SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 5)

We were so happy together - what could go wrong?

The weather remained gorgeous as I stepped out of my front door, finally wearing a less voluminous pretty blue gingham dress that I had created to accommodate my milk laden breasts. It had a cleverly designed bodice which would permit me to discretely feed my baby in public. I had made a matching shawl with a broderie anglais edging to provide extra cover if needed and this was folded and tied around my head keeping my hair under control.
I had cut my hair for my wedding and everyone had been shocked that I did that. I had no worries, I thought the shorter look fitted better with the flower threaded hat I had worn and I knew that my hair would soon resume it's previous length.
By early June of 1972 it was back to past my chest and Dan had an endearing habit of winding his hands into it while he was feeding.

I was on a mission that first day out and about.
I had my swimsuit, a towel and a packed lunch tucked into the carrying tray beneath the pram with the spare nappies.
Dan was sleeping under the beautiful yellow gingham bedset I had made. As an extra precaution, I had added a carefully created muslin fly net. Dancing plastic animals jiggled on an elastic across the pram. I was one very proud mummy that day.

Dylan watched all the preparations with great excitement and dived out of the door before me, waiting for the front gate to be opened. He fully expected to be going to the beach but I turned the pram and headed towards Great Clacton completely in the opposite direction. Dylan dutifully marched alongside the pram as we made our way through the village and carried on up the hill to the chalet park where Alan, Jai, Chas and Slight were now living.
They were all out at work that day, but I was not intending to visit them. I was fulfilling a desperate wish I had held in my heart since I had first become pregnant.
I was going to swim in the outdoor pool to try to get my figure back into shape.
I had frequently been to the camp before and waved at the staff in the shop as I passed on my way to sit on the undulating grassy verges. It was still very early in the morning so there were few people venturing into the water which tended to cool significantly overnight.

Ever since training for galas at my school I had a penchant for cold water swimming. I broke the ice regularly in the unheated outdoor school pool and found that I could achieve better timing and a much more vigorous pace if I was very cold.

I changed into my swimsuit and, telling Dylan to stay by the pram, I dived into the deep end of that still glassy water to swim for the first time in almost a year.
I swam and turned through ten or so lengths, butterfly, breast-stroke, crawl and backstroke. I practiced a few synchronised swimming moves like the victory roll and hand-stands until Dylan anxiously stood to look into the pram.
I took this as a signal that Dan was awake.

Feeding him in public was an artform all of itself but I soon worked out ways to do it as holidaymakers began to spread their towels on the grass surrounding me. Can you believe that, in 1972, it was illegal to breast feed in public? I know…. astonishing isn’t it?

I alternated between tending to the baby, eating my sandwiches and swimming all day long. I was less streamlined due to my change of body shape so I felt that this was the ideal way to spend my days while the weather was so glorious.
On the way home, I saw Alan returning to the chalet park in his car and he stopped to ask where I had been. I explained and he gave me a spare key to their chalet so that I could make myself a cup of coffee or whatever I needed on future visits.
He was always totally loving towards me, as they all were, at all times. I guessed it was some sort of deep comradery due to the way I had helped them when they were homeless and sleeping rough. Bless them.

I got into a routine throughout that summer of getting up at about 6am when Dan first woke, seeing Tony off to work and then setting off to the chalet park to swim.
During a telephone call to my Dad I told him about the training I was doing and he reminded me that the reason I was so proficient a swimmer was because he had first taken me swimming when I was less than a month old. He had somehow found the courage to let go of me so that I could move freely in the water. He encouraged me to do the same with Dan.

It took me a few tries before I could bring myself to actually let Dan's body out of my grasp but as soon as I did he grabbed my hair as it floated by him and, by making the little wrist twist that he always made when feeding, he anchored himself to me and began to wriggle about. When he sank beneath the surface so did I and I watched him hold his breath without effort before bobbing up again.
Every day he was growing so fast and his physical strength was amazing. His swimming style was not exactly identifiable but it was very effective. It consisted of a uncoordinated wiggle followed by bobbing to the surface to catch a breath. For the most part, Dan seemed to prefer to swim underwater.

By the time September came I felt that the water was becoming far too cold for him so he would sit up in his pram cooing and gurgling with Dylan as I continued to train myself back to my previous fitness.

I had done a great deal of endurance swimming in my teenage years which had involved long hours and great distances. I had always wanted to swim the channel, swim with dolphins, whales and sea lions. I had learned to meditate whilst swimming to increase relaxation. Little did I know then where all these unspoken fantasies would lead me - but that is another story for later in this saga.

Meanwhile, back in London, my brother Roy had taken a job working in a menswear boutique which sold the latest very fashionable Levi jeans, Ben Sherman shirts and other accessories.
Something happened at work to make him unexpectedly redundant and he turned up on our doorstep asking Tony to give him a job as a labourer.
Roy was not very fit after more than a year living in London and standing around in a shop all day. Tony wasn't sure that he would be able to take the hard graft, climbing ladders, balancing tiles on his head or lifting heavy buckets of cement muck up to a roof.
Roy was indignant. He grumbled that Tony could not know unless he gave him a chance.

It was decided that Roy would occupy our spare bedroom which was barely big enough for a bed and not much else.
The very next morning at the crack of dawn, the pair of them left for work together.
That evening I served up a lovely steak pie with lots of vegetables and gravy. They sat at our little dining table, facing each other, with me perched on a stool at the end.
Roy ate a few mouthfuls, sat chewing with his eyes closed and then slowly tipped forward until his forehead was in the gravy!
He was so exhausted that he had fallen asleep.
"What on earth have you done to him?" I accused Tony, who feigned innocence but glittered madly, struggling not to laugh. I told him that he had a dodgy sadistic streak, which was nothing whatever to be proud of, as I fished my brother out of his dinner and wiped his face.
I really did not expect Roy to want to work with Tony ever again, but the following day and every day after that he was up and ready to face another day with sheer grit and determination, despite the obvious pain.

The competitive atmosphere between them was unbearable at times. There were evenings when they were not speaking to each other at all and I would be chattering to fill the silence, but getting nothing but grunts from either of them.
The physical effort they put themselves through was causing them to burst out of their jeans and shirts at such a rate that I was forever devising clever sewing tricks to create more room at the thighs, backs and biceps of virtually everything they wore.

Still the competition went on.

Roy grew his straight blonde hair longer than Tony's, simply because Tony's hair was given to forming ringlets and believe it or not, this too was a source of bickering.

The atmosphere of contention even seemed to affect the dog. He would notice that Tony and Roy were getting ready to go out for the evening with their mates on a Friday or Saturday night and, without any of us seeing him, he would grab the van keys off the table and take them out to hide them in the garden!
I said that Dylan didn't approve of drunk drivers and was promptly accused of teaching the dog this latest trick! Who? Me? 😂

Roy had many friends in Clacton, so very soon he moved out of our house to share a big flat, not far away, with three other young guys. He continued to work with Tony and peace reigned in my home once more.

Tony was not even remotely interested in doing the business paperwork and obviously this duty fell to me. Between the three of us we came up with the name Apex Roofing and I designed a letter heading, appropriate invoice forms and went on to create a basic bought and sales accounts ledger for the fledgling company.
We put in a tender for a prestigious job that we certainly did not expect to get, but were stunned when the re-roofing of Colchester Town Hall just fell into our laps.
It was a tremendously complex roof with many separate ridges, turrets and areas of ornamental hanging tiles. Tony knew he could do it but he needed more labourers.
Around that time a young friend of his arrived, sixteen years old, fresh out of school in Glasgow. Billy was wiry, too devious for his own good but willing to give roofing a go. His remark, "How hard can it be?" was greeted with Tony and Roy’s familiar sadistic grins and I ducked out of getting involved with that conversation.

Weeks of relentless hard work went by and a new much larger van was purchased, to provide the additional seating.
I was always hearing about how high this job was, with a sheer drop to the busy High Street below.

Then came the day that any roofer's wife dreads.

Roy drove the van home to tell me that he was getting a quick shower and would be going back to Colchester to collect Tony from the hospital.
I felt the blood drain out of my head as I heard the story.

Tony had slipped on a wet scaffold board and slid through the safety barrier out of sight of either Roy or Billy.
When they were able to scramble to him, he was dangling by his wedding ring which had stretched under his weight. It had miraculously caught on the top of a scaffold pole giving him a couple of vital seconds in which to grab on and save himself from falling approximately 120 feet.
At the hospital the ring, which had embedded itself into his finger, was being expertly cut away and then there were to be x-rays.
Astonishingly, when Tony returned that night he had not dislocated or broken any bones, but the sorry state of the wedding ring was testament to how it had saved his life. He was remarkably quiet and pale too.

Once or twice in later years I heard him say that getting married had saved his life in many more ways than one.

By the end of that year, as a result of our successful small businesses, we had finally arrived at our intended goal. We had saved enough to place a deposit on a home purchase.

The Estate Agency that I had worked for when I first came to Clacton from school was my first port of call. I popped in to pick the brains of my ex-boss and to ask if he could recommend a suitable property. A close friend of his was a local solicitor whose offices were next door and between them they persuaded me to consider a run down town house that had been decaying and, due to a recent death, could be very cheaply acquired.
Tony and I went to see it.

There were huge holes in the slate roof, every wall was exposed and suffering from damp with lath and plaster falling away in huge lumps. The electrical wiring needed entirely replacing, the plumbing was dubious and many floor boards were rotten. It had been empty for 6 years and had been briefly occupied by persons unknown for a time. Over all it was a disaster. Tony glittered at the opportunity to put his skills to work.

This house was very close to the Town Hall and shopping centre so potentially, given lots of hard work, could become a very convenient, comfortable home. Tony could not wait to get started on it and, of course, the first job that had to be done was the roof.

While we were waiting for the solicitors to process the sale Tony was collecting all the materials he required and storing them in the back garden. Within a week of signing the papers, the old roof was off, the new roof was on and it was a beautiful example of Tony’s skills.
But there was still so much to do inside!

I spent many happy hours dressed in overalls with a shower cap on my head bashing down non-supporting walls, tearing down water soaked ceilings and stripping the old lath and plaster. Dan would be crawling around, exploring under the rotten floorboards unless I could catch his foot as he ventured out of sight. For safety, he was often in his playpen playing with Dylan in the garden.

I took Nicki to the house to clear the mice, which she considered a wonderful occupation for a time. I think she ate them because I never saw their bodies.
Tony replaced the broken, rotten windows one by one and really excelled himself creating the new wood frames and installing artful louvred glass.
We had a lot of help from a huge number of friends who were eager to get involved with the project and we were able to move into part of the house by the time Dan turned six months of age.
When he reached his first birthday we were occupying the entire ground floor and had let out the first floor to provide accommodation to a couple we knew who were previously homeless.

Everything seemed to be going so well for us at that time.
Tony's parents wanted to visit from Glasgow and somehow it was arranged that they would come and look after Dan while Tony and I went for a three week holiday to Majorca.

We were finally able to take that honeymoon that we had never been able to afford before. Tony was glittering at the thought! Neither of us had ever been abroad before.

I could hardly contain my excitement as I applied for our passports, made gradual payments to cover the holiday costs and saved for our spending money.
My parents-in-law arrived a few days before we were due to depart and soon had the measure of things.
They were clearly looking forward to doting on their new grandson. It seemed they couldn't get rid of us soon enough and I had no qualms about leaving Dan with them.
I knew he was about to be spoilt rotten.

It was September of 1973, we were deeply in love and I felt as if we were making a real success of life.
I was only 21, Tony was 23.
We were happy together, so what could go wrong?