Growing up during the war must count as bad luck, but as children at the time, we didn’t think that. We didn’t miss what we had never had. Rations and deprivations, no sweets or bananas, were facts of life. Now we are told that rations and restrictions and no cars kept us slim, fit and healthy, far healthier than any generation since. Pity we didn’t know that then.
The NHS coming in when it did, that was good fortune, a blessing which our own parents didn’t have when they were growing up. Those years I suffered with asthma, that admittedly was bad luck. My father’s illness, which dominated the whole of my growing-up years, that was a scunner.
But hurrah and huzzah for the Butler Act of 1944 and the decades of free education which followed. How amazing that was, getting everything for free. And we did appreciate it at the time. Which you don’t always do with good fortune. Margaret at Oxford for three years not only never paid a penny, she ended up in profit each year, with about £100 not spent when she finally left. I did marry well. I ended my four years at Durham owing the buttery about £100 in bills, but that was extravagance and dry sherry, which I repaid the minute I started work.
Finding work that I loved, after having had no idea at all what I might do, that was another lucky stroke. Work, any sort of work, was generally readily available, so that was also fortunate. Almost everyone in the fifties expected to get a job, and could move around, change jobs, should they want to. Or they could stay forever, in the same place, the same job. More or less.
Not doing national service, I was always grateful for that. Now aged eighty, I have lived all these years since without serving Queen and country and without the country being in a major war, unlike my parents who suffered the consequences of two world wars.
All lucky breaks, and nothing to do with me. Believers in the randomness of life will point to this as proof that luck and life are down to chance.
The best bit of luck was meeting Margaret and then marrying her in 1960. But even better was yet to come . . .
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. My paternal grandfather, Edward Davies (1866–1938), an engineer who owned his own house in Hamilton Road, Cambuslang, near Glasgow. He played the fiddle and wrote the odd article for the Airdrie & Coatbridge Gazette.
2. My maternal grandmother, born Mary Black, married James Brechin, a railway engine driver. They lived in a council flat on the Bellshill Road, Motherwell.
3. My parents’ wedding, 1934. Left, my father John Hunter Davies; right, my mother Marion. In the middle, my mother’s sister Jean and my father’s brother Alex.
4. My father in the Royal Air Force (back row, third from the left), circa 1930, possibly in Perth.
5. My mother with me in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, where I was born, 1936.
6. Davies family gathering in Cambuslang, 1936. I am on my grandmother’s lap. My father John is third from the left on the back row; my mother is second from the right, on the back row. Uncle Jim, the ‘literary one’, on the far left, worked as a rent collector and wrote a biblical play in the Scots dialect.
7. Studio photograph from 1940. How on earth did they afford that? Me, aged four, and my twin sisters, Marion and Annabelle.
8. Me, on the left, struggling with asthma and an itchy suit; with Marion and Annabelle and my brother Johnny, in Dumfries, 1944.
9. Here I am (aged eight) in Motherwell, with very attractive buck teeth and my cousin Sylvia.
10. The 17th Carlisle Church of Scotland Boy Scouts, 1950. I am on the back row, fourth from the left. Reg Hill is seventh from the left. We specialised in not passing any badges.
11. Creighton School fifth formers, 1951. I am on the front row, fourth from the right; Brian Cooke is second on the left; Alistair McFaden third from the left. All three of us became the ‘Chosen Ones’, who went on to Carlisle Grammar School.
12. In France with the Creighton School, 1951. I am on the right. The trip didn’t actually improve my French language skills.
13. Carlisle Grammar School hockey team, 1954. We were about to play the girls’ high school, and hoping to score. I am on the front row, second from the right. Brian Cooke is at the left end of the front row and Ian Johnstone at the end on the right. Reg Hill is at the very back. Mike Thornhill is also at the back, second from the right.
14. Durham graduate, 1957. Daisy Edis, the photographer, managed to give me a perfect complexion. So worth every penny (predecimal).
15. A polyphoto strip of me as an ace reporter on the staff of the Manchester Evening Chronicle, 1958.
16. A letter from the news editor of the Manchester Evening Chronicle, 1958, welcoming me to the staff. My wages were to be £14 a week, more than my father got in his working life.
17. A small piece in the Manchester Evening Chronicle telling the dear readers of my epic trip to cover the situation in Cyprus.
18. I became a war reporter in 1958 – for two weeks anyway. With the Lancashire Fusiliers in Cyprus, handing out letters to the lads.
19. Bashing away at my typewriter on the Sunday Times, which I joined in 1960.
20. Margaret Forster (aged thirteen), in l951, at the Carlisle and County High School. She protested at the school having a day off, due to our local Carlisle United playing the mighty Arsenal FC.
21. On holiday in 1959 with Margaret, who was by then at Oxford University.
22. My wedding on 11 June 1960 to Margaret, in Oxford, to which no family or guests were invited.
1. My paternal grandfather, Edward Davies (1866–1938), an engineer who owned his own house in Hamilton Road, Cambuslang, near Glasgow. He played the fiddle and wrote the odd article for the Airdrie & Coatbridge Gazette.
2. My maternal grandmother, born Mary Black, married James Brechin, a railway engine driver. They lived in a council flat on the Bellshill Road, Motherwell.
3. My parents’ wedding, 1934. Left, my father John Hunter Davies; right, my mother Marion. In the middle, my mother’s sister Jean and my father’s brother Alex.
4. My father in the Royal Air Force (back row, third from the left), circa 1930, possibly in Perth.
5. My mother with me in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, where I was born, 1936.
6. Davies family gathering in Cambuslang, 1936. I am on my grandmother’s lap. My father John is third from the left on the back row; my mother is second from the right, on the back row. Uncle Jim, the ‘literary one’, on the far left, worked as a rent collector and wrote a biblical play in the Scots dialect.
7. Studio photograph from 1940. How on earth did they afford that? Me, aged four, and my twin sisters, Marion and Annabelle.
8. Me, on the left, struggling with asthma and an itchy suit; with Marion and Annabelle and my brother Johnny, in Dumfries, 1944.
9. Here I am (aged eight) in Motherwell, with very attractive buck teeth and my cousin Sylvia.
10. The 17th Carlisle Church of Scotland Boy Scouts, 1950. I am on the back row, fourth from the left. Reg Hill is seventh from the left. We specialised in not passing any badges.
11. Creighton School fifth formers, 1951. I am on the front row, fourth from the right; Brian Cooke is second on the left; Alistair McFaden third from the left. All three of us became the ‘Chosen Ones’, who went on to Carlisle Grammar School.
12. In France with the Creighton School, 1951. I am on the right. The trip didn’t actually improve my French language skills.
13. Carlisle Grammar School hockey team, 1954. We were about to play the girls’ high school, and hoping to score. I am on the front row, second from the right. Brian Cooke is at the left end of the front row and Ian Johnstone at the end on the right. Reg Hill is at the very back. Mike Thornhill is also at the back, second from the right.
14. Durham graduate, 1957. Daisy Edis, the photographer, managed to give me a perfect complexion. So worth every penny (predecimal).
15. A polyphoto strip of me as an ace reporter on the staff of the Manchester Evening Chronicle, 1958.
16. A letter from the news editor of the Manchester Evening
Chronicle, 1958, welcoming me to the staff. My wages were to be £14 a week, more than my father got in his working life.
17. A small piece in the Manchester Evening Chronicle telling the dear readers of my epic trip to cover the situation in Cyprus.
18. I became a war reporter in 1958 – for two weeks anyway. With the Lancashire Fusiliers in Cyprus, handing out letters to the lads.
19. Bashing away at my typewriter on the Sunday Times, which I joined in 1960.
20. Margaret Forster (aged thirteen), in l951, at the Carlisle and County High School. She protested at the school having a day off, due to our local Carlisle United playing the mighty Arsenal FC.
21. On holiday in 1959 with Margaret, who was by then at Oxford University.
22. My wedding on 11 June 1960 to Margaret, in Oxford, to which no family or guests were invited.
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The Co-Op's Got Bananas Page 34