by Alan Johnson
He became obsessed with Northern Ireland. What began as a few days attending to a sensitive dispute in Belfast related to the Troubles, which John actually dealt with brilliantly, turned into a longer stay during which he spent a week or so in Derry while Derek and I held the fort back in Clapham. Not long after that, with the dispute resolved, he went back again, citing the need to address the unique set of circumstances faced by our members in the province.
In the spring of 1987 the police came to UCW House and arrested John Taylor. He was accused of involvement in a racket operated by a shirt manufacturer in Northern Ireland and its alleged attempts to secure a contract, by underhand means, to produce postmen’s uniform shirts for the Post Office.
Alan Tuffin made arrangements for John to step down as a national officer before the trial and approved a compensation package that would have been impossible to deliver after any guilty verdict. His departure was thus dealt with as a medical retirement, which was perfectly reasonable. John was, after all, very ill.
I was asked to take on the job of outdoor secretary temporarily until a ballot for the position could be organized. I saw John when he came into the office for the last time to collect some things and say goodbye to his staff. He was in a sober phase and told us that he was innocent of all charges and confident he would be cleared. Alone in what I still regarded as his office, where a portrait of a sad-looking postman by the celebrated painter Duncan Grant gazed down from the wall, John smiled and said that he was better off out of it all; that the pressure was too much for him. He predicted that I would one day take the stairway to the top floor, where the general secretary’s office was situated – a stairway he would not now be ascending. We hugged, awkwardly, and John, in his well-cut suit, shoulders pushed back like a guardsman, exactly as he’d looked in 1976 when I first saw him striding to the rostrum at my first conference, walked out of UCW House and into retirement.
At his trial in Northern Ireland, Brian Thomson, the Geordie senior manager from the mails business, appeared for the defence as a character witness. John was found not guilty. The hug he’d given me was as nothing compared to the embrace he gave his barrister in the middle of the courtroom, which was so effusive it knocked off the distinguished gentleman’s horsehair wig.
Derek Walsh and I both stood in the election for outdoor secretary, along with a few other candidates. This time I won. I was now an employee of the Union of Communication Workers, rather than the Post Office.
It was the end of an era for me. The business had changed more in the almost twenty years I’d worked for it than in the hundred years that went before. I’d changed with it. I’d joined as an eighteen-year-old postman and I was leaving as a thirty-seven-year-old union official. I considered myself fortunate to have worked for such a fine institution. I had been proud to wear its uniform and grateful for the security it had provided, which had enabled Judy and me to bring up our three children free from the fear of unemployment.
In the process we’d grown apart, Judy and me. Perhaps it was inevitable, especially considering how young we had been when we married. I would come back to the Britwell from wherever I’d been full of stories about the things I’d seen, the deeds I’d done, the people I’d met. Had I listened enough to her? Spent enough time talking about the changes in her life as she moved on from the playgroup to youth work? The yoga she was studying in order to become a fitness instructor? The new friends she’d made?
Ernie Sheers had warned me about being too full of what I was doing and not paying enough attention to Judy. Ernie and I still met up every so often, but not as regularly as we had done in my early days on the union’s executive. Then he’d listened to all my adventures from Dundee to Derry, Newton Abbot to Newcastle. Once, when John Taylor had come to Slough for some reason and stayed with us on the Britwell, I introduced him to Ernie. They were both East Enders and had similar reference points – Kelly’s pie and mash shop on Roman Road (‘Kelly for jelly’), the docks, Victoria Park. But Ernie was wary of John’s exuberance. He was distrustful of egos, and not only was he alert to the egotism in John but he was seeing mine developing unhealthily as well.
Perhaps Judy was, too. Once, after she’d picked me up from Slough station in her little Citroën 2CV, we were turning right into Farnham Road at the Three Tuns when she began to cry – apropos of nothing, out of nowhere, the tears rolled down her cheeks. But of course they hadn’t come from nowhere. She was deeply unhappy with the life she now led to all intents and purposes alone. Natalie was twenty-one and married. Emma, at nineteen, had a steady boyfriend. Jamie was about to sit his O-Levels (and would be among the last cohort to take them) and spent most of his spare time out with his friends.
Earlier in the year, travelling home by rail from north Wales, my train had been delayed by deep snow. I sat in the packed carriage reading the collected works of Dorothy Parker.
There was a short story set during the Second World War – about a woman who goes to great lengths to prepare for the return of her American airman husband on leave. Despite her efforts, it is not a success and she realizes that he has a completely new life while all she has is half of the old one.
It hit me like a brick. On that train, staring out at the drifting snow – that was what had happened to us, to Judy and me.
We’d done well together, the two of us. Most people who knew us hadn’t expected the marriage to last anywhere near as long as it had, given all the circumstances. Now we talked things over and decided it would be best if we parted. And so we did. No longer a postman, I was also leaving the Britwell, which had been our much-loved home for nineteen years. I packed up my books, records and clothes and carried them to the car, parked on the road, the council having ended our environmental vandalism by raising the kerb to stop us parking on the green. I loaded up and drove away, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.
My mother, Lily.
Linda and Mike on their wedding day.
Barnes pond, the picturesque setting for the palatial Barnes postmen’s delivery office.
The night shift at Barnes, Christmas 1968. I am at the front, third from the left, in the red jumper. Behind me are, from left to right, Brian Green in the blue sweater, Peter Simonelli and Billy Fairs, in the brown coat.
Linda and Judy at Andrew and Ann’s wedding reception with babies Tara (on Linda’s lap) and Emma (on Judy’s).
Emma and Natalie on the day we moved to the Britwell estate in Slough.
In the back garden of our house on the Britwell with Natalie and Emma.
With Jamie on my knee on a bad hair day, GPO badge 272 on display.
The Britwell estate.
Judy at the Britwell Carnival with chimney sweep Emma.
Tom Jackson, in his trilby, and John Taylor at a Hyde Park rally during the 1971 strike.
The Duncan Grant painting that hung in the outdoor secretary’s office at UCW House.
At Slough Supporters’ Club saying farewell to Len Rigby (centre, in glasses). To Len’s left are his wife, Elsie, and Joe Payne, in his uniform. Ernie Sheers is on the far left of the picture, pint in hand; I am third left.
With Jamie, Judy and Emma at a Britwell community centre party in the 1980s.
Natalie and Emma, in the beret, celebrate New Year, 1984.
Linda and Chas in Australia.
Acknowledgements
My grateful thanks to:
My sister, Linda Edwards, for her help and encouragement.
The wonderful Carolyn Burgess, for painstakingly computerizing my handwritten text and for her unceasing faith in this book.
My agent, Andrew Kidd, for his wisdom and belief.
Judy Merrit, for her help with some of the detail.
Doug Young, Patsy Irwin and all the magnificent people at Transworld.
Caroline North, now not just a brilliant editor but a good friend.
My friends Becky Milligan and Charlie Grieg for their endless enthusiasm.
Catherine Bramwell for all her
assistance.
Rita Dunn and Mary McCracken for their memories of nappies.
I am also indebted to Post Office Workers by Alan Clinton (George Allen and Unwin, 1984) and Masters of the Post by Duncan Campbell-Smith (Allen Lane, 2011), which provided invaluable historical information on the Post Office.
Picture Acknowledgements
Unless otherwise credited, all photographs are from the author’s collection. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of photos reproduced in the book. Copyright holders not credited are invited to get in touch with the publishers.
Corner of Long Readings Lane and Long Furlong Drive, Britwell Estate: © London Metropolitan Archives; City of London (SC/PHL/02/0775)
79,242 Postmen, poster by Duncan Grant, March 1939: © Royal Mail Group 2014, courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive
Index
The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
Alcoholics Anonymous 184, 185, 188–91
Ali, Tariq 19
Allen, Reg, and UPW 28, 42
delivery office cook 16
Anchor pub, Tring 46, 125, 192, 297
Ann (Linda’s neighbour) 186–7, 216, 229–30
Anthony Jackson’s supermarket 1–2, 13, 14, 37
Area, the (AJ’s first band) 13, 31
‘A Hard Life’ 52
‘Walk Away Renée’ 45
Armatrading, Joan 127
Armstrong, Garner Ted 42
Armstrong, Neil 68
Asian population, Slough 83
Attenborough, Richard 33
Auden, W. H. 174
Badfinger 127
Bannister, Roger 97
Barclay, Simpson 299–300
Barnardo’s Homes, Judy’s brothers in 18
Barnes, Mr, PDO supervisor 28, 30, 48
and attendance sheet 53–4
Barnes Postal Delivery Office 14–17
AJ ‘established’ at 60–1
celebrities 21–2
Christmas 1968 34–8
night shift 35–8
postal walks 21–3
postmen 22–30
routine compared with Slough 63–5
Barratt, Michael, on Tom Jackson 100
BBC social club 199
Beaconsfield constituency 86
Beardsley, Aubrey, drawings, Mike and 4
Beatles
and record pricing 3
‘A Day in the Life’ 2
‘Hey Jude’ 36
‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ 2
Magical Mystery Tour 3
Sergeant Pepper 2
The White Album 36
Beechwood Comprehensive 235
Belfast dispute, John Taylor and 309
Benn, Tony 220, 221
at UPW fringe meeting 241–3
Beppe (Natalie’s father) 9, 178
Bernard, Jeffrey 201–2
Bert (binman) and Mrs Rayner 208
Betjeman, John, ‘Come, friendly bombs …’ 60
Bevan, Nye 281
Binks, Freddie 26, 61
black teenagers, police and 34
Blackwood Arms pub, Littleworth Common 202
Blair, Tony 281
Bletchley Park, PHG training school 141
Blue Anchor pub, Tring 46, 125, 192, 297
Bowie, David 127
Bowles, Stan 198
Bowlly, Al 24
Bradbury, Ray, works, Mike and 4
Brewster, Mr, driving-test examiner 120–3
British Legion, Sundays at 110, 112–15, 221, 236
British Telecom privatization 283–4, 291
Britwell Carnival 109
Britwell estate
and right to buy 271–3
delivery walk, AJ and 65–7
house parties 115–16
neighbours 69–71
private home-owners 271–3
racism 58, 83
Britwell estate house
AJ & family move to 57–9, 61–3
and 1979 election 238–9
inadequate bedrooms 148
life at 68–71, 101–5, 109–17, 124, 148
Brixton College 9
Brooke-Taylor, Tim 199
Burnham Post Office, work at 128–35
moped delivery experiment 73–7, 118, 129
post-strike backlog 107
Burns, Robbie 256
Bygraves, Max, ‘Decimalisation’ 101
Callaghan, James 154, 243
government 220, 237–8
Camelford Road, Notting Hill (Judy’s home) 8, 21
life in 21, 32, 33–4, 35, 38–9, 45
compulsory purchase 55–6
Carlen, Mr (English teacher) 47
on Animal Farm 83
Carter, Johnny 33
Castle, Barbara 243
Cates, Johnny 112
Chataway, Christopher 97
Cheetham, Ann see Wiltshire, Ann
Chessman, Tommy
and strike 94–5, 97–8, 107
at Slough 129
Reliant Regal lifts 75, 94
Christmas Eve 1967 1–8
Christmas 1969 80–1
Christmas 1971 88
Christmas Pressure, BPDO 34–8, 39, 248
Citizen Smith 199
Citrine, Walter, ABC of Chairmanship 152–3, 172, 245–6
Clarence, Mr, driving instructor 118–20
Clark, Nobby 24
Clement, Dave 198
Cliveden 202
Cockburn, Bill (PO director)
and IWM agreement 246–7
and Willoughby dismissal 266
running mails business 301–2, 303
cockney rhyming slang 163
college lecturers’ dispute 1971 93–4
Communist Party of Great Britain 96, 144, 146, 258
Conservative government 1970 85
Conservative government, Thatcher
anti-union legislation 283, 288, 306
policies, effects 270
privatization programme 292–3
convents, Littleworth Common 203–5
Cope, Jerry, and IWM 294–5
Costello, Elvis 237
council tenants, right to buy 270–3
Cox family 9, 21, 31
Cox, Judy (Judith Elizabeth)
brothers 18
education 18–19
engaged to AJ 8–12, 17–20
parents 18
pregnant 17–20
wedding 20–1
see also Johnson, Judy
Cox, Natalie (Judith’s daughter) see Johnson, Natalie
Cox, Richard (Judy’s brother) 300
Cricklewood postmen
‘blacking’ Grunwick mail 222–4
lockout 223–4
Crosby, Stills and Nash 127
Crosland, Anthony 221
Croydon sorting office, driving tuition 53–5
Cuban missile crisis 83
Cudlipp, Hugh 21
customer services, unofficial, Littleworth Common 200–1
Dad’s Army 80
Daily Express 41
Daily Mirror 38, 41
Daily Telegraph, 41
as Trojan Horse 204–5
Dainton, Frank 23–4, 26, 40, 61, 128
Dash, Jack 164
Deadman, Nobby 130
and Len Rigby 87
Dearing, Ron (PO chairman), and UCW 289
Decimal Five 101, 104
demonstrations/unrest 1968 19–20
Derry sorting office, relocations 283
Disney, Walt 252
Dodd, Ken 113
Dodd, Pete 242
Dorneywood, mail deliveries to 134–5, 210–11
Dougall, Robert 101
Dr Finlay’s Casebook 299
drinking, social 235–6, 278–9
du Maurier, Daphne, Rebecca 209
Dundee, IWM dispute, AJ settles 254–6
Dury, Ian 263
Dylan, Bob 4, 104
education, selective 233
Edwards, Charles, and Linda 252–4
Linda’s first meeting 232–3
Linda marries 252
Mercedes car 285
move to Hockley 253
emigrate to Australia 285–7
Edwards, Cindy 253, 286
Edwards, Eddie 253, 286
Edwards, Ricky 253, 286
Elstree film studios 252
English, Micky (Burnham postman) 132, 133
Equal Opportunities Act 84
Esposito, John 79
Eton and Slough constituency 86
Eugene, Mike’s & Linda’s foster son 177
Evans, Barry 88
ex-servicemen, Post Office 22, 23–5
Ex-Servicemen’s Club, Britwell 130
Fairs, Billy, UPW representative 28–30, 306
and AJ’s transfer to Slough 61
and 1969 strike 42–4, 48–9
on nights 35, 37
Farugia, Johnny 1–2, 14
fax machine, perceived threat to mails 289
Feathers pub, Littleworth Common 202
Finlayson, Isabella Oswald 51
Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 222
Foot, Michael 281
football 36, 37
AJ breaks ankle 260–1, 264
Slough Postal FC 112
watching QPR 36, 110–11, 142, 197, 198–200
Francis, Gerry 198
Gabriel, Brenda (AJ’s neighbour) 69–70, 110, 272
Gabriel, Tony (AJ’s neighbour) 69–70, 110, 116
and DIY 148, 162
and right to buy 272
general election 1979 238–9
general election 1983 287
General Post Office (government department) 15