Clearing the bank

That weekend my world was one of bearded men with chainsaws and women in pinnies.  The men wielded their tools, the women replenished melamine trays with mugs of tea and home-made rock cakes.  The children, me included, looked on, wide-eyed, from a safe distance.

It all felt very communal.  Everyone getting on in this neighbourly effort to clear the bank, a steeply sloping strip of wild ground opposite our three houses.  Here the trees and brambles, cow parsley, dock and nettles taught us kids their own nature lessons, lessons learned through the experiences of itchy legs, scratched arms, and knees stained chlorophyll green.  It was here that I learned how to produce an impressive whistle through a broad blade of grass by making a split with my fingernail in the top to blow through, and where I learned the names of  birds who gorged on the blackberries amid the thorns.

But that weekend it was all about clearance – some roots had spread into the garden on the other side and were threatening the foundations of the adjacent house.  One of the trees would have to be cut down and The Men of the neighbourhood were going to do it.  Now, I’m not sure that I could truthfully describe any of the three males involved as being hurly-burly, hairy-arsed, lumberjack types – quite the opposite, because they were our Dads, and our Dads were all of scientific and mathematical persuasion and watched 'Tomorrow's World'.   But two out of three sported hairy chins (Dad from No. 3, and mine) so that was a start. 

Not my Dad

Old garments were donned and implements oiled whilst inside each kitchen, the aforementioned rock cakes were baked by The Women, and mixing spoons licked clean by The Kids, before the ominous revving of a chainsaw broke through conversation and work commenced.  Then, every couple of hours, out came the trays of tea and sugary sustenance, the noise of metal teeth on wood subsided and excited chatter resumed.  Wow, look at that huge branch!  How much more to do?  Another cake?

This memory stays with me, not because anything spectacular happened (all human limbs remained intact) but it seemed like an Event.  There was something about the mood, the camaraderie, the collective effort of three families, where all the members were of similar age and had the same aim, that puts me in mind of documentary films I’ve watched about communes and co-operatives around the same time. Although a bit different this was still just so... so early '70s.  I get a special feeling mixed in with these recollections and it’s a nice one.  Picture, if you will, bohemian stoneware mugs, fisherman’s sweaters, bold flowery aprons, macrame wall-hangings and eight children who were free to play and be a little wild outdoors.   As with most things in life, it didn’t last - the family from No. 3 moved away and mine fell apart - but I still bask in the warmth of childhood reminiscences like this.

My Mum planted a large strawberry patch on the newly open ground and that Summer the fruits were abundant.  We shared them with our neighbours, of course - and the blackbirds and robins helped themselves.

The Sweet: Chop Chop (1972)

Jobs for the boys (and girls)

Another delve back to the '70s, not to Hyde Park this time but to the county where I did most of my growing up, courtesy of a copy of a local paper from that decade which turned up during a sort out at my mum-in-law's house.  

There's something about looking through old newspapers from a time you've actually lived through which is both interesting but heartstopping at the same time, don't you think?  Heartstopping in that it suddenly dawns on you that you really have been around for quite a long while.  But interesting for seeing the house prices, the adverts, fashions, names, even just the different journalistic style and the sort of things that made the news.  

We don't know exactly why my mum-in-law kept this particular issue from January 1975 (and sadly don't think she'd remember now) but it does have some quite unusual stories so perhaps that's why.  For instance, the front page is dramatic - covering the hijack of a British Airways 'plane at the nearby airport - a huge news story for a small town.  More amusingly, there's a report about some vandalism at the local cinema in response to it showing 'Last Tango In Paris'.  There's also the very important announcement that a record shop was opening its doors in the new shopping precinct - the place where I would later spend many a Saturday afternoon and most of my pocket money, of course, and which probably deserves a blog post of its own some day.

But in January 1975 I was 11 and I don't think any of those stories meant much to me at the time.  Nor was I old enough to be trawling through the job ads from the back pages.  But I did yesterday!   It was only then that I fully appreciated how, in 1975, I would've had to pass on quite a few job applications purely on the basis of being the wrong sex - it served as a great reminder of how much things have changed for the better in that respect.   I should say that not all the ads in the paper specify a gender (or age) preference, but where they do, it really leaps out....

So, no job in financial management or a tobacco kiosk for me back then...(not that I'd have wanted either, to be honest - I mean, whenever would I have had time to file my nails?)

Still, I could've earned £21.37 a week and got a free dinner this way! - -

I find this next ad interesting.  Seems we would have been allowed to assist in the cigarette kiosk of this supermarket, but not to manage the fruit and veg department.  And no men working in the canteen, thank you - stick to your butchery!

Here are a couple more...

Still, thankfully we had ballsy women like Suzi Quatro to help address the subject of equality in 1975.  Take it away, Suzi!

Suzi Quatro: Your Mama Won't Like Me 

The first singles you ever loved

It was just a little box of second-hand singles, but I reckon that’s where it all began, the moment that music took on a lifelong meaning.  I can’t even recall quite how they came into our possession - something to do with my teenage sister; she’d either bought them for a few pence, been given them or swapped them, I think.  But I do remember that there was much excitement about their addition to the family’s music collection.

I would’ve been about 8 or 9 I think.  My personal record collection at that point comprised a 7” EP of children’s songs on yellow vinyl (‘How Much Is That Doggy In The Window’ being my fave track), some Pinky & Perky, something from the Nutcracker Suite, and a concerto by Handel, or was it Mozart, on 45 in a shiny picture sleeve.  I wasn’t able to discern between Pinky & Perky and Mozart - but how free you are at that age, totally lacking any self-consciousness about genre; as far as I was concerned each had their own merits.

Downstairs in the very modern Danish style G Plan cabinet where the hi-fi, books and my mum's pottery were housed there were a few other records, but nothing that was of much interest to me: some jazz, opera and classical, one or two Reader’s Digest freebie flexi-discs, Glen Miller I think.   So this box of singles made quite a statement; they were pop records.

Childhood memories are funny – the things that can seem quite unremarkable to an adult can be so vibrantly sensual to a child and imbued with the most vivid associations and feelings.  Those old singles do just that to me.  I can clearly remember the ones I really liked, their B-sides too.  They were about more than just the tunes, they were about the weight and the shine of the vinyl, the touch of the creased paper sleeves, and about the room and the rugs and the cats and the curtains.   Their labels are indelibly imprinted in my psyche too - the colours, the logos, the type style.  My mind drifts now to the way this is so perfectly expressed in the words to 'Over The Border' by St Etienne: 

 “…. green and yellow harvests, pink pies, silver bells…”   

We know what they mean!

In this particular box the pies/Pyes were blue, and a faithful terrier listening to an old wind-up  gramophone was silver on black.

Within this small collection was one of my favourite songs of all-time – one of my bestest, most favouritest songs ever ever in fact - so it deserves a post of its own some day but I can’t write about the rest without mentioning it here.  I was totally hooked on this song and still am.  I could play it over and over and never tire of it (and I did, probably driving my parents and sister mad). I wonder what it is that makes it so special and enduring, and what was it about it that appealed to me so much, even as a child?

The Kinks: Days
(eternal perfection)

But the others in the box all had their own unique appeal, here's what they were:

I loved the catchy soulfulness of ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ by the Foundations and was intrigued, and slightly unnerved by its contrasting B Side, ‘New Direction’ - a strangely doomy, jazzy/psychy number.

The Foundations: New Direction

'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' by Manfred Mann had obvious singalong appeal to a child of my age.  ‘What You Gonna Do?’ on the B-side was far less commercial – a classic example of raw ‘60s R’n’B.

Manfred Mann: What You Gonna Do?

'I’ll Be There' by the  Jackson Five - well,  a little later I had some pictures of the Jackson Five on my wall (next to the Osmonds), of course I liked it!

'Love Child' by Diana Ross & The Supremes - a song I still hear in my head with pops and crackles.  What a fine example of classy soul, not that I would have understood that word then.  

There were a couple of singles I was less keen on, one of them was '(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice' by  Amen Corner – I didn’t like the voice, I still don't.

And then there was also 'I Can’t Let Maggie Go' by the Honeybus – famous for its use in the Nimble advert and anyone as old as me will remember the girl in the balloon who "flew like a bird in the sky".  However, I much preferred the fabulous B side, ‘Tender Are The Ashes’ and I still really love this song with its uptempo groovy Northern Soul vibe.

The Honeybus: Tender Are The Ashes

Finally there was a record that always sounded a bit more grown-up to me.  I think it was because of the harmonica combined with the fact that it was an instrumental - it was 'Groovin’ With Mr Bloe' by Mr Bloe.  You know it, of course you do!

I don’t know what happened to them in the end - they weren't mine! -  but I continued to dig them out and play them in the interim years and even after I started buying my own brand new singles.  By the time Abba, then Buzzcocks, etc. each arrived on the scene for me, records from the previous 10 years seemed bloody ancient.  But there was something about this small selection that made them immune to my teenage prejudice against the past and all things out-of-date. The feelings, those first far-reaching feelings, endured.  I think it must simply be because that’s where my love of music all began.

How about you?

Pinky & Perky
(and a very scary duck)

Snow cake

With the yellow cake tin in one hand and my satchel on my shoulder I headed off to school with my friend in the morning snow.  It was a one and a half mile walk, down the hill, past the petrol station and the grocery shop where, in Summer on the way home, we’d buy Dalek ice lollies or Sherbet Dips.  The route took us through the outskirts of town until we got to the steep steps by the railway station. That was the mental ‘Nearly There’ signpost.   Next over the zebra crossing and finally the long, uphill avenue, joining fellow pupils straggling along in groups, like small flocks of sparrows in our drab beige and brown uniforms.

The yellow cake tin came with me for ‘Home Economics’ class.  We were going to be making a Victoria Sandwich.  Caster sugar, flour and margarine had been carefully measured out the night before and packed into the tin in plastic containers, alongside two large, loose white eggs.

We were quite stoical ‘70s children, perhaps because we had quite stoical parents who’d lived through the war and had eaten cakes made with grated potatoes and sand during the rationing.  I might be wrong about the sand.  Anyway - stoical - it’s just a bit of snow, maybe some ice, you walk to school as usual.   When you get to your classroom you thaw out against a radiator before Assembly, until a teacher tells you you’ll get piles if you stay there too long.  Whatever piles are.

But we skidded as we walked through town, landing on our bums and hands. Satchel straps slipped awkwardly off shoulders and my yellow cake tin landed and overturned on the frozen white pavement as I  tried to right myself.  Twice in succession my friend, my tin and I fell like skittles on the ice.

Oh - my eggs!  As I rubbed snow off my coat I had visions of a Victoria Sandwich making itself messily inside the tin.

Round the corner by the railway station, I slipped again.  Those eggs were never going to survive, but at least the steep steps were gritted and we were Nearly There.

We got to school and leaned on the radiator, getting the hotsies in our hands - the best bit about getting cold was that intense tingling when you warmed up; it was almost worth leaving your gloves off for.  I opened my yellow cake tin to find, inevitably, the two large eggs smashed to pieces, their sticky gloopy contents covering everything else inside....

........Only they weren’t!  Not even a hairline crack.  Dropped several times, they survived every skid and fall and thud.  What were the chances?

The Victoria Sandwich turned out nicely.  As with the snow, it only lasted two days, unlike the bruises on my bum.

One last reminder of the snow (I love this song and video) - it's thawing here now

Notes from a semi bohemian suburban childhood #2

I've mentioned my small local venue 'Triad' before - it was where I attended my first ever gig in January 1978: Siouxsie & the Banshees.  For a while this really was the place to hang out locally if you were into music, particularly punk.  I saw dozens of bands there in the space of a couple of years, sometimes two or three times a week; it was also where my sister's ears nearly bled after she'd had the pleasure of a Motorhead set; where I first met Mr SDS, and where his band cut their teeth.  It was the regular haunt of the Newtown Neurotics; I watched Wayne County there before he became Jayne, Adam & the Ants pre-Dirk Wears White Sox, plus the Passions, Crass, the Jolt, UK Subs, the Automatics, Purple Hearts, Disco Zombies, ... mod bands, heavy metal bands, crappy bands, bands with one-legged singers, many many bands.  I feel very lucky.

It was also where I saw my first full frontal male nude.  Perhaps I should explain...

Prior to it being primarily a music venue, it was an Arts Centre, started up in the early '70s.  My mum was a keen supporter so, long before I was going there as a teenage ligger getting tipsy on cider, I was exposed to its cultural delights in the form of poetry readings, puppet shows, sitar performances, macramé exhibitions, yoghurt-knitting contests, that kind of thing.

When was it, some time in the mid-70s, about 1973/'74?  Children's TV programme 'Vision On' was compulsive viewing after school, oh how I loved Tony Hart (he'd have been one of my 'fantasy dads') and Pat Keysell seemed really kind. The Burbles... the Prof ... and then, do you remember there was also a very bendy, beardy man who only appeared on there for a short while?  I liked him. I just looked his name up: Ben Benison.  (Bendy, beardy Ben Benison, I won't forget that now)  Always dressed in black - ring any bells?  Anyway, Mum came home with tickets for an event being held one evening at 'Triad' and the blurb said that the small improvisational theatre group who'd be performing included Ben Benison from 'Vision On'.  Ooh, I was very excited at the thought of seeing him in the flesh.  We had front row seats too!

Now I can't remember that much about the show in general but yes it was all about improvisation and it was packed with an appreciative audience which was mostly adults but included several kids like me (no doubt also fans of  the 'Vision On' Gallery, animated plasticine and bendy men).  All was going so well, until those wacky thespians on stage asked the audience to suggest some themes around which to develop an improvised comedy piece, and someone called out,

"A desert island!"

Ok, so whose bright idea was it to take all their clothes off  in the rather questionable character of an 'uncivilised desert island native'?  Actually, no, it wasn't Ben Benison.  But it was one of the other actors, and he came right out onto that stage in the nude without even some well-placed genital cupping.

Right out onto that stage, and right in front of me.

As a naive young girl I actually found myself, well, so embarrassed that I couldn't move my head, which meant I couldn't look away.  It was like I was paralysed, staring straight at a man who was completely naked and fully grown (no, not that kind of fully grown, but still...) and seeing things I hadn't seen before.

This is the point in the story where I'd like you to imagine an eerie whistling sound, like the wind on the moors, and a ball of tumbleweed rolling past....

Awkward silence.  Or maybe a few choked coughs.  And a few families hurriedly getting out of their seats and leaving (although for some reason not mine).  The show finished soon after...

...but what has been seen cannot be unseen.

As you might imagine, there was some furore afterwards and I vaguely remember my mum telling her friends and there being a lot of angry letters in the local newspaper, there may even have been calls to get the venue closed down.  Would it create more? - or less? - or the same amount? - of controversy now, I wonder? It was just a naked man, nothing sexual, but these lines are so blurred.

Still, I'm so glad that the venue stayed open, as my life would not have been the same without it once all the bands came to play there (fully clothed).

Grée days

'Killing time'. It's a strange concept really, isn't it? - when every second, minute and hour dies of its own accord without our help. Usually it flies, and we take great pains to save it. But anyway, in spite of being a life-long pacifist, I was fortunate to find myself in the fairly unusual position of having a little time to kill the other day. I chose a popular weapon – an internet connection. The minutes soon expired as I searched for something and then happily lost myself in it; I was looking for the work of an illustrator I hadn't thought about in a while and whose name I'd forgotten. All I could recall was that he was French, or was it Belgian? and that his children's book illustrations were popular in the '60s and '70s. It didn't take long for me to find him – Alain Grée. (He is French.)

For me, Alain Grée's illustrations provide a perfect tonic at this time of year. Winter's dragging on and we've hit that point when it's just thoroughly boring now and the hopeful journey towards Spring seems to be taking forever.  Art always gives me a boost. This kind of art may look 'simple' but the ability to pare back so effectively takes a huge amount of skill; the bold colours and shapes are just right and with no need for outlines or overly fussy detail. Distilling the complexities of reality into blocks of colour and naïve form whilst retaining real interest and character is something I'm forever trying to master.  And his compositions are so aesthetically pleasing - gorgeous examples of the graphic style of their era which work for me on a nostalgic level as well as an artistic one.

A number of Alain Grée's educational children's books with their original '60s and '70s illustrations have been reprinted in recent years and their popularity continues. 

I could happily kill time with him any day.

Whatever happened to Norman Stanley Fletcher?

The other day Mr SDS picked up a DVD of the British TV comedy series 'Going Straight' from a charity shop in town.  We decided to watch one episode of it each evening before passing it on to a new home, and we've just finished all six.

I remember when it was first aired, in 1978, and being interested to see this follow-up to the much-loved 'Porridge', which really was a staple of the British sitcom diet in the '70s.  The now ex-con Fletcher, played by Ronnie Barker, was the star of 'Going Straight' which also featured his young cell-mate Lennie Godber.  This, I have to say, was a bonus for a teenage girl who had the hots for Richard Beckinsale...

In this short-lived series (sadly a second was never to be, due to Beckinsale's early death), both Fletcher and Godber have been released from prison and have vowed to stay away from crime, with the unerring support of Fletcher's sweet, toothy daughter Ingrid (played by Patricia Brake).  Ingrid just happens to be going out with Godber too.  Fletcher's gormless son Raymond also makes an appearance, providing an early role for Nicholas Lyndhurst.  Each episode's storyline is surprisingly heartwarming and relatively simple, but what really works about 'Going Straight', just as with 'Porridge', is the dialogue.

Scriptwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are such masters in the art of writing dialogue which is not only funny but frequently reflective.  Their characterisations are never one-dimensional, but are full of natural and believable human contradictions, conveyed with intelligence and just the right degree of emotion.  They toy with words in puns and double-entendres, with rich vocabulary and playful turns of phrase.  Whilst gentle in tone, nothing is dumbed down and poignancy and pathos sit happily alongside more obvious comedic and farcical moments.  As in other Clement and La Frenais favourites like '(Whatever Happened To) 'The Likely Lads' and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet', we feel as if we know the characters through their conversations alone, and we root for them, warts'n'all.

I don't know whether a comedy series like this, 'Porridge', 'The Likely Lads' et al would get commissioned now - they might seem too mild and too wordy... and perhaps a large part of their appeal is that they can't be separated from their respective eras.

Passing references to punk and Margaret Thatcher place 'Going Straight' firmly against its 1978 backdrop and tiny details evoked memories for me that shocked me into realising just how long ago it was.  Ingrid's elasticated belt with little metal clasps (I'd forgotten until now that I had one too), the Probation Officer smoking at her desk and offering Fletcher a Rich Osborne biscuit, the wallpapered kitchen and those net curtains made up of oval-shaped holes...  Looking at the décor and fashions now it really does seem ancient.  Then again, I guess I am too: in 1978 I was going to my first proper gig (Siouxsie & The Banshees) and choosing the subjects I'd be doing for 'O' Levels the following year.

And this was released in '78 too.

Stomping ground

I went out yesterday; it's been a while! Put on my lipstick (the colour of a pimento pepper, I just noticed that it's called 'Kiss of Life') and went out to meet my two old schoolfriends. We go back 40 years and I've written about them before here. And one of them was the friend who wrote the letter I mentioned a few posts ago on this blog too. She had no recollection of obsessing about Sham 69 and Jimmy Pursey in 1978, by the way, but the evidence was there in black and white....  We got the giggles.

Our rendezvous, as usual, was in the town where we all grew up together. The town where we went to school, the town where we learned to ride bikes and swim, where we puffed tentatively on our first cigarettes, where we had our first clumsy kisses, our first pint of warm cider, our first naïve fumbles with dodgy boyfriends. Our first of many gig experiences too – which we reminded ourselves about when we'd finished our lunch and went on a mini-tour of our old stomping ground. We pulled in at the old maltings building which used to be our rather excellent little music venue, where we had seen the Banshees in January 1978, Adam and the Ants the following year, and countless other bands of varying degrees of notoriety and ability. In retrospect we reckoned we were so lucky, growing up in a rural town but only 45 minutes by train from London. We had fields, woods and riding stables at one end, a rock/punk club (and jazz and folk if you wanted it too) plus the Granada cinema at the other... our homes on the hilly streets between.

The town has changed; like most places it's bigger than it was even 20 years ago, new estates on its perimeter have spread progressively outwards like ripples on water, buildings in its centre have grown upwards like plants struggling to reach sunlight in crowded beds. But its heart still does have some heart, in spite of the increase in boho-chic shops with French names and the ubiquitous estate agents. The road by the market square still has its brick style paving, overlooked by buildings dating back to the 14^th century, even though they now sport their Mexican and Italian restaurant chain frontages. I never really noticed the beauty of the architecture as a kid - you don't, do you? - never thought about the history of the half-timbered houses or grand Georgian facades.

But you didn't really want to read about all that, did you? No, well... if you really must know, my first naïve fumble was with a boy called John in the bushes by the playing fields behind my house, on a Spring afternoon after school. I really didn't know what he was doing, nor what I was supposed to do either, everything felt unknown and daunting - my childhood had been so very innocent up to then.  As I said to my friends yesterday: “It was hard...”   Oh, I didn't mean like that! That's for me to know and you to wonder about.  Growing up with lovely friends like mine, though, everything else really was quite easy, and picking up where we left off all these decades later always is too.

Where babies come from

It was so simple. I thought that all girls automatically had tiny babies inside them from birth and it was only when you got married that they started to grow and then you actually laid them, like a hen laying eggs. The fact that this only happened when you had a husband was due to the same kind of magic that allowed Father Christmas to come down our chimney in spite of the fact that we didn't actually have a fireplace. I remember jumping up and down one day and saying to my mum, “I hope I'm not making my baby feel sick!”. I was only about seven or eight; just for a brief moment there my mum may well have felt a little nauseous herself. The 'getting married' bit was the trick, though - maybe it was something to do with the ring. Anyway, when I got married, probably to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Christopher, who had given me a clockwork helicopter for my sixth birthday, the baby would come out of my bottom and we'd all live happily ever after in one of those houses with the sticky-out windows that I'd seen on the way to Aunty Margaret's.

So it was all a bit of a shock when Elizabeth told me what really happened. Elizabeth was off school for a trip to the dentists that fateful day. It was a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays at 10 o'clock Mrs Williams took her class of 9-year-olds into the assembly hall whereupon she wheeled out the big television with wooden shutters on its tall stand and we spent the next half hour sitting on the floor cross-legged being educated and entertained, often by some rather excellent programme such as Merry Go Round. However, for some reason that Mrs Williams wouldn't explain, that Wednesday the routine was changed and we didn't get our usual telly session.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth, being a very good, studious, little girl, thought she'd watch it at home anyway before she went to the dentist. Her mum was upstairs cleaning the bathroom and left her daughter to it. If only she'd realised.

When Elizabeth and I sat together on the pudding stone at playtime the next day she was a different girl. She knew. She knew all about how babies were made... she'd seen it on Merry Go Round... and she couldn't wait to tell me. It was shocking. “The man puts his thing right inside the woman!” “But how? Where?” I was aghast. It was hard to imagine Christopher putting his thing... well... you get the idea.

By the time I got to secondary school, just turned 11, I felt I knew the basics, but I was surprised to discover it was complete news to some of my classmates. We had to watch a creaky, unimaginative film about The Facts Of Life, all very cold and anatomical, and one of the Bagwell twins fainted. I don't think she even knew about periods, poor thing.  But later in the year we got the gory childbirth film in our Biology lesson and with all the blood and guts and umbilical cords in that I nearly fainted too. It was even worse than having to look at the dissected pregnant rat (and I can still smell the formaldehyde from that particular traumatic event).

Then there were those conversations on the way home from school. Sarah T revealed what her biggest sister had told her she'd done with her boyfriend... that “she put his... you know... in her mouth!” We giggled uncontrollably, shocked, embarrassed and uncomprehending. Gradually we notched up a bit more knowledge, like when Tracy P found a load of torn out pages from Playboy and Mayfair strewn around on the footpath behind her house (how did they end up there?) She brought them in to school and we pored nervously over the naughty pictures, in disbelief, unable to compare those oddly pink bodies on the pages to our own not yet fully formed ones.. so much hair!...so much strange-looking flesh!...such huge nipples! These must be the kind of women who'd put their boyfriend's... you know... in their mouths!

I don't know what kids of that age know now, how much is taught or when, nor how much sense it makes to minds that may have already been exposed from infancy to the internet and Keith-ubiquitous-Lemon. There must be a fine line between a refreshing openness and too much too soon – but not having kids of my own I've swerved that particular challenge.

Elizabeth went on to be a midwife, by the way.  And by the age of ten Christopher and I were no longer talking, so I wanted to marry Simon, who had a bicycle with gears.

Knit it

Does anyone still knit? The last person I saw knitting regularly was when I briefly worked at a Benefits Office in the 1980s, there was a woman there with a leathery complexion who used to knit and smoke her way through every lunch-hour. The clicking of knitting needles punctuated by cigarette-sucking and her phlegmy cough still sticks with me. Oh and she used to suck boiled sweets too. Tucked them into her cheek whenever she took a drag.

I thought of her today whilst browsing the charity shops because I was irresistibly drawn to some 1970s knitting magazines in a box on the floor in Help The Aged. 'Golden Hands' they were called (and then I couldn't stop thinking of the Klaxons'  'Golden Skans' and I've had that going through my head all day). But the mags were only pence so I bought a couple, just for the pictures. I might have to incorporate them into something ironic and artistic some time. Before I do, though, you've just got to see them...

From the feature: 'Knit him a casual sweater'

 The caption says 'Meet Sacha and her brother Gregor'

This article tells you how to 'Machine knit a glamorous evening dress'

From the feature: 'Romantic party looks for mothers-to-be'

Suburban explorers

We didn't know there would ever be a name for it, but we used to do it as kids. An old storage shed in grounds by the swimming pool, a derelict house with an overgrown garden that could be found by following a secret path, abandoned stable blocks and the newly formed shells of the homes being built on an out-of-town estate. Curious and thrilled, my friends and I would peek through their windows, some with glass in and some without, and sometimes step inside their mysterious doorways. I suppose it was a first, naïve foray into urban exploration.

Or maybe it was more suburban, as we lived near open countryside. My friends and I grew up in an era where Stranger Danger Paranoia didn't seem to exist - it merely meant being told not to accept sweets from men in cars. So around the age of twelve and thirteen, just before boys, chip shops and the make-up counter at Boots lured us away, we spent those long seventies Summers out and about unsupervised, sometimes within the streets of our small town but frequently further afield too. Our parents were glad to be free of their daughters for whole days on end as we packed cans of Coke and bags of crisps into satchels on Saturday mornings and wandered the footpaths and bridleways, without mobile phones and, most importantly, without fear. We got to know all the fields, woods, gates, ditches, farms and hedgerows as expertly as we knew our own immediate neighbourhoods. We made up names for our favourite fields and sometimes even the Friesian cows in them (which we drew and identified by their markings). We weren't stalked, flashed at or attacked; the chainsaw-wielding man we once saw in 'Top Field' was the one chopping logs - we just watched him go about his work. I still have convoluted dreams about walking those tracks, effortlessly memorising routes and reference points just as we did for real: the lightning tree, a wooden stile, a line of poplars. We didn't have compasses or maps but we never got lost and were always back home, happily tired and golden-armed, in time for tea.

The most exciting moments, though, were when we stumbled across abandoned buildings. Sometimes there was evidence of other humans having been there; the disused storage shed with its heavy but unlocked door had old newspapers spread around and a dirty old blanket in the corner. One afternoon when we sneaked inside, we noticed a small pile of ash in the middle of the dusty floor. I'd like to say the ashes were still warm but that may just be my memory playing tricks on me. “Oh, what if they come back?!” we whispered nervously to each other about the grunting, wild-haired, leather-skinned resident – our very own unseen Stig of the Dump - who had formed himself fully in our imaginations. We left hurriedly and never returned.

One day, by accident, we found a huge, derelict house. We could get to it by swerving off a path through a maze of trees which gradually thinned out to reveal a vast, wild and unfenced garden. We never entered the house though; it was too imposing, too Mockingbird Lane. We'd merely creep as close as we dared before quickly turning back (being sure we'd seen a figure moving about behind a broken window, of course) then sprinting to the safety of the shrubs where we stayed for hours, wondering in excited trepidation if we were being watched. The grounds always seemed to be in shadow, no matter what the weather; a mass of entwined roots and ivy, long grass like unripened corn and crooked, spindly trees.  There was a large, dank pond in the middle - a scary, smelly pond of unimaginable depths. We would go back time and time again, but we never told a soul. On a spontaneous whim a few years ago my friends and I decided to see if the secret garden was still there and navigated our way through bracken and tangled trees after a boozy reunion lunch, our jackets getting caught on spiky twigs and branches snapping under our unsuitable shoes. And we found it – ohhh!  It was just the same, mossy-green and dark and like a parallel world, the only difference being that the pond had gone and weeping willows grew in its place. I still felt the thrill. The old house was there too, but the new scaffolding around it and the builders' sign had finally eroded its air of mystique and menace. Sweetly sated and revived by the unexpected and dream-like glimpse back into childhood and its clandestine playground, we turned our backs on it once again, turned our backs on the past, and sprinted - well, almost -  home. In time for tea.

Mental flossing

I was at the dentist yesterday and found myself reflecting on what a different experience it is now to that of forty years ago. Society's ever-increasing obsession with the 'perfect' appearance generally troubles me, but at least it's done our mouths a favour. In the pursuit of a smile so bright white it could compete with car headlights in a 'Dazzle the Rabbits' competition, and jaws so immaculately regular you could name a well-known Blondie album after them (and I don't mean Eat To The Beat), people are taking more care of their choppers. (Phew, that was a long sentence...) It's even happening here where we are famed, in the most uncomplimentary way, for our 'English Teeth'.  Dental clinics have become dental 'emporiums' and the one I go to now has a name that sounds more like a cocktail lounge than anything remotely medical.

As a typical child growing up in '70s Britain, an essential part of my daily diet was sugar, and it was usually taken two to three times a week in concentrated Spangles, Milky Way and Sherbet Pip form. It provided just the right amount of hyperactivity for important pursuits like French Skipping, but my teeth fared less well and by the time I was twelve my open mouth boasted an impressive display of silvery amalgam fillings. Then, just when I was at my most self-conscious, I had to wear two dental braces - simultaneously.  I could set off metal detectors three streets away with ease, but speaking and eating required supreme effort.

The local dental surgery was a familiar place for all the wrong reasons, so my mum used to make each ordeal a little more bearable by promising a small present on the way home. Once she'd wiped the dribble from my chin, she'd take me down to my favourite shop, Pearman & Blacker, where the delights on its many racks and displays let me temporarily forget the fuzzy sensation in my cheek or an aching jaw. No, it wasn't a sweet shop; that would have just been in bad taste. It was a bookshop.  That smell of paper-and-printing-ink overrode the essence of antiseptic in my nostrils, the crisp covers promised magic carpet rides to lands where dentists didn't exist.

I have mercury fillings, corrective braces, extractions, anaesthetics and injections to thank for the shelves in my childhood bedroom becoming filled with Puffins and other paperbacks. Mrs Pepperpot, Five Children and It, the Moomins, Spike Milligan's Milliganimals, the Children of Green Knowe and even the Wombles all came into my life via my teeth. Fortunately those frequent trips to the dentist mean they are stronger and straighter now, but I'm very glad the legacy of a '70s childhood was so much more than just the tooth decay.

Number 2

Built in 1967, it was a classic example of a well-designed house from that era.  Spacious, with wide, large-paned windows, it had frosted glass in the front door which was sheltered outside by an open flat-roofed porch.  There were glazed interior doors downstairs, the kitchen was big and square, and the upstairs landing so broad that it could almost have been a room in itself.

I was only three (and a vital half) when we moved in, but some memories of the first few days there remain intact:  the shock discovery of a hole in the corner of my bedroom floor which had to be fixed by the builders before the carpet could go down, and Mimi’s anxiety at being in a strange place for the first time.  Poor thing shat in a kitchen cupboard, but at least she didn’t use the hole in my bedroom floor. Mimi was the cat, by the way.

Soon after we moved in my mum put her design stamp on the place:  parquet flooring under three matching squirly-patterned rugs in vivid shades of green and yellow, the cylindrical linen lampshades on sculpted clay bases, and her own framed oil painting of a sunflower on the wall opposite a print of Picasso's Blue Nude.

The living room curtains were an exotic shiny gold, and the kitchen curtains - I’d have those kitchen curtains now if I could.  They were wonderfully 1960s, with scratchy black line illustrations of domestic objects – kettles and teapots and vases, I think – against a textured, copper colour background.  Gorgeous.  On every flat surface downstairs there were ceramics, wood-carvings, sculptures and pot plants, and the focal point in the corner was a Monstera that was taller than my dad.  Mind you, he was only three foot eight.  (No, no!  He was nearly six foot.)

There was a rather exciting cupboard under the stairs.  Well, it was exciting when I hid in it – horrendously scary when I accidentally got shut in it.   It smelt of polish, and at various times over the years it housed a stringless violin, a cricket bat and some badminton racquets, the powder-blue upright vacuum cleaner, my mum’s honey coloured camel-hair coat, a dusty bottle of Cointreau (no idea why) which I'd sometimes go in the cupboard to secretly open and sniff, my sister’s long black PVC platform boots, and my navy blue anorak with its narrow decorative trim.  We had a groovy coat rack on the inside of the cupboard door (which I took with me when I moved out, having transformed the spheres into eyeballs with my paintbrush.)  I think you can buy repro ones now.

I can picture the wallpaper in my bedroom, with its repeated motif of large bright poppies, primroses and violets.  They were comforting, familiar images, like floral guardians, watching over me kindly as I looked up at them when I was ill, which as a child I frequently seemed to be.  Later my pride and joy on that wall was a big colourful map of the world.  Later still it was a poster of Donny Osmond.  And then a Paul Simonon centrefold. And then a wonderful Nosferatu film poster, a picture of Lydia Lunch and an article on Bauhaus from the NME, etc. You get the idea.  The only permanent adornments to that wall were the hard, dry remains of the Blutac.

The one problem with that room was the carpet.  My parents had thriftily decided to re-use some from the old house; it was a dark shade of red, with harsh black linear patterns.  I suppose mum thought it picked out the scarlet of the poppies on the wallpaper but  I hated the colour.  I also had a – fairly understandable – phobia about decapitation after I’d seen something on the telly about Henry VIII and the Elizabethan penchant for beheading, and I started having terrible nightmares about heads being chopped off, which somehow linked themselves to the dark claret carpet.  There was no doubt in my mind that it was red from the blood, the blood from the headless bodies.  If I could have changed one thing it would have been that, erm, bloody carpet.   

In my teens I did get the chance to change it and opted unwisely, in that typical folly-of-youth way, for a pale cream one,which didn’t fare too well under the frequent spillage of green nail varnish, various lurid hues of eye shadow, hot cigarette ash and crisps.  At least my make-up stains didn’t show up quite so much on the bathroom floor which, by the seventies, had been changed from grey lino to purple carpet tiles.  These went well with the dark purple wall, but not so tastefully with the pink suite.  At the same time, my sister painted her bedroom in contrasting shades of lime green and chocolate brown, which set off her Ché Guevara and Black Sabbath posters beautifully.  And mum hired Mr Dunstan to decorate all the downstairs walls in a fetching shade of mustard.  I don’t think there was any such thing as subtlety in the seventies.

I’m always dreaming about that house, so vivid is its feel, so deeply entrenched in my subconscious;  but I was set off on today’s particular mental visit when I heard about a tip from a creative writing course for exercising your mind and visualisation technique.  The suggestion was to think back to a house where you spent a lot of time in your childhood, and slowly imagine you’re entering the front door and going around all the rooms, taking in all the details.  It’s amazing what it unearths - I recommend it! And I so want those kitchen curtains, I just never appreciated them at the time.

More from Frendz, Feb 1972

Adverts that caught my eye - something from Milos Forman, before he directed One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and more:

And apparently the Blackheath Foot'N'Death Men, who appeared at 'a nasty ball' advertised below, were hairy, freak, counter-culture Morris Dancers:

Personal ads from Frendz 1972

Doesn't really need me to add anything.  It was 1972, after all.

Enjoy...

(Although, I am quite interested to know if Vicky ever found her astral traveller.)

Jesus Christ '70s Superstar

My upbringing was secular, just as my life is now; we didn’t have a bible in the house and nobody went to church.  That isn’t to say that God was never mentioned, his name did come up occasionally as a useful way to explain those incidents that are difficult for very young children to understand.  For instance, when it thundered my mum would say, “God is moving his furniture around” and I was happy with that rationalisation.  (I think I've mentioned that before here... sorry!)  Also, because we were taught about Christianity at primary school my young and open mind was quite content to accept that there was some higher being in charge of all the important things like growing trees and making clouds.  He even answered my prayer once after I’d joined the Brownies.  I was just settling into my team, the Imps, when Brown Owl said there were going to be some changes and I would have to move to another team, the Elves.  I really didn’t want to be an Elf (the little Imp on the sew-on patch was perky looking and yellow - far preferable to that dull blue Elf) so I did something I’d never done before: I prayed for help.  I prayed really hard and I may even have knelt by my bed like the people I’d seen in cosy picture books.  The following week Brown Owl said that I could stay an Imp after all.  I put it all down to God and thanked him profusely that night for making time for me in his busy schedule.

Whatever your religious bent may be (and you know I accept / respect you whichever way!) I hope you’ll understand why it seemed to me that the early ‘70s were a good time for Jesus.  Being into Jesus was almost akin to being into some kind of musical cult as far as I could tell.  Long hair, sandals, singing, wearing big crucifixes, talking about love and peace… it all stacked up.  Religion seemed quite trendy for a while.  My sister got in (very briefly) with a crowd of Baptist hippies and there was some churchy youth club place where they hung out to play music, tap tom-toms and get off with each other.  It was a happy place and it appeared kinda cool.

And then there was Jesus Christ, Superstar.  The album, in all its yellow, (deep) purple and red laminated cover gatefold glory, was in the family record collection, alongside Holst’s Planet Suite, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and some Erik Satie.  That was how classy it seemed.  It had Ian Gillan* on it, whom my sister fancied; I remember the lovely picture of him on the inside, he was just as I liked to imagine the Jesus they talked about at school.  And there was a sweet photo of Yvonne Elliman, who I wanted to look like.  I recall overhearing a conversation between my sister and my mum about her character, Mary Magdalene.  “Apparently she was a prostitute…” my mum had said.  It sounded a very important, serious, grown-up word and I really couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t explain to me what it meant when I asked.

I played that album a lot and then one day it was decided that we’d go and see the live show of it in London for my sister’s birthday treat.  We had a meal in the city too, at a Berni Inn if I remember rightly (everything was dark brown).  I had an omelette and a banana split.  I’d never had a banana split before and I loved it.  Then we went off to the theatre and watched the performance, which I thought was great although it didn’t have Ian Gillan or Yvonne Elliman in it.  But whoever the stars were that night, they were attractive, long-haired and cool.  Just like those hippies I’d occasionally see around my home-town in their cheesecloth shirts and maxi skirts.

I was reminded of the show some years ago when I was working in a large office and one of my colleagues started telling me about the time she went to see it.  She’d got hold of some tickets through work and when she settled herself in to her seat she realised she recognised the man next to her.  She was racking her brains to think why she knew him and then it dawned on her, of course – he must have bought a ticket through work too, that’s where she knew him from.  During the interval she smiled and introduced herself, “I know you, don’t I?” she asked, “You work at C.R.!”  The man looked a bit puzzled, then laughed.  “No – but you might recognise me anyway,” he replied.  “I’m Paul Nicholas”…

I don’t think it was Paul Nicholas in the ‘70s production that I went to, but I enjoyed it immensely at the time and then when I saw the posters for ‘Hair’ I was really into the idea of going along to see that too, especially if I could have another banana split in a Berni Inn as part of the deal.  I never did understand why I wasn’t allowed to go, at least not until I was a bit older and after I’d learned a few other things too (like the meaning of the word ‘prostitute’).

Now, I don’t have a religious bone in my body, I can’t stand Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I couldn’t listen to it now for any other reason than for a brief blast of nostalgia, but I still have a fond memory of playing that double album all the way through as a kid and thinking that at least that hippie Jesus guy seemed to be a very nice man.  He couldn’t half sing well on ‘Child In Time’ too.

* I didn’t realise at the time that other contributors to this album included Mike D’Abo, Chris Spedding, Murray Head and Lesley Duncan….

Inspired

                              Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney

I felt very uninspired and a little unwell yesterday which may explain why I spent over an hour trying to crack the expression on a dingo's face.  Say that last bit in an Australian accent and it sounds like a colourful euphemism, but I really was just struggling disproportionately with some animal drawings.  I decided to give up for a while and as I put (what's left of) my putty rubber in a home-made card box a memory came to me and I thought I'd come in and waste some time blogging instead.  So, just to bring some colour into these grey, bleak February days, here's something bright and retro, inspired by thinking about Aussies and boxes. (Not cricket!)

I was lucky enough to catch the temporary Ossie (ok it's tenuous!) Clark exhibition in the fashion section of the V&A ten years ago.  I love so many things in the V&A but the fashion exhibits are amongst my favourites and it was brilliant to see some of his striking original outfits from the '60s and '70s while I had the chance.  As a memento I bought these great little postcards of sketches by Ossie’s textile-designer wife, Celia Birtwell, from 1969.  I just love the drawings and her vibrant, graphic fabrics.

Celia and Ossie were part of the sixties 'Bohemian' set, living in Notting Hill and having close connections with many notable rock'n'roll names of the time.  There's something really compelling about the famous painting of them (and their cat) by David Hockney which is apparently thought to be the 'most-viewed' picture ever at the Tate (I make do with my tatty postcard of it, above).  Their clothes were worn by the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Twiggy and Marianne Faithfull amongst others.  Looking at the designs above they seem to epitomise the late '60s/early '70s - but Celia was particularly inspired by artists from other eras - such as Matisse, costume designer Leon Bakst (whose drawings I adore!) and Picasso.

I was really attracted to these designs, even though I suspect I could never have pulled off those dresses! - at least not without looking like an auditionee for 'Abigail's Party'... After that visit to the V&A, in homage to her, I made some boxes (I have a thing about boxes), put together very simply from stiff card, and painted her fabric patterns on them in acrylics.  All those years of watching Blue Peter as a kid must have paid off, although I can honestly say that no sticky-back-plastic was used here, nor were they ever intended for a hibernating tortoise.  They were only meant to be a bit of fun but I’ve been using them ever since and amazingly they haven't fallen apart yet.  I always need small containers for those easily-losable things but I rarely find ready-made ones in the right size; these one-offs do the job.  There's a selection of (what's left of) my putty rubbers in the bottom one.

It's ok, I'm not trying to pass the patterns off as originals - they are pure Celia Birtwell

and for my personal use only!  (I add paranoiacally)

And here’s Sandie Shaw wearing it.  The Ossie Clark/Celia Birtwell dress, I mean, not a hand-made box.  I came across this clip by accident and was strangely excited when I recognised the material of her outfit!  (If, like me, you really don't want to hear 'Puppet On A String' yet one more time, even - or especially - sung in German, then I recommend turning the sound off and imagining it's her version of 'Your Time Is Gonna Come').

Sitting here now in an old brown marl jumper I’m feeling so terribly drab…  Maybe I need to don a green and yellow maxi dress to help inspire, especially as I have to cogitate on a koala today.  I wish I could be as creative as Ms Birtwell.

UPDATE:  By pure coincidence I just found that there is this Ossie Clark exhibition going on right now!