To a six-year-old boy, the war still seemed like a great adventure. Why didn’t we still sleep in bomb shelters? Surely it was still a sensible precaution.
My absolute favourite of all of these publications was TV Century 21, based around the exploits and adventures of Gerry Anderson’s TV wooden heroes and heroines. It presented itself as a newspaper from the future, a hi-tech world of flying cars and cities beneath the waves. The cutaway drawings of these future vehicles seemed very real and projected a world that was tantalisingly close, so long as you remained oblivious to the strings that animated this marionette metropolis.
Amanda had no interest in any of this world of the future and settled instead for a copy of Mandy or Bunty, which, of course, held no interest for me. I did have an odd fascination for the cut-out-andcolour wardrobe figurines, but most of their contents were embarrassing girl’s stuff.
Growing up in Gawsworth Road in the sixties was easy. It was, if not idyllic, at least a very safe place. OK, you couldn’t play football in the road – well, you could, but not for very long. The policemen who lived across the road would give you what for. But it was definitely a peaceful kind of middle-class road that led nowhere but woods, farms, churches, country pubs and the giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. A very cosy place to grow up in the 1960s.
Wikipedia describes Macclesfield as ‘relatively affluent’; the keyword here, I suspect, is ‘relatively’. Macclesfield today is surrounded by wealth: Prestbury, Alderley Edge are now home to rich and famous football and TV personalities. The town centre, though, is in even further decline than it was in my day.
Sixties Macc was a mill town that had lost the adjective ‘thriving’ somewhere along the way. It somehow was still making a go of it with new artificial textiles, and in 1966 ICI came to town, built a large plant and Macclesfield got into pharmaceuticals.
The town had started in the button business, then in the nineteenth century moved into silk in a big way. If you didn’t work or have some connection to the weaving or textile trade, then you were just passing through. It was silk, silk, bloody silk all the way until these new-fangled synthetic textiles came along – not natural if you ask me. The static shock off a nylon shirt should have told us something. But times were changing and it was adapt and survive or enter a period of tortuously slow decline.
So although there were mills aplenty in Macc, their tall red-brick chimneys belched less and less smoke as the years wore on. They may have mostly been dark and satanic, but there was great fun to be had exploring a derelict mill.
Besides textiles, Macclesfield laid claim to being the birthplace of Hovis bread. I’ll never the forget the day in 1967, aged ten, when my mother and a car full of my relatives – gleeful gloaters – picked me up at the school gates.
‘Hurry up, Stephen! We’re off on a trip. Hovis is on fire! It’s all going up!’
Why so much excitement for a burning loaf? I thought as I squashed my way into the overloaded vehicle and we sped our way up Buxton Road.
It seemed the whole town had turned out. The road was crammed with badly parked cars. By now the pillar of grey smoke dispelled my idea that it was a faulty toaster that had excited my family to fever pitch. We joined the crowd lining the canal banks and solemnly watched as the roof of the bread mill blazed.
‘Well, that’s the end of that then. Town’s ruined.’
‘End of an era,’ the ever-optimistic town folk cried. We love a good tragedy in Macclesfield. It breaks up the tedium.
I suspected my mother was either a spy herself or else head of the Macclesfield branch of Reuters news agency. Her conversations always began with ‘You’ll never guess what . . .’
There’s no answer to that, is there?
‘Fred Grainger’s had an accident, fell off his ladder. They think he’s broke his legs. Ooh, he is in a bad way.’
Further enquiries as to who the hell Fred Grainger might be would only produce more confusion.
‘You know: Fred! Nelly’s sister’s husband. Used to work in the butcher’s, now he’s on the windows. Well, he was. Bunty rang and told me. Ooh, he is in a bad way. I’ll just let our Elsie know.’
With each piece of tragic news my family grew larger and more convoluted while simultaneously teetering on the brink of extinction. I was always almost losing relatives I’d never heard of.
Then there was Parkside mental hospital. Originally called the Cheshire County Asylum, it was built in 1871, around the time the Morrises first appeared in the town, although that’s probably a co incidence. There is no nice easy way of putting this: another of Macc’s speciality industries was the treatment, or more likely the containment, of the mentally ill.
Parents from the surrounding areas would scare their children to sleep at night with the promise that if they did not behave they would be sent to Macclesfield.
Before you get too much of a bad idea about the place, I’d best point out that Parkside, unlike the mills, appeared quite welcoming. It didn’t have the look of a prison or a sinister Victorian workhouse. It was set in parkland and was outwardly quite grand and unthreatening. It comprised the largest collection of buildings in the town, had its own fire brigade, sports club and swimming pool, and in the 1960s and 1970s the highlight of Macclesfield’s year was Parkside’s legendary annual Christmas Disco. Tickets were highly sought after and the night was the talk of the town for weeks before and after. Nonetheless, the hospital was usually a self-contained world of its own, and what went on inside was shrouded in mystery and viewed with suspicion.
So throughout my childhood Macclesfield was a town with two faces: an industrial weaving town in decline and a growing centre for the pharmaceutical and mental health industries.
There was no avoiding Parkside. It was quite close to where we lived, and going to school each day meant driving past it and wondering what the hell went on in there. Like it or not, Parkside involved everyone who lived in the town. Sooner or later it would cross your path. Like the smell of the gasworks, it got everywhere. As a child, I would meet some very odd people round town, and not all of them were patients. I love odd people. I seem to attract them. Always have.
The smell of gas and the mental hospital weren’t the only backdrop to my childhood. The Second World War still cast its shadow everywhere in my little world – from games of ‘Japs and Commandos’, to collecting those garish chewing-gum cards, and gluing my fingers together cobbling up my own plastic air force of Airfix model kits.
Spitfires, Hurricanes, Messerschmitts and Lancasters. That any of my finished creations bore any resemblance to the images on the heroic box art was for the most part down to my vivid imagination.
‘Read the instructions thoroughly before assembly’ was the first bit of advice I disregarded. ‘Always follow the recommended sequence of construction’ was the second. I just wanted to get the things built as quickly as possible. I would very rarely wait for the glue to dry before I started slapping on a coat of glossy brown, green or any other coloured paint I could find. One of the first casualties of the construction of my miniature air museum was my mum’s kitchen table. I was soon told that any future model-making activity would have to take place outside the house in the cold, cobweb-curtained garage. The wearing of gloves and an overcoat for warmth didn’t improve my technique but they did keep the glue and paint off my fingers – a bit.
My parents had lived through the war and experienced something that I never would. What was it like? I wanted to know. I thought that in building the kits I would find out somehow.
It was always the interior of the planes that interested me most, and the area I took the greatest care in painting. Especially the legless plastic pilot, who, glued to his seat, was mostly invisible when the kit was finished. I wanted to build a miniature world of my own. Being alone in the garage, a haven of plastic and glue, was an escape from school and my parents.
During the war my father, Clifford, had worked for Vickers and Avro in the aircraft construction ga
me. Maybe that was where I got it from. Not that he did anything that involved the construction of aircraft itself, for if there was one thing he was not, it was being capable of constructing anything. He understood the principles, how the things worked and how they were made well enough. But the chances of him actually producing anything that could fly were zilch. He was a desk jockey, looking after technical drawings and reference books, during the war. Probably the safest thing for everyone involved. He may have inherited his interest in aviation from his father, the villainous George, or maybe he didn’t fancy getting shot at. I never did get to the bottom of that one.
Before that, he was a nationwide travelling salesman in hosiery. How he got from selling stockings to his later vocation, kitchen taps, via heavy bombers is a convoluted tale shrouded in mystery.
Let’s just say he enjoyed travelling. He was in Berlin with his brother Eric in 1936 to see Jesse Owens get gold. Eric told tales of abuse at the hands of the Nazis at the time but Clifford would not comment. He would not speak of such things. Eric, it must be said, was known to exaggerate at times.
My father would set off to work at 6.30 a.m. whatever the weather and would not be seen again until eight in the evening. He would have his fish supper, settle down in his armchair in front of the fire and have his four Gold Labels and two cigars. Never more, never less. Regular as clockwork.
My mother called him Cliff. He called her the Dragon – not to her face, obviously.
My mother at war.
My mother had spent the war in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). She trained at Catterick, where the men were good dancers, and served at Donnington, where they were not.
Cessation of hostilities saw my mother back in Macclesfield, working at Neckwear Ltd, one of the town’s many textile mills.
My sister’s arrival back in 1960 had taken me a bit by surprise. I was three and the world was still full of shocks. Mum was ‘away’ for a while which meant that Clifford had to take on a bit of parental responsibility as to the feeding of a three-year-old.
The Cedar Grove area of Macclesfield, my father’s family home and his natural habitat, was, it turned out, not exactly noted for its haute cuisine, but Dad hadn’t even grasped the fundamentals. The only thing that Clifford could cook which did not involve copious quantities of Lea & Perrin’s to impart a bit of flavour was the standard hard-boiled egg. Egg after egg after egg. A few days of this dietary monotony and a rather nasty red rash appeared on my skin. This was speedily diagnosed as an ‘allergy’, whether to eggs specifically or Dad’s cooking in general was glossed over, as were the names of his previous victims.
From then on, I would dine with Mum’s sister, Auntie Elsie, until the day came when I was taken to the hospital and introduced to my sister for the first time. She had a small spot on her chin. It worried me. What if it spread? What if I caught it?
Mum’s return home brought back eating as normal and soon this worry passed from my mind, but Amanda’s arrival meant a bit of an upheaval in the general arrangements of life at 122 Gawsworth Road.
Where was the newborn to sleep? Not with me, surely?
The layout of our house on Gawsworth Road (aka Birley; it had a name as well as a number, it was that posh) was two downstairs rooms, front and back, otherwise known as the lounge and the dining room, as well as a small kitchen and a tiny pantry. Upstairs there were two bedrooms, again front and back, a bathroom, a loo and the small ‘other room’. This was what Clifford was using for his office even though 11 Cedar Grove was officially his business address. This was to fool the bailiffs presumably. They would have to deal with Uncle Johnny first, 11 Cedar Grove’s sole occupant at the time.
Now you would think that the arrival of a child wouldn’t present too much difficulty in a house like this: put the parents in one bedroom, kids in the other, and put a lock on the office door just to be on the safe side. Voilà, what could be simpler? No, this was too straightforward, and being straightforward was not the Morris way. There were other things to be considered, but what these were I confess I still don’t know to this day. The arrangement that was finally settled upon was that Mum would have the back bedroom to herself. The office was turned into Amanda’s bedroom, and for the foreseeable future I would be sharing a bedroom with my dear old Dad. I don’t remember being involved in the consultation process that led to this decision.
This arrangement did not seem in the slightest bit unusual to me at first but later on I realised that everyone else thought it was a bit odd.
‘You sleep with your dad? What, are you that scared of the dark or sommat?’ was my friends’ surprised reaction when I mentioned the inner workings of my home.
‘No, course not, I like the dark,’ was my tentative defence.
What I did like about this room was the gas fire. I was always on the lookout for stray matches so I could clandestinely experiment with igniting the room’s sole heat source. I would turn out the lights and sit as close as I could to the hissing amber glow. It felt comfy.
‘Don’t do that,’ my mother urged. ‘You’ll get chilblains.’
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted chilblains or not.
By the gas fire I discovered books. I balanced Edgar Allan Poe with P. G. Wodehouse, The Raven versus The Empress of Blandings.
The thing was, Dad got up really, really early and got home really, really late, if he got home at all. His tap-selling activities meant that he had to travel great distances and was often away for days at a time. I supposed I must have been the soundest sleeper and therefore the least likely to be disturbed by his nocturnal comings and goings. My father was often troubled by night terrors. His nocturnal ravings and ramblings took a little bit of getting used to. Anyway, I slept with the light on.
While I had gained a room-mate, the business had lost an office. I think my mother was pleased by this.
Clifford Morris worked as a manufacturer’s agent, having set up a company with his brothers Johnny and Eric. He sold kitchen and bathroom items on commission, and would travel around the northwest taking orders from builder’s merchants. He sold taps, kitchen units, copper cylinders, sanitary ware, sink tops, galvanised tanks, baths and toilet seats.
His role was broadly that of a sales rep or middle man. The niche this job occupied has today been killed off by telesales companies, the internet or companies realising they could do the job themselves.
He would leave the house before dawn and set off with his Vauxhall estate car laden with samples, brochures and price lists of the goods on offer.
He knew a thing or two about selling. He knew that unless people remembered who you were they would be unlikely to call you when they needed you. He adopted a gimmick – everyone needs a gimmick. He would wear a bowler hat. This item of headgear may have been highly fashionable once upon a time, but in the 1960s it was becoming an anachronism. The bowler hat was my father’s trademark.
He would arrange to have pens, pencils, packets of paper clips, calendars, drink mats and paperweights produced with stylised depictions of his hat and his initials GCM, and also incorporating his lucky colour, green. These he would hand out to prospective buyers. These promotional items were not masterpieces of design but they served their purpose. They said ‘Call Me’ and hinted at a reliable and hopefully pleasurable experience.
He was pretty successful and was widely respected throughout the building trade. His motto, pinched from the London Stock Exchange, was ‘My Word, My Bond’, a phrase that he drummed into me from a very early age. He did his utmost to live up to it and would do anything to avoid letting his customers down. He was thought of as an old-fashioned gentlemen and, as time went on, this became another anachronism. His was not the high-pressure sales technique. It relied more on time and effort. Sometimes visits to the furthest outpost of his empire would mean he was away from home for days at a time. Weekends he would also spend working, much to my mother’s displeasure. To compensate for this lack of attention, my mother decided to become the firs
t female motorist in Gawsworth Road.
After the arrival of my sister he moved his business into a gothiclooking building called Evington House. It was part of the former barracks of the Cheshire Militia. The building was rambling, rundown and haunted. I loved it.
On Sundays after church, I would find myself press-ganged into the family business, working at Evington House. His car would need restocking with giveaway pens and pencils (these were a great success and you still find them in builders’ yards today), sales brochures and price lists, all filed in wooden trays on the back seat of his Vauxhall. For sixpence I was easily bought.
This later expanded into production of the brochures themselves. I would spend many a Sunday afternoon turning mountains of paper into hundreds of poorly stapled brochures while listening to Two-way Family Favourites and eventually Pick of the Pops on the radio.
The going rate was 100 brochures for a shilling (5p).
I didn’t mind as I could never see the point of Sundays anyway. It was just dead time. There was nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon in Macclesfield. There was cycling and playing in the fields – nothing that a visitor from the twenty-first century would recognise as ‘entertainment’. The shops were shut, the pubs were shut. Once a month there was the odd parade with a band, but that was it. A ghost town would have been more fun. To make matters worse there was a semi-reprise of this situation on Wednesday afternoons when the ritual known as ‘half-day closing’ was enacted – you couldn’t even buy a loaf. You could starve on a Wednesday lunchtime if you weren’t careful.
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