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

by Pat Stewart

  The doctor wasn’t our usual GP but one from the hospital. I explained what I’d been doing.

  ‘I don’t know if it was the right thing to do,’ I panicked, trying to remember all the correct and incorrect answers that Johnny had given me.

  The doctor nodded. ‘It was. You’ve done exactly the right thing. Now,’ he said, placing his bag on the floor, ‘do you have any junior aspirin in the house?’

  My youngest child was fifteen years old, so we hadn’t had junior aspirin in the bathroom cabinet for a very long time.

  ‘No, we don’t, but my neighbour might.’

  At the doctor’s insistence, I ran three doors down to our neighbour Yvonne, who had young children. As soon as she answered the door and found me panicked and tear-stained, her face changed.

  ‘Pat, whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Johnny. The doctor is with him now, but we need some junior aspirin. Do you have any?’ I asked, blurting out the words as quickly as I could.

  Yvonne dashed over to a cupboard and pulled out a packet.

  ‘Here, take them. Take them all. Just use what you need,’ she said, pressing the packet into my hand.

  ‘Thanks, Yvonne,’ I called over my shoulder as I dashed back to Johnny and the doctor.

  The doctor gave Johnny some junior aspirin and wrote out a prescription for some other medication.

  ‘You need to stop smoking your pipe and your cigars immediately, Mr Stewart. Do you understand?’ he warned.

  Johnny nodded obediently.

  Finally, Rachel reappeared. It’d transpired that she’d come into the house and had overheard. Fearing the worst, she’d run into her stables crying. She had then made her way to a neighbour’s house and stayed until she was able to compose herself and return back home. I hadn’t realised it then, but she was as heartbroken as I was to have witnessed Johnny in such a state.

  Days later, we travelled to hospital so that he could be examined by a specialist doctor. It was the end of January 1983 and the wearing of seat belts had just been made law, but I had a job trying to convince Johnny to belt up.

  ‘Why do I need this?’ he asked, pulling the belt away from his body.

  ‘Because it’s the law, Johnny.’ I explained.

  ‘But I’ve never worn one before.’

  ‘I know, but they’ve made it compulsory and, if you don’t wear one, I’ll get into trouble with the police. You know what they’re like. They’re always hanging around here trying to catch speeding motorists.’

  It took some persuasion, but he eventually let me fasten one around him. By the time we’d reached Bridgend hospital, my nerves were completely frazzled.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, helping him out of the car.

  It was a cold day, so Johnny was wearing a big leather coat. It’d made it even more difficult to move him.

  We reached the specialist’s office, and I sat down in front of the doctor.

  ‘Now then, have you been smoking, Mr Stewart?’ the consultant began, looking through Johnny’s medical records.

  Johnny looked him straight in the eye and shook his head.

  ‘Nope!’

  The doctor seemed satisfied.

  ‘Good, good man. Now, take off your coat so that I can take your blood pressure.’

  Johnny stood up and pulled his arms from his coat. It made his cardigan ruche up underneath. There was a bit of a clatter as something fell to the floor and landed by his feet. It was his pipe. The specialist looked down at the pipe and back up at Johnny, who was standing there with a guilty look on his face.

  ‘Mr Stewart, if you don’t stop smoking, it will kill you!’

  Johnny just shrugged. Short of binning the bloody thing, I knew there was very little I could do to get him to break the habit of a lifetime. The doctor explained that he believed Johnny’s memory loss had been caused by the main vein in his neck. It had become furred up from a lifetime’s smoking habit. But, strangely at that time, no one mentioned the word stroke to me.

  Thankfully, my husband seemed to improve on medication. But now and again, he’d forget certain words, which would frustrate him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I coaxed.

  But it mattered to Johnny. He’d spent his whole life being a comedian. He was the past master at the sharp one-liner, always delivering it with perfect timing, yet now he’d forget even the simplest word.

  As the months passed, so summer season loomed. I realised Johnny would want to go and tread the boards again but, with his memory fading, I knew it’d be impossible for him to remember the routines.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said one day as we sat outside in the sunshine. ‘It’s going to be such a lovely summer this year, so why don’t we enjoy it for a change? Why don’t you leave summer season?’

  Johnny turned his head and looked at me, a little startled.

  ‘But I always do summer season.’

  ‘I know, but panto will be here before you know it, so let’s get you well, then we can concentrate on pantomime.’

  Johnny thought for a moment.

  ‘It’s just a little break. I think the rest will do you good,’ I insisted.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed.

  Although money was tight, the last thing I wanted to do was let him sign on the dole because I didn’t want him to realise how ill he was or how redundant his career had become.

  The summer season came and went.

  ‘Let’s leave pantomime, Johnny,’ I suggested, as the autumn nights began to draw in. ‘You can do summer season next year.’

  A week or so later, I was speaking to my cousin, who worked for the department of health. I told her all about Johnny and how tight our finances had become.

  ‘Pat, Johnny will be entitled to sick benefit,’ she explained.

  ‘Really?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘Yes, he should get sick benefit. You should go in and ask about it.’

  By this time we were pretty much broke, with all our savings gone, so I did as she said. Although Johnny had been ill for the best part of the year, he had to be ‘sick’ for another month before we could receive payment.

  One day, just before Christmas, Johnny had been working in the field, when he came in through the back door. At first, he’d seemed perfectly OK. He sat down as I made us a couple of hot drinks.

  ‘Why don’t you have a rest Johnny?’ I suggested, pouring boiling water into two mugs. ‘There’s a good war film on in a minute. We could sit and watch it.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said, standing up to take off his jacket.

  I turned on the television, and we settled down to watch the film. Before it’d started, I turned to say something to Johnny about Stephen’s wife, Claire, who was about to give birth to her second baby.

  ‘I wonder what Claire will have this time: a boy or a girl?’ I remarked.

  Johnny looked at me blankly.

  ‘Who’s Claire?’

  My heart sank because I realised whatever had happened before had happened again.

  I immediately ran into the hallway and called the hospital. A nurse transferred me through to the specialist, who asked if Johnny had been taking his medication.

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  With the doctor still on the line, I popped my head around the door of the front room and asked Johnny if he was still taking his aspirin.

  ‘No, I stopped,’ he admitted. ‘The blokes in the pub said it can cause internal bleeding.’

  I went back and relayed the information to the doctor.

  ‘Get him back on aspirin straight away!’

  I felt terrible because I hadn’t checked if Johnny had been taking his medication. I just assumed he had been.

  In the meantime, with very little money coming in, I got myself a job working with the elderly. I’d never had a proper job in my life, because I’d always been self-employed in the theatre. But now, with Johnny too sick to work, I knew I had to.

  The job involved making sure
old folk who’d been discharged from hospital were returning home to adequate facilities. By this time, I was fifty years old and I thought my age would count against me. In a bit of a panic, before my interview, I changed my year of birth from 1933 to 1938, which would make me forty-five years old. To my delight, I got the job! I loved it and would often argue with the doctors to ensure my clients were kept in hospital until their homes had been made safe enough for their discharge. Eventually, though, my own age caught me up. It’d reached a point where, although I was being paid, the taxman couldn’t find me. I’d been doing the job efficiently for quite a few months, so I knew I was safe.

  ‘Here, let’s have a look at that paperwork,’ I told my manager. ‘Oh,’ I said, feigning surprise, ‘I can see the problem straight away. Someone must have mistyped my date of birth wrong. I was born in 1933, not 1938!’

  The error was accepted and I kept my job, which was a good thing because, by now, we were broke. To make ends meet, I took on an afternoon job cold-calling for an insurance company. But we were still struggling, so I got a third job, working in the evening, behind the till at Tesco.

  Johnny’s health had continued to worsen. Rachel was studying hard for her A-levels and had her heart set on university, so I didn’t care what it took to keep us afloat as long as it did, even if it meant juggling three jobs. If life had taught me one thing, it was that I was a survivor.

  A year later to the exact date of Johnny’s first health scare, my father died of a heart attack. By this time, he’d remarried a woman called Rhoda whom I hated with a passion. Dad and Rhoda had got married only eighteen months after my mother had died, but we never saw eye to eye. I remember once they’d come to visit us at our house in Wick. Dad had been so delighted to see his only granddaughter that he’d given Rachel £15, which was quite a bit of money then.

  Rhoda was sat at our kitchen table, but she made it clear she didn’t approve of my father’s generosity. As soon as he’d handed Rachel the banknotes, she sniffed, leaned in close and whispered in my ear, ‘That’s the only reason you want him, isn’t it, love – because of what yer can get out of ’im?’

  Dad overheard and had tried to silence her, but she refused to be told. She simply couldn’t hold her tongue. I hated her from that moment on. So on 26 January 1984, when she rang me to say my father had been taken ill, my senses were on full alert. I immediately caught a train and travelled up to Yorkshire to see him. I didn’t want to stay with Rhoda, only Dad, so I bedded down at the hospital for the night. I was glad I did because it meant I was by his side when he died just hours later. After Dad’s funeral, there was an almighty wrangle over his estate. I spoke to a solicitor, who advised me to put a block on the will because I was the executor. Everything had been left to Rhoda, with no guarantee she wouldn’t leave the lot to her own spouse when she died. I realised that, with a daughter planning to go to university and a sick husband at home, I needed to fight for what was truly mine. So I did. After months of argument, I travelled up to Yorkshire to try to reason with her.

  ‘You know my father wouldn’t have wanted this,’ I argued.

  To my surprise, Rhoda agreed with me.

  ‘No he wouldn’t,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t care – tha’s getting nowt.’

  Johnny had also tried to speak to her, but Rhoda refused to budge, so I went back to my solicitor. It took a while but, eventually, we reached a settlement and I received £18,000 from my father’s estate. It was a good job because I needed it to put Rachel through university when she later won a place at Bristol to study law.

  CHAPTER 24

  BLAST FROM THE PAST

  I was still working, looking after the elderly, when someone decided to put on a charity event to raise money for stroke victims. It was due to take place one afternoon at a nightclub in Cardiff, called the Ocean Club. They asked if Johnny could perform but I was wary.

  ‘As long as it’s for no longer than fifteen minutes,’ I insisted. ‘His health comes first.’

  After we’d agreed, the press agent contacted the local paper, which ran a piece on Johnny Stewart. The article explained Johnny was a stroke victim, but that he’d be heading up the entertainment for the show. Before we knew it, a researcher from BBC Breakfast with Anne Diamond had picked up the story, so Johnny’s performance was filmed for TV. Of course, Johnny was in his element but his fifteen-minute slot had soon turned into an hour. He loved it so much that we couldn’t get him off! Not that I cared. In many ways, it felt good to see my husband regain his spark. I’d watched him deteriorate for so long that it was wonderful to catch a rare glimpse of the old Johnny Stewart.

  As I looked on from the sidelines with my granddaughter, Rebecca, in my arms, a woman sidled over to me.

  ‘Isn’t he marvellous?’ she remarked, pointing over towards Johnny.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed and grinned. ‘He’s all right, isn’t he?’

  It was obvious this woman had no idea who I was.

  ‘He’s had a stroke, you know?’ she remarked.

  I turned to face her.

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Yes. You know, he couldn’t even speak when he’d had the stroke?’

  ‘Really,’ I replied, wondering what she’d say next.

  ‘It’s true. But his wife has taught him how to speak again and now look at him,’ she said, gesturing over towards Johnny. ‘He’s up there doing an hour’s patter!’

  I didn’t say another word, but I felt proud of my husband. By now, Johnny had suffered a series of small strokes, which had brought on a condition known as vascular dementia. It’s a particularly cruel disease, which was slowly robbing my husband of his memory and razor-sharp wit. It was also taking him from me, piece by piece.

  Johnny was still buzzing as he wrapped up his half of the show. His eyes were on fire as he left the stage.

  ‘You were brilliant, darling,’ I said, giving him a kiss.

  I choked back my emotion because I knew it would probably be the last time I ever saw him perform… and it was.

  The following day, Johnny had another, bigger stroke, this time more debilitating than ever before. It had put an end to his show-business career in a heartbeat, and it was one stroke from which he never fully recovered.

  The years passed by. One Sunday morning, Stephen, his wife, Claire and their daughter Rebecca were over at my house when the phone rang.

  ‘Won’t be a mo,’ I said and I left them chatting to Johnny.

  I headed out into the hallway to answer the call.

  ‘Pat,’ a voice said as soon as I picked up the receiver. ‘It’s Paula, Claire’s sister.’

  ‘Hello,’ I replied, half-expecting her to ask me to put Claire on the phone.

  ‘No,’ she said, realising my confusion. ‘It’s you I want.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Listen, did you ever work at Blackpool when you danced with the Tiller Girls?’

  I was a little taken back by her odd and unexpected question, but I answered her truthfully.

  ‘Yes, I did. I danced on the North Pier. Paula, why are you asking me this?’

  Paula was younger than Claire and, although I’d met her, I didn’t know her very well. Paula, like Rachel, was a student, so my first thought was that maybe she was doing some research for a project.

  ‘Pat, you’re in a Sunday paper,’ Paula said suddenly. ‘I’ve got it here in front of me now. I knew it was you the moment I saw it!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, a little flummoxed.

  ‘Absolutely! I’m looking at a photograph of you right now. You’re sat on some railings but there are other photos of you in the paper too.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, recalling the Blackpool Belles photograph over thirty-seven years before. ‘Tell me: what am I wearing?’

  I heard the rustle of newspaper as Paula turned the page to have another look.

  ‘A black-and-white spotted dress.’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s not me, Paula. I’ve never had a black-a
nd-white spotted…’

  But as the words left my mouth, I realised the photograph had been taken in black and white. I put a hand to my chest and gasped, ‘… but I had on a cream-and-brown spotted dress.’

  ‘Pat, you need to go out and buy this paper now. I’m certain it’s you,’ Paula insisted.

  I almost dropped the phone in shock as I shouted to Stephen and Claire.

  ‘Quick!’ I said, grabbing my coat. ‘I need to get to the shops before they shut!’

  Stephen jumped in his car and drove me into Bridgend to buy a newspaper.

  I handed over the money, wet a finger and flicked through the paper, with butterflies rising inside my stomach. Halfway through, I stopped turning and froze.

  ‘My God!’ I gasped, holding the paper open to show my son. ‘It is me. It’s me and Wendy Clarke!’

  Stephen peered over my shoulder and grinned. ‘Look at that,’ he said and laughed. ‘You’re famous, Mum!’

  I was still in shock. My hands trembled as I read the story printed at the side of the photograph.

  ‘What is it? What do they want?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘It’s an appeal. The BBC wants to recreate the shot for a new calendar. Only this time, we’ll have our picture taken with Bert Hardy, the photographer.’ I looked up at Stephen and gasped. ‘My God, everyone’s looking for us!’

  As soon as we arrived home, I dialled the number printed at the bottom of the article. But it was a Sunday so no one was there. Instead, I left a message with my name and contact details.

  Later that day, the phone rang and it didn’t stop until late at night. Everyone had called to tell me the BBC was looking for me and Wendy. The newspaper had used different shots from the day, not just the side profile of me on the railings, so they’d all recognised me, from an ageing aunt in a care home to school friends I’d not seen for years. The following morning, the phone rang again. This time it was someone from the BBC, who asked if I could come to London.

  I thought of my three jobs and sighed. I didn’t have time to travel to Cardiff, never mind London.