Bryan Islip's Blog, page 10
January 27, 2015
Burns Supper
The Burns Supper Friday last at The Myrtle Bank Hotel in Gairloch was a sell out. The much kilted throng had a good and very merrie time until after midnight, celebrating the birth of Scotland’s very own Bard.
Our Wester-Ross Burns Club Chair, Ian Macmillan, executed the haggis with his usual savage aplomb, interjecting ongoing proceedings now and then with his jokes and anecdotes.
Founder member Tony Davies delivered an excellent Immortal Memory, majoring on the full sweep of the poet’s life - his mostly hard and sometimes reckless times as well as his death and his legacy.
I proposed the toast to the lassies, my comments, very tongue in cheek, causing I hope no offence. My friend Jackie West surreptitiously filmed me in full flow and has published the outcome with her own musical and pictorial additions - on YouTube. See http://youtu.be/D6vwD4UNWLU
The reverend Pam Shinkins toasted the laddies in response - she took no prisoners! Good on you, Pam.
January 24, 2015
Pastures new, new things to do.
When promoted to Birmingham, the centre of my major new sales territory, I decided that, rather than carry on renting from my employer that vintage Morris Minor I would turn it in and buy myself a new car. With my wife Joan I spent hours poring over the glossy brochures before deciding on a white Ford Anglia; "The car that looks as if it is going fast when standing still" said the advertising splurge. My cars have always gone fast, so that really did appeal to me!
Returning my rented old Morris up to head office in Liverpool for the final time I have to confess to having had a bit of a lump in my throat. Never since then have I developed any actual affection for a car - or for any machine for that matter, (unless you include boats as machinery), but that car with its orange flip-out indicators had been a part of my personal renaissance. Not just career-wise but also family-wise, for we often travelled in it to Joan's family in York, then used it to explore the wonderful county of Yorkshire, especially its coastline. So far as I recall, we were the first in the extensive Wood family to have a motor car. How many people can you fit into a Morris Minor? Lots and lots! To this day Joan's sister and brothers tell the tale about when we were proceeding speedily to visit Castle Howard. Those in the back included Auntie Margaret with a broken leg. As we went over a speed bump all of us hit the roof except poor Margaret whose plaster cast was trapped under the seat in front of her. Everyone but me and Margaret thought it hilarious, and still they do, reminding me whenever we get together.
Then there was the time, back in East Anglia, when I had been driving my boss John Williams and his boss, Sales Director John Gee from Norwich to Kings Lynn. I was conducting them on a tour of my territorial customers. The straight and level East Anglian roads were empty and I must have been doing about seventy when, fifty yards ahead, a woman with headscarf wheeled her pushbike out from behind a parked lorry straight across the road in front.. She was oblivious to my approach. On my left was a very deep dyke. If I had swerved right I must definitely have killed her. I swerved left, braking hard but as carefully as I could and came to a stop with the car balanced at forty degrees over the embankment and the water, having missed a telegraph pole by a matter of inches. My sales manager John Williams and sales director John Gee were for once stunned into silence. I murmured, "John" (Williams in the passenger seat), "Open your door and climb out. If I get out we'll overbalance and you'll all be in the drink." Both Johns evacuated the car in something of a silent, careful hurry, scrambling in their nice suits down into the edge of the dyke and up the grassy embankment on to the roadway. When I got out I went to say some choice words to the headscarved lady but relented when finding she had suffered a broken little finger. My side mirror had just clipped her hand on the handlebar. Strangely there was very little damage to the bike, but six inches either way and 'where the hell's the nearest hospital' would have been the order of the day - for her, or some, or all of us. There were no repercussions, legal or otherwise. But I shall never forget John Williams surveying the scene, shaking his head. "Bryan Islip, do you have any brothers?" he asked, tongue in cheek. (I think I took that as a compliment.)
Having collected my brand new Ford Anglia from the dealer in Bristol I drove it proudly homewards up the A38. In the outskirts of Birmingham I braked to allow a man across the road on a beaconed zebra crossing. Five seconds later, bang! Some bastard had driven right into my rear end. Relatively minor damage but my first experience of the hazy, mazy insurance industry. My homecoming was somewhat less than in might have been as Joan and the little girls came out to admire the new car with its newly bent rear fender and its broken tail lights.
There were much happier associations with that Ford. Besides the aforementioned trips to York we used to pile kiddies and stuff into it for weekend day trips to the seaside. Living close to the dead centre of England we had a choice: east to my old stamping grounds at Lowestoft or Yarmouth, south to the Hampshire / Sussex coast or west to Barmouth in Wales' Cardigan Bay, the closest by road - and our favourite. Off we would go at crack of dawn on a Sunday, car packed with beach stuff, picnic stuff and little girls squealing with excitement. I remember driving across the Welsh highlands past the Dolgelly mountainsides studded with grazing sheep that Kairen had christened 'woolly maggots'. Isn't it strange how you never remember the rainy days? I can't, anyway. Always the sun shone and always the sea was bitingly, shriekingly, laughingly cold. Sandcastles got built but then so saddeningly dissolved by the incoming tide, Our picnic was shared out and relished. Then at end of day the long, long drive home. When darkness fell the girls would be asleep in the back. Joan and I would enjoy the silence. I recall that special tiredness and that splendidly uncomfortable sunburn on back and, for some unknown reason, on insteps. Our hands would touch and hold as the miles unrolled.
My sales results were climbing satisfactorily. By this time I really enjoyed being out on the road. I enjoyed the personal freedom of it and the steady growth of income. I enjoyed making new customers for my company's machines to churn out and making new friends on my Midlands territory in the process. Even senior colleagues in the Group's Birnmingham office condescended to climb down from Mount Parnassus to take notice of this fresh faced newcomer. As we've all heard, success does indeed breed success - and success breeds the confidence that ensures even greater success. There were no hurdles too high for me to jump, or try to jump, so in those days.
For instance, there was an elderly man called Jimmy Rudge, Group Catering Officer of the mighty Joseph Lucas Group headquartered in downtown Birmingham. I was determined to crack the large-scale industrial catering market for my company's hot and cold drinking cups. Cutting quite a long story short I learned that (a) Mr Rudge never saw salesmen and, (b), he always arrived in his office by eight in the morning. For several intermittent days I waited, sitting in that imposing reception as the man strode in, immaculately suited and hatted with his shiny briefcase. Each time I rose to my feet and each time I received short shrift; just the odd sideways glance, never friendly. The receptionist, by then familiar with this fruitless routine and patently feeling sorry for me would call him once he had reached his office then put down her phone, shaking her head apologetically. 'On your way', said the headshake and the shrug of her pretty little shoulders.You can guess the rest. One day he stopped to ask the receptionist who the hell I was. That was the beginning...
Next time I'll write about one very hard lesson in commercial finance from a jazz festival organiser and about developing my interests in painting and fishing and opening my first bank account and my newfound friend the Midland bank manager, Shirley branch.
And next time I'll tell you about the birth of our third child, Robert Henry. It's a boy! After the two girls, such excitement .
Returning my rented old Morris up to head office in Liverpool for the final time I have to confess to having had a bit of a lump in my throat. Never since then have I developed any actual affection for a car - or for any machine for that matter, (unless you include boats as machinery), but that car with its orange flip-out indicators had been a part of my personal renaissance. Not just career-wise but also family-wise, for we often travelled in it to Joan's family in York, then used it to explore the wonderful county of Yorkshire, especially its coastline. So far as I recall, we were the first in the extensive Wood family to have a motor car. How many people can you fit into a Morris Minor? Lots and lots! To this day Joan's sister and brothers tell the tale about when we were proceeding speedily to visit Castle Howard. Those in the back included Auntie Margaret with a broken leg. As we went over a speed bump all of us hit the roof except poor Margaret whose plaster cast was trapped under the seat in front of her. Everyone but me and Margaret thought it hilarious, and still they do, reminding me whenever we get together.
Then there was the time, back in East Anglia, when I had been driving my boss John Williams and his boss, Sales Director John Gee from Norwich to Kings Lynn. I was conducting them on a tour of my territorial customers. The straight and level East Anglian roads were empty and I must have been doing about seventy when, fifty yards ahead, a woman with headscarf wheeled her pushbike out from behind a parked lorry straight across the road in front.. She was oblivious to my approach. On my left was a very deep dyke. If I had swerved right I must definitely have killed her. I swerved left, braking hard but as carefully as I could and came to a stop with the car balanced at forty degrees over the embankment and the water, having missed a telegraph pole by a matter of inches. My sales manager John Williams and sales director John Gee were for once stunned into silence. I murmured, "John" (Williams in the passenger seat), "Open your door and climb out. If I get out we'll overbalance and you'll all be in the drink." Both Johns evacuated the car in something of a silent, careful hurry, scrambling in their nice suits down into the edge of the dyke and up the grassy embankment on to the roadway. When I got out I went to say some choice words to the headscarved lady but relented when finding she had suffered a broken little finger. My side mirror had just clipped her hand on the handlebar. Strangely there was very little damage to the bike, but six inches either way and 'where the hell's the nearest hospital' would have been the order of the day - for her, or some, or all of us. There were no repercussions, legal or otherwise. But I shall never forget John Williams surveying the scene, shaking his head. "Bryan Islip, do you have any brothers?" he asked, tongue in cheek. (I think I took that as a compliment.)
Having collected my brand new Ford Anglia from the dealer in Bristol I drove it proudly homewards up the A38. In the outskirts of Birmingham I braked to allow a man across the road on a beaconed zebra crossing. Five seconds later, bang! Some bastard had driven right into my rear end. Relatively minor damage but my first experience of the hazy, mazy insurance industry. My homecoming was somewhat less than in might have been as Joan and the little girls came out to admire the new car with its newly bent rear fender and its broken tail lights.
There were much happier associations with that Ford. Besides the aforementioned trips to York we used to pile kiddies and stuff into it for weekend day trips to the seaside. Living close to the dead centre of England we had a choice: east to my old stamping grounds at Lowestoft or Yarmouth, south to the Hampshire / Sussex coast or west to Barmouth in Wales' Cardigan Bay, the closest by road - and our favourite. Off we would go at crack of dawn on a Sunday, car packed with beach stuff, picnic stuff and little girls squealing with excitement. I remember driving across the Welsh highlands past the Dolgelly mountainsides studded with grazing sheep that Kairen had christened 'woolly maggots'. Isn't it strange how you never remember the rainy days? I can't, anyway. Always the sun shone and always the sea was bitingly, shriekingly, laughingly cold. Sandcastles got built but then so saddeningly dissolved by the incoming tide, Our picnic was shared out and relished. Then at end of day the long, long drive home. When darkness fell the girls would be asleep in the back. Joan and I would enjoy the silence. I recall that special tiredness and that splendidly uncomfortable sunburn on back and, for some unknown reason, on insteps. Our hands would touch and hold as the miles unrolled.
My sales results were climbing satisfactorily. By this time I really enjoyed being out on the road. I enjoyed the personal freedom of it and the steady growth of income. I enjoyed making new customers for my company's machines to churn out and making new friends on my Midlands territory in the process. Even senior colleagues in the Group's Birnmingham office condescended to climb down from Mount Parnassus to take notice of this fresh faced newcomer. As we've all heard, success does indeed breed success - and success breeds the confidence that ensures even greater success. There were no hurdles too high for me to jump, or try to jump, so in those days.
For instance, there was an elderly man called Jimmy Rudge, Group Catering Officer of the mighty Joseph Lucas Group headquartered in downtown Birmingham. I was determined to crack the large-scale industrial catering market for my company's hot and cold drinking cups. Cutting quite a long story short I learned that (a) Mr Rudge never saw salesmen and, (b), he always arrived in his office by eight in the morning. For several intermittent days I waited, sitting in that imposing reception as the man strode in, immaculately suited and hatted with his shiny briefcase. Each time I rose to my feet and each time I received short shrift; just the odd sideways glance, never friendly. The receptionist, by then familiar with this fruitless routine and patently feeling sorry for me would call him once he had reached his office then put down her phone, shaking her head apologetically. 'On your way', said the headshake and the shrug of her pretty little shoulders.You can guess the rest. One day he stopped to ask the receptionist who the hell I was. That was the beginning...
Next time I'll write about one very hard lesson in commercial finance from a jazz festival organiser and about developing my interests in painting and fishing and opening my first bank account and my newfound friend the Midland bank manager, Shirley branch.
And next time I'll tell you about the birth of our third child, Robert Henry. It's a boy! After the two girls, such excitement .
January 19, 2015
Onwards and upwards
1960: then came my first day out as a fully fledged, professional, industrial salesman, the start of that long, long road. Joan had made sure of my sartorial appearance. She straightened my collar, kissed me goodbye and wished me (us) good luck. Being a Yorkshire lass there were no tears, just a real, well concealed confidence in the young man who had little of his own. We both knew the importance to us of this new beginning.
Armed with a classified telephone book, a briefcase full of samples and price lists and a heart full of fear and hope (in that order) I caught the early train from Cambridge to Bury St Edmunds. There had been some kind of enquiry from a brewery called Greene King, so at least I knew for whom to ask. In those days breweries often handled the catering arrangements at outside events: point to points, fetes, folk or jazz festivals, etc. I had rehearsed and rehearsed my opening gambit. No problems. So why did I walk right past that brewery office door - and then back again and then back again? Eventually I took the necessary deep breath and went in. The receptionist looked at my card with weary scepticism and picked up her phone, but instead of inviting me into his office, the source of the enquiry walked down to see me right there in reception. Trouble was, he couldn't remember anything about why he'd responded to our advertisement. It was clear he had no interest anyway. 'Sorry about that', he said, 'But thanks for coming by.'
'Never let your crest fall', Tommy Salisbury had advised, but mine damn near did at that point. I turned to leave but just in time remembered another of Tommy's dictums;. 'It's the bloody sample, Bryan,' he'd told me. 'Get it into his hand. Bugger won't want it and won't know what to do with it or with you but that thing could be a damn sight more interesting to him than you are.' I thrust my sample at the buyer, a waxed paper cup made and printed by our principals in the U.S.A. with a rather great design featuring ears of barley. Bear in mind that in 1960 a disposable drinking cup of any kind was still a virtual unknown. The buyer looked at my sample in silence, turning it this way and that, then, 'Fancy a cup of tea?' he asked. 'Let's go up to the office'. I was in! We sat there chatting for a little while, mostly about the minutae of life and sometimes about business and, right at the end, about my products, my company and the sample. A year later I got my first order - a large one - from that man at Greene King.
All these years later, now that the gates are open the memories come flooding back. As I recall, whilst orders didn't ever come easily, steady sales were being made as my confidence grew. Such progress was made in spite of my having to use only public transport to get around that enormous territory (a territory known throughout commercial UK, by the way, as the salesman's graveyard.) But having been runner-up in a new accounts sales competition (I went into every dentist in Norwich, selling little pleated water cups) I was clearly being noticed at Head Office.One day, 'How would you like a Morris Minor?' asked my boss, and before I could tell him I'd like it as much as would a fish without water like to swim he added; 'The company has an unused one. We'll rent it you if you like.' At that moment I was phoning in a new order, standing in a be-puddled phone box with rain and wind-lashed cracked window panes on Clacton-on-sea's sea front. My macintosh was soaked through and through. I tried to be not overly excited; 'Yes, sounds good to me, Mr Williams,' I mumbled; 'How much a month will it cost me?'
Our flat of course had no telephone so I had to wait til I got home to give Joan the news. As I burst in she was bottle feeding baby Julie. My Joan Margaret was never easily or overtly excitable. 'Will we be able to use the car for other than business then, Bryan?' I nodded. 'Of course, we just have to find the petrol money.' She put down baby Julie, gave me a great big hug and a laughing, promisary kiss. Five years old Karen Jane, sensing the good news, skipped around and around that gas-fire heated, meter fed, tiny little living room. 'Take off those wet things and sit yourself down,' said my wife. 'Dinner's not started yet. I'm off to get fish and chips to celebrate.'
''Let's push out the boat,' I said. 'Get mushy peas as well, and a large Vimto, OK?' Karen squealed with delight.
'All right, I will. Karen, you coming with me?' Joan said. 'We'll be able to go and see your nan and grandad in York, soon as daddy get's time off.'
Daddy neither wanted nor needed time off although he did grudgingly take some in time. I guess I was well and truly hooked. To my own surprise I proved to be intensely competitive. The more orders I won and the more plaudits I attracted, the more I wanted. Some of my early, East Anglian landmark successes included, Campbell's soups - a million small sampling cups, Seaman's Dairy double waxed cups for cream (the buyer was that rarity in my experience, a really rude person) and Wicksteed Village theme park - half a million specially printed hot and cold drink cups. It was that last order that won me a sales competition and probably secured my promotion. But my favourite order off that first territory was for fifty thousand hot cups at Jack's Hill Cafe, the most well-known transport cafe on the A1, a pull-over always busy with trunk drivers and commercials like me. The owner was a classic harridan of a loud blonde, well-build lady, as famous from south to north as were her all day / all night breakfasts. I went in for my lunch and afterwards sought her out to pitch my case for paper hot and cold drinking cups. She turned me down out of hand but not without kindness. 'Our lorry drivers don't want those things, son,' she said. ''Pint china mugs is what they're used to for their tea.'
Sitting outside in my Morris Minor I used the crayon set and writing paper that I always carried to create a design based on the Jack's Hill Cafe sign above its door. I cut out my sketch, stuck it on a cup and went back in. I think she had taken something of a shine to this persistent young man, or felt sorry for him - I hope the former. I explained that it wasn't the long distance drivers but the holiday motorists to whom the advertising might work for her - plus no washing up of course. She ordered fifty thousand hot and twenty thousand cold cups, specially printed. It was my first real understanding of the power - and the potential for me and my company - of design and print.
Every year Lily Cups held a sales conference culminating in a grand dinner at Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel. To my utter astonishment and not without some raised eyebrows from my fellow sales guys I was seated on the top table between DRG Group MD Lloyd Robinson and my own Lily Cups MD Bob Taylor. I well remember two things about that dinner. First, Lloyd Robinson's speech. He stood up. Silence fell, then, 'This is the only time in my life,' he uttered, 'When I have turned my back on a naked lady.' More silence, this time of the stunned variety, before the penny dropped. Behind him stood a marble statue of Venus.
The second thing was Lloyd Robinson's habit of picking out individuals in his speeches, for better, best or worse. At one point, turning to look down on the seated Bryan Islip this leader of one of Europe's most important packaging groups quoted from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; 'And I think young Cassius hath that mean and hungry look', he said. I probably did, at barely eleven stones in weight and over six feet in height.
The next day I was offered the company's Midlands territory based in Birmingham. It was the territory with the largest sales revenue, the incumbent Bill Davies having decided to retire to head office. The company would use its influence with the Bristol & West Building Society to ensure I got a hundred percent mortgage.
Within a month I had bought the semi-detached 121 Yarningale Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham and moved in with Joan and our two little daughters and absolutely minimal furniture but also with absolutely every happiness and the real prospect of prosperity.
My first day out on that new territory I drove through the city up to the top of Dudley Hill where I parked outside the zoo. I got out and breathed in. The air may have been smoke laden but for me it was the wine of a promised land. My land. Spread out before me for miles and miles and miles lay the the heavily industrialised black country. I remember so well the feeling that morning. This was my new Kingdom. Mine to conquer not just for myself or ourselves but for my Company and for the father who seemed to have forgotten - or not wanted to know about - our existence and for my mother who I had not seen or heard of for seventeen long years. None of it mattered except this, for this way my Kingdom.
Armed with a classified telephone book, a briefcase full of samples and price lists and a heart full of fear and hope (in that order) I caught the early train from Cambridge to Bury St Edmunds. There had been some kind of enquiry from a brewery called Greene King, so at least I knew for whom to ask. In those days breweries often handled the catering arrangements at outside events: point to points, fetes, folk or jazz festivals, etc. I had rehearsed and rehearsed my opening gambit. No problems. So why did I walk right past that brewery office door - and then back again and then back again? Eventually I took the necessary deep breath and went in. The receptionist looked at my card with weary scepticism and picked up her phone, but instead of inviting me into his office, the source of the enquiry walked down to see me right there in reception. Trouble was, he couldn't remember anything about why he'd responded to our advertisement. It was clear he had no interest anyway. 'Sorry about that', he said, 'But thanks for coming by.'
'Never let your crest fall', Tommy Salisbury had advised, but mine damn near did at that point. I turned to leave but just in time remembered another of Tommy's dictums;. 'It's the bloody sample, Bryan,' he'd told me. 'Get it into his hand. Bugger won't want it and won't know what to do with it or with you but that thing could be a damn sight more interesting to him than you are.' I thrust my sample at the buyer, a waxed paper cup made and printed by our principals in the U.S.A. with a rather great design featuring ears of barley. Bear in mind that in 1960 a disposable drinking cup of any kind was still a virtual unknown. The buyer looked at my sample in silence, turning it this way and that, then, 'Fancy a cup of tea?' he asked. 'Let's go up to the office'. I was in! We sat there chatting for a little while, mostly about the minutae of life and sometimes about business and, right at the end, about my products, my company and the sample. A year later I got my first order - a large one - from that man at Greene King.
All these years later, now that the gates are open the memories come flooding back. As I recall, whilst orders didn't ever come easily, steady sales were being made as my confidence grew. Such progress was made in spite of my having to use only public transport to get around that enormous territory (a territory known throughout commercial UK, by the way, as the salesman's graveyard.) But having been runner-up in a new accounts sales competition (I went into every dentist in Norwich, selling little pleated water cups) I was clearly being noticed at Head Office.One day, 'How would you like a Morris Minor?' asked my boss, and before I could tell him I'd like it as much as would a fish without water like to swim he added; 'The company has an unused one. We'll rent it you if you like.' At that moment I was phoning in a new order, standing in a be-puddled phone box with rain and wind-lashed cracked window panes on Clacton-on-sea's sea front. My macintosh was soaked through and through. I tried to be not overly excited; 'Yes, sounds good to me, Mr Williams,' I mumbled; 'How much a month will it cost me?'
Our flat of course had no telephone so I had to wait til I got home to give Joan the news. As I burst in she was bottle feeding baby Julie. My Joan Margaret was never easily or overtly excitable. 'Will we be able to use the car for other than business then, Bryan?' I nodded. 'Of course, we just have to find the petrol money.' She put down baby Julie, gave me a great big hug and a laughing, promisary kiss. Five years old Karen Jane, sensing the good news, skipped around and around that gas-fire heated, meter fed, tiny little living room. 'Take off those wet things and sit yourself down,' said my wife. 'Dinner's not started yet. I'm off to get fish and chips to celebrate.'
''Let's push out the boat,' I said. 'Get mushy peas as well, and a large Vimto, OK?' Karen squealed with delight.
'All right, I will. Karen, you coming with me?' Joan said. 'We'll be able to go and see your nan and grandad in York, soon as daddy get's time off.'
Daddy neither wanted nor needed time off although he did grudgingly take some in time. I guess I was well and truly hooked. To my own surprise I proved to be intensely competitive. The more orders I won and the more plaudits I attracted, the more I wanted. Some of my early, East Anglian landmark successes included, Campbell's soups - a million small sampling cups, Seaman's Dairy double waxed cups for cream (the buyer was that rarity in my experience, a really rude person) and Wicksteed Village theme park - half a million specially printed hot and cold drink cups. It was that last order that won me a sales competition and probably secured my promotion. But my favourite order off that first territory was for fifty thousand hot cups at Jack's Hill Cafe, the most well-known transport cafe on the A1, a pull-over always busy with trunk drivers and commercials like me. The owner was a classic harridan of a loud blonde, well-build lady, as famous from south to north as were her all day / all night breakfasts. I went in for my lunch and afterwards sought her out to pitch my case for paper hot and cold drinking cups. She turned me down out of hand but not without kindness. 'Our lorry drivers don't want those things, son,' she said. ''Pint china mugs is what they're used to for their tea.'
Sitting outside in my Morris Minor I used the crayon set and writing paper that I always carried to create a design based on the Jack's Hill Cafe sign above its door. I cut out my sketch, stuck it on a cup and went back in. I think she had taken something of a shine to this persistent young man, or felt sorry for him - I hope the former. I explained that it wasn't the long distance drivers but the holiday motorists to whom the advertising might work for her - plus no washing up of course. She ordered fifty thousand hot and twenty thousand cold cups, specially printed. It was my first real understanding of the power - and the potential for me and my company - of design and print.
Every year Lily Cups held a sales conference culminating in a grand dinner at Liverpool's Adelphi Hotel. To my utter astonishment and not without some raised eyebrows from my fellow sales guys I was seated on the top table between DRG Group MD Lloyd Robinson and my own Lily Cups MD Bob Taylor. I well remember two things about that dinner. First, Lloyd Robinson's speech. He stood up. Silence fell, then, 'This is the only time in my life,' he uttered, 'When I have turned my back on a naked lady.' More silence, this time of the stunned variety, before the penny dropped. Behind him stood a marble statue of Venus.
The second thing was Lloyd Robinson's habit of picking out individuals in his speeches, for better, best or worse. At one point, turning to look down on the seated Bryan Islip this leader of one of Europe's most important packaging groups quoted from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; 'And I think young Cassius hath that mean and hungry look', he said. I probably did, at barely eleven stones in weight and over six feet in height.
The next day I was offered the company's Midlands territory based in Birmingham. It was the territory with the largest sales revenue, the incumbent Bill Davies having decided to retire to head office. The company would use its influence with the Bristol & West Building Society to ensure I got a hundred percent mortgage.
Within a month I had bought the semi-detached 121 Yarningale Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham and moved in with Joan and our two little daughters and absolutely minimal furniture but also with absolutely every happiness and the real prospect of prosperity.
My first day out on that new territory I drove through the city up to the top of Dudley Hill where I parked outside the zoo. I got out and breathed in. The air may have been smoke laden but for me it was the wine of a promised land. My land. Spread out before me for miles and miles and miles lay the the heavily industrialised black country. I remember so well the feeling that morning. This was my new Kingdom. Mine to conquer not just for myself or ourselves but for my Company and for the father who seemed to have forgotten - or not wanted to know about - our existence and for my mother who I had not seen or heard of for seventeen long years. None of it mattered except this, for this way my Kingdom.
January 17, 2015
New arrival, new employment
Pretty little four years old Karen Jane acquired an equally pretty baby sister on 17th July 1959. We were still living in our furnished flat in Bateman Street, Cambridge at the time, but I was undergoing product and sales training in Liverpool with my new employer, Lily Cups and Containers (England) Ltd. Having arrived home for the weekend after a long rail journey our friendly neighbour, who was looking after Karen, told me Joan was in the maternity hospital. I rushed over just in time to greet the new arrival, in almost if not quite in as dishevelled a state as as when I'd greeted our first born in Newmarket. Picking up my new daughter I recall the exquisite smell of her, saw with some pride the post natal strain and happiness on the face of my twenty four years old wife.We called our newborn Julie Elaine. She was perfect, not simply in looks but in personality. Always the trace of a smile, so often that happy-making baby gurgle.
Living in a furnished rental and now with a wife and two offspring to support I really needed to get my newfound career into fast forward, so I did my best to learn fast. Having finished the head office / factory training the sales director sent me out on the road with a sequence of territory salesmen. I spent a week each with Ian Rowatt in Scotland, Harry Wilson in Lancashire, Brian Thomas in Yorkshire, George Mercer in London, Jack Snelgrove in the West Country and Bill Davies in the Midland Counties. Fifty four years have gone by since then so I'm genuinely amazed to find I can remember all the names of these new colleagues - as well as much of what they taught me. We all became friends, a single team. The older and the younger, the experienced and the beginner, we were all in it together. New company, new products, new markets, new horizons. I felt like Christopher Columbus must have felt on first viewing the promised land.
One conversation I so well recall when during those training weeks: Harry Wilson on the Lancashire territory was a brilliant man and a great salesman. He had been a Royal Marine Commando in the war, landing at Anzio with the Americans - for whom he would never hear a word. One day we had been on quite a boozy pub lunch with his customer. Nothing unusual about that. Our conversation in his car afterwards went something like this ...
Harry: Bryan, you're not a drinker, are you?
Me: (head spinning but not wishing to deny it): Not really Harry
Harry: Well, you're just going to have to learn. You have to drink at the same pace as your customer, see? If you don't, you'll make him uncomfortable.
Me: Right, Harry.
Harry: But never drink at home.
Me: Why not?
Harry: Because if you lay off the booze those two weekend days you'll never become an alcoholic like so many sales guys and soldiers I know, right?
Me: OK
For years I followed this advice, aided and abetted by both my wives, neither of whom cared much for the demon drink.
I have heard it said that a top industrial salesman is born, not made, and during these territorial training weeks I saw both kinds - the born and the well made salesmen - in action. On the 'born' extreme was Ian Rowatt in Scotland, almost always the winner of our sales competitions as time went by, (myself very often well content to be best of the rest).
Like everybody, at the beginning I viewed the prospect of walking into a business with its strange faces (cold selling) with a certain amount of, I hope well concealed dread. It's not easy, especially for a wet behind the ears tyro. The main driver is always fear: fear of not even being able to get through reception to see the buyer or of being ignored, if you got there fear of being asked questions to which you had no answer, fear of being given rude short shrift and, worst of all, the fear of failure. To succeed you had to gain the respect of your customer. I learned quickly that you could only gain the necessary respect - that is, respect for your company and your product, not just for yourself - if you truly know what you are doing and when you truly believe in the benefits of your product to the prospective buyer. But when you do manage to gain that respect, when you do learn to control or hide your fears and, much, much more importantly, when you receive an order - you don't just exit your new customer, you walk away as if on air. A fantastic feeling - almost if possibly not quite as good as the proverbially perfect sex.
And talking of respect, there was my area manager, Tom Salisbury, a man who, if he still lives would today be a hundred. After my tour of the UK I met up with Tom for a couple of days 'on the road' in my own future territory of Eastern Counties. Those few days stay in my mind. We met on the Monday morning in Norwich . It was just as the seaside resorts along the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts were gearing up for the visitor season ahead. We began our selling in Lowestoft. Of course it had to be raining. A grey and cheerless day for a well-suited, brand new, briefcase toting learner salesman. Tom did the pitching to the seafront whelk and seafood stalls, cafes, amusement arcades with coffee machines, etcetera, me listening and learning. To my surprise, although that first day we (he) only gained a couple of small orders for paper cups, the stallholders, cafe owners etc were welcoming and seemed quite happy to stop and chat. When we'd 'done' Lowestoft's sea front we drove along to Great Yarmouth for more of the same. After parking the car Tom Salisbury turned to me, pointing; 'Righto Bryan, you take all the prospects that way and I'll go this way'. I was once again to fly solo, but considerably more nervous than I was on that day in the Tiger Moth!
In those days every town had its Commercial Hotels for the travelling sales community. Many such places were really no more than sparsely furnished boarding houses.After Yarmouth (and no, I didn't secure any orders there but several prospects advised me to come back when the season starts) Tom drove us back to Norwich, where he had booked us rooms. Tom often told the boys how, when the front door opened to our knocking , the most amazingly proportioned young lady appeared - and how I had stood there transfixed, if not quite open-mouthed. This place was one of the last I would come to know where the single breakfast table was occupied in strict order of seniority, the most senior - that is the most experienced representative salesman taking precedence, and so on down the table to yours truly, who was not expected to speak much if at all. For a bunch of people earning a living through their silver tongues, meals were strangely silent.
Next time I'll tell you of my first day out on my own in a town called Bury St Edmunds, of my escalating sales success and of my first promotion. Birmingham, here we come ....
Living in a furnished rental and now with a wife and two offspring to support I really needed to get my newfound career into fast forward, so I did my best to learn fast. Having finished the head office / factory training the sales director sent me out on the road with a sequence of territory salesmen. I spent a week each with Ian Rowatt in Scotland, Harry Wilson in Lancashire, Brian Thomas in Yorkshire, George Mercer in London, Jack Snelgrove in the West Country and Bill Davies in the Midland Counties. Fifty four years have gone by since then so I'm genuinely amazed to find I can remember all the names of these new colleagues - as well as much of what they taught me. We all became friends, a single team. The older and the younger, the experienced and the beginner, we were all in it together. New company, new products, new markets, new horizons. I felt like Christopher Columbus must have felt on first viewing the promised land.
One conversation I so well recall when during those training weeks: Harry Wilson on the Lancashire territory was a brilliant man and a great salesman. He had been a Royal Marine Commando in the war, landing at Anzio with the Americans - for whom he would never hear a word. One day we had been on quite a boozy pub lunch with his customer. Nothing unusual about that. Our conversation in his car afterwards went something like this ...
Harry: Bryan, you're not a drinker, are you?
Me: (head spinning but not wishing to deny it): Not really Harry
Harry: Well, you're just going to have to learn. You have to drink at the same pace as your customer, see? If you don't, you'll make him uncomfortable.
Me: Right, Harry.
Harry: But never drink at home.
Me: Why not?
Harry: Because if you lay off the booze those two weekend days you'll never become an alcoholic like so many sales guys and soldiers I know, right?
Me: OK
For years I followed this advice, aided and abetted by both my wives, neither of whom cared much for the demon drink.
I have heard it said that a top industrial salesman is born, not made, and during these territorial training weeks I saw both kinds - the born and the well made salesmen - in action. On the 'born' extreme was Ian Rowatt in Scotland, almost always the winner of our sales competitions as time went by, (myself very often well content to be best of the rest).
Like everybody, at the beginning I viewed the prospect of walking into a business with its strange faces (cold selling) with a certain amount of, I hope well concealed dread. It's not easy, especially for a wet behind the ears tyro. The main driver is always fear: fear of not even being able to get through reception to see the buyer or of being ignored, if you got there fear of being asked questions to which you had no answer, fear of being given rude short shrift and, worst of all, the fear of failure. To succeed you had to gain the respect of your customer. I learned quickly that you could only gain the necessary respect - that is, respect for your company and your product, not just for yourself - if you truly know what you are doing and when you truly believe in the benefits of your product to the prospective buyer. But when you do manage to gain that respect, when you do learn to control or hide your fears and, much, much more importantly, when you receive an order - you don't just exit your new customer, you walk away as if on air. A fantastic feeling - almost if possibly not quite as good as the proverbially perfect sex.
And talking of respect, there was my area manager, Tom Salisbury, a man who, if he still lives would today be a hundred. After my tour of the UK I met up with Tom for a couple of days 'on the road' in my own future territory of Eastern Counties. Those few days stay in my mind. We met on the Monday morning in Norwich . It was just as the seaside resorts along the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts were gearing up for the visitor season ahead. We began our selling in Lowestoft. Of course it had to be raining. A grey and cheerless day for a well-suited, brand new, briefcase toting learner salesman. Tom did the pitching to the seafront whelk and seafood stalls, cafes, amusement arcades with coffee machines, etcetera, me listening and learning. To my surprise, although that first day we (he) only gained a couple of small orders for paper cups, the stallholders, cafe owners etc were welcoming and seemed quite happy to stop and chat. When we'd 'done' Lowestoft's sea front we drove along to Great Yarmouth for more of the same. After parking the car Tom Salisbury turned to me, pointing; 'Righto Bryan, you take all the prospects that way and I'll go this way'. I was once again to fly solo, but considerably more nervous than I was on that day in the Tiger Moth!
In those days every town had its Commercial Hotels for the travelling sales community. Many such places were really no more than sparsely furnished boarding houses.After Yarmouth (and no, I didn't secure any orders there but several prospects advised me to come back when the season starts) Tom drove us back to Norwich, where he had booked us rooms. Tom often told the boys how, when the front door opened to our knocking , the most amazingly proportioned young lady appeared - and how I had stood there transfixed, if not quite open-mouthed. This place was one of the last I would come to know where the single breakfast table was occupied in strict order of seniority, the most senior - that is the most experienced representative salesman taking precedence, and so on down the table to yours truly, who was not expected to speak much if at all. For a bunch of people earning a living through their silver tongues, meals were strangely silent.
Next time I'll tell you of my first day out on my own in a town called Bury St Edmunds, of my escalating sales success and of my first promotion. Birmingham, here we come ....
January 2, 2015
Bateman Street resumed ...
I know I'm skipping about a bit, chronologically speaking, but the more I write and think about those days long-gone, the more milestone events seemed to emerge out of the churning mists of memory and time. It's back, now, to Bateman Street, Cambridge.
Before that, one final thought about the National Service concept. It may have been of doubtful value to the nation's military capability but its value to the individual male youth of the country was very great. For sure you went in as a boy and came out a man, all strings to the comforts of home well and truly severed. You emerged very much aware of , and largely content with your individual place in this world and your value to this world. Whether or not you had been subject to much or indeed any prior discipline, National Service's military life had instilled in you that essential self-discipline, arguably the most valuable of all the tools each of us has to live by as we gain our maturity and then live life beyond.
Post National Service, my three or so years in Bateman Street flats were in the main happy ones . Married life and love and parties with friends in adjoining flats and picnics and nappies soaking in the bath tub and walking, walking, walking. That Silver Cross pram must have had a thousand miles on its clock! Of course it was not ideal for Joan to go out to work in a clothing shop but we needed - (wanted ?) - the money. Because of that we had to consign our baby girl to a nursery each morning before work and pick her up after work. She didn't like being left and I didn't like leaving her. Anyway I knew I had to develop some kind of career, manufacture some kind of family security, especially when Joan became for the second time pregnant. Our sparsely furnished accomodation may have been OK - just - for we two plus baby Karen, but it was no way suited to an expanding family. Besides, our USAF friends Richard and Beaulah had gone home and so my life of adventure had lost some of its lustre. Adventure? Oh yes, but that's a whole story for another time.
Ouch! I've just reminded myself of the giant tsunami that overtook us when we lived in Bateman Street. Joan was heavily pregnant with our second daughter, Julie, when she lost her sight. I mean, without warning she became completely blind. Her eyesight had always been excellent. She was taken to that famous hospital, Addenbrooke's. There she underwent all kinds of tests including I remember the very uncomfortable spinal tap. For ten days no change and then, as suddenly as she had lost her sight it just came back. No medical explanations were given and, frankly, we were only too relieved to get out of the place, so probably didn't ask enough questions. Twelve years later, in 1972 and by then with four lovely offspring Joan developed a series of physical impairments. We were summoned to a consultant neurologist in Southampton, there told she was suffering from a condition we knew literally nothing about. He called it 'multiple schlerosis'. The consultant gave us the forward prognosis. My head was in overload shut-down. Joan nodded. As calm and controlled as always she asked him, "How long have I had this, whatever it is?". "Well, it was diagnosed when you were in Addenbrookes," came the response.
If I ever reach 1972 in this series I'll tell you what happened next and for twenty odd years beyond.
Bateman Street: Ambition stirring, this junior buyer of fireplaces, copper pipe fittings etc paid for driving lessons. At the second attempt he secured his licence. He could now apply for sales jobs as advertised in the Daily Telegraph. Somewhat to my amazement I was invited to interview in a large London hotel. Lily Cups and Containers Limited was the company's name. It was a new venture, part of the long established, highly respected packaging group, E.S.&A. Robinson of Bristol. Liverpool was the new venture's factory base, paper cups (virtually unknown at that time) its product and the charismatic John Williams its marketing director.
A week after London came Williams' letter - report for short list interview in Fazakerley, Liverpool 9. I invested what little we had in a new suit, rented a Morris Minor and set off with Joan , (pre-motorway!), from Cambridge to Liverpool. I shall never forget that nightmare of a journey. I had allowed eight hours but was held up at every point by road works or slow moving traffic. Half an hour before my appointment I was still more than an hour away. Added to that, I was wearing a detached shirt collar and the front stud had broken. Joan did her best to calm me down. I stopped at a shop with telephone box to purchase a replacement stud and report my situation to the company, half expecting to be told 'forget it, Mr Islip', but John Williams' secretary must have taken pity on me. She shifted the interviewee roster in my favour and, on my arrival, ushered me into a quiet corner to repair and restore myself. My exhausted wife slept off the nightmare in the carpark outside. I was offered the job! Would I take it? Would a fish want to swim? Of course I did.
The position was that of of sales representative covering the whole of East Anglia and the north western home counties. I was on my own, expected to find my own way around and, of course, had no motor car. Believe me, I got to know extremely well all the train and bus timetables around that widespread territory, Five hundred pounds a year was my salary, plus minimal - and I do mean minimal - expenses. Plus a tiny commission on sales but, bearing in mind that there was virtually no existing market for paper drinking cups and only a small one for dairy products, etc, it was pretty slim pickings. Never mind, with some success and growing confidence I was on my way.
I loved my family, my job, my company and myself.
Before that, one final thought about the National Service concept. It may have been of doubtful value to the nation's military capability but its value to the individual male youth of the country was very great. For sure you went in as a boy and came out a man, all strings to the comforts of home well and truly severed. You emerged very much aware of , and largely content with your individual place in this world and your value to this world. Whether or not you had been subject to much or indeed any prior discipline, National Service's military life had instilled in you that essential self-discipline, arguably the most valuable of all the tools each of us has to live by as we gain our maturity and then live life beyond.
Post National Service, my three or so years in Bateman Street flats were in the main happy ones . Married life and love and parties with friends in adjoining flats and picnics and nappies soaking in the bath tub and walking, walking, walking. That Silver Cross pram must have had a thousand miles on its clock! Of course it was not ideal for Joan to go out to work in a clothing shop but we needed - (wanted ?) - the money. Because of that we had to consign our baby girl to a nursery each morning before work and pick her up after work. She didn't like being left and I didn't like leaving her. Anyway I knew I had to develop some kind of career, manufacture some kind of family security, especially when Joan became for the second time pregnant. Our sparsely furnished accomodation may have been OK - just - for we two plus baby Karen, but it was no way suited to an expanding family. Besides, our USAF friends Richard and Beaulah had gone home and so my life of adventure had lost some of its lustre. Adventure? Oh yes, but that's a whole story for another time.
Ouch! I've just reminded myself of the giant tsunami that overtook us when we lived in Bateman Street. Joan was heavily pregnant with our second daughter, Julie, when she lost her sight. I mean, without warning she became completely blind. Her eyesight had always been excellent. She was taken to that famous hospital, Addenbrooke's. There she underwent all kinds of tests including I remember the very uncomfortable spinal tap. For ten days no change and then, as suddenly as she had lost her sight it just came back. No medical explanations were given and, frankly, we were only too relieved to get out of the place, so probably didn't ask enough questions. Twelve years later, in 1972 and by then with four lovely offspring Joan developed a series of physical impairments. We were summoned to a consultant neurologist in Southampton, there told she was suffering from a condition we knew literally nothing about. He called it 'multiple schlerosis'. The consultant gave us the forward prognosis. My head was in overload shut-down. Joan nodded. As calm and controlled as always she asked him, "How long have I had this, whatever it is?". "Well, it was diagnosed when you were in Addenbrookes," came the response.
If I ever reach 1972 in this series I'll tell you what happened next and for twenty odd years beyond.
Bateman Street: Ambition stirring, this junior buyer of fireplaces, copper pipe fittings etc paid for driving lessons. At the second attempt he secured his licence. He could now apply for sales jobs as advertised in the Daily Telegraph. Somewhat to my amazement I was invited to interview in a large London hotel. Lily Cups and Containers Limited was the company's name. It was a new venture, part of the long established, highly respected packaging group, E.S.&A. Robinson of Bristol. Liverpool was the new venture's factory base, paper cups (virtually unknown at that time) its product and the charismatic John Williams its marketing director.
A week after London came Williams' letter - report for short list interview in Fazakerley, Liverpool 9. I invested what little we had in a new suit, rented a Morris Minor and set off with Joan , (pre-motorway!), from Cambridge to Liverpool. I shall never forget that nightmare of a journey. I had allowed eight hours but was held up at every point by road works or slow moving traffic. Half an hour before my appointment I was still more than an hour away. Added to that, I was wearing a detached shirt collar and the front stud had broken. Joan did her best to calm me down. I stopped at a shop with telephone box to purchase a replacement stud and report my situation to the company, half expecting to be told 'forget it, Mr Islip', but John Williams' secretary must have taken pity on me. She shifted the interviewee roster in my favour and, on my arrival, ushered me into a quiet corner to repair and restore myself. My exhausted wife slept off the nightmare in the carpark outside. I was offered the job! Would I take it? Would a fish want to swim? Of course I did.
The position was that of of sales representative covering the whole of East Anglia and the north western home counties. I was on my own, expected to find my own way around and, of course, had no motor car. Believe me, I got to know extremely well all the train and bus timetables around that widespread territory, Five hundred pounds a year was my salary, plus minimal - and I do mean minimal - expenses. Plus a tiny commission on sales but, bearing in mind that there was virtually no existing market for paper drinking cups and only a small one for dairy products, etc, it was pretty slim pickings. Never mind, with some success and growing confidence I was on my way.
I loved my family, my job, my company and myself.
December 30, 2014
In which we have served - part five
I had originally signed on for three years but it transpired that in applying for aircrew and a short service commission I had re-signed for four. Anyway I had served two years and a half when came my posting from Full Sutton to R.A.F. Valley, which was and still is on Wales' Isle of Anglesey. Of course I have no idea why my senior aircraftman skills, such as they were, were needed on the Goblin engined, twin boomed Vampire fighters at Valley rather than the Rolls-Royce Merlin engined Meteors at Full Sutton. Perhaps my feud with Ingles the cook and/or my passion for that lovely young lady called Joan had travelled the Masonic line between my commanding officer and my father in distant Singapore. If so, they succeeded in killing the problem of Ingles; but my posting to distant parts merely fanned the flames of that young love.
When Joan died after thirty four more years I found in her things a bale of my letters written from my new quarters at R.A.F. Valley, sometimes two or three a week and invariably on light blue Basildon Bond notepaper. By the way, instead of the traditional R.A.F. Nissen hut, you may imagine my surprise and delight upon finding that Valley boasted a tiny room, hardly bigger than a broom cupboard per each of us. I vividly recall the hours I spent in there writing, reading and re-reading our so-frequent exchanges of correspondence. And 'cooking' beans on toast on my home made gas ring. Anyway after Joan died I took my letters to her and her letters to me - which I had also kept throughout the years - and burned them in the back garden; not without tears, for smoke gets in your eyes, doesn't it? I wanted no other eyes than mine to read my turgid, not to say often erotic phrases to Joan, nor to see her more practical, definitely less erotic but no less loving phrases to me.
I recall that first summer at Valley, much redolent of those Battle of Britain news flashes that sometimes get re-shown on TV. You know, young men in flying kit lounging about, reading and sleeping on sunlit pastures waiting for the scramble? It was idyllic. Good quarters, great food, good friends, all-night card gambling sessions, forays into nearby Holyhead, long walks along the empty beaches and, as I say, laying on green grass watching Vampires doing their aerobatic thing way up in the skies. And then, of course, ugly reality. The drone of the engine suddenly stops. We all sit up, saying nothing, watching. I hold my breath, remembering a pilot telling me with a grin before taking us off on a trip in a dual seater; "This Vamp has the glide path of a bloody house brick. God help us if we have a fucking flame out." (engine failure). In a strange and total silence the fighter that lazy afternoon describes a perfect downwards parabola. No sign of any ejector seat. A ridiculously small thud. End of.
That's when I volunteered for the Mountain Rescue. I had been a keen potholer at Full Sutton, relishing the sessions camped out on (mainly Derbyshire) hillsides, washing in streams and cooking breakfast on kerosine fires before plunging lightly clad into the cold wet bowels of the earth; descending and wriggling through seemingly impossible cracks and crevices deep, deep down. I can still feel that weight of all the world upon my chest. Amazing, the sound of one's own fast-beating heart! Although we had a senior NCO in the group I was often given the lead. Then there was that time when, after several hours underground, we had reached an impasse, the pot ending in a pool of water shimmering still and black in my head-lamp. "That's it," said the sergeant. "Back up."
Of course I had to argue the point; "Sarge. I reckon if we duck down under, after a few feet it'll come up the other side."
"That's fucking bollocks, Fritz." was his response. I don't care to remind myself of what happened next even after all this time. Suffice to say it was the second near-death experience of my young life. And not just mine.
Climbing with the Mountain Rescue was a different thing if in genesis much the same. Anything for adventure. Way back after I joined up, at R.A.F. St Athan I and my new friend would go climbing on so-called sports day afternoons. We were climbing a sea-side cliff - in gym shoes and of course without ropes - when we came to a difficult bit. Suddenly his voice, calm and quiet, right alongside me. "I'm going'" he announced. I looked sideways, saw him peel off, heard him hit the bouldered beach twenty or thirty feet below. Galvanised into action and girdled with fear I managed to reach the top, ran to a farmhouse to raise the alarm. He was rescued before the rising tide engulfed him but at least he lived. I visited him in sick quarters, bandaged, much splinted and plaster-cast but still managing a grin. Then the inevitable (second) stern reprimand from the C.O. Anyway, that experience lived on in me. Many years later I managed to get myself into a position on a Gairloch cliff-face where I could simply go neither up nor down. St Athan was right there in my head. I was literally paralysed with fear. My youngest son came to the rescue. I was not a good example to a fifteen year old scrambling about on the rockface like some young ibex. More on that another time.
Back to R.A.F. Valley's Mountain Rescue and the many climbs in Snowdonia and my night school efforts to learn the basics of journalism, and winning the cost of my wedding suit in a last game of brag before the appointed day of my discharge from the Service (honourable I may add!). Then back to York, marriage, money, the lack of it and the gaining of it, eventually to the mortgage and the moderation in all things ... Dull? No. I may have lost a family when I was eleven but I had gained another when I was nineteen - and then I made one for myself.
When Joan died after thirty four more years I found in her things a bale of my letters written from my new quarters at R.A.F. Valley, sometimes two or three a week and invariably on light blue Basildon Bond notepaper. By the way, instead of the traditional R.A.F. Nissen hut, you may imagine my surprise and delight upon finding that Valley boasted a tiny room, hardly bigger than a broom cupboard per each of us. I vividly recall the hours I spent in there writing, reading and re-reading our so-frequent exchanges of correspondence. And 'cooking' beans on toast on my home made gas ring. Anyway after Joan died I took my letters to her and her letters to me - which I had also kept throughout the years - and burned them in the back garden; not without tears, for smoke gets in your eyes, doesn't it? I wanted no other eyes than mine to read my turgid, not to say often erotic phrases to Joan, nor to see her more practical, definitely less erotic but no less loving phrases to me.
I recall that first summer at Valley, much redolent of those Battle of Britain news flashes that sometimes get re-shown on TV. You know, young men in flying kit lounging about, reading and sleeping on sunlit pastures waiting for the scramble? It was idyllic. Good quarters, great food, good friends, all-night card gambling sessions, forays into nearby Holyhead, long walks along the empty beaches and, as I say, laying on green grass watching Vampires doing their aerobatic thing way up in the skies. And then, of course, ugly reality. The drone of the engine suddenly stops. We all sit up, saying nothing, watching. I hold my breath, remembering a pilot telling me with a grin before taking us off on a trip in a dual seater; "This Vamp has the glide path of a bloody house brick. God help us if we have a fucking flame out." (engine failure). In a strange and total silence the fighter that lazy afternoon describes a perfect downwards parabola. No sign of any ejector seat. A ridiculously small thud. End of.
That's when I volunteered for the Mountain Rescue. I had been a keen potholer at Full Sutton, relishing the sessions camped out on (mainly Derbyshire) hillsides, washing in streams and cooking breakfast on kerosine fires before plunging lightly clad into the cold wet bowels of the earth; descending and wriggling through seemingly impossible cracks and crevices deep, deep down. I can still feel that weight of all the world upon my chest. Amazing, the sound of one's own fast-beating heart! Although we had a senior NCO in the group I was often given the lead. Then there was that time when, after several hours underground, we had reached an impasse, the pot ending in a pool of water shimmering still and black in my head-lamp. "That's it," said the sergeant. "Back up."
Of course I had to argue the point; "Sarge. I reckon if we duck down under, after a few feet it'll come up the other side."
"That's fucking bollocks, Fritz." was his response. I don't care to remind myself of what happened next even after all this time. Suffice to say it was the second near-death experience of my young life. And not just mine.
Climbing with the Mountain Rescue was a different thing if in genesis much the same. Anything for adventure. Way back after I joined up, at R.A.F. St Athan I and my new friend would go climbing on so-called sports day afternoons. We were climbing a sea-side cliff - in gym shoes and of course without ropes - when we came to a difficult bit. Suddenly his voice, calm and quiet, right alongside me. "I'm going'" he announced. I looked sideways, saw him peel off, heard him hit the bouldered beach twenty or thirty feet below. Galvanised into action and girdled with fear I managed to reach the top, ran to a farmhouse to raise the alarm. He was rescued before the rising tide engulfed him but at least he lived. I visited him in sick quarters, bandaged, much splinted and plaster-cast but still managing a grin. Then the inevitable (second) stern reprimand from the C.O. Anyway, that experience lived on in me. Many years later I managed to get myself into a position on a Gairloch cliff-face where I could simply go neither up nor down. St Athan was right there in my head. I was literally paralysed with fear. My youngest son came to the rescue. I was not a good example to a fifteen year old scrambling about on the rockface like some young ibex. More on that another time.
Back to R.A.F. Valley's Mountain Rescue and the many climbs in Snowdonia and my night school efforts to learn the basics of journalism, and winning the cost of my wedding suit in a last game of brag before the appointed day of my discharge from the Service (honourable I may add!). Then back to York, marriage, money, the lack of it and the gaining of it, eventually to the mortgage and the moderation in all things ... Dull? No. I may have lost a family when I was eleven but I had gained another when I was nineteen - and then I made one for myself.
December 28, 2014
In which we have served - part four
Weekend life with the Wood family in the city of York was something for me to look forward to throughout my working week at R.A.F. Full Sutton. I would either embus or ride my service bike the twelve miles through the pretty little village of Stamford Bridge into the city. At Tang Hall Lane Joan's mother, a fine Yorkshire lady called Triphena, cooked such wonderful meals. Saturday was the big night out with Joan's father, Ted, her elder brother Derek and younger brothers Peter and Michael - not to forget my future brother-in-law, Digger. In recent years Dee and I often stayed with Joan's sister Hazel and husband Digger. And I always look forward to meeting those of the family still with us and still living in those same houses that each of them purchased on mortgage all those years ago after getting married in their early twenties.
In the afternoon we 'men' would take the bus for the football or the rugby league match. After coming home for the inquest and tea, most often we walked to the Tang Hall Hotel where Ted would play dominoes with his pals whilst he, the young brothers and I would drink ompetitive volumes of Tadcaster bitter beer - 'Taddy Ale' as it was known. But in truth there was no way I could keep up with them. I think they enjoyed watching this protesting 'soft southerner' who had fallen for 'our Joan' as his reserve pints piled up. They certainly enjoyed the sight of him losing most of what he had consumed in somebody's privet hedge on the way home. On arriving, out would come the bit of supper and the pack of cards on the little table in front of the coal fire. We played brag for sums of money we could barely afford to lose - or, rather, could not at all afford to lose - until father Ted was a winner. He was a legendarily poor loser - it was not unknown for him to overturn the table, sending cards and coppers and silver coin flying in all directions. So in the end we more of less gave in to the old man if we wanted to get any sleep that night!
With all the family crammed into a three bedroomed council house and decorum being strictly observed, I often found myself sleeping on a pile of settee cushions in the downstairs bathtub. The bathroom was entered into from the kitchen. Triphena would wake me with a cup of tea at some ridiculously early Sunday morning hour. If I protested the response would be something totally unsympathetic but kindly said and kindly meant, like; Well, if tha will play silly bouggers half the night wi' that daft lot .
But the Sundays were for Joan and me. There were no motor cars in the family of course. Nor were any of the shops open other than newspaper shops. We would walk the empty city centre streets - The Shambles, Whippma-whoppmagate, Mickellgate and all the other historic streets of York. Or sometimes we would take a bus or a train to Scarborough, where Joan's Auntie lived, or to Bridlington or Whitby. In truth it mattered not where, for we just wanted to do things together, talk about things together.
Joan Margaret Wood was a dark haired beauty, slight of figure, always immaculately hairstyled and dressed besides being, it seemed to me, very intelligent. To the best of my knowledge she'd gained the best school leaving results of any of the family. Like almost everyone in those days she'd left school aged fifteen and then had secured a job on the York telephone exchange. Joan had inherited plenty of Yorkshire fire and was something of a rebel. As, I fancy, was I. A telephone exchange Supervisor called Starke (the girls nicknamed her 'Spitty') was her sworn enemy. From my R.A.F. base I would often find time to telephone my girl at work in the exchange. Private calls to the operators were strictly forbidden of course.Whichever of the operator girls picked up my call would warn me if Spitty was on the lookout before putting me through for a free of charge chat.
One Saturday I missed the bus into town and found that my precious bike was missing. Because of the sheer size of that airfield all the airmen were issued with bikes in order to get around. The 'owner's' last three service numbers were painted on the rear mudguards. (I was number 4100031) Undeterred but extremely angry I walked the 12 miles into town, which tended to take the edge of my date with Joan. I caught the last bus back to camp. I was going to be in for it if I couldn't locate the missing R.A.F. property by Monday. We lived in Nissen huts.
On straggling back in the middle of the night we it was customary for we 'residents' to gather round the hut's central coke stove, exchanging our Saturday night adventures. The stories always centred around drinking, fights or girls - or all three - and were certainly a great deal more of fiction than fact. However, word had spread around the camp that 'Fritz' was looking for whoever had nicked his bike. (Fritz was my nickname on account of my German crew cut and besides, by then I had developed something of a reputation. Plus everyone knew that 'Fritz' had sparred with Bruce Wells, the All Services - and future British - middleweight champion. The fact that he hadn't seen most of the blows coming was neither here nor there!) On the Sunday morning word came back. My bike had been taken by one Ingles, a rather large Glaswegian teddy boy and cook. Ingles was always in some sort of trouble with downtown York authority. In fact it was generally conceded he was something of a psycopath, much addicted to violence.
My heart did sink but there was no way out. Followed by most of my pals I headed for the cookhouse. 'Fight, fight, was the expectation. My bicycle was outside all right. Ingles was busy dishing out the bacon and eggs. I walked up to him. "You took my bike," I said. "Yeah, so what you going to do about it?" responded Ingles. That's when discretion proved to be the better part of valour. "You do that again you'll be in a lot of trouble," I snarled. Ingles laughed his ugly laugh. I turned away, my reputation in need of urgent repair.
In the afternoon we 'men' would take the bus for the football or the rugby league match. After coming home for the inquest and tea, most often we walked to the Tang Hall Hotel where Ted would play dominoes with his pals whilst he, the young brothers and I would drink ompetitive volumes of Tadcaster bitter beer - 'Taddy Ale' as it was known. But in truth there was no way I could keep up with them. I think they enjoyed watching this protesting 'soft southerner' who had fallen for 'our Joan' as his reserve pints piled up. They certainly enjoyed the sight of him losing most of what he had consumed in somebody's privet hedge on the way home. On arriving, out would come the bit of supper and the pack of cards on the little table in front of the coal fire. We played brag for sums of money we could barely afford to lose - or, rather, could not at all afford to lose - until father Ted was a winner. He was a legendarily poor loser - it was not unknown for him to overturn the table, sending cards and coppers and silver coin flying in all directions. So in the end we more of less gave in to the old man if we wanted to get any sleep that night!
With all the family crammed into a three bedroomed council house and decorum being strictly observed, I often found myself sleeping on a pile of settee cushions in the downstairs bathtub. The bathroom was entered into from the kitchen. Triphena would wake me with a cup of tea at some ridiculously early Sunday morning hour. If I protested the response would be something totally unsympathetic but kindly said and kindly meant, like; Well, if tha will play silly bouggers half the night wi' that daft lot .
But the Sundays were for Joan and me. There were no motor cars in the family of course. Nor were any of the shops open other than newspaper shops. We would walk the empty city centre streets - The Shambles, Whippma-whoppmagate, Mickellgate and all the other historic streets of York. Or sometimes we would take a bus or a train to Scarborough, where Joan's Auntie lived, or to Bridlington or Whitby. In truth it mattered not where, for we just wanted to do things together, talk about things together.
Joan Margaret Wood was a dark haired beauty, slight of figure, always immaculately hairstyled and dressed besides being, it seemed to me, very intelligent. To the best of my knowledge she'd gained the best school leaving results of any of the family. Like almost everyone in those days she'd left school aged fifteen and then had secured a job on the York telephone exchange. Joan had inherited plenty of Yorkshire fire and was something of a rebel. As, I fancy, was I. A telephone exchange Supervisor called Starke (the girls nicknamed her 'Spitty') was her sworn enemy. From my R.A.F. base I would often find time to telephone my girl at work in the exchange. Private calls to the operators were strictly forbidden of course.Whichever of the operator girls picked up my call would warn me if Spitty was on the lookout before putting me through for a free of charge chat.
One Saturday I missed the bus into town and found that my precious bike was missing. Because of the sheer size of that airfield all the airmen were issued with bikes in order to get around. The 'owner's' last three service numbers were painted on the rear mudguards. (I was number 4100031) Undeterred but extremely angry I walked the 12 miles into town, which tended to take the edge of my date with Joan. I caught the last bus back to camp. I was going to be in for it if I couldn't locate the missing R.A.F. property by Monday. We lived in Nissen huts.
On straggling back in the middle of the night we it was customary for we 'residents' to gather round the hut's central coke stove, exchanging our Saturday night adventures. The stories always centred around drinking, fights or girls - or all three - and were certainly a great deal more of fiction than fact. However, word had spread around the camp that 'Fritz' was looking for whoever had nicked his bike. (Fritz was my nickname on account of my German crew cut and besides, by then I had developed something of a reputation. Plus everyone knew that 'Fritz' had sparred with Bruce Wells, the All Services - and future British - middleweight champion. The fact that he hadn't seen most of the blows coming was neither here nor there!) On the Sunday morning word came back. My bike had been taken by one Ingles, a rather large Glaswegian teddy boy and cook. Ingles was always in some sort of trouble with downtown York authority. In fact it was generally conceded he was something of a psycopath, much addicted to violence.
My heart did sink but there was no way out. Followed by most of my pals I headed for the cookhouse. 'Fight, fight, was the expectation. My bicycle was outside all right. Ingles was busy dishing out the bacon and eggs. I walked up to him. "You took my bike," I said. "Yeah, so what you going to do about it?" responded Ingles. That's when discretion proved to be the better part of valour. "You do that again you'll be in a lot of trouble," I snarled. Ingles laughed his ugly laugh. I turned away, my reputation in need of urgent repair.
December 24, 2014
In which we have served - part three
1953; and so from Liverpool to the Isle of Man on the good ship King Orry for officer and technical training. RAF Jurby, situate in the sparsely inhabited north of the island, should have been one of the half dozen high points of my life. It turned into one of the opposite, for at the end of my, I think three months there I failed two essential exams: 'Preliminary Calculations' and 'Meteorology'. That was the end of my flying career. I was later offered the opportunity for a Technical commission, but by then all I wanted was to put that bitter disappointment behind me, serve out my three year National Service time and say goodbye to the Royal Air Force.
How did I manage to flunk those exams? I've often thought about that. I had left school aged fourteen and three quarters - or rather, been withdrawn by father for lack of funds. But I had secured my School Certificate Matriculation with 'Honours' in Mathematics and General Science as well as 'Passes' in Latin and Greek and 'Distinctions' in English, English Literature and Art. I was aware that father had, afterwards, been invited to meet my Abingdon School headmaster in London and had been offered a bursary so that I could go on to Oxford. Offer refused. Pride? Competing plans? I don't know. In any event, perhaps I didn't take the classroom stuff at Jurby seriously enough. That, and I have to admit to having developed my own competing spare time interests in Douglas, the Island's capital. More on that in a minute.
But up until those examinations my progress had been, I can honestly claim, well abopve average.None of us really need much time or vision to know just where we stand in the pecking order, do we? I had (have) always been about imaginative action, often controversial, often of an individual nature. Therefore at Jurby, whenever there was a solo or a leadership role on offer it seemed to be awarded to yours truly. For instance I found myself standing up in front of the entire station, appointed in formal debate to propose the highly unpopular motion that "Piloted aircraft will become history". My proposal was defeated but by a surpisingly small margin considering I was trying to convince more than a hundred professional or would be professional aircrew!
That was when I remembered my grandfather's response to this eight year old grandson's question; "How can you not be scared, talking to all those people, Grandad?". ('The General' had in 1938 spoken to 60,000 Salvationists in the Hollywood Bowl - at that time the world's largest religious gathering). "However many are in front of you, Bryan," he said, "Only one pair of ears and one mind can receive what you are saying. Therefore it is only one to one. Those ears and that mind, multiplied many times, will listen to you and may gain something if you have genuine conviction and humility."
Another instance; part of Jurby's officer training program was traditionally the hare and hounds exercise. This involved five cadets being appointed hares and the whole rest of the station as hounds. I was nominated as one of the hares. I was taken off by myself in a garry, blindfolded and dropped with compass and map and nothing else at sunset on the Friday in a remote place on the island. My objective was to evade all the hounds and reach a certain reference point without any form of human assistance and by sunset on the Sunday. I knew the target could be only a maximum of ten or fifteen miles away, but that first night was pitch black and it soon came on to rain. I decided to lay low under cover of trees. When came the Saturday dawn, cold and wet but surprisngly untired, I spotted some of the hounds. Noting the direction of their travel I stayed right where I was until late afternoon. That night the moon came out. I must have covered seven or eight rough country miles before laying up in more woodland until daylight on Sunday. In spite of some close encounters with parties of exhausted hounds I proved to be the only one of the five hares to reach the objective, unintercepted.
I mentioned my 'competing interest' in Douglas. Well, I cannot even remember her name from this distance so just call her Daisy. I recall a sort of cafe / dance hall where each of the tables was equipped with a pole topped by a number, plus a telephone. If you spotted a young lady in a table group across the room and didn't fancy the long walk back after rejection you simply dialled her number, asked her ('hello, I'm on 22, are you the dark haired one in the green dress?') for a dance and hey presto! I could write lots about the ensuing Saturday nights but suffice to say that the young lady was very pretty, very lively and a major distraction for this virgin officer cadet. I often told first Joan and then Delia about the final debacle to this romance. Before leaving the island, sitting in the front room of her family home I assured a tearful Daisy that it wasn't the end, I would be back for her. Long story cut short - 'It's not that, Bryan,' she told me. It seems I had been going out with herself and her twin sister, week and week about. Neither Joan not Delia wholly believed this, but I can tell you now that, although I never saw the two of them together it is the truth as I was told it.
So, lovelorn and lost I'm back on the King Orry, bound for Liverpool then Yorkshire. I've been posted back to my 'trade' as an gas turbine engine fitter on Meteor fighters at Full Sutton, twelve miles outside the city of York. There, 'reduced to the ranks' as I was, in time I was really able to find my feet, regain my confidence and establish a satisfying my place in the new pecking order amongst young males of all types and classes. Remember, this was the time of the 'Teddy Boys' with their brothel creeper shoes, draped, velvet collared jackets that sometimes concealed a length of bicycle chain, extravagent hair styles etc. Ah, those Saturday nights out downtown in the garrison that in those days was York!!!! Drinking and fighting, hunting the girls and dancing. And it was there, in the De Grey Ballroom, that I found my new lady, the one I would marry and the council house family I cherish and correspond with to this day. Joan Woods. Tang Hall Lane. I had come the long way home ... Yes, rags to riches in everything but money.
Flying? Well, working on the flight line and with my background well known I was offered plenty of passenger trips in the NF11 night fighter Meteors that I serviced. Often, when well clear of any trouble up aloft, I was allowed to take the controls. Pangs of regret but fast fading.
Llife was no longer about any wings other than the wings of love.
How did I manage to flunk those exams? I've often thought about that. I had left school aged fourteen and three quarters - or rather, been withdrawn by father for lack of funds. But I had secured my School Certificate Matriculation with 'Honours' in Mathematics and General Science as well as 'Passes' in Latin and Greek and 'Distinctions' in English, English Literature and Art. I was aware that father had, afterwards, been invited to meet my Abingdon School headmaster in London and had been offered a bursary so that I could go on to Oxford. Offer refused. Pride? Competing plans? I don't know. In any event, perhaps I didn't take the classroom stuff at Jurby seriously enough. That, and I have to admit to having developed my own competing spare time interests in Douglas, the Island's capital. More on that in a minute.
But up until those examinations my progress had been, I can honestly claim, well abopve average.None of us really need much time or vision to know just where we stand in the pecking order, do we? I had (have) always been about imaginative action, often controversial, often of an individual nature. Therefore at Jurby, whenever there was a solo or a leadership role on offer it seemed to be awarded to yours truly. For instance I found myself standing up in front of the entire station, appointed in formal debate to propose the highly unpopular motion that "Piloted aircraft will become history". My proposal was defeated but by a surpisingly small margin considering I was trying to convince more than a hundred professional or would be professional aircrew!
That was when I remembered my grandfather's response to this eight year old grandson's question; "How can you not be scared, talking to all those people, Grandad?". ('The General' had in 1938 spoken to 60,000 Salvationists in the Hollywood Bowl - at that time the world's largest religious gathering). "However many are in front of you, Bryan," he said, "Only one pair of ears and one mind can receive what you are saying. Therefore it is only one to one. Those ears and that mind, multiplied many times, will listen to you and may gain something if you have genuine conviction and humility."
Another instance; part of Jurby's officer training program was traditionally the hare and hounds exercise. This involved five cadets being appointed hares and the whole rest of the station as hounds. I was nominated as one of the hares. I was taken off by myself in a garry, blindfolded and dropped with compass and map and nothing else at sunset on the Friday in a remote place on the island. My objective was to evade all the hounds and reach a certain reference point without any form of human assistance and by sunset on the Sunday. I knew the target could be only a maximum of ten or fifteen miles away, but that first night was pitch black and it soon came on to rain. I decided to lay low under cover of trees. When came the Saturday dawn, cold and wet but surprisngly untired, I spotted some of the hounds. Noting the direction of their travel I stayed right where I was until late afternoon. That night the moon came out. I must have covered seven or eight rough country miles before laying up in more woodland until daylight on Sunday. In spite of some close encounters with parties of exhausted hounds I proved to be the only one of the five hares to reach the objective, unintercepted.
I mentioned my 'competing interest' in Douglas. Well, I cannot even remember her name from this distance so just call her Daisy. I recall a sort of cafe / dance hall where each of the tables was equipped with a pole topped by a number, plus a telephone. If you spotted a young lady in a table group across the room and didn't fancy the long walk back after rejection you simply dialled her number, asked her ('hello, I'm on 22, are you the dark haired one in the green dress?') for a dance and hey presto! I could write lots about the ensuing Saturday nights but suffice to say that the young lady was very pretty, very lively and a major distraction for this virgin officer cadet. I often told first Joan and then Delia about the final debacle to this romance. Before leaving the island, sitting in the front room of her family home I assured a tearful Daisy that it wasn't the end, I would be back for her. Long story cut short - 'It's not that, Bryan,' she told me. It seems I had been going out with herself and her twin sister, week and week about. Neither Joan not Delia wholly believed this, but I can tell you now that, although I never saw the two of them together it is the truth as I was told it.
So, lovelorn and lost I'm back on the King Orry, bound for Liverpool then Yorkshire. I've been posted back to my 'trade' as an gas turbine engine fitter on Meteor fighters at Full Sutton, twelve miles outside the city of York. There, 'reduced to the ranks' as I was, in time I was really able to find my feet, regain my confidence and establish a satisfying my place in the new pecking order amongst young males of all types and classes. Remember, this was the time of the 'Teddy Boys' with their brothel creeper shoes, draped, velvet collared jackets that sometimes concealed a length of bicycle chain, extravagent hair styles etc. Ah, those Saturday nights out downtown in the garrison that in those days was York!!!! Drinking and fighting, hunting the girls and dancing. And it was there, in the De Grey Ballroom, that I found my new lady, the one I would marry and the council house family I cherish and correspond with to this day. Joan Woods. Tang Hall Lane. I had come the long way home ... Yes, rags to riches in everything but money.
Flying? Well, working on the flight line and with my background well known I was offered plenty of passenger trips in the NF11 night fighter Meteors that I serviced. Often, when well clear of any trouble up aloft, I was allowed to take the controls. Pangs of regret but fast fading.
Llife was no longer about any wings other than the wings of love.
In which we have served, part three
1953; and so from Liverpool to the Isle of Man on the good ship King Orry for officer and technical training. RAF Jurby, situate in the sparsely inhabited north of the island, should have been one of the half dozen high points of my life. It turned into one of the opposite, for at the end of my, I think three months there I failed two essential exams: 'Preliminary Calculations' and 'Meteorology'. That was the end of my flying career. I was later offered the opportunity for a Technical commission, but by then all I wanted was to put that bitter disappointment behind me, serve out my three year National Service time and say goodbye to the Royal Air Force.
How did I manage to flunk those exams? I've often thought about that. I had left school aged fourteen and three quarters - or rather, been withdrawn by father for lack of funds. But I had secured my School Certificate Matriculation with 'Honours' in Mathematics and General Science as well as 'Passes' in Latin and Greek and 'Distinctions' in English, English Literature and Art. I was aware that father had, afterwards, been invited to meet my Abingdon School headmaster in London and had been offered a bursary so that I could go on to Oxford. Offer refused. Pride? Competing plans? I don't know. In any event, perhaps I didn't take the classroom stuff at Jurby seriously enough. That, and I have to admit to having developed my own competing spare time interests in Douglas, the Island's capital. More on that in a minute.
But up until those examinations my progress had been, I can honestly claim, well abopve average.None of us really need much time or vision to know just where we stand in the pecking order, do we? I had (have) always been about imaginative action, often controversial, often of an individual nature. Therefore at Jurby, whenever there was a solo or a leadership role on offer it seemed to be awarded to yours truly. For instance I found myself standing up in front of the entire station, appointed in formal debate to propose the highly unpopular motion that "Piloted aircraft will become history". My proposal was defeated but by a surpisingly small margin considering I was trying to convince more than a hundred professional or would be professional aircrew!
That was when I remembered my grandfather's response to this eight year old grandson's question; "How can you not be scared, talking to all those people, Grandad?". ('The General' had in 1938 spoken to 60,000 Salvationists in the Hollywood Bowl - at that time the world's largest religious gathering). "However many are in front of you, Bryan," he said, "Only one pair of ears and one mind can receive what you are saying. Therefore it is only one to one. Those ears and that mind, multiplied many times, will listen to you and may gain something if you have genuine conviction and humility."
Another instance; part of Jurby's officer training program was traditionally the hare and hounds exercise. This involved five cadets being appointed hares and the whole rest of the station as hounds. I was nominated as one of the hares. I was taken off by myself in a garry, blindfolded and dropped with compass and map and nothing else at sunset on the Friday in a remote place on the island. My objective was to evade all the hounds and reach a certain reference point without any form of human assistance and by sunset on the Sunday. I knew the target could be only a maximum of ten or fifteen miles away, but that first night was pitch black and it soon came on to rain. I decided to lay low under cover of trees. When came the Saturday dawn, cold and wet but surprisngly untired, I spotted some of the hounds. Noting the direction of their travel I stayed right where I was until late afternoon. That night the moon came out. I must have covered seven or eight rough country miles before laying up in more woodland until daylight on Sunday. In spite of some close encounters with parties of exhausted hounds I proved to be the only one of the five hares to reach the objective, unintercepted.
I mentioned my 'competing interest' in Douglas. Well, I cannot even remember her name from this distance. Call her Daisy. I recall a sort of cafe / dance hall where each of the tables was equipped with a pole topped by a number, plus a telephone. If you spotted a young lady in a table group across the room and didn't fancy the long walk back after rejection you simply dialled her number, asked her ('hello, are you the dark haired one in the green dress?') for a dance and hey presto! I could write lots about the ensuing Saturday nights but suffice to say that the young lady was very pretty, very lively and a major distraction for this virgin officer cadet. I often told first Joan and then Delia the final debacle to this romance. Before leaving the island, sitting in the front room of her family home I assured a tearful Daisy that I would be back for her. Long story cut short - she told me I had been going out with herself and her twin sister, week and week about. Neither Joan not Delia wholly believed this, but I can tell you now that, although I never saw the two of them together it is the truth as I was told it.
So, lovelorn and lost I'm back on the King Orry, bound for Liverpool then Yorkshire. I've been posted back to my 'trade' as an gas turbine engine fitter at Full Sutton, twelve miles outside the city of York. There, 'reduced to the ranks' as I was, in time I was really able to find my feet, regain my confidence and establish a satisfying my place in the new pecking order amongst young males of all types and classes. Remember, this was the time of the 'Teddy Boys'[ with their brothel creeper shoes, draped, velvet collared jackets that sometimes concealed a length of bicycle chain. Ah, Saturday nights out downtown in the garrison town that in those days was York!!!! Drinking and fighting and hunting the girls and dancing. It was there, in the De Grey Ballroom, that I found my new lady, the one I would marry and the family that I cherish and correspond with to this day. Joan Woods lived in Tang Hall Lane. I had come the long way home. Yes, rags to riches in everything but money.
Flying? Well, worjking on the line I was offered plenty of passenger trips in the Meteors and then the Vampires that I helped service. I often took the controls, too, when offered.
But life was no longer about any wings other than the wings of love.
How did I manage to flunk those exams? I've often thought about that. I had left school aged fourteen and three quarters - or rather, been withdrawn by father for lack of funds. But I had secured my School Certificate Matriculation with 'Honours' in Mathematics and General Science as well as 'Passes' in Latin and Greek and 'Distinctions' in English, English Literature and Art. I was aware that father had, afterwards, been invited to meet my Abingdon School headmaster in London and had been offered a bursary so that I could go on to Oxford. Offer refused. Pride? Competing plans? I don't know. In any event, perhaps I didn't take the classroom stuff at Jurby seriously enough. That, and I have to admit to having developed my own competing spare time interests in Douglas, the Island's capital. More on that in a minute.
But up until those examinations my progress had been, I can honestly claim, well abopve average.None of us really need much time or vision to know just where we stand in the pecking order, do we? I had (have) always been about imaginative action, often controversial, often of an individual nature. Therefore at Jurby, whenever there was a solo or a leadership role on offer it seemed to be awarded to yours truly. For instance I found myself standing up in front of the entire station, appointed in formal debate to propose the highly unpopular motion that "Piloted aircraft will become history". My proposal was defeated but by a surpisingly small margin considering I was trying to convince more than a hundred professional or would be professional aircrew!
That was when I remembered my grandfather's response to this eight year old grandson's question; "How can you not be scared, talking to all those people, Grandad?". ('The General' had in 1938 spoken to 60,000 Salvationists in the Hollywood Bowl - at that time the world's largest religious gathering). "However many are in front of you, Bryan," he said, "Only one pair of ears and one mind can receive what you are saying. Therefore it is only one to one. Those ears and that mind, multiplied many times, will listen to you and may gain something if you have genuine conviction and humility."
Another instance; part of Jurby's officer training program was traditionally the hare and hounds exercise. This involved five cadets being appointed hares and the whole rest of the station as hounds. I was nominated as one of the hares. I was taken off by myself in a garry, blindfolded and dropped with compass and map and nothing else at sunset on the Friday in a remote place on the island. My objective was to evade all the hounds and reach a certain reference point without any form of human assistance and by sunset on the Sunday. I knew the target could be only a maximum of ten or fifteen miles away, but that first night was pitch black and it soon came on to rain. I decided to lay low under cover of trees. When came the Saturday dawn, cold and wet but surprisngly untired, I spotted some of the hounds. Noting the direction of their travel I stayed right where I was until late afternoon. That night the moon came out. I must have covered seven or eight rough country miles before laying up in more woodland until daylight on Sunday. In spite of some close encounters with parties of exhausted hounds I proved to be the only one of the five hares to reach the objective, unintercepted.
I mentioned my 'competing interest' in Douglas. Well, I cannot even remember her name from this distance. Call her Daisy. I recall a sort of cafe / dance hall where each of the tables was equipped with a pole topped by a number, plus a telephone. If you spotted a young lady in a table group across the room and didn't fancy the long walk back after rejection you simply dialled her number, asked her ('hello, are you the dark haired one in the green dress?') for a dance and hey presto! I could write lots about the ensuing Saturday nights but suffice to say that the young lady was very pretty, very lively and a major distraction for this virgin officer cadet. I often told first Joan and then Delia the final debacle to this romance. Before leaving the island, sitting in the front room of her family home I assured a tearful Daisy that I would be back for her. Long story cut short - she told me I had been going out with herself and her twin sister, week and week about. Neither Joan not Delia wholly believed this, but I can tell you now that, although I never saw the two of them together it is the truth as I was told it.
So, lovelorn and lost I'm back on the King Orry, bound for Liverpool then Yorkshire. I've been posted back to my 'trade' as an gas turbine engine fitter at Full Sutton, twelve miles outside the city of York. There, 'reduced to the ranks' as I was, in time I was really able to find my feet, regain my confidence and establish a satisfying my place in the new pecking order amongst young males of all types and classes. Remember, this was the time of the 'Teddy Boys'[ with their brothel creeper shoes, draped, velvet collared jackets that sometimes concealed a length of bicycle chain. Ah, Saturday nights out downtown in the garrison town that in those days was York!!!! Drinking and fighting and hunting the girls and dancing. It was there, in the De Grey Ballroom, that I found my new lady, the one I would marry and the family that I cherish and correspond with to this day. Joan Woods lived in Tang Hall Lane. I had come the long way home. Yes, rags to riches in everything but money.
Flying? Well, worjking on the line I was offered plenty of passenger trips in the Meteors and then the Vampires that I helped service. I often took the controls, too, when offered.
But life was no longer about any wings other than the wings of love.
December 20, 2014
In which we have served - part two
We wannabe fighter aces underwent our classroom training and 'square-bashing' at R.A.F. Digby, but having done my share of drill when first enlisting to the ranks, I considered myself something of an expert in that department. That is, until Sergeant Nelson cut me down to size. (That's how big an impression he made on me, remembering his bloody name after all these sixty years.) I had missed a step. He called the whole rank and file to a halt, instructed me to step forward then placed his red and shiny face with its mad piggy eyes and toothpaste beery breath about six inches in front of mine before uttering the words that, again, I have never forgotten; "Officer Cadet? You piece of fxxxxxx sxxx. You want to fly fxxxxxx aeroplanes? You can't even fly your fxxxxxx feet."
For want of anything sensible to respond, "No, sergeant", I muttered.
"Did I fxxxxxx ask you to say fxxx-all," he yelled. "Get fxxxxxx back in line."
But came the magic day when we were bussed off to nearby R.A.F. Cranwell, there to say hello to the tiny aircraft called a Tiger Moth and my flying instructor. The good old Tiger Moth was of canvas covered wood throughout with two wings, an upper and a lower joined together with many wires, two open-air cockpits, one behind the other student in front and instructor behind, and a large wooden, hand swung propellor. I have to tell you that for the next six weeks this temperamental little beauty was to drive everything else - even girls - out of my mind. I had found my one true love!
We were to undertake what the R.A.F. called 'grading' there at Cranwell. That is, after flying training and assessment we would be divided into pilots or navigators. Navigator seemed to us like being only one step up from castration. Navigators were for bombers, not fighters, and you weren't even flying the buggers. Furthermore you only got half a wing with a big "N" stuck to it instead of the twin eagle wings of the real heroes.There were other aircrew classifications but that lot didn't even bear thinking about.
Cranwell in Lincolnshire, besides being the historic airfield where Whittle had first, in 1938, demonstrated to a disbelieving world that aircraft could indeed take to the skies without propellors, was home to those 'career' officer cadets who had entered the service on (prospective) long term commissions. My lot were all National Servicemen seeking short term commissions as aircrew. So it was a bit them and us. Be that as it may, I donned my canvas, wool-lined overall, heavy leather jerkin and fur-lines big boots, tucked my leather helmet with goggles under my arm and headed out to the appointed Tiger.
Awaiting me there was my flying instructor. I learned later that he had been an army glider pilot in the war, towed by a bomber over occupied France before releasing and gliding down in the pitch dark to crash land through hedge and crop and woodland with his cargo of paratroop commandos. The word 'brave' doesn't nearly cover it.
So, up and away at last! Unfortunately I had forgotten one part of my pre-flight checks. At about five hundred feet my instructor snap inverted the bi-plane. I dropped a few inches out of my seat. Being open to the winds it felt like forever. I found myself looking straight down on to a tractor whose driver was looking up, waving. I had not tightened up my harness straps as per pre-flight routine. Upside down, a voice in my headphones said calmly; "That's so you won't try to shortcut the preflight checks, OK? "
Anyway he went on to teach me to fly circuits and bumps - that is, taking off and climbing, left hand turn at a thousand feet, flying straight and level before another left and another, then coming in to land on the grassy airfield. The turns involved fixing a part of the plane's nose to the horizon then co-ordinating the throttle, joystick and foot pedals to make the turn. Sounds easy? It isn't. Natural flyers have natural co-ordination but that's not given to very many. I wasn't bad at it. In fact I had more difficulty with the landing. When you descend using mainly your throttle, at just above stalling speed you pull back on the joystick so that the nose rises. At that point you cannot see the ground to estimate how far above it you are, but you jockey the controls until you touch town, hopefully without bumping back up, knowing that senior officers would be appraising your performance from the control tower. My first landings were bone shaking kangaroo hops.
And then one day when you come to a stop your instructor tells you to stay harnessed up. He climbs out and waves you off on your own. You're going to fly the thing solo! The best of the entry flew solo after about eight hours of airborne instruction. I did it in ten and a half hours. About sixty percent of the students never did get to fly their Tiger Moth solo, even though most of them passed their pilot grading and went on to get their wings, either half with the N or the full pilot's.
Flushed with premature success, having bought my officer's kit including its beret with white circle backing behind the badge. I was off to R.A.F. Jurby on the Isle of Man for officer training and general assesssment, We sailed from Liverpool on a boat called the King Orry. The world belonged to me. Or did it? ...
For want of anything sensible to respond, "No, sergeant", I muttered.
"Did I fxxxxxx ask you to say fxxx-all," he yelled. "Get fxxxxxx back in line."
But came the magic day when we were bussed off to nearby R.A.F. Cranwell, there to say hello to the tiny aircraft called a Tiger Moth and my flying instructor. The good old Tiger Moth was of canvas covered wood throughout with two wings, an upper and a lower joined together with many wires, two open-air cockpits, one behind the other student in front and instructor behind, and a large wooden, hand swung propellor. I have to tell you that for the next six weeks this temperamental little beauty was to drive everything else - even girls - out of my mind. I had found my one true love!
We were to undertake what the R.A.F. called 'grading' there at Cranwell. That is, after flying training and assessment we would be divided into pilots or navigators. Navigator seemed to us like being only one step up from castration. Navigators were for bombers, not fighters, and you weren't even flying the buggers. Furthermore you only got half a wing with a big "N" stuck to it instead of the twin eagle wings of the real heroes.There were other aircrew classifications but that lot didn't even bear thinking about.
Cranwell in Lincolnshire, besides being the historic airfield where Whittle had first, in 1938, demonstrated to a disbelieving world that aircraft could indeed take to the skies without propellors, was home to those 'career' officer cadets who had entered the service on (prospective) long term commissions. My lot were all National Servicemen seeking short term commissions as aircrew. So it was a bit them and us. Be that as it may, I donned my canvas, wool-lined overall, heavy leather jerkin and fur-lines big boots, tucked my leather helmet with goggles under my arm and headed out to the appointed Tiger.
Awaiting me there was my flying instructor. I learned later that he had been an army glider pilot in the war, towed by a bomber over occupied France before releasing and gliding down in the pitch dark to crash land through hedge and crop and woodland with his cargo of paratroop commandos. The word 'brave' doesn't nearly cover it.
So, up and away at last! Unfortunately I had forgotten one part of my pre-flight checks. At about five hundred feet my instructor snap inverted the bi-plane. I dropped a few inches out of my seat. Being open to the winds it felt like forever. I found myself looking straight down on to a tractor whose driver was looking up, waving. I had not tightened up my harness straps as per pre-flight routine. Upside down, a voice in my headphones said calmly; "That's so you won't try to shortcut the preflight checks, OK? "
Anyway he went on to teach me to fly circuits and bumps - that is, taking off and climbing, left hand turn at a thousand feet, flying straight and level before another left and another, then coming in to land on the grassy airfield. The turns involved fixing a part of the plane's nose to the horizon then co-ordinating the throttle, joystick and foot pedals to make the turn. Sounds easy? It isn't. Natural flyers have natural co-ordination but that's not given to very many. I wasn't bad at it. In fact I had more difficulty with the landing. When you descend using mainly your throttle, at just above stalling speed you pull back on the joystick so that the nose rises. At that point you cannot see the ground to estimate how far above it you are, but you jockey the controls until you touch town, hopefully without bumping back up, knowing that senior officers would be appraising your performance from the control tower. My first landings were bone shaking kangaroo hops.
And then one day when you come to a stop your instructor tells you to stay harnessed up. He climbs out and waves you off on your own. You're going to fly the thing solo! The best of the entry flew solo after about eight hours of airborne instruction. I did it in ten and a half hours. About sixty percent of the students never did get to fly their Tiger Moth solo, even though most of them passed their pilot grading and went on to get their wings, either half with the N or the full pilot's.
Flushed with premature success, having bought my officer's kit including its beret with white circle backing behind the badge. I was off to R.A.F. Jurby on the Isle of Man for officer training and general assesssment, We sailed from Liverpool on a boat called the King Orry. The world belonged to me. Or did it? ...
