Radio - Solid State Binatone

 As a young child I was a little housewife.  Wearing an apron to keep my dress clean, I played with the toy sink unit that I could have real water in to wash my tea set. I often got wet but I didn’t mind. I had an iron and ironing board, a cooker that my dad made for me and a dolls bed, also made by Dad, for all my babies. I had lots of babies and spent my days caring for them while listening to Mrs Dale’s Diary, Womans’ Hour, The Navy Lark and everything else that came out of the huge, wooden wireless that we called The Radio. Sometimes my mum had music programmes on, like The Billy Cotton Band Show. This was where I developed my love for piano, hearing Russ Conway. Years later, living in Blackpool, my mum took me to a variety show that Russ was in. The surprise was wonderfully overwhelming. I longed to play the piano like him. A decade of lessons and lots, well, perhaps not lots, of practice – I can play, but not like him. I grew up with whatever was on the radio, Light Programme, Home Service, even the Shipping Forecast. If the radio wasn’t on, it was because my mum was playing her records. I was familiar with those, too.

A little older and I remember being really unhappy at school. Sometimes we would have family friends and extended family over on a Sunday afternoon. I wished those carefree afternoons could last forever. I would dread them leaving, knowing I was a step closer to going to bed and school in the morning. It was the same if we went visiting anyone. Travelling home in the car with Sing Something Simple on the radio gave me that awful sinking feeling. It still does, but these days I can give a nostalgic smile.

My 13th birthday, November, 1968. School wasn’t any better but I was coping. My mum had been in hospital and we were happy she was home. She was sitting up in bed, smiling and wishing me a happy birthday. She passed me my wrapped present and said, “We didn’t know what to get you, so it’s just chocolates for now.” I thanked her, more than happy with chocolates, just glad to have my mum home. She laughed as I unwrapped the gift to reveal a box containing a pocket transistor radio, with an ear-piece and a cover. It was a Solid State Binatone something or other, very like the photo. I was thrilled. Tony Blackburn became my morning hero, brightening my day, making me laugh. In later days, with my mum up and about we listened to the Top Twenty together, usually in the kitchen making tea. I would set the table and butter bread. We sang along to Lily the Pink, Blackberry Way, Bend It, Ob-La Di Ob La Da, I’m the Urban Spaceman. I’m sure these songs weren’t all in the same pop chart, but these are the ones that come to mind. Happy times. I don’t know what happened to that little transistor, but I wish I still had it.

Radio is still my main day time choice rather than a silent house. I got fed up with Radio 2 when the powers that be decided to stop playing music from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I only listen to Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the Seventies. When Ken Bruce moved to Greatest Hits Radio, so did I

My Haiku, just to capture a moment or two,

Setting the table
List’ning to the Top Twenty,
Just Mummy and me.

Buttering the bread,
Laughing at Lily the Pink.
Cold meat and salad.

Sing Something Simple,
The end to Sunday tea-time.
Thoughts of dreadful school.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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10.30 Coffee Time, A Very Simple Pleasure

When my dad reached his three score years and ten he must have decided that he might not have many years left, and wrote an essay on the things that gave him pleasure in life.  I can’t remember all the details but I do know I wasn’t really surprised by any of his choices.  Family, food, coffee, maths, chess, books, nature, cars, crosswords, and - the word I skimmed past very quickly - sex.  

My dad loved food - any food.  Although my mum tried to keep him under control he could frequently be found in the kitchen eating chunks of cheese on thickly buttered bread (Camembert a particular favourite - the smellier the better) As my mum had no sense of smell it was left to the rest of us to complain loudly as we entered the house and were confronted by a strong cheesy stench.  Eventually, the Camembert was double wrapped in foil and clingfilm and banished to the lean-to. 

As it happened, my dad had another twenty three years to enjoy those simple pleasures, and enjoy them he did. Every night at 9 o’clock my mum and dad would each have a Cornetto.  If I was staying, and refused one, he would tell me how delicious it was.  Boxes of chocolates couldn’t be left out if dad was in the room.  He had been diagnosed as diabetic, but never took it as seriously as he should have.  Biscuits and cakes disappeared mysteriously with nobody knowing a thing about it. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t nagged him when I was there.  I was concerned for his health, but maybe he’d got it right: his enjoyment outweighed any risk. 

Seafood and, in particular, lobsters, became a firm favourite.  He found that Lidl sold them and asked for a constant supply, panicking if he ran out.  I can still see him with a knife and hammer, cracking the shells, his mouth watering at the prospect of the meal ahead.  Although lobsters were a bit of an extravagance, not all his simple pleasures were expensive.  Most cost nothing at all.  Trips to the library were frequent and regular.  He enjoyed a wide range of genres, from whodunnits and biographies to intellectual books on philosophy and religion.  

My dad was a life long learner, who had missed out on a university education due to his family's lack of finances, and his father's desire to have his son join him in his one man optical business.  Dad would have been an ideal university student, but sadly it wasn’t to be.  Instead, he continued to educate himself, enrolling for Open University courses and thriving on discussion and debate. Most subjects interested him, but particularly philosophy, religion (he was an atheist), and maths.  He would sit at the computer for hours, reading and composing emails to his fellow students.  I think this was dad’s way of validating himself.  He would never admit it but I’m sure his lack of university education was a huge regret to him, especially as his best friend, my mum’s brother, John, was sent off to get his degree (my grandma working three jobs to pay for it) and then follow it with lecturing for many years at Kings College London.

Although I am no intellectual, I can relate to many of dad’s simple pleasures.  I love reading, and guess that came from growing up in a houseful of books, with both parents being avid readers. Food goes without saying, and I also love to learn - but not such intensive and deep subjects as those that consumed my dad.  One thing we had in common was a morning coffee.  It’s not just the drinking of it, it’s the whole ritual of boiling the kettle, heating the cafetière, grinding the beans, making the coffee, heating the milk…….It’s a very special pleasure, and one that I still love.  As the smell of the coffee hits me I think of my dad.

The night before Spamhead suddenly died (yes, that was his nickname for obvious food related reasons), my brother phoned to speak to my mum.  In the background dad called out proudly, “I finished the Telegraph crossword by 10 this morning, and I’m just cooking sausages!”  That summed him up in one sentence. It makes me very happy to think he was still enjoying his simple pleasures right up to the end.

10.30 Coffee Time

Scoop beans

Rich and black

With oily sheen

Pour into hopper

Grind fine 

Savour smell

Freshly ground Continental 

Two large spoons full 

Into heated cafetière

Water boiled

Wait a second

Tip kettle

Gently pour 

Into pot

Stare dreamily 

Through rising steam 

Sniff in sniff in 

Full force of brewing coffee

Lid on

Careful, don’t plunge yet

Meanwhile

Choose favourite mug

Just for coffee 

Not for tea

Pour in milk 

Heat thirty seconds 

Dream of treat to come 

Five minutes

Time to plunge!  

Inhale smell

Coffee brewed

Pour slowly slowly 

Onto milk in mug

Watch as bubbles rise

Let cool for seconds

Before that first delicious sip...

10.30 Coffee Time 

Thanks for reading.......Jill

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Childhood Secrets - Dreadful Child

It took ages to pluck up the courage to tell my mother that I was being picked on and bullied by my supposed ‘best friend’. The tears came before I got any words together. I was only nine, perhaps ten and I can still feel the misery, anxiety and fear that filled my life because of her. My mother calmed me, soothed me and told me the best way of dealing with the situation was to stand up to this girl and her army of followers who were turned against me. I can’t remember her words but I remember feeling my worries melting away and my confidence building back up. I put her plan of action to immediate effect and it worked. My mother had wisdom and understanding.

Unfortunately, her understanding didn’t stretch as far as ‘the lipstick incident’ when I was twelve, well, twelve and a half. In the summer season of 1968 our main residence was a pub and hotel on Central Promenade. On Sunday mornings I would be in charge of my younger sister as we got the bus to our other pub at South Shore then a short walk to Rawcliffe Street where we went to Sunday School. Girls my age had started to wear lipstick for church. I wasn’t allowed to but I’d discovered that Rimmel cosmetics in Woolworths was affordable and used my pocket money to buy some. I kept it hidden, only taking it out with me on these Sunday trips. Safely on the bus I would put it on then on the way back I would wipe it off. I don’t know how I managed to forget to clean it off one day. It didn’t end well. My mother’s eyes were blazing as she sent me to wash my face. I didn’t think the colour was much brighter than anyone else’s, not really.

Then, around the same age, there was ‘the bra incident’. I expected the worst, but my mother was kind. School P.E. lessons had become my nightmare.  A vest wearing, bra-less nightmare. So I smuggled one of my mother’s bras to school and put it on when I got there. It wasn’t ridiculously massive. I’d had a practice at home. The folded sides were held with safety pins and the cups tucked in making a neat shape. This neat, feminine shape was noticed at home when I’d forgotten to remove my made-to-measure bra. I can feel my blushing to this day as my mother tugged a loose shoulder strap with a “What in Heavens is this?” I held my breath. This was far worse than lipstick wearing and I expected a slap – that was normal punishment if you crossed my mother. Anyway, all I got was sent to take it off and to stop being so silly. Auntie Kathy, who looked after my sister and I, was given the task of going shopping for a couple of Berlei Teenform bras. I was overjoyed.

And there was the ‘A Taste of Honey incident’. The film was on television in our lounge and my mother was watching it in between popping down to the bar. I’d already been sent to bed once but I was spellbound. I didn’t hear my mother come back up but there she was, shoo-ing me to my room with “This isn’t a film for you”. I can’t imagine why. I only wanted to know what happened to Jo. The baby bit and her friendship with Geoffrey went right over my young head. I crept back and watched it by peeping round the door frame behind her. I was really chancing it. My mother was certainly not one to be messed with. Yes, she caught me and dealt punishment, but she didn’t kill my love for Shelagh Delaney’s brilliant work. Dora Bryan was amazing and perfectly cast.

My chosen poem takes me back to ‘the chocolates incident’. It wasn’t Moonlight that got the better of me, but a bag of Thornton’s. It was a smallish bag starting off with maybe eight huge chocolates. It was a gift to my mother and I found it, unopened, in the sideboard drawer.  I kept nipping back for ‘just one more’ until I realised there was only one left and I’d better leave it. I didn’t own up straight away either. Dreadful child.

I was going through some school stuff belonging to my grown up children when I came across the reams of printed out My Space conversation. I think it was My Space. It was something before the days of Facebook, anyway. This conversation was evidence of one of our children being bullied online and school had been given a copy. The power of the written word is far stronger than the spoken word in this sort of thing and re-reading it upset me as much as it did more than ten years ago when it happened. It was dealt with by school, not to my full satisfaction, but between us we put a stop to it. A new generation, a new way of bullying.

 

CHOCS
Into the half-pound box of Moonlight
My small hand crept.
There was an electrifying rustle.
There was a dark and glamorous scent.
Into my open, moist mouth
The first Montelimar went.
 
Down in the crinkly second layer,
Five finger-piglets snuffled
Among the Hazelnut Whirl,
The Caramel Square,
The Black Cherry and Almond Truffle.
 
Bliss.

I chomped. I gorged.
I stuffed my face,
Till only Coffee Cream
Was left for the owner of the box-
Tough luck, Anne Pope-
Oh, and half an Orange Supreme.

 

Carol Ann Duffy

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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