Paul Daniels (13 page)

Once out into the street with a pocket full of money and at a loose end, I was once again a vulnerable target.

‘You wanna see wrestling match? Velly cheap.’

Having been accosted all day by the eagerness of the locals to display their national sport, I reluctantly agreed. The rickshaw man took me to a block of flats, which seemed an extremely unusual place for such an important competition. My curiosity having been aroused, I would see this through to the end. Marching up several flights of stairs, with worrying echoes of my last experience of an apartment building, I was led into a dimly lit room where on the floor was a pile of mattresses. Having sat on a seat and paid my dues, the equivalent of about half a crown, an adjoining door opened and in walked three women and two fellas completely naked. Without one look in my direction they got straight down to business with one another. The wrestling match was in fact their word for a full-blown orgy. I was so stunned, my initial instinct was to fall about laughing, whereupon the rickshaw man said that for another one-and-three pence, I could join in!

‘Get me outta here,’ I stammered, with thoughts of the other girl still fresh and a strong sense of unwillingness to play this unreal game.

‘You no wanna stay?’ questioned the little rickshaw man, who in the end agreed to take me on to other sightseeing adventures.

He wheeled me down to the coastline and we peered across the water into the pitch-blackness of the night. Suddenly, there was the sound of faraway thunder. The distant noise sounded like fireworks, until my escort pointed out that it was, in fact, gunfire.

‘People try to swim river to get to Macau from China,’ he attempted to explain in pidgin English. ‘Soldiers shoot men, women and children, no problem.’

I stood aghast and imagined the women with children strapped to their backs being used as target practice. As a young man of 19, a million questions filled my mind. What was so horrible across the water that would make people want to take that risk? What was it that so frightened that country’s system that would cause them to shoot innocent people in order to stop them leaving? From that moment on I became strongly anticommunist.

‘No many get here,’ my guide sadly whispered, as we walked away. Lessons to be learnt here, I thought.

Lessons also needed to be learnt by the third member of our party who had all but deserted Peter and I. Jack was a serious drinker and was in constant danger of being thrown out of the Army because of it. He was getting worse. Having seen Jack spend almost every moment of his holiday propping up a bar, I decided that his problem would ultimately destroy him and we had to intervene.

On the last night, Jack got so intoxicated with the chemical beers they served on the island, that we had no alternative than to carry him up and into bed. I had an idea.

I went back out in the street looking for an ugly prostitute. In any country street girls do not have a good life. In fact, they probably have the worst kind of life, but in the Far East you could multiply that a hundredfold. They don’t have an easy or a long life at all. They have no protection and are extremely susceptible to disease. By the time they are 30, it all catches up with them; they have become wrecks. I wandered around the streets looking for the worst one.

In due course, I found the one I was looking for in a doorway. She whispered to me as I walked past her dimly lit doorway and I motioned for her to come out into the light. She resisted my demands at first and soon I saw why. She was the most awful, pitiful creature I had seen. With no teeth, her face
was collapsed and scarred and looked 90, though I suspected she had hardly reached middle age.

I felt sorry for her and I handed her the equivalent of several weeks’ wages and explained that I had an unusual job for her. She nodded some sort of agreement and I hoped and prayed she would understand what I wanted her to do.

Back at the hotel, the floor-boy looked at me in astonishment as I led the old-looking woman into Jack’s room. The floor-boy obviously thought I was totally insane having arrived back with this little treasure, compared with the beauties he’d managed.

Instructing the woman to get into bed with Jack, it was vital that she didn’t touch him, only sleep with him, I explained. I spoke my most fluent Chinese, ‘No touchee, just sleepee.’ She nodded once again and off I went to bed.

It must have been at about 8.00am the next morning that I was awoken by a scream that shook the entire hotel. Naked, Jack burst into my room and grabbed me.

‘Tell me I didn’t! Please tell me I didn’t,’ he yelled.

‘Well, we tried to talk you out of it, but you wouldn’t listen,’ I lied. ‘Last night you said she was the most beautiful thing on the planet. It’s not our fault if you drink like that,’ I reasoned.

Back at base and in a permanent state of terror, Jack went to the medical centre daily for the next three months and took all the penicillin jabs he could get. It cured his drinking problem, too.

From the moment of joining the Army, I had started a demob map. This would be a two-year countdown showing the number of days left before I was released. As departure day neared, the atmosphere of fun among us increased. We called our state of euphoria being ‘demob happy’.

Just before I was due to go home, the Commanding Officer called me in and wanted me to sign on ‘… for another three months, to fence for the Green Howards in the Far East Land Forces Fencing Championships’. I said no. There were two reasons for this: first, I knew that there was nothing in QRs about a National Serviceman signing on for an extended three months. Three years, yes. Three months, no. And second, I knew the Regiment was going to Germany and, although I had enjoyed most of my time in the Army, I had been to Germany on holiday and it was cold. My old job still awaited me at home and it was time to leave.

In the meantime, I got a ‘dear John’ letter from Avril breaking off our engagement. We must have both changed in the time we were apart and trying to maintain a relationship several thousand miles away from each other is an impossible task anyway. I often mused over the fact that Mam would write to Dad every other day when he was in the Navy. She loved corresponding and that is what kept their love alive over four very difficult years of separation. Mam was a great letter writer but not a very good speller. She would begin her communication each time with ‘Dear Sweatheart’. I suspect that, in the heat of India, it was an appropriate title anyway! Dad kept those letters for a long time but didn’t tell her about the mistake until several years later. In our house, ‘sweatheart’ is an oft-used word of endearment.

Of course, Mam and Dad were already married when he went away, whereas Avril and I had only just started a relationship and we were probably too young to be so committed. A tinge of sadness filled me when I received Avril’s note. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was still a loss.

I returned to the UK on the
Oxfordshire
. The atmosphere on board was one of great excitement, tinged with a sense of melancholy at leaving Hong Kong behind. Once basic training
in the UK was over, my time in the Army had been one of great benefit to me in so many ways and I looked back with fond memories as the ship pulled away from the island for the last time. As we sped out into the Pacific once more, I wondered if I would ever return and pondered on what lay ahead. I’ve always been a fella who looks forward and I find looking back pointless. It’s done, you can’t change it and so long as you have learnt from your past, it’s time to move on.

Christmas Day 1958 came while we were on the way home. The ship was in Colombo, taking on water and fuel, but they would not allow us ashore. Some of the lads took umbrage at this and bombarded the tugs with bottles. Don’t you just love the British abroad?

They must have got their own back somehow because as we got nearer home, most of the lads on board went down with Asian ‘flu. There was general panic as discussions went on with Southampton as to whether they would allow us to dock. They did. We were home, but no sooner were we back in Richmond than we were told we were being sent to Northern Ireland to see our full time out. Another panic. Then some wise and wonderful person decided that would be a ridiculous expense so we were demobbed three weeks early.

It was 15 January 1959, and I was a civilian again. Mam and Dad came to meet me when I stepped off the train back in Middlesbrough and were clearly pleased to see me. Behind them ran this young man who grabbed me and, with a face full of smiles, embraced me. Stiffening with confusion, I hadn’t recognised my own brother Trevor. In the time I had been away, he had grown from a boy I’d given ten bob to as a farewell gesture into a man, and I was astounded at the difference in him.

There was no sense of anti-climax in being home, realising that although I had seen another part of the world, there were areas of my own locality which still awaited discovery. I had a
week off to transfer my life from the army barracks back to the terraced streets of South Bank and back into my old job with the council. It was quite a short time to get used to the everyday reality of life once more and to catch up with all the family news. By now we were living in Windsor Road, Normanby, in a lovely semidetached corner house. I was really glad to be back and to be welcomed home by all the neighbours, especially the next-door neighbour Mrs Goldswain.

She was a real Mrs Malaprop. ‘Princess Margaret is getting married, it’s on all the blackguards in town …’ and ‘my husband’s gone out to buy a dog. I think that he is getting one of them Sensation dogs.’

A huge new housing estate had sprung up, changing the whole town and I was amazed at how fast things change and time is swallowed up. I noticed on leaving the barracks that our empty places were not being filled and Dad told me that National Service had ended while I was away. Trevor had escaped the ordeal by a whisker, but undoubtedly, I tried to convince him, it would have done him good.

Some things never change and it was back to Eston District Council in the same old building. Apparently, they had installed a special machine that measured pollution and with the results were able to establish what the residents had been saying for years; that it was still the most contaminated place in England.

Nothing seemed to have altered at the council building; even the paint on the inside hadn’t changed, but the staff had. I chose to do a tour of all the offices in the block to say, ‘I’m back!’ to those who knew me and, ‘Hello!’ to those who didn’t. An older lady, known as The Dragon, didn’t even look up until I started to pester her a little with the result that she chased me out of the door. Maybe she didn’t like my sense of humour? Unperturbed, I entered the next office and immediately my eyes fell on a most stunningly good-looking brunette. Fashions
had changed during my absence, too, and the girls were starting to become more liberal in their dress. It had become the era of tight mini-skirts and sweaters and gave all the blokes an opportunity to see exactly what shape a girl was in.

I gave my best Colgate smile and, to my delight, Jacqueline Skipworth, a grand northern name, seemed to like my attentions. It was not enough at the time to make a difference, but something stayed with us. That first evening I had a chance meeting with my old friend Irene, who had also grown up quite dramatically and proceeded to go out of her way to prove the depth of her welcoming devotion. She invited me back to her place for tea and we ended up making love in front of the fireplace. It was wonderful and after the experience in the shed, I suddenly understood what all the fuss was about. I was also enlightened by the fact that obviously girls were supposed to enjoy the experience as well. Now this is better than card tricks, I thought!

Our relationship didn’t go beyond the passion of the moment and I soon found myself back at work, chatting up Jacqueline Skipworth. I made sure I bumped into her as often as I could and literally so, if possible. She was special to me, recognising how I dreamt about her and when we were together, she made my heart tick faster. I got so excited around this girl. A very strange phenomenon.

She seemed to find all my wisecracks endearing and it wasn’t long before we agreed to a proper date. The only problem was that her hobby was ballroom dancing. Against all my natural instincts and for the sake of getting as near to Jackie as possible, I tried my best to share her interest. Failing miserably, I was not designed to be a dancer and felt like a lemon on the dance floor. After several efforts where I stood on her toes more often than the ground, I began to wonder why people did it anyway. I suppose my deep, inner shyness didn’t help and, stretching my
face into an apologetic smile, I eventually backed off and waved the white flag.

Fortunately, her interest seemed to go beyond dancing as we continued to go out together, to the cinema and occasionally for something to eat. Our friendship blossomed, but her grandmother’s preferences didn’t. An only child, Jacqueline had been brought up by her mother and grandmother, a formidable woman who took an instant dislike to me. Maybe she was right, I don’t know. On the days when I could visit Jackie at home there were two hurdles to overcome. First, there was this old woman who was extremely protective of her granddaughter and would make sure she never left us alone together. Watching us every second with her beady eyes, she constantly weighed me up and down as if comparing me to some other, more preferential suitor.

The second obstacle was Jackie’s cousin, David. This little toddler was a classic terror who had earned a reputation for biting people. There was no discrimination as to his choice of victims and he would suddenly run into the room and sink his teeth into any readily available flesh. As he was pretty small, this meant it was usually a chunk of someone’s leg.

Having been instilled with a reverence for my elders, the idea of a child behaving in such a way appalled me. There is nothing wrong with discipline so long as it is administered with love. There will always be some who break the rules, but this should not stop us from making sure our kids grow up respecting others.