By Easter 1975, Linda would regularly spend all of her weekends travelling from London to see Ted. ‘I was absolutely cracked,’ she remembers. ‘I used to turn up in my big coat and big hat in all sorts of weather. We stayed everywhere – B&Bs, old hotels – basically, anywhere that catered for travelling entertainers.’ It was a rough-and-ready existence but Ted would make sure he kept the romance alive. During the Easter weekend he was tidying the caravan and came across a woollen hat of Linda’s. As a surprise, he decided to spend the whole afternoon making paper flowers from serviettes he’d been given at the club. He then stuck each flower into the hat, turning it into an Easter bonnet that she would wear that night to the pub for a laugh.
Ted wooed Linda as if his life depended on it, but things took on a whole new complexion at the end of April 1975, when Linda found out she was pregnant after visiting the doctor in London. She wasn’t shocked by the news and knew immediately she would keep the baby – even when she was offered an abortion as an unmarried woman. Linda had no idea how Ted would react – they hadn’t been together that long and he was very much a free spirit who loved seeing where the wind took him. That kind of life, without stability or routine, was the opposite of what a baby needed, which was stability and routine – Linda didn’t know if Ted could give her what she and her child needed, or even if he wanted to be involved. The knowledge that she was keeping her baby, no matter what Ted said, made telling him a lot easier than it might have been. Preparing herself to sit him down to deliver such life-changing news did bring into sharp focus exactly how much they didn’t know about each other.
So, the next weekend she was scheduled to see him, Linda let Ted pick her up from the station and, once they were back at the caravan and settled, she took his hand: ‘You’re going to be a dad.’ There was silence as Ted gripped her arm.
‘What are you talking about? A dad? What, you’re pregnant?’
‘Yes, Ted. I’m having a baby. Listen, I don’t want anything from you. I can do this but you needed to know.’
Ted took in the information and then finally said:
‘We should get married.’
Linda was surprised at how calm and matter of fact he was. In fact, everyone seemed remarkably laid-back, including Linda’s parents. It wasn’t the ideal way round but Hilda was delighted when she heard the news that Ted was going to be a father. She would tell anyone who would listen how beautiful Linda was and, privately, she knew a baby meant Ted would have to put down roots and stop acting like a teenager on the cusp of ‘making it’.
The pregnancy news wasn’t the life-altering bombshell Linda thought it might be. In fact, by the summer, life had quickly returned to its usual routine – Ted was back at Butlin’s and she was back to the grind of office life, travelling up to see Ted whenever she could. Keen not to be limited by the pregnancy, Linda carried on as normal, even taking off to Canada for a three-week holiday. It was a thoroughly modern arrangement and one that suited them both – Linda didn’t want the world from Ted and he was relieved not to be suffocated by it all as he processed the inevitable changes.
But even though the parents-to-be were happy to carry on as usual, there were practicalities to address and, as is often the way, their own parents wished to impress upon them their responsibilities. The most pressing issue was deciding where the baby would be raised, and it became an emotive issue. Linda had planned to stay in London and rent a bigger flat so that Ted could live with her. Their parents weren’t particularly keen on that idea, as she would be far away from family support and on her own with a newborn while Ted was out and about travelling to find work. It just didn’t seem practical to them and they worried that Linda didn’t understand the pressure a new baby would bring and how much life would change. Eventually, and after much discussion, Linda’s mum managed to persuade her to leave London and move back to Blackburn so that she could help with the baby. In fact, the most sensible thing seemed for Linda to move back home and take the back bedroom for her, Ted and the baby.
Although she didn’t much like it, Linda knew deep down that it was the right solution and that she would need all the help she could get. But even she had no idea just how much that family support would be needed, especially as the autumn progressed and she slowly stopped hearing from Ted. There was no specific event that caused the fracture, more that they simply stopped talking to each other as much as they had at the beginning of their relationship. Ted kept odd hours because of his performances and could rarely get to a telephone, and Linda stopped being able to make the long journey to see him due to her condition. Even all these years later all Linda will say is: ‘We just drifted away from each other – I don’t know what happened – we just didn’t seem to contact each other that much. It’s not like today when you could just pick up a phone or send a text. People lost contact easily.’ It made no sense to anyone around them, but both sets of parents soon learned that it was better not to ask too many questions, which was something that Hilda found particularly difficult to manage given that Ted was due to move back home after the summer once the Butlin’s season was over.
When Ted did come home with his suitcases full of laundry, exhausted and a little manic after months of performing every night, it was as if he was in denial and Linda hadn’t happened. He set about finding work in factories and wherever else he could; at first Hilda assumed he was saving for the baby’s arrival, but it was hard to tell as he simply didn’t mention the situation. Never one to keep her opinions to herself, Hilda managed three whole days before being unable to contain her curiosity any more. As Ted made them both a cup of tea one morning, she turned to him and blurted out:
‘What’s happening with you and this girl having your baby? What are you playing at?’
Ted could feel Hilda’s eyes burning into his back as she prompted him to answer. She continued: ‘Your dad would be turning in his grave – we didn’t bring you up to ignore your responsibilities.’
The couple did eventually make contact and a visit was arranged as the baby’s due date drew nearer.
They agreed to meet at Hilda’s. Linda was anxious – she hadn’t seen Ted for months, she felt tired, emotional and full of uncertainty. As she sat on the train to Wednesbury, she took comfort in the fact that at least soon she world see Ted again. She opened the gate and knocked on the door, bracing herself, but it wasn’t Ted who answered and, as she was seen into the front room by Ted’s sister, Marilyn, and offered a cup of tea, it became clear that he wasn’t there at all. Hilda fussed around and did all she could to hide the fact that she didn’t know Linda was coming and she had no idea where Ted was – the one thing she did know was that she wanted to swing for him.
A couple of hours of small talk later, Ted suddenly burst through the door and the couple were reunited. As ever, Ted fussed around Linda, taking her to the local pub where he introduced her to his old friend Norman Deeley. Hilda was so concerned with how things might turn out because of Ted’s behaviour that she even offered to raise the baby herself once it was born, despite her grief over Maurice and her failing health. It was the desperate act of a woman terrified she would be cut out of her grandchild’s life.
But she needn’t have worried. Linda had already vowed never to stop Ted being a father to their child. In fact, she took to sending tapes down to him so that he knew how the pregnancy was progressing and how she was getting on. ‘I remember when those tapes used to arrive,’ says my auntie Karen, one of Ted’s younger sisters. ‘We’d often sit around listening to them – but then there’d always be one that he’d take upstairs and listen to on his own.’
***
At 12.40 p.m., just after Christmas on 29 December 1975, I was born and Linda and Ted became my mum and dad. My arrival changed everything as far as Hilda was concerned – she told Dad in no uncertain terms that he needed to step up. A few days later he made his way to Bramley Meade Maternity home in Whalley, near Blackburn, clutching a blue teddy bear.
It became clear th
at, despite the unorthodox circumstances, Dad was over the moon to be a father. ‘You know he was so proud when he had a son,’ says John. ‘He was always proud of you, you know. He always said that if his boy wanted to do something, he’d want him to be able to do it. He didn’t want anything to hold back his son.’
It makes my heart glow thinking how Dad felt about me, but it also makes me wonder whether I turned out to make him as proud as he was right at that moment when I was born.
The next day, I was registered as Simon Edward Carter – no one expected my on/off parents to get married, so I was given Mum’s maiden name and Dad’s middle name. At least I was given what Mum thought was Dad’s middle name – in another ridiculous reminder that the new parents really didn’t know each other, it turned out that Dad’s middle name was, in fact, Edmund.
My birth triggered something in Dad, just as Hilda had prayed it would, and the day after his visit to Bramley Meade, he wrote Mum a long letter, saying how much he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, including the infamous words: ‘If I could put you in my top pocket next to my heart I would.’ Mum thought it was crazy and laughed as she showed it to her mum, who had been less than impressed with the way Dad had shrugged off his responsibilities. Mum expected that my nan would greet the letter with a healthy measure of cynicism and dismissiveness – after all, she didn’t think Dad was capable of much, especially not authentic emotion. So imagine her surprise when Nan read the letter, folded it over back into its envelope and turned, with tears in her eyes, to say: ‘Linda, it’s once in a lifetime you’ll get a letter like that! He completely loves you.’
It wasn’t the most earth-shatteringly romantic moment of Mum’s life (as one friend was fond of saying ‘talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted’!), but whatever others thought, Mum and Dad decided to take their vows at Blackburn Register Office. Someone had finally achieved the impossible and made Dad settle down – he was 39 and Mum was 31.
No one is really sure if the wedding gave Mum the security she needed – she was a smart girl and knew that a wedding ring was no guarantee she would be able to keep hold of Dad if he didn’t want to stay. She was also a proud woman and didn’t want to be with him because he felt they should be – she made it perfectly clear to him that she was more than capable and willing to raise me alone. Mum was not duty bound to Dad or anyone else. She was also realistic enough to know that Dad wouldn’t ever be a millionaire – a joke she shared with her mum on the morning of the wedding – laughingly telling her: ‘I probably won’t be rich in money but at least I will be rich in love.’
Mum was, typically, bang on trend when it came to her wedding outfit, shunning a classic virginal white gown (that really would be trying to close the door after the horse!). Instead she wore a pale grey suit, pink top and her brown school beret, which Grandad had been wearing a few days earlier as he did some painting – if you looked closely it was still possible to see the paint flecks! She finished off the look with a fox fur draped around her neck, which made her feel a million dollars. Dad was uncharacteristically restrained and wore a plain navy-blue suit. His best man was his brother, Malcolm, and Mum’s maid of honour was her close friend, Edna.
As with all good love stories, the big day itself was fraught, with Edna caught up in a suspected IRA bombing in Birmingham, meaning she and her husband couldn’t get to their car to drive up as planned. But a policeman took pity on them and they sped up the motorway, making it to the ceremony just in time.
In another break with convention, both the bride and groom’s mothers stayed away: Hilda, due to illness and the fact it was so far for her to travel, and Nan because she was so appalled at the idea of me being at the ceremony. When pressed about missing the most important day of her daughter’s life, she snapped back: ‘No way is this baby going to his own mother’s wedding!’
She was able to wave off the bride as the wedding party took the bus from outside the house, but stayed behind as everyone else set off for Blackburn Register Office.
Nan laughed to herself as she stood at the front-room window, clutching me. She knew her headstrong daughter was resilient and determined to do things her own way (after all, she had even bought her own wedding ring) and prayed Dad and Mum would be happy, but she couldn’t shake the heavy feeling that there was a rocky road ahead. She had tried to come around to Dad and they did have a unique relationship, which mainly consisted of lots of bickering and bantering. Nan found the best way to communicate with her future son-in-law was to mock his ego. They could regularly be overheard trading insults when Dad came to stay in the run-up to the wedding and it got worse as the years progressed. Mum would roll her eyes as she walked into the front room to hear Nan shouting: ‘Your head’s so big that it would take two strong men to carry it on a platter’, to which he would reply: ‘Maybe so – but if I put my head in your mouth it would still rattle.’ Each was determined to outsmart the other and it was an endless competition as well as being an affectionate way for the two of them to draw the necessary battle lines and keep each other in check.
In keeping with the unconventional tone set by the couple, the wedding itself provided some unintentional humour – beginning with the best man being struck down with a laughing fit and chuckling throughout the ceremony from beginning to end. No one could understand why Malcolm found such a serious commitment so hilariously funny. But when asked what he was laughing at, he answered: ‘I just couldn’t believe our Ted was getting married at last.’ At the end of the ceremony, Edna turned to Linda and said: ‘You’ve done it now, kid.’ To which Linda replied: ‘Well, I like to try everything once.’
After a quick stop at Tommy Balls to do a spot of bargain-hunting at the once-legendary Blackburn shoe emporium(!), they all caught the bus back to Little Harwood, where Nan had put on a buffet for everyone, followed by a meal at the Saxon Hotel. It might have been a small wedding, but it was perfect. ‘To be honest I wasn’t that bothered about getting married,’ says Mum. ‘It’s just something we had to do. There were no grand speeches, no big cake, no dancing and no fuss, but we were there and we were married, and it was great.’
Continuing the low-key theme, there wasn’t even a honeymoon – the happy couple just carried on with life as they knew it. On the Monday after the wedding, my name was changed from Carter to McDermott, Dad went back to work in Wednesbury, travelling up to Blackburn every few weeks or so to see us, while Mum and me stayed at Nan and Grandad’s.
Mum and Dad would spend their free time going dancing at St Stephen’s Club or one of the other many clubs in Blackburn. In the meantime, Dad had changed his stage name to Eddie Carter. Carter was both Hilda and Mum’s maiden name and it seemed the perfect fit. In fact, everything felt like it had finally fallen into place for him and Dad’s family couldn’t have agreed more. ‘Linda Carter was the best thing that happened to him,’ Fred would tell anyone who listened. ‘She put him right financially and taught him how to look after his money. You can imagine what he was like – he was only interested in music. Me, Colin and the rest of the brothers had all settled down, got our own house, but he’d just want to go out and do his music. That was the only thing that mattered to him.’
Now he had a wife and a son that mattered just as much and this was Ted’s chance to finally have his ‘happy ever after’.
Chapter 9
By June 1976, Dad accepted he had to make a permanent move to Blackburn to be with us. It was a sobering moment and one that nearly broke Hilda’s heart. Over the years she had lost her sons to their new wives and eventual children, and had been desperate for Dad to follow suit and settle down, but when the day arrived for him to formally leave home, she was devastated. Dad packed up his things and set off for Little Harwood, where he would move in with his in-laws, much to the amusement of his brothers.
Finding work was obviously the priority and he set about looking for a job, finding one at Premier Construction – a factory that made prefabricat
ed buildings, just five minutes across the dual carriageway from his in-laws house. The week before they had just installed a new wood machine.
‘Have you used anything like this before?’ the foreman asked him.
‘No, but if you show me how to use it, I’ll give it a go.’
No one had much hope that Dad would settle, but as with the wedding, he surprised everyone and ended up working at Premier as a wood machinist for the next seventeen years of his life. In hindsight, he may well have hated it. He’d gone from being a single man, performing in shows most nights, to living with his wife’s parents and working in a factory. He’d also gone from living in Wednesbury, where everyone knew him, to a town where no one had a clue who he was. It must have been a bit of a shock and, for someone like him, a blow to the ego. But you’d never have known as he got on with what needed to be done.
Geoff Sutton worked with Dad at Premier: ‘He was a great guy and a good grafter – he worked hard, you know, he never skived off. Ted worked in the machine shop and he’d always be singing – I think he was trying to learn the words to songs or something. I remember one work trip we all went to Aintree to the races, and at the end of the night, Ted got up and sang in the club.
‘I also remember one other time, just after he’d first started, Linda came into the factory asking where he was. I pointed her over and next thing I knew she was hitting him over the head with her bag. She was going ballistic about something or other. We all kept out of it – he was in the doghouse that day!’
Dad quickly fell into the role of family man – illustrated best in July 1976, when the entire family went to a Pontins holiday camp in Southport. He entered the talent competition and won, winning a week’s holiday and a plastic mock-gold trophy in the shape of a winged angel. The trophy still sits on the mantelpiece at home to this day: ‘Pontins’ Star Quest Winner 1976’.
The Songaminute Man Page 10