Marriage - Part 2

We have got to that day - 22nd April 1967. It started out a fine day. I drove up from Streatham and the rest of my friends all got together and travelled out to Romford. There was me, Roger Whittle (my best man), Alan Jones, Andy Parker and Dave Russell. (I can't remember but I think that I probably brought my Mum and Dad with me). We arrived at the church in plenty of time so did the only decent thing - went across the road for a pint! Here are Roger and me as we prepared for the big day.

We were to be married in St. Edwards church right in the middle of Romford Market Place. At that time, the market place was a busy road with all the market stalls clustered around. The road was the continuation of Main Road up through Gidea Park. Nowadays the road stops at the top of the market and joins the ring road with the market being a pedestrian precinct. One of the "joys" of being married at St. Edwards was that, when you left the church, you had to run the gauntlet of all the shoppers in the market "rubber necking".

As usual, I expect, the service flew by and before we knew what was happening, we were out of the church and having the photos taken. First off, we have Valerie and the bridesmaids.

Left to right they are Doreen Lacy - friend, Allison Dunklin (as was) - Valerie's cousin, Katherine De'Ath (with the basket) - daughter of family friend, Sandra Pennington - David's niece, Marian Carter - Valerie's sister and Heather Dunklin (as was) - Valerie's cousin

Next up, we had the family. Again, left to right we have Pat and Charlie (brother and sister-in-law); my Mum, Ivy, and Dad, Charlie; Me and Valerie; Valerie's Dad, Lionel; Valerie's brother, Terry; Valerie's Mum, Jessie and Valerie's sister Marian.

We now left. You can see what I meant about the rubber neckers!

The wedding breakfast was to be held at Tweed Way Hall. The local community centre up in Rise Park, where, until then, Valerie had lived. It was a very nice hall and beautifully done out for the meal, etc. There were quite a lot of people at the "do". You can see them all in the group photo from the church.

All of the members of both families were there with a lot of friends as well. All in all, it was a wonderful day. Valerie and I stayed for the meal and a couple of hours afterwards. I had hired a car for the honeymoon. It was a Ford Anglia Estate that I had picked up in Watford the night before. 

We were going to live in Watford so that was a sensible move. Mind you, I hadn't driven a car since passing my test when I was 18 (now 22), so the 27 mile drive from Watford to Streatham was a bit fraught. Still I had got back into it by the time I was married! During the afternoon, we prepared to leave. When we got outside with everyone there to wave us off, we found that the car had been well and truly decorated. However, we didn't know the worst of it. We were driving out to Heathrow for the first night. We were to stay at the Ariel Hotel. The only image I can find of this hotel is a modern one but you can see that it is a circular hotel. It was quite a landmark then on the edges of the airport.

I am not going to go into the first night except to repeat a conversation that I had with Roger sometime after. It went "Bet you can't guess what I was doing at 1am?". Needless to say, Roger was too polite to comment. "Well, I was looking out the window watching the activity on the airport!" Somethings never change and my interest in aircraft always comes to the fore :-(

I do need to clarify on the worst of the car decoration. We got about 2 miles down the Eastern Avenue on our way into London when we both became aware of a banging noise coming from under the car. There was a touch of panic when we pulled over as we had a long way to go on our honeymoon and we were both scared that a problem with the car so close to home could ruin it. What we found, when we stopped, was that some of my so called friends had tied a rubber ball underneath the car on a long string. It was bouncing up and down giving the dreadful "bonk". Dressed in my new honeymoon suit, I didn't much care to crawl under the car but it had to be done. Much later, we found that Valerie's Uncle Les had taken a video of us leaving. If you look carefully, you can see the ball bouncing up and down in that. One day I will have that video dubbed to DVD!

So - life to date - a summary

I thought that it was probably best to gain an overview of my first 22 years before, I tackle the wedding and the rest of my life. So, I will have a go at setting some categories.

Home Life
My Mum and Dad never had much money. Dad had to change jobs when he was around 53 due to being pushed out for a younger man from his job at the Castle Equipment Company in Newington Causeway, Elephant and Castle. I think that he enjoyed the job because it seemed to suit him. He was left to his own devices and could do the work easily. He also enjoyed the fact that many famous cricketers of the time came to use the cricket nets that the company had on its top floor. His final job was as a bus conductor, which I think that he put up with. I know that, when there was a long bus strike, he really hated not being at work.Mum always had some kind of work. Sometimes it was part-time so she managed two in one day. Her last job at Mullards in Mitcham was a the hardest that she had, I think. She worked a machine that cut wires to length for making electrical equipment. I know that she found the reels of wire very heavy to lift but she really enjoyed the company.

Neither of them earned what would be seen as a decent living nowadays but I never knew anything about that. There was always food on the table, Christmas and Birthday presents and they stumped up for my Scout uniforms with no complaint. I also got a decent amount of pocket money - 15/- (75p) was my top whack and I was never expected to find a job such as doing a paper round or any such. I can't say that they were a demonstrative pair towards me in the sense that I didn't get a lot of hugs and kisses but in those days, I think, this was the norm. I do know that they supported me in everything that I did and supported me enthusiastically. However, being effectively an only child I learned to amuse myself and buried myself into lots of hobbies - most of which I still do.

School
Ah, now we have a different story. I was good at Maths. I managed to make a good fist of Latin (I was in the top set out of 100 boys for all of the four years that I studied it). Overall, though, I think that  I put the minimum effort into everything and managed to scrape along. I even had the same attitude towards the Combined Cadet Force. Remembering my love of aircraft, it would have seemed to be easy for me to pass the Part 1 exam which would have got me out of the Army Cadets into the RAF Cadets but... In spite of me being a Patrol leader in the Air Scouts and being an expert camper, etc. I managed to fail the exam every time. I think that I have a problem with things that don't interest me! I scraped out of school with the bare minimum of qualifications. Given my later ability with the Open University, I think that the problem of interest is obvious. So, I left school at 16 with just enough.

Work
Amazingly, my four GCE passes would have got me into the RAF for pilot training at 18, if I had wanted to progress that path. In the meantime, I entered the Banking profession. One of my problems is that I always want to run things so the slow slog through the lower orders at the bank really didn't suit me. I did keep at it though and even studied for my professional qualifications. The Institute of Bankers exams were an expected path for anyone with ambition, so I signed up for the Rapid Results College and studied hard at the required correspondence course. I passed Part 1 with no problems and made a good start on Part 2, which would have given me an AIB (Associate of the Institute of Bankers) after my name. Foreign Exchange Dealing put paid to that. I just couldn't face taking the Part 2 exam on "The Finance of Foreign Trade and Foreign Exchange" in case I failed! What would that have made a young dealer look like. As it happens, the last thing I needed for my career from then on was exams. In Dealing/Trading you are as good as your last deal and no one asks about qualifications.

Friends
Ah, well. Getting married was a watershed for me when it comes to friends. Up to the wedding day, I can honestly say that I had a good number of friends:
Roger Whittle (my Best Man, of course), Alan Jones, Dave Russell, Andy Parker all from Scouts - Stan Hunt (soon then to move to Australia) and Peter Johnson from work and so on.
Once married, everyone except Roger sort of dropped away. I did play Badminton once a week with Roger, Andy and Alan but even that stopped when we moved to Billericay.
Since that move I can't really think of any friends outside of work although, as I say, Roger and I kept  in good contact for many years. It seems that once married, I had lots of friends at work during the day but came home to the family at nights and weekends. I must say that this has suited me and has never been a bother. I didn't really make another outside work friend for many years until David Lincoln came along.

How did I see myself
Well, I was pretty aggressive in my desire to get on, pretty useless at managing money and savings and extremely keen on all kinds of hobbies and pastimes - but never really sport! Did I like myself?  Sometimes. Did I have any plans? Loads. I wanted to join the Airforce - changed my mind, join the Army Air Corps flying helicopters - changed my mind, join the Navy flying helicopters - persuaded that it wasn't a good idea. Stay as a dealer - well, no, I thought that there might be better things to do, until I found out what salaries were being paid by Overseas Banks in London rather than my "paltry" clearing bank salary.

Marriage - and all that! Part 1.

It was decided - well "she" decided - that we were to get married in April 1967. We had some planning to do. Furniture, bedding etc. all had to be decided upon. We put together a book where we could list all the things we needed. We could then start picking designs etc. As part of our wanders around the West End, we had quite often ended up in the King's Road. At that time, the King's Road area in Chelsea was THE place to go. One of the places we liked there was the new Habitat shop. Now, no-one had ever seen anything quite like Habitat before. It was a centre of the best in 1960s design at reasonable prices. This made it easier to decide on stuff because it had most things under it's roof.

The real problem was that we spent a lot of money in going backwards and forwards between Romford and Streatham and neither of us was earning a lot of money. Although I was in the FX dealing room of the bank, clearing banks at that time didn't pay any premium to staff working there. Eventually, I got a few merit rises over the posted salary grades (which were based solely on age - oh and there were different salaries for men and women!) but not at this time. Remember that, at that time, the top of the salary table was a 30 year old man where it was at £1,000p.a. (which when adjusted for inflation was a mighty £15,500 in today's money). So, banking wasn't the best paid job around at that time. This meant that we were never able to save too much for the great day. I think that, at that time, we were earning that much between us, given our ages. Mind you, we didn't have computers, big screen TVs, etc. available. Still, I was smoking a pipe at that time, which cost some money.

One of the main things that everyone needs when getting married is somewhere to live. We were, obviously, only able to rent at that time so we had to start looking for somewhere. We started looking at what were then called "digs" in the Streatham area. Digs involved someone letting out a couple of rooms in their house - nothing self contained of course. Those that we saw were, frankly, appalling. I mentioned this one lunchtime in the bank rest room. One of my friends at that time - Tony Saville (who worked in the Securities department) mentioned that he was moving out of his flat as he had managed to get a mortgage from the bank. He was living in the Kennington Road which was about 2 miles or so from the City.  We went and had a look and found that it was a nice flat situated above a line of shops with a handy bus route outside. It was some way from Streatham and a long way from Romford but we wanted to fly the nest and this looked a likely spot to end up. Unfortunately, my boss had other ideas!

My immediate boss was John Botevyle, who was Treasury Manager but his boss was Mr. Robinson - the Assistant Manager of the Foreign Department (I would never have known his first name!). I had to get an employer's reference for the landlord and it was Mr. Robinson's job to do that. The rent on the flat was £30.00 per month (about £450 nowadays) so it was a reasonable rent for a two bedroom flat in a nice area. Hmmm, I hadn't reckoned on 1960's banking strictures on staff commitments. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that the bank didn't consider that we could afford this. I pointed out to him that we didn't have much choice because if it wasn't this one, it would be something and anything decent was around this price. He came back to me after a few days with a new plan. It seems that the bank branch in Watford had a self contained flat over it and the staff member living there was moving on to another posting so this would become available. It even tied in with our wedding date.

Bank flats were subsidised at that time and it was a very good thing to get hold of one. However, Watford was 16 miles from Euston which was 2 1/2 miles from the bank and needed an underground ride. We costed this up and, although I can't remember the breakdown, the total cost of the rent and the fares for us to commute came to - wait for it - £30.00. No amount of pleading made any difference so, that's how it was left. We agreed to take the flat. However, having made the point, the bank did think about this and came up with a slight adaption to the plan.

Valerie had started work in the Cheque Clearing department and had done rather well there. She was one of the first to be trained on the new-fangled automated cheque sorting machines so she had stood out a little. From here, she had been "promoted" to working in various branches around the central London area. She started off at the new Regent Street branch and had then moved to the Oxford Street branch - someway down near Bond Street. One of her big assets was that she had a built in desire to get out of the branch at the earliest time possible. In those days work in the branch finished when all the day's work was complete. With Valerie's urging, they quite often got done around 4.30!  She had even been on a course up in Manchester Head Office (well Lloyd Entwistle branch actually) where, she will tell you, she shared a hotel with the Kinks - then a famous pop group! As she was now adept at branch work, they came up with a plan for her to move to the Wembley Branch of the bank. This was situated between Watford and Euston so she would save money by having a much reduced travel cost.

So that was how it was left as we prepared to get married and move away from both of our families.

Valerie and Me - leading up to marriage

Now, one thing that there wasn’t a lot of was money. It didn’t help that Valerie lived in Romford - 21 miles away from me down in Streatham. It did help that we worked in the same building - 75 Cornhill, slap bang in the middle of The City. This meant that, most of the time, we spent our evenings together up in the West End rather than going home. We did regularly visit each other’s houses but it was expensive and time-consuming. We both had season tickets for the journey from home to The City so that cut some of the cost.

Still, spending our evenings in the West End around Oxford Street/Regent Street etc. wasn’t a bad way to spend our time. Eventually, it fell into a pattern. Leave work and get a tube train to Tottenham Court Road. Go to the “Joe Lyons” just down Oxford Street and have Sausage Rolls and Chips (I can’t remember having anything different!). From there, we would wander up Oxford Street and go to either the Cartoon Cinema at Oxford Circus or at Marble Arch. This was, in the winter, a cheap way of being together and keeping warm. This was my first exposure to the Road Runner, by the way. Following the hour spent there, Valerie would always want to walk around Soho. We had a special route which ended up somewhere down Wardour Street. She always wanted to walk down the side street there past the windows with “the girls” sitting there looking for custom. Yes, she was pretty prurient in those days - don’t tell her I have told on her!

We got to know all of the little byways and back roads in the area. Funnily enough, we really didn’t care where we went or what we did, so long as we were together - aaahhhh!

At weekends she would come and stay at mine or I would go to hers. Hers was a better option because her house had a bathroom. Having a bath in our flat in Streatham involved getting the tin bath in from the garden, filling it up with hot water either from the washing boiler or, later, from a Ascot water heater that we had installed by the sink. This meant that all three of us would share the same water. My brother used to go down to Tooting Broadway where there was baths just for this purpose. Funny that these thing don’t exist any more. 

The draw back from having to go over to Valerie’s for the weekend was that I seemed to have acquired a regular job during the summer. Although their garden looked only about 40 feet long, in reality, there was another 100 or so feet behind the hedge. Guess whose job it was to cut all that grass! Yes, you guessed it - ME! I used to look forward to the winter.

Eventually, I left the bank in Cornhill and ended up working at the bank’s Wimbledon Bridge branch - yup - 100 yards down the road from where I worked from 1995 through to 2001. As this meant a messy journey on three buses from home, I tried to buy a motor bike. My brother had always had a motor bike so I thought that getting Dad to be a guarantor for the loan would be easy. By the way, the bike I was looking at was a small Suzuki which cost a stupendous £75. You almost can’t fill a tank of petrol for that money nowadays. To say that Dad was against this idea is an understatement. I had obviously not realised just how many sleepless nights my brother had caused  by his ‘episodes’ on his Matchless. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Dad’s activities on a motor bike had a lot to do with it as well. In any case, he refused so the only option was to get Moped. Now a Moped is the worst of all worlds. It was drivable on a car driving licence, had a 50cc engine with a limited top speed of 30mph and a set of pedals - hence the “ped” in the title. The pedals were used to get the thing going from a standstill and, very occasionally, helping up a steep hill.The Raleigh RM4 automatic Moped (£60 0s 0p) that I bought was extremely economical but had a big flaw. There was no fuel gauge.

I used it to go to and from work and then used to park it up at Tooting Broadway underground station when I went to visit Valerie. Eventually, I did do the whole 21 mile journey on it over to Romford and back. I remember some very cold journeys home from there, leaving at 10pm in the winter. It seemed to take for ever. On a couple of memorable occasions, I ran out of petrol and had to push it to a garage. It was supposed to be able to unlock the pedal drive and ride it like a normal bike but it was so heavy that this was nigh on impossible. The worst occasion that I remember was when crossing a junction at MileEnd - some miles from Tower Bridge. As I rode across the crossroads, the spring link on the chain came off. I managed to cruise across to a safe place. I was now well and truly stuck. All that was left to do was to try and find the spring link. As the crossroads was managed by a set of traffic lights, I had to keep waiting for them to go red - run out for a quick search - dash back - repeat as required! Amazingly, I did find it and managed to get going again. I think that this period was probably the most uncomfortable of my whole life!

For holidays, we used to visit Valerie’s grandparents who lived in Chippenham. It was a cheap way of getting away and it was in a very different part of the country. We used to visit Bath and Weston-Super_mare, to name just two of the places. I did have a nice photo of Valerie sitting on the cliff top somewhere in the region but unfortunately, I can’t find it now. On one memorable occasion though, I went on holiday with Valerie and her parents. We had a week down in Dorset - at Lyme Regis. We stayed at a guest house called The Roost, run  by Mr. and Mrs. Brown. I had a room near the attic, I seem to remember. One advantage of going on holiday with Valerie’s parents was that her Dad had a company car. In the early days it was a Morris Minor Estate. Mostly they were green, like this one, but he did have one light blue one.

However, on this occasion, I seem to remember that he had a light green Ford Anglia Estate. We had a great time in a part of the country that none of us had been before. It did have one longer lasting result. When we were married and with Sam and Simon in tow (plus our new puppy - Cindy) we revisited Mrs. Brown and were regular visitors to Lyme Regis for many years after.

We determined to get married around early 1965 and started saving for the big day. In the meantime, I had to get her an engagement ring. This entailed a visit to Winegartens in Bishopsgate. This was a large jeweller which gave bank staff a discount so we saved money there as well. By now, I was back in The City after my sojourn in Wimbledon. I was working in the Foreign Department having just replaced John Major (yes - That John Major - UK Prime Minister many years later). This relieved the pressure on travelling as I no longer had to get from Tooting to The City and, once again, I had a season ticket for the Underground. This meant that we could get to each other’s houses a bit easier so the dreadful Moped was disposed of. As we were, supposedly, saving we did cut down our expenses but one thing that Valerie and I have never managed to do really successfully is save money!

Humour

There were three main humour influences in my life - in time order:

The Goon Show

The Strange World of Gurney Slade

I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again

The Goon Show was a radio program that ran from 1951 to 1960. I first cottoned on to this programme when at Grammar School so around 1956-57. There seas a big problem, however. Dad couldn’t stand the program so I had to listen elsewhere. Elsewhere, more often or not, turned out to be in the front room. Now the problem with that was that my brother would be in there with his girl friend. Never mind, I am sure that she (whichever one it was) didn’t mind me sitting in there like a lemon for 30 minutes once a week. 

We had a competition at school for an original play - set by Mr. Dobson, our English teacher.  The winning entry was written by one of my friends; unfortunately, I can’t remember which one. However, the script that he wrote was for a Goon Show. I was casted as Neddie Seagoon - the character played by Harry Seacombe on the radio. It seems that I could do his voice. The play was about a “phantom rice pudding thrower”. The winner got to cast and rehearse the play and to make a recording on the school tape recorder for playing to the whole year. We did the recording in the Woodwork room. I don’t remember much about it except for one of my lines - “Anyone at home - anyone at Ho-ome”, which I can remember doing quite well as Seagoon. 

The problem we had was making the sound effect of the rice pudding being thrown and hitting. This was solver using two props. One was a wet dish cloth, which was thrown onto the floor at high speed. The splat it made recorded very well. The real problem was to create the sound of the rice pudding flying through the air. I am not sure who suggested it but we “borrowed” an item from the Sick Room.Now the sick room had a secondary purpose. It was in this room that all of the canings took place. In those days, a very effective means of maintaining the bulk of us school kids into some kind of rational behaviour was to thrash the occasional pupil with 6 whacks of the cane!  The canes were bamboo, as I remember, which a formed curved hand hold like a walking stick. We cadged one of these and combining a swift downward thrust of the cane through the air, followed by hurling the wet dish cloth onto the floor produced a very effective representation of a rice pudding flying through the air and landing!

Next up came the television program “The Strange World of Gurney Slade”. This was, as the title suggested, very strange. It starred Anthony Newley before he became a famous singer and songwriter. There is a nice description of the program on Wikipedia . I was in my last year at school at this time and was learning how to play the flute, courtesy of the Territorial Army unit at Clapham Junction. To be honest, I can't remember too much about the contents of the program after 50 years but I do remember loving it. I do remember that we had a Scout Gang Show coming up around this time. I was helping out running the Cub Pack at the time and the Akela - Judith - suggested that with her on the guitar and me on the flute, we could attempt the theme tune. I have to say that I eventually bottled out! Here is the theme tune, as used in the very first episode- on YouTube

Lastly, well, what can I say - I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again pretty much changed our lives (Roger and me that is). Yet again, the inevitable Wikipedia entry  gives the full background. I can’t remember a better time to be listening to the radio. The whole thing was son anarchical and “off the wall” that it made us rethink our humour for the rest of our lives. There are many episodes available on the web so I will leave it to you to track them down. To give you just one example of the “zany” humour that was a regular part of the show, check out the following bit of dialogue involving Masher Wilkins. 

MW: “I have been trailing my way through this impenetrable ferret!

Other: Ferret - don’t you mean Forest?

MW: No I mean Stoat!

Other: Stoat?

MW: Yes, it is stoat ally impenetrable.

The other thing that sticks in my mind is the plays - they used to appear as a serial through series. The best one has to be “The Curse Of The Flying Wombat”. Roger and I managed to get tickets to a recording during this time so had the great privilege of seeing one episode live! As an example of the form, this is the cast list for “Flying Wombat”

The Curse of the Flying Wombat

Written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie

'King Lear' – John Cleese

Tim Brown-Windsor – Tim Brooke-Taylor

Mr. Hatch – David Hatch

Lady Fiona Rabbit-Vacuum (Jim-Lad) – Jo Kendall

Captain Cleese – John Cleese

'Lookout' – Bill Oddie

Casey O'Sullivan – Bill Oddie

Masher Wilkins – John Cleese

Maisie Robinson (the International Temptress) – Jo Kendall

Grimbling (Butler to Tim's Aunt) – Bill Oddie

Lady Constance de Coverlet – Tim Brooke-Taylor

"Hurricane" Flossie (Lady Constance's identical twin sister) – Tim Brooke-Taylor

Slave-girl trader – Bill Oddie

Colonel Clutch-Featheringhaugh – David Hatch

Nosebone (the Great White Hunter) – Bill Oddie

Wong (the Supply-keeper) – Tim Brooke-Taylor

Wong Tu (his brother) – John Cleese

'Armand' – Bill Oddie

Here are a couple of snippets of the best humour ever produced (well maybe not but it had us rolling around laughing).

A: Meet our new supply keeper - his name is Wong.

B: But he is Chinese!

Wong: “Supplies, Supplies” - politically incorrect nowadays but not then!

King Lear - Look up in the sky - the sun is like a huge red ball.

Grimbling: No sir, that’s my balloon.

A: Meet our White Hunter.

B: But he is black!

Nosebone: Man I have hunted more whites than you have had hot missionaries.

(as before - politically incorrect nowadays but not then!)

Lady Constance: Help me on deck, I am covered in mosquito bites

King Lear: Ah, Lady Constance, you are coming up to scratch.

Enough of this, I say!!!!

That first Day - Valerie and Me

So, the weekend comes and is it a great one. Firstly, on Saturday evening, I have a ticket for the Royal Festival Hall where I am going to see Count Basie and his Band - all on my own. This was a fantastic event and one that I still remember clearly.

Now, Sunday I can't remember too clearly - well not the main part of the day anyway. Anthony, whose car it was, had a light blue Austin 1100 so it was cosy in there with three of us. The event took place around Watford but I can't remember where we met, how we got to the area or anything. The car rally was the usual type - you get a clue and off you go. Find the right place, get a clue, and so on. Eventually this ends and we are all going home. I must have asked Valerie if she would like to come home with me, which she did. Now this was quite amazing due to the geography of our two homes. I lived in South London, some 7 miles from the River Thames. Valerie lived in Romford, some 14 miles out to the east on the north side of the river - nothing trivial then. Remember that I was 18 at the time and she was 16.  I, at least knew where Romford was because my previous girl friend lived in Stratford, east London, on the way to Romford by train. I am sure that Valerie didn't have a clue where Streatham was but she came anyway. I was obviously not fazed by introducing her to my parents. Hi Mum, Hi Dad, this is the girl I met today! Can you imaging that happening now?

So we get on the underground and off we go. We get home and introduce her to everyone and then we get to sit in the front room on our own. Some time later (politeness being my second name) we have some tea and decide that she must go home. This involves a bus to Tooting Broadway, a tube to The Bank, and a change to the Central Line for a tube to Liverpool Street Station. There I put here on a train to Romford (Ladies only compartment of course). She then has to get a bus from Romford Station to the top of her road and then a 1/2 mile walk to her house. I repeat, Valerie is 16 at this time! However, things were different then. I, of course, had a season ticket to the Bank as I did this journey every day to work. Thus, I got back on the tube and wended my way home.

What a day!

So She Finally Appears!

To say that my life changed on the day that I went on a car rally is to understate the event by enormous proportions. I had better start at the beginning.

My relationship with Barbara Dingle came to an end some time during mid-1963 and for a good time I enjoyed the life of a free agent. I can't really remember how life was different but it must have been seeing as how I had been going out with her for about 18 months. Be that as it may, we move rapidly on to September 1963.

There are two facts that have to be understood. September was the month when all of the new employees started work - having left school in the July and enjoyed one last summer holiday without work. The other fact was that as a generous employer, The District Bank had a subsidised canteen up on the top floor of the building in Cornhill. All the staff, nominally, had a lunch break plus a tea break in the morning and afternoon.

One day, I am sitting up there with some colleagues and the girls in the Clearing department all troop in - the new ones shy and giggling of course. For a few days nothing much happens but suddenly I am aware that I am looking at one of the new girls and that, believe it or not, she is looking at me.

Step back a bit for some background. The Clearing department was where all of the cheques paid in by customers of the bank throughout the country were dealt with. Each branch sent in a bag of cheques. These were all sorted (by hand in the early days of this period) into piles for the other banks and taken down to the Banker's Clearing House in Lombard Street. All the bags were swapped over and the messengers came back with bags of cheques drawn on our branches. These all had to be sorted into piles for each branch and then posted off before the close of day. As this was the sole purpose, like a lot of bank activities at that time, if the work was completed then everyone went home. The girl had joined this department and thus was wont to leave at odd times during the afternoon. My department was joined to hers and there was a door between the two. I sat directly by this door and thus was able to monitor the leaving time directly, should I ever have a need.

Now, at that time, I was friendly with a range of people from other departments and one in particular had asked me to join him on the coming Sunday when the District Bank Motoring Club had a Car Rally event taking place. An ideal activity for a new liaison - in someone else's car - all members of the same bank office and others to talk to if the going got rough. I put a plan together. On the Tuesday afternoon, I made sure that the door was open between the departments and gave careful watch on the activities. As soon as I saw movement to go home, I had to be ready. I saw her walk towards the exit of the department towards the lift. I ran around through our department to meet her from the other direction - as if we met naturally. "Hello", says I, "I am David and I wondered if you would like to come on a car rally this Sunday". Amazingly, she said yes and just as she was getting in the lift, I suddenly thought to ask her name - Valerie!

But going to hear live music was even better

One of the first things that my brother did for me in a meaningful way was to take me to Wimbledon Town Hall and to The Royal Festival Hall to see The Chris Barber Jazz Band, live. This set the tone for me once I started work and had some money. I was also fortunate that my best friend loved jazz as I did and, although he was 16 months younger than me and thus still at school, was keen to join me in my trips.

The visits started to 100 Oxford Street - Jazzshows as it was known then. This was a famous jazz club in Oxford Street in central London. Now, think about it. We were 16 and 14 so what did we do every Saturday night, plus any other night that we could - meet  at St. Leonard's Church in Streatham, get on a 159 bus to Oxford Circus and then a 3/4 mile walk down Oxford Street - on our own. Try that nowadays!


View Larger Map

Who did we see? Not Chris Barner, funnily enough - his band only seemed to do big concerts. The list we saw included Acker Bilk, Mick Mulligan - with George Melly, Terry Lightfoot, Alex Welsh very occasionally and, best of all, The Mike Daniels Delta Jazz Band - oh how we loved Mike Daniels - especially when they played with two trumpets and two trombones on Maryland, My Maryland. I can't find Mike Daniels playing this but here is the Chris Barber version:



A lot of what were called 'beatniks' used to go and do some very strange leapy type of dance to the music but Roger and I were there for the sounds. As I used to say - there is nothing like sitting on the edge of the band stand with the drips from Acker's clarinet coming down your neck!

There were two big extras that used to happen. Sometimes they would get a guest band in. Three I remember particularly:

The Back O'Town Syncopators from Manchester. I saw them live when I was in Manchester - at the Three Coins Jazz Club - where - in Fountain Street of course. They were great because they had two banjos - remember I was playing the banjo at this time.

Papa Bue's Viking Jazz Band over from Norway - I had some records of theirs so that was a great evening.

Best of all and rarely to be beaten was the visit by The Dutch Swing College. What a night! In fact when the DSC came to Ipswich some years ago I reminded them of that night. Of course, there is no one in the band now who was there but still I made my point. Funnily enough, they didn't show a lot of interest. I suppose that every old buffer like me tells them of such occasions. Mind you - a half hearted Wow would have been nice.

The other extra that we always enjoyed was when someone else dropped in to join in. I am sure that this happened quite often but there are only two particular people I remember - Long John Baldry, who was a top class blues singer at the time. He used to drop in quite regularly and sing a few songs with the band.



The other particular regular 'dropper in' was Beryl Brydon who was a huge woman that specialised in the sort of raunchy jazz songs that Bessie Smith used to do. She often had her washboard along so it got very noisy.



I did go to a few other clubs but not seriously. I had a few good nights at Ken Collyer's Club just off the Charing Cross Road but he was a bit to strictly New Orleans for me.

Eventually girls and things put a stop to such gallivanting and we moved on a bit with our music - well I did anyway. By now I was with the girl of my dreams (I hope she is reading this) and going to Jazz Clubs with Roger wasn't really on the agenda. Also, I was heavily into Rhythm and Blues so it was the Marquee club for me on a Wednesday night - oh and of course I dragged her along!

The Marquee was originally in Oxford, just over the road from Jazz Shows but it moved to Wardour Street when the cinema above wanted the basement for another cinema.

Our evenings started by listening to Alex Korner's Blues Incorporated who were the biggest exponent of Rhythm and Blues in the UK. Eventually, they got too big for the club and off they went. However, their Harmonica player - Cyril Davis, broke away and formed his own band to fill the slot now empty. The new band - The All Stars included Long John Baldry as singer and Dick Heckstall-Smith on Saxophone.



The All Stars with Long John Baldy Singing

These were great evenings. However, we arrived one evening to be told that Cyril Davies had died and a band from Richmond - The Rolling Stones would play. We didn't know these and were unsure if they were any good! The permanent slot was taken over by a young group called The Yardbirds - including Eric Clapton. We had some great nights but it became obvious that the love of R&B wasn't a joint love so we found other things to do.

The other big live event in my life came on the Saturday night before my first date with Valerie. I went to the Royal Festival Hall, on my own, to a memorable concert given by Count Basie. If you only hear the UK National Anthem played once, then this is the band to play it!

During the period before Valerie (BV in biblical terms) I also went to a couple of memorable plays at The Mermaid Theatre. Both were written by Spike Milligan. The Bed Sitting Room was immortalised in a film and "The Royal Commission Review was memorable for having The Temperance Seven included - they were very big in jazz at that time. There were 9 in The Temperance Seven as they were "always one over the eight". For those not aware, that was a sixties euphemism for being drunk. A fitting end to the episode:

Listening to music was a big thing!

It all started when I realised that I could play my brother's records when he was at work. This was around 11 - 13 years old. However, all my brother had was what we call Traditional / Revivalist Jazz - what our US friends call Dixieland. This pile was interesting because it contained some stuff that will all have heard of and some stuff that is very unusual. Here is what I can remember:


Chris Barber
The Firehouse Five Plus Two
Sharkey's Southern Comforts
Lou Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band
Bob Scobey with Clancy Hayes
The Cell Block Seven


There was also a record of limericks - sung - clean ones as well but I can't find any trace of that anywhere.


Anyway, I never stood a chance of liking anything else so my life was set on Trad Jazz. The next event was to get friendly with Pete Tolhurst at school. I went home with him one day and he played me an Acker Bilk record - well that was me done!


The first thing I bought when I left school and started work was a Record Player. I made sure that I bought the best I could find for sound - I had to compromise on the deck but I was to replace that fairly quickly. So, even then I was into 'HiFi'. We had a great record shop up on Streatham High Road and it was there that I bought the deck and my first LP - Acker Bilk of course.


My best man, Roger Whittle, who should stand out more here than I make him, was just as keen on the music so together we would sit in my front room, modelling away, listening to Acker.

Acker's Paramount Jazz Band always, at that time, appeared in waistcoats and bowler hats. Same as me except for the bowler, of course.

Acker was quickly followed by some of the originals - I had a 10" LP of The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and 12" records by some of the more suspect Trad bands such as Bob Wallace - who would try to sing - but had a permanent sore throat so sounded gravelly all the time - oh and did try to stay in tune.



Well, what do you think. Love seeing 'Fluff' so young.

At the same time as I was buying into Jazz, I was also becoming aware of the popular music scene. This was 1961 just as I was leaving school and I was mostly recording the pop stuff onto our home tape recorder. With a mother that worked for Philips, is was relatively cheap to have one of these as we got a staff discount. Dad was busy recording all of the '30s dance bands and I was recording all of the pop and the jazz. The pop was mostly coming from Radio Luxembourg and the Jazz from the BBC.

The pop stuff I remember are things like 'Sea of Heartbreaks', Bob Lumen's 'Let's think about living', 'Save the last dance for me' by the Drifters and other such items. However, it was still jazz that held me and I was mostly recording Alex Welsh at the time. Funnily enough, I never got to see his band live.

With Roger's able assistance, we built up quite a large library of Jazz on record and on tape. However, two memorable things happened. We were very keen on The Dutch Swing College and when they brought out their Souza march LP with the Band of the Royal Dutch Marines, we were ecstatic. The big one for me though was a Count Basie LP. Now, I have never gone for Modern Jazz and am no fan of screaming saxes so quite what made me buy this LP is a bit of a mystery. The one in question, which set me off on the road to Basie was 'Sinatra Sings and Basie Swings'. We were already fans of Bobby Darin - especially Lazy River and Mac The Knife, so Sinatra singing with Basie was fantastic. This led onto me buying 'The Atomic Mr. Basie'. I am still listening to all of this 50 years later!

Lots of Jazz and Basie followed. However, in the middle of the '60's, I got more and more interested in Rhythm and Blues which involved me blowing a blues harp (small harmonica) along with many of the tracks. This desire to play along resulted in a particular purchase, which was done purely for the harmonica accompaniment - 'Love Me Do' by the Beatles. So I was there at the beginning - something that happened twice later.



The trend for R&B stayed with me for a good while - I bought some early Rolling Stones but they soon left me behind. I was also into Howling Wolf - 'Smokestack Lightning' still gets me. I still have a CD of Howling Wolf recorded in the UK with lots of known stars playing in the band.

Lots of information on the CD here

Between this point and getting married was a bit of a desert - I had better - or more interesting things on my mind - and my music became less of an issue, except that I used to make Valerie listen when we were at my house - and she famously put up with some of my interest - but more of that later.

Music in the early '60s

My interest in music was both from the listening and the playing. I had better deal with the playing first I think.

Playing Instruments
I covered earlier my short stint at the flute. It taught me the basic fingering for most wind instruments but I never really took to it. Sometime around the age of 14 I went down to Ally's Owl Shop just next door to Streatham Bus Garage and bought myself a 2nd hand guitar. I think I mentioned earlier that the next thing I did was go up to The Swing Shop at St. Leonard's Church in the middle of Streatham and buy Bert Weedon's 'Play The Guitar in a Day' book.

We had a piano in the front room although no-one in the family could play but along with it was a book of traditional songs. Between picking out the tunes on the piano and plucking away, I got some tunes and chords out of the guitar. Although I don't have much of a voice, I began to really enjoy sitting in the front room and strumming chords and picking out tunes. I took a great interest in American Folk Music - especially when I found a book on American Railroad songs. I still have a fondness for 'The Little Red Caboose Behind The Train" and will play it properly on the concertina sometime.

Underlying my interest in music was a lifelong appreciation of 'Traditional Jazz' so I slowly moved towards getting a Banjo. As ever in my life I knew what I wanted but didn't quite make it - fingering on a tenor banjo is quite difficult - a tenor is what you hear in most Trad Jazz Bands - so I plumped for a 5 string - which is a folk instrument. A tenor has four strings - a 5-String has four strings and a drone string which stops halfway down the finger board. It would still be possible to play Trad Jazz but the other options were broader. I started to listen to Pete Seeger and finally bought his 10" LP on "How To Play The 5 String Banjo" - HA!!!! It should have been called "Let me show you how I play the 5-string banjo - you won't come close!". Still I tried, and as mentioned, took it to camp and played successfully for the camp fires. There was a memorable Scout Gang Show where us Senior Scouts put on a personal Act - Me Playing the Banjo, Roger playing the Drums and the others playing the Kazoo. I can't remember the whole sketch but it included "Close the door, they're coming in the window" and the theme tune to "Sunday Night At The London Palladium" Sadly, I can't find the closing credits but this is the opening of one show.

Two other instruments got into the act before I got married - an electric guitar, which I played through my tape recorder using it as an amplifier and a tenor saxophone. I have no idea why I went to the electric guitar because - apart from The Shadows - I had little interest in pop music by then. The saxaphone was one of my usual half assed ideas - what I really wanted was a soprano sax because of the way it was played on The Firehouse Five recordings but couldn't find one on the day I went looking down the Charing Cross Road - so what did I do - wait until I could find one - NO! I bought an Alto! I did play this for a while but because I had no real love of anything other than Traditional (New Orleans - Dixieland) Jazz it sort of faded and I finally sold it.

One big thing for me during the mid-'60s was Rhythm and Blues and I/we was/were very regular attendees at The Marquee. Having messed about with a Harmonica when I was in Junior School, I picked up on the Blues Harp and got really into the wa wa sound of bent blues notes. To my shame, when I was given a harp in later years, for some reason I was scared to pick it up in case I couldn't play it. Given that the form of a harmonica is that same as the concertina and I can play that quite well, I am not sure why I didn't give it a go. I will come back to one result of my playing the blues later in this piece.

I pretty much stopped playing a musical instrument once we were married - nothing to do with that but I just didn't seem to want to. Then a few years later, Valerie bought me a really nice guitar from Harrods for Christmas and I got back into it - but I am getting ahead of myself.

As my next piece about recorded music is likely to be very long, I have split this topic into two parts.

Personal Things - Scouts

I am not a joiner but Scouts was different. It was aircraft and friends that loved aircraft - nobody poking fun because you made models and the challenge of looking after 5 boys younger than you. This is what I got out of being a Patrol Leader in the 31st Streatham Air Scouts.

Because of our RAF Recognition, we had a lot of support from the RAF - including when we went to camp we were always able to visit the local RAF Station. Not only that but, courtesy of the London Assistant Commissioner for Air Scouts, as much flying as we could manage.

Scouts was on a Friday night and involved a bus from the top of my road up to Streatham and then mile long walk down to the end of Sunnyhill Road. In all the time that I was involved in the troop, we used Sunnyhill School. They managed to obtain not only a large wooden building but also land to put it on just around the corner from the school in Harborough Road. I have gone looking on Street View but there appears to be a new block of houses on the site so I have no idea where they have gone. They are still in existence but I can't track down where their HQ is - sad.

OK - so - the best memories.


Summer Camp at Andover.
I must have been at work by now as we went as the Senior Scout patrol - The Guy Gibsons. We made a decision that we would not be involved in the camping competition which always ran during the camp with a patrol getting the award for the best run unit for camping standards, best food, etc. This decision was made because we felt that it was a bit beneath us to get involved with 'the kids'. However, by the Wednesday, we were so irritated by not being involved that we opted in. Needless to say, having given 'the kids' a 4 day head start - we won the competition! That's how to treat them - shamed grin!!

There were two visits arranged during the week. One was to the Army Air Corps Headquarters at Middle Wallop. They had a brilliant museum of Army Air Corp aircraft and I was so besotted that I decided there and then that I would apply to join up to fly helicopters. I subsequently found out that you had to join the Army and once in there for two years. you could take the induction test for a pilot. If you failed, then it was back to your unit! This did not appeal so I decided that the Fleet Air Arm as a 'copter pilot was for me. It had to be like this as, by now, I was wearing glasses for some activities, which was OK for a helicopter pilot but would fail you for other flying.

The second trip was to RAF Andover for a tour. Us older scouts got offered a trip to Oxford in an old Avro Anson communications aircraft. We naturally jumped at the chance. What they didn't explain was that they weren't coming back! Once at Oxford, they had to work out what to do with us. They had another Anson going to Bristol so off we went there! Again, no idea how were were to get back to Andover. Amazingly, when we got to Bristol, we were told that there was an Anson going to Andover but in 2 hours so we sat around - oh dear, what a trial - sitting on an airfield for 2 hours! So we eventually got back. What a great time we had.

This was the camp that I took my banjo to play at the camp fires. I gave no thought to damp nights and skin vellum on the banjo as a sounding board. The damp made it very loose so I had great fun playing whilst trying to ensure that the bridge didn't fall out!


Summer Camp at Broadstone Warren
Broadstone Warren is in Sussex near to Forest Row. I don't remember too much about the camp - but two things stick in my mind:
1. We were going out for the day and we ordered in some pies for the lunch pack. When they arrived they were off so we had to do something else. Being by now a bit short of food for the day, we made a great pile of tomato sauce sandwiches. Ian Cacutt ate some of the pies, insisting that they were fine. Guess how he spent the next 24 hours! Not much sleep going on there - grin.

The trip was to where I don't know but think it was to The Bluebell Railway at Uckfield. I know that we (the senior scouts) ended up standing around in Forest Row for some reason. This was the time when a hit tune from 'Most Happy Fella' was on every body's lips. Finding us 'standing on the corner', we knew exactly the song we should sing. Not a good advert for Scouting but great fun for middle-teenagers.

Flying
Mr. Scott-Chard was an ex-RAF bomber pilot and currently was a pilot for BOAC and also happened to be the Assistant Commissioner for London Air Scouts. He arranged to meet us at Biggin Hill airfield (of Battle of Britain fame) on one Sunday morning for what became a regular trip. The RAF gave us use of some woodland on the airfield so that we could camp.

So this is how it went: Bus to Streatham; walk down to Streatham Station to meet Roger and the rest; get on a 130 bus to New Addington; get off at the end of the line; hike the few miles across the valley from New Addington to Biggin Hill - with rucksacks on our back carrying everything for the weekend - tents, cooking utensils, sleeping bags, food, etc. Set up camp and have all day Saturday to watch the flying or to do stupid things like experimenting with cooking nettles! Scott-Chard would arrive on Sunday morning and that's when we got the big hit. Three of us would get in a Percival proctor or Prentice - if you were lucky you got in the front seat.

 A Percival Prentice

Once there we would fly all over south London or as close as the ATC would allow us. I remember once being bawled out by Heathrow control when I was flying and drifted to far north into the London ATC area. NO wonder school work didn't seem important when we had this to do. Comes the late afternoon, we reversed the trip and hiked back.

We were such regulars that when they opened a new control tower at Biggin Hill, we were chosen to be the Guard of Honour! The other benifet was that, when we came to take our Air Navigator badge, which required plotting a route for an aircraft, we were able to do it and then fly the aircraft along our plot - fantastic. Steve Brown and I were the lucky ones for this trip. On the Friday afternoon, we were cycling through Tooting - I have no idea why we were off school and what we were both doing in Tooting - I had a great funny idea - why don't I slam my brakes on and give Steve a fright. He didn't see the funny side as the broke his arm - and with a flying trip for his Air Navigator badge that weekend. None the less he made it and we both passed.

John Sillett
John was an icon to me and I still talk about him. He came along to the Scouts one Friday evening in his 'funny' ordinary Scout uniform - khaki shirt and a funny khaki scout scarf tied up in a knot - never seen that done before but that is how the 3rd Streatham Hill did things. He had come along to help out running the show. He proved to be a very knowledgeable guy - only a couple of years older than me but at time, this seemed like an age. He was a great lad and knew scouting inside out. Didn't know a lot about aircraft but you couldn't have everything. He left school and joined Lloyds Bank and I followed into banking later as you now know. He surprised us one day by telling us that he was leaving the bank as he had been accepted by The Royal Navy for pilot training. At the time he was riding a Vincent motorbike - Vincents were old 1,000cc hand built bikes and we could only look in awe.

So, off he went and we didn't expect to see him back. Now it is funny how you can suddenly go off people - he turned up one Friday night and we asked him how he had got here as wasn't he at some far off RAF station under training. Oh yes, he said, I am stationed near Swansea in Wales but I have my own personal Hawker Hunter T7 which I have flown down to Manston in Kent, where I keep my motor bike and I have ridden up from there - funny how liking can turn to hatred in an instant! - Grin.

 A Navy Hunter T7

The last visit I remember changed my life because I had, at that time still an ambition to be a jet pilot and was determined to try for the Fleet Air Arm myself - looking back I would have been astounded if I had been accepted but there we go. I was talking to him about this and he gave me some advice. He was a pilot of a Fairey Gannet AEW3 search aircraft

and had been involved in the tracking of oil tankers into the Mozambique port of Beira.

RHODESIA CRISIS - British Pathe

He told me that there were eight in his training group at Dartmouth and he though that four would be lucky to survive the seven year stint because of the hugely fragile nature of Fleet Air Arm aircraft at that time and that I should reconsider my plans. He recounted an event that happened to him. I will first recount how I remember it and then add what I found out recently.


John's Crash
Gannets are/were strange aircraft in that they look like a single engined aircraft but actually have two Mamba engine side by side driving two propellers through a double shaft. John was one of the few to have a complete engine failure on landing. I originally understood that his aircraft had crashed just short of HMS Eagle, his carrier, and had flipped upside down due to the presence of a huge radome under the body of the aircraft. My memory sais that he was the first to get out of such a circumstance. However, now with the Internet as a tool, I have found out that he did crash off Singapore but climbed out onto one wing with his crewman on the other and both were OK. So I now know the truth.

Last Memories
As usual, I was the oldest in the troop so when 18 came along I left the Senior Scouts and moved back to helping with the troop. Once again, I had to wait for the others to catch up. Once we had a few 18 year olds we started a Rover Crew - again with me as the Rover Mate. I can't remember much of this time except for one occasion when we did an all night stint over one weekend supporting the troop on a night hike. They were off for the night and we were to provide soup half way through. This entailed us sitting around until about 1am - cooking soup - and then transporting it out to the woods - these were some way down in Surrey but I can't remember which woods they used. Having delivered the soup, we were at a loose end so someone suggested that we go to Brighton - the nearest seaside town to where we were. This trip resulted in two encounters with the Surrey police!

Once we arrived in Brighton we thought we would have a walk around - 2.30am - good idea? Maybe not. We walked along the sea front and then headed inland to walk through the shopping area. We did notice that a police car cruised past us on a few occasions but being Air Scouts in lawful pursuit of their business, we never assumed that it was us that they were watching. We weren't wearing our berets at this time so we missed the fact that there were no visible signs of our status. Eventually, they stopped us and on seeing that we all had sheath knives, were a bit taken aback - we then disclosed that we were Scouts on a night event and everyone calmed down.

Once our trip around Brighton became tedious, we all got back in the car and started out for home. We had got to Gatwick Airport when we were flagged down by a police car - this was becoming a habit. They were merely checking on what a car full of four lads was doing out at this time of night and approached very warily. Once again, on finding out that we were Scouts, they were relaxed and off we went again, finally to get home and bed after a great time out.

Final Days in the Scouts - For Now
Once again my age threw me out of the group - once I was 21 I could no longer be a Rover - so I took up as an Assistant Scout Master - they call them Scout Leaders nowadays. I took out a warrant and spent last year or so of my time as a single lad in Streatham working with the troop as a warranted leader. In the April of the next year, I got married and moved away so my connection with the Scouts was broken for some 13 years

Personal Things – up to 22nd April 1967

This section is going to be a bit different because much of the timelines are lost in the dim past – well dim to me anyway. So what I am going to do is cover the main events without too much regard for how they all tied together. 22^nd April 1967 is the magic date because that is when I married Valerie. Hence this section will cover the 6 years between leaving school and that happy event but I will do it in manageable chunks

Basically, on a private basis, my life falls into a few categories:

• Scouts
• Music - playing, listening and live stuff 
• Humour
• Hobbies
• Girls (gulp)

I will cover each for the whole period so that it doesn’t get confusing. You may not be able to tie everything together but that doesn’t really matter – in any case I am not sure that I can tie it all in anyway.

Punishment Batallion

That's how the Foreign Department was known in The District Bank. Once consigned to this, you rarely ever got out. I was, once again, off the mainstream of banking but looking forward to learning something new.

Aside - The Kevin Bacon Index
It has been proved that you can connect every film actor with Kevin Bacon in 6 steps:
Here is an example, using Elvis Presley:
Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit (1969) with Edward Asner
Edward Asner was in JFK (1991) with Kevin Bacon
Therefore Asner has a Bacon number of 1, and Presley (who never appeared in a film with Bacon himself) has a Bacon number of 2.
The full details can be obtained from Wikipeadia.
This idea has been extended to express anyone's relationship with another by their steps of separation. As you will see, soon, I have a separation with the high and mighty of this world of just 2!

What was the Foreign Department?
In Head Office, Manchester, there was the bank's main Foreign Department. There was a smaller one in London on the 2nd floor of 75 Cornhill, just one floor down from where my career started. There was a dividing line where branches in the south of England sent their foreign work to London whilst the rest went to Manchester. However, there were some areas where London reigned supreme because of its location in the middle of the City.

The department was managed by a Mr. John Battersby, who was reputed to have fought across Europe during the closing stages of the war.  He had the management of 7 main areas of activity:
1.Cashiers  - managed all of the foreign currency and travellers cheques for the branches
2.Outward Bills – processed outward bills of exchange*
3.Transfers – processed outward and inward cash transfers
4.Letters of Credit – issued letters of credit (LC) for exporters and managed inward LC processing.
5.Inward Bills – processed incoming bills of exchange*
6.Exchange Control - 1st line decision making on legality of currency purchases and liaison with the BofE over borderline or difficult cases. Exchange Controls were lifted by Margaret Thatcher's government in 1978 - removing the jobs of hundreds of City clerks and managers at a stroke!
7.Foreign Exchange Dealers – provided an interface between the bank's demands for foreign exchange and the international markets.
* Bills of Exchange. To make payment for an import easier and to provide finance for international trade, companies would issue a bill of exchange that was payable within a set period, normally 60 or 90 days. The bill would then be accepted payable by a bank and could then be sold on the money markets to raise the finance. This was useful for exports, for instance, as you could sell the goods and on the strength of a bill drawn by the purchaser, you could raise your money for the goods sooner rather than waiting for the goods to arrive in the overseas country. Needless to say, you didn't get the full face value of the bill because you were effectively borrowing money. What a bank would do is buy the bill 'at a discount'. This discount was related to the cost of borrowing but would vary according to the size of the bill and the quality of the accepting bank. Clear? Thought not.

I Start in International Banking
I turned up in September of 1965 and was placed on the Outward Bills desk. This was managed by two strange gentlemen who had been doing the same job for years but made it palatable by constant banter. The manager was Claude (can't remember his surname) and his number 2 was Major Selwood – ex Indian Army, and couldn't you tell! Great fun to work with. I was tasked with taking over from the clerk on the desk who's job was to process the outward bills by collating all of the shipping documents, confirming their completeness and then stamping the name of the receiving bank on the back. Very boring and similar in scope to what I was doing some time before, one floor up in the Credit Clearing dept.

Now we get to the Bacon Index. The person that I took over from was one John Major – eventually to be Prime Minister of the UK. Hence, I have a separation index of 2 with Mrs. Thatcher, Gorbachev, Reagan – and so on. Impressive – well maybe not.

The reason that I could put up with this was that my current 'girl friend' - to be my eventual partner for life,  worked one floor up in the cheque clearing department. Over the following 5 months I dutifully worked away at stamping the backs of bills of exchange. The job was so exciting that I can remember nothing more about it than that.

One of the things that I was till very keen on in my private life was Scouting and I found out that one of the guys that worked in that closed office over the way – the Dealing Room – was an active Scoutmaster. I started spending part of my lunch hour in there talking to him about Scouting and all that we were both doing in our outside lives.

Now the dealing room was unlike any other office in the bank. It had a central table that held 3 units of lights and buttons, five office telephones (where all the other departments on had a single phone), a large 'electronic calculator' on a turntable and a direct door into the Assistant Manager's office. As a young, enthusiastic chap, I started to enquire quite what this was all about and was very excited to hear how large financial transactions took place in this room, the like of which I hadn't imagined.

At the Wimbledon branch, we were a very small part of the bank but had a single customer that was borrowing ￡1,000,000. Now this was in a time when you could buy a nice 3 bedroomed house for around ￡4,500, so this was a huge amount. I was standing in a room where transactions of this size took place routinely and were actioned by the younger person as well as the manager.

Barry Halliwell, for that was the name of the younger person (younger – in banking terms that meant under 35!) was a northerner and was making plans to be married and move back north. This mean that there would be a vacancy in the room. I couldn't even dream. I was 20 years old and they had never had a dealer under 28 before so I would have been way down the list. There was much speculation as to who the next dealer was to be, because they always recruited internally and went by seniority. To everyone's amazement, and to the total horror of those who considered themselves in direct line for the job, they gave it to me. On asking why, my competitors were told that they had shown no interest in the job but that I had spent every lunchtime in there learning what I could without any prospects!
Five months of boredom was to be followed by 20 years of roller coaster times that could be called anything but boring!