The Langley Boy Raising the Red Flag

Contents

Dedication

All that glisters is not gold

University of Birmingham

Per Ardua Ad Alta

Legerdemain in London

Manchester

Tyrie v Tyrie

The Fire Seven Times Tried This

Tell me where is fancy bred

My Footprints on Manchester

Early Days at Greenhill Road

Pollard Street Depot A Fool’s Paradise

A Troglodyte World below the City

Change in the Air

Friends and School Trips

The Rich Panoply of Life

Protecting the Queen’s Highway

A Teenager in the House

The ‘Holy’ City

Life Moves On

Croeso y Gymru

Welcome to Wales

About the Author

Dedication

To my wife Hilary, my family, my good friends, former students at Birmingham University, my close working colleagues at Manchester and Stockport, the dedicated members of the Labour Party in Altrincham and Timperley, and past employees of No. 2 Division in Manchester.

All that glisters is not gold

Christine Jewell and I were a twosome, and our roller coaster relationship spanned my Sixth Form years at Slough Grammar School, three years of intensive study at Birmingham University, and the early period of my working career. Our story began at a sixth form dance in November 1958, where because I attended an all boys school, we lacked the one essential ingredient to make it a successful evening, members of the opposite sex, and so we invited the sixth-formers from the local girls’ high schools to the dance. The evening began in the traditional manner with the band playing to an empty floor, while the young men and women seated on opposite sides of the hall, tentatively eyed each other up and down, each hoping that they would meet the person of their dreams. The ice was broken by our head boy and the head girl from Slough High School, who led the customary excuse-me waltz, after which they systematically dragged the rest of us onto the dance floor, until the room was filled with gyrating couples, the girls delightfully attired in their colourful and enticing dresses, and the boys in their navy-blue school blazers and grey flannels. I danced with a number of girls and felt confident and relaxed, thanks to my old friend Johnny Whipps, who had persuaded me to accompany him to the Ken Bateman and Blanche Ingle School of ballroom dancing at the Slough Community Centre. I had self-assurance and poise, and wearing my artificial, patent leather, dancing shoes, I skilfully guided my partners around the dance floor without treading on their toes.

When the next dance was announced, I spotted two very attractive young women engaged in deep conversation, and I boldly asked the taller of the two girls, if she would like to dance. Franki Yukah had long blond hair, high cheekbones, a pert chin, and a lively personality, and she came from Maidenhead High School. We chatted, and I learnt that she had come to the dance with her school friend Christine Jewell, and that they both lived in the small village of Cookham in Berkshire. My next dance was with Christine, who wore a striking, yellow, full-skirted dress, which accentuated her shapely figure. She was attractive, her hair was worn in a French pleat, and she had a winning smile. I had found my partner for the evening, and I was flattered to discover that she seemed to be as interested in me, as I was in her. At the interval, we retired to a classroom set aside for light refreshments, and while we made polite conversation, I took advantage of the bright, fluorescent lighting to weigh up the attributes of my two companions.

During the afternoon’s preparations for the school dance, the third year sixth decided to spice up the evening’s entertainment by bursting a huge, confetti-filled balloon over the assembled dancers. To achieve this, they erected an overhead wire cable across the hall, from which they suspended a small trolley carrying a long sharp needle. A number of trial runs were carried out to ensure that it worked properly, but the first attempt was unsuccessful, because the slope of the track was too shallow and the vehicle had failed to gain sufficient momentum to burst the balloon. The height of the wire was then adjusted to increase speed of the trolley, but this merely caused the vehicle to career off the track, almost harpooning Robin Edwards as it crashed to the floor.

Nowadays a school would have to carry out a full risk assessment of the project, but in the 1950’s there were few Health and Safety requirements, and in any event, the staff knew nothing about our enterprising venture. We nevertheless accepted that we could not endanger the dancers with such a lethal weapon, and so it was back to the drawing board to modify the design. The solution was simple; our budding engineers looped a metal strap over the top of the trolley, so that even if its grooved wheels came off the cable, the vehicle would remain safely suspended in mid-air.

Fearing a repetition of the previous disaster, we stood well back when we watched the next trial, but our fears were unfounded. The trolley accelerated along the track and burst the balloon, showering us with confetti. We had done it. We carried out a further test as an additional safeguard, and although it was successful, I had strong reservations about the missile’s stability, and decided to avoid that part of the hall during the dance.

I was aware from the trials that it was intended to burst the balloon immediately after the interval, and when we returned to the hall, I prudently guided Christine around the edge of the dance floor to avoid the overhead wire track. Happily, everything went according to plan and the balloon exploded, covering the dancers in a snowstorm of coloured paper. During the next waltz, my good friend Robert Franks took a number of photographs of Christine, Franki and me, and although I did not appreciate it at the time, they provided me with a memorable record of that notable occasion.

It was a great evening, but all good things have to come to an end, and the dance concluded with the linking of arms and the memorable strains of Auld Lang Syne. I accompanied the two girls along Lascelles Road, where much to my irritation Franki placed herself between Christine and me, which made it difficult for us to chat. When we reached the Zebra crossing at the Bath Road, Christine and I experienced the most extraordinary phenomenon, which was to change our lives forever. As we simultaneously peered around Franki to speak to each other, Cupid’s Arrow flew between us. It could hardly be called love at first sight, because we had been dancing together all evening, but without a word having been spoken, our eyes met, and we experienced a sudden and intense feeling of mutual attraction, which was to seal our fate.

Slough Grammar School Dance

Foolishly, I had omitted to ask Christine for her address or telephone number, but at least I had the consolation of knowing that she was going to the Maidenhead High School dance on St Andrew’s day, to which our Sixth Form had been invited as a reciprocal arrangement. In the meantime, I could not get her out of my head. In fact, I was so infatuated that the first thing I did when I returned to school on Monday morning was to badger poor Robert Franks into getting his film developed. He came up trumps, and two days later, he handed me a couple of black and white prints. I was smitten.

It was with barely concealed impatience that I ticked off the days before the High School dance, and when D-day eventually arrived, I had the horrible thought that Christine would not turn up. My doubts increased dramatically when various groups of young women trickled into the hall, but not the person I was expecting, and then to my great relief Christine came through the door, and we were reunited. While we were dancing we arranged to go to the cinema, and this time I made sure that I had her full name and address.

After a couple of dates, I was invited to go to Christine’s home for Sunday lunch, so that her parents Sidney and Joan Jewell could meet the reprobate, who had swept their daughter off her feet. The journey to Cookham was a true labour of love, and it took three buses and an hour-long journey to get there. The family lived in a well-proportioned, detached house called Durlston in Upper Road, Cookham Rise, which was about a quarter of a mile from the railway station. Its most noteworthy feature was a large, glass conservatory at the front of the property, where Mr Jewell nurtured his collection of orchids and African Violets.

I had no idea what Christine’s parents would be like, and so it was with some trepidation that I walked up to the conservatory door, took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. Mr. Jewell greeted me with a big smile, a firm handshake, and the words, You must be Charles, do come in. He had a distinguished face, a broad, slightly turned-up nose and thinning grey hair. He wore a brown sports jacket with leather patches on its sleeves, a grey, v-neck pullover, a white, open-neck shirt, worsted trousers and brown shoes. I was then introduced to Christine’s mother, who was a tall, willowy woman with slightly sunken cheeks, a permanently thoughtful expression, and salt and pepper hair. My final introductions were to Christine’s brother David, an eleven year old who was a miniature version of his father, and Diana, the youngest member of the family, known more familiarly as Dinah. Rather strikingly, all three children had inherited their father’s characteristic, broad, and slightly upturned nose.

The lounge was furnished with a traditional, patterned, maroon, fitted carpet, a three-piece suite, a large, tropical, fish tank, an occasional table, a television, and a set of built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace, which housed Mr Jewell’s precious volumes of The Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Sidney Jewell was a commercial artist, who worked from home, and the bay window in the lounge was pride of place to his drawing board, his chair and a small cupboard. He had been born in London and boasted that had dragged himself up the social ladder by his bootstraps. He went to Art College, served in the Navy during the war, and finally became self-employed. His forté was the use of scraperboard to produce bold and stylish newspaper advertisements for the promotion of major, household products. Apparently, a normal black and white photograph of a packet of soap powder would appear insipid, if it were printed in newspaper advertisement, because the printing process can only produce an image from small dots of ink. Mr Jewell’s technique was to remove the dull, grey tones and produce a bold, black and white facsimile of the photograph, so that the product appeared crisp and sharp when the picture was printed.

The artwork was produced by etching an image of the product into the black surface of a sheet of scraperboard to reveal the white, china clay, base layer. It was rather akin to engraving a picture onto a piece of slate, but the overall effect was much more effective. It was a painstaking exercise, and if he varied the width of the white, crosshatched furrows that he cut into the black surface, he could create areas of shading with different tones of lightness and darkness. When the picture was photographed and printed, the process produced a strong, sharp and vibrant, black and white advertisement.

One picture, which still sticks in my mind, was a masterpiece he created for an African newspaper, which showed a packet of Persil, washing powder being used by a group of women wearing exotically patterned robes and headdresses. It must have taken five or six weeks to complete the advertisement, which was incredibly detailed and beautifully crafted. The work was also painstaking and time-consuming, especially as the size of finished product was about 4ftx3ft, but similarly it must have been equally profitable, in view of the number of man-hours it had taken to complete the commission.

It once occurred to me while I was watching him working that instead of laboriously crosshatching the scraperboard by hand, it could be partially mechanised to speed up the operation. I suggested to him that it should be possible to fabricate a cog and chain system to move his drawing board ruler up and down a specific amount, and by using an adjustable setsquare, he could quickly crosshatch a larger area of scraperboard. On my next visit, I was amazed to discover that he had used David’s Meccano Set to implement my idea, which worked perfectly. Not only did it increase his productivity, it also reduced his eyestrain.

Mr Jewell was an intelligent and thoughtful man, and much of his knowledge had been acquired from his beloved encyclopaedias, which he had read from cover to cover. He was fascinated by space, infinity, and the theories of Professor Brunowski, which he used to expound to me in great detail. He was also somewhat of a recluse, who boasted that the furthest distance that he ever travelled during the year was to the Chelsea Flower Show, or to a little shop in the city where he sold the proprietress some of his prize African Violets.

He enjoyed gardening and his pride and joy were a row of cordon apples, which he had trained along a trellis fence. He also loved classical music, and although I am no expert, he seemed to be an accomplished pianist. He often entertained two of his neighbours with a piano recital. Mrs Niles was a cultured, elderly, grey-haired woman, who spoke slowly and deliberately, and preferred Debussy’s work, while Peggy was a carefully, turned-out, former actress, who enjoyed a wide range of musical genres. Peggy was a bit of fun; she had a flamboyant personality, she fluttered her heavily, made-up eyelashes at Mr Jewell, and with a twinkle in her eye she would make suggestive remarks to Christine and me.

Sidney was about ten years older than Joan and despite the disparity in their ages, they seemed to be perfectly happy together. Unfortunately, Mrs Jewell often suffered from migraine attacks and headaches, and these frequently compelled her to take to her bed. She had a good dress sense, and tended to wear lightweight, lilac, woollen jumpers and cardigans with matching skirts. She was an avid reader and there was always a pile of library books on the windowsill in the hall, where a beautiful, grandfather clock stood sentinel at the door to the dining room.

Christine’s parents took themselves much too seriously, and although I got along with them reasonably well, I found it difficult to accept their fixation with etiquette and what they considered to be U and Non-U. I had been brought up by decent, working-class parents, who had taught me politeness and good manners, and so it came as an unwelcome surprise to discover that I was being judged by others, as to what they considered to be socially correct, a disconcerting situation, which led to numerous disagreements with my new girlfriend.

Franki Yukah’s parents owned The Mill House in the village, and Christine and I were once invited there to listen to some of her records. It was my first introduction to Tom Lehrer’s music, and Christine and I were so impressed by his wicked humour that she bought a copy of the LP. We learnt the tracks off by heart, especially my favourite, the delightfully mischievous, I’ll hold your hand in mine dear, but the music was not to Mr Jewell’s taste, and as a quid pro quo for being subjected to our music, we had to sit dutifully on the settee and listen to one of his classical records.

On January 10th 1959, Christine starred as one of the huntsmen in the village Pantomime, Cinderella. The local W. I. group and church had produced the show, but I am not quite sure how she came to be involved in the performance, since the family were not churchgoers. My only memory of that occasion is a line of attractively, dressed huntsmen, daringly kicking their shapely legs in time to the music, and wearing provocative, black fishnet tights.

David was a charming and intelligent young man but his homework was often left until Sunday evening, when panic set in, because there was insufficient time to complete it for Monday morning. The resulting scene was fascinating, and so that he would not get into trouble for failing to hand it in on time, his parents would generously pitch in and help him with his French, Maths, and English homework.

I used to entertain Dinah with exciting stories about red goblins, elves, fairies, and wicked witches in a wonderful world of make-believe. She had thick, wavy, shoulder-length, mousy-brown hair, a pale complexion, perfectly formed lips and wide, innocent eyes, which flickered with excitement when she immersed herself in the gripping adventure stories that I conjured up in my fertile imagination. Mrs Jewell was most impressed with the impact that I had on her youngest daughter, and she frequently suggested that I might like to tell Dinah a story, so that she would go to bed without any fuss. Many years later, Dinah vividly recalled the countless fairy-tales that she had enjoyed at my knee, which made me realise that I should have written them down for the enjoyment of future generations.

Christine and I enjoyed visiting the theatre, going to the cinema, trying to crack the Sunday Observer crossword, or just doing our A-level homework on the dining room table. We also walked in Cookham’s famous Quarry Bank Woods, strolled along the banks of the river Thames, or watched the distant Marlow Donkey shuttle backwards and forwards along the railway line between Maidenhead and Marlow. Similarly, we would explore the countryside in and around Langley, where we would chat and discuss a wide variety of subjects.

It is said that love is blind. Indeed the word is so difficult to define that the Greeks have a number of separate words to describe it, so that they can differentiate between the love of a parent towards a child, sexual love, the love of god, and the love of art, etc. Having been born under the star sign of Pisces, I am supposed to be a romantic at heart. I do not actually believe the nonsense produced in horoscopes, but from the novels I had read as a young man, there is no doubt I had romantic notions about women, love, marriage, honour, bravery and chastity. I have no idea why I should have been so heavily influenced by such ideas, for I was fully aware that the world was a place of hard knocks, but somehow the admiration of those virtues had been deeply embedded into my psyche. With the benefit of hindsight, it was pity that my father had not put me on the straight and narrow about such matters, for my life would have been simpler, had I adopted a more pragmatic approach to such chivalrous concepts.

In 1959, Christine and I were at different stages in our academic careers. I was in the second-year sixth form studying A-level combined maths, physics and chemistry, whereas Christine was in the first-year, sixth form studying a predominately maths based course. I had an unconditional place reserved for me at the University of Liverpool to read Civil Engineering, and because we both disliked the idea of being separated, we had not discussed what would happen, if I went to college in September.

It was axiomatic that Christine would be going to university. Her school and her parents expected it of her, and her Aunt Nell had no qualms that she would follow in the footsteps of her children, Dick and Elizabeth. At that time, and to the best of my knowledge, no one else in the Tyrie or Andrews’ family had been to university, and I have to say that I am grateful to Mr Jewell and Christine for their unswerving confidence in my ability to get there. It is also to the great credit of my parents, especially my father, that having had no experience of university life, he had an incredibly enlightened approach towards higher education, and did everything possible to support and encourage me in my studies.

Christine’s aunt Nell was an extrovert in comparison to her brother Sidney and she brought a breath of fresh air into the house whenever she visited him. She was a thoughtful and bright woman, who loved the challenge of a well-composed crossword, and her Christmas gift of Roget’s Thesaurus made a useful and permanent addition to my bookshelf, until it became so battered and worn that I had to replace it with a more modern volume.

During one of Aunt Nell’s visits, she mentioned to us that she had been to see a new musical in London called West Side Story, and that it was really worth a visit. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that we decided to see it for ourselves. It was an absolutely marvellous performance, and we were enthralled by its riveting music and flamboyant dance routines. We were fortunate that many of the original cast were still in the show, including the unforgettable American dancer, Chita Rivera, who mesmerized the audience with her breathtaking and vibrant dances. The story was the modern day equivalent to Romeo and Juliet, but took place in the New York slums, set against the background of street warfare between two rival gangs, the All-American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The musical skilfully manipulated our emotions with its energetic dances and poignant love songs, especially the final scene where Tony lay dead on the stage, and his sweetheart Maria stood weeping helplessly over the body of her murdered lover. What I found particularly striking was that although the cast were given a standing ovation and received many curtain calls, the audience left the theatre in complete silence, having been emotionally overwhelmed by the show’s dramatic ending.

We made several other sorties into London, which included a visit to Kew Gardens and Oxford Street, where Christine bought a very expensive pair of new sandals. It was a balmy, summer day and it gave me the excuse to wear my newly acquired, casual clothes into town. My father had forbidden me to wear jeans, which he considered to be working-men’s trousers, but I defied his instructions and bought a pair of black, drainpipe jeans, which I left at Christine’s house, so that I could change into them whenever we went out. I felt like a million dollars clad in my new jeans, a pair of open top sandals, and a baggy, yellow sweater knitted by my Aunt Min and with a touch of narcissism, I admired my dashing reflection in the shop windows as we walked along Oxford Street.

Our other memorable trip to London was to see the epic film Ben Hur, starring Charlton Heston. It came about, because I had helped Mr Jewell redecorate the outside of his house, and as an unexpected reward for my labours, he gave me a handful of five-pound notes and asked me to do him a favour and take Christine to London. When we arrived at the cinema, we had to pay fancy London theatre ticket prices for the seats, because allegedly there were only a few spare tickets available, but when we went into the auditorium, it was practically empty! I complained to the staff, but I was told that hotels and theatre ticket companies reserved blocks of seats for sale, and we couldn’t use them, because their customers might arrive to take up their allocation—they didn’t, and it was just a scam to fleece the tourists. The film was one of the new blockbuster productions shot in panorama with surround sound, but instead of returning to our original seats after the interval, we surreptitiously moved forward several rows to enjoy the nail-biting and iconic piece of cinematography, the chariot race.

Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho came to Maidenhead in a blaze of publicity. It received rave reviews in the media, and members of the public formed long queues to ensure that they did not miss the show. The local newspapers whetted our appetites by publicising the final scene so effectively that a notice was prominently displayed in the foyer that no one would be permitted to enter the auditorium during the last five minutes of the show. I cannot imagine why anyone would wish to see the last few minutes of the film, but it was a cunning ploy to promote the movie and introduce an air of tension and mystery into the performance. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, an ingredient, which unfortunately has been lost to the current generation of film producers, whose only skills seem to be in providing huge and impressive sets, non-stop action, violent explosions, horrendous car crashes, but very little dialogue. Psycho was a hit, because Hitchcock gradually built up the tension throughout the film and then hit us with his gruesome final scene. We enjoyed the show, and as we emerged into the foyer, I caught a fleeting glimpse of my cousin, Barry Andrews, who unfortunately disappeared before I could speak to him. I have not seen him since that brief encounter, although we still exchange Christmas cards.

Travelling to Cookham was a labour of love, but getting home at night was an even greater challenge. The Marlow Donkey left Cookham station about an hour after the last bus had departed, and wishing to spend as much time as possible with my girlfriend, I deliberately left it to the last minute to catch the train. I had to wait at Maidenhead Railway Station for the mainline connection to Slough, which was invariably late, because of the cumulative delays that had built up during the day. On those infrequent occasions when the train was on time, there was a small window of opportunity to catch the last bus home from the terminus outside Slough Station, but when it was running late and despite a Herculean sprint across the footbridge, I would inevitably reach the exit just as the No. 458 was leaving the bus stop. It was not all doom and gloom however, for I knew that the bus often stopped to pick up passengers outside the library in William Street, and if I raced along Mackenzie Street, I might just reach the bus stop outside Marks & Spencer’s in the High Street before it arrived. Occasionally I was lucky, but more often than not I missed it by a whisker, and panting breathlessly and doubly sick at having failed to catch it a second time, I faced the long walk home, all for the sake of an extra hour with my girlfriend. On a couple of occasions, I even missed the train, and Mrs Jewell made a bed up for me on the lounge floor, using cushions off the settee, a pillow and some blankets.

My mother had very fixed ideas about the girl I ought to marry, and I strongly suspect that even if Miss Perfect had arrived on our doorstep, she would have found some reason to reject her as a future daughter-in-law. It would be fair to say that my mother and Christine did not hit it off, and I was in the invidious position of being piggy in the middle, in a tug-of-war that I could not win. My father on the other hand liked Christine, spoke well of her and enjoyed her company, although it was during one of her visits to our house that she demonstrated the incredible ability to make herself cry, which he subsequently described as, Turning on the waterworks. I have to admit that the unintended consequences of that exhibition made a lasting impression on me, and ever since that lachrymose display, I have never been able to judge if a woman’s tears are a genuine expression of grief, or merely contrived for some Machiavellian reason.

The lessons that I learnt from those experiences were that parents should exercise considerable discretion when they meet their child’s potential partner. Confrontation will inevitably drive their offspring firmly into the arms of those with whom they have little rapport, and will have the opposite effect to that which they are trying to achieve. In any event, the old adage that Love is blind, still holds sway in the affairs of the heart, and young people will do exactly as they please, irrespective of their parents’ wishes.

Christine’s good friend Dillys also went to Maidenhead High School and her parents ran the local shop in Upper Road. She was a pleasant, level headed and good-looking girl, but she did not have a steady boyfriend, and so Christine and I decided to play matchmakers and fit her up with a suitable young man. I invited my deputy House Captain, Roger Monks, to come on a blind date to meet Dillys, and he enthusiastically agreed to my proposal. We met outside the Theatre Royal in Windsor, but from the first handshake, Christine and I recognised that it was going to be an embarrassing evening. From what I knew of Roger and Dillys, I thought that they would get along amazingly well together, but Roger impressed neither Dillys nor she him, and there was absolutely no rapport between them. The following day, our potential lovebirds told us exactly what they thought of our match making with the result that it was the last time that we ever attempted to provide a dating agency for our friends.

Dillys’s family shop was not far from the home of the famous Cookham artist, Stanley Spencer, whom I once passed when he was walking towards his house. I had never heard of him until I met Christine, nor had I seen any of his paintings until I visited the permanent exhibition of his work in the village art gallery. His style of painting was certainly unique, but I must admit that I was not impressed by his grotesque painting of the Resurrection, which depicts the dead, rising out of their graves in Cookham churchyard.

The village of Cookham has associations with Pooh Bear, although I cannot recall if the connection is through the author A.A. Milne or the illustrator E.H. Shepard. I have to admit that I had never read any of the stories when I was a boy, because when the radio adaptations were broadcast, I found them childish and Christopher Robin a bit of a wimp. Nevertheless, my curiosity was aroused when Mrs Jewell invited Christine, David, Dinah and me, to visit the spot where the writer had been inspired to write about the game of Pooh-sticks. The location was in a leafy wood, and after a short walk along a muddy track, we eventually came to a narrow footbridge that spanned a small river where the event was supposed to have taken place. It was here that David and Dinah played the traditional game of Pooh-sticks, which for the uninitiated involves dropping small twigs off the upstream side of a bridge, and then racing to the downstream side to see whose stick emerges first. The children thought that it was great fun, and they enthusiastically entered into the spirit of the game until it was time to leave.

It was only natural that our parents should become acquainted and they met at their respective homes for afternoon tea. My mother was extremely nervous about visiting Mr and Mrs Jewell, but her fears were quickly dispelled by their warm welcome and much to my relief she soon relaxed. I was very much aware of Mr Jewell’s charm offensive when he enthusiastically engaged my father in conversation about his building work, but then disaster struck. During a discussion about the name of a particular construction detail, Mr Jewell consulted a volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica to prove a point that he was making. It was a faux pas, and I could sense my father’s indignation at having his extensive knowledge of the building industry challenged by a layman, a sentiment he later expressed in the privacy of our car during our journey home. Thankfully, Mr and Mrs Jewell’s reciprocal visit to our house proved to be an outstanding success and there were no hiccups.

It is fair to say that Sidney Jewell was a bookworm, but he was also a deep thinker and a highly intelligent man. He was a mine of information, and being well read he could discuss numerous subjects in depth. He had travelled overseas during the war, and had a fund of interesting stories about his exploits in foreign ports. He was also an innovator, and while he was in the Navy, he claimed that he had submitted a proposal to the Admiralty for lighting the silhouette of a warship so that it did not stand out on the horizon. The idea was actually adopted, but much to his chagrin, his contribution to the war effort was never formally recognised. He also maintained that during the early days of television, he had turned down the opportunity to work as a set designer for the BBC, and ruefully wondered where his career might have ended, had he accepted a post in the organisation.

He enjoyed having another man about the house to whom he could chat, or more accurately, a captive audience to whom he could expound his theories. He was an agnostic, and because he did not believe in a god, personified by man, he was particularly interested in the origin of the universe and the concept of infinity. I remember him postulating that if time was infinite, then there was the probability that we would all be created again, and live precisely the same lives, except that we would never realise that we had been here before. It was clearly a comforting thought to someone, who did not believe in a religious afterlife.

I quickly discovered that some of the theories in his reference books had become outdated with the advent of scientific progress, and that not everything could be explained by logic. This came to light when I was studying the mathematical properties of a cone. If cones are sliced in various directions, it is possible to obtain a number of geometrical shapes, including a circle, a parabola, a hyperbola and an ellipse. Mr Jewell considered that by using logic, it was possible to produce an egg-shape. The idea was superficially attractive, but it can be proved mathematically and demonstrated physically that if a cone is sliced along various planes, it is impossible to produce an egg-shape. In fact, it was only recently that I discovered that an egg-shape is the product of joining two ellipsoids together. Much to my surprise, he was surprisingly reluctant to accept that his theory was wrong, despite his daughter’s attempt to convince him otherwise. His inflexibility to accept the mathematical proof, reminded me of the legendary story about the Greek philosophers debating how many teeth were in an ass’s mouth, and when a small child suggested that they should get up and count them, he was told to go away.

The family seemed to have few personal friends, but I was once introduced to a pleasant, middle-aged couple, who were associated with Gerry and Pamela Anderson, the creators of the Thunderbird puppets. The husband worked as a gardener and handyman at the Anderson’s house, and he told us that Lady Penelope had been modelled upon Pamela Anderson, and that he had frequently visited the studio to watch the series being filmed. What he did not tell us, was that he had been the inspiration for Parker the chauffeur, which I can only attribute to the fact that either he had not recognised the similarity of the puppet to himself, or he was too modest to admit it. There was no doubt in my mind about his physical resemblance to the puppet, for as soon as I saw the Thunderbird series, I was immediately reminded of the man’s distinctive nose and his curious and nasal way of speaking.

I passed my driving test on the 1st January 1959, and later in the spring, my father generously allowed me to use his car to drive Christine home. It was not plain sailing however, and when we reached the Pied Horse public house in Slough, the engine cut out.

I coasted into the side-road alongside the pub, lifted the bonnet and turned the starting handle several times, but the engine refused to fire. I had no idea what was wrong with it, and while Christine used the pubs telephone to let her parents know that she would be arriving home late, a passer-by stopped and asked if he could be of any assistance. I explained the problem to him, and after carrying out a few rudimentary tests, he asked me for a screwdriver. The solution was simple. One of the high-tension, sparking plug leads was short-circuiting onto the engine block and causing it to misfire. Our Good Samaritan adjusted the position of the lead, told me to switch on the ignition and turn the starting handle, and the engine burst into life. We were back on the road again.

The delay to our journey meant that I arrived home late, causing my parents to lie awake, fearful that I might have been involved in a road accident. The following morning when I explained to my father what had happened, he could not understand why he had never experienced the problem himself, but much later in life, when I was a car owner, I discovered that electrical faults such as cracked distributor caps, flat batteries and worn sparking plug leads, were the most common causes of car breakdowns.

I was doing a part-time Saturday job in the Co-op when Valentine’s Day arrived, and not having the faintest idea of what to buy my girlfriend I sought advice from a devout and pleasant young woman from Slough High School, who worked on the counter opposite mine. She recommended a set of dainty handkerchiefs, arranged like a rose, in a clear, plastic, presentation box, which was quite expensive and wholly impractical, but I still went ahead and bought it, only to discover that women are not the romantics men like to believe they are, and that a box of chocolates would have been a much better offering.

After finishing work on Saturday, I looked forward to going to the pictures in Slough or Maidenhead, but it was only much later in our relationship that I discovered that Christine was so shortsighted that she had seen few of the films I had taken her to see. This came to light while we were walking along Cookham High Street and one of her friends waved to us. Christine ignored her, and somewhat puzzled, I asked her why she had not acknowledged the girl. She admitted that the person was so blurred that she could not actually see who it was, because she did not want me to know that she wore spectacles. I said that it didn’t matter to me, if she wore them or not, after which she was seldom without them.

In August 1959, I received my A-level results. I passed in Chemistry and Physics, but I failed the combined mathematics A-level paper, as did a further eleven of the thirteen pupils taking the subject. The master, who had taken us for the course, was the same teacher, who had successfully coached me for my O-level maths exam, and so it is difficult to explain why we had all performed so badly at A-level, especially as we had obtained promising results in our mock examinations. I can only conclude that the examiners had changed the style and content of the question papers, because they bore little similarity to those set in previous years, which we had been using to prepare ourselves for the examination.

I was bitterly disappointed that my potential university career had suffered such a major setback, but my father kindly agreed that I could stay on for a third year in the sixth form to take pure mathematics and applied mathematics as separate subjects. The rationale for this decision was that by studying them separately and in greater detail, I would be better prepared for a civil engineering degree course. The other benefit was that Christine would be taking her A-levels at the same time as me, which meant that we could both apply for a place at the same universities. We worked extremely hard to achieve our goals during the following academic year, and we obtained provisional places at the universities of Birmingham and Newcastle.

I did not take kindly to Mr Jewell’s suggestion that we should consider going to separate universities. He was no doubt genuinely concerned that if we went the same college, we would be distracted from our studies, but I had the nagging suspicion that his siren-like proposal contained the seeds of hope that if Christine and I went our separate ways, we would meet someone else and end our relationship. Predictably, his suggestion had completely the opposite effect to that which he intended, even if it was a genuine expression of concern for our well-being, and it merely stiffened our resolve to go to the same university.

David was a scout. He worked hard for his service badges, and with his father’s capable assistance, he built a kayak. One afternoon, he persuaded his mother, Christine, and me, to help him carry it down to the River Thames so that he could try it out. I must confess that I was highly impressed with the craft, and while we sat on the grassy riverbank, he skilfully manoeuvred the kayak between the flotillas of sailing dinghies tacking against the wind. It was a glorious summer day, and Mrs Jewell said that the river looked so enticing that she would like a ride in the boat. I said that I would be happy to join her, and so we gingerly waded out to the kayak, where David, who was sensibly clad in swimming trunks, held it steady for us. We squeezed inside, taking care not to get our everyday clothes too wet, after which I deftly paddled the vessel to the centre of the river and travelled upstream for a short distance.

It was quite strenuous paddling against the current, and after travelling a quarter of a mile or so, I headed back to where Christine and David were waiting patiently for us on the riverbank. During our return journey, we were overtaken by a traditional Thames steamer, and while we watched the vessel cruise majestically past our tiny boat, our eyes were hypnotically drawn to the deep furrow it was ploughing through the murky, green water. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have turned the kayak through ninety degrees to meet the bow wave it was generating, but I had not foreseen the danger, and it hit us sideways on. We were rocked violently from side to side, and fearing that we would tip over, we tried to compensate for the roll by leaning in the opposite direction. It was the wrong decision, our action dramatically increased the oscillation of the kayak and we were thrown into the river. In desperation and fearing for our lives, we struck out for the riverbank, only to discover that we were swimming in a mere three-foot of water. Mrs Jewell and I were soaked to the skin, and yet we laughed at our stupidity. For a brief moment, I saw a fun-loving young woman behind the middle-age façade, and then much to my surprise she became extremely concerned about what her husband would say if he found out about her escapade. More worryingly, she insisted that we did not tell him about our adventure, and upon our arrival back at the house, Christine was sent ahead to check that the coast was clear, so that her mother could go upstairs and change out of her wet clothing.

David’s next project, ably assisted by his father, was to build an electric guitar, because he was proposing to form a pop group at school. The finished article was indistinguishable from a professionally made product, thanks to Mr Jewell’s cellulose, paint-spraying equipment, which produced a beautifully, smooth, lacquered finish. The next few weeks were spent trying to find a suitable name for his group, and although none of our suggestions struck a chord with him at the time, I strongly suspect that during the intervening fifty years, many of our proposed names were adopted by professional pop-groups.

In May/June 1960, rows of collapsible desks were erected in the school gymnasium for the A-level examinations, which in accordance with the Universal Law of Cussedness coincided with extremely hot weather conditions. Despite the windows and doors being kept open to cool the room, temperatures rose to the eighties, which were not the most conducive for concentrating on the question papers on which my future would depend. Furthermore, during the weekend prior to my physics A-level examination, Christine and I had visited Quarry Bank Woods, and the following day I paid for our recklessness. During our walk, the local insect life in the form of bloodthirsty mosquitoes had enjoyed the pleasures of my flesh, and my ankles bore testimony to their predatory activities. The bites itched unmercifully in the heat of the examination room, and as I wrote out the answers to the questions, I was compelled to scratch my legs in a feeble attempt to relieve the constant irritation. That painful experience was the only memory I have of my first physics paper, other than the quiet and confident feeling of having done quite well when I emerged from the gym.

The government’s application to enter the Common Market had a disastrous effect on the advertising industry. Companies reduced the number of advertisements they placed in newspapers and magazines, and Mr Jewell received fewer and fewer commissions, and suffered a significant fall in income. Unfortunately, his financial plight was not recognised by the Local Authority grant system, which based student grants upon parental earnings for the previous year, and so he had to draw upon his savings to support Christine during her first year at college. He tried to offset his loss in income by doing wallpaper designs and other commercial artwork, but the industry was in the doldrums, and little if any cash was generated by those initiatives.

My grant assessment was much more favourable, and my father’s contribution towards my upkeep was estimated to be about fifty pounds a year. I was also fortunate enough, to have a part time job in the North Star, public house in Slough, where I was able to earn a significant sum of money before I went to university. The details of that rich and rewarding experience are set out in The Langley Boy, Part 1 of a Trilogy.

Although we did not realise at the time, we were privileged to have our fees and living expenses paid by the local authority and to a lesser extent by our parents. The thought that in 2010, graduates would leave college with debts of £30,000 or more, would have been incomprehensible to the state-supported students of the 1960’s.

University of Birmingham

Per Ardua Ad Alta

The summer months slid away, and while I was on holiday with my parents in Llandudno, I received the news that I had achieved the required A-level grades to secure a place at university. When I returned home, I also learnt that Christine had been successful and so we decided to accept places at the University of Birmingham.

Accommodation was arranged by the university but much to the annoyance of those of us, who came from the state education system, the men’s hall of residence called Manor House drew its intake predominantly from the public school sector, and so I had to settle for digs with a landlady in Moseley, several miles from the university. Christine on the other hand was fortunate enough to be allocated a place in Winterbourne, the women’s hall of residence.

I later discovered that there was a paucity of student accommodation in Birmingham, but the university students’ welfare unit insisted that first year students should live in digs or a hall of residence, instead of being allowed to rent a flat. I found their paternalistic attitude deeply offensive, because it bore no relation to my former headmaster’s homilies that when we went to university we would be treated as adults. Sadly, Birmingham was no Oxford and the petty restrictions were just bad as those I had suffered at school.

Christine and I travelled by train to Snow Hill station in Birmingham, and then by bus to our respective accommodations. The only memory I have of that epic journey was the marathon distance I had to walk from the bus stop to my digs, and because my case was so heavy, I had to stop every fifty yards or so to change hands. Had I known in advance that the house was so far away, I would certainly have taken a taxi.

My accommodation was a red brick, Victorian, terrace house in Moseley, owned by a retired couple called Mr and Mrs James. Three other lads had arrived before me; two of them came from London, while the third lad, with whom I shared a room, came from Hunstanton in Norfolk. I could not have asked for a better roommate than Alan Crow. We rubbed along well together and yet lived independent and separate lives. Alan had a distinctive Norfolk burr, and was proud of being a country lad. He also played the guitar and was an avid fan of the famous guitarists, Duane Eddy and Bert Weedon. Like many of the mathematicians in his year, he was a fanatical, bridge player, and he and his fellow players would spend many hours discussing, analysing, and mentally dissecting the different bids and games that they had played during the day. His other unusual interest was a cult comic called Mad Magazine, which he found highly entertaining, but which left me cold.

Our room was spartanly furnished with twin beds, a shared wardrobe and two, small, dressing tables. My recollection of the remainder of the house has been expunged from my memory, because of the disgraceful behaviour of my landlady, but more of that later. The Brummie manner of speaking, with its hard G at the end of such words as coming or going, was completely different to my Home Counties accent. Similarly, the Black Country dialects of Wolverhampton and the towns outside Birmingham were even richer and fruitier. Mrs James had been cursed with a whining and grating accent. She was about sixty and resembled Grandma, the Giles, cartoon character in the Daily Express. As soon as I met her alarm bells rang. Nothing ever satisfied her, and she went out of her way to find someone or something to criticise. She was also incredibly racially prejudiced, and whenever she looked out of her kitchen window and saw a black person walking past the house, she would make a derogatory remark about the colour of his or her skin.

The cost of my digs included bed and breakfast and full board on Sundays. Mrs James cooked good, simple food, which was nourishing but not particularly exciting. Her kitchen was immaculate, and I was amazed at the cleanliness of her pots and pans, which shone and sparkled like silver. Sadly, that is the only positive remark I can make about my stay with her.

My landlady was incredibly nosey, and after serving our meals, she would deliberately leave the dining room door open to eavesdrop on our conversations. To curb her prying, we would firmly shut it behind her, using the pretext of stopping a draught from coming into the room, but this merely prompted her to become even more devious, and on several occasions she was found with her ear pressed to the door, cleverly concealing her activities by pretending to dust the ornaments in the hallway.

Birmingham is one of the finest redbrick universities in the U.K. and its motto is Per Ardua Ad Alta, which means Through Hard Work to the Heights. It was founded in 1900, and the architect clearly used the buildings and tower at St Mark’s Piazza in Venice as the inspiration for his design. The spectacular Great Hall, the tall Clock Tower, and the Aston Watt Crescent, comprising majestic, redbrick buildings crowned with grey, lead domes, bestowed the ambience of an Italian city upon the campus. The 100m high clock tower, built in honour of the university’s first chancellor, Joseph Chamberlain, was fondly called Joe, but access to its interior was prohibited, because a former student had committed suicide after failing their finals. As the university expanded, modern, bland, rectangular buildings were added to the site, which included the library, the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering lecture theatres and the Maths block, which regrettably were not built in sympathy with the original Italianesque design.

The Faculty of Civil Engineering, which was to become my place of work for three years, was housed in a modern building tucked away behind the university power station and at the furthest point from the Students’ Union. Originally, the department had been based in the main Aston Watt building, but a significant increase in the number of students wishing to read civil engineering had necessitated its relocation to much larger premises. The only problem with the position of the Civil Engineering faculty was its close proximity to a number of incredibly noisy industrial units in Selly Oak. These included a shotgun manufacturer, whose intermittent proof-tests interrupted our concentration, and the Triumph Motorcycle Company’s forge, which drove us to distraction with its ear-splitting drop hammers. The Civil Engineering building should have been soundproofed and double-glazed, but sadly these features were never included in the design of the new building. In fact, I doubt if the project architect had ever visited the site while the factories were working, because lectures were almost inaudible when the metal bashing and shotgun explosions were taking place.

During our first weekend at college, Christine and I attended the Freshers’ Conference, organised to familiarise the new intake of students with university life. We were addressed by the Vice-Chancellor Sir Robert Aitken in the Great Hall, and provided with formal lunches and teas, followed by tours of the major faculties. We attended exhibitions arranged by the university clubs and societies, which we were encouraged to join, and we went to the Freshers’ or freshmens’ dance, known as the hop. Christine joined the maths society and became good friends with a second year student from Winterbourne called Doreen, whom I partnered in a competition to find the best Cossack dancers at the maths society’s first social evening. We even surprised ourselves with our incredibly nimble and athletic performance, and with arms crossed and alternately bending one leg and shooting out the other, we were obvious candidates for the Moscow State Circus. We so impressed the audience as we whirled around that we won first prize, comprising two tea towels printed with a Martian flying saucer. I still have mine, which is now over fifty years old at the time of writing this paragraph.

The first week at university was hectic. We enrolled as members of the Guild of Undergraduates, which permitted us to use the facilities in the Students’ Union. We had a medical, sorted out our grants, and opened a bank account at Lloyds bank. I had to buy a number of prescribed textbooks, set squares, French curves, a wooden scale ruler, ring files and blocks of quarto notepaper. My parents had generously bought me a set of drawing instruments and a Nestler ‘log-log’ slide rule for my coursework, and so I was spared that expense. Later that day, I made my way to the Department of Civil Engineering to join the other members of my year for a guided tour of the drawing offices, lecture theatres, and laboratories, after which we were issued with a copy of the weekly timetable for our lectures. There was a distinct pecking order in the standard of drawing office equipment provided for the first, second, and third year undergraduates. The third year students enjoyed the use of full-size, draughting machines with counterbalanced tee-squares, the second year students had the benefit of basic, swivel, desk-mounted, drawing boards, while the first year students had to make do with a simple drawing board, supported on wooden wedges, which necessitated the additional purchase of a costly tee-square, and a further drain on our meagre grants.

We were very much a self-contained unit, and the drawing office and lecture rooms became our primary place of work during the year, except for the electrical and mechanical engineering lectures held in the adjoining building, or the metallurgy lectures held in the Crescent. The theory of structures, soil mechanics, hydraulics, maths, the theory of concrete, steelwork design, and technical drawing and laboratory projects, all took place within our own department.

Work soon began apace, and much to my delight I found that the course content was well within my capabilities. I was relieved that I had taken A-level pure maths and applied maths as separate subjects, especially as the first year was foundation year, designed to bring all students up to a common standard. We called our math’s lecturer Flossie, the reasons for which I have long forgotten, and I was grateful to Rocky Richards and GAD Dickinson, my old math’s masters, for having given me such a thorough grounding in their respective subjects. Doctor Chaplin was a great character, who introduced us to the science of soil mechanics, and who for obvious reasons merited the name Charlie, quite apart from the fact that he wore his namesake’s moustache. He was a small, dapper man, who despite his diminutive stature demonstrated an infectious enthusiasm for his subject.

I immediately got to know the lads working on the adjoining drawing boards, who included Jack Weston, Ian Simmons, Vic Slater from the West Country, and John Vernon, who lived locally in Kings Norton. At lunchtime we would head towards the Students’ Union café for a filled roll and a coffee, but we were at a great disadvantage compared to the other students on the campus, because we were furthest away, and by the time we arrived there, we found a long queue of diners from the other faculties waiting to be served. It was not all doom and gloom however, because the maths department was situated reasonably close to the café, and Christine was able to buy our snacks and reserve a seat for me.

Every morning before the start of lectures, Christine and I met in the Students’ Union. The comfortably, furnished lounge was usually empty at that time of the day, which gave us the opportunity to skim through the national newspapers and keep in touch with what was going on in the outside world. Similarly, we would meet there again at the end of the afternoon lectures, until Christine had to return to Winterbourne for her evening meal.

I used to dine in the refectory with other members of my year. The food was subsidised and therefore cheap, but it was dreadfully stodgy and not at all appetizing. One evening I decided to order the meal of the day, which comprised sausage, mashed potatoes, baked beans and a sweet course. I carried the tray of food back to my table, took one mouthful,