School holidays 1955-1959

In the summer of 1955 my parents and grandparents took a house in Madeira Avenue, Worthing. It was warm and sunny, and we went to the repertory theatre a lot. They would do one play, whilst rehearsing for the next week’s play in the afternoons. The importance of being Earnest and such like. Most towns had Reps. What a terrific life for theatre people, young and old, now unfortunately gone.

In the summer of 1958 the grandparents, Dorothy, Billie and my granny’s brother Leslie, took a house in Banstead, Surrey. I got a job stacking shelves in a small early supermarket (in those days counter service, rather than pick-your-own, was the norm).

In the summer of 1959 my mother took a flat in the Earls Court Road, just north of the Cromwell Road.

At 15, during a summer holiday trip to the theatre in London with the Mrs.Spanton crowd, from West Byfleet I developed appendicitis. I was rushed to hospital where they took the appendix out, I spent a week in hospital, and then 10 days in a convalescent home. This was a large country house, where we wandered about the gardens wearing dressing gowns and slippers, reminiscent of wartime movies. I remember when I got out riding my bicycle without taking the pedals full circle. I have a 3 inch scar. Today they do it with keyhole surgery, and you are out of hospital the same afternoon.

My special friend from this time was Anthea Disney, who later became very high-up indeed in the Murdoch New York empire. She was small, and extremely pretty. While most boy/girl relationships had a boy/girl angle, we sort of agreed to have a relationship completely free of that aspect. I never had any sexual fantasies about her (as I had about most of the females I knew). She was not a Mrs Spanton South American girl, but lived well-to-do in West Byfleet and was one of our group. We used to write to each other at boarding school maybe once a week, telling each other whatever occupies 16-year-old minds. We formed a plan whereby she wrote pretending to be her mother, inviting me out on an exeat (public school speak for an accompanied day out, the only sort possible). I took the Green Line bus down to London, and we met for a coffee at the Kardomah in Knightsbridge, and then went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We had nice time, and I then took the Green Line bus back to Berkhamsted. Then, the following evening, I was summoned to the headmaster’s study. He had my housemaster and a couple of plain clothes detectives and a solicitor with him, and they started questioning me about the day before. It turned out that there had been a bad fog the previous evening. Anthea had gone home on the train, been followed on the way home, been attacked and raped, and had then staggered home. I think her mother was inclined to believe her, but as far as the police were concerned we two had met to have sex, she was under 16, her mother had found out as mothers do, and she (Anthea) was inventing the story of the rape to cover up her/my illicit relationship. At the headmaster’s interview I was concerned, of course, but generally my attitude was Bad luck! As far as they were concerned, I had to have had an intimate relationship with her if we had gone to the trouble to meet up in that illicit way. In which case the rape story must be an invention, because I would me more upset than I was if my beloved had been raped. In the end it turned out that her attacker was Irish Mike, a serial rapist, who was eventually caught and convicted. As far as school was concerned I had committed deceit, but I soon never heard any more about it, though it probably put another black mark against me. I wrote to my parents to tell them that there had been a spot of bother about a misunderstanding, which was the reason for the solicitor’s bill they would see on the end-of-term bill. Pow! That one caused me quite a bit of bother. Anthea and I continued to be good friends as before. As I have noted elsewhere, one has a relatively fast recovery time at that age.