I mentioned in the last posting that we had many visitors from Scotland. One particular trip I recall was when Barry brought Mum down in his little MGC sports car. Dad was working and couldn't manage. I can't get rid my mind of the image of my Mum in the open top car, with her hair flying in the wind, wearing a scarf round her neck.
Ken Russell's film adaptation of the Who's rock opera, Tommy, had just been released and so we decided we wanted to see it - at Leicester Square, of course. Mum babysat, whilst Barry drove us in to the West End, with Jo crammed in the back of the car, getting blown away.
We now, of course, had 2 children, and with Gary growing rapidly, the old McLaren single buggy wasn't really much use to us now. Lucy was big enough to walk a fair bit now, but we would still need to upgrade to a 2 seater chariot, and, after much research, we acquired this unusual monstrosity:
As you can tell, this photo was taken on one of our many walks up to the neighbouring town of Hoddesdon to do the weekly shopping - as ever, at Sainsbury's.
I had started to have periodic episodes of intense pain, apparently coming from my upper stomach. It had me literally writhing on the floor when it happened. Within a few hours it was gone again, but there was no telling when it would be back. I went to see our local GP a few times and tried to explain what it was all about, but it was very difficult for them to properly assess it, when there was nothing happening at the time I was there.
In the end, I got lucky with this illness. After several enforced brief absences from work, finally we got to the bottom of it on a Christmas trip back to Scotland in December, 1976. Having no car and 2 kids, plus all the gear we had to carry for them, not to mention Christmas presents for the relatives, and, with the train not being a practical option for us, we decided we should hire a car for the holiday period.
We were at Storie St on Hogmanay and I suddenly took another of these attacks. Jo's Mum didn't like the look of me and immediately called her GP, a crusty old doctor wearing pin stripes - straight from the old school. This was the first time any medic had actually seen me when I was having one of the attacks, and he fairly quickly diagnosed it as appendicitis. I couldn't believe it - the pain was nowhere near my appendix area - but he persisted and rushed me to hospital where they operated immediately.
When I awoke after the op, I discovered that it had actually developed in to peritonitis - I was told it could easily have killed me - the poison was so great. For a while after I left hospital, I had to "wear" a bag which collected the poison still draining from my body, via a tube to the still open wound. The wound has now healed of course, but you can still see where the hole was to this day.
Thank goodness they found the cause before it got any worse - a lucky escape for me. Of course, I couldn't travel for a while - and certainly not drive - and the rental car was now due to be returned. Brian Hansen to the rescue - he agreed to drive it back down and catch the train back.
Now the next bit of the story gets a little muddled in my mind after all these years. I can't quite recall if this was the same time, or whether it happened on another occasion when we hired a car, but we all developed scabies, an infection that was passed on to us - presumably unwittingly - by the previous occupants of the hired car. We had to undergo weeks of treatment with skin creams and ointments to eliminate the bug. If this really was the same occasion as my op, why didn't Brian get scabies too?
Round about the same time, we had a nasty episode of food poisoning. It came from an out of date packet of pâté that we bought from a local deli in Broxbourne. For many years, neither Jo nor I could even look at pâté - it gave us both a nasty shudder at the memory.
1975 and 1976 especially were scorchers, but 1977 was a slight disappointment after that. We'd had 3 great summers and were beginning to believe that the weather in South East England was always like this - but that's not the case. It was the Queen's Silver Jubilee year and everyone locally was all excited - what are we all going to do about it? A street party was arranged, complete with marquee and magicians. An old cynical, not totally anti-, but not exactly pro-Royalist like me would think what's all this about then? But, actually, it was a fun social event that got all the neighbours properly together for probably the first time.
We didn't want to be left out in the window decoration stakes either:
and, no, that's not Barry's MGC - it's Austin's MGB. Lucy's Godfather came down that week to visit us and took part in our street party:
My period of illness with appendicitis/peritonitis had led me to question my lifestyle. Distillers Co. were pretty good to their employees and I could easily have had a nice, comfortable job there for life if I wanted. I was still young, however, and already I sensed that I could stagnate here - I could feel the complacency all around me. Ultimately, this whole attitude throughout the group led to what seemed unthinkable in those days - they were taken over a few years after I left by the much smaller Guinness Company. This must have rattled a few cages - a grand Scottish institution, and one of Britain's largest companies, with 25,000 employees, taken over by the Irish "upstarts". I can almost hear the crusty old Colonels that inhabited Distillers Boardrooms choking on their drams at the news.
Another example of the comfortable lifestyle and lack of regard for any form of cost control or efficiency was the free whisky every manager received each month. As a junior manager, I automatically got one free case per month, with extras at certain times of year, like Christmas, so I was receiving a total of 15 cases every year. This was delivered to our house in Broxbourne by our MD's chauffeur in the company Jag. We weren't really whisky drinkers - although we did get a bit of a taste for it - so the principal beneficiary of this was Jo's Mum, Lottie, who became the most regular of our visitors!
As I said earlier, my weight was escalating and even although I had at least started playing football on a Saturday again, I still wasn't getting enough exercise to counteract the amount of eating and drinking I was doing at lunchtimes. Anyway, the football was a Saturday match only - I never made the midweek training sessions - no car, young family - and, as a result, although I'd worked my way from the 8th to the 1st team, it wasn't long before I slid back to the middle teams. Football at Norsemen was very strictly only a 6 month affair as well - from October to March. Once April arrived, everyone (except me) switched to cricket for the 6 months of summer.
The peritonitis incident had given me a bit of a scare and, although I couldn't really attribute the blame for this to Distillers, I still made up my mind that it was time to leave. I wasn't learning anything at DCL and I was keen to move my career forward as well, so I started looking around. I spotted an advert for a Divisional Comptroller (as they titled it) with ITT Components, based in Harlow, Essex, just over 10 miles away from our home. At the time, ITT was the largest company in the world, whose might led some to accuse them of actually controlling a number of South American countries' Governments!
ITT were highly professional and driven. I had to attend a number of interviews and psychological assessments etc - some, fortunately, in Central London at lunchtime, but a few at Harlow as well. In the end, I was pipped at the post for this particular position, but they were impressed enough to create a new role for me as Group Financial Analysis Manager, in charge of a small team of Analysts. They had 19 or 20 divisions throughout the UK and it was always intended that I would get offered the next Divisional Comptroller post that became available.
I duly handed my notice in to DCL in the summer of 1977. I remember my bosses, John Williams and Peter Hosp, made great efforts to persuade me to stay, but I cited medical reasons for leaving.
Travelling to Harlow was going to be a bit of a challenge, however - no cross country commuter lines from Broxbourne, so we started looking for a car again. Eventually we found an Austin 1100, which looked a bit like this one - only white, not red:
I spent a fair bit of time travelling round the divisions to get an understanding of how ITT worked. They had very high reporting standards and deadlines and I had to learn new ways of working - and new terminologies too - the standards were set by the US HQ. I remember travelling to a couple of their divisions in North Wales - Rhyl and Wrexham - in the summer of 1978 when the World Cup from Argentina was on, and watching some fabulous matches in my hotel room.
ITT Components Group (Europe) - to give it its full title - reported directly in to Brussels, and I recall going there as well to look around and meet a few of the guys I would be dealing with on the phone. Remember, this is in the days well before the internet and even before fax machines became a standard business tool.
The young graduates who worked for me were good guys - I can remember Dave Avers and a guy of Irish extraction called Colm, but there was a Welshman too, but I can't remember his name at all - and the 4th guy escapes me too. My immediate boss was Robert ? and he reported to Dave Andrews, who, in turn, reported to our big boss, Alan Webb. I appreciate these names mean nothing to anybody else, but I wanted to write them down to see what and who I could still remember.
Anyway, it was these guys who got me to try out squash for the first time. Coincidentally, Norsemen FC built a couple of squash courts round about the same time, and I think I many have played there once, but that was about all.
Eventually, after a mini-reorganisation in the ITT Components Group in Harlow, when they put 3 Divisions together to create one large division, I was appointed their first Comptroller. I had seen the other side of the fence in Group HQ, so I knew what they were looking for, which made my job a bit easier. We had a good management team - the overall Divisional G.M. was a guy called Nick Morrell who also lived in Broxbourne - although at a bigger and better house than ours. He was a really nice guy and we got along well - he trusted me and leaned heavily on me when it came to our weekly management meetings. I enjoyed my spell of working with him, and also with my new direct boss on the financial side, Bob Easter. I learned more in a few months with ITT than I had learned in 5 years with Black & White.
The same year I joined ITT - 1977 - me and my Dad fulfilled one of my dreams - going to Wembley to see Scotland play England. This fixture was usually the decider in the old Home Nations championship. Both teams had usually managed by then to see off Wales and Northern Ireland, so it came down to the final match to determine the overall winners. It became a legendary tradition in most pubs and clubs throughout Scotland to save up for the biennial trip to Wembley. Officially, Scotland were allocated 30,000 of the 100,000 tickets available, but such was the demand, and, with so many Scots with families down south anyway, Wembley was always a sea of tartan and London seemed to be swamped with partying Scots for the weekend.
Now I can understand how some of the locals would dislike this - some of the antics the Scots fans got up to were perhaps a little too exuberant at times - but boisterous rather than threatening. This particular match in 1977 was Ally MacLeod's first as Scotland manager and he got off to a flier with a well deserved 2-1 win for Scotland. It was Scotland's first win at Wembley for 10 years - and how the fans celebrated afterwards. They ran on to the pitch, some of them grabbing pieces of turf for souvenirs, and several climbing up on to the crossbars, which eventually snapped under the weight.
The following day, the English press went to town, labelling the Scots as hooligans and vandals. I was there - it was nothing of the sort - there was absolutely no aggression - no fighting - just over exuberance. It happened at a time when football hooliganism was rife - especially in England at club level, where the fans of Chelsea, Millwall, Leeds and Manchester United had - quite correctly - become infamous for their organised battles. Scotland's fans got tarred with this brush and it's always rankled with me that they got such a bum rap. Anyway, it was enough to bring an end to the Home Championship, which had been running for almost a century. Frankly, I think it was the excuse England were looking for to pull out. Their aspirations had been raised by winning the World Cup in 1966 and they didn't enjoy the occasional bloody nose they got when Scotland - a nation one-tenth their size - beat them.
Watch this video and see what you think - scroll forward to the post match celebrations - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGLrfSn4dvc
I think it was 1978 that brought our first overseas holiday - a trip across the Channel to Benodet in Brittany - camping! My Mum and Dad came too - in fact, they brought Barry's car down - aforesaid brown Ford Consul - and we all jumped in and drove down to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry to St. Malo. It was a big car and we all managed in OK, but it had developed a fault - with the carburretor, I think. Everyone was excited about the prospect of the holiday - not least Lucy.
We parked the car in line for the ferry, but when it came to drive on, the Consul wouldn't start. There we were, the only car remaining dockside, whilst all the other cars were safely on board. It was all too much for Lucy - she just bawled - she thought she wasn't getting to go on holiday after all. Words of consolation were no use, but we did eventually manage to get help to push the car onboard - at least we were going.
The sun shone brightly as we had breakfast approaching St. Malo, but the next obstacle was getting the car up the boat ramp and on to French land. Again, we managed it - just. By now we had learned one of the tricks to get it started was to pour a little bit of petrol over the carburettor. We drove off towards Benodet, but had to stop at a little village on the way. This meant re-starting the car again - always a fraught experience. I had pulled in to a filling station and in my best schoolboy French said "une tasse d'essence, s'il vous plait". Now the guy behind the counter initially assumed that my French wasn't too good - "a cup"? - presumably you mean gallons/litres, not a cup, I could hear him think. I assured him that a cup was all I needed and eventually we were on our way.
Despite the hassle - which included the need to get the car fixed at a local garage - we had a wonderful holiday. It was a magical time for us. Here's a couple of typical scenes - Jo reckons she was at her slimmest at this time:
We had a few holidays in France in the late 70's/early 80's and this was probably another occasion:
Holiday over and back home - and I got ill again. This time, it was iritis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iritis) - I had to lay on my back in a hospital bed for 2 weeks and not move, whilst drops were applied to my eyes. The medical profession tried to find out how I got this and I went through a series of tests, one of which meant me attending the STD clinic. I wasn't aware of this before I went along and I was a little taken aback - not least by the rather embarrassing procedures they took me through when I was there.
As we moved in to 1979, Jo was pregnant again - with Kelly. The prospect of three children growing up away from the support network of the wider family was enough to make me think again about my career and living down south, so I started to look for a position north of the border again.
I did eventually find a post with a subsidiary of Thorn EMI (Nuclear Enterprises) in Edinburgh, but, in the months before we left Broxbourne, I got to know a couple of the neighbours a bit better. Ray Barrie (Sasha and Karl's Dad) and Tony (forget his second name - big guy, married to a stereotypical, slightly hysterical, Italian) had indicated that they had played a bit of squash and so the three of us played together a few times.
Tony, like me, was a music fan, and we went to see a couple of gigs together - Wilko Johnson at Dingwall's and Graham Parker & the Rumour (backed by Pere Ubu) at the Roundhouse, are the two I can recall. I also remember Barry coming down again with his pal, Les and they headed off to see the Jags - no, not the football team, but the group by that name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jags - Back of My Hand was their big single in September, 1979 - just before we left Broxbourne for good.
Earlier that year, Jo sat her driving test. I had given her a few lessons, but the old adage is true - never try and teach your spouse to drive. We had our moments, one of which I remember when Jo stopped the car and stormed off. Eventually, she got a few professional lessons and eventually sat - and passed - her test, whilst fully 8 months' pregnant. She could barely get behind the wheel - I always said she got the sympathy vote.
Our house was on the market whilst I was, initially, commuting up and down to Edinburgh, so Jo had to do most of the viewings. One family that showed particular interest were, pretty obviously, of Greek extraction - North London was a bit of a hotbed of immigrants from there. Our Scots neighbours, Mary and Eric, were first round to talk to Jo and find out if we were going to sell to them or not. There was talk of how immigrant ghettos started off with one family moving in, then another - the implication being very clear to us. We were a little shocked - and, if anything, it probably had the opposite effect to what they had intended.
We sold our house for £39,000 - we had tripled our money in just over 3 years - if you forget the rampant inflation of the mid 70's.
This is probably the longest chapter I have written so far. Hope you're still reading. Next time around is our time in Edinburgh.
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