The Co-Op's Got Bananas

by Hunter Davies

  My mother had also had a long relationship. He was a soldier called Ronnie. I once found a photo of him – in full uniform, complete with kilt – in my mother’s drawer. He had inscribed it to Marion – and signed it ‘Ever Thine Ronnie’. That became his name in our family legend – Everthineronnie, as if it was one word. My mother, on special occasions, used to wear his engagement ring. So, my parents got married rather late for the times and, it would appear, both on the rebound from someone else. And two years after they got married, I was born.

  2

  A JAUNT TO JOHNSTONE

  As an amusement for myself, a detour before I get started on my own exciting life, I decided to visit the place where my parents happened to be living when I was born. I took maps and guidebooks, emergency rations and crampons (okay, that is a silly joke), and headed for Euston station to catch the Virgin Trains Pendolino that would take me to Glasgow Central. It did feel like going on a safari, to unknown areas not yet mapped.

  When I was born, my father was a clerk, so it says on my birth certificate, but he was still attached to the RAF. He was working as a civilian at a base at Abbotsinch, as some sort of pay clerk, giving out the wages each week. The Abbotsinch airbase had been created in 1932 as an overspill from the bigger airbase at Renfrew. He must have been posted there sometime around 1934, after my parents had got married, and they took rented quarters not far away at The Bungalow, Inchinnan Road, in Johnstone.

  My birth certificate also says I was born in Thornhill Maternity Hospital – which sounds private, perhaps even posh. Why was I not born at home as most babies were in the 1930s, pre-NHS? Who paid for it? Is the hospital still there? Is there a plaque saying ‘Hunter was born here’?

  Those were the only two addresses I had, when I set off. Both of them might well have disappeared long ago. Eighty years is a long time in politics. In life, it is, well, a lifetime.

  A Google search seemed to suggest that Inchinnan Road was a whopper, stretching for miles, most of it now dual carriageway, probably part of the M8 motorway, so fat chance of finding any little cottage called The Bungalow. Must have been flattened, blown away decades ago. Like my mother and father, long gone.

  At Glasgow Central, I caught the local train to Johnstone, just fifteen minutes away. The destination on the board was Largs – which immediately sparked off memories I never knew I had. My parents once took me to the seaside at Largs, or was it Troon? I have a photo somewhere of me, aged about three or four, on an Ayrshire beach with my parents, which I was always led to believe was Troon, or Largs. Should I go and see both places? Might be nice, but what on earth would I learn there, about me, now?

  After Paisley, the countryside grew green and sylvan and I could see proper fields and hills in the distance, which was a pleasant surprise. I had expected either industrial wasteland or built-up areas and council estates all the way to Johnstone, which was how it had appeared on the map. As we approached Johnstone, I could see low-flying planes, heading for Glasgow airport.

  Johnstone railway station was small, neat and tidy, quite attractive. On the platforms, I noticed that the signs also had the name in Gaelic – ‘Baile Iain’, literally ‘John’s town’. It is a recent wheeze by the triumphant, all-conquering Scottish National Party to add the Gaelic name to every station in the whole of Scotland, despite the fact that most of these places never had a Gaelic name or people who ever spoke Gaelic.

  At the 2015 general election, there was a massive local victory for the SNP, defeating the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, Douglas Alexander, who had been in the Labour cabinet under Tony Blair and then shadow foreign secretary. What a surprise and humiliation it must have been for him, having been one of the important Labour figures. But perhaps the bigger surprise was the person who beat him: a 20-year-old Glasgow University student called Mhairi Black, who became the youngest MP in the House of Commons since the 1660s. She is a keen tweeter, making no secret of her drinking and use of strong language, or of her football allegiance: ‘I hate fucking Celtic,’ so she announced to her followers.

  I did a quick internet search and discovered that Gordon Ramsay, the chef, was born in Johnstone in 1966 – and, like me, in Thornhill Maternity Hospital. Not that I would recognise him if I met him in my porridge, which was a saying of my mother’s. I don’t watch TV, except football, and I would never in a million years watch anything to do with cooking.

  Renée Houston also came from Johnstone, born there in 1902, and was an actress and comedian, very popular in the prewar and post-war years. My mother was awfie fond of her. I should think today she is forgotten, even in Scotland, by anyone under sixty. Other famous Johnstonians include the footballer Jim Leighton and Sir George Houstoun Reid, who in 1904 became the fourth prime minister of Australia. Quite a mixed bunch, with only their birthplace in common, but I suppose that’s true of any place, anywhere.

  I stood for a long time outside the railway station, asking people if they knew where The Bungalow, Inchinnan Road, was. People had heard of the road but didn’t seem to know where it began. I have a family snap somewhere of me in a garden of The Bungalow and the house looks like a shack, a sort of wooden chalet. Must be long gone, so I decided to give up.

  I then asked people how far Renfrew was, the town itself, as I wanted to look at the parish church where I was baptised. They all said it was miles away. I Googled it on my iPhone to see if it still existed, and found it was still there – but for sale. It looked interesting, sort of mock Gothic, not the usual dour-looking Scottish church. The asking price was £88,000 and had been ‘heavily discounted for an early sale’. The estate agent blurb said it was just fifteen minutes from Glasgow and perfect for being turned into twelve luxury apartments – ‘subject to relevant consents’. Consent is, of course, the relevant word with all conversions.

  I did have my cheque book with me, but I thought no, not worth the bother. Best to stick to Johnstone itself. That was where I was born.

  So I headed for Thornhill Maternity Hospital, not far from Johnstone station – but I was a bit late. It closed in 1986. But the gate posts and wall of the entrance to the old hospital are still there. It now leads into a rather superior housing estate called Thorndene, with eighty-two smart houses in all, lush lawns, conservatories, large garages, winding round a cul-de-sac. I got a passer-by to take a photo of me on my phone, leaning against the front, low wall at the entrance. I could see that there had once been iron railings along the top of the wall – presumably taken down during the last war and melted into guns or bullets. All over Britain you can still see the remains of once handsome iron railings at the front of houses and buildings and public places which were savagely cut down and never replaced.

  I walked round the estate several times without spotting any humans. All in perfect condition, well-kept, but it was as if all the houses had been abandoned. It reminded me of various villages in Sussex I passed through one afternoon when I was walking along disused railway lines for a book. It felt as if a sudden plague had cleared out all the inhabitants, but I imagined there must be some house-bound mothers, holed up inside, or some secret assignations taking place behind those closed curtains.

  On my third circuit I spotted a man coming out of his front door to get into his car – so I pounced. I talked rapidly, trying to explain my project, knowing that the normal reaction when approached by a total stranger, who does not talk in a local accent, is to assume they are selling something, looking for houses to burgle, or they are potty.

  ‘I was born here,’ I explained. ‘Eighty years ago . . .’

  He looked a bit puzzled as I rambled on, but when I started asking him questions, he became helpful and amused. His name was Alastair Wilson and he and his wife bought their house exactly twenty-five years ago, moving into it when it was new. He is now retired, after thirty-eight years working for the Bank of Scotland. I asked how much he paid for his house, thinking he might not tell me. People can be funny about money, almost like asking about their sex li
fe or politics. He said he paid £124,000 in 1990. Today he thought it would be worth £330,000. Not quite the vast increase over twenty-five years had he bought in London, but still a good investment.

  He often met people wandering round his little estate who said they had been born in Thornhill Maternity Hospital. The hospital had been going since 1934 and was run by Renfrew county council, which was why my parents had not had to pay, who passed it over to the NHS in 1948. Thousands of people must have been born there over the decades, before it finally closed in 1986.

  Houses were still going up when Alastair and his wife first looked at the estate. His initial general impression of Johnstone itself was depressing. ‘There seemed to be so many empty factories and disused buildings. A bit of a dump really. It was the view that did it, making us fall in love with the house.’

  He took me round the back of his house. From his neat back garden he could look as far as the eye could see at green fields and hedges, across the Firth of Clyde. In the far distance I could see clearly a range of mountains. ‘Er, what is that, Alastair? I know I’m Scottish, but you will have to identify it for me.’

  ‘Ben Lomond – can’t you recognise it? Marvellous view, don’t you think? I get pleasure out of it every day.’

  A low-flying jumbo jet came over his house heading for Glasgow airport, just five miles away. ‘The planes don’t bother me. I’ve got used to them. It helps to identify the wind direction. If they are coming in directly over our house, it means there is an easterly wind. Very handy to know that.’

  I had never expected such a splendid view as the one from Alastair’s back garden. I wondered if the ward I was born in had looked out on it. Was it the first thing I gazed out at when I was born? In those days, babies were kept in maternity wards for up to ten days, unlike today. So my eyes must have opened.

  I then went into Johnstone, just a mile away, to see the sights, to explore the burg, as they say in the States. It is, in fact, an ancient Scottish borough – hence the name of their local football team, Johnstone Burgh – with a population today of 15,000.

  I asked for the town hall and was directed to a low, modern, concrete building across the square, boring and grim outside, but quite spacious and attractive inside. No, they didn’t have a tourist office. But I was told there was a Johnstone museum. I love museums so I got the address and rushed to see it.

  It turned out to be out of town – inside Morrisons. Yes, Morrisons, the nationally known supermarket in which I have ten shares.

  Alas, I had come on a Monday. Johnstone History Museum is only open on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. A Morrisons management man tried to get me a key, but was unable to contact anyone. I peered through the door of the tiny one-room museum, tucked away at the far end of the store, just past the café. I could see some badges, books, booklets and photos, presumably all about Johnstone, but, though tantalisingly near, I was unable to get in and devour them. Would I have learned more about my birthplace if I had broken the door down, set off alarms and had every Morrisons security person for miles around rushing to apprehend me? I’ll never know.

  Back on Johnstone station, I got talking to a woman on the platform. I thought she must be about my age. Which is what I do all the time, then they turn out to be fifty-eight. Is it my vanity, my self-delusion, that I imagine I must look their age? Or is it that once people get over fifty-five they all seem to meld into the same generation . . .

  I told her why I had come to Johnstone, and mentioned Thornhill hospital. No, she had not been born there, but she had had an operation there some years ago.

  ‘Och, must be twenty-five years ago. Let me think now, Sandy is twenty-eight, Annie is twenty-seven, Wee Callum is twenty-five. So, yes, it must have been back in the 1980s.’

  ‘And what was the operation?’ I asked, hesitantly.

  ‘Oh, it was where I was sterilised. I was told I was the last women to be sterilised in Thornhill hospital before it closed.’

  And what nicer place to have it done. I hope she enjoyed the view.

  3

  HUNTER’S RECORD

  One of the few things my mother left me was a booklet called ‘My Record Book’, which for several months in 1936 she faithfully filled in. It is a sixteen-page, full-colour, very pretty production with nice little illustrations and attractive typography in which you were supposed to enter all the details of your baby’s first months. I see I was born at 2.35am, the doctor who delivered me was called Dr Mackay and the nurse was Nurse Waddell. I weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and was 21 inches long. Quite long for a baby, I think, though what do I know?

  On one of the pretty pages you have to list the gifts of money the baby has received, ‘Which shall go into the Bank to build a Savings Account so that some day the baby shall go to College’. My mother has carefully written in ink that I got £1-5-0 from Grandma Brechin, £1 from Grandma Davies and £1-2-6 from aunties and uncles.

  On turning over the attractive booklet I see it is copyright ‘1927 Imperial Granum, New York’. It does seem a very American production – hence the reference to ‘going to College’. I wonder where they got it from? I can’t believe it was on sale in the local Woolworths in Johnstone. We had no relatives in the USA, as far as I know, but we did have some in Canada, courtesy of my mother’s eldest sister Maggie.

  On the front page of ‘My Record Book’ it gives my full name: Edward Hunter Davies. I have gone through life keeping my first name quiet, mainly because for most of my growing-up years I never knew I was really an Edward. From the moment I was born, my parents always called me Hunter. I assume it began with the fact that there were already two Edwards in the immediate family – my father’s father and one of his brothers. Hunter had been a family name for many generations, usually stuck in the middle, as in my father’s case.

  It wasn’t till I was about ten and at primary school that I realised. The school nit nurse came round and said, ‘Stand up, Edward.’ I looked around, thinking what poor sod is called Edward. And it was me. It’s only on things like medical records that the truth comes out. Otherwise I deny it.

  I have enjoyed going through life as Hunter, with almost everyone being unaware that it is not my true first name. With new people, I do get called David Hunter, or David Hunt, till they get it straight. I have never met another person called Hunter, though there have been a few in the USA, such as Hunter S. Thompson, the writer, and the golfer Hunter Mahan.

  When Paul McCartney came to have a holiday with us in Portugal in 1968, my first name happened to come out – and he started laughing and mocking. I pointed out his real first name was James, not Paul, so he should mind himself. He then went off to the lavatory with his guitar and came back with a song called ‘There You Go Eddie’. I did hear him playing it to John later on the Let It Be sessions, but it never made it as a Beatles song. One of the disappointments of my life.

  While I have liked being called Hunter I would have preferred not to have the surname Davies. Much better if I had been called Hunter McGregor, then everyone would know where I really came from. Davies is, of course, Welsh, one of the most common names not only in Wales but also in England.

  According to one of my Canadian relations, who has done some genealogical research, the first Davies in our lineage did come from Wales in 1815. He was at the Battle of Waterloo and decided to change sides. No, not joining the French, but leaving his Welsh regiment for a Scottish one, becoming a batman to the Duke of Argyll. After the battle he moved to Scotland, settled down and married, spawning a long list of Scots called Davies, most of whom eventually moved to the Glasgow area for work. Or, in my father’s case, to Johnstone.

  I do have some photos of my mother and father when they were living in Johnstone, and some earlier ones from their courting days. When I was growing up, and looking at these old snaps, I did find it hard to believe they were ever young. My mother even looks vaguely fashionable, with her bobbed hair, nice frocks, stylish hats, although my main memory of her, from when I was
a schoolchild, was of someone with no interest in clothes. My dad, walking down some street in Johnstone, arm in arm with my mother, is wearing a suit, carrying a coat, and also looks rather smart. I have only one photo of me and him when I was very young; he’s holding me as a baby, rather warily.

  I have no memory of him ever looking after me, or holding me, or showing any interest in me. This was the normal pattern for fathers at the time, working class or otherwise. They were not involved in child rearing. I do know he played football as a young man, for I have photos of him in his various RAF teams. I even have a medal which he won when playing with a team called Hearts. I used to pretend it was Heart of Midlothian, the famous Edinburgh club.

  My first memory in life is of being pushed in my pram to see the Queen Mary, or it might have been the Queen Elizabeth, being launched on Clydeside. I can see me in the pram, and have visions in my mind of the mud and all the people, all very clear and vivid – but I think this is nonsense. I couldn’t possibly remember stuff that happened to me in my pram. I know some people say they can, but I don’t believe them. So it must be a received memory, based on what I was later told.

  Now I look at the record, I see the Queen Mary was launched in 1934, so I could not have seen that, but the Queen Elizabeth was not launched till 1938. We were still living in Johnstone, so I might well have been taken to see that when aged two.

  I do have one happy, fun memory of my father when he once took me out in an RAF jeep. This might have been while we were still living in Johnstone, and he was based at Abbotsinch airfield – which, I know now, became Glasgow airport.

  His job involved visiting various RAF bases and handing out the men’s wages, and he was accompanied by uniformed servicemen, guarding him and the money. We stopped several times on the way because it was Grand National Day and they all wanted to hear the latest on the race. My father was not a betting man, as far as I ever knew, but listening to the Grand National was a national event. Being out in a motor vehicle, that was an excitement in itself.