Call Me Valentine

Derek Rosser

Description

Born in the year 1930, the year the airship R101 made its final disastrous voyage-life was exciting but very different to that experienced by today's youngsters and teenagers. I am sure that we enjoyed life rather more than our modern counterparts. Not the joys of violent video games and computers-but rather the simpler pleasures that come from exercising the imagination. As an only child, with the aid of half a dozen lead soldiers and a toy fort (made by my father from scrap timber) I conquered India and extended the boundaries of the Empire.The Great War was eighteen years in the past and the Second World War was only nine years into the future. My hero was William Brown-the fictional eleven year old created by the late Richmal Crompton. I borrowed every title from the public library and did my best to emulate the adventures described. This often earned me a lecture and a thick ear from my father but did little to dissuade me from the next book. I soaked up the stories avidly, usually with the aid of a torch under the bed covers when I should have been asleep.I have attempted, in this book, to give the reader an insight into the life and emotions of a boy born in the inter war years. The facts are a true reflection of those formative years although the chronology may be a little suspect. After all it was over seventy years ago and my memory is not what it used to be. If you are entertained by my musings, I shall have achieved my goal... Book reviews online @ www.publishedbestsellers.com

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Inglaterra
• Memoir
• History
• England

Informations

• Publié par: Pneuma Springs Publishing
• Date de parution: 05 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782281634
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Call Me Valentine




Derek Rosser
First Published in 2011 by: Pneuma Springs Publishing
Call Me Valentine Copyright © 2011 Derek Rosser
Derek Rosser has asserted his/her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work
Pneuma Springs
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rosser, Derek, 1930- Call me Valentine. 1. Rosser, Derek, 1930- --Childhood and youth. 2. Boys-- Recreation--Great Britain--History--20th century. 3. Great Britain--Social life and customs--1918-1945. 4. Great Britain--History--George VI, 1936-1952-- Biography. 5. Great Britain--History--George V, 1910-1936--Biography. I. Title 941'.084'092-dc22
Kindle eISBN: 9781782280002 ePub eISBN 9781782281634 PDF eBook eISBN 9781782280842 Paperback ISBN: 9781907728198
Pneuma Springs Publishing E: [e-mail] W: www.pneumasprings.co.uk
Published in the United Kingdom. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher.
To my sons, Steven and Andrew, so that they can appreciate the
difference between their boyhood and mine
Foreword
We are an endangered species now, literally a dying breed, those of us who were born in the late twenties and early thirties of the twentieth century. We are enjoying what is euphemistically known as the ‘Golden Years’. Much has been written concerning the adult experiences of those inter war years but little has been made of life as a child during that period.
In this small volume I hope to recall the way it was for a boy born in the year that the airship R101 made its final disastrous voyage. Anyone over the age of seventy five will remember and relate to the adventures that we made for ourselves. We had none of the advantages of a materialistic world full of advanced technology but I am sure that we enjoyed life rather more than our modern counterparts. Not for us the joys of violent video games and computers but rather the simpler pleasures that come from exercising the imagination without being controlled by the freaks that thought up the ‘Health and Safety’ laws.
It occurred to me that, even with luck on my side, there can be little time left to pass on those memories to the current generation of young people before there is no one left who is able to do so.
I would like my grandchildren to know how things were so, with that in mind, I shall try to be as accurate as possible in re-living those formative years from my earliest memories to my entry into that major adventure known as ‘Earning a Living’.
Should it be that I am a little hazy concerning specific dates and occurrences please make allowances because one day was very much like another during those early years...
The Biography
1930
I made my first appearance on this planet on St Valentine’s Day of the year 1930. The event was apparently heard by all of the staff and patients in the hospital where I was born. The nurses, according to my mum, suggested that, in view of the date, I should be named ‘Valentine’ . It was only the common sense displayed by my father that saved me from that ignominious fate. It is almost half a century since he departed this mortal coil but I shall remain grateful to him until my dying day, My mother spent the next ten years explaining to anyone that would listen that she had ‘ Gone through Hell’ and did not intend to repeat the experience. Thus it was that I was doomed to be an ‘only child’. Do not let anyone tell you that an ‘only child’ is spoiled. Nothing could be further from the truth. My father, in his determination to ensure that I was NOT spoiled, showed a severe side. Not, you understand, that he was cruel. He simply wanted me to know that ‘ nonsense ’ would not be tolerated.
No one will believe me when I tell you about my very earliest memory. I have revealed it before and been laughed out of the bar. My age at the time I am unable to state with any degree of certainty. I was in my pram and we were crossing a road. I lost my temper with my teddy bear and threw him with some force into the gutter. Why I did it I don’t remember because we were really the best of friends. My mother sighed, retrieved Teddy and continued on her way across the road.
I am unable to expand on the above story since what I have reported is it, all of it, the limit of my memory. All I can do is swear that it is true. I could not have been more than one year old because my mother was always bragging that I could walk before my first birthday.

1931-1932
Being of such tender years at the time, I have to admit that I have little recollection of any major events which occurred during this period. My parents were living in rooms in Bath Road, convenient because my father could walk to the locomotive sheds at Temple Meads where he kept his engine. Being a fireman (on G od’s W onderful R ailway ) at the time, he told me later that he was responsible for oiling the moving parts before it started its daily travels.
One thing I do remember is that he came home from work at any time of the day or night and that, when he went to bed during the day, my mother spent much of her time shushing me so that we did not disturb his sleep. The rooms were on the third floor of a large Victorian house and I was later informed that, at less than two years old, I had fallen down the stairs and almost torn off my left ear. The resulting noise had, of course, awakened my dad who took me to the infirmary to have it reattached. It seems that the din I created whilst being stitched up could be heard half a mile away. My dad was a man of somewhat dry wit and he once informed me that when my mouth was open, the rest of my face could not be seen.
He carried me home from the infirmary very tenderly and even put me to bed and read me a story. In my recollection it was the only time he ever did it which is probably why it is so ingrained on my memory.
To this day my left ear can be bent in the middle like a piece of cardboard but it still serves its design intention remarkably well.

1933
By the time I was three my parents had moved to a different set of rented rooms in Brislington, one of the outlying suburbs of Bristol. This meant that my dad now needed to ride his bike the five miles to work so we saw even less of him. He was still a fireman on the Temple Meads to Paddington run and told me, when I was old enough to understand, that he and his shovel shifted four tons of coal between the tender and the furnace during that 118 mile journey.
It was a regular occurrence that my mother went, at the weekend, to visit her own mother who lived in the village of Almondsbury about ten miles north of Bristol. We travelled on Saturday, stayed overnight and returned on Sunday evening. If he happened to be home, my father came too and visited his own mother, a widow, who lived in Cattybrook about two miles down the road from Gran.
Dad always walked back on Sunday morning to ring the bells at Almondsbury church and I could hear the bells from my little bed in Gran’s spare room. He took me with him when I was old enough and I still ring the bells in the same tower to this day.
I liked going to Gran’s because she cooked on a range and was a past master with bread pudding, one of my favourite delicacies. She also had an everlasting supply of chocolate biscuits and stuffed me full of them when Mum wasn’t looking.
She kept hens in a large enclosure at the end of the garden behind the “privy”. The privy contained a large bucket above which was a plank with a ‘derriere’ shaped hole cut in it. I’m not sure which was the most unpleasant, the summer sun with its accompanying aroma or the winter chill which made my teeth chatter.
My uncle Frank emptied the bucket once a month or so and buried the contents in the vegetable garden. He grew the biggest and tastiest vegetables I have ever seen. They appeared on the menu regularly during the growing season but my mum always seemed to have one of her “tummies” at that time of the year.

1934
Having prior knowledge of a current offer, I begged my mother to buy a packet of ‘Force’ porridge but she refused on the grounds that porridge was a winter fuel and it was now high summer. Eventually my pleas had the desired effect and the box of porridge oats was duly purchased. There was a coloured panel on the side explaining how to operate the small boat that was the free gift hidden in the packet.
My mother carried the bath (about four feet long) out into the garden and laboriously filled it with water using the watering can. The boat itself was about three inches long and had a hollow pipe protruding from its rear end below the water line. My mother read the instructions on the side of the packet and the boat was soon chugging up and down the bath with a pop, popping sound. My friends arrived to ask if I could “come out to play ” and were mesmerised by the magnificence of my new acquisition. Long queues at the Co-Op and ash bins full of porridge boxes served to illustrate the pressure brought to bear on the mothers of my friends.
I have no idea what technology was used in the engine of that boat but I remember that it involved a raw potato, a small candle and a dish of methylated spirits. There was often a free gift in (or with) the cereal boxes. The best one I remember was a ‘frog’ aeroplane with a wind up elastic engine. It made its final flight in Gran’s garden where it lodged in the top branches of the plum tree. I made several attempts to recover it but, after I’d fallen out of the tree several times, I gave it up and waited for Uncle Frank to rescue it for me.
My birthday is early in the year and Mum had given me to understand that, since I had caused no major damage for the last month, I could look forward to a special birthday present. I could barely control my emotions and made sure I did nothing likel