I become a security officer

Volume 2 – A new life begins – chapter 6 – Working for Chance – Pilkington Ltd – part 1 - I become a security officer – post 58

When I began work at Chance-Pilkington Ltd the new factory was just a shell, we operated from a hut which was the builder’s office. There were no official duties; all we had to do was keep an eye on the site, which was way out in the country. During the day there was at least the activity of the builders, but at night you were the only person there, and it was quite spooky to patrol around with a Tilly lamp in your hand, and a police truncheon in your pocket. After a few weeks staff began to appear and the manufacturing process began, those of us who were on security finally had some work to do. The quiet time was over and I was not sorry about that, the weeks of peace and quiet had been a drag, with only one incident I can recall during that time.

It was late afternoon on a weekend and I had been checking around the site, when I walked back to my temporary office I came face to face with a group of young men. There were about five of them, all fit looking chaps, who had decided they would look over the new factory they had heard about. Marching up to them I reached in my pocket and pulled out my note book, and planting myself in front of them I said: “Right, I’ve caught you, give me your names.” My appearance must have come as quite a shock to them, which is why they all looked alarmed and explained that they had not meant any harm, they were just having a look at the site. Telling them that they had no business being there and were trespassing on private property, I still insisted that I would take their names and addresses. I would tell their story to the man in charge, and if they were lucky he would take no further action against them. Off they slunk with their tails well and truly between their legs, and I was able to heave a sigh of relief. I had pulled off a big bluff because if they had turned nasty I would have had no chance against so many; anyway had it come to a physical confrontation I was not fit enough to take on even one man.

When the factory began to operate the main function was to be the continuous manufacture of lenses of various types, plus other products of glass. The whole process was new and highly secret, the method and equipment being obtained from the biggest manufacturer in the world, Corning Co Ltd of America, key people from both Pilkington’s and Chance’s had been sent to the USA to train, and when the first production line was set up, some of the American staff had come over to help get it started. Basically it consisted of a furnace on a mezzanine floor, which produced glass that was fed down a tube to the main floor below, there a complex machine fed gobs of molten glass into a rotary press where the lenses were stamped out before being fed into a lehr where they gradually cooled as they moved along a conveyor belt. This system would and did produce an enormous number of items a day, and it was continuous; eventually it was joined by three similar lines that did the same. Gradually the factory grew as other processes were added, and it continued to do so long after I had moved on.

It would seem very generous of the Americans to give all this new technology to the English, but it did not come free of charge. Pilkington’s had developed some new processes of their own, and they offered one of these in exchange, the Americans were benefiting equally as much as we were from the exchange. What we gave to Corning was ‘Float Glass’ which was a method of producing distortion free sheet glass. Until this new procedure came along sheet glass had been extruded from a furnace and this caused distortions and imperfections, which could be seen in most window glass. If distortion free glass was needed, for shop fronts, and that sort of thing, it had to be plate glass, which was cut from a suitably sized block, then ground and polished. This was as you can imagine a slow and costly way of producing distortion free glass, so this new process was a fantastic step forward being both quick and relatively cheap. For the technically minded I should explain that float glass was exactly what the name implied, it was made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal. This allowed the surface of the glass to remain fire finished and optically clear, the thickness and the size of the glass produced depended on both the temperature and the density of the metal alloy being used. The Americans were more than willing to exchange their mass production methods for our new and scientifically advanced method of making window glass.

When the first furnace fired up four shifts were created to run it and the related production line; there was a morning shift which worked from 7am till 3pm for three days, an afternoon shift which was from 3pm to 11pm, and the night shift from 11pm to 7am. After the morning shift had done their three, they had a break of 24 hours before commencing on the afternoon shift. The evening and night shifts got a 48 hour break after their three turns, so the roster included a fourth shift to fill the gaps. In addition there were day workers who performed other functions, and of course there were the usual clerical staff performing the functions they always have done. Each shift was assigned a security man who worked with them, got to know them, and looked after them, dealing with all and any problem that arose. This was my function on the shift with which I worked, but when on the day shifts there would be other duties to perform not related to the shift workers.

During normal office hours I got to know the senior man Dick Jones, though he often disappeared when he felt like it, and I never really saw him do anything useful; I suppose you could say that he was the brains of the outfit and did not need to do any work of a physical nature. The other security men I only met briefly when the shifts were changing over, they were all older men than myself, and not inclined to make friends. One was a typical type of old time bobby who did as little as possible and was expert at keeping his head down, he had his job to do and I had mine, so we had little effect on each other. Then there was a chap named Glyn Heppenstall who was a strange sort of fellow with a pencil moustache; he was always smoking and used a short cigarette holder. Again I had little to do with him and so can say we did not have an influence on each other at all.

The final man we had was a big ugly bloke who had come from a security job on one of the atomic power stations up North. He was not the sort of man you would want to make friends with, and I heard that he did not get on well with the men on his shift at all. I believe he was something of a bully, and was not all that sharp or so it appeared. He would do nothing to help anyone, which of course resulted in a similar response; I remember one day when he was given a driving job and being unfamiliar with the vehicle put it in the wrong gear and ran it into the wall near to where it was parked. This only happened because no one would tell him about this particular vehicle, and why should they when he was so obnoxious to all and sundry.

The only other man on security that I got to know a little better was the hard bitten old timer Dick Jones, who was a typical tough and cynical old time copper. I sort of liked him in a way; he often gave me the benefit of his experience and talked to me about his years in the Liverpool Police. When he was in the mood he would sit and tell me stories about his past experiences, like the time he was on a murder case and told to hold all items of evidence. These items included a very valuable 12 bore shotgun which had been used to commit the crime; Dick had felt an overwhelming desire for this beautiful weapon, so he kept it for a very long time after the accused had been found guilty and hanged. Eventually he had made it his own, taking steps to ensure that no trace of its existence remained; he seemed very proud of the fact that it was worth several thousand pounds and that he had benefited accordingly. Even more interesting in my opinion was his account of the elimination of the Liverpool Chinese Community back in the late 1920s; Dick had been a young man at the time maybe around 22 or 23 years of age. It seems China Town in Liverpool had grown rapidly to several thousand people, and one of the results had been an outbreak of gang wars with the different Tongs fighting and killing each other on the streets. With killings increasing week by week the city council and the police took the matter to the government, and the decision was made to take drastic action. In short, they decided to round up everyone of Chinese origin put them on trains that we waiting at the goods yard, and move them to a port on the East coast, it was I believe Hull or Grimsby. There they were put on a tramp steamer sent for the purpose, and summarily shipped off back to China. This was a story that amazed me at the time, and when considered in the light of present day attitudes, it seemed almost unbelievable that they were able to get away with such an extreme measure even for those days.

Dick Jones was an interesting character and pleasant enough when the mood took him, but on the other hand he could be bad tempered and if anything upset him it was best not to talk to him, you just kept out of his way until his mood improved. The fact that he left all the work to who ever was on duty did not worry me in the slightest, I was more than happy for him to leave me to it and allow me some peace. I can recall one thing about him that caused me some amusement, and that was his running feud with the company electrician a man named Harry Mason. How it all started I shall never know, but start it did and early in their association it became clear to all and sundry that Dick had made up his mind to get rid of Harry. You would have thought that for a man of Dick’s undoubted experience and inbred ruthlessness the task would have been an easy one, and there is no doubt that he gave it his best shot, and not just one shot. Having taken a dislike to the electrician my uncompromising colleague could not tolerate the presence of the man, so over the next couple of years much of his time was taken up with his efforts to remove him from his position.

Harry Mason was a man in his fifties with a look that reminded one vaguely of Adolph Hitler, I suppose it was his little toothbrush moustache that created this image. He gave the impression that he was easy going and indolent, in fact there was evidence that he disliked hard work and went out of his way to do as little as possible. At the same time he was nobody’s fool and eventually proved to be as the saying goes: ‘As cunning as a cart load of monkeys.’ Dick Jones watched him closely over a period of months catching him out in a number of minor infractions, which resulted in the electrician being on the carpet and verbally admonished each time. The problem was none of his offences were bad enough to warrant his dismissal, though the growing list of offences were beginning to bring the opinion of management around to some agreement with the obvious opinion of their senior security man.

Bearing in mind the weaknesses and failings in Harry’s character it was only a matter of time before he was caught out in a more serious offence. The day arrived when the relentless Dick Jones discovered the wayward electrician asleep in a remote corner of the factory, and hauled him before the Personnel Manager Brian Love who was both our boss and an important figure in the management line-up. When considered in addition to all the previous offences it appears our Harry was caught like a rat in a trap, we heard later that he was asked to resign or face the sack. A short time later we saw Dick Jones coming out of this interview with a face like thunder and a complexion suffused with rage, behind him came Harry with a slight smile on his face, and looking as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

You only had to look at the faces of the two men to realise what the outcome had been, but why? No one dare ask Dick Jones in his present mood, and the crafty Harry Mason was saying nothing; it was quite some time before the facts became known and spread around the work force. The facts were that when informed that he was to be fired, Harry had asked how they were going to mange to keep the factory running without his services. The answer was as you would expect that they would have no trouble getting another skilled and hard working electrician to take his place. Not possible said Harry, I did most of the wiring when the factory was built, and I did it in a way that no other electrician could possibly figure it out. Without me you would have to rewire the whole place and to do that you would have to pull it down, you have no choice in the matter you have to keep me on like it or not. There is no doubt that Harry Mason was a rascal, but he was what you would call a likeable rogue. Occasionally there would be an electrical problem and no matter what time of day or night we would be sent to get Harry, he was always obliging and easy to get along with, and he always knew how to fix the problems no matter what they were.

I change jobs and buy a house

Volume 2 – A new life begins – chapter 5 – early marriage – part 4 – I change jobs and buy a house – post 57 loaded on 30/03/12

A few weeks after we became aware that we were having a baby fate hit us with another unexpected blow that meant a major change and a radical redirection of the course we were to follow. Our landlady, whom we had never met, announced that she wanted the bungalow for other purposes, and requested that we made arrangements to move elsewhere, no great rush of course, but would we make the arrangements at our own convenience. There was no explanation and we had no right to ask for one, but it did cross our minds that she might have heard of the impending increase to our family and decided that she did not want children putting sticky fingers all over the wallpaper, or something like that. Once again our future was looking decidedly shaky.

Quite a few weeks marched by and I could find no other accommodation to rent, the problem was that this was a holiday town and all accommodation was reserved for high paying holiday makers, if locals could not afford to buy a house then were forced to move on. Moving on into the winter of 1957 Jackie drew near to her time, which arrived in the early hours of the 1^st December. Arrangements had been made for Len to take her to a nursing home at Prestatyn when the time came, so at 3am or 4am I found myself galloping up the road to the phone box to call up the cavalry to come to our rescue. It was a cold frosty morning but Len was used to being called out at all hours, and he arrived in a few minutes, away she went in good hands, while I got ready to meet the bus that would take me to work.

The time had not yet arrived when a man was expected to be present at a birth, the general opinion at this time was that a woman having a baby was entitled to complete privacy, and to me that seemed sensible. Why would a woman going through the trauma of giving birth want an audience? Throughout the day I was given progress reports, and became quite worried when I was told that Jackie was having a difficult birth; the baby was said to be big and slow to appear. It was not until about 5pm that the news finally arrived that it was a boy weighing 8lbs 9ounces, and I would be allowed to visit my exhausted wife that evening and see the new arrival. I went to have tea with Ethel Grant and afterwards she drove me to the nursing home for our momentous visit; Len was working but had left the car for our use and though it had gone dark Ethel insisted she would drive. I had no say in the matter though I knew what an appalling driver she was; I had experienced the terrors of riding with her on a couple of previous occasions. In addition to her lack of ability and poor eyesight, there was the problem of a failing car which had done too many miles and was overdue for retirement. It was a Ford ‘Popular’ which was not well made, it rattled and banged and had the world’s worst headlights; Ford cars had a bad reputation at the time, there was a saying: ‘A Ford, a Ford, four wheels and a board.’ Even in competent hands this old flivver was a risky proposition, but when driven by Ethel it was a recipe for disaster, and we came within a whisker of it that night.

Mrs Grant was a temperamental person at the best of times, but when driving it did not take much to upset her; the state of the car did not help matters either. It was a dark damp sort of night to which you could add the driver’s very poor sense of direction, which meant that she was soon in a state of nerves, ready to panic at the slightest thing. About half way through the journey our moment of crisis came when we found ourselves behind a big double - decker bus which decided to stop part way up a long steep hill. In a state of complete dither Ethel pulled out to pass the bus and finding she was slowing down rapidly she decided to change down a gear. The worn gear box required firm handling and when my hapless driver began to stir it like a bowl of pudding mix she lost all communication with the gears completely. At that moment over the brow of the hill coming in the opposite direction came a car moving faster than it should have been. It all happened in an instant but to me it was taking place in slow motion, we seemed to crawl slowly passed the bus turning in to our side of the road, at the same time the approaching car swerved onto the footpath and squeezed passed us so close it almost took the paint of the side of the cars. I could hardly believe we were still alive, and when I began to think how the new born baby had almost lost his father so soon after his birth, I began to break into one of those silly nervous uncontrollable giggles. Ethel had no idea why I was laughing, but that sort of nervous laughter is infectious, and being in an almost hysterical condition she began to giggle. We had just about recovered from our hysteria by the time we reach the nursing home, but then it began all over again because Ethel could not park the car. Our destination was on a steep hill, and when we stopped the hand brake would not hold the car, for a moment I could see us careering down the hill to smash into a brick wall at the bottom. Then I got a grip on myself and told Ethel to turn into a short entry way by the nursing home, where the car could stand on reasonably level ground. It almost did the trick, but there was still a little slope and the car began to move again, then I suggested she put the transmission into gear and that finally solved the problem. We sat for some minutes afterwards laughing uncontrollably before we finally pulled ourselves together and went to see Jacqueline and the baby.

It seemed that lady luck had smiled on us that night, something she did again within a few days. A new factory was being built about a mile outside St Asaph (which is the smallest cathedral city in the United Kingdom) this new factory would be about 7 miles from Rhyl out along the Glas-coed road and though only part built the owners were looking for staff. It would be some months before everything would be ready for production but in the meantime the company wanted to put in place an efficient security force. With the thought in mind ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ and with my needs being urgent, I decided to try my luck. This new venture was being set up by the largest privately owned company in the UK, which was Pilkington Bros Ltd of St Helens in Lancashire. They were one of the world’s largest manufacturers of glass, and they had gone into partnership with Chance Co Ltd of Birmingham, one of the most technically advanced manufacturers of lenses and other optical products in the country. Their new factory would be full of the latest advances in lens making, and some of the processes were so secret that they wanted to impose strict security on the site, even before it was completed.

Company personnel and management staff were interviewing at the biggest hotel in St Asaph so I presented myself hoping that I might be accepted. My interview went well though I quickly realised that I was up against some tough opposition; they had already employed a number of older more experienced men, most being ex policemen. All I could claim was that I had been briefly in the Royal Military Police, and that I was only 24 years old; however, my luck was holding out, they told me that they wanted to employ a range of ages so that the whole force would not think about retirement all at the same time. They would accept me though I would be the youngest and most junior officer of the group. We would be expected to work shifts, all expect a senior man who would work normal office hours; his name was Dick Jones a retired DI (Detective Inspector) from the CID office of the Liverpool Police. We would be required to commence work right away, and the salary would be about £600 per annum which would be paid monthly. I could not believe my luck, my pay would be nearly £100 a year more than I was getting at present, and what is more I would be able to cycle to work which would save me further travel expenses.

There is little point in reminding myself that I was doing it again, lying and cheating to secure a chance to show what I could do. To get this new job I had claimed to have served in the RMPs, though technically I had only passed the training course. It would never have crossed my new employer’s mind that I was not a completely fit young man; I looked fit, and when it came to physical things I had learned to bluff people into believing I could do anything. I had to admit to myself that I did appear to be making progress, like it or not my dishonesty was actually working, I had cast aside my morals and ethics and there was no going back now. At long last the storm clouds were disappearing and the sun was shining down on me, my troubles were not over yet but the situation was improving, and I felt that there would be more to come, and I was right. It was not long before I discovered there were some perks from working for such a wealthy company, they had an arrangement with a large insurance company called Sun Life Insurance it was that any employee who was designated staff was entitled to a 100% mortgage on a new house. I should mention that a large number of skilled workers were to move into the district from the parent factories in both St Helens and Birmingham, so this arrangement with the insurance company must have been one of the carrots they were holding out to the people they wanted to move to North Wales. At the same time that I found out about the mortgage offer, I also discovered that a friend, who was a builder (Mr Owen the Welshman I had met at parties held at the Grant’s house,) had just completed a row of new semi-detached houses. It was not long before I was the proud owner of one of these houses, though it was easy to forget that I had borrowed all the £1950 it had cost me.

We have a baby

Volume 2 – A new life begins – chapter 5 – early marriage – part 3 – we have a baby – post 56 on 29/03/12

Being such a large organisation the De Havilland Company appeared impersonal and distant giving a feeling that you were a very small cog in a very large machine. They had very little interest in their numerous little cogs, they cared about their specialists but for people such as me the hope that one might get ahead was a forlorn hope. If you had something to offer expense was no object, like the young man who worked at the next desk to me, who had qualifications. He was given the job of coordinating the needs of production both at our factory and the main establishment at Stevenage in the South of England. Each morning he would arrive at work, gather his work things, and stroll out to the Dove aircraft that commuted daily between the factories, in the afternoon he would catch the return flight and be back in the office in time to go home. They could afford to fly this chap the length of the country every day to correlate a few figures, but they had no interest in training or offering opportunities to people like me. Having made my critical comment I have to say that there were worse places to work; my colleagues were a reasonable bunch, and the work was certainly a challenge

Thinking of my uncle and knowing that he was not happy in the job he had, I decided to tell him about my place of work, which I thought might suit him better. When I did he was very interested and liked the idea of accompanying me to work one day to make enquiries at the personnel office. With his background of engineering at Rolls Royce they snapped him up immediately and he began work in the machine shop, operating a particularly complex milling machine. Uncle Bill was much happier in his new job, and kept it from approximately the end of 1956 until he set out for pastures new early in 1960 when they decided to emigrate to New Zealand. Aunt and Uncle had looked like a success story in the early years of their marriage, then it all went wrong and I have to say that to a large degree their problems had been of their own making. Before they were on a really sound financial footing they had begun to lead the high life, spending their money in a rather reckless fashion. With no financial buffer or reserve when problems arose they were unable to save their boat when it began to sink. Aunt blamed Uncle for their misfortunes and she never ceased admonishing him for it, she made the poor fellow suffer for his mistakes every waking hour of every day. With the sort of life she was giving him he became bitter and even more unreliable than he had already been. Instead of the easy going, friendly, generous sort of man he had been, he became devious, dishonest, and in short, not a man you could trust.

This picture of Jackie in hat and gloves was taken at ‘Little Morton Hall’ near Congleton in Cheshire.

Having once had the good life my aunt and uncle could never reconcile themselves to a less attractive situation; with their most recent venture going downhill they looked for another opportunity to become a financial success. Eventually they concluded that the UK had nothing to offer, so they listened to friends who had left for NZ several years before, and decided to do the same. If their friends were to be believed they had found a land of opportunity and they were enjoying every minute of it. Better weather, wonderful people, and best of all, every chance to improve ones situation and make a better life.

For us life had settled into a pattern, with me earning enough to pay the bills, and the in-laws providing some pleasure at the weekends. We were all happy with the way things were, Jackie and I were getting some enjoyment out of life that we could not have afforded ourselves, and the Grants were able to stay close to their daughter and still have an influence in her life. Although thinking was changing and women were going out to work more frequently as time passed, for those who could afford it a married woman still remained at home. For anyone who aspired to a higher social standing the thought that a man’s wife might go out to work was unthinkable; my in-laws certainly thought this and of course the idea suited them. There was nothing we could do to improve our financial situation because we agreed with them; I accepted that it was my duty to put food on the table.

The sightseeing trips with Len continued and being something of a history buff, numerous visits to historic houses and other sites were always included.

We did not go on every outing with the Grants, they still attended social events on their own, and they were still very active members of the golf club, the country club, and other social organisations which we could not afford and so were not privy to. They also continued to take expensive holidays, mostly to Europe, but in addition they made every effort to retain Jacqueline in their lives, though it now meant they had to include me as well.

We all try and make things happen in the way we want them to, but the unexpected is always around the corner. At this time I was thinking maybe I can get ahead at Broughton, after all it is a massive place with a large work force, there is bound to be opportunities though it was going to take time. Do I have a workable plan? No I do not, because the unexpected began to happen. It began with the discovery that Jackie was pregnant, a most unexpected event due to our inexperience in sexual matters; it was not planned though not unwelcome. Our problem was being able to afford to have a family, we wanted to be better prepared before we did; but Len was highly delighted he really wanted a grandchild to spoil.

Renting at Oakville Avenue

Volume 2 – A new life begins – chapter 5 – early marriage – Part 2 – renting at Oakville Avenue - post 55 on 28/03/12 - loaded on 28/03/12

Before we knew it we were back at Rhyl with no money and no place to live; now reality set in and it tested our relationship right from the beginning. Thankfully we had a genuine love for each other which stood the early test, and as time passed we found that it was true: ‘All you need is love’ as the song said. We needed to live with someone until we were able to afford something of our own, the Grants however would not oblige us no matter how desperate our need. They had the room to put us up but the offer was never made and I have often wondered why. I had no right to ask and it appears that Jackie never did, or at least she never told me that she had. All that was left to us was my Aunt and Uncle who came to our rescue in spite of the fact that their circumstances had changed.

Whatever their financial circumstances I never knew the details, but changing circumstances required them to increase their income. The running fight my aunt had with old man Slater had come to an end, with the old man finding a new partner and leaving. I assume that he had been paying a helpful sum to live with his daughter-in-law, and that is what had kept him in place for so long. Now with his departure their income must have dropped, which is possibly why they took the action that they did. Through their knowledge of the local scene they had discovered that a new estate of council houses was being built on the edge of town, included as part of the complex was a row of shops. Using whatever influence they had, aunt and uncle managed to secure the tenancy of one of them, and had moved into a small flat above the shop. With the money they made from the sale of their house they financed this new business which aunt ran while uncle continued to carry out his distasteful job as a maintenance engineer at Courtaulds.

Again I have to say that I never knew much about my Aunt’s affairs either financial or otherwise, but I did become aware that their shop was a commercial success, but at the same time a financial failure. Some time earlier uncle had another of his clever ideas to make money, which was to buy an industrial knitting machine which was out of date, being a hand operated machine. Using his considerable engineering skill he had got this piece of equipment up and running and was soon making high quality knitwear, which he sold by word of mouth. The quality and the price, which was lower than the retail price of other similar goods, made his product very popular. With sales going well it was logical that they would now conclude that what they needed now was a place of business where they could display their wares. The new shop on the council estate looked like the very thing they needed, so they were delighted when the tenants of the estate flocked in to buy their quality twin sets, cardigans, and jerseys. It took a year or so for them to discover that there was a snag which was to ruin the whole thing.

The problem was that all the customers were poor working class people, who had little money to spare for luxury knitted goods; they would buy but mostly on credit. As time passed aunt found an ever growing list of money owing, and eventually she realised that much of it would never be recovered. This situation was to eventually cause the demise of the haberdashery shop, but in the initial stages it looked like a winner. In retrospect it appears that when their affairs were going well Aunt Nin and Uncle Bill treated me like their own son, but when they ran into trouble they would drop me like a hot brick, with no thought as to the effect this might have on me. Their star appeared to be in the ascendancy at this point in time, so when they realised that we needed a place to stay, to their credit they did not hesitate to offer us the hospitality of their home. For the first few weeks of our marriage Jackie and I lived in this spare bedroom in a small flat above the shop, it was not a very large place and with aunt not the easiest of people to get along with at the best of times, it soon became apparent that life was not going to be easy for Jacqueline. It was not too bad for me because I was out at work all day, and only had to put up with my aunt’s peculiarities in the evenings; at the weekends we were usually out of the way visiting the Grants.

Once again we were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, we had no alternative but to accept aunt’s hospitality, but we were not enjoying it one little bit. When I was at work Jackie would go to visit her mother escaping from the dictatorial ways of my aunt. It was to be expected that she would pour out her dislike of the situation she was in, it was also just as predictable that her mother would do what she could to prove to her daughter that she would have been far better off had she remained at home a single girl. The outcome was that one day when I got home Jackie told me that her mother had located a bungalow we could rent on the other side of town; it belonged to an acquaintance that Ethel knew socially so we could have it without a deposit and at a very reasonable rent. This was the answer to our prayers though I have to confess that my pride took something of a knock to have Ethel bail me out of my troubles. The rent was modest but even that small amount meant that I would have little left for saving, which was essential if we were to really get on our feet. My salary at the De Havilland aircraft factory was modest to say the least, and when the cost of travel was deducted, I had little left to live on after paying rent.

There was no doubt we needed our privacy and some space, being in our own home was a great improvement; we were much happier with the illusion that we had everything we needed. The fact was however that we were living in a rented house, where even the furniture belonged to someone else, but we were happy and for a year or two we were content to drift along. With me working long hours including travel time, Jackie spent much of her time with her mother who took full advantage of my absence. At the weekends we had little money to go out or have a good time, so inevitably we ended up allowing the Grants to provide our pleasure. We would join them for the usual car trips, picnics, visits to historical sites and other such places of interest, but always they decided where we would go and what we would do. If we were not sightseeing we were at their house having meals with them and watching their new television. It would have been churlish of me to have complained about the improvement that my in-laws were able to provide, but it was so hard to accept their dominance. Jackie was used to it but I had always stood on my own feet and made my own decisions, being beholden to others was something new to me, and it was not easy to stomach.

Occasionally we had some time to ourselves, it was not all that hard to enjoy simple times; the secret was to be satisfied with small things, to not wish for too much. For example one small and simple pleasure I enjoyed was being able to get a home town delicacy on a Sunday morning. The street in which we lived was called Oakville Avenue a long road of mostly seaside bungalows, behind us was another long line of similar houses which faced onto the Coast Road that ran in one direction towards Prestatyn and on to Chester, in the other direction it ran into town becoming Russell Road which crossed over Bath Street where aunt had run her guest house. On the other side of the Coast Road was the sea, and sand hills. A few yards from where we lived a side street joined the two parallel roads, and near to this junction on the main coast road was a small shop that sold groceries and general goods. The owner was a Staffordshire man like myself and he had arranged for long distance lorry drivers to stop on their way through to deliver our famous oatcakes freshly cooked a couple of hours before in some little oatcake shop in the Potteries. For me this was a Sunday morning treat, it was cheap and simple but it added a little pleasure to a life that was tending to change in so many ways.

Marriage required quite an adjustment not only for me but for Jackie as well; in fact it would be fair to say that the change to our lives was a greater challenge for her than it was for me. There were some amusing moments as well as the difficult and demanding; like the day she decided to give me a treat by making me a favourite meal. What would you like, what is a favourite dish? Taking her seriously I replied that one of my favourites was meat and potato pie, so that is what I was going to get for dinner that evening, she was very insistent about it. All that day I thought that being married was not so bad after all; if the lovely Jackie could bake a pie half as good as my mother then it was clear that getting married was the best thing I had ever done. That evening when I got home I found the table set and dinner almost ready, in came a grand looking pie and I could not wait to get started. Serving up a generous portion I was encouraged to eat while the proud wife stood by to watch me enjoy it; I knew this was an important moment for her so I did my best to oblige. The trouble was the contents of the pie were just about raw; my darling wife had not been taught that the contents had to be pre-cooked before they were used in a pie. I still laugh when I recall that occasion; sitting trying to look happy whilst eating a large portion of raw meat and potato pie. Jackie was charming, one might even say sophisticated, but she was not domesticated; her mother had few such skills herself so it was to be expected that she had taught her daughter little in this respect.

This humorous story may give the wrong impression, so let me put on record that my wife proved to be a quick learner, and she was willing to add to her knowledge and experience. During the early part of our marriage meals were not a big problem because I was at work all day and Jackie ate with her mother most of the time. Some toast for breakfast and a boiled egg for tea, that sort of thing could be easily dealt with, and at the weekends we usually ate with the Grants. At work I could get a reasonable dinner in the canteen for the main meal of the day; at morning tea break the canteen tea trolley provided large freshly baked fruit scones, hot from the oven and dripping with butter. I remember these scones as a particular favourite at that time.

Honeymoon

Volume 2 – A new life begins – chapter 5 – early marriage – part 1 - on honeymoon (taken from chapter 2 – early marriage – post 54

The week we had in London raced by in a flash, every day we were out and about seeing the sights and there were plenty of those. The only time we went further a field was a day trip we took to visit my father’s sister Aunt Anne, who lived at Harlow. She was very welcoming and we had a lovely day, seeing the sights and enjoying the impressive spread she put on for us at teatime. There was not a moment that we did not enjoy during this week, the weather was dull and sometimes wet, but it was not bitterly cold and we had no snow. We travelled mostly on the underground which took us close to every place we wanted to see; we visited the Tower of London, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and quite a few others. Included in our itinerary were a few places I would not have visited had I been alone, and there were some places that I would have certainly included had the choice been entirely mine. I was learning the first lesson about married life, you could no longer please yourself, and in trying to prove your love and affection for your partner, you had to put yourself out, to oblige the one your cared about. Years into the future you discover that you are not the only one doing this, your better half was doing it as well, though it never occurred to you at the beginning when it seemed that you were the one that was being accommodating. We visited art galleries like the Tate, because Jackie liked such places, and we never went to the War Museum because that was not to her taste. Being on honeymoon it was not a hardship to demonstrate one’s love in this way, but in later years it was more difficult, though not impossible. I discovered that if you really loved someone your one desire was to make them happy, and if they were doing the same then you had a successful marriage.

This picture confirms what I have written about the foggy damp weather.

The fur coat I bought for Jackie as a wedding present was put to good use. Looking at this picture of us feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square would you have guessed we were on our honeymoon? We thought we looked just like everyone else; the fact that we asked a passer-by to take our photograph would not have given us away we would have thought, but something did. A couple of minutes later a camera man approached us and suggested we might like some pictures for our wedding album; I could not believe that he had recognised us for what we were.

I suppose we stood out like a sore thumb though we had no idea that we did; the staff at the hotel knew why we were there, though we had tried to look like an old married couple. There were one or two incidents that might have given us away I realise now, like the day the cleaning lady let herself into our room to do her work, and found us both in a state of undress, and this in the middle of the day. I was standing by the bed in my underwear and on seeing the maid entering I dived under it. Fortunately Jackie was in the bathroom and so avoided any embarrassment I’m glad to say; this incident alone would have spread around the hotel like wild fire I have no doubt. Our reason for being there apparent to all, or so it would seem, but I can assure the reader that we were not indulging in all day hanky panky, we were just changing for an early dinner and then an evening at the theatre. We had booked to see the well known singer of the period Lonnie Donavan, you know the chap who made popular songs like ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ and ‘Cumberland Gap.’ So they got it wrong didn’t they, but on the other hand they got it right for the wrong reason. I suppose you could have put an innocent interpretation on the fact that I would also play a wonderful ‘Beck stein’ grand piano in the lounge for my companion, though my choice of romantic music and the fact that I would do this only when we were alone just might have made some suspicious.

This picture is a favourite of mine and not because I took it myself with my father’s old folding Kodak camera. I like it because it depicts the girl in my life as she really was; kind, gentle and a real sweetheart. Feeding the animals and birds in the Green Park with the misty background adding to the magic of the moment, well it did for me.

I can never look at this picture without feeling again what I had felt at that moment when I took the photograph. Much water has passed under the bridge since that magic moment in December 1956 but I still remember how I felt and still do; no matter how much time passes that feeling will remain with me forever.

Marriage

Vol2 – Chap4 – part 5 –post 53

Jacqueline and I were married on 15^th December 1956, it was blowing very hard that day which upset things a little, but we completed the day without any major mishaps. It was not exactly a society wedding, but Len was a big fish in a little pond so to speak, which meant he had to be seen to do this social thing properly. The St Thomas church was a large and impressive edifice almost as opulent as a full cathedral with the main entrance on the West side facing Russell Road, the main road into town, the alter being at the North end which faced Bath Street where stood the guest house where I had spent so many happy holidays with my aunt and uncle.

This is a picture taken diagonally across the North/West corner of the church showing Plas-Collen which is to the right of the gap between the houses.

 

 

 

 

 

On the 24^th May 1980 I returned for a day visit to Rhyl and took the following photograph of the house in Bath Street which was apparently for sale and no longer to be a guest house.

I discovered its eventual fate when I made another fleeting visit on Saturday 2^nd December 1989 and took this further photograph which shows that the house had now been transformed into private apartments. With a smart new paint job and a good cleaning the premises look set for a good few years of occupation still to come.

It might be thought that I am showing a preoccupation with this old house in Bath Street, but it does hold a special place in my memory. I had only good times when I was both visiting and living in this venerable old residence; if I allowed myself the time I could tell many stories of events that happened there. Such tales would be interesting to me but not to other readers of these words, so I shall resist the temptation to dwell on it, and move on to the day of my wedding, or should I say more properly, the day of Jacqueline’s wedding.

In accordance with tradition I was made to arrive at the church early and sit and wait for the blushing bride to make her belated appearance, which she did on her father’s arm as this picture shows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accompanying the bride was her Maid of Honour a petite little girl who had been Jackie’s best friend at the drawing office where she had worked before she decided to become a married woman instead of a working girl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first picture as man and wife, we sat in the wedding car on the way to the reception at the biggest and best hotel in town, the Westminster which was on the corner of the High Street and the Promenade. It has never occurred to me until this moment that this was the only time I ever visited the Westminster Hotel.

These wedding photographs, taken in black and white, make my appearance quite sombre, when in fact I was looking quite colourful, well colourful for such a conservative character as I was inclined to be. I was wearing a waistcoat and tie which were a dark burgundy, which I thought made me look something of a ‘Flash Harry’ but apparently no one else thought so.

The close observer might wonder why my Uncle Bill was so intimately involved in the wedding, the answer being that he was my best man. It has always been my nature to have few close friends, especially younger ones of my own age, so I had found it a difficulty to decide who should play this part of honoured companion. Having known him all my life it seemed the least I could do to recognise our close relationship by offering him the job, which is as far as I knew was something of a compliment, to be trusted with an important role in another person’s life.

Looking at these pictures for the first time in many years I have many memories come flooding back, most of which are of little interest to any other party but myself. In the following group it is my mother that takes my attention, realising how big was the effort she had made to be with me on my wedding day. She rarely ventured from her home which was her refuge from a hostile world. When I look at this picture of the main guests at our wedding I wonder now who some of them are. On my side of the group were my immediate family with Aunt Nin at the back behind her sister. On the other side were Jacqueline’s relatives most of whom I had only met on one previous occasion. One important member of the family who is missing is my best man Uncle Bill, whose absence I have only now become aware of, and only now do I wonder why he is not present.

If you live at the seaside and you get married in the winter time the weather is not likely to be kind to you, and so is was on this day of our wedding. The main problem was a strong wind which caught Jacqueline’s veil and blew it off; it was returned without delay but in the haste of the operation it was never positioned as it should be.

You would expect a day of such importance would remain in the memory in great detail, but it fact I cannot recall very much about it at all. Once we had departed on our honeymoon I have no doubt the guests all had a great time, but we were not present to share in it or witness their pleasure. We went home to change and to catch the train to London, where we unpacked our suitcases amidst a shower of confetti which had been sneaked into our luggage after we had completed packing. Other than that I have a recollection of the hotel manager coming into the room and presenting us both with a champagne cork into which had been inserted a sixpenny piece. He said to us: “I hope your money never sinks.” I still have the one that was given to me which is why I have not forgotten that moment.

It was a very windy day and Jacqueline’s veil was blown off, this mishap with the veil was considered to have spoiled the wedding photographs, but I had to include at least one which shows us cutting the cake at the Westminster Hotel where the reception was held.

Getting established at Rhyl

Volume 2 –chapter 4 –part 4 –post 52

This period of courtship was a happy time, we had no commitments and no need for much money, all we had to do was enjoy each other’s company. Life together would be more of the same I imagined, it never crossed my mind that I would have to provide should we get married. So here I am in this picture blithely enjoying life and expecting more of the same.

If Len and his car were not available for outings we had to resort to public transport which was more often than not the train. Jackie and I took such a trip one weekend when we made our first visit to the Potteries for her first meeting with my parents. They liked Jacqueline the moment they met her and she took to them, especially my mother who was a far more motherly person than Ethel Grant.

Living by Hanley Park we spent some time in the park getting away from the family as young couples usually want do, and though Jackie did not look like the typical outdoor girl, she had an adventurous spirit and took to outside activities with no hesitation at all. In fact she once told me that at school a teacher asked her class to put up their hand those would like to be a pioneer or an adventurer, and she put her hand up. The teacher on seeing this said: “Put your hand down Jacqueline you are not the type at all to make an adventurer.” The teacher was wrong, she had a definite sense of adventure and I believe she went on to prove it. It just shows you cannot go by appearances.

Once we were engaged I just had to go and live near to my finance at Rhyl, weekends were no longer enough. I would go and live with my Aunt and Uncle, which was only ten minutes walk away from Ronald’s Way; they still had the old man Slater living with them and he did not get on well with my Aunt, but I would not be home much of the time so that did not worry me. It never crossed my mind at the time, but such an arrangement would suit my parents as well, now that they lived in a two bed roomed house. The first thing I had to do was get a job and work was hard to find in Rhyl and in North Wales in general. It might not be easy but at least I now had a work history, and if I said nothing about my medical discharge from the army I might just get away with it. There was some heavy industry down the coast towards Chester, one place being an enormous steel works at a place called Mostyn, and then there was the big chemical plant that produced artificial fibre. It was called Courtaulds which was owned by ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and this was where my Uncle worked as a maintenance engineer. Telling me he could probably get me a job at the works, he invited me to go and see the place, so I accepted and went to look it over.

Courtaulds was an enormous place but the first thing that struck me was the absence of workers, the whole place seemed to run itself and during my visit I never saw another living soul. With all the machinery running on automatic there was little need for windows or good lighting, the huge workshops were gloomy and depressing. The next thing you became aware of was the noise, and close behind that was the smell, which came from the rows of chemical baths into which a substance was fed through nozzles. The acids and other chemicals changed this resin or plastic into various types of fibre, such as nylon and other polyester fibres, which then wound its way up onto large spools. The place was a veritable hell on earth and with no skills or qualifications I was under no illusion that the work I would be given to do there would be of the dirtiest and foulest type. I would have to be desperate to go and work in such a place, anyway I very much doubted that my lungs could take the chemicals and acids I would be breathing if I worked in such a place.

My search would have to continue so I cast my net ever wider, even asking Len Grant if I could get a job in the Post Office; his reaction was a negative one. Without some qualifications I had no chance he told me, I even suggested he might help me to get a job as a postman or even as a humble mail sorter, but he told me that there were no vacancies for anything like that. He had little confidence in me it seems, and eventually I came to suspect that he did not like the idea of having me in the Post Office in such a low ranking job, and I suppose it would not have done his reputation any good to be associated with someone like me. The problem was that he knew too much about me, the Post Office had a medical examination for prospective employers, and he knew that I was likely to fail that.

One outcome of asking Len to help me was, I suppose, that he discussed it with his family, which resulted in Jackie thinking about my problem. Maybe that was the reason she made some enquiries, which is exactly what she did, the result being that I discovered that the aircraft factory at Broughton on the edge of Chester wanted people.

The De Havilland Aircraft factory was massive with a work force of about 5,000 and the largest single span building in the country. Their head office was at Stevenage in the South of England but at Broughton they were building all sorts of aircraft, they had production lines for both military types and civilian planes. They had production tracks laid out for the four engine Heron and the two engine Dove, both of which were selling well. Then, to add to the pressure the accidents with their famous jet airliner the Comet began to occur; they began to explode at high altitudes. When it was discovered that this was due to the rectangular windows cracking at the corners and blowing in due to the extreme difference in pressure inside and outside the plane, it became a matter of some urgency that they be replaced with round porthole type windows. This resulted in aircraft from just about every airline in the world coming in to have this work done, hence the fact that the company was looking for more staff. With their need being great they could not afford to pick and choose, so when I presented myself for an interview, they did not take long in accepting me for a job in their ordering control office.

I was to work on the production of the Dove and the Heron, the office being a long narrow structure which was fixed to the underside of the hanger roof. It was sound proofed and had windows that looked down on the factory floor; it was the largest office I ever saw in my life. I never measured it but it must have been somewhere between a quarter to half a mile long, divided into sections it contained the controlling office where I worked, plus other offices that ordered raw materials, and other parts of the supply process such as part assemblies that were made by sub-contractors. It all looked well organised but turned out to be a nightmare, mainly because no one was honest. Over a long period mistakes had been made, which had resulted in a gradual build up of shortages, this had led to a process of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the situation becoming so extreme that you could never rely on the records of what was actually in stock. There was a staff of progress chasers who were busy stealing their needs from each other, which resulted in those of us who worked in the office spending most of our time running around this huge complex checking on the physical contents of stores and supply rooms which were near to or in the proximity of the production tracks. It was an appalling job trying to ensure that everything that was needed to keep production moving was available and in the right place at the right time.

For me it was a case of beggars could not be choosers so I was happy with this job, you could say that any job I could get was an improvement. It was a long day with my place of work being almost 30 miles from where I lived, but I was not the only one who had to travel. A luxury bus would tour around picking a load of us up starting from about 6.30am and delivering us to the factory in time to commence work at 8.00am. At the end of the day we would be delivered home arriving about 6.00pm to 6.30pm in the evening. Travelling long distances to work was not seen as unusual for people who wanted the pleasure of living in a beautiful location like North Wales. Jackie and her father travelled to Chester every day on the train, and she told me that she met business men who lived along the Welsh coast who travelled to Manchester every day. They would share the same compartment every morning and do the crossword in the Manchester Guardian or the London Times newspapers; apparently Jackie was in great demand for this task as she was good at these difficult puzzles.

Len Grant was constantly on the move driving all over the area he controlled, and until I commenced work I would go with him as his driver; it was good practice for me with no other opportunity to drive apart from this kindness that Len showed me. It was interesting as well, when I was asked to help him with his various tasks. Sometimes he would do tests to find out the electric resistance of the earth at certain locations, on other occasions we would use location equipment to find telephone cables. Another job I found interesting was the use of pressure meters to test the pressure inside the lead sheath that protected the cables that carried all the telephone communications. Len had developed this means of protecting the cables and he had a gold medal awarded to him by the Post Office for his work. The idea was that if a hole developed in the lead sheath gas pressure within the line would drop and by locating the leak repairs could be done before serious damage occurred to the complex and expensive telephone cables. Occasionally he had to attend engineering conferences and I would drive him so that he could relax before and after the meetings. Some of these meetings were in South Wales and I once drove him to Cardiff and back home again in one day, this saved on accommodation costs but entailed driving well into the night, arriving back at Rhyl in the early hours of the morning.

With an above average job and an income to match it always seemed strange to me that the Grants lived in a rented house. Maybe this was a deliberate plan on their part because they were not short of money and lived well up to their income. They were members of most of the clubs frequented by the local business people and well to do, such as the golf club and the country club. They also took regular holidays to Europe, and would go on camping trips to all the famous resorts and holiday locations; I always envied the life they lived, and would have given much for a job like the one Len had. At least I now had a regular job and what is more it was an office job that posed no physical problems for me. My salary was not enough to allow for much saving, however I now concluded that I had enough to get married, so we set the date for early in December 1956.

Once the decision had been made I believe that Ethel realised that any further disapproval would be counterproductive, so she decided to make the best of it. She would arrange a suitable wedding for her only child, though letting go of her was something she could not manage. Jacqueline was her constant companion and she intruded into every aspect of her life, she spent whatever it took to make her a smart lady about town, she took her everywhere and developed in her a sense of importance. I can recall one morning when Jackie and I were leaving for the morning train after one of our weekends, and we were walking to the railway station. We were a little late and at risk of missing the train, when I local man who knew her stopped his car and offered us a lift; how very obliging it was I thought. I was amazed after a short distance had been travelled when Jackie ordered her acquaintance to stop, and leaving us sitting with the engine running, she entered a newsagents shop to get her usual morning paper. I could not believe that she expected us and the whole world to dance attendance on her slightest whim; though I must say I admired her sangfroid.

The more I discovered about Jackie the more the attraction grew, she had all the qualities that make a person of high standard. She had self confidence but this was born from her innate ability and natural innocence not from arrogance or a feeling of superiority. Also it was easy to like someone who obviously liked you in return. The physical aspects of our relationship moved slowly forward with a little encouragement from her, and the desire and temptation to make love to her grew in intensity day by day. I could not wait for the day we could marry so that I could throw of the restraints that held me back. The wedding arrangements were attended to by Ethel Grant but I was more than willing to fit in with anything that was expected of me. I went to the Anglican Church to hear the bans read and even attended with Jacqueline of course to be instructed and counselled by the Vicar. I had not been involved in religion since I attended Sunday school when I was very young, and I doubt that my views on the subject would have been welcomed had I revealed them, but I wanted to get married.

It would be winter when we married and we could not afford to travel overseas for a honeymoon, so after much debate we decided a week in London would have to suffice. We discovered a good quality hotel in South Kensington called the ‘King Charles’ so we booked a room. It was only a small place which snuggled down between several other larger and more opulent hotels, but it proved to be a fine little hotel, and what is more it was much cheaper than the its rivals, and for us that was very important. I had little money to spare especially after I spent my all on a wedding present for my bride, it was a fur coat which proved very useful during our winter honeymoon; it was Jackie’s pride and joy for many years afterwards. So the stage was set and all we had to do was to wait for the happy day.

Bonding

Volume 2 –  chapter 4 – part 3 – post 51

In regard to my status with the Grants the one thing I had working in my favour was my ability to provide music. They enjoyed a good party and I was always in demand at such times, they were the highlights of my early association with them and the social circle in which they moved. At Christmas 1955 I was to attend a party at Ronald’s Way which had me walking from my Aunt’s place with my accordion in its case. It was dark being maybe 7pm when I passed a man who on seeing the accordion asked me where I was going, and when I told him he said: “I’m going to a big party how about coming to ours instead? You would have a great time, and if you would play for us we would pay you.” I thanked him for the offer but said I could not desert my friends. I have often wondered what this party had been like, our party was one of the best I had ever been to and anyway I was partying with friends not with strangers. Aunt and Uncle had been invited of course, but there were others who I had never met before. There were the Owens who friends of my Aunt, Mr Owen was builder and well known around the town, they were Welsh born and bred and said to be very wealthy. I met the people who lived next door to the Grants, Mr Lustgarten was a small man who proved to have a wonderful sense of humour, and his wife was also small, a petite lady who had her hair dyed blond; she was also Welsh with a very pronounced accent. Their name was an unusual one, but one I had heard before, a fact I mentioned in conversation where upon I was told that Mr Lustgarten brother was a well known broadcaster and criminologist who had his own television programme. That is where I had seen the name before; I had watched his TV show, a weekly investigation into various crimes. He was also a well known author with books on the same subject, he was very well known indeed.

This was a time when parties were lots of fun, not just excuses to drink a skin full; mind you there was no shortage of alcohol and most of those attending were more than a little merry by the time it was all over. Apart from the food and drink there were party games like musical chairs and charades, not to mention much dancing and singing, some of which showed a considerable level of talent and natural ability; not surprising when you consider that we had the Welsh among us. It did not take me long to realise that I had an audience that knew if I was playing well or not, a realisation that sharpened me up and made me try harder. On the one hand it made my task more difficult, but on the other it made the whole experience more rewarding and enjoyable. There is nothing more satisfying than playing for an audience that really listens and shows some appreciation, whereas there is nothing more stultifying than playing for people who have little or no interest. I am glad to say that most of the entertaining I have done has been for those who have enjoyed it and appreciated my efforts.

It is strange to think that at most of my good times, parties and other social occasions, I have usually spent my time playing and not taking part in the fun and games. This did not mean I missed out on the pleasure of such occasions, I actually enjoyed doing it, I did not do it as a duty I did it for the satisfaction it gave me. I have never played for money and would not feel happy doing it for that reason, but there is no doubt that music has benefited me all my life. Money could not pay for the feeling of achievement I have experienced so many times, like the time that the Grants invited me on a car rally organised by the Engineering Office where Len worked. After the fun of racing around North Wales looking for clues which each led to the next one, the whole car club ended up at a very nice hotel in the country where a dinner had been arranged.

This picture of me was taken about August 1955 during the holiday when I first met Jacqueline. I am standing by the tennis courts on the promenade at Rhyl, and in the background is the open air swimming pool.

A small separate dining room had been set aside for our party which would have been about 30 or 40 people, and as you would expect I was providing musical entertainment. I was being well received with much applause when a waiter appeared with a request from other guests in the main dining room. The other diners could not only hear me but on turning I found a large group standing in the doorway an additional audience I had not realised I had. I began to field requests some of which had a definite national flavour, so I asked the waiter about that and he told me among the other guests was a large party of German tourists. They especially were enjoying the piano accordion; once they realised that I was willing to play for them as well, and the party I was with had no objections to their intrusion, they were quick to make their wishes known. About that time zither music as played in the popular film ‘The Third Man’ was all the rage so it was to be expected that the tourists would ask for the theme music from the movie. I also had liked that new sound and had practiced it for myself, so I had no trouble by using my three bass couplers and nine treble couplers producing a sound much the same as a zither. Launching into the ‘Harry Lime Theme’ and ‘The Café Mozart’ I found my renditions a hit, which resulted in at least two requests for the same again.

Today it would be laughable to say that I went out with Jackie for weeks and never even held her hand, yet this is the case. Why was I so backward? I find it hard to explain, but it was a mixture of reasons some of which were related to my old fashioned upbringing. The very thought of touching her made me feel a lack of respect, then there was an underlying concern that physical contact might not be safe for her considering my history.

Furthermore it would be a strange way of showing my care for her when I took into account what her mother had said about having some future prospects, and being able to offer her a good life. All these thoughts were mine to deliberate on but I was not sharing them with the lady concerned, which is why she took the bull by the horns one night when I was leaving her at their front door. Putting her hands on my shoulders she said: “Isn’t it about time you kissed me?” So with my knees turning to jelly I did; I shall never forget that moment but I cannot for the life of me remember how I got home to Weaver Avenue afterwards.

The pier can be seen in the background of this picture of Jackie taken at Colwyn Bay as was the picture of me in my silver grey suit.

The day out to Colwyn Bay was one we enjoyed very much, we were alone with all the holiday makers gone; the weather was fine though windy and all seemed right with the world. I was 22 years old with no education and not much of a job, but that didn’t worry me, though it should have had I been a little older and a little wiser. What is even stranger is the fact that Jackie was not concerned about my situation, though I had told her everything by the time these pictures were taken. I never asked her why she preferred me to others better qualified, but it has never been possible to explain the romantic conclusions of young people.

I suppose in a literal sense if I loved Jackie I would have let her go, but I wanted to be with her always and we were honest with each other, something that I insisted on from the beginning. She knew my circumstances and still wanted to be with me, so one evening we were returning from a movie show in Chester when I proposed to her and she accepted me and so we became engaged. We wanted each other badly but we were never intimate until after we got married; Jackie was willing but I would not do it feeling that old fashioned sense of honour that was part of my character.

In the summer the holiday places were a mass of visitors, prices went up and though the activity was exciting, it was not always fun for the residents with the crowds making life difficult. So it was the winter that we liked with the quiet and the peace; it is true that most of the amusements closed for the winter, but that was no great loss. The beauty of the countryside and the beaches were still available, and we had it all to ourselves. Providing the weather was not too unkind it was possible to holiday every weekend. There was always an element of doubt with the passing of summer, outdoor activities could be hit and miss, and in addition one had to dress for the colder weather. On one occasion we booked a day cruise on a steamer that sailed from Llandudno to Douglas on the Isle of Man. We caught an early train and arrived at the point of departure about 6.00am or 7.00am in the morning on a fine day, only to find that the trip was cancelled. The weather might have been fine where we were, but apparently the weather in the vicinity of Douglas was stormy which resulted in the shipping company deciding to play it safe and cancel the cruise. We were disappointed of course but it did not worry us all that much, we were together and that is all that mattered to us, anyway we were able to have a jolly nice day in the main holiday town on this part of the coast.

I am to be seen sitting on the promenade at Colwyn Bay, the weather was good and we had it all to ourselves. The other picture of Jackie was taken at the same time and in the same place The fact that I was a smoker did not worry anyone; most people were back in the 1950s; it was many years later before the movement began to stop smoking. I gave it up in 1960 but not because it was bad for the health, I wanted to have my own vehicle and could not afford it or even the cost of running it and smoke at the same time.

Nothing else matters only Jackie

Volume 2 –  chapter 4 – part 2 - post 50

In more recent times I put together pictures of Jacqueline with a written description and I feel that they also deserve to be included in these pages. She was about nineteen which would have been in 1954 and these were particular favourites of mine.

Very much a lady Jackie is seen here ready for town; her mother spared no expense to ensure that she had a daughter she was proud to be seen with.

Jacqueline Grant, the daughter of a Post Office Engineer. In retrospect it now appears to me that my life included loving women who made my life tolerable, interspersed with disastrous events that made the presence of such ladies essential.

The onset of the Second World War threw the lives of most of those involved into turmoil. For my father it initially appeared to be a stroke of fortune, he had spent almost twenty years rising through the ranks of the army reaching the highest non commissioned rank of Warrant Officer First Class. In a peace time army it was rare for a soldier from the ranks to achieve a commission, and without doubt it was the outbreak of war in 1939 that brought about the promotions that saw my father rise to become a Major in the next six years. On the other hand the war burnt him out, and destroyed the life we had known; it cast us all adrift with no chart to navigate by.
My father had been without a sense of direction after the First World War, and had joined the army as a result. There was of course some family tradition involved, which may have had a bearing on his decision, but there seemed to be very few prospects in civilian life at the time. History often repeats itself, and so it was that I followed in my father’s footsteps for much the same reasons. For my father the decision to join the army proved a step in the right direction, for me it was a disastrous mistake. In just under two years I found myself discharged on medical grounds, with the only asset I had destroyed, which was my health and strength.

Having set the scene I can now continue with the purpose of this commentary; I can describe the second Mrs. Bishop (the first being my mother,) and with the help of pictures show the person she was. In 1955 I was again without a sense of direction, with no future to look forward to. My plan to transfer to the SIB (Secret Investigation Branch) of the Royal Military Police, and eventually to leave the army and join the CID, was now just a pile of ashes. In the three years 1952 to 1954 I spent just two weeks short of a year in sanatoria and hospital. The impression I was given at the time was how miraculous it was that I was still alive, and when truthful with people around me, found myself being treated like a leper.

In 1955 I devised a plan to disappear to New Zealand and so put my name on the waiting list for a paid passage. That summer I went to stay with my aunt who lived at Rhyl, and it was at that time that fate decided I should meet Jacqueline. My plan to emigrate went out of the window when I met her and fell in love.


Her father Len Grant was a Birmingham man, who had been promoted to assistant engineer and now carried out his job in the North Wales area. This made him one of the few people who could afford to own and run a car, and he took advantage of this; eventually there were very few corners of North Wales he had not investigated. After I arrived on the scene I also shared in his travels, providing some company for him to begin with, but later I became his driver. We got on well together and I had no trouble showing him the respect I considered he was entitled to. He was a kind and considerate man, though I was never in any doubt that he and his wife called the shots, they always had and as far as they were concerned they always would. In time I was to find this dominating influence hard to endure; I was my own man and was not prepared to have my independence taken from me. However, for the time being this was something I had to live with and as they say: ‘Needs must when the devil drives.’ Eventually my attitude rubbed off on Jackie and she also showed a desire to be independent, not that it was my influence entirely. She had been under her mother’s thumb all her life, and though she appreciated everything her parents had provided, including lots of love, she yearned to be free and go her own way. When she met me she got the chance, though it took time to break away from the controlling influence of her parents.



The regional PO was at Chester; Len had his office there, next to the drawing office where Jackie worked as a tracer, later qualifying to become a draughtswomen. The next picture shows the ladies of the drawing office with Jackie third from the left in a dark coat.



Inevitably my holiday disappeared like a puff of smoke and I found myself back at work. The only thing I could think of was returning to Rhyl as soon as possible, which I did as often as I could; this proved to be the week-ends. For the remainder of the time that I spent in the Potteries I left work on a Friday afternoon catching the train at Longton station, and arriving for a late tea, more often than not with the Grant family. Early on a Monday morning I would catch the train to Derby which got me back to Longton about 8.30am; I would be walking through the door at work about 8.40am which did not make me popular. I was arriving about 40 minutes late every Monday, and leaving that much early on a Friday. This went on for some months well into 1956 and nothing was said to me in that time; I was expecting to be called into the office, and cou-ld not wait for it to happen. I shall never know why they never chastised me for my poor time keeping but I suspect that they were well aware that I had grievances; they had no intention of giving me a chance to air them. When you think about it what was an hour or so of my time when they had me for a whole week for half the salary they would have been paying someone else.

Meantime I had never been so happy; my life had been grim to say the least for several years, and now life had never been so good. It was hard to believe that this lovely girl with everything she could want, actually wanted me and that was hard to comprehend. Over the first few weeks we spent together we opened our hearts to each other, telling all with a strong desire to have no secrets. For my part I fully expected a cooling of interest from Jackie once she realised how little I had to offer, but it is said that love is blind and never a truer word was spoken when that was said. For something like nine months we grew closer our relationship getting stronger all the time, but while this was so, the more serious we became the less enthusiastic the Grants became. They liked me well enough, and Len never showed any opposition, but Ethel began to realise that I was not exactly a good catch for her wonderful daughter. The more she learned about me the more she cooled to the idea that I might marry her, she did not show a determined resistance, but she did let me know that if I cared about Jackie I would not burden her with an unpromising future. In conversation she stressed the fact that there were other more promising young men that had shown an interest in Jacqueline; included in her list of prospects were a couple of professional men, one of whom was a doctor. I knew what she was saying and agreed with her view of the situation, but I just could not help myself, I was in love and was being born along on the tide of emotion that had me in its sway.

In the summer visits to the beach were high on their list of destinations, and the next picture I show is Jackie (everyone called her by this shortened anglicised version of her name,) on the beach