I resolved from the start of this commitment to sociological and autobiographical fragments not to include/expose my (nuclear) family to public gaze; and this was obviously right. So in recalling once more ‘moments’ from my past I am omitting many vital, intimate and permanent memories. It is often and appropriately said that as you get older you look back with greater frequency and poignancy. So be it: I’m 71 as I write this and most of my life at this point is behind me (a simple fact, but don’t mistake this for any kind of resignation or fatalism: there’s plenty of life in me yet and I’d be really pissed off to go in the foreseeable future). That said, there are enduring moments, and here is a selection from my pre-school and schooldays, some of which I’ve mentioned previously and some of which can be notched against me.
- Under five years old, I stayed with my maternal grandparents in Barnet. It must have been spring. I remember brightly coloured curtains in my bedroom, silver shred marmalade on toast for breakfast, and walking with my grandfather out of the front door, turning right down the street, right again round the corner, and collecting his car from the garage. A retired wool merchant, he was a thoroughly engaging, jovial character, and remained so until his death in my teens.
- I remember my father – there is a photograph somewhere – transporting three of us neighbourhood kids from the allotment adjacent to our council house to our respective homes in his wheelbarrow. Maybe it was 1951: I was around three years old. In all honesty, my parents, born into the middle classes but undone by WW2, were unsettled in Colebrook Close in East Worthing. I was not.
- The gifts I recall most fondly from my earlist Christmases were built in our garage at the end of the garden by my father. They were a fort and a petrol station/garage for my dinkies and corgies (corgies pioneered plastic windows, and maybe opening doors). They were both beautifully constructed and painted. My presents then were deposited during my sleep at the end of the bed. Two observations. First, children in our ‘consumer society’ would be desperately disappointed; and second, and even allowing for nostalgia, there was something very special about my father’s loving labour.
- As a family lodging in East Worthing, one of our Sunday afternoon excursions was up beyond Lancing College. We walked a bit and Nicky, our smooth-haired fox terrier (everyone we knew had mongrel dogs in those days), disappeared in search of rabbit holes and the like, often taking his time to answer my father’s increasingly desperate whistling. But the highlight was the handing out of six penny-worth of Cadbury’s chocolate bars. Sometimes knowing a gift is coming adds to the pleasure. (We used occasionally to visit one of my mother’s aunts in Sevenoaks, and her husband used to slip a five-shilling coin into my hand. It was far more money than I was accustomed to possessing – my pocket money during this period went up by one old penny a year – so I passionately wished we could have paid our respects more often, though I never said so.)
- My first and only pair of roller skates, an intermittent and more or less seasonal phase during a 1950s childhood, much like conkers, had metal wheels. Most of my friends’ had rubber wheels. I was never to fathom why mine were different (were they cheaper?). Anyway, the very first time I tried them on and tested them on the pale green kitchen lino I promptly went base over apex (or arse over tit, depending on your upbringing), knocking the wind out of myself. It was a scary moment because I couldn’t breathe momentarily. My father, a teacher, was calmness itself.
- There was a lampost between 9 and 10 Colebrook Close (I believe there still is, though I am here revisiting the 1950s); and there were driveways either side of 9 and 10. We inhabited number 10. For many a year the base of the lampost provided a wicket for our cricket contests, and the two driveways goals for our forays into soccer. School, homework, maybe after tea a TV programme or two in the house of my friend Kieran (we did not have a TV), then, weather permitting, SPORT until darkness closed in or our parents called time. (One evening Kieran missed the goal adjacent to number 10 and, with a satisfying explosion, broke the window of the front room of number 11. We all ran, disappeared, except Kieran, who fronted up. I remember that. And he got the credit from the ‘grown-ups’ that he deserved.
- The first national football match I paid attention to, aged 9, was the televised 1958 FA Cup Final (a far bigger event then than it is now). Sitting in front of the TV, my plastic football beside me, I acquired a quite irrational commitment and loyalty to Bolton Wanderers that has lasted to this day (notwithstanding their current circumstances). They beat, if memory serves me, the popular favourites, a post-Munich Manchester United XI, 2:0, Nat Lofthouse memorably barging the MU goalie into the net for one of the two scores. I have checked Bolton’s results week by week ever since.
- I was selected for the first cricket XI in my primary school in Lyndhurst Road. I played two innings: in the first I second-top-scored with 3 before slashing outside the off stump; in the second I backed my pace against the fielder and was run out by a mile, attracting in the process a look of startled disbelief from the umpire. (I was also a right-footed soccer left back, though my one strategy was to boot the ball upfield as far as possible – I can only recall actually passing it once.)
- I passed the 11+, which meant less to me than to my parents. I recall my father coming into my bedroom to relay the exciting news.
- Once, in my second year at Worthing High School for Boys, my shyness was misinterpreted as maturity and I was early made form captain. JL was the form’s bad boy (he even scored -1 for a form test, essentially because he only wrote his name and he spelled it incorrectly). I was left in charge while the form master left the room. JL misbehaved; I clipped him round the head; my classmates applauded. I have neither forgotten nor entirely got over the enduring shame! For this unforgivably appalling act, I’m so sorry JL!
- In the mid-1960s my parents took me on two month-long camping excursions around Europe. I appreciated afterwards that these were calculated episodes on their limited means to introduce me to other cultures. On one of the two occasions they rented out our house in Worthing to help finance the trip. I harbour many memories from these trips, but those that spring most immediately to mind are: finding myself well out of my depth when bathing in a lake close by Strasburg and realising that I was too far away to summon help (I survived by my own amateurish endeavours); my father and I erecting our tent in the worst storm experienced in Andorra for 20 years; a dispute in German between my father and a Spaniard who put up his tent very – too – close to ours in Tarragona (which my father won, being the more fluent in German); two tours I took round the irresistibly intricate and eloquent stonework and artistry of Chartres Cathedral, when the knowledgeable and extra-enthusiastic English guide held me in thrall; and gazing around St Mark’s Square during a day’s outing in the incomparable city of Venice.
- I can’t claim to nail down either the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 (unsurprisingly perhaps, because I was only 8), or even Kennedy’s assasination in Dallas in 1963, but I do recall being upset at learning of the Soviet recapturing of Dubcek’s Czechoslovakia in 1968. I was working full-time in Bentalls in Worthing at the time during the interlude between school and university. It forcibly struck me as a symbolic as well as an actual – totalitarian – closing down of a pro-democracy movement.
- I cannot, with apologies, resist repeating earlier accounts of two special sporting moments. They have remained strong in my memory, despite their relative insignificance. They were not too far apart. As an under-17 ‘intermediate’ entrant in the Sussex AAA Champs, I put what are now called the ‘after-burners’ on just too late to qualify to compete in the National Champs in what was then the 220 yards. I was given third place in the same time as my first and second placed rivals, and only the first and second placed made the National champs; another five yards and I would have won by a margin! If only I could have re-run it! On another occasion, aged 17, I managed 10.3 seconds for the 100 yards; and I also ended up School Athletics captain.
- The other incident occurred when I was the only fifth-former selected for Worthing High School’s first rugby XV versus ex-pupils, the Old Azurians. I remember a tinge of embarrassed pride as I put my hand up to leave the Latin class early to get changed. The entire school (had to) watch. Forgive the details! In the dying minutes of the match our captain Ian Wright, who went on to win four full England caps at fly half, dummied and passed to Ron Ladley in the centre, and Ron passed it on to me on the left wing. Forgive me for my self-indulgence here! I came off my left foot to go round the Old Boy’s full back, Roger Quittenton, a Sussex county full back who went on to become a celebrated international referee, then – wait for it – handed off Peter Benson, our school rugby teacher and coach, and at the time a Rosslyn Park number 7 who was captain of the senior South of England team at the time, and sprinted down the touch line from half way to score under the posts. (Sadly, the – I am sure, fulsome – applause of my peers was compromised by a passing Brighton to Littlehampton train on the line adjacent to our pitch.). Ok, we lost 14:11; and I confess that I was considerably faster than I was talented, but I can relive this moment at will whilst accepting that it bounds rather than celebrates my sporting abilities (my father was considerably more talented). It is with sadness that I note here that Ian Wright, Roger Quittenton and Peter Benson are none of them still with us.
- I was made (Jutes) House Captain in the Upper Sixth and, with David Brooks (from Angles House and our First XV captain and scrum-half), was appointed co-editor of the school magazine by our English teacher, Mr West. I remember publishing an editorial or two and a terrible ‘flowery’ poem but I fortunately no longer have copies. I also wrote the Jutes House Notes (one read: ‘We are in no danger of winning the work championship’). Mr West was a delightful mentor, whom I remember reciting Chaucer in ‘old English’ and taking us through Milton and Spencer’s ‘Fairy Queen’. I got on well with David Brooks, and the editing was a very positive experience. Where is Dave now I wonder?
- I conclude this more or less random selection with a profoundly negative recollection, that of returning to school to retake my A-levels. I felt close to weeping and I’m sure others with me felt the same way. Roger Pond (our First XV second-row) was one of them. I later bumped into him on the ascending escalator at Waterloo Station, but we didn’t have time to talk. I was pleased to discover online and decades later that he too became a sociologist, building a strong academic career as a Principal Lecturer at Kingston University. The morale: don’t give up!
Even as I write these recollections, many more occur to me: every one triggers others. Sport features heavily, regardless of my modest accomplishments as a schoolboy, but then again it has remained a strong interest, most especially rugby and track and field. I’m sure there exists a sociology of self via memory, in fact I know there does. But this blog is done. Maybe another selection will traverse the student years.