by Paul Daniels
At a left turn in Stockton, Dad’s brain suddenly flipped back to being on the bike and nearly knocked Mam out as he signalled left by sticking his left arm straight out. Poor Mam. Amazingly enough, when it eventually came to his test, he passed first time. After that we were quite posh really. We had a car.
It was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II that started the serious decline of cinema. Television sets became the thing to own. Millions watched her crowning on the new-fangled machines, which could transmit pictures directly into your home. No longer did you have to brave the inconvenience of queuing in the cold and wet to get a good view, a front row seat was instantly available in your living room.
The coronation gave television a kick-start as millions of eager viewers bombarded their local radio shops in an attempt to purchase the new machine of the century. It didn’t seem to matter that the latest technology meant swapping a giant 20ft screen for a tiny 6in of black-and-white fuzziness. People thought they were getting the cinematic experience in their own homes, but they weren’t.
As local cinemas faced a slow, painful death, they did their best to fight back. Big-budget epics and monster movies were full of special effects, while 3-D movies offered one of the craziest gimmicks whereby the audience wore special red and green glasses to see the image burst from the screen. Unfortunately, most people left with a blazing headache. The pumping of scents into the building with ‘smellovision’ never really caught on either. As movie producers used the huge Technicolor screens of Cinemascope and Cinerama to tempt audiences back, it was obvious that the battle was already lost when viewers still preferred the black-and-white pictures of the miniature screen. The Hippodrome hung on for a long time and I can remember an interview in the Evening Gazette where my father was quoted as saying that the cowboy movies were keeping the cinema alive. It was a long column interview. The only problem was that no journalist had asked my dad the questions. Nothing changes.
Thanks to Mam’s careful housekeeping we somehow managed to save up enough to buy a TV set of our own. The new technology was still in its infancy and, as a result, was extremely expensive. I sometimes wonder what personal sacrifices they made in order to purchase one for us.
Our Mullard TV was soon part of the furniture, literally so, as it was designed in such a way that the doors at the front of the cabinet could close, concealing its true identity. Its imposing size symbolised the dominance this new technology was to have in the home. Little did Dad know the consequences that this new medium was to have in the later years of my own life.
Transmissions were intermittent and programmes only aired for a short while – something we should consider reverting to today! It needed a lot of tuning with four huge dials sandwiched between the tiny screen and the metal grill, which protected the loudspeaker. The choice was focus, volume, brightness and contrast, with a huge brown bakelite knob on the back operating as the tuner. Why they designed the tuning system to be on the back of the set, when you needed it on the front to see what you were doing, must be one example of the quirkiness of being a British invention.
The engineer came and tuned it all in using the test charts that were transmitted all day long. He left telling us when the first programmes would be on air. We gathered around, switched it on and sat in hushed silence as the set warmed up. Suddenly, the screen burst into life with none other than a puppet show, Bill and Ben, the flowerpot men. They talked in gibberish. As the sounds of ‘flobalob’, ‘Er, Lubbalub’ and ‘little weeeeed’ filled our front room, Dad looked aghast at the screen.
‘All this money I’ve paid out, and they don’t even speak English!’
When the Hippodrome cinema finally waved the white flag, I was humiliated and angry as my dad went from Chief Projectionist to WonderLoaf deliveryman. The cinema that had given thrills and spills to thousands was eventually demolished and bulldozed to the ground. It was a very sad day for us all.
Once again it was my father’s optimistic approach to life that moved us forward. I admired the way in which Dad never complained and immediately threw himself into his new job – so much so, in fact, that when turning sharply in his delivery van one day, the side door flew open and all his bread and cakes shot out into the road.
My time at Sir William Turner’s Grammar School was also coming to an end. As English had been my main subject at school, it wasn’t surprising that this influenced the direction I took when considering a career. Exams had never bothered me much and I managed to get five ‘O’-levels which was pretty good considering I had a kidney infection that intermittently kept me off school during the latter years of my education.
The opportunities for work seemed endless; perhaps the Grammar school grind really had paid off. One problem seemed to be which path to choose, which way should I go? Mum and Dad never pressurised me and, being a ‘werks’-based society, nothing artistic was ever considered. The local Evening Gazette offered me a job as a junior reporter on the basis of my school reports regarding my ability in English; a firm of accountants offered me a place as an articled clerk; a solicitors department considered me to be a suitable recruit; and as my technical drawings at school were regarded as high quality, a draughtsman’s role was proposed down at Smith’s Dock, and this was considered the ‘bee’s knees’ of an opportunity.
To be honest, I wasn’t interested in any of them. I wanted to be a magician. Magic was all that I was interested in, wanted to read about or do. For a while I considered going on to teacher training college to try to become a woodwork teacher. Instead of getting the boys to make furniture, I wondered whether I could get them to make tricks, even illusions. After thinking about all the options, I decided that becoming a teacher would have been too great a financial burden on my parents. So for no other reason than because it was just around the corner and I could come home for lunch, I took a job at the local council offices.
It was about this time that I experienced my first kiss. A gang of us from Coatham used to hang around South Bank together and some girls from the local girls school used to join us. We would sit for hours on the wall of another local school and talk the evenings away. I can’t remember sex being a topic of conversation and, looking back from this great distance, I wonder what the devil we did talk about. Cars and bikes, I guess.
My big moment came after going to the Empire cinema, also in South Bank. The drama took place in the back alley behind Munby Street near the town centre and, as we walked hand in hand in the darkness, she made it obvious that she wanted me to kiss her. We had sat for a couple of hours with my arm around her on the back row, but I hadn’t plucked up the courage to do it then. Even having seen a great deal of osculation in the movies, I still had a bit of a hang-up about the art of joining two lips together, for I couldn’t figure out what happened to your nose. It’s further forward from your lips, so how could your lips meet when her nose would touch my nose and stop us moving any closer? Pondering the puzzle of being a double-nose width away from kissing used to keep me awake for hours.
The chance to kiss Pauline was a surprise, as she was a good friend and nothing more as far as I was concerned. As I tilted my face to the left so did she. I turned my head to the right and so did she. It was like meeting someone in the street who you can’t get past. Eventually I took her by the head, kissed her on the lips and waited for the sparks to arrive. They didn’t and I wondered what all the fuss had been about. Seeing a kiss on film with the orchestra and strings playing in the background, accompanied by heavy breathing and an audience in tears, I was somehow expecting more.
Once the deed was done we tried it a couple more times but it did nothing for me at all. We went home. Maybe I was with the wrong girl. At the time I was carrying a big torch for a girl called Irene Hewitt who was a member of the youth club. Madly keen on Irene, I would watch her avidly as, together with her friend Mandy, they would sing at the youth club concerts that I did. Miss Hewitt was extremely voluptuous and could easily have led me astray. In my dreams she did, ma
ny times, but in reality I obviously didn’t stand a chance.
In an age that talked openly about death, but never sex, the facts of life had never been properly explained to me. Today, it’s the other way round, but when I was 16 I had to unearth the meaning of life for myself. It’s extraordinary to consider the fact that I seemed to be a late-developer as far as my knowledge went, but in those days children had no real chance to grasp the truth. Sex lessons at school were remarkably bland and made no sense at all. Nudie magazines like Health and Efficiency had all the pictures of genitals removed. ‘Polished’ flesh remained where things were supposed to be.
The confusion of pre-puberty led me to experience a recurring erotic nightmare. Me and my nightmares! Having been told at school that the man simply placed his penis inside the woman, without giving us any other important details, my dream was of a lady (faceless) who would lie on the bed patiently waiting with her feet stuck up in the air. It must have been because I was so good at woodwork that in my vision a perfectly drilled, round hole was centred between her legs – an inch-and-a-half diameter of turned wood awaited the entrance of her man. I knew exactly where it was, but didn’t know what it was. And for certain I didn’t know what to do with it!
Having discovered a little green hard-back book in my dad’s wardrobe entitled The Techniques of Sex, I realised I had found the true object of my quest. I was sure that Havelock Ellis’s book would reveal all. Thumbing through the strange technical drawings, I would regularly lock myself in our toilet and study, for this was a subject to be learnt. Once, having exhaustively examined the mysterious cut-away diagrams of genitals for the umpteenth time, I made my way downstairs and hoped Mam didn’t notice my sweating.
‘Ted!’
As soon as I heard Mam’s call, I realised I had accidentally left the book on the lavatory windowsill. Mothers can say your name in so many ways and convey a whole paragraph in a single word. As her voice floated down the stairs, fear instantly clutched me from within.
‘Have you been reading this book of your father’s?’
There was no point in lying; I was the only one in the house at the time.
‘Yes, Mam.’
Then came the sentence that has struck terror into many a boy’s heart.
‘Just you wait till your father gets home!’
I was scared sick. Ashamed of the sexual awareness and the invasion of my father’s territory, I couldn’t imagine what was to come and the hours that passed as we waited for him to return from work were the longest in my life.
Only having experienced a beating from my father once, it was something that I hadn’t forgotten and was anxious not to repeat. He’d slapped me on my bottom all the way up a street when I was about seven years old. It was fully deserved of course, as I was being a little shit.
‘I wanna go to the fair; I wanna go to the fair; I wanna go to the fair!’ I’d repeated incessantly until my father gave in. Having got to the fair: ‘I wanna go home; I wanna go home; I wanna go home!’
Dad got mad, really mad, and belted me all the way back down the street. Once inside the front door, he picked up a shovel and threw it at me. I knew that I was going to ‘get it’ good and proper the moment I arrived back, so as soon as I got through the front door I was off like a rocket, straight through the back room, turn the corner and up the stairs. I was very small, but boy was I fast, one of the big advantages being that I could run straight under the table. The shovel just missed me and years later Dad told me that he’d frightened himself enormously when he realised how much he had lost control. A clip on the back of the head or the backside was the most I ever got after that.
This was different though. I was a young man now and I should have known better. They say that the waiting is the worst part but I dreaded what was going to happen. Sitting in the front room wondering what the punishment would be for my latest crime, I heard the arrival of my father at the front door. As he came in and smiled my heart started to beat so loudly, I couldn’t hear the voices as he went through to the kitchen and started to discuss the latest situation with my mother. I got closer to the door to hear what was going on.
‘So what is it?’
‘He’s had that book of yours out of the wardrobe.’
‘Well that’s good, it’ll save me telling him, won’t it?’ I love my father. I love my father. I love my father.
CHAPTER 4
‘ORRIBLE LITTLE MEN
The late Fifties gave birth to a new type of musical experience – rock ‘n’ roll. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and Buddy Holly were all exports from the USA and held the nation’s teenagers in the grip of their unique brand of music. Nearer home, the tiny Morris Mini is launched and master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock keeps audiences in their seats with his new film Psycho.
Still fascinated by the art of magic and illusion in all its forms, I reluctantly agreed to leave all thoughts of show- business behind and live in the ‘real’ world. I suppose it was the right decision. Looking back, I do believe that everybody would benefit from having another job before the one they are going to do for life. Most passionately, I believe this about teachers, as I don’t think you can teach about life unless you have left school and gone and worked in the big wide world – most teachers never have! Teachers, vicars and Members of Parliament live in a very protected environment and are sheltered from the trials and tribulations of a commercial working life. Perhaps no one should be allowed into teacher training college until they are at least 25 years old. By then you really want to be a teacher and it is, after all, one of the most exciting and important of all possible jobs.
Having joined Eston Urban Borough Council as a junior clerk, one of my first tasks employed my mathematical skills in balancing the rates books. The problem was that I had spent the last few years of my life doing algebra, trigonometry and geometry. Accountants add up and take away and, occasionally, do a bit of multiplication. I had forgotten how to add up. Computers were unheard of in 1954 so each one of the thousands of rent and rates records were kept by hand and, without the use of a ‘magic’ wand, were accurate to the penny. Each page was self-balancing so you couldn’t move on until you had balanced that page. As each page only had about twenty entries it was easy to spot an error. The totals of all the pages were transferred to the next set of records, again self-balancing, and so on until a final total was reached.
Not many people were employed to do this, considering the numbers involved, and at the end of the year all the records were filed together for future reference. I don’t think computers have improved on that. When our new machinery came into the office, using punched cards, it was supposed to be able to speed everything up, but I’m not sure that it did and it cost a lot of extra money for the mechanics and service charges. It seemed to me that the hand-written system was working perfectly well and I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t left alone. ‘If it works, don’t fix it,’ I remember my dad saying.
So I found myself sitting on day one at work next to Mary Livingstone and trying to add up the columns of figures. Of course, she thought me very slow and I was. Miss Livingstone could add up the columns of hundreds of thousands of pounds, shillings and pence all at the same time. She didn’t do the pence, then the shillings, then the pounds, she did them all at once. A couple of years ago I came across a book on mathematics that taught you how to do this and it turned out to be easier than the way I was taught at school. I wonder why they taught us the wrong way round?
I also had to make the tea and coffee. This I did in the old kitchen. The building had, at one time, been a very large house and the kitchen was typically Victorian. At some time, someone had left behind some very large models of steam engines and trains. I wish I had taken them home as they were wonderful in their glass cases with external connections for pumping the steam in to make them work. They were probably dumped when that set of offices was closed down.
As a job-starting-cum-birthday-present, my mother and father had got
me an NSU Quickly. That’s a bike not many will remember but it was the epitome of mopeds and I was the envy of my pals. Late in my school years we had all messed about on those powered bicycles. Some had an engine fitted inside the back wheel. Others had an engine on the back of the seat and, having pedalled the bike up to speed, you literally dropped the engine on to the back wheel where a cog drove the tyre around. Tyres wore out quickly on that model.
The Quickly was the first fully integrated design for a moped, not that I believe you could have pedalled it far as it was heavy. It had a two-speed gearbox and was very streamlined. I picked it up at the shop, Uptons, on Nelson Street and they showed me how to start it. Off I went under the loving gaze of Mam and rode along the street with everyone watching me. They had never seen anything like it. I approached the end of the street where the market was in full swing when I realised I hadn’t a clue how to stop it. Weaving amongst the customers in the open marketplace I tried everything I could and eventually I stopped it by switching it off. It had back-pedalling brakes. No wonder I couldn’t find them, I’d never heard of them.
The machine was very useful, however, for collecting rents. I was enrolled as stand-by for rent-collecting duty, if any of the officers were on leave or off sick. I really enjoyed collecting rents. I was young and fit and used to jump the fences between the houses to save walking up and down the paths. I ran everywhere once I had ridden to the estate. The other rent collectors used to tell me off for making short work of their hours. ‘You just wait till it’s raining or snowing and then you’ll find out.’ I didn’t care. I was having fun. I had a couple of surprises on the job though.