The Cromer Cocklebur
When I learned the circumstances of this material’s invention, it was a shattering disappointment. It was so obvious that it should have been me that made the break-through.
George de Mestral, Swiss engineer and outdoorsman, got the idea for Velcro from cockleburs caught in his clothes and his dog’s fur. How could a seed-case show the same affinity for his tweeds and for his dog’s coat? He detached a bur from his trousers and examined it under the microscope. It was covered with tiny hooks.
That’s all it took – ingredients which I also had to hand: dog, cockleburs from the burdock that grew so plentifully round the Abbotsbrook Estate, microscope. An eye that noticed oddities and a mind that followed them up. How many significant inventions are born so painlessly? It should have been me – surely it would have, if George de Mestral hadn’t beaten me to it by taking that fateful walk the year before I was born.
I had looked to chemistry as my medium for making a mark on the world, not entirely foolishly. Joseph Priestley and John Dalton, after all, were amateurs without laboratories or extensive materials. William Perkin was only eighteen when he discovered a wonderful new dye while experimenting at home with his own chemicals.
An invention, though, was a greater achievement than a discovery. It could have been me, looking up with a smile from the microscope and murmuring to my select audience (a dog with matted fur, trying in vain to remove its infestation of hook-balls), ‘I tell you, Gipsy, I will design a unique, two-sided fastener, one side covered with tiny stiff hooks like these burs and the other side with soft loops like the fabric of my trousers. I will fund and research the whole enterprise myself. I will call my invention “Velcro” by combining the words velour and crochet. It will out-shine the fallible zip in the excellence of its fastening ability. Shortly I will be selling six million metres a year.
‘On second thoughts, since I don’t think in French, and therefore have no particular reason for devising a portmanteau name combining the words in that language for velvet and hook, I will select a trade-name which will enshrine my name in glorious company. The Cromer Cocklebur Closure. The Cromer for short. Accept no substitute. In the future, when people want to get out of their clothes, they will simple undo their Cromers …’
I suppose this scenario would have benefited from Peter being present, pushing the wheelchair. And since the burs would be unlikely to leap up onto my clothing, perhaps it would fall to Peter to say, slapping ineffectually at his trousers, ‘Drat these bally things! They’re not sticky when you touch them, but they stick like mad to fabric and pelt! I wonder how that comes about?’ He was a Cromer too, after all. He could share in the glory, before he got down to the chore of brushing Gipsy’s coat. Leaving me to say the fateful words, ‘Hold on a minute. I’ve got an idea. Let’s take a proper scientific look at one of those things …’ Though of course I’d also have to invent a time machine, so that I could pop back in time and steal a march on M. de Mestral, before he could steal a march on me.
Miss Pearce
For quite a time Velcro was the sole possession of the disabled, who loved it and were grateful for it. Then it was adopted as a fad by people who could manage zips and buttons perfectly well.
Installing Velcro in my trousers was elementary. It didn’t stretch Mum’s abilities as a seamstress. By now she had got to know Dorothy Foot a little better. Dorothy was a wonderful dressmaker, who started holding actual classes, and Mum told Dad she wanted to join.
He wouldn’t have it at first. ‘Mm. Bet that’s going to cost a packet, and where d’you think the money for it will come? From muggins here. What’s wrong with knitting? You’re good at that – go and buy some more balls of wool, and I’ll treat you to a new pair of needles. We can run to that!’
Mum shed actual tears at his callousness. ‘A little sewing and dressmaking class would be a perfect opportunity to meet people,’ she said, ‘and I know I’d be good at it. You know, I might get good enough to make shirts. Dorothy says that’s really hard, but she feels I’ve got it in me to do it. It would make such a difference if I could make shirts that really fit.’
‘Mine fit fine,’ said Dad.
‘You’re not the only person in the world, you know,’ Mum said, and I imagine she tipped her head towards me. I pretended not to be listening.
Later she poured her heart out to me. She still did that then. ‘It’s true I’d need a sewing machine and material and all sorts, so I suppose Dad is right. We don’t really have the money. It’s always there for his cigarettes, though …’ By now Dad was just starting to smoke his way through his second house.
Then he gave in after all. Perhaps it was the prospect of her being able to tailor shirts to my short arms which made him relent. When the sewing classes started, Mum found herself in a happy period of her life. In the end, those classes led to us acquiring a sort of house guest, even (if only in Mum’s eyes) a new member of the family.
She would come back into the house proud of what she had learned, bubbling also with the gossip that went with the sewing. She was newly plugged in to the grape-vine. It was as if she had been on a long holiday, rather than to a neighbour’s house for a few hours. All of us in the house felt the benefit.
It wasn’t long before Dorothy announced that Mum had learned all she needed to make clothes for other ladies. There was more involved than skill, however. ‘I knew it,’ said Dad when Mum passed this on.
If Mum was to do herself justice, she couldn’t just take her tape to make measurements, write them down, and come back later with the garment. That would be slap-dash and amateurish. To set herself up as any sort of professional she needed a proper dressmaker’s dummy. There may have been a fancy dressmakers’ term for such contraptions, to justify their vast expense, but if I was told it I have forgotten.
Mum showed Dad the catalogue and he went red in the face when he saw the prices. He said she could have the cheapest one there was, and half the money would have to be repaid when she started earning from the new hobby, if that day ever dawned. Mum hankered after one rather better than the basic model, though she wasn’t competing with Dorothy, who owned one which was very much de luxe. In the end I think she took a deep breath and ran down to the Post Office with her savings book and drew on that slim reserve.
Mum was very excited after placing her order at last. I could sympathise, remembering my own Ellisdons frenzies. She would phone up the catalogue headquarters on a regular basis to see if it had come in. When she was told at last that it had, she asked the man to be sure to hold on to it. Her cheque was on its way. The man told her not to worry. ‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘To put your mind at rest I’m going to get a special marker pen, and I’ll write Mrs Cromer on your model.’ ‘Oh would you? That would be so kind.’
Mum was very happy. At last the box arrived. I was in the next room when she opened it, and I could hear from her voice that something was wrong. It was obviously not the one she had ordered, after all. ‘Oh for Heaven’s sake!’ she called out to me. ‘You’ll never guess what they’ve done, JJ. They’ve sent me one with someone else’s name written on the back, and not “Cromer” at all. This one should have gone to “Miss Pearce”, whoever she may be.’
Mum seemed to be in a sort of agony. There was obviously something she wasn’t telling me. She picked up the phone and asked Dorothy if she could come over straight away. Mum didn’t say much on the phone, but Dorothy got enough of a whiff of emergency to drop everything and come over.
As she came in Dorothy called out politely, ‘How are you, John, keeping well?’ but then she went very quiet when she saw what was in the box. She said, ‘Would it be all right if I sat down and had a cup of coffee and a biscuit, Laura dear?’ This escalation to refreshments made me realise that I was eavesdropping on some sort of summit conference, even if I still had no idea what it was all about.
I punted the wheelchair round as gently as I could, so I could catch a glimpse of what was
going on in the kitchen. I had made a little progress since the Bathford days. I wanted to know what was happening right away. I no longer had the patience to wait until later, when I could peck at Mum’s beak and be fed a meal of regurgitated gossip.
‘What do you think has happened, Dorothy?’ Mum was asking in a troubled voice. ‘And what should I do about it? I’m in a frightful bind.’
‘I don’t see that you are, dear, And it’s perfectly obvious what has happened. You ordered a Morris Minor and they delivered a Rolls-Royce instead! That’s what has happened. There’s nothing this model won’t do.’ I could see it now, a headless torso of wire and struts. Dorothy Foot started adjusting handles and pulling little levers. ‘It’s a marvel. Every single part of it adjustable. With this to work with, there’ll be no holding you – you’ll be the top dressmaker in the county!’
‘It is so beautiful,’ said Mum. ‘I think it’s almost as good as yours.’
‘Nonsense, dear. I know what I’m talking about. Mine is a Bentley at best – a Bentley that has seen better days!’
‘But what am I to do? I can’t keep it.’
‘I don’t see why not. If it was a Rolls-Royce when you had ordered a Morris Minor then you wouldn’t have much joy of it. It would have to stay in the garage and you’d never do more than gaze at it. But this never needs to leave the house. Hang on to it for dear life! It’ll be the making of you.’
‘But I can’t!’ Mum wailed. ‘I have to send it back. I could never afford to pay the difference. I’m putting my neck out even to get what I ordered.’
‘At least wait for them to ask for it. Promise me that. It’s not your mistake, it’s theirs. For all we know this Miss Pearce is a perfect horror and they’ve done this to put her nose out of joint. In any case, you’re storing their property for them – you should charge them by the day! Just sit tight and wait to hear from the catalogue people, that’s my advice. Don’t go to meet trouble half-way.’ Going to meet trouble half-way was usually Mum’s method, but for once she seemed to be wavering.
‘And if you take my advice,’ Dorothy went on, ‘you won’t mention this to Dennis until it’s settled one way or the other. Men choose the strangest moments to be righteous citizens.’
So Mum tucked Miss Pearce away in the spare room and said nothing. How Dad failed to notice her state of high excitement over the next few days I’ll never know. Her flesh burned with the suspense of it all. If she had an actual corpse concealed in that room, rather than an innocently headless form which could assume every curve and contour of the female state, she could hardly have radiated guilt across a broader spectrum.
After two weeks, when the coast seemed to be clear, Miss Pearce emerged from the shadows and took her place in the front room. Dad was introduced to her at last, though he wasn’t altogether taken with her. ‘It’s an ugly thing, really,’ he said, with his practised unawareness of Mum’s feelings. ‘Is this going to be out in full view the whole time, m’dear? Couldn’t you tidy it away when you’re not using it?’ He didn’t see Miss Pearce’s beauty. But Mum couldn’t bear to let Miss Pearce out of her sight.
At first I couldn’t see what the fuss was about myself. Miss Pearce was an amorphous nothing, a headless cage of wire with some prominences in front. But Mum’s state of rapture was contagious.
The newcomer was always ‘Miss Pearce’. Mum broke one of her own rules, which was that cherished possessions were known by the names of their manufacturers. Granny wasn’t exactly unmaterialistic, but it would never have occurred to her to think that her consumer choices said anything about her. They wouldn’t dare. Her things were the best simply by virtue of her having chosen them, but Mum agonised over every purchase. She was an early subscriber to Which? magazine, which came to play a huge part in her mental life. Proust had the Almanach de Gotha and Mum had Which?.
When the household acquired a sewing machine, it was always ‘The Bernina’. On hot days Mum made iced coffee in the new ‘Kenwood’. The oven was always ‘The Rayburn’, though she was anxious for it to be known that ours was the model which burned solid fuel, not the electric one.
Finding brand-name fuel to load into it was less easy. ‘Coke’ soon got the thumbs-down, and for a while she raved about the wonder fuel anthracite. Finally she said that removing the clonker (she always said ‘clonker’ rather than ‘clinker’) simply wore her out, and why on earth couldn’t ‘they’ invent a fuel which simply burnt away to nothing?
Dishes had to be washed up with Squezy, elevenses was more relaxing with a cup of ‘Nescafé‘. The pronunciation soon shifted to ‘Nescaff’, which was what Muzzie had said, Muzzie being posh enough to play the game of common. Mum would slake her thirst with ‘a Kia-Ora’, and replenish her energy with a couple of ‘Yeast-Vite’. And when she felt like a good gripe, she’d complain about our lawn mower, which was always going wrong. ‘Your Dad never listens to me’, she would say. ‘If he’d bought an AtCo right from the start, as I advised, life would have run much more smoothly. Arthur Grant over the road has had one for years, and never had any trouble at all with it.’ Only disgraced products forfeited their right to the maker’s name, but Miss Pearce was never disgraced, and Miss Pearce was always ‘Miss Pearce’.
Soon pretty ladies began to call to see Mum, and she would take them to a private place and come back with a full set of measurements. Then Miss Pearce would creak and grind as Mum winched and cranked her into the shape of the pretty lady. ‘I can wind her all the way down to the size of Miss Susan Small,’ she said, ‘and all the way up to Bessie Braddock!’ These were the Alpha and Omega of the womanly form post-war, a famous model whose waist measured eighteen inches and a portly and truculent Labour MP.
As the dress took shape she would come in with it every so often to show me the tricks of the trade. ‘See here,’ she would say, ‘I don’t have to call Alison to come in for a fitting. I’ve made this exactly to the correct measurements but see –’ and here she would drop the dress onto the form ‘– it doesn’t look quite right, does it? We have to have more of a tuck just here …’ Then she would take the dress away for adjustments. The next time the dress met Miss Pearce the fit would be perfect. It showed what a good worker Mum was that the dress draped just as flatteringly on the satisfied customer as it had on Miss Pearce. Soon another lady would be told about Laura, how clever she was and how reasonable, and it wasn’t long before Mum had a little clientèle all her own.
Miss Pearce was certainly the most precious thing in Mum’s life at this point. She was dove-grey and cream – Quaker colours. She was a Quaker missionary sent into our home to dispense her sober joy. She was a frame on which Mum could drape her dreams. In fact we all felt warmly towards her, for bringing contentment into the house, though our feelings were more casual.
There’s no doubt that if the house had burned down, it was Miss Pearce that Mum would have rescued from the flames. I’m not saying that she would have neglected her family duties. She would have got me and Audrey and the pets out of there somehow (there were cats by this time as well as Gipsy, no longer young), but then she would have gone back in for Miss Pearce. Everything else was replaceable, but not the mistaken delivery which had brought so much happiness. On the whole Mum might have preferred to stay in the house with Miss Pearce, as the curtains caught and blazed, resting her head on that unrejecting breast.
A spiritchull baby
At this period I was equally thrilled by science and religion, without seeing a conflict. I got very excited about Billy Graham, who was on one of his gospel crusades, scorching the soul of middle England. There was a lot about him in the papers. I was just curious. The Bishop of Reading had come along the previous year and confirmed a batch of us, handing out Books of Common Prayer, and I had enjoyed that. His hands were nice and warm, but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t have a look around at the other options on offer.
The history teacher, John Wooffindin, organised an expedition to catch the show. That was how he put it, ‘to
catch the show’, a clear enough indication that he wasn’t a fan. I think he was trying to inoculate us against charisma. He was giving us our shots.
I can’t remember now if the venue was in Reading or Slough. What I remember is thinking, when the great man made his entrance, ‘Why does he have all that stuff on his face?’ The make-up was not subtle, and very distracting. All the same I felt the desire to join in, to be swallowed up, the ancient surge of cult attraction, as well as a more cynical interest. The Reverend Billy Graham had power and I wanted to bathe in it.
Billy Graham’s voice was a shout with a croon cradled inside it. He said, ‘You’ll be a spiritchull baby. You will need to be handled with tender care. Now, you can go away or you can come forward – Are you ready? If you’re in any doubt, come forward.’ Bright lights, loud music – it was all very unlike the Church of England. That last suggestion was particularly alien. Translated into Anglican, it would have come out meaning just the opposite: If you’re in any doubt, go away and think about it. We wouldn’t want to rush you.
Well, I was ready. I didn’t mind the rush. I wanted to be a spiritual baby. I wanted handling with tender care. In fact John Wooffindin may have been dismayed that quite a few of us volunteered for the spiritual-baby treatment. Those of us who were in wheelchairs had to catch the eye of one of Graham’s underlings – were they acolytes or marshals? Either way, it wasn’t difficult. Those boys were certainly attuned to the presence of the disabled.
I noticed, though, that despite being in the middle of the Vulcan group I was somehow filtered out and led to one side. I felt flattered, as if I had been selected for something special, away from the flood-lights. The acolyte-marshal who had taken charge of me was ready with his Bible. He was handsome if a little sweaty. They all looked like brothers, rather piggy brothers. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
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