhibition there. I explained that one was only allowed one piece of hand baggage and that it was a cheap flight and there would be no room for huge paintings although we would have taken them in a suitcase had they fitted. They were however much bigger than any of our suitcases, so I explained to her that they would either be damaged or more likely taken from us when we changed at Johannesburg. She was very annoyed and said she would find someone who wanted to help her! So that was the end of Hillary who never again sent me as much as a Christmas card, though I sent cards to her for a year or two.
We should have arrived back in London on the Thursday evening the 7th June
but there was a problem at Brussels airport and by the time we arrived there we
had missed our connection. We had to race and get the last British Airways
flight to London instead and luckily Alan was waiting for us at about 2 am on
Friday morning to drive us home.
I only had the one working day, Friday to arrange everything about the new flat
in Hove. On the Monday I had to go back to work, as my leave had been used up
visiting my mother.
At crack of dawn on the Friday, after hardly any sleep, I left Mary's flat and raced down to Brighton to fill in forms about the telephone, electricity and gas supplies. I met Jennifer who was going to pick up the keys for me during the week on completion date and she also knew a man with a small van who would bring me and my various bits at Mary's down the following Saturday. Then I had to give two weeks' notice for the main furniture in storage to be brought down. When I had completed all the necessary forms at various places, I caught the bus to Tunbridge Wells from Brighton and went to see Ted for the weekend. I returned to Mary on Sunday night ready for work on Monday. It was a very confusing time as again I seemed to have things all over the place and yet had to do a normal week's work and try not to be too excited about my move.
But I was very excited. Although I loved my big flat and its view of the park and the quietness of it, there was something about being at the seaside that I found thrilling. It was lovely having Jenny P so near as well as Jennifer, her namesake. The shops were so near and convenient too. We actually had Woolworths at the bottom of our road on the corner. There was a cafe in Hove called 'Blossoms' where Jenny P and I met on Saturday mornings and the only thing that spoiled my joy was having to work through all the weeks. Ted came and helped me on the Saturday my main furniture came down. Unfortunately they could not get the piano down the basement steps no matter what they tried to do. It had to be taken back and sold. This was sad but helped me financially, as I had never recovered from paying the phone bill with the Arab lodger's calls on it.
Of course commuting to London was difficult too. I had to leave on the 7.12 am train to London and did not get home till nearly 7 pm. Being so near the station was as I had envisaged a really good thing. I used to run across to the station clutching toast and marmite in my hand and sometimes a cup of tea. Then I would put the empty teacup in a carrier bag and bring it home that evening.
As it was Summer, the days were long and in those first weeks I often went for walks along the sea front promenade with Jenny P and her dogs. There was also so much to do - little bits of painting and fixing things the way I wanted them. I put a lovely 1930s Brighton poster in the bathroom. I bought real coal for the unused fireplace and put little pieces of red paper amongst the coals to make it look real. I bought some new curtains and lightshades and sometimes I even did quite a few things around the flat before getting the train to work.
Most of my friends were keen to see the flat and I think someone came down every single weekend from the end of June until October. They would duly be taken to Blossoms for breakfast on the Saturday morning with Jenny P.
The housewarming party was during wonderful weather in July, the day before my birthday. There were not as many people as for the Walthamstow party because I did not know many people in Hove, but in spite of that I think about twenty nine people came. They included the usual BT, Union, Operatic Society lot as well as Jennifer and Roger and the Parkhouse family. Anna of course lived in Brighton now so was able to come. Janice and Eddie from BT stayed in a hotel as did Mary and one of her friends. Pam, June and Amanda were all fitted into the flat to spend the night, Pam in the back room, Amanda and June in the lounge and Michael slept on a mattress in the entrance passage. Ilma and Rob drove back to Kent and Lynette also drove home afterwards.
Ted was there of course as it was a weekend and Angela and Geoff could not come as she had just had her second baby, Louise. I was very pleased that my last Walthamstow lodger, Liz, also came so I had my first and last lodgers, who happened to be my two favourites, both there. We all met up the next day (my 53rd birthday) on a lawn behind a seafront restaurant and ate and drank. I was very happy.
I had become friendly with the secretary in the adjacent office. Her name was Carol and she was also very interested in astrology. She was about 29 and although she had been married for more than ten years she had not so far had any children, which was a great sorrow in her life. She told me she could not have children and asked about her horoscope as she felt I knew more than she did. Well, I could see that her sun, moon and ascendant were all in so-called barren signs, and although this would not prevent someone having a child they would be unlikely to have a large family and might have difficulty conceiving. So many other things have to be taken into account when doing a chart for someone.
However, thinking a doctor must have told her that she would not have children, I just agreed that it was an unfruitful chart and she cried. It taught me a lesson about astrology. Normally I would not say anything negative or worrying anyway and would put things tactfully but because I thought she accepted her problem as a fact, I thought it all right to agree. Now I know that no matter what people say, they do not really want the truth and what she really wanted me to see in her chart was a bouncing baby appearing within a year or two.
Anyway, we still kept in touch and I phoned her from the switchboard at my new job and she was one of the many weekend visitors to the new flat after that. Later she did the same astrology course that I had done and then went on to the advanced course so that now she is way ahead of me and has even been asked to teach astrology at one of the evening institutes. Carol loved the flat and Blossoms and everything about Hove.
I found the enormous number of charity shops in Hove very exciting too. There were at least twelve in the main shopping street and its surrounds. Previously I had only been able to afford cheaper new clothing and now I was able to buy clothes with really good names, beautifully finished and lined for a very small amount. I washed everything of course before wearing it and at first I bought almost everything that fitted me if it seemed to be a real bargain. Later I began to get fussier. There was so much to choose from, with fresh stuff appearing every Saturday. A lot of my friends bought things when they came down as the charity shops were of such good quality compared to some of the London ones, although in the better suburbs I expect they would have been very good there too.
I had always previously lived in upstairs flats and had not had much
experience of living underneath other people, so the first cloud on the horizon
was when the chap on the ground floor (I was in the basement) had a party one
night. The noise was deafening and went on until the early hours. I really
liked my sleep and always liked to get to bed before midnight. I also knew the
rules about such things and the Lease said there should be quiet between 11 pm
and 7 am. At first I thought it might be a one-off but it started to happen
more frequently although only at weekends. I wrote to the chap upstairs,
Dominic, politely and explained that it might not seem loud to him but that the
flats were not built for people who did not sleep at the same time and that he
should obey the Lease.
It made no difference. His parties did not seem to start until after 11 pm.
Dominic worked in London and sometimes there was peace for quite a while but it
made me nervy never being sure if I would get a night's sleep.
In October Ted was having a hard time on the work front. He was doing taxi-driving in Tunbridge Wells and not making much money at all. He saw an advertisement for a telephone-selling job in Brighton and said he would try it and move in with me. I did not want him to by this stage. I was happy being on my own and looking forward to seeing him at the weekends. I knew he was fussy over food and I was happy pleasing myself about what I ate in the evenings after work. Sometimes I went in the garden until about 9 pm tidying up out there before eating at all and I was not happy about having my lifestyle interfered with. I was quite nasty to him and got very upset about it.
Eventually I got used to it and I'm sure now I would be devastated if he were not here. I still like being on my own at times and this happens when Ted is at work during some evenings, and I don't know why I was so upset about his moving in at first. Maybe it was because the flat was small and I could not accommodate all his things and keep the flat looking as nice as it had. It seemed so ironic that when I had had so much space he would not stay with me. I think a lot of people may have thought I was coerced into moving to Hove in order to accommodate him. Mary seemed very bitter about my departure and I sensed an atmosphere between us that lasted for years. I thought it would have been better if he had not moved in so soon as it did rather make it look as if he was only prepared to live with me if I lived somewhere that suited him.