LINES ABOUT MY ADOPTED FATHER

a few more lines from my book, this time picking up on George Spencver my father. I'd very much welcome any observations from other family members.


................To the casual outsider George must have had a slight limp as he was still recovering from a bullet wound gained in India. He had grown up in Waterloo north of Liverpool where his father Frank (Prof – professor) Spencer was an inspector on the corporation trams, bandmaster of the tramway brass band and in his spare moments leader of the Stylists dance band. His wife Daisy was a relatively small lady but of fiery temper and after having a bible thrown at him one day George decided that generally speaking life at home and as bell boy in Lewis’s Department store was not for him so he enlisted as a boy soldier at the tender age of 14. With his father’s pedigree a bandsman life was inevitable and it wouldn’t be long before he would be shipped off to India with the Kings Regiment, Liverpool. One of the duties the band undertook before leaving was playing at the opening of the Mersey Tunnel with the King in attendance.

As a bandsman George was a non combatant, they acted as stretcher bearers in times of conflict. Unarmed and attacked by tribesman in the Khyber Pass region, now part of Pakistan, he shinned up a tree for cover but was shot in the leg. I suppose had it been peace time he may have been dismissed from the service but as war in Europe had broken out he found a role teaching maths and ending up in Fort William, his last posting. Along the way whilst at home in Liverpool recuperating he no doubt played with his father Prof’s Stylist dance band and one evening at a dance spotted my mother Marion who had been evacuated from Eastbourne to Liverpool. A strange decision you may think but at the start of the war Liverpool was far from the range of German bombers and Eastbourne was much more on the front line and with invasion expected much of the civilian population was removed.

Marion went to Liverpool with her sister Sylvia and was allocated a job in a ball bearing factory, much as men were drafted into the army or mines. After she met my father she also met the formidable Daisy from whom George had previously fled, Daisy obviously hadn’t mellowed and even at the risk of imprisonment for leaving a job of national importance she returned to Eastbourne in 1944 only to find that the coast was now being pounded by the dreaded doodle bugs (German unmanned rockets), many falling short of London which was the intended target, 60 miles to the north.

Marion had been to school with the girl who married comedian and conjuror Tommy Cooper, supposedly they were mixed up in racketeering in the war. We inherited a small tea set, this was given to Marion by some young soldier friends of Thelma, they had ‘liberated’ it from a house in Rye where they had been billeted, the home having been evacuated in view of the expected invasion.

The early days of the war must have been exciting and happy times for the girls of mum’s age but just 5 years later as widows, with doodle bugs and V2s behind them it must all have been wearing a bit thin.

We know that granddad and granny Spencer had been out in America, Daisy told how they had hid in flour barrels from the Red Indians, there obviously was some truth in the story, confirmed when I did the family history and found siblings born in Colorado. Likewise granddad supposedly had Spanish blood, again confirmed when I found the name Sabeno as a second Christian name for both granddad and great granddad alike, although nothing more is known. Granddad known as Prof used to play bowls; crown green unlike the lawn type in Eastbourne, there was a green near their house in Thorndale Rd, Waterloo, a smart upper working class neighbourhood of Liverpool. The house still stands and looks in good order, when we visited in the 50s my cousin Charles, a Teddy boy, played billiards with his cronies in the front room. I remember the old Liverpool market being burnt down to the ground to clear it. The old overhead railway no longer ran but the structure remained in place, Prof would dearly liked to have shown me their trams but a trip to Fleetwood had to suffice. He once bought me a tiny ‘Matchbox’ model tram from Wilson’s sweet shop. The ships on the Mersey stretched out into the far distance; we watched them from the shore line near Waterloo where the sand stretched out forever until it merged with the grey sea and still greyer sky. The vessels were a link in the chain of commerce which had had it’s heyday in the time of the slave trade. For Merseyside bad times were coming only to be lightened by a new primeval beat of pop music and diversions from hardship from a line of comedians.

I think George liked to gamble, we never had much money that’s for sure but after he died Marion never spoke ill of him but then again never erected a memorial headstone at his grave, and she bought two plots side by side. Certainly we were out on a limb down at Langney and relatives seldom visited us, it was all one way traffic. I think Thelma worked in the Saxone shoe shop on Terminus Rd, perhaps Marion had also done so pre war. Olive in the 1960-70s worked at Oswald Fields Ladies gown shop just past the station near Bradford’s coal office. The buses stopped either side of the road outside the station until traffic got so bad they moved them a few yards down into Terminus Road. Post war with the surface pitted and roughly applied tarmac, Terminus Road had little by way of road markings or street furniture, it seemed an immense spacious highway occupied by the occasional cyclist. It was a sort of landing trip into town for the gorgeous green and cream Southdown buses which still served all the surrounding country villages several times a day and Eastbourne Corporation whose vehicles painted Blue, Custard and topped off with white roofs were the epitome of municipal style and charm. Even the adverts were painted in yellow by hand and designed to use the blue body colour as background.

Sylvia also found her husband Claude Pessell in Liverpool. The impact of these V1 flying bombs, one of Hitler’s secret weapons which he had long threatened to unleash, was quite severe as they gave little warning. Marion went to the doctors for her ‘ nerves’, Dr MacLeanan recommended taking up smoking, a justification she clung to for many years until a bad cold finally put her off the habit and she stopped without further ado. Dr Mac as he was known went on to treat our little family for many years although they fell out over some childhood ailment I’d had and we had the less satisfactory Dr Saville. She met Dr Mac in retirement and they sat in Gildrege Park quietly reminiscing and regretting the incident. In those days a bottle of bright pink medicine sorted out most ailments real or imagined, it’s taste was pretty dire so you wouldn’t want to feign illness. My health has thankfully been good and I had the worst whilst still very young, this consisted of a bout of whooping cough (App VII), then a killer, I also had tonsillitis.

EXTRACT FROM DAVE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Hi everyone,
not sure if anyone ever reads this stuff but herewith another extract from my book!

1978 age 26

By the rivers of Babylon I sat down and wept, so sang Boney M that year, I was still tuned in to Top of the Pops but for how much longer. The momentous events which would see the downfall of communist dictatorship were helped along with the election of Pope John Paul 2. Even for those with no interest in the Catholic religion his presence would be hard to ignore, such a charismatic and inherently holy person was I think a surprise for the Vatican. Not such a shock was the overdue fall of the Shah of Iran although his successors were a bunch of religious loonies who unlike the new Pope sought to rule by fear and their brand of Islam started a new chapter in the battle against Christianity and human rights making the old dictator look like a rank amateur.

The Bee Gees from Australia brought us the seminal Night Fever and became the kings of the disco, Boney M were one of the last groups I bought records of, their album was recorded in Germany, I think my very last ‘pop’ record was by Police. Meanwhile a strange noise emitted from Kate Bush with Wuthering Heights sort of edging on the punk world but in a classical context. The rest of the year continued with disco mania lead by John Travolta with the hits from Grease together with Olivia Newton John, even Rod Stewart seized on disco for a boast to his coffers with Do Ya Think I’m Sexy. The novelty act from close to home had been Brian & Michael recalling the painter LS Lowry in Matchstalk Men and more easy listening came from the Commodores with Three Times A Lady. Boney M seized the Christmas No1 with Mary’s Boy Child; we’ve seen that before at Christmas in 1957!

Meanwhile at 99 Egerton Rd South I had set up a dark room in the attic, a bit messy with no running water, dishes of chemicals and clothes regularly stained. I only did black and white, some of our first holidays to Cornwall were recoded, I remember the little Jersey cows at Canyon’s Quoit in particular, an ancient stone monumental building. One Sunday while Mandy was down with the horses I was up in the dark room developing when the door bell rang, you have top cover everything up being developed before exposing them to natural light, wash my hands, get down the ladder, downstairs to answer the door where stood two well dressed missionaries from everyone’s favourite religion, no thank you I said before they got into their patter and shut the door, I wasn’t rude but hadn’t the time to mess about, back then reversing the process , sage light back on, then again the door bell goers.

Not best pleased I went through the rigmarole again only to find the same two plonkers stood in front of me. How would I like it they said if someone shut the door in my face, ok I said, hang on a minute and I’ll be back. I went to the kitchen, half filled a bucket with water and returned to my little friends and chucked it over them, fine, now see how I enjoy playing silly buggers I shouted as they retreated spluttering down the path. When Mandy got home Margaret next door intercepted her, I don’t know what happened with Dave she said but we ended up with these two soaking wet Mormons in the kitchen crying their eyes out!