Family 1

I was at King's College in the Strand doing mechanical engineering, and had a bed-sit in Philbeach Gardens in Earls Court. Somehow, the thought of living in a student hall never appealed to me.

I met Prim at the Cy Laurie jazz club in the West End of London. I was particularly attracted to her because of her short tight skirt which emphasized her cute bum. She was with her friend Fio. Anyway, Prim and I became an item. She moved in with me in my bed-sitter in Philbeach Gardens, though she also rented a room there for the benefit of her parents, though she never used it. So we spent the first few months of our relationship sleeping in a single bed!

After a while (1963) we decided to get married. We were very young (20, 21), but Prim was quite forceful about it, saying we should since we were together and intent on staying that way. We got married at Kensington Register Office. My mother came over from Peru for it, my Scottish grandmother came, and Prim’s parents of course. My best man was Frankie Riess, an old friend from Peru and various school holidays at Mrs Spanton’s in West Byfleet. Afterwards we had lunch at Bertorelli’s in Charlotte Street. Shortly afterwards we went on a sort-of honeymoon to Italy in a pre-war Morris car with Frank Riess and Andrew Fussell. We were away for about 3 weeks, but Prim came home early to go back to work.

We moved to a basement flat round the corner in Nevern Square.

Prim worked at first as a secretary at Jack Wilson, the bookmaker in Dover Street, Mayfair. Then she got a job as secretary at the New Left Review, with such semi-famous people as Stuart Hall, Alexander Cockburn, Perry Anderson, Robin Blackburn.

In 1965 we then moved to Perham Road in West Kensington, close to Queens Club.

We then in 1967 bought a small terraced house at 72 Duke Road in Chiswick (I always had an affinity for this westward end of London). We had a son, Oscar Alexander, in 1968, and then George Benjamin in 1970. This was in the days when you had towelling nappies and "see throughs" which you rinsed and soaked in Napisan. We had a friend in a similar house, Jeannie, with son Toren and daughter Tamsin, and husband Frank who was not often around but was a jeweller and a wrestler, had a famous Jewish father. Jeannie was normal but 'a bit odd'. She collected milk bottles (the old glass pint ones), hundreds of them, throughout the house. Also friends, Norman and ?, were in a council house down the road that had been built where a bomb had dropped during WW2. He was a docker at Brentford docks, and a nice character, He had a boat, "Helpless", which had taken part in the Dunkirk evacuation, and which could sleep four at a pinch, and which we borrowed a couple of times (see photo). His wife ? committed suicide by putting an electric heater in the bath with her. Next door were Piers and June, who were OK, but Prim had an affair with him which I discovered, naturally, so we soon moved out in 1974 to Flanchford Rd, W12

Julie was born in 1974, shortly before we moved to Flanchford Road.

Prim started an Amnesty group, and they had meetings in our sitting room. I kept well out of it. A regular and keen member was Mitch, Prim’s boy-friend, as I eventually found out. Prim’s big success was starting the Amnesty book shop, in King Street, Hammersmith, which is still there today. They were allocated one Amnesty victim, and wrote letters, had demonstrations, etc. Ours was a young man from Benin. who had been imprisoned and badly tortured. He was big and quite good-looking, and the ladies who could were queuing up to give him a solidarity/sympathy bonk. I got quite friendly with him, and after he was back in Benin kept in touch with him, and sent him used computers and money.

My friend at Boving, Felix Jaffee, gave me a boat. It was about 7ft long, the lower hull was fibreglass, and the upper 6in was collapsible plastic on a frame. It had a mast and a sail, a centre-board and a rudder, and I kept in up against the wall in the side passage. It would easily fit onto the roof-rack of a car. We took it down the slip-way at Chiswick mall and sailed it up to a pub in Kew, O & G and I took it on the Thames and camped overnight on an island, we took it down to Arcachon (?) in France. A great no-trouble toy.

He also leant me his tiny cottage at Helhoughton, Norfolk, 2 or 3 times. We would go to the sea at Holkham, or to Wells-next-the-sea, or on bicycles to pubs round-about. In return we would do lots of gardening, which it needed.