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There came a day when Tony’s parents asked if I would like to go with them to visit Tony at his college for the summer picnic, a special yearly event called “Gaudy.” With some trepidation, I went. I wasn’t sure how I should behave or whether I would seem appropriate.

My mother had some American friends, a pilot and his wife, who were stationed in England just after the war. Clothing and supplies were still extremely limited for us, so occasionally this husband and wife would give us secondhand items sent over from America, and we were always very grateful.

This particular year, they sent me three dresses, but they barely fit. I was beginning to grow in all directions, so they were rather tight. I
chose to wear one, a taffeta plaid dress, with a little high collar, for the Radley picnic.

We took a tour of the school, which was magnificent, then sat on the lawn under a tree with Mum Walton presiding over our meal. There were delicious cucumber sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, and the freshest tomatoes I’d ever tasted, plus cookies, cakes, and bananas. With the sun shining and a gentle breeze, that meal seemed like the best I’d ever had.

Everything was perfect, except for my taffeta dress. It was so tight under the armpits that it rubbed me raw, and I began to sweat. Being a hand-me-down, it was a little spoiled anyway, and by the end of the day, I smelled positively rank. Everyone else was relaxed and easy, having a great time. I was horribly aware of my state and acutely embarrassed all afternoon.

MY MOTHER WAS
impressed by the Waltons. She envied Dawn, I believe. She once said how fortunate Dawn was to be placed on such a wonderful pedestal by her husband. Mum didn’t begrudge Dawn anything, but she longed for that style of living. I suppose we both felt ourselves on a lower social level than this lovely family.

Occasionally, Dr. and Mrs. Walton took business trips to America, where Dawn could also take the sun for her arthritis. One year, they became aware that young Carol was really unhappy they were going away, so they simply packed her up and took her with them.

Each summer the entire family went for a wonderful vacation at a hotel just outside Bournemouth, on the South Coast. There was always an empty feeling while they were away and when I didn’t see Tony.

At Christmastime, their house was decorated marvelously, and mistletoe was hung over the front door. I knew that Tony hoped to kiss me there, but I was too shy, and wanted nothing to do with it. I think he won out with a peck on my cheek.

AFTER THE WAR
ended, it was a surprise for many when Winston Churchill, who had done so much to lead the country throughout World War II, was not reelected. The Labor Party gained power, and Clement Attlee became prime minister.

The National Health Service was created, and suddenly Dr. Walton had to change his life radically. From being a private doctor and surgeon, he was now obliged to donate half his time performing operations and giving consultations to those who couldn’t afford private medicine.

Although he still had private patients, these new regulations probably halved Dr. Walton’s income. He was very respected, both in Walton and in the London community of surgeons, and received a good salary for his private work.

Now expenses in the Walton household suddenly had to be reduced, and I sensed there was enormous panic on Dawn’s part. I remember her cancelling all the magazine and newspaper subscriptions, saying, “We’ve got to cut down in every possible way we can.”

A polio epidemic had been creeping steadily across both America and England. Dr. Walton was much impressed by the work of a nurse called Sister Kenny, who was a pioneer in the treatment of infantile paralysis, cerebral palsy, and polio in the United States. He became passionate about using her methods in England, reinvigorating tissue with fascia massage and heat, which helped bring circulation back to seemingly dead areas. I helped christen and open the home for polio patients that Dr. Walton founded, called “Silverwood.” He really was a man ahead of his time.

M
UM, POP, AND
I spent the summer of 1949 working in Blackpool, the most popular resort on the northwest coast of England.

It wasn’t a pretty town, but it boasted three long, fairly attractive piers—the South, Central, and North—and they each had a theater, which, during the season, was in full swing. There was a fair amount of rivalry between them, each vying with the others as to who could put on the best show. Their productions were equal to those in London in terms of scale, and to play a summer show at Blackpool was to be guaranteed a full three months of work.

Blackpool seemed to me an aptly named town. Trams ran all around the city. The beaches were packed with people. I remember being amazed by the men, workers and miners who would go down to the beach in their dark suits, to sit in deckchairs. Some would even keep their bowler hats on. Some rolled up their shirtsleeves and trousers and placed newspapers over their faces to protect them from the sun. Very few wore bathing trunks. The beaches were literally black with men in suits.

Blackpool was also famous for its “illuminations.” North Country people referred to them as “the lights.” These were enormous displays of lightbulb art, vast superstructures all along the seafront. Sometimes the bulbs would wink or appear to chase each other; other times they’d just be set pieces. There was also a huge Ferris wheel. It was all a part of the attraction of the holiday season, and people thronged into the town. There were bed-and-breakfast accommodations in every house along every side street.

Blackpool was a riot of neon—yet to me, it seemed a dark and disturbing place. The stench of fish and chips and ale and toilets along the beachfront, the seething mass of humanity that went from pier to pier, the trams that constantly rattled past provided a rather sordid setting for the events that followed.

MUM AND POP
were second top of the bill in what promised to be a good show, starring the comedian Frankie Howerd on the Central Pier.

Frankie was a kind man who kept very much to himself. He seemed shy and, I thought, rather lonely. Onstage, though, he was outgoing and extremely funny. Untidily toupeed, tall, lumpily shaped, and shabby, he was full of bluster and spittle, his eyebrows raised in mock surprise and outrage as he related the trials and tribulations of his life. He would lower his voice conspiratorially to share some appalling confidence. Indicating his humorless female accompanist, he would say, “No, don’t laugh. Poor dear, she’s had everything removed.” He sang “The Three Little Fishes,” with explosive sounds, contorted facial expressions, and body movements each time he arrived at the refrain, “
Swim, swam, dittem, dat-tem, what-tem, CHU!”

I was working in the center of Blackpool theater, at the Hippodrome, in a variety show much like
Starlight Roof
, called
Coconut Grove
. A comedy team, Jewel and Warriss, topped the bill, with Jeannie Carson (Pat Kirkwood’s understudy from
Starlight Roof
, who had since come into her own) and Wally Boag. I was billed as “Julie Andrews—Melody of Youth.” Once again, I came out of the audience to receive a balloon toy from Wally, and once again I sang an aria, twice nightly.

My parents rented a small row house in St. Anne’s, which was a decent little suburb outside of town. Miss Knight came with us for the first few weeks, until the summer holidays began.

I didn’t see much of my own show, because once I’d done my turn, a taxi would take me to the Central Pier, where my parents were performing. For the next hour or so I would either walk the pier with Donald and play the slot machines like the tourists, or watch Mum and Pop’s show. The taxi would then take me back to the Hippodrome in time for my second appearance, after which it would take me home.

Mum and Pop’s show ended much later than mine, so I would come home to a quiet house save for Miss Knight, who would usually have set out a salad for me to eat.

One night, just before she left, Miss Knight said, “Let’s have scrambled eggs.”

“I can’t cook,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

“When I’m gone, you’ll need to know how to make yourself something,” she replied. “I’ll show you how to make a scrambled egg.”

Every night from then on, I would come home and make myself a scrambled egg before putting myself to bed.

There were some nights when I went directly to the pier and waited for my parents and we’d all come home together, but Mum was fairly strict about my getting to bed early.

It was at this point that I really began to notice how much my stepfather was drinking.

As the summer progressed, it became increasingly difficult for me to watch their act, because by the second show Pop was very obviously drunk. I would sit in the audience agonizing as he began slurring and forgetting lyrics. My mother would try to push him through the songs with her accompaniment, and she would keep up a good face, but I was acutely embarrassed for them both. I couldn’t believe Pop would behave like that onstage. I don’t recall my stepfather drinking a great deal before Blackpool, but I may have been too busy to pick up on it.

He and my mother began to fight. I would hear them come home and soon there would be raised voices, then scuffles and thumps, followed by my stepfather slamming out of their bedroom and into the guest room.

I lay in bed, listening, worried about what might happen—what Pop might do to my mother. It seemed that she often baited him. She was no doubt angry at his being drunk onstage, but I sensed something else as well. Perhaps having had a father who beat her, there was a compulsion to recreate that. It seemed to me that it was almost a thrill for her to whip him up to the point where he might become violent. I got the impression that she would physically press herself on him and he would fling her off, and she would cry, “No, Ted,
NO!”
It appeared to be almost ritualistic.

Occasionally I would come out of my room to try and stop them—my room was next door to theirs on the same floor—and once in a while it worked, but a lot of the time I was too timid. I slept in only a vest and underpants and didn’t have a dressing gown, so I felt insufficiently clad, cold with fear, and embarrassed to show myself in front of Pop. Don and Chris slept on the floor above ours. Once, Donald came downstairs because of the noise, but I scooped him up to block his view and took him away.

One particular night, there was a big fight and I heard my mother weeping. An enormous scuffle followed, then a terrible thud, and I knew she had fallen. My stepfather slammed into the guest bedroom, and I simply had to go and see if she was all right.

My mother was a basket case. I couldn’t console her, and I didn’t know what to do.

“I think you’d better call Auntie Joan,” she said between sobs. “Ask her if she could get up here.”

“I don’t know Auntie’s number,” I stammered.

“Here it is.” She scribbled on a piece of paper. “Go down to the phone in the front hall and dial.”

Wearing only my undergarments, I crept down the four flights of stairs in the dark and groped my way along the hall to the lamp and the old-fashioned dial phone. When my aunt picked up the receiver, I burst into tears.

“Auntie! Mummy says can you come?”

While we were talking, I heard a door open. I became aware that someone had come out onto the upstairs landing and was listening to my conversation. To this day, it remains a mystery to me as to which of my parents it was. Pop would probably have been too drunk, and of course he could not have known that my mother had asked me to make the call. But it seemed odd that my distraught mother would come out and listen to what I was saying downstairs. If she was able to do so, why hadn’t she made the call herself?

Auntie came as quickly as she could. I’m not sure if she came mostly for us children or for my mother, but the feeling of having someone else
in the house created a degree of safety for me. It took the weight off somehow—I didn’t feel quite as responsible for the boys, for the house, or for my mother’s well-being.

Auntie stayed for the rest of the summer. Pop made some effort to pull himself together, and with Aunt in the house he did seem to calm down for a bit. I know he wasn’t happy that she came, as she was always a thorn in his side. Whatever the case, the improvement was short-lived.

There was a publicity photo taken during this period of the family walking together along the front at Blackpool, looking very happy. These days, my brothers and I marvel at how far removed that photograph was from the reality of what was actually going on.

POP CONTINUED HIS
descent into alcoholism fairly rapidly, going on ever-worsening benders. He would be filled with remorse afterward, and occasionally go away and “take the cure”—I never knew where. It was always a tremendous relief when he wasn’t around. Then he would come home, and life would resume as before—tense and unpleasant. Sometimes he would be sober for six months or a year, but being a true alcoholic, he would eventually fall off the wagon again.

Mum would issue a warning that Pop was on a new rampage. There followed an agonizing wait for him to come home from the pub.

There was always this feeling of “When is he coming? When is he coming?” and “What will the damage be this time?”

Finally, he would stagger up the long drive and immediately go into the downstairs toilet to vomit. We could not use the toilet for the rest of the day, the stench was so overwhelming. Then he’d pass out and sleep it off.

At the beginning, Mum didn’t go much to the pub, but eventually, I think because she couldn’t stop him, she joined him. Ultimately, she, too, became an alcoholic. I always thought, in that somewhat clear way that children have, that she did it out of helpless rage. In retrospect, she probably always had a tendency to drink, inherited from her own father. Between the two of them, things got very difficult.

They continued to fight with each other, but he never threw her around again the way he did in Blackpool. What I sensed more than any
thing else was an estrangement; they ended up having separate rooms. Pop slept at one end of the house and Mum slept in the room next to me. Occasionally, Mum would follow Pop and bait him, and sometimes I would hear Pop going into Mum’s room very late at night—so there was obviously some physical life between them once in a while—but mostly they were apart, which probably lessened the incidences of fighting.

I suspect the music hall booking agents became aware of Pop’s drinking, because it wasn’t long thereafter that he stopped being hired. He couldn’t get work in the theater, so he became a cash register salesman.

DEPENDING ON MY
schedule, Mum sometimes sent me off to visit Dad for a weekend. Chris was now three, and I had been looking after him since he was a baby, changing his nappies and tending to him. Even then I didn’t feel he was getting the care he needed. But now I was caring for Donald as well, giving them both lunch, doing their ironing. More and more, it seemed, my mother wasn’t around, and I was always anxious about leaving them.

(Later, I even ironed Pop’s shirts for him. My mother gave up or was punishing him, I suppose. When he didn’t have a shirt ready to wear for his job, he would ask me if I would be kind enough to press one for him. It was always painful for me. In spite of how I felt about him, it seemed sad that he had to ask the stepdaughter who he must have known had no respect for him to do his laundry.)

Often the boys ended up accompanying me to my dad’s. When he came to pick me up, these two sad little fellows would be waving goodbye to us, and my father couldn’t bear it. “Daddy Wells,” as the boys called him, would say to my mother, “Can I take the boys as well?” This was always received with mixed emotions on my part, since I looked forward to having Dad all to myself.

The more Pop drank, the more abusive he became. Donald received his first caning when he was just six. Apparently a less-than-stellar report card from school was the cause, and Pop stepped in and had at him with a walking stick. After that, poor Donald seemed always to be in trouble, and was caned about three or four times a year. His transgressions
became such that my mother despaired, and Pop would lead him away to the cold front living room with the awful pink stucco.

I would stand in the dark hallway and listen to the thwack of the stick or the strap, and the muffled sobs coming from the other side of the door. I would be rooted with terror, awed by the enormity of the sin being visited on a young, defenseless soul, wondering how he could bear it.

In later years, Donald confessed that it gave him a sort of fierce pleasure to have “got the old bugger so worked up.” But the statement was belied by the pinch of his face, the guarded eyes, and above all, by his trembling lower lip.

I did nothing to stop the beatings, which lasted so long that I suspected Pop enjoyed it, or could not stop himself. When the door finally opened, Donald would emerge with red, swollen, tearstained cheeks, seemingly mortified that the family knew of his degradation, his spirit beaten into submission. Still I did nothing, for fear of taking sides, for fear that if I reached out, I might be the next recipient. My brain would turn on a dime and I would think, “Well, he
had
been naughty.”

For a while Donald would really behave, until the rage in him built up once more and it happened all over again. His relationship with Pop grew progressively more explosive. He would accompany his father to the golf range to retrieve golf balls, and he claimed Pop would actually aim them in his direction, forcing the boy to dodge them and retrieve them at the same time. He finally lobbed all the golf balls over the garden wall into the greenhouse of the Belgrave Recovery Home, which resulted in yet another caning.

Donald later told me that at age sixteen, just before he departed from The Meuse to go into the Merchant Navy for two years, he went into Pop’s bedroom, took out the canes that were kept in an overhead closet, and in front of his father, methodically broke every single one. Good for him!