Spring 1981
Happy birthday, Pauly! Seventeen, eh? Well, well. You’ve grown up so fast. In the next election, you’ll be able to vote, you know.
Oh, you must.
You’ll have to make up your own mind, though. Nobody can tell you how to vote – and don’t you listen if they try.
I will say this, though. Never let your own personal advantage sway your vote. Support whoever you think will do the best job for everyone.
No, I don’t care who you vote for. I just want you to think about it deeply. Then get out there and vote. People have died for your right to vote, so use it, and use it wisely. Never take it for granted.
Alright, alright, I’ll get down off my high horse now. As it’s your special day.
Me? I think you can guess.
That’s right. I’ve always voted Labour, since the War.
With one exception, which I’ll tell you about now, if you like?
After the War, Clement Attlee’s government was all about rebuilding the country. I think we’ve talked about that before, the NHS and so on, the Beveridge Report?
Good.
But they were looking inward, I came to realise, focused on the domestic situation. Meanwhile the whole world was changing, and international affairs couldn’t be ignored.
A new war was looming – a Cold War. Britain had to take sides in a conflict between superpowers who had terrible new weapons.
Our country was no longer a world power, you see, despite the Empire. The United States called the shots, in this ‘brave new world’.
Stalin had gone in the press from ‘Uncle Joe’ to an evil dictator. And that was the truth of it. He’d murdered more of his own people than Hitler did, thrown millions of innocent men and women into the gulags, and had taken over half of Europe.
Now he seemed determined to rule the whole world – or reduce it to a smoking ruin.
In 1951, Churchill asked for another chance. To my surprise, I let myself be persuaded.
Old Winnie was our most experienced statesman. He understood the international situation better than Attlee. He would stick up for us. Labour’s social reforms were working and they were popular, so he couldn’t wind them back.
It was the start of the ‘post-war consensus’.
Which that dreadful Thatcher woman has torn up now. Though the rot started with that Heath man.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s get back to the fifties.
It was a time of technological optimism.
We were going to have cheap, abundant nuclear energy. Jet airliners were going to make travel fast and affordable. The Russians and Americans were sending rockets into outer space. People were going to live together in ‘villages in the sky’.
That’s right, skyscrapers. I remember when the first ones were built. Ten stories high! We drove over to Harlow in Essex to look at them, at the Lawns. What a marvellous view they must have from their balconies, we thought.
Things seemed to be moving so fast. It was both an exciting and a worrying time to be bringing up a child – for two rather elderly parents.
Percy was a wonderful father, particularly for a little boy. He and Christopher were inseparable companions.
They progressed from building kites and catching tadpoles in nets to building model aircraft, going on late-night fishing expeditions, and designing strange contraptions in the shed.
Some of these were powered by steam, home-built petrol motors, and even jet engines and rocket motors.
In those days, toys were very ‘do-it-yourself’, made of metal and wood, and not designed with safety in mind. There was very little plastic, and certainly no battery-operated gadgets.
Yes, I think your Dad did have an air rifle, when he was a teenager. And a longbow, made from real English yew.
I remember one June, your Dad would have been about twelve, we bought him a beautiful new racing bicycle for his birthday. It was an Italian bike I think, with drop handlebars and a frame so thin and light, you couldn’t imagine it not snapping in two. It was a very extravagant present.
Mrs Young said we could hide the bike in her shed until your Dad’s birthday.
Then, on the sixth of June, first thing in the morning, he went out to find his present, following the directions in his card. A little while later, we heard the gate click, and looked out the window to see him go.
Percy opened the window and shouted to be careful, that it was a lot faster than his old bike, and sharper on the brakes. Christopher didn’t hear, of course, and he wouldn’t have taken any notice anyway.
Off he went, flying up Aldenham Road.
Well, an hour passed, and no Christopher. We started to worry.
Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. The local bobby was standing on the doorstep.
Your Dad had been in an accident.
He’d gone up Allum Lane to Borehamwood to show off his new bike to his pal Tommy. Then, realising the time, he’d set off for home in a hurry, down steep Elstree Hill to the junction with Watling Street.
Going much too fast, he’d jammed on the brakes to avoid a lorry – and pitched over the handlebars into the ditch!
There were no bike helmets in those days, but thankfully your father wasn’t badly hurt. Just scratched, bruised and shaken up.
His lovely new racing bike was a wreck though. The frame was all bent up, past saving. Such a waste.
I was livid, but your grandfather was philosophical about it.
‘Our boy’s in one piece. That’s the main thing, old girl.’
Oh, yes, he got into some other scrapes, alright.
He used to go swimming over at the big reservoir, not Aldenham but the next one, Hilfield, with Tommy and some other pals. It was strictly forbidden, because it was the drinking water supply for the area and had to be kept clean.
But they used to squeeze under the wire fence anyway.
They’d either swim, or build rafts from old oil drums and go paddling, playing at pirates or battleships or goodness knows what. He’d been brought home in disgrace more than once.
Well, one time when he was out, the sky grew dark, and the most terrific thunderstorm lashed Elstree. The windows shook.
No Christopher.
Ada Hooper from up the road rang to tell us that she’d seen some boys on Hilfield just before the storm broke. Larking around on a raft.
Of course, we knew that your Dad would be involved. We were terrified for him, imagined him being struck by lightning and killed. Or drowned, because it could get surprisingly choppy on that big expanse of water, and it was deep and cold.
He was fine, of course.
What else? There was the time he blew himself up. Did he ever tell you about that? No?
Hmm. He likes to keep his cards close to his chest, your father.
Let’s see. It was when Percy was already ill, so Christopher would have been about fourteen. He was messing around in the shed, building some kind of jet or rocket thing.
Anyway, there was the most terrific BANG!
Then he wobbled out of the shed, his Teddy Boy hairdo standing on end, and bits of metal in his hair, looking quite confused.
He’d taken it into his head to do a test run of the motor. So he clamped it in the vice and fired it up. But something wasn’t quite right, and instead of a motor, he’d built a bomb!
He was more careful after that.
Yes, that’s right. Your grandfather got ill.
Percy had always been such a strong, healthy man. ‘A cast-iron constitution’, the doctor said. But lately, he’d been tired and listless, and short of breath. Off his food. Irritable and impatient, not his usual self at all.
Then one day, he started coughing blood.
But I don’t want to talk about sad things on your birthday, Pauly.
Let’s leave that for another time, eh?
Coming up:
This Friday in Tales from the Wood: Back in Offenburg, Pauly finds himself left in the lurch by someone he relied on, and makes an unexpected and delightful new friend. (Paid subscriptions.)
Next Tuesday in Lizzy May: Percy’s condition worsens, and drastic and illegal measures are taken.