The Girl in the Spotty Dress--Memories From the 1950s and the Photo That Changed My Life

by Pat Stewart

  ‘What’s the matter, Dad? What’s wrong with Mam?’

  ‘I’m sorry, love, but yer mam passed away in her sleep last night.’

  Although I was devastated, I immediately switched onto autopilot.

  ‘I’ll drive straight up,’ I insisted. ‘I don’t know how long it’ll take me but I’m on my way.’

  I almost dropped the phone in shock before grabbing my car keys and handbag. Johnny heard the commotion and came to find me.

  ‘Pat, what’s wrong?’ he asked as soon as he saw the look on my face.

  ‘It’s Mam,’ I said numbly. ‘She’s dead.’

  I was utterly devastated, but I couldn’t cry because the shock had numbed me.

  ‘Here, give me the keys,’ Johnny said, holding out his hand. ‘I’ll drive.’

  I refused.

  ‘No, please let me. It’ll keep me busy.’

  There were no motorways linking Wales to Yorkshire then, so we packed the kids in the car and took the back roads. The journey took hours. When we arrived, Dad was waiting in a state of shock. I hadn’t cried up until that moment but, as soon as I saw him, I broke down.

  I was a married mother of three in my late thirties, but my own mother had been the driving force behind me and my career. She’d simply made me the woman I’d become and, without her, I felt utterly lost. I helped sort out the funeral and even suggested that Dad come to live with us. He tried it but only lasted a few weeks before he wanted to go back home.

  ‘It’s where I’ve lived all me life,’ he explained. ‘I need to go home, Pat.’

  Life was tough without Mam on the end of the phone. Whenever I had a problem, I’d walk to the telephone to call her. That’s when it would hit me – she had gone. Suddenly, the world felt an empty place without her, but I picked myself back up for Johnny and the sake of our children.

  A few months later, in the summer of 1974, Johnny was offered a show down south, in Babbacombe, near Torquay. He’d been asked to take top billing in the Fol de Rols – a show Bruce Forsyth had done the year before. Like Bruce, Johnny had been asked to be the lead comedian. It was a review show, and it included a series of sketches and chorus girls. In short, it was a typical, good old-fashioned seaside show. The Fol de Rols was set to run for twenty weeks so, during the summer holidays, I travelled down with the children so that they could spend time with their father. By this time, Peter was fifteen, Stephen fourteen and Rachel just five years old.

  One night, after the show had finished, I was with the children in Johnny’s dressing room when a man knocked at the door. He had a favour to ask. The man, who went by the nickname ‘the Arab’, worked as a senior prison warden at a nearby jail.

  ‘I just wondered if you and the rest of the cast would be interested in coming to the prison to do a show for the inmates,’ he asked Johnny. ‘It’s just that I reckon the men would love you and it would really help lift morale.’

  Johnny turned to me.

  ‘What do you think, Pat?’

  ‘Do it,’ I replied. ‘A show is a show. Besides, it’d be good for them to experience a little bit of Johnny Stewart humour.’

  The Arab smiled warmly. He seemed utterly delighted that we’d agreed to do it.

  ‘So I can book you then? I mean, you’ll all come?’ he asked.

  Johnny nodded.

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’

  Both men shook on it, and the Arab promised to be in touch to sort out the necessary arrangements. On the day, the Arab picked us up in his car and drove us out to lunch at a nearby pub. The rest of the cast had agreed to meet us there.

  ‘Where’s the prison then?’ Johnny piped up from the back seat.

  ‘Oh, it’s Dartmoor prison. They’re a bit isolated up there. That’s why I thought the men would love to have some visitors.’

  The Governor’s wife had offered to look after our children in her living quarters so that I could accompany Johnny and the Arab into the prison grounds. The prison was situated inside a large, grey, imposing building in Princetown, positioned high on Dartmoor. The main gate had been built with the same dreary grey brick used for the rest of the prison. The whole place felt foreboding. It was an entirely depressing place to look at and to be. As soon as we’d passed through clearance and various prison gates, the Arab led us all through into a huge open space, which was the prison’s main hall. On the opposite wall someone had painted an amazing mural of the last supper in intricate detail.

  ‘Why,’ I said, my breath stolen away by its sheer magnificence, ‘that is beautiful. Who painted it?’

  The Arab looked up at it dismissively, as though he’d seen it one too many times.

  ‘Oh, that,’ he replied. ‘It was painted by one of our previous prisoners.’

  I was astounded that the prison had once housed such a talented artist and wondered what his crime had been. I glanced around, taking in the rest of the room. At one end there was a stage but, other than that, there was very little else. However, the room was busy with around thirty young men milling about. The men were clean shaven, wore grey trousers and smart blue-striped shirts. Initially, I assumed they were social workers. It didn’t, for one minute, cross my mind that they were actual prisoners.

  The cast began to discuss the position of the stage and the show, so I wandered off towards the side. Within minutes, one of the prisoners approached me and struck up a conversation. I explained that my husband would be the main act in the show that afternoon. He smiled warmly and explained that he was a musician.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What do you play?’

  ‘The trombone,’ he replied in a strong West Country accent.

  ‘Oh, I love the trombone, especially when it’s played well.’

  The man nodded and looked down bashfully.

  ‘Well, I’m not that good but I try my best.’

  ‘So what is it you do here?’ I asked, changing the conversation.

  He continued to stare at his feet.

  ‘I committed murder.’

  I was gobsmacked. I was so shocked that, for the next minute, I stumbled over my words, wondering how to reply.

  ‘Er, so, erm, what did you do?’ I asked, cringing as soon as the words had left my mouth.

  ‘Well, I was drunk. I hit someone with a house brick and it killed him,’ he replied bluntly.

  ‘Oh.’

  I didn’t have a clue what to say, so an uneasy silence hung in the air.

  ‘But while I’ve been in here, I’ve become a reformed character,’ he said, suddenly breaking the silence. ‘I used to drink back then but I’m better now. I used to have a very bad temper but I don’t anymore. That’s when I decided to learn to play an instrument, so I chose the trombone.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ I answered, nodding my head. ‘So it’s been good for you then – the trombone?’

  The man looked up and smiled.

  ‘So how are you getting on with it? Do you play regularly?’ I said, pressing him further.

  He sighed and shrugged his big heavy shoulders.

  ‘That’s my problem, you see. I don’t have the trombone anymore.’

  I felt a little sorry for him; it was obvious he’d loved his brass instrument.

  ‘Why? Did they take it off you?’

  ‘Nah, nothing like that,’ he said shaking his head.

  I was confused, so he decided to elaborate.

  ‘One day, I was practising in my cell, but I couldn’t get the tune quite right. I practised and practised but it just wouldn’t come.’

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I lost my temper. That’s when I smashed the bloody thing against my cell wall. Couldn’t play it after that because it was bent out of shape – it wasn’t any use.’

  I gasped. It was quite clear that his temper was no better now than when he’d committed the murder!

  Although all the warning signs were there, ringing loudly inside my head, I was so taken back by this revelation that I found myself babbling. As
usual, I said the first thing that came into my head.

  ‘Well look, when you get out of here, do look us up. We’re in the phonebook,’ I insisted. ‘We’re listed as Mr J. Stewart.’

  Johnny, who’d been standing next to me chatting to the Arab, overheard. He stepped forward and grabbed my arm.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said, smiling at the prisoner, ‘but can I just borrow my wife for a moment?’

  Once we were out of earshot, Johnny asked me what on earth I was doing.

  ‘I’m just trying to be friendly.’

  ‘Well, don’t! These men are prisoners. They’re not in here for the good of their health. The Arab overheard you just now and told me to get you away before you caused a bloody riot!’

  I apologised because I knew he was right.

  ‘Sorry, Johnny,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, you will be if he knocks on our door in a year or so’s time!’

  Just then, the Arab walked over.

  ‘Pat, you’re going to have to leave here because they’ll be letting the others in. You’ll have to go up on the balcony up there,’ he said, pointing up towards the back of the hall.

  ‘But why? I’ve already been down here mixing with the prisoners and I didn’t even realise.’

  Despite the trombonist’s violent temper, the Arab explained that he and the other men in the room were considered ‘good-behaviour’ prisoners.

  ‘But the ones coming in now, well, they’re the big boys. No ifs and buts – you’ll have to go upstairs.’

  I looked over to where he was pointing. There was a balcony across the back of the room, but it was already full with around a hundred other prisoners sitting in the seats.

  ‘But there are prisoners up there,’ I remarked. ‘What’s the difference?’

  But the Arab didn’t mince his words.

  ‘Yes, but they wouldn’t be interested in you.’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that lot,’ he said, pointing back at them, ‘are all child sex offenders.’

  My mouth fell open. I was still in shock as I made my way up the stairs to the balcony to take my seat alongside some of Britain’s worst sex offenders. Within moments, the hall was flooded with another 300 men, who took their seats for the performance. The show began to a rapturous applause. It was clear the men appreciated the cast putting on a performance to break up what I suppose must have been a mundane existence. The prisoners laughed like drains when Johnny acted out a particular sketch with one of the female artistes. He played the part of a married man who was having an affair. The man’s mother-in-law found out and sniped back, saying she wanted to kill him.

  As quick as a flash, Johnny retorted, ‘Well, that could be arranged.’

  We’d left the line in the sketch without even thinking although past experience had taught us it hadn’t always got a laugh. However, that day, among murderers and thieves, it’d raised the biggest laugh of all. In fact, it stopped the show! Looking back, I suspect that many of those men had wanted to kill someone, even if they hadn’t already. Johnny ended on it as he took a series of bows to his appreciative, if not captured, audience.

  ‘The ones sitting next to me on the balcony all looked so normal,’ I remarked after the show.

  ‘That’s the problem. They do,’ the Arab chipped in.

  He led the way and took us on a guided tour of the cells. We passed one cell that belonged to an accountant who’d been jailed for fraud. I’d expected to see a messy cell with nude pictures of women plastered against the walls. Instead, apart from the bars and the small window, it was so spotless that it looked like a hotel room. On his wall, there wasn’t a nude in sight, only a beautiful painting of an English landscape, which he’d cut out from a magazine. He obviously stared at it while he whiled away the hours, months and years of his sentence.

  At the end of the summer holiday, the children and I caught the train back to Wales, leaving Johnny to finish off the rest of the season.

  As the train had pulled away from the station, the children began to compare the gifts that had been given to them by the Dartmoor prisoners. I’d been presented with a set of iron figures, made from old nails that had been welded together. They were quite beautiful, and I planned to put them on my fireplace when I returned home. The prisoners had sewn Rachel a few small soft animal toys to play with and had given our boys miniature mailbags with their names printed on the front. They read, ‘HMP Dartmoor – Peter Stewart’ and ‘HMP Dartmoor – Stephen Stewart’.

  A man sitting opposite us noticed the mailbags and commented on them.

  ‘They’re nice bags,’ he said, pointing over at Peter’s.

  Peter nodded and pulled his mailbag closer to him as the train rumbled on.

  ‘So,’ the man’s wife said, trying to strike up conversation, ‘what have you all been doing for the summer?’

  Peter looked at the man and his wife. He pointed down at his mailbag bag and announced something. He said it so loud that the whole train carriage heard.

  ‘We’ve been to Dartmoor Prison because that’s where my dad is.’

  Passengers turned to look at us as an awkward silence hung in the air.

  Up until that moment, I’d been sitting there all prim and posh. I was dressed in my finest clothes surrounded by my three beautiful children, but Peter had destroyed my image in one second flat.

  ‘Oh, right. I see,’ the woman mumbled, turning away from us.

  Her husband shot me an odd look before disappearing back behind his newspaper. He stayed there for the rest of the journey.

  I looked down at Peter who smiled back up at me. He had the face of an angel. I’d wanted the earth to swallow me whole right there and then, but it was no good because Peter hadn’t even realised he’d said anything wrong.

  CHAPTER 22

  TAP SHOES AND TUPPERWARE

  ‘He said what?’ Johnny chortled as soon as I rang him to tell him what Peter had done.

  ‘Don’t! It’s not funny. You should have seen the way everyone looked at me. No one spoke a word to us after it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t. I think I’m going to die laughing,’ Johnny howled, begging for mercy.

  I imagined him wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

  ‘Listen love,’ he said after he’d managed to compose himself. ‘It won’t be long before I’m home. I’ve only another month to go.’

  I couldn’t wait, even though Johnny’s wages had come in handy. Now that I’d given my agency up, and with an extra mouth to feed, things had begun to feel a little tight. In fact, I was so strapped for cash that I decided to sell my beloved Mini. I loved my car but keeping a roof over our heads was more important than having a nice runaround, so I mentioned it to a friend of mine, called Kay.

  ‘I think my manager’s looking for a new car, Pat. I could ask her, if you like?’

  ‘Yes, please do.’

  A few days later, Kay and her manager – a lady called Myrna – arrived at my door.

  ‘Hello, Pat,’ Myrna said with a smile. ‘Kay says you might have a car you’re looking to sell.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said. ‘It’s just around here,’ I gestured, pulling on my coat. ‘Are you looking to buy it for yourself?’

  ‘No,’ Myrna replied. ‘I’m looking to buy it for my husband. He works at the hospital.’

  Just then, I spotted a smart blue Hillman car parked in the drive.

  ‘But whose car is that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh that,’ Myrna said, turning around. ‘That’s mine. It’s a company car. It comes with my job.’

  I was flummoxed. Her car was absolutely gorgeous.

  ‘Why, what job do you do?’

  ‘I’m a Tupperware manager and they give you a car.’

  I looked at Kay and then back at Myrna.

  ‘But Kay works for Tupperware and she hasn’t got a car?’

  Myrna nodded.

  ‘No, that’s because Kay’s an agent. I ge
t one because Kay’s in the group I manage.’

  Suddenly, a light bulb flashed inside my head. I needed to sell my car, but I also needed a job to make ends meet.

  ‘What are the chances of me becoming a Tupperware manager?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s every possibility. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come along on Monday, and I’ll introduce you to the distributors.’

  Sure enough, after I’d sold her the car, I turned up on the Monday morning and explained that I wanted to be a Tupperware manager.

  ‘My husband is about to go into pantomime in Porthcawl and, now that I’ve sold mine, I won’t have a car. So, you see, I’m afraid I won’t be able to work for you unless you make me a manager,’ I said cheekily.

  After a bit of deliberation, it was decided that they’d make me a manager, even though I had no one to manage. However, I did have one thing going for me and that was a good diary of contacts. Before the meeting, I’d booked up a number of potential Tupperware parties, so they realised I had an inkling for selling, if nothing else.

  To my delight, I was also given a car. Back on four wheels, I drove myself around Wales, hosting numerous parties. I was thirty-six years old, but I’d just bagged myself a new career, swapping my tap shoes for Tupperware. I loved my new life and sold those plastic bowls with a passion. At one point, I became so busy that I was hosting up to ten parties a day. My sales were so successful that I was given prizes. I won cut glass, a couple of bikes for my boys and even managed to bag us a free holiday in Spain. Over the three years that I worked for Tupperware, I rose up through the ranks to become one of their most successful managers, earning £300 to £400 a week.

  One afternoon, I’d taken Rachel, who by this time was six years old, along to one of my parties.

  ‘Just sit there and be a good girl and don’t speak to Mummy before Mummy speaks to you.’

  It sounded harsh, but I knew any slight distraction could lose me a booking. My bookings not only helped to pay the mortgage; they kept the family afloat whenever Johnny found himself in between jobs.

  ‘I won’t,’ Rachel said, crossing her heart with her finger.