The Two of Us (4 page)

Grandad confessed that his chief motivation for appearing in the pageants was the three and six a week he got for doing it,
a Brechtian attitude that his son inherited. As soon as the young Thaw realised he had a talent for entertaining he used it
to make money.

He started to hone his potentially lucrative gift in his Auntie Beat’s house in Stowell Street. Uncle Charlie acquired an
old microphone and rigged up a studio for John under the stairs. As a four-year-old, he seated the family in the front parlour
to give them a wireless performance. Like me, his speciality was impersonation. Crouched in his cupboard, he mimicked radio
personalities like Al Read, Stanley Holloway, Max Miller and Jack Warner.

A paucity of toys made him adept at make-believe. His first bosom friend was his ‘mulk nut’ – a coconut brought back by Uncle
Charlie on leave. Auntie Beat became alarmed by his unnatural attachment to this nut, which grew hairless and filthy as a
result of all his hugs and kisses, so she accidentally-on-purpose smashed it – a trauma the young John took in his stride,
transferring his affection to an imaginary motorbike. Everyone was forced to do a detour round this treasured vehicle. He
polished the phantom bike meticulously, sometimes forcing his cousins, Sandra and Jackie, to join in. They thought it was
pretty soppy, but his ferocious seriousness cowed them into a halfhearted compliance.

The career John would have chosen at the time would not have provided the money for a motorbike. He longed to be a coalman.
He wanted to drive the horses that pulled the cart; he practised with cushions heaving the sacks on his back and emptying
them down the coal hole. One day he overacted the tipping part and hit his chin on the rung under the table. His dad carried
the bleeding child to the local hospital to patch him up, but he bore the scar on his chin for the rest of his life.

Accidents and illness were much feared. Doctors were seldom used, except when absolutely necessary, in those straightened
circles, until in 1948 the newly elected post-war Labour Government brought in the NHS with its free cradle-to-grave care.
People were depressed by the slowness of recovery from the war. Rationing continued, there were some dreadfully hard winters,
and the divorce rate rocketed as men and women had to adjust to normal family life after the separations of the war.

Dorothy and Jack were not finding it easy either. Jack took a job as a long-distance lorry driver which meant Dorothy was
increasingly on her own with the two boys. One day a three-year-old John shouted to his Auntie Beat, ‘My baby’s crying.’

‘Tell your mam.’

‘No, he’s crying for you.’

‘I’ll come in a bit.’

‘No. Now.’

Tucking her Sandra under her arm, she went over, to find his mother had disappeared. There was a pile of clean clothes from
the wash-house on the table but Dorothy was missing, leaving the kids on their own. Rumours of her wayward behaviour became
the talk of Stowell Street. She was frequently absent for a day or two. Sometimes she took young John out and about with her;
he had to lie about people and places that she visited. On one occasion an irate woman caused a rumpus in the street, rowdily
searching for Dorothy because she had dallied with her husband.

Eventually the gossip in Stowell Street became intolerable and the family moved to Dorothy’s parents’ house in Norman Grove.
Grandma Thaw was incensed that they could leave their nice little home to crowd in with the Ablotts. She wanted an explanation
and to see her grandsons. She stormed round to Norman Grove. Mr Ablott barred the way as usual. There was a shouting match,
culminating in Grandma Thaw hurling a child’s scooter through the bay window. The police called by Stowell Street to investigate,
but were won over by Mary Veronica’s homemade cake and dropped the case.

13 March

I was swimming in the crowded public pool and he was
watching from the café up on the terrace, noshing an
almond croissant. Suddenly he shouted down in his colonel
voice, ‘I say, I say, excusez-moi, Madame – has anyone ever
told you you have a ver’ lovely derrière?’ When I shouted
back, ‘Bugger orf’ he spluttered with outrage to the startled
French around him, ‘Good God, did you hear that? I
say – that’s a bit uncalled-for, isn’t it?’

Dorothy was used to her father’s fights, but the boys were not. John solemnly swore to Ray that one day he would have a beautiful
house with a big garden that had a wall round it that no one could get over. The fierce battles between Jack and Mr Ablott
raged around them until, one day, the boys came home from school to find all their belongings dumped in the front garden.
The family was off again, this time to a council flat in Wythenshawe. In the days of no cars, it was a long way from both
families and, rows notwithstanding, the bonds were still strong. Girls went home to Mum to have their babies. Dorothy had
gone back for the birth of both her boys. Jack’s sister Beattie had had her Sandra in her mother’s kitchen in Stowell Street
with John playing whip and top in the yard. When the newborn baby was held up by the midwife he yelled through the window,
‘Yuck, a skinned rabbit.’ They missed all that intimacy, so within a few weeks they moved again.

The Kingsway Housing Estate in Burnage, an exemplary council venture, was nearer to their families. It was laid out in crescents
and cul-de-sacs either side of Kingsway, which led up to both family homes. Like Bexleyheath for the Hancocks, it was a step
up for the Thaws. There were green spaces, little gardens and trees. A man in Daneholme Road had, ominously as it turned out,
been deserted by his wife and was happy to swap flats with the Thaw family. Compared to Stowell Street and Norman Grove it
was paradise. It was the fresh start the battered family needed. The boys began to settle in.

But Dorothy did not. She gave a lovely party for Ray’s fifth birthday and shortly afterwards disappeared again, this time
for good. Having toiled to make her happy, Jack cut her out of his and the boys’ lives for ever. Unbeknown to his father,
seven-year-old John made one last effort to get his mother back. He dressed his brother and himself in their best grey flannel
suits, and went round to where, with his inside knowledge of her movements, he guessed she would be. Their mother would not
even let them in. She gave them sixpence each, told them to go away, and shut the door in their faces.

3

The Adolescent

AS AN EVACUEE IN Wallingford, I had little choice but to follow my father’s advice of ‘Keep yourself to yourself.’ The local
kids hated us ‘bloody vaccies’. We overcrowded their schools and spoke a funny language they could understand no better than
we could theirs. I was frightened to death of cows, sheep and horses and they were everywhere. I walked miles around fields
to avoid them. We vaccies were considered dirty and undisciplined, which the local church school tried to cure by raking our
hair for fleas and liberal use of the cane. My walk to school involved crossing a big field called the Crinny. There were
strange, possibly prehistoric, mounds all around it. Here I would cower until the coast was clear and then run hell for leather
across to the relative safety of the school playground. Sometimes a whooping gang would catch me out and then I would be jostled
and jabbed and sneered at. At eight years old in a supposed place of safety I learned about fear.

One family in particular took agin me. I was a bit of a twitching wimp – fair game in a world where survival of the fittest
ruled. There were a lot of Joneses – a veritable army of boys and girls, all with purple faces from their treatment for impetigo.
I longed to be their friend and tried everything to ingratiate myself with them. I stood on my head, showing my knickers to
the boys, and made daring jokes in class regardless of the rule to sit silently with your arms folded. Nothing worked until
I too appeared with spots of gentian violet on my face and simultaneously had my fleas announced to the whole school and received
the cane for biting the teacher who tried to dip my head in vinegar. Now I was one of them. From then on no one dared touch
me or they’d have the Jones boys to answer to. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. My Dopey experience proved useful. I became
their clown. We went stealing turnips together, playing kiss chase and sliding off haystacks and romping in the cowslips.
The Gileses were never fussy about when I came home, so my life was wild and free. I began to enjoy the country. I lay face
down on the grass drinking in the smell of the earth, listening to the insects and grasshoppers, feeling the sun on the back
of my neck and knees. If I was sad I had a secret hillock where, if I ran down it as fast as I could, my cotton frock flapping
on bare brown legs, my spirits would soar into gasping delight.

14 March

On the drive back from Provence stayed at lovely hotel at
Moulin des Ruans. Banks of bluebells. Took us both back
to childhood. Cycling out of town and bringing back
bunches of bluebells with their white stalks tied to the
saddle rack. Then putting them in jam jars and the perfume
and the luminous blue lighting up the house.

Since El Alamein the raids had become less frequent, so, aware that I was getting out of control in Wallingford, my parents
whisked me away from evacuation. Mr and Mrs Giles had lavished awkward love on me and made no demands; back in Bexleyheath
it was not easy to settle into my parents’ more disciplined approach. In the Dragon Wood in Berkshire I had learned to stand
up for myself verbally and physically. Thanks to the Jones boys I could land a nifty right hook. ‘Blessed are the meek’ had
proved less effective than ‘Do that and I’ll ’ave yer guts for garters.’ My school report after I returned said, ‘Sheila is
a born leader but must be careful to lead in the right way.’ This may have been a reference to my behaviour one day in Wet
Break. A teacher caught me, stripped down to my serge knickers and liberty bodice, executing a frenzied improvised dance to
the rhythm of the rest of the class clapping their hands and banging their desks. A shocking sight at a time when the Valetta
and the Dashing White Sergeant were the usual dances at the socials in the church hall. My parents struggled to control me
and impose some routine on my life.

We began to sleep in our own beds, only going down to the shelter when the sirens went. But Hitler had another little trick
up his sleeve. Well, two tricks actually. In June 1944 the Allied troops landed in Normandy and began to take France from
the Nazis. The same month, just when we thought it was all over, Britain had to contend with a mysterious new weapon. I could
identify any plane by the sound of its engine – ‘OK, it’s one of ours’ – but this one puzzled us. A loud, deep, mechanical
throbbing sound which would suddenly stop, followed soon after by an explosion. These were Hitler’s V-1s that were christened
buzz bombs or doodlebugs. The chugging, piloteless plane approached and, so long as it kept going, you were all right. If
it stopped, everyone fell flat on the floor. We had just adapted our way of life to this when the V-2 or rocket came on the
scene. Their approach was silent but they caused a massive explosion and extensive damage. At least with the normal air-raids
you had warning and could take shelter, but these were lethally unpredictable. So off I went again. This time to Crewkerne
in Somerset, accompanied by my mother to keep an eye on me.

I was billeted on a distant relative who was a medium and fascinated by my aura. I, in turn, was fascinated by a boy called
Keith. I was ten and he was sixteen. My first real crush. I worked with him on a local farm for pocket money, heaving three
hay stooks at a time into a wigwam shape and gleaning after the reaper had done its job. It was gruelling work, with the stubble
cutting my ankles, and horrors such as the slaughter of rabbits that ran from the ever-decreasing circle of the machine, to
be beaten to death by local youths. The things they did to cows were not pretty either. I bore all of it to work alongside
my country lad. One day, sitting under a tree playing Truth, Dare or False, he said it was true that he loved me, frightening
me to death. I ran off in a panic and then, to cover my embarrassment next time I met him, invented a twin called Wendy who
was shy. I kept up this subterfuge the whole time I was in Crewkerne and came to enjoy being flighty one minute and inarticulate
the next. He was completely taken in, due more to his gullibility than my acting talents.

Because of the war and my parents’ work I did not have holidays as a child, but while I was in Somerset I visited my best
friend, Brenda Barry, in Dorset. She had been evacuated to an idyllic cottage on the cliffs above the sea at Langton Matravers.
One night we were allowed to run across a field and clamber down the cliff to a rocky platform known as Dancing Ledge. In
the middle of the rocks was a large hole which filled with seawater. When the tide receded and the sun shone, it warmed the
water, leaving a perfect swimming pool. It was dark and deserted so Brenda and I stripped off our clothes and plunged in.
We floated on our backs, hand in hand, naked in the velvet water, listening to the waves crashing beside us on the rocky ledge.
No dragons here. Ablaze with stars, the sky that had rained bombs and bullets on us, now embraced us. We were at one with
each other and the universe. Like running down my hillock in Wallingford, I experienced ecstasy, transcendence. People could
be vile, but nature was kind.

The Americans were kind as well. I had never seen any except in films, but in Somerset the GIs were glamorously in the flesh.
‘Overpaid, oversexed and over here,’ said the grown-ups, who mocked their sloppy uniforms and marching. We loved them. ‘Got
any gum, chum?’ would always bring handfuls of chewing and bubbly gum, Lifesaver sweets and chocolate. There being no shrapnel,
I started a collection of American badges. These strange people were gentle, funny and generous. They too had been uprooted
from their homes and they sympathised with us evacuees.

20 March

The new President Bush on TV news.
Another
one?!
Reformed alcoholic, born-again Christian, eyes too close
together and very odd arms, he makes me feel nervous.
Seems to know nothing about foreign affairs but then only
8 per cent of Americans have passports so perhaps they
don’t care. John says we must think of
Singin’ in the Rain
.
And Mel Brooks and
The Producers
. You’ve got to love a
country that can come up with those.

My behaviour was still fairly wayward, but despite my disrupted education (I went to seven different schools before I was
eleven) my teachers said I was potentially bright. My mum and dad wanted a better start for me than theirs; both had left
school at thirteen and been pushed into work to earn a living. They thought it worth braving whatever Hitler threw at us for
me to try for a scholarship to grammar school, so back we went to Bexleyheath.

The exam for ten-year-olds sorted kids into streams. Grammar school if you could afford to pay or got a scholarship, technical
college if you were not quite so bright, and secondary modern for the rest, an invidious selection system that blighted lives.
Miss Markham reckoned that I could get a scholarship, but the night before my exam there was a huge raid. When the All Clear
went, Mummy took me out of the shelter, shook the debris off her handmade pink satin eiderdown and let me lie in bed with
her – a great treat – staring at the night sky through the holes in the roof. She psyched me up to determine that however
tired I was, I would not let this one opportunity to better myself slip by. A few months later Miss Markham picked Brenda
and me out of class and said that we could run home and tell our parents that we had won a scholarship to Dartford County
Grammar School.

Everyone in Mitchells of Erith cheered me as I did the round of the counters with my news and then I waited outside Vickers’
gates for my dad. I knew he would cry and he didn’t disappoint me, stopping complete strangers on the way home to tell them
about his brilliant daughter.

In 1944 the Education Act opened the doors of grammar schools to all free of charge, but in 1943 you had to pay and even though
both my parents were working all hours of every day, we just could not afford that, so a scholarship was essential. As it
was, my mother had to make my uniform rather than buy it. On my first day I was more nervous about revealing my homemade shirt
and tunic than coping with Latin and Algebra.

18 April

First rehearsal of
Peter Pan
. Both pretty nervous which I
remained all day. But John is so focused when he works
that he has no time for nerves. He wants to get it right.
Musicals are a whole new world to him but all the dancers
and singers were wowed by his willingness to try anything.
He keeps himself to himself, head in script, when not
rehearsing but when he is he really goes for it and sets
the pace. Poor buggers were shocked to discover he’s
learnt it all – now they have to too. Not me, I am the
narrator – well, that’s my excuse. The rehearsal room is
opposite Heal’s. I’ll have to restrain him from refurnishing
the whole house.

Not long after I started at the grammar school the war ended. The grown-ups went mad and we kids stuffed ourselves with junket
and jelly, with evaporated milk as cream, at the street parties. Our neighbours arrived home from the battle front and prisoner-of-war
camps. My support for the war was shaken by the return from Japan of the son of the Frickers who lived next door. He had been
fond of me as a child and I was asked to try to get him to talk. This speechless wraith staring blankly at me made me realise
there was not much to celebrate. Other friends had problems with the arrival of unfamiliar men in the family. My dad made
me absorb what happened in the concentration camps. I still have a photo that he showed me of beefy women warders tossing
skeletal bodies into a vast pit of festering corpses – ‘This must never happen again. It’s up to you.’

His faith was shaken. As with many people, the war transformed his attitude. His generation had trusted their leaders to know
best, even after the leadership of the ‘donkeys’ in World War I. The examples of Hitler and Mussolini shook Europe. Their
ugly deaths underlined the squalor of their regimes and the unbelievable idiocy of those who followed them like sheep. Unlike
many, Dad believed it
could
happen here if you didn’t ask questions. Exhausted by a war in which fifty million died, no one seemed to question or oppose
President Truman when he threatened that the US would ‘unleash a reign of ruin from the air the like of which has never been
seen on this earth’. So he did it. Twice. The atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed and maimed civilians. And the world
was irrevocably changed.

The enormity of the atom bomb was difficult for a twelve-year-old to grasp. It terrified me, especially when, a couple of
years after the war, my school sent me to a family near La Rochelle to improve my French. They took me to see Royan. I kept
a diary of the trip for my dad.

13 August 1947

In 1940–41 just before the French surrendered, our planes suddenly came upon Royan. For two hours there was hell on earth
after which the whole town was razed to the ground. When I say the whole town I mean it. I have never seen anything so awful
in all my life. It’s the bomb damage we are used to increased by a hundred times. Like an atom bomb, I suppose. You could
stand and look at miles and miles of ruin. Thousands of people were killed, hardly any survived in fact. All this would not
be so terrible if it had been to some purpose but it wasn’t. The British have admitted it was a terrible mistake. There are
notices up saying, in French, THIS TOWN WAS DESTROYED BY MISTAKE. It was done two days before the surrender. I don’t know
how they could ever forgive us. I was awfully glad to leave the town. It had a terrible atmosphere of death. I stood for some
time looking at the white stones strewn on the ground with odd walls silhouetted against that blue sky. I had the sort of
feeling we used to get after a raid when we looked at the damage. I would like to take all the politicians and war mongerers
to that place and say, look, this is the sort of thing you are responsible for. You ruin beauty, you kill – we ordinary folk
are the ones to suffer. Why don’t you grow up and realise what’s at stake?