Dare to Be a Daniel (6 page)

2

My Parents

UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE
reader, I cannot claim a tragic childhood, rebellion against parents or a struggle to make a success of life from hard beginnings, for I had a happy home and my parents were devoted to each other, and at no time did I react against what I was taught by them. Everything rotated around Father, in a way that would be unacceptable today, and this was a pattern which to some extent I followed – to my regret in later life.

F
ATHER

My dad was a Victorian, born in 1877 and in many ways practising what we think of as Victorian values: very conscious of the need never to waste time or money. I was born in 1925, and as a child I was required to keep an account book showing how I had spent my pocket money each week, which then had to be audited by my father’s secretary, Miss Triggs, before my next pocket money was paid.

I received one penny a week, rising to tuppence when I went to school, and made up to threepence if I submitted my accounts promptly. I recall on one occasion when I was taking an early interest in carpentry, I went to Woolworths and bought a little vice and Miss Triggs queried this – though what vice an eight-year-old could have paid for was beyond my imagination.

Father used to call out ‘Antonio’ if he wanted me to do something. He referred to me as a ‘serving brother’ because I was a very helpful boy, always keen to be popular, cycling to the village to post letters, buy papers and so on, and on one occasion I said to him, ‘I want our relations to be on a strictly business-like basis.’ So when I was sent to the village near Stansgate to post a letter, I told him, ‘That will be a shilling.’ Father replied, ‘And your lunch costs two shillings and sixpence.’ So that was the end of that!

My elder brother Michael and I would set up little businesses. We had one that made cigarettes (Jigarettes, as my father called them, because my nickname was Jiggs) using a roller and cigarette papers. Michael was very inventive, and there was a model aeroplane at that time called a ‘Frog’, powered by an elastic band that set the propeller off. He worked out that it would be possible to have two elastic bands working consecutively, thus doubling the range of the Frog. He took it to the company that produced the Frog, which was interested and gave Michael a model to experiment with.

Phone calls were regarded as totally unnecessary luxuries, and I can remember many occasions when, having asked permission from my dad to use the phone, he would say, ‘Why don’t you send a postcard?’ At Stansgate, where we had a house for summer holidays, he had a call box attached to the phone, which we had to feed with coins before we could use it; although my father
had
a key to the cash box, we still had to cycle to the village of Steeple nearby to get change if we wanted to make a call. Occasionally the electricity (also on a cash meter) would run out while Sunday lunch was cooking; this happened many years later when my wife Caroline was trying to produce a meal at Stansgate.

Father’s passion for economy was matched by an equally strict view of the importance of not wasting time, since he had read a book published by Arnold Bennett in 1908 called
How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day
. Bennett’s argument was that we are all equal in one respect, namely that no one has more than twenty-four hours in a day and no one has less, and that we each have a moral responsibility to make full use of the time allocated to us. For this reason Father kept a daily time chart on which he set down the number of hours he worked every day and the number of hours that he slept; in theory it should equal twenty-four – a curious calculation in that there was no time for meals, conversation or any social life. So keen was he on this that, as a boy, I was expected to keep a time chart. I still have one in my own archives (see opposite page), which no doubt explains why the wise use of time has been a major factor in shaping my thinking, making me feel guilty – even to this day – if I go to bed believing that I have achieved nothing. My house has always been full of clocks. Father never went on ‘holiday’ and his answer to depression was overwork.

Regular bowel movements were considered very important, and Father, though he took absolutely no interest in our domestic routine, would unfailingly enquire every day, ‘Have you caught the bus yet?’ – a euphemism that I have never heard used elsewhere for this particular function.

Father was a teetotaller because, having been born in the East End of London (which he loved), he had been much stirred by the problem of drunkenness there. His parents were keen members of the Blue Ribbon Brigade, active campaigners for temperance. At the time, drink was seen as a problem, rather like that of drugs today, contributing to the destruction of many lives; gin, at a penny a pint, was described as ‘mother’s ruin’.

Father once said that his parents used to sing temperance hymns, one of which began with the words, ‘There’s a serpent in the glass, dash it down, dash it down’. Another also had a splendid double-entendre: ‘The good ship temperance is heading for the port.’ He used to recite the story of ‘Timothy Prout’, who fancied a night out and, when he returned home to Fulham, entered the wrong house and was found fast asleep by the real owner. Timothy swore he would never have another drink. The story was also a reference, I think, to new housing at the time, because the villa
in
which Timothy lived had the same key as every other house in the street.

Let me tell you the story of Timothy Prout

Who had fancied to live a little way out

He was tired of the dirt and the din and the noise

And the rudeness of so many young city boys.

In Fulham a neat little villa he found

Quite a nice little house with its own piece of ground

Each one was the same and as any could see

The front doors all used the very same key.

One night when he’d had just a bit much to drink

He wandered back home quite unable to think

But he soon saw his house and opened the door

And dropped all his things and sank down to the floor.

Then in came a woman who gave a big scream

And Timothy woke up as if from a dream

Then her husband came in and with just a small frown

Said, ‘Oh yes sir, I’ve frequently met you in town.’

As Timothy rose from his place on the floor

The man said, ‘You’ll find your own house next door’

So Timothy left and resolved without doubt

That he never again would mix gin with his stout.

Father asked me not to drink alcohol and I never have done so, although when I joined the RAF in 1942 he gave me his
permission
to do what I thought right. But long ago I decided to keep alcohol for my old age, which today seems as far away as ever.

I suppose my grandparents were puritanical in outlook, but I hope I have not given the impression that my father was a severe man, for he was full of fun and the jokes he made remain with me to this day and often come to mind. Mother was nervous of bats, and Father once tied some string to a piece of coal and swung it from the ceiling in a dark bedroom. He used to amuse the children of his sister-in-law, my Aunt Gwen, with stories about a pink giraffe, which Gwen thought silly and disapproved of. So Father said, ‘All right, the pink giraffe will die.’ And he then proceeded to tell long stories about the pink giraffe’s funeral. He was everyone’s favourite uncle. He would recite a poem about the Lord Mayor’s coachman, who promised to get the Lord Mayor from Mansion House in the City of London to Buckingham Palace, without going down any streets:

The Lord Mayor had a coachman

The coachman’s name was John

Said the Lord Mayor to the coachman:

‘Take your wages and begone

I want a better coachman

For I am going to see the Queen.’

Said John: ‘I am the finest coachman,

That was ever seen

And if you’ll let me drive today

I’ll show I can’t be beat

I’ll drive to Buckingham Palace and

I won’t go thro’ a street.’

‘You must be mad,’ the Lord Mayor said,

‘But still I’ll humour you.

But remember that you lose your place

The first street you go through.’

The coachman jumped upon his box

And settled in his seat;

And started up the Poultry

Which we know’s not called a street.

Along Cheapside he gaily went.

The Bobbies cleared the course

To the statue of the Bobby

Who first organised the force.

‘You’re going into Newgate Street,’

The Lord Mayor loudly bawls.

But John said: ‘Tuck your tuppenny in

I’m going round St Paul’s.’

‘But round St Paul’s means Ludgate Hill

And Fleet Street, John,’ said he.

But John said: ‘I don’t go that way

But down the Old Bailey.’

Up Holborn and High Holborn

And St Martin’s Lane he drives

And thus to keep out of a street

He artfully contrives

And when they reach Trafalgar Square

Said the Lord Mayor in a pet:

‘O dash my wig and barnacles

I think he’ll do it yet!’

John nearly drove into the Strand

Then stopped as if in doubt.

‘I’m not surprised,’

The Lord Mayor cries

‘To find you’re put out.

Up Parliament Street you must go

Or else cross Cockspur Street

It’s very hard but still

You must admit defeat.’

But John said: ‘Not at all, my lord

I don’t much think I shall.

You ask me where I’m going:

Well, I’m going down Pall Mall.’

Along Pall Mall he gaily drove

And drove at racing rate

By James’s Palace through the Mall

To Buckingham Palace straight.

The coachman gave the Lord Mayor

The Lord Mayor

The Lord Mayor

The coachman gave the Lord Mayor

A curious kind of treat