Fathers and Sons Read online

  But this was the 1950s, not the 1920s. My sister was transferred, semi-conscious, to Shrewsbury Hospital where she was placed in an oxygen tent and fed antibiotics. Modern medicine duly carried the day and the family managed to shrug off the sense that dark and malign forces were at work.

  But no one actually mentioned John by name.

  Geoffrey and Kitty had missed their youngest boy more keenly than their letters to him ever showed. Kitty was the chief letter writer, and Chris had received a steady stream of blue airmail envelopes containing news from Kiln Farm while he was in Canada. The letters from home were mostly factual, concerned with goings-on in the village and how the crops were doing. Sometimes there might be a scrawled paragraph from Geoffrey, but no clue from either parent how much they wanted to see their youngest son again. Now, they insisted he and his wife stay at Kiln Farm for at least a month before he started his new job at Ford’s headquarters in Dagenham, Essex. So my mother had an opportunity to become familiar with this emotionally charged parcel of land, and to get to know her husband’s parents.

  Years later, Geoffrey would confess to her that, at first, the arrival of his son’s Canadian wife had confused and unsettled him. It brought back memories of The Girl. He had been unable to persuade his first fiancé to sail to England with him, but Chris had successfully brought his own girl home. My grandfather admired this, and also my mother’s determination to make the journey, leaving her own family behind.

  My mother certainly made an impact on Shawbury. Her red hair and glamorous looks marked her out. She dressed in the tailored, fashionable clothes she had brought with her to a country still emerging from the so-called Age of Austerity. Because of the height difference with her husband–she was five-foot four to his six-foot two–she always wore high heels. The whole combined to produce a distinctly chic, Parisian look. This, and her distinctive Canadian accent, caused heads to turn in the village shop.

  She made an impact on Geoffrey too. He quickly became fond of my mother, and it was the beginning of a friendship which, in later years, saw him increasingly confide in her on the long walks they took through the countryside; conversations she remembers to this day and which were of enormous value in the writing of this book.

  Now, at last, my mother saw for herself the stage upon which her husband’s childhood had been played out. She walked gingerly around the bomb crater in the first field and shuddered to see how close to the house it was. She inspected the stables where Captain had once whinnied for my father, now home to diesel-stinking tractors. She fished for trout on the bend in the river where Kitty’s ducks had sailed away on a long-ago summer’s afternoon. One wet August day, Chris borrowed his father’s Morris and drove her across country to Denstone. After ten minutes walking around the empty school–the ‘hols’ were not yet over–she quietly asked to be driven back. She could see her husband was becoming increasingly agitated. And seeing it through Chris’s eyes, she thought it a loathsome place.

  After a week or two spent settling in, Chris drove Mary Claire into Shrewsbury for her long-dreaded appointment with the Madeley family dentist.

  She was ushered into the surgery. My mother shivered at the sight of the ancient pre-war dental equipment: a huge drilling rig with flapping drive belts connected to foot pedals; an array of obscure but terrifying instruments Queen Victoria would probably have recognised; and bottles of what looked suspiciously like chloroform or ether.

  She wished heartily that she had stayed on the other side of the Atlantic and had all her teeth pulled under gas in a modern North American dentist’s. The British National Health may be saving a thousand dollars, but she felt like she had walked into a torture chamber.

  Outside, her husband sat in the waiting room flicking through a tattered copy of Punch, dating from around the time of Munich. He was expecting a lengthy vigil–most of the afternoon–but suddenly the surgery door opened and my mother walked through, smiling, holding a slightly bloodied rag to a corner of her mouth.

  ‘What’s happened, Claire? You can’t possibly have had all of them removed already.’

  ‘’On’t need ’oo,’ she answered indistinctly through the cloth before taking it away for a moment. ‘He says there’s nothing wrong with my teeth, except one or two at the back that were crowding the others. One more treatment and I’m fixed. That guy in Windsor was a chiseller, Chris, out for a fast buck.’

  On the drive back to Kiln Farm, Chris glanced across at his wife. ‘Well, Claire…it looks like we needn’t have come to England after all, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  There was a pause before my father spoke again.

  ‘D’you mind?’

  My mother shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think I do. You know I always wanted to visit England. Let’s look on it as an adventure; see how things work out.’

  For a moment my father couldn’t speak. Then he managed a piece of understatement that was typical of him. ‘OK…well, good. Thank you.’

  My mother flashed him a quick smile. ‘Nope, thank you. Well, your dentist anyway, in spite of that horrible medieval equipment he used. It’s thanks to him I’ll keep my teeth. And going by that lamb we had for lunch at the Fox and Hounds yesterday–it was lamb, wasn’t it, Chris–I’m going to need them.’

  By the autumn of that year my father was living in digs nearly 200 miles south of wife and child, working for the Yankee dollar. He was a public relations officer for Ford at their sprawling Dagenham plant and this enforced separation was something he and Mary Claire swiftly agreed could not be tolerated. Geoffrey loaned them the deposit on a semi standing on a busy main road in Romford, Essex, and by Christmas the young family was in residence. It looked as if the young couple were putting down permanent roots.

  Later the following year, Mary Claire fell pregnant again.

  Essex boy was on his way.

  The sight of flowering laburnum always reminds me that my birthday is approaching. When I was small my mother would point to the bursting yellow buds on the fine tree that stood outside our back door and whisper, ‘See the petals? It means your birthday’s coming.’

  I was a Sunday’s child, arriving on 13 May in the front room of our house in Dagenham Road, Rush Green. Rush Green had once been a small village outside the market town of Romford, but by 1956 it was almost entirely absorbed by a rapidly expanding post-war London. Traces of the countryside remained, though. Even today patches of ancient farmland survive around Romford, ploughed fields sitting bravely alongside 1930s-built housing estates and rows of shops and pubs. There are farmhouses still there too, some barely more than a stone’s throw from the house where I was born: Crown Farm; Warren Farm; Mill Farm…their outbuildings and fields make an incongruous sight for drivers surging down the dual carriageway that links the built-up suburbs stretching from Romford to the East End.

  Later, when I was old enough to appreciate Kiln Farm’s rural appeal, these fragments of countryside that stubbornly refused to be completely swamped by bricks and concrete held a deep attraction for me. I would ride my bike around their cement-besieged perimeters, closing my ears to the roar of traffic and resolutely turning my gaze towards the narrow vistas still free of cityscape. It was then that I first realised the hold Kiln Farm had begun to exert over me, even as a young boy. As time went by, I increasingly yearned for its meadows and trees and river, the red-bricked barns and outbuildings. I still do.

  My father’s reaction to the birth of his first son was extravagant. In the weeks after my birth my mother felt quite left in the shade. Chris would race home from Dagenham as fast as his wheezing pre-war Ford 8 would carry him, let himself in by the front door, and without so much as a ‘Hi honey, I’m home’ charge up the stairs to the nursery (well, the little box room at the back of the house) to stare and stare and stare at me if I were asleep, or pick me up and cradle me in his arms if I were even drowsily awake.

  My mother admits to becoming quite jealous. ‘You want your husband to love his ne
w son, but you don’t want to be usurped by him,’ she told me candidly. It was sometimes over half an hour before her husband would sheepishly make his entrance downstairs and bid his wife and four-year-old daughter good evening.

  More than half a century on from these exorbitant homecomings, I believe my father was plainly overcompensating. He was making it transparently clear to everyone–most of all, to himself–that the relationship with his son would not be anything like the one his father had had with him. And he was going to establish the difference right here and now. I was just a nappy-clad, speechless bundle of primary needs, but my father was determined to set the ground rules straight from the start. He was going to have a demonstrative, loving relationship with his son come hell or high water. Even if that meant, initially, exaggerating or even acting the role of a devoted father.

  Was he acting? Not in the sense that he artfully concealed an absence of love. I think he was simply terrified of straying into that cold, neutral zone he and Geoffrey had inhabited together (and still did) and wanted to build a place where he could have a warm, open relationship with his son.

  I love him very much for that. He’d thought about it. He reversed the flow. Henry, William, Geoffrey…they had all, in their own ways, done so much damage. Christopher had suffered enough and learned enough to be able to work out how to repair it.

  My first memory is a very early one. I am lying in my pram, gazing up at a blue sky through the branches of a tree laden with white blossom. Some of the petals are fluttering down on to my face and I am watching them intently as they drift towards me. I can be scarcely more than one, and I must be under the old pear tree at the bottom of the garden where on sunny days I was parked for a nap.

  The next break in the blank void of recall also involves blossom. My mother and I are looking through a window at the brilliant yellow petals on our laburnum tree. She points to it, and turns and smiles at me. ‘Four tomorrow!’

  Now my father drifts into view. He is always in a suit and tie. Always. And never in a shirt of any shade other than brilliant white, except when he was wearing his pyjamas. The first thing he put on in the morning was his spectacles; the lenses in heavy, black plastic frames, almost as dark as his thick hair which he slicked back with Brylcreem after shaving. I climbed into my parents’ bed most mornings and watched the daily ritual of them dressing for the day. My mother first, facing into the wardrobe as she modestly fastens her bra. She swivels the cups round to her back while she fiddles with the clasp. The rigid, wired cones point at me from her shoulder blades and I confusedly think that ladies must have two pairs of breasts, one on the front and one at the back.

  My father is invariably reading the paper in bed. It must have been the Express because I remember being fascinated by the helmeted knight who always guards the front page. ‘Who is he?’ I would ask my father.

  ‘He’s a Crusader. A very special soldier in days of old who fought for Jesus.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘No, he had his friends with him.’

  And so on.

  On Saturdays my mother had the afternoon ‘off’ after spending all week looking after house, husband and children. She usually went into Romford market–it was still a drovers market then, with flocks of bleating sheep–and browsed among the stalls, or admired the displays of crystal and cut glass in the department stores, while my father entertained my sister and me.

  We might walk past the gasworks to Cottons Park where there were two slides, one of them breathtakingly high and steep with a wooden hut at the top to stop children falling off, the other disappointingly low and tame. Elizabeth, four years older than me, was allowed to swoop down the ‘daddy’ slide while I was confined to the baby version. I argued, begged and pleaded to be allowed to scale the metal Everest with my sister. The answer was always the same.

  ‘Not until you’re six.’

  Or we would go out for a drive. The ancient Ford 8 was long gone and we had upgraded to another sit-up-and-beg economy car, the Popular. My father was very proud of this, his first new Ford. It was shiny jet-black with red upholstery and not much else–no heater (hot-water bottles and blankets on winter journeys), no radio and an immensely long gear stick with all of three gears to choose from. Four, if you counted reverse.

  Sometimes we would motor as far as Epping Forest and explore. Over time we became expert at finding our way through the thousands of acres of trees. Most visitors scarcely penetrated the timber beyond sight of their cars and we would leave these timid souls far behind. We had our own ‘private’ glade deep in the heart of the forest where no one else ever seemed to go and where we shared undisturbed picnic lunches.

  My father was extremely playful. I am sure the games we enjoyed were as much for his benefit as for ours; he was compensating for all he had missed out on during his own childhood. Our little family of four would play rounders, French cricket, badminton (without a net, which made it slightly pointless) and, occasionally, on my mother’s insistence, baseball.

  That was just on outings. At home, my father instigated a nightly tradition which started when I was about three and continued until I was ten.

  We called it ‘The Play’. After supper, my father and I would retire to my parents’ room, climb on the big double bed and try to shove each other off. Simple as that. You could use arms, legs, push, pull–whatever it took. Of course my father let me win these contests and my mother, sitting downstairs, would sigh each time another thundering crash shook the house as my father toppled to the floor of the room above.

  He built me a train set, and spent far more time playing with it than I did. The little electric locomotives had funnels you could put drops in, and fake smoke would stream behind the train as it chuffed around the track. My father laid in stocks of the special chemical so that rolling stock would always look as realistic as possible when we–or he–played with it.

  Bonfire night was a very big deal. As soon as fireworks were in the shops, father and son were there, carefully choosing that year’s display. We considered ourselves experts and were lofty in our judgements on various brands. Standard, we decided, were most reliable, if a little dull. Brocks were livelier, but you got more duds. Astra we never touched after half of one box failed to go off. My father and I sulked for days after that. Later, whenever anything broke or failed in some way, it was described contemptuously as ‘an Astra’.

  Sometimes my father would drive us half a mile up the road to Crow Lane to see some real trains. The main Liverpool Street railway line ran parallel with it and we would park on top of an embankment and wait to see what my father called a ‘proper’ train–one pulled by a steam engine–rush past us like a snorting dragon. This was thrilling, and one day it resulted in the first great regret of my life.

  One bitingly cold, snowy Saturday afternoon we saw the telltale puffs of smoke rising into the air far down the track and knew we were in luck. Soon the great black engine appeared round a distant bend and thundered towards us. I could see the fireman shovelling the coal and the driver standing on the footplate. Suddenly he noticed the tall man with two little children standing on the slope above the track and, as the distance closed, gave a huge theatrical wave.

  ‘Come on, Richard–he’s waving at us. Wave back, quickly!’

  But I couldn’t. It was as if a god had taken personal notice of my existence, and I froze. I could no more return this fabulous creature’s wave than I could drive his train. And a moment later the chance was gone as the engine rocked past us and into a tunnel.

  ‘What a shame…you won’t get a chance like that again.’

  I knew my father was right. I had let a wonderful opportunity to exchange waves with a train driver pass and tears of disappointment and self-recrimination sprang from my eyes. I may have been too young to understand the words ‘carpe deum’ but I resolved there and then to seize my chances in future. A seminal moment. Today when I dither I tell myself: ‘Remember the train driver.’

  Before lo
ng the steam engines had been comprehensively replaced with electric and diesel trains and a great decade of change was under way. My mother had taught me to read and count, and one evening my father arrived home with a gleaming, freshly minted coin. ‘Can you tell me what year is stamped on this, Richard?’

  I studied the glittering sixpence for a few moments. ‘Um…it’s 1961.’

  ‘Yes. Well done. You can keep it. In fact, it’s time you started getting pocket money like your sister. I’ll give you sixpence every week from now on, all right?’

  So far then, so good. Chris was turning out to be the very model of a modern father. Putting aside what today we describe as ‘quality time’ for his children. Taking them out by himself once a week. Excelling in the demonstrative affection department–he was extravagant with his kisses and cuddles. I don’t think a day went by when I wasn’t swept into the air in a bear hug, had a huge raspberry trumpeted on my neck (unfailingly hilarious, this), or was showered with kisses at bedtime. The only occasions these offerings were muted were when we stayed at Shawbury, or if my grandparents visited us. Then a touch of formality entered the atmosphere; there was a faint air of reserve about my father and he would be less boisterous with his children. I didn’t mind; it was simply part of having to ‘be polite’ when Grandma and Granddad were around.

  On the long drives from Romford to Shawbury, my parents would inevitably discuss my grandparents and my father’s upbringing. My sister and I would shamelessly eavesdrop, even to the point of demanding: ‘Speak up!’ or ‘What was that again? I didn’t catch it.’ My parents were usually tolerant and would merely flash the occasional warning glance over their shoulders. ‘Not a word about this at Shawbury, you two…’