TASHY DID - A LIFE
1961
A pretty quiet year it would seem. Mother had begun having tests at the local hospitals and, toward the end of the year, she was diagnosed as being a coeliac.
Few had heard of this in those days, I think she was one of the first adults diagnosed as such, but it meant, in simple terms, that her body was intolerant to
gluten or at least it reacted badly to it. Gluten is in wheat, rye and barley. She was given a massive list of food she couldn’t eat; obvious ones like bread
and cakes, less obvious things like sausages, some gravy and sauces. For the next 34 years, with only one known mistake, she stuck to this diet. She
was amazing. She had found moving extremely painful and couldn’t really walk anywhere, even stairs were difficult. Once the diet started, she came back to life
again.
And what was I doing with my time? School continued. In November I went to University College School for a pre-entry interview and test. The school didn’t
follow convention, in so many ways, and didn’t use the standard Common Entrance exam but did things their way. We did a Maths and English test and then had
an interview with the Head. This was scary. You waited outside his door until the green light came on and then you knocked and entered. He invited you to
sit opposite him across a massive desk, He had white hair and, at that time, seemed a very large figure to a little 12-year-old. I recently came across this
photo of the staff in 1975 and he is the guy in the middle at the front and seems so much shorter than I remember. The guy on the far left at the front also,
unwittingly, played a big part in my life though probably never knew it. I passed the interview and would then be allowed to sit the school’s own exam in
June of the next year.
In my spare time I had several hobbies. Two were connected to my main love of motor racing, two to my second love of cricket and the fifth covered them both,
with a few additions. I had my model cars and I would, on wet days, race these against each other in my bedroom, recreating the races of the time. But, for me,
nothing is simple. I had a piece of hardboard, one end of which I would place on a few books. The cars would then be, individually, placed at the top of the
board and allowed to run down. Rulers were then placed from the end wall and the distance, from wall to front of car would be measured and written down.
For a twenty lap race, each car would go twenty times and the one with the least distance would be the winner.
As I had ordinary models as well as racers, some rallies would be held. The 1961 Monte Carlo Rally was run to some weird formula where the square
root of something was multiplied by something else to arrive at some coefficient applied to cars times. The result, in the real thing, was that three
French small engined Panhards won. I spent days working out this formula for all my cars. I had no calculator and used up several trees. I then applied
this to my own form of a rally. No wonder I was so good at maths.
On dry days, I would recreate circuits in the back garden, using planks of wood and stones as kerbs and borders. My sister is demonstrating the tricky
corner at the end of the garden, a tricky right hander leading to another right round the apple tree. I had actually sawn off three low branches from the
tree to allow us to go round it. When my sister was given a swing, it was placed just in front of this tree and the tree and then round the swing, quickly
became the chicane and Woodcote corner at Goodwood. My father was exceedingly tolerant. Whilst I said I would ride on dry days, I would also go out when the
day was dry but the grass wet. After a while his lawn began to look a little like a moto-cross track and there is a photo later which will show this better.
He would sometimes come home and find he had horizontal lupins in the flower beds where I had experienced a slight off. He never once told me to stop. Grass
will grow back, flowers be replanted but childhood can never return; possibly why I have never left it.
Of course, for me, simply riding round was no good; there had to be competition. I attached my wrist watch to the handlebars and would time myself around the
track. If I remember correctly, 6 seconds was the par time so I had to do 10 laps in a minute. “Races” would last 10 minutes and, if I made a mistake, and I
did (remember the lupins), I would have to charge to make up time. On my way home from school, by train, I had once noticed, I think, a green formula junior
Lotus, parked behind a block of flats. This entailed a long bike ride that evening and, after passing several times, a quick cycle into the car park and a
look at the car. I did this quite often but never waited long in case someone came and asked me what I was doing. If this is the flat I now believe it to be,
it was likely in my own interests that, as a highly impressionable 13-year-old, I met none of the occupants. I didn’t know it at the time but it appears there
were two motor racing mad Geordies in the area, weren’t there, Sir Frank?
The flats were near the local library and it was here that my third interest lay. Father would take me there every fortnight and I would get out a book on
motor racing and also something about explorers or exploration. I avidly read about Sir Edmund Hilary’s slight disobedience during the cross polar trek of
1957-58 and you can imagine my delight when, some 45 years later I had the pleasure of speaking to his wife. I also loved books about early Australia. In
June 1961 our school was given a Friday off and we were all expected to go along to Lords to watch the test match. It was an Ashes year and I was going to
see my hero Richie Benaud. I know, wrong country, but my earlier hero had been Jim Laker and England had not liked his book and virtually banned him from
test cricket. I never forgave them and, said quietly, have been an Australian supporter ever since. My luck being what it is, Benaud was injured and didn’t
play. The later treatment of Tom Graveney, another hero, just cemented my view.
And this leads on to my other hobby, cricket. I discovered that if I placed the wicket diagonally across the grass in the back garden, I had a 22 yard
pitch. Most evenings, father would come out and bowl to me but he didn’t like bowling and by now he was 55 and less mobile in his arm movements. He therefore
batted and I began my life as a bowler. Within the confines of the garden, in getting a full size pitch, I was left with a four pace run up and this, like Marion
Bartoli’s enforced back-swing, followed me through life.
When father wasn’t around I had to improvise a batsman. I used one of the old trestles from our time in Leeds and turned it on its side so it made a v-shape.
The wider end was at the front and the narrow end placed on the crease, in front of the wicket. In order to hit the stumps I had to learn to bowl close enough
to avoid the outside blocks, on a length which allowed the ball to turn in and hit the wicket having missed the inner part of the Vee.
I sometimes persuaded my sister to be batsman and, on one memorable occasion, she actually scored 113 before an unintentional body line delivery missed
landing on the pitch but successfully landed on her thumb, at the time on the bat handle. Being a bit of a woosy, she retired hurt and I don’t remember
her playing again. I did however find another way of involving her in my cricket practice. She would swing, funnily enough on her swing, and I would place a
tennis ball on the ground mid-way along her swing path. I would then retreat to some 12 feet in front of her and she would, once I was ready, kick the
ball as she swung forwards. The beauty was her skills meant the ball would shoot off at all angles and it was here, that I developed my diving skills which
I can still do today, or at least fairly recently.
These were also honed by placing planks of wood, slanted on bricks, some yards from our house wall. I would then throw a tennis ball against the wall and
it would come back and hopefully bounce on one of the planks of wood. All planks were at different angles, some slanting left, some right, so I would have
to dive and react very quickly. I also used the method, without planks, to practice batting. However the ball came back too slow and high to cut, it was
of course a tennis ball, the off and on drives headed toward the house, a pull shot had to be tempered or it went over the fence so I developed a very
interesting fine leg drive. This involved waiting till the ball bounced, on leg side, and then turning the bat and helping the ball down the garden.
Care was needed because if you hit it too straight, you knocked over the stumps.
As you can see I had a really fun childhood, or at least I thought so. I spent much of my time alone but always found some way to amuse myself.
And what was I doing with my time? School continued. In November I went to University College School for a pre-entry interview and test. The school didn’t
follow convention, in so many ways, and didn’t use the standard Common Entrance exam but did things their way. We did a Maths and English test and then had
an interview with the Head. This was scary. You waited outside his door until the green light came on and then you knocked and entered. He invited you to
sit opposite him across a massive desk, He had white hair and, at that time, seemed a very large figure to a little 12-year-old. I recently came across this
photo of the staff in 1975 and he is the guy in the middle at the front and seems so much shorter than I remember. The guy on the far left at the front also,
unwittingly, played a big part in my life though probably never knew it. I passed the interview and would then be allowed to sit the school’s own exam in
June of the next year.
In my spare time I had several hobbies. Two were connected to my main love of motor racing, two to my second love of cricket and the fifth covered them both,
with a few additions. I had my model cars and I would, on wet days, race these against each other in my bedroom, recreating the races of the time. But, for me,
nothing is simple. I had a piece of hardboard, one end of which I would place on a few books. The cars would then be, individually, placed at the top of the
board and allowed to run down. Rulers were then placed from the end wall and the distance, from wall to front of car would be measured and written down.
For a twenty lap race, each car would go twenty times and the one with the least distance would be the winner.
As I had ordinary models as well as racers, some rallies would be held. The 1961 Monte Carlo Rally was run to some weird formula where the square
root of something was multiplied by something else to arrive at some coefficient applied to cars times. The result, in the real thing, was that three
French small engined Panhards won. I spent days working out this formula for all my cars. I had no calculator and used up several trees. I then applied
this to my own form of a rally. No wonder I was so good at maths.
On dry days, I would recreate circuits in the back garden, using planks of wood and stones as kerbs and borders. My sister is demonstrating the tricky
corner at the end of the garden, a tricky right hander leading to another right round the apple tree. I had actually sawn off three low branches from the
tree to allow us to go round it. When my sister was given a swing, it was placed just in front of this tree and the tree and then round the swing, quickly
became the chicane and Woodcote corner at Goodwood. My father was exceedingly tolerant. Whilst I said I would ride on dry days, I would also go out when the
day was dry but the grass wet. After a while his lawn began to look a little like a moto-cross track and there is a photo later which will show this better.
He would sometimes come home and find he had horizontal lupins in the flower beds where I had experienced a slight off. He never once told me to stop. Grass
will grow back, flowers be replanted but childhood can never return; possibly why I have never left it.
Of course, for me, simply riding round was no good; there had to be competition. I attached my wrist watch to the handlebars and would time myself around the
track. If I remember correctly, 6 seconds was the par time so I had to do 10 laps in a minute. “Races” would last 10 minutes and, if I made a mistake, and I
did (remember the lupins), I would have to charge to make up time. On my way home from school, by train, I had once noticed, I think, a green formula junior
Lotus, parked behind a block of flats. This entailed a long bike ride that evening and, after passing several times, a quick cycle into the car park and a
look at the car. I did this quite often but never waited long in case someone came and asked me what I was doing. If this is the flat I now believe it to be,
it was likely in my own interests that, as a highly impressionable 13-year-old, I met none of the occupants. I didn’t know it at the time but it appears there
were two motor racing mad Geordies in the area, weren’t there, Sir Frank?
The flats were near the local library and it was here that my third interest lay. Father would take me there every fortnight and I would get out a book on
motor racing and also something about explorers or exploration. I avidly read about Sir Edmund Hilary’s slight disobedience during the cross polar trek of
1957-58 and you can imagine my delight when, some 45 years later I had the pleasure of speaking to his wife. I also loved books about early Australia. In
June 1961 our school was given a Friday off and we were all expected to go along to Lords to watch the test match. It was an Ashes year and I was going to
see my hero Richie Benaud. I know, wrong country, but my earlier hero had been Jim Laker and England had not liked his book and virtually banned him from
test cricket. I never forgave them and, said quietly, have been an Australian supporter ever since. My luck being what it is, Benaud was injured and didn’t
play. The later treatment of Tom Graveney, another hero, just cemented my view.
And this leads on to my other hobby, cricket. I discovered that if I placed the wicket diagonally across the grass in the back garden, I had a 22 yard
pitch. Most evenings, father would come out and bowl to me but he didn’t like bowling and by now he was 55 and less mobile in his arm movements. He therefore
batted and I began my life as a bowler. Within the confines of the garden, in getting a full size pitch, I was left with a four pace run up and this, like Marion
Bartoli’s enforced back-swing, followed me through life.
When father wasn’t around I had to improvise a batsman. I used one of the old trestles from our time in Leeds and turned it on its side so it made a v-shape.
The wider end was at the front and the narrow end placed on the crease, in front of the wicket. In order to hit the stumps I had to learn to bowl close enough
to avoid the outside blocks, on a length which allowed the ball to turn in and hit the wicket having missed the inner part of the Vee.
I sometimes persuaded my sister to be batsman and, on one memorable occasion, she actually scored 113 before an unintentional body line delivery missed
landing on the pitch but successfully landed on her thumb, at the time on the bat handle. Being a bit of a woosy, she retired hurt and I don’t remember
her playing again. I did however find another way of involving her in my cricket practice. She would swing, funnily enough on her swing, and I would place a
tennis ball on the ground mid-way along her swing path. I would then retreat to some 12 feet in front of her and she would, once I was ready, kick the
ball as she swung forwards. The beauty was her skills meant the ball would shoot off at all angles and it was here, that I developed my diving skills which
I can still do today, or at least fairly recently.
These were also honed by placing planks of wood, slanted on bricks, some yards from our house wall. I would then throw a tennis ball against the wall and
it would come back and hopefully bounce on one of the planks of wood. All planks were at different angles, some slanting left, some right, so I would have
to dive and react very quickly. I also used the method, without planks, to practice batting. However the ball came back too slow and high to cut, it was
of course a tennis ball, the off and on drives headed toward the house, a pull shot had to be tempered or it went over the fence so I developed a very
interesting fine leg drive. This involved waiting till the ball bounced, on leg side, and then turning the bat and helping the ball down the garden.
Care was needed because if you hit it too straight, you knocked over the stumps.
As you can see I had a really fun childhood, or at least I thought so. I spent much of my time alone but always found some way to amuse myself.
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