Growing Up in the 60s Part One.

8/2/2019 Growing Up in the 60s Part One.

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Memories of a Scunthorpe lad

Volume one (1961-1973)

By Mark Watkins

Earliest Memories.

We crept through the thick undergrowth, moving from tree to tree. I double-checked

the safety-catch on my Sten gun, fashioned from a green twig Id pulled off a tree. We

were approaching the forest path and the Japs could be anywhere. We were 9 year-old

hardened jungle fighters. Our point-man held up a hand to signal hed reached the path.

I dropped into a crouch until the all-clear was given.

Then the game was forgotten. For, on the dirt path twisting through the woods (just

behind the homes of my pals Neil and the Kean twins, Chris and Andy), lay two

puppies. They slept peacefully in the shade. A cautious poke with a stick-gun told usthe pups were dead. A few feet away, under a tree, a supermarket carrier-bag bulged


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curiously. Inside, another three or four pups huddled together in permanent slumber.

Evidently, some cold-hearted bastards method of dealing with an unwanted canine

pregnancy.

Years later, now adults, I recalled this experience to my three childhood friends. Not

one could recall this event, but for me it holds a clarity unfogged by the decades. Why?I cant say I was particularly traumatised by the encounter, 9 year old lads are

notoriously curious and bloodthirsty about such things, so I dont think I had any real

emotional response at the time. But the visual imagery of that moment has always

stayed with me, and not with the other three. Weird.

I was born on the 4th of November, 1961, on the living-room floor at number 32, Manby

Road, on the Riddings Estate in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire (later Humberside, now

North Lincolnshire).

According to the theory, the memory of being born should be somewhere in the

dimmest recesses of my brain. Some people, (usually rich American types trying tofind themselves) pay a lot of money for therapy to relive that moment. Call me Mister

Sniffy, but a mental revisit to having my head squeezed through a torn and bleeding

vagina into an alien universe is not something I miss.

Of course Im not drawing this from my own memory, but from what my folks have

told me. Apparently, I arrived in such a rush I caught everyone on the hop. It was

probably the only time in my life Ive been in a rush to do anything. My Dad, after

running up the hill to the phone box to call for assistance and then realizing I would

arrive before help did, called for neighbour Pat from across the road. She and Dad

delivered me. This fact Pat never fails to regale me with on the rare occasions across

the years I have encountered her. Must be strange for her now, looking at a grey-haired,

middle-aged (but incredibly handsome) man and equating him with that baby that

scared the life out of everyone. Apparently I had a caul over my face, you know, the

membrane that holds the fluids in the womb? Well, I read years ago that this

phenomenon was considered by some to be a sign that the child would be blessed, or

cursed, with some sort of psychic powers. Well, Im now 46 and still waiting for

such powers to appear. Just this weeks lottery numbers would do, Im not greedy.

I am keen on exploring this theory of memory though. Why do we remember some

things and not others? For example, one story Ive heard many times from my parents

is how, when I was around two or three, one of them found me with a spoon in thegoldfish bowl, having just tipped the contests of an ashtray on top of the unfortunate

fish, stirring merrily and watching the poor bloody goldfish tearing round in this

whirlpool of filthy fagwater and bits of my Dads Old Holborn baccy and liquorice

Rizlas. I cant for the life of me remember that incident! Youd think there was

sufficient striking visual imagery there to stay in any brain, but no.

So this memoir business, this life-story telling, is obviously not an exact science, as my

Dad points out in his own writings. My Dad also, bless im, apologises to any of his

readers whom he might offend by some of his memories. I dont you can all fuck off!

Only kidding. Like Dad says, or something like it, memories aresubjective, applicable

and real only to the person who holds that memory. Thats not to say the events didnthappen, but the details, and personal interpretations, blur over time. We all live in our


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own particular reality tunnels.

So, inspired by my Dads work How Clean Were My Wellies, I sit down to attempt

my own. I havent a bloody clue what direction its going to take, but that doesnt

matter, call it a Mystery Tour.

That reminds me of one of my all-time favourite gags. The one about the coachload of

holidaymakers booking a Mystery Tour, and arranging a sweepstake to guess the

destination. Ten bob in the hat, Winner Takes All. The driver won 38 quid. Of course,

in the days before Political Correctness told us what racist, sexist homophobic bastards

we all were, there was a certain ethnic flavour to this classic gag. But I wont mention

it, begorrah.

Infants School.

Having sat and cogitated furiously, a lifelong hobby of mine, I realise my earliest

memories date back to Infants School, which I would have begun in 1966.

That was the year England won the World Cup. To my regret I have no memory of this

event whatsoever. My Dad was never a football fan, so I grew up without the football

bug. I suppose coming from a place like Scunthorpe didnt help, either. Having later

in life discovered the primal joy of watching England trounce an old enemy such as

Germany or Argentina on the football field (an event admittedly as rare as rocking-

horse shit), I wish I had a golden memory of four-year old me savouring our only

World-Cup victory, but it didnt even register on my infant radar.

At around five years old, I went to Enderby Road Infants School, which was actually

(and still is) on Sunningdale Road, only about 500 yards from our house. Parts of those

three years are very clear, others are very hazy.

Hazy is a fleeting whisper of my Mum saying bye and making to leave, and me not

wanting her to, and crying. Mum having two or three attempts to leave and having to

get quite exasperated before I could be persuaded to stay.

Having now been through this experience with my own kids over the years, I suspect

my Mum left the school as I did briskly navigating through surroundings spangled

with tears, struggling against the almost-overwhelming compulsion to whisk the bairn

into your arms and off home

A teacher, Mrs N. A purple-haired harridan. Dyou know, I think I can still hear her

voice, somewhere in there, if I try hard enough. If she called out your name in class

and motioned you to come to her desk, youd be sweating straight away. Which side

did she want you on? To her right, it was okay. Her left though youd get a smacked

arse for whatever misdemeanor youd committed. (Guess she was left-handed).

Talking of arses.. During my first year at Infants School I was hospitalised. I had a

perineal abscess. Perinealis posh speak for on the arse. It was like a huge boil, with

no head on it, it was about an inch from my exit ole. It grew so large, Im told, that it

began pumping poison into my blood and made me dangerously ill. There are two clear

snapshots of this event in my mind.


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The first is of me lying face down in this hospital room having this extremely painful

abscess dabbed with cotton wool soaked in saline solution by a dried-up witch of a

nurse. Being only five, I was of course sobbing with the pain. The nurse tutted in

irritation at every sob and whimper. Eventually her exasperation prompted her to

declare, Its only salt and water! in a decidedly sniffy voice. I remember my Dad

reminding her quite savagely that I was only five years old. Apparently she wasdecidedly more polite after this tongue-lashing.

I was telling you about my Infants teacher, Mrs N.

She also hated kids going to the loo.

Please can I go to the toilet, Miss?

If you go out, you stay out.

I was a victim of this myself and, I dont know about the other kids, but I found myself

in an impossible dilemma. If you go to the bog, she said Stay out, you cant go backin, youll have to lurk outside the classroom. And what if the Head, Mrs Yates,

happened along? The kids of today laugh, but we were scared shitless of teachers. Yes,

they used corporal punishment, wed get whacked on the arse, clouted round the

lughole, board-rubbers flung unerringly to bounce off skulls, but it was more than that.

My generation of kids had an almost inbuilt respect of our elders and betters, though

our elders probably didnt think so at the time.

Eeh, dont get me started on that subject.

(Eeh, by the way, is a wonderful word I discovered when I moved to Teesside in north-

eastern England. Its fantastic because it has a thousand meanings, conferred only by

the tone of voice and the speed with which its delivered. It can convey amazement,

disgust, astonishment, wistfulness, amusement and a dozen other emotions. I love it,

its one of the few useful terms I have gained from two decades living amongst the

smoggies.

Less useful, but more amusing Teesside phrases include Eeh Ill go to our ouse,

Eeh, Ill go to the foot of our stairs and Get out of my garage, you fuckin little

smackead rat.

The one that has always tickled me, though, and its usually women that utter it inmoments of anger and frustration, is: Bloody f***in sh***in ell! And thats

swearin!

I always want to answer, Er, I know it is)

I have grudgingly come to terms with the fact that the eeh, the kids of today.. theme is

one which every generation hits as they enter middle-age. That realisation is a kind of

comfort when some hooded Middlesbrough twelve-year-old calls from across the street,

Ow, fat cunt, lenduz a fag! But working in schools like I do tends to overexpose you

to this theme a bit, and I have been accused of turning into a Victor Meldrew on the

subject. I suspect thats probably true.

A few nights ago (January 2008), I was walking through a local estate (I swear this is


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true) when I noticed with a certain amount of trepidation a large, 8 to 10 strong group

of youths approaching. Their faces were hidden in their hoodies, they could have been

anything from 13 to 18 I suppose. I can usually maintain a certain sang-froid at such

times, even if I feel a little alarm. As our paths crossed, obviously by prior agreement,

they instantly surrounded me and one of them thrust something towards my face. It was

a mobile phone which imediately began to blurt tinny music. It was that awfulphenomenon known as M.C.ing. The youngsters all began dancing round me, arms

in the air, strange bass beats coming from their lips, tsss! Tss! Tss! Tss! Not to be

outdone, I instantly swung into my own, incredibly cool and sexy dance routine,

declaring Howay, Ill fuckin outdance the lot o yers!. They laughed uproariously

and drifted away, one of them declaring Es fuckin off it! I was very proud, as

being off it is one of the ultimate accolades of todays northern youth, that and being

fuckin radgied. (I admit in this optimistic anecdote that I am choosing not to

consider the possibility of a vulnerable old grannys potential reaction to such a

musical ambush).

Anyway, back in Riddings Infants and the need to go to the bog. Remember, toad-

featured Mrs N. had declared that if you went out, you stayed out. The other horn of

this dilemma was, if you werent willing to leave the room on those disturbing terms,

you had to stay in the classroom and cross your legs. Being five, this brought a real risk

of a visit to Pisspant City.

I cant remember how I solved that dilemma. Thats shit, isnt it? I start this lukewarm

anecdote and dont even have the decency to finish it! Well, Im sorry, alright? I just

cant remember! Told you this memory thing was weird.

Incontinence Inc.

The possibility of my grey flannel shorts being darkened with piss brings me to my

clearest memory of those years. Going back to my theory of memory, Im sure this is

because Ive revisited this one with relish a thousand times over the years, probably to

the weariness of the main protagonist in the tale. Steve Bartlett still lives in Scunthorpe

and Ive been in intermittent contact ever since we left school at 16. Back in the

infants, for a short while, he was my bestest mate.

Playtime always ended by teachers blowing a whistle, at which point you stopped

playing and lined up in your classes ready to go back in. I remember crowds of noisy,

milling kids around me, teachers shouting instructions, chiding the slow and silly, whena female teachers voice rang out.

Steven Bartlett, youre in the wrong line, what are you doing?!

Steve appeared from the throng, shuffling, clenched fists rubbing his tear-filled eyes.

He was sobbing. Like all us lads, he wore grey shorts. Down the expanse of scabby

and grubby leg, between the leg of his shorts and his grey socks, slithered three large

turds.

I can still hear the loud and almost hysterical EEEuuurrggghhhh! from all us kids.

Had Steve opted for discretion rather than valour when faced with one of Mrs N.s


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shithouse ultimatums? I dont know, but every time I see Steve over the years, I always

take great delight in retelling the story.

Strange really, havent seen Steve Bartlett for a while, he appears to have moved house

and changed his phone number and email address. No doubt hell get in touch soon,

good old Steve..

Memories of playground games Ive no doubt I share with millions around Britain.

Theyre not so dissimilar to my Dads own memories of his own school playground.

Lines of boys, walking side by side, arms round each others shoulders chanting, Who

wants to play at Cowboys and Indians, No Girls!

Tiggy.

Conkers, at the right time of year. Banned now, of course, conkers. Health and Safety.

No, dont get me started.. Oh go on then. Health and Bastard Safety. I always swing

between enraged disgust and helpless amusement. I once worked as a teacher in alocal prison. One day, H & S came in to do their assessment. When they discovered we

had the doings to make a brew of tea in the classroom, from then on I had to train

every new student in the safe way to boil a fucking kettle, then get them to sign a form

saying Id done so, thus freeing me from the risk of being sued. There are numerous

other examples of this bollocks, you only have to read the papers. Itis funny, until you

realise these wankers get paid public money to do this shite.

Back in the infants playground, the lasses had games of their own, mushy, girly games.

They were obsessed with skipping ropes and tennis balls. They would spend hours

chanting incomprehensible rhymes as they either jumped over the rope or bounced a

bloody ball off those painted circles on the school wall. Or theyd make those strange

paper fortune-telling things where you picked a number, then theyd flip it open and

closed a number of times, then you picked a colour open and close again B. L. U. E.

then open the little flap, whereupon it would say something like Youre gorgeous or

Youre a spastic depending on whod made it and what they thought of you. Mad.


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Us guys, though, we played realgames. Piggyback fighting, that was another good

one. Someone always got hurt though. We used to jostle to team up with a kid called

Ady White, a big lad who was great in piggyback fights. He could carry you for ages

while you knocked everyone else off. Ady went on to a different junior school, but I

got to know him again when we turned eleven and all went to the same secondary

school, by which time hed acquired the flattering nickname of Tank.


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Forced transvestisism is a crime..

One morning, after wed had our free school milk and those little cheddary biscuits,

some of us lads were mucking about on the benches that ringed the playground.

Andy Kean gave me a shove, I toppled backwards off the bench, arse-first into thisenormous muddy puddle. Id be six or seven. I was drenched. To my utter

humiliation, the school nurse took me into this cupboard in the school hall, where there

was this rag-bag of discarded clothes. Without even shutting the cupboard door, she

made me strip off my wet uniform and put these manky old clothes on. Even had to

take my underpants off!

I can still feel that cold, draughty air of the school hall on my bare arse, even for the

half a second it took me to pull on another pair of drawers. The horror was from a

number of directions. A strange woman I didnt really know was making me undress

she might see my tail! And then I was bare-arsed for a brief moment, in the school hall!

What if some girls walked in they might see my tail!

The proper word for the male appendage when I was a little boy was a sparrow

(pronounced sparrah). Girls had a tuppence.

So there I am in these manky cast-offs out of the school rag bin. When I got home,

aaaagghhhh!!!, my Mam took these clothes off me and it was discovered that I was

wearing GIRLS KNICKERS!!!!! The shame. And my Dad thought it was hilarious,

teased me ragged about it. Dad, you bastard, you could have scarred that little boy for

life! I could be hanging around in sailors bars even now, dressed in a mini skirt with

my balls tucked up my arse.

But worries about gender confusion werent even dreamt of in those days, not on

Riddings Estate in any case. These days, of course, that incident just wouldnt happen.

A simple thing like changing a small childs wet clothes would not even be considered

for fear of being suspected a paedophile.

I know this to be true, having spent a full term in an infants school while training to be

a teacher. In todays suspicious world, you have to be really, really careful. Its the

same even in secondary school. Sometimes, first-year girls are innocently

inappropriate by hugging you. As a modern teacher, you know this is something to

discourage, but it is difficult as you know their over-familiar gesture is a perfectlyinnocent childish one. Ive heard some teachers sternly say Dont do that, its

inappropriate! and seen hurt, puzzled little faces, and I dont like that. My own

response is to tell them that theyre not to hug Sir as he has a bad back.

School milk is another memory shared by millions. At morning break, youd get these

little half-pint bottles with a straw and these little cheesy biscuits. It was a big treat to

be the Milk Monitor and give out the goodies. God, kids are so gullible, arent they?

Even these days, the first years actually vie for the privilege of being the Book

Monitor, or the Ruler Monitor. Hell-o, youre doing ajob, cos the teachers too idle

to do it!

Do you remember when we were at Infants, we used to learn this weird alphabet, one


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where an a and an e were joined together?

Ive asked that question to a few former schoolmates over the years, and all of them

gave me a puzzled, suspicious look, some looking for the punchline of what is

obviously a gag. But it wasnt a gag, it was true, but as no-one in the entire universe

seemed to remember it except me, by the time I hit 40 Id convinced myself it wassome strange false memory, a result of a dream, or a scene in a book Id read.

Then only last year I repeated the memory to a Teesside colleague whod been in the

teaching profession for many years and he said God, yes, I remember that, they called

it the ............ system. (Some name, probably some professor or other) They tried it

in some places for a year or two but it never caught on. HAH! Me not crazy, me have

a good memory, albeit random.

Maybe I remember it because of the love of words Ive always had. My Mum and Dad

had me reading from a very early age, I didnt need much encouragement. I cant

remember what my first books were, but I do remember being given my first EnidBlytons - The Island of Adventure and The Rockingdown Mystery. It was either the

Famous Five or the Secret Seven, but in time I devoured every one of these books I

could lay my hands on. Nowadays, of course, much piss is extracted from those sort of

stories, tales set in middle-class, postwar England, where the kids went to boarding

school, had servants at home, indulged in casual languorous racism and talked in that

hilarious old-British-warmovie way. These books were brilliantly spoofed on t.v.

during the 80s, by Comic Strip Presents.

But that class gulf didnt matter, back then, to me. Ginger and Bunty and Spunky the

dog (I know, Ive forgotten the real names) didnt have to live on a northern council

estate to make them real people. I was there with those kids, it was really the Famous

Six and the Secret Eight. Many, many a glorious hour was spent huddled in my bed

with these books, my mind far, far away. This modest pleasure in life persists to this

day, despite the distractions of DVDs, forty squillion satellite channels (all broadcasting

shite), the internet and Playstations. Ive moved from dear old Enid, mind. And if

shed ever glimpsed my own forays into fiction-writing the poor old dear would ave a

dicky fit.

What a Gay Day.

My last memory of Infants School features again our old friend, Shittyarse Bartlett.

This time though the incident, though perfectly innocent, has an unsavoury undertone tothe adult mind, and perhaps this is why its not a tale Ive teased Steve with like I did

over his Free the Arsehole Three campaign.

He and I were sitting next to one another at our table in the classroom, and we were

talking about some programme on the telly last night. I was moaning about how the

hero always spoiled things by snogging his bird, a repulsive and totally

incomprehensible practice to a 6 year old boy. Steve, though, didnt even know what

snogging was. Tchoh! For Gods sake, Steve, wake up and smell the coffee, like, get

with the 1960s! So I, ever helpful, showed him. Put my arms round him and slapped a

lip-lock on him. Teacher( a woman is all I remember) saw us. Went ballistic. She

went into the next-door classroom, fetched another woman teacher in, then ordered usto stand on the table and repeat what you were just doing. Honestly. Me and Steve,


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being six, did what we were told. Stood up there, high above the watching throng, and

snogged. By that I all I mean is closed lips mushing against one another. Thinking

about it, I reckon the incident has stuck in my mind so clearly because I learned a new

word that day, a word that sounded like custard to my infant mind. It was the word

the other teacher, fetched in for a little light entertainment, uttered with a voice dripping

with contempt.

Dis - GUSTING!

Of course, the mind boggles today. In these sometimes more enlightened times such

behaviour from teachers would not be acceptable. These days, of course, six-year old

me would have probably been offered an appointment with a Sexual Orientation

Counsellor or some other wanky job-title getting thirty grand of taxpayers money

every year.

Mummy, this mans frightening me! Hes talking about willies and mens bottoms!

I did mention the snogging incident to Steve Bartlett once, some years back. Guess

what - he cant remember it at all.

Another new and interesting word popped up when I was about six. I was at homewatching the old Errol Flynn movie of Robin Hood with my dad. Theres one scene

where I think it was Friar Tuck walking alongside Maid Marions horse and he says to

her something like My Lady, I wouldnt mind tickling your fancy! Well, I understood

innuendo at a very early age and I said to my dad, Does he mean he wouldnt mind

tickling her tuppence? My Dad went ballistic with me, and introduced me to another

new word, told me that I was getting increasingly vulgar. His tone told me that this

wasnt a good thing. I was gutted, didnt understand why I had provoked such wrath.

It was another ten years before I discovered Hamlet laying in Ophelias lap and

wanting to talk of country matters otherwise Id have invited my Dad to tell

Shakespeare off anall!

Sorry to ramble, but I have to, its the way memories resurface. Another one about


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coming to understand language. Only little again, watching some comedy show on

telly one night. Wish I could remember who it was, some double act.

Think of them poor natives in India, says one of them, washing their bullocks in the

Ganges!

Audience laughs. I got it, sounds like bollocks, very funny. But then the next bit totallythrew me, and it was years before I got it.

Doing what?! says the other guy.

Washing their bullocks in the Ganges. he repeats.

Ohh, was the reply, the Ganges.

Eh? Took me years to work that one out.

Junior School.

At 7 I moved up to junior school. Towards the end of our last term at Enderby RoadInfants, this would be the summer of 1969, we were taken to see the new school wed

be attending after the summer holidays. If I close my eyes I can see us all standing in

an untidy line outside the front door of Riddings Junior School on Willoughby Road,

head teacher one R.J. Mitchell, and this old man with a thick shock of black hair

coming out to greet us. In undertones as subtle as a knee in the nads, the whisper

rippled down the line - Mitchells dad...

I dont know where we got that idea from, for this was Mr Mitchell himself. And what

a kind old soul he turned out to be. I didnt know at the time, but Mr Mitchell was long

enough in the tooth to have taught my own dad in years gone by, so our childish

assessment of him as his own father had some reason. Im sure Mr Mitchell would

smile at this anecdote, for about three years ago I heard from an old schoolmate, Ann

Holland, that Mr Mitchell was alive and well and living in a local nursing home. I hope

hes still going strong.

He used to call me Lovelace. This is because, around this time (1969) there was this

vaguely crappy American black singer who called himself Lovelace Watkins. Wonder

what happened to old Lovelace. Actually, no I dont. Another thing about Mr Mitchell

was that I seem to remember his initials were R.J. This, according to my war comics,

was the guy who invented the Spitfire! Well, later I realised that he would have to be a

lot older, but for a time I enjoyed the fantasy that my old Headmaster invented that iconof British defiance and spunk.

By this time, 1969, I had two younger sisters, Sally and Rachel, who were five and

three, respectively. I dont have much memory of them as babies. I vaguely remember

my Mum bringing this new baby Rachel home (Id be five) but of their early years I

remember nothing. Shocking, really, but there you go.

(Naff German accent, Freud probably)..

Zat is because you haff repressed zose times as you vere ze only child suddenly

usurped by zese vailing interlopers.Siggy, do us a favour...


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Vas?

Fuck off.

Siggy used to think that we all want to kill our dads and shag our mams, and that

women were jealous of guys todgers! And folk would pay him God-knows how many

Austrian Schillings an hour to treattheirmental problems!

If you follow a theory that your clearest memories are of the happiest times in your life,

then my 4 years at Riddings Juniors really were golden years. I remember so much I

could probably fill a book with just those four years. First, though, I have used the

internet to date a song and therefore pin down an incident to the year of 1969, the year I

started junior school, so Id be seven.

I was laying in my bed and I started to sing a song. It was Lily the Pink by The

Scaffold, and I knew most of the words from the number of times I must have heard it

on the radio. You remember the one - Jennifer Eccles, had terrible freckles... and

Well drink a drink a drink to Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink... I sang, ooh I dontknow, two or three of the verses with the chorus in between, and when I tailed off there

was this burst of applause from the bottom of the stairs, where my Mum and Dad had

been stood listening. I felt majorly embarrassed but was also bursting with pride. The

warmth of that moment has stayed with me all my life.

A few words about peers around this time. At the Infants school Id met new friends

like the aforementioned Steve Bartlett. Steve lived on Lowleys Road, near to the

school. I wasnt really to become aware of it until secondary school but this was an

area of private houses. In the pre-Thatcher years around Riddings this was unusual,

and it was usually thought that if a kid lived in a private house, his mam and dad had

more money than yours. My parents had wonderful mocking phrases for these people

such as Flash car outside, bugger all in the fridge, or Fur hat, no knickers.

Talking of fridges, in my earliest memories we didnt have a fridge at home. Instead we

had a pantry. This was a dark, chilly cupboard in the corner of the tiny kitchen.

There was also an outhouse next door, where our cooker was, as the kitchen was too

small. In later years my Dad was to knock these through into one large kitchen. He

was a Home-Improvement fanatic. He also knocked down the dining-room wall to

table-level and put a huge table top on it which extended both into the old dining-room

and the kitchen. I think it was called a Breakfast bar, but for the rest of my years at

home we all ate together at that table every evening. Of course, Im on a sticky wicketif I try to compete on the deprivation front with my Dads 1940s childhood, what with

boilers and mangles, but even in my childhood there were no automatic washing-

machines. My Mam had a twin-tub, much more labour-intensive than these days. In

the sitting-room, we did have a telly, but it was this archaic black-and-white monster

that also had a radio dial on it. You had to switch it on at least five minutes before your

programme as it took ages for all the valves to warm up. And colour tellies had been

out for years before we finally got one. I first saw a colour telly at the home of one of

my Mams friends, in the early seventies. Even the test-card was mesmerising!

We had no central-heating in those days, either. Right into my years at Secondary

school I have grim memories of jostling with my sisters to get dressed for school infront of a tiny one-bar electric fire that did little more than barbecue three square


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inches of your exposed leg-flesh while the rest of you froze. This is beginning to sound

like Monty Pythons Four Yorkshiremen sketch, Id better move on.

Pals old and new.

When I went up to the juniors, it was a temporary goodbye to Steve, as where he lived

meant he went to Leys Farm Junior School. The same was true of the aforementionedTank, the piggyback king. But the Kean twins, Chris and Andy, and another friend

Neil Donaldson, all went up to Riddings Juniors, and new pals appeared: Mark

Dawson, or Doey, Paolo Gatti, Ann Holland, now McLaren, who was the subject of

my first unrequited love at 10 years old and who Im still in touch with after all these

years, and others whose names escape me at the moment.

The Keans and Neil all lived on Wragby Road, about 10 minutes walk from my house.

This was a cool place to live, for one reason. At the back of their houses was a

wilderness known as Sandy Banks, or Silica Sands. It was an old sand mine, with

bits and pieces of rusting equipment still there, and a veritable adventure playground for

the days before our old friends Health and Safety proscribed a Risk Assessment beforewiping ones arse. Its still there today, but has been bulldozed and sculptured into a

soul-less ghost of its former self. I guess every kid has his or her Sandy Banks, or

Bluebell Wood, but I must have spent hundreds of blissful hours in there with my mates

over the years. But not quite yet.

I remember a birthday party of the Keans at their house on Wragby Road. We'd be 8 or

9. I remember thinking their parents were wonderful. They organised all these cool

games. One was lining up outside their sitting-room and being taken in, one at a time.

The lights were off and curtains shut and it was dark. Youd be led over to where a

sheet had been stretched over a wooden clothes-horse to form this panel. A torch was

switched on behind the panel and you had to follow it with your nose. Of course, you

were led on a meandering course to the top where you received a soaking sponge in the

face. The cool bit was when youd had your turn you got to sit stifling your giggles

while the next mug got theirs.


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Another game, you were blindfolded and taken to visit Lord Nelsons body. Some

adult would be lying there and your hand was guided to where hed lost his leg (youd

be guided to grope the unseen knee with the leg curled up underneath), to where hed

lost his arm (their forearm behind the back) and then, shock horror, your finger was

grasped and shown where Nelson had lost his eye, and you had your finger shoved into

half a tomato, and youd shriek your fucking head off.

Its funny how people drift in and out of your life. After that initial meeting as a little

kid I didnt have much contact with the Keans parents until much later, when we were

teenagers, when their mum didnt really approve of me. She was quite strict and a

devout Christian, and during our late teenage years we were just like any other lads, out

on the piss a lot, and manys the night we rolled into their house at 2 in the morning,

rat-arsed, when we were 17, 18. I remember trying to explain to their mum one night,

quite reasonably, that I was sorry for making so much noise and waking the house up,

but that I was quite upset because someone appeared to have pissed in my trousers and I

was quite angry about it.

Then, again, years later, I worked with their Dad, Joe, on the steelworks in Scunthorpe.For a quiet, religious man, he was quite a card and had a dry sense of humour. The pair


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of us once had a job to go and check the seal levels inside the gas holder. I was the mug

who had to go down to the float and measure the tar with my metal ruler. I had

breathing apparatus on and a radio and a hand-held gas detector (must have been quite

dangerous, looking back) and Joe had to stay up top, keeping an eye on me. One night

he pretended hed pissed off, gave me quite a scare, as he had to operate the lift that

fetched me back up. He was still chuckling at snap time an hour later. Old bastard..

So. 1969. Junior School. Seven years old. By then Id got to know our neighbours

fairly well. Across the road were two families with children our age, with whom my

parents got on very well. There was Doe (Dorothy) and Ron Stritch, with their kids

Ann, (3 years older than me), Micheal (my age) and Colin ( a year younger than me).

A couple more years down the line and another Stritch came along Robert. At this

time in my life I spent a lot of time with Michael and Colin. Next door to them were

the Campbells, John and Pat, who had kids called Elaine, Anita and Tony (and again, a

little later, Helen). The two girls were older than me - and when youre 6, 7, 8 or so a

kid whos 2 or 3 years older is like another generation away - but their son Tony was

my age, just like Michael next door to him, and we all played together every day.

We played Block - hide and seek by any other name. Whoever was it had a base,

usually someones gate-post, and they had to be careful not to stray too far from it.

When they found someone, they had to race back to the base, touch it and shout 123

Block Michael! but if Michael got there first and shouted 123 Block myself! youd

lost that particular player. If everyone Blocked themselves you had to go again. It

created quite a few childish spats that game, we could have done with an umpire.

I also remember a game called T.V. Programmes. Looking back it seems a bit daft.

Basically, whoever was it had to stand on one side of the road while the other

contestants were on the other. Then you thought of a telly programme and gave a clue.

Er, its on Friday, at 5 to 5, on BBC1.. The first person to guess the answer then had

to sprint across the road, touch the wall and blurt the answer before anyone else -

Crackerjack!. Then they were it and it would start again. God we knew how to

entertain ourselves in those days!

A word on being it. These days, in Middlesbrough where Im raising my kids, theres

no such thing as being it. Instead, you are on. What is the world coming to? On.

On what, for Christs sake?

Another great game I remember. We played this right up until we were 13, 14. It wascalled Dead Mans Fall. Basically, you stood in a line atop a piece of higher ground,

while whoever was itstood below you all. Then you all took turns at telling It what

weapon you wanted to be killed with.

Neil?

Dagger. Mime accompanied by swoosh of knife being thrown.

Huurrrgghh. Death rattle, chest held in agony and slump to the floor.

Paolo?

Machine gun.

Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh! Jerking of the body, agonised rictus on face, staggering

backwards and falling over.

Mark?Hand-grenade. Pin pulled by the teeth, overarm lob, thenBOOOOMM. Scream of


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agony, leap into the air and crash into the bushes.

It would then choose who did the best Dead mans fall and they would then be it.

Simple but cool. We never tired of playing it.

Ho, ho, ho.On the subject of the neighbours, Doe and Ron, Pat and John, I have a treasured

memory of Christmases and New Years from when I was very small. The adults used to

get together at each others houses, so all us kids would be left to stay up late and

generally cause mayhem before we would eventually fall asleep while the adults

partied. I can still remember being carried sleepily across the road by my Dad in the

frosty night air, before being tucked up in bed. With the added bonus of Father

Christmas coming that night!

When I was still young enough to believe in Father Christmas, I used to worry about

how he got in. Our chimney was blocked off, there was a wall-mounted gas fire

blocking the flue. I was reassured by the long rectangular hardboard panels at each sideof the chimney breast, which my Dad told me were custom-designed Santa entrances.

To get me and excited sisters to go to sleep on Christmas Eve, wed be encouraged to

listen out for the sleigh bells out there in the night. I would spend hours with one eye

open, ears straining for the bells or maybe even the bump of the sleigh landing on the

roof.

Talking of trying to get to sleep, I remember this thing my Dad would do that filled me

with childish wonder when I was small. I just couldnt work out how he did it.

I cant sleep.

Dad would sit on my bed and tell me to count sheep. He would make me imagine the

sheep jumping over a fence in front of me. Then hed say, Look, theres a black one,

can you see it? And of course, I could, cos hed just put that picture in my head. But

to my infant mind, how the bloody hell did Dad know that a black one was about to

come along? It was little short of miraculous.

On Christmas Eve, like millions of other families, wed leave out a mince pie and a

glass of milk for Father Christmas (we never used the word Santa.) Apparently, some

families would leave him a glass of sherry. Were they mad?! Hed be pissed as acarrot! Health and Safety would confiscate his sleigh and sell the reindeer to a dodgy

French abbatoir! Then where would I get my Lego from?

It was always the same routine at whatever unearthly hour us kids managed to drag our

parents out of bed on Christmas morning. My Dad would announce we had to wait at

the top of the stairs while he popped down to check see if hed been. Ive never asked

him why he did this. Was he just dramatically cranking up our juvenile excitement or

was he double-checking we hadnt been burgled in the night? I dont know, but found I

adopted this little piece of theatre with my own kids in later years.

Me and my sisters had a pillow-case each for our presents. Gifts were divided intoBig Presents and Stocking-Fillers. You could put in a bid for your big presents a


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few weeks before Christmas, though it wasnt guaranteed youd get exactly what you

asked for.

Doe across the road had a brother who was a joiner, Michael and Colins Uncle

Bobby. He used to turn up at theirs on a bike with his tools and bits and pieces of wood

hanging off the back. Bobby always wore a flat cap and he rather reminded me of StanLaurel, though I suspect he used the same dentist as George Formby. Anyway, his

relevance to Christmas was, over the years, all of us lads on that stretch of street got a

wooden toy fort made by Bobby, with opening gates and rampart to man with our toy

soldiers, while the girls got pairs of wooden stilts hed made. Old Bobbys still with us,

my Dad tells me.

Other presents I remember, over more than one Christmas, was my building sets. At

first it was a marvelous system called Betta-Bilda. Tiny white bricks that clipped

together, red windows and doors, green roof tiles, really quality stuff. I never tired of

building things, when I could wrench it off my Dad. My dad made this great wooden

box divided into compartments to keep all the parts sorted out, with a sliding woodenlid (or did he get Uncle Bobby to make it?)

?)

Betta-Bilda was superseded by the better-known Lego, and again I had the big wooden

box to keep all the pieces in good order. The beauty of Lego, to me, was that you could

buy model kits of certain buildings or vehicles, with all the right parts and specific

instructions. At the same time though these parts were also generic Lego pieces which

would mix and match with all your other bits and pieces. One model I remember

getting was this little black, old-fashioned taxi. I loved it. It was like a combination ofa building set and an Airfix model.


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As I got older I would ask for various games. One Christmas I gotBuckaroo and

Haunted House. Buckaroo is still around, though its had a bit of a revamp. Its a little

spring-loaded horse on which you have to take turns to pile various bits of mining

equipment a spade, pickaxe, coil of rope, box of dynamite. When it reached a certain

weight limit the spring would activate and the horse would kick its legs up and throweverything off, at which point youd lost. The t.v. ad showed this crappy actor

pretending to be an old tymee American prospector with an outrageous accent.

Its Buuuuuck-aroo, pardner!

Then youd see this squeaky-clean, jolly family laughing together while they played it.

You could see they were American but the company had dubbed English voices on to

make it more appealing to us Brits. Youd watch an android mummy laughing lovingly

with her little boy when he set the horse bucking and bits flew everywhere. Oh, what

larks!. It wasnt like that in our house. I was a terrible loser, and quite capable of

sweeping the horse-faced bastard off the table if he kicked off when I put summat on.

For a lot of years, one collective present was a Top of the Pops album. The label was

MFP, which stood for Music for Pleasure. It was an L.P. with that years hits on,

though not by the original artists. Absolute crap, but we loved them, it was part of the

Watkins Christmas tradition.

Another perennial was that years Beano and Dandy annuals. These comics are still

going strong and my own son loves them as much as I ever did.

And nuts, we always had nuts. It was the only time of year wed eat them. Mostly

hazelnuts, but also brazils and walnuts. The walnuts you usually ate in the form of

powder by the time youd used the nutcrackers with an over-heavy hand, but the brazil

nuts were often just a fancied but unrealised treat, as even my Dad couldnt crack the

bastards open. I learned later that nuts are there to encourage animals to eat the plants

seeds, shit them out somewhere else, thus spreading and propagating the tree. That

being the case, Im amazed Brazil-nut trees havent gone extinct. In later years, and to

this day, you can buy Brazil nuts already shelled, often covered in chocolate. I still love

them.

A friend once told me their mum used to be a Home-Help, looking after housebound

elderly folk. Once evening she came home with a great bag of shelled brazil-nutswhich she had been given by one of her old ladies. The old biddy had told her that

shed been brought them by her daughter and she didnt like them. Everyone tucked

into these nuts and enjoyed them. On the next visit to the sweet old biddy, there was

another bag of Brazils proffered.

I cant take them, protested my friends mum, theyre expensive, these!

Its okay, said the old lady, I told you, my daughter brings me them, and I havent

the heart to tell her I dont like them. Didnt you enjoy them?

Yes, they were lovely..

Well, you take them then, cos once Ive sucked the chocolate off theyre no good to


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me.

It s merely an oversized rooster.

We never had turkey for Christmas Dinner, my parents thought it too dry. But we all

loved chicken. So instead my Mam would go to Nottinghams butchers, where sheused to work, and order our stag. Goodness, how grand, roast deer on a council

estate. But no, it wasnt venison, it was just a big cock. (If theres such a thing as

just a big cock. What you frightened of, pet? Its just a big cock)

That chicken was bloody huge, you dont see them like that anymore. Dont think you

can even buy cock chickens now, theyre all hens, arent they? And thinking about it, I

realise my knowledge of bird biology is sadly lacking. Do cock birds have knobs?

Imagine fighting for that round the dinner table. On hens they call that bit the Parsons

Nose, dont they, so what does the cock bird have?

Baggsy the Bishops Bell-end!

That anecdote reminds me of seeing Ken Dodd telling some long-winded story on telly

one night when I was a kid. He was driving down the motorway and was overtaken by

this enormous three-legged chicken doing about seventy miles an hour. He chased it

for miles in his car until it shot into this farmyard. Pulling up, he wound down the

window and spoke to the farmer leaning on the gate, who confirmed it was one of his

specially-bred chickens. When asked why it had three legs, the farmer replied, Well,

come Sunday dinner at our ouse, theres always a row, cos oi loikes a leg, my Mrs

loikes a leg and my son loikes a leg.

Oh, says Ken, What do they taste like?

Dunno, never caught the bastard.

Mind, Doddy made that story last half a feckin hour, through two ad breaks and a


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shite.

(Re-reading, I have noticed I use the eff word rather a lot. Im not apologising, Im

just trying to be aware of a readers sensibilities. I do have a vulgar mouth, and have

never lost that childish view that swearing is fun and clever, but from now on Ill try to

use the old, Irish, Father-Ted word fecking instead. Ill record this generous anddiplomatic concession on my c.v. for when I apply for the post of Secretary-General of

the United Nations.) Perez de Cuellar? Who the fecks he? See what I mean? Youre

notquite so offended.

I love it when celebrities get jokes made up about them the minute they either die or get

in trouble with the law. With the internet it takes mere hours. Years ago Ken Dodd was

in court for tax evasion. The joke was doing the rounds.

I see Ken got six months..

Did e?

No, Doddy.

There was also this sort of celebrity farmer guy called Ted Moult when I was a kid. The

only thing we knew him for was his adverts for Everest Double-Glazing. Fit the Best,

Fit Everest. When he died, there was this daft joke going round. Youd hold your

hand up to the side of your head and mime three words, staying silent.

What? says your victim. You mime the three words again, still with your hand up to

the side.

What you on about? says your by-now irritated victim. You slide your hand across

opening your imaginary double-glazed window, and loudly announce: Ted Moults

dead. A stupid joke, but interesting to me because this phenomenon of usually

ghoulish jokes persists to this day, every time someone dies or, like I said, gets in

trouble with the law. I cant help wondering if its a particularly Brit thing, or whether

you get this in other cultures too.

I once saw that a certain schooldays joke had at least crossed the Channel. In this

joke, the teller would hold out their hand, palm uppermost, and tell you they had a little

invisible friend, standing on their hand. They invite you to tickle him under the chin,

he loves that. When you waggled your finger under the invisible chin, youd be told

that he was actually much taller but he loves being tickled there as well I was once

taken through this routine by a French lad. It being conducted in French, it took me a

while to twig on, but then I recognised the routine. I remember feeling gobsmacked

that they had this joke in France. Bit nave really, its like Brit holidaymakers beingamazed to find Kit-Kats in Spanish supermarkets.

End of Part One, hope you enjoyed.

Copywright: Mark Watkins, 2008

Growing Up in the 60s Part One.

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Transcript of Growing Up in the 60s Part One.