TASHY DID - A LIFE
Hey kids, grand-kids, and any other nosey people who are reading these pages, this is for you to read now or sometime in the future. It may tell you a little
about how life was 60 or so years ago and rather more about me. Why am I doing it?
In the years after my father's death, way back in 1981, I kept thinking of things I wished I'd talked to him about. After my mother's death, just over
thirteen years later, there was less of a knowledge-vacuum because mother talked more about her past.
Just recently, my daughter and I unearthed my mother's diaries which went back to 1929, when she was just 13 years old. This reminded me of the 1998
incident with my 6 year old and I decided to put down here the story of my life so my children and grandchildren could, if they wished, read about what I had done. I would use my
memory and those diaries to build a picture from 1949 to the present day and add some personal observations.
So, here we go. Each week we will have a new year with preceding weeks being archived. In the first few years, as I will have less to say, probably, I will
add some info about your grandparents and their parents.
1982
My first full year without my father and it proved to be a turning point in my life in so many ways. While no one would ever doubt the love my mother had for me, it was, quite often, a suffocating one and it was not the case of her being there for support as my father had always been. She was there to make sure you did as she wanted and, if you didn't, she would let you know. As I grew up I had learnt that the best way to deal with that was to, on most occasions, placate her feelings. It didn't take much effort to always make sure she knew where I was going and when I got back. It didn't stop me going wherever it was but it did mean that she and I had very few arguments. Others were less skilful and their resentment of her genuine, though over protective concerns, meant they rebelled and didn't appease her. So, arguments ensued, anger followed and a dislike festered. Sadly, my sister was in this category.
My mother also decided, at the beginning of this year, that she could no longer afford, nor did she really need, a large bungalow with a 300 foot rear garden. The house went on the market and sold for about £75,000 which mother invested in a smaller 3 bedroomed house on a new estate in Clacton-on-Sea. Mother paid £60,000 for the house which would now seem to be worth about £220,000. As she had a fairly large pension from father's work and an old age pension, she didn't need the balance and invested it very wisely as only mother could. Ken Dodd may have been her tax advisor though. She moved some time before Christmas 1982.
But, I digress. My father had been my confidante, my supporter and my rock and he had gone. I am no longer the Christian I was brought up to me. There may be a god; but I have no proof. Certainly, in my time, I have read too many accounts of events to know that most have a small element of fact coupled with the writers subjective views. When I was young I never really thought about the bible that I was being told formed the basis for my beliefs. Now I had done that and it made very little sense. If parts of it were blatantly untrue, why was any of it factual? Adam and Eve, so I read, had two sons and we were all descended from them. Really? That's a tricky one and I am sure it can be explained but I haven't heard such an explanation yet that could be believed.
Anyhow, I started this because, after my father died, I thought a great deal about the “after-life”. Had he simply vanished from my life forever. I can tell you, without a word of a lie, that he didn't. Not ONE day has gone by in the last 36 years (2017) when I have not thought, for a moment, about him. Not one day. So he left a mark but is it possible, as I later discovered some Maori believe, that his spirit remains watching over me. Again, I have no proof so I can't believe it but I do like that idea and there have been many times over those 36 years when I have asked for help or advice, just as I would have done when he was alive.
1982 saw me beginning the year unemployed, though still not claiming any benefit as my redundancy payment continued to prove useful and my wife was now working full time at what was, essentially, her playgroup. That didn't, however, mean she brought in any useful income and, indeed, there were times when we seemed to be supporting the playgroup. It did mean, though, she would be out of the house from 8.30am to 1.00pm each day. For the next six months I became a house-husband. I did all the housework, the cooking as well as my voluntary work at the youth club and my Monday afternoon at the old people's get together. I also started writing.
It began a couple of years before when my daughter was due to go into hospital to have her tonsils out. I wanted to give her some reassurance about hospitals and so I created a little character, called a Chunkle, who had some adventures, one of which was in a hospital. He made it all seem fun and not a bad place to be, especially only for a few days. Then he grew, and not wishing to be seen as sexist, I wrote another one where the creature went to a cricket match. Eventually there were some ten stories.
Then my wife asked if I could write some fun poems about the different types of play that children undertook. She was doing a course on pre-school children and had all the facts. I wrote a complete book with five or six poems about some ten or more types of play. I remember floor play, table play, sand play, water play and I even wrote, in poetic form, the way to produce play-dough at home. The book was never published and sadly seems to have gone missing.
The previous year our babysitter, the daughter of the guy for whom I did voluntary work, had needed an operation on her knee. She wanted to be a dancer and have her own school, which I gather she has since done, and it seemed sad that the operation might curtail this dream. I had re-written the words to “Bright Eyes” (sorry Mr Batt) and given it to her when we visited her in the hospital. I now had the idea to make a short film about a young dancer who had a dream that she couldn't attain. I spent time in these six months writing a screen play and learning a lot about such things but, just when I was planning to look for ways to produce it, things took a strange twist.
Mrs Thatcher, bless her little cotton handbags, had introduced the Youth Opportunity Programme as a way of getting young people out of unemployment, or off the list if you are cynical. Our local council, who indirectly ran the Youth Club I worked at, began a scheme and some kids at the youth club had started on it. One evening we were talking and one guy said that I should come and teach the so-called Life and Social Skills part of it because all the tutors were women who only did the job part time and were useless. His actual comment was that none of them had ever had a real job and so what did they know. A generalisation, I accept, but not without an element of truth. I might have mentioned that, in his last few months, my father and I had long chats and he told me how he had intended to go into teaching but wanted to experience the world of work first and then got stuck in that world.. It was a fact that some of these tutors hadn't really done that.
Needless to say I was interested and went along for a chat with the woman who ran the course, on a full-time basis I should add. She liked me, I was curious as to whether I could do the job and also seemed attractive to her as a curiosity. My young friend had been right; all other tutors were female. I duly started work as a Life and Social Skills tutor in September 1982. I would work, at first, one day a week. This soon evolved to 2 and by the end of the year I was the designated assistant, working a full 3 days a week,
The young people on the course were there for, I think at this time, 13 weeks and they were given four days training in practical skills. As far as this scheme was concerned that meant hairdressing, cooking, baby-care, painting and decorating, woodworking and working in the environment. Needless to say these options split on a sexual basis. However, for one day a week, they all came together, in groups of fifteen, for these Life add Social Skills sessions. Our brief was to help these young people with basic skills and prepare them for the world of work and the life that went with it.
Most, if not all, of the young people were so-called failures at school, although it was pretty soon clear to me that school had failed them. As a result they hated anything that remotely might look like a school lesson. In some aspects we were on to a winner. Teaching how to use a bank account and write cheques had not been covered at school but any attempt to improve their literacy and numeracy skills was often accompanied by the cry, loudly, of “this is just like school” and the subsequent sudden lack of interest and numerous attempts to disrupt anyone who did want to learn.
Discipline could be a problem. In order not to seem like school, the “classrooms” (sh, don't tell them) were just rooms with seats around the side more like a doctors waiting room. I sat in with a few of the existing tutors at first and saw their problem. My way of gaining control, when it is necessary, is to raise my voice. Women, by nature, can do this but it comes out like a high pitched squeak in many cases. Ask dear old cotton handbags about changing your voice for effect. They also, in my view, used video material far too much. In a 3 hour morning session for example, they would usually include an hour or more of video as part of the resources. Now some of these, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Video Arts were very good indeed, others produced by, for example Barclays on how to open a bank account, were not. The problem was also getting them back into “classroom” mode when they had just sat and watched TV.
After a couple of weeks I decided I wanted to try something different. We needed, when there was a new intake, to have some idea of how many skills these young people had. Until then they had done ice-breakers, which I hate, or tests, which I hate. Morally, I felt it wrong to impose these things on the young people when I didn't agree with them myself. So, I wrote a complete day session called “running your own radio show”. The young people were all given a list of about 100 popular songs with each one's running time and told to fit 16 into an hour show. Luckily (?) each one was a full minute or minutes and a half long. They were told to allow half a minute for each introduction and space for two 1 minute adverts. They had the morning to do this. They were also told that whoever did the best would be given a tape of all their choices. This was 1981, we had tapes.
I also told them they could talk while working if they wanted but they did have the lunch time deadline and I would be wandering around to check on progress. My concern was not whether they would enjoy it but would I be able to keep control by giving them so much freedom. I needn't have worried. My supervisor did pop in after 20 minutes and ask me to keep the noise down but she knew what I was doing and supported it. By lunch time I had the plans for 15 radio shows. Not only that but I was greeted with questions as to what would we do that afternoon.
They soon found out. When they came back I told them they now had to write the two adverts, they could choose the company, but I wanted to collect, at the end of the training day, from everyone the text to the two adverts. Again they could talk as they worked and again I wandered around. At the end of the day I had my adverts, I had my radio shows and, more importantly, I knew who had literacy or numeracy problems. I was no longer the teacher, I was the facilitator, a word I actually don't like, but one so accurate. At least half those who had been there told me, as they left, that it had been great fun.
Of course I had shot myself in the foot because the news of the “fun day” spread and other groups, tutored by other tutors, wanted it. I was asked to write it all out as a lesson plan, something we had to do for each session anyway. This is where other problems arose. The most important skill, in my view, for any tutor, teacher or facilitator, is their own personality and their own ability to react to their classes. This is the difference between stand-up comedy and a comedy sketch. Comedic actors can have fantastic timing, bring a script to life but, without a licence of their own personality, if an audience doesn't like it, they are stuck. Stand-up comedy can be done differently. If the audience don't like your planned performance of satire, providing you have the personality and the knowledge, you can try slapstick, audience participation or whatever. This to me is most akin to being a teacher or whatever word you want to use for those of us who try to bring more knowledge to others. A lesson plan, or a resource such as the radio show one, restricts the user if they simply follow it. The idea is there but you may have to adapt depending on your audience, their mood or even the weather outside.
By the end of the year I was beginning to write lesson plans and resources for others as well as collaborating with colleagues on new resources. I was happy in my work for the first time ever. I had been happy at work before and I had enjoyed certain aspects of it but now it was all encompassing. Despite only being employed for 3 days a week, I worked more.
We had also become involved in some local events too with my wife helping to run the local carnival. I was asked to think up an event and, as the London Marathon had begun the previous year, came up with our local equivalent, the Wivenhoe Mile. Participants had to run from the old water tower, in Tower Road would you believe, down the main street, finishing at the railway station. I measured it out, liaised with the local police about closing roads for the ten minutes or so and, in June of 1982, the first event took place. Everyone had a wristband with a number on and we had about 70 entrants. My job was to drop the flag, start the stop watch I held, run out of Tower Road ahead of the feled, leap into the back of a Matra 4X4, tailgate open, driver ready, and lead the field down the route and stop the watch as the leader crossed the line and then try and work out the times of all the others. It worked but a funnel at the end would have worked better as we noted wristband numbers of finishers. My own son, aged 5, did it although my daughter arrived last, in the car of the lady who was picking up stragglers.
Talking of athletics participation, one of the things we did with our youngsters on the YOPS was to spend an afternoon on the Colchester garrison Assault Course. Funnily enough some of the female tutors didn't like this experience as trainees expected them to join in so I would often swop with them. These went well on all but two occasions. The first was when a trainee fell off the scramble netting from the top, she just lost her grip, and, I felt, the army instructor was a bit slow to react and the other time was when, for some reason, we couldn't use the assault course so were taken indoors to the firing range. Two wide, targets at the end and a group of over-excited 16 year olds being told they could fire a gun, was a little scary. Fortunately, and quite rightly, our instructor put the fear of god into everyone and discipline was incredibly strict. All shots went forwards, sometimes the target was hit and I, for one of only twice in my life, fired a live round or two.
I now had a job and maybe a career I really liked. Next year I would enjoy even more. Of course, as in my earlier office jobs, I was unqualified paper-wise to do what I was doing.
My mother also decided, at the beginning of this year, that she could no longer afford, nor did she really need, a large bungalow with a 300 foot rear garden. The house went on the market and sold for about £75,000 which mother invested in a smaller 3 bedroomed house on a new estate in Clacton-on-Sea. Mother paid £60,000 for the house which would now seem to be worth about £220,000. As she had a fairly large pension from father's work and an old age pension, she didn't need the balance and invested it very wisely as only mother could. Ken Dodd may have been her tax advisor though. She moved some time before Christmas 1982.
But, I digress. My father had been my confidante, my supporter and my rock and he had gone. I am no longer the Christian I was brought up to me. There may be a god; but I have no proof. Certainly, in my time, I have read too many accounts of events to know that most have a small element of fact coupled with the writers subjective views. When I was young I never really thought about the bible that I was being told formed the basis for my beliefs. Now I had done that and it made very little sense. If parts of it were blatantly untrue, why was any of it factual? Adam and Eve, so I read, had two sons and we were all descended from them. Really? That's a tricky one and I am sure it can be explained but I haven't heard such an explanation yet that could be believed.
Anyhow, I started this because, after my father died, I thought a great deal about the “after-life”. Had he simply vanished from my life forever. I can tell you, without a word of a lie, that he didn't. Not ONE day has gone by in the last 36 years (2017) when I have not thought, for a moment, about him. Not one day. So he left a mark but is it possible, as I later discovered some Maori believe, that his spirit remains watching over me. Again, I have no proof so I can't believe it but I do like that idea and there have been many times over those 36 years when I have asked for help or advice, just as I would have done when he was alive.
1982 saw me beginning the year unemployed, though still not claiming any benefit as my redundancy payment continued to prove useful and my wife was now working full time at what was, essentially, her playgroup. That didn't, however, mean she brought in any useful income and, indeed, there were times when we seemed to be supporting the playgroup. It did mean, though, she would be out of the house from 8.30am to 1.00pm each day. For the next six months I became a house-husband. I did all the housework, the cooking as well as my voluntary work at the youth club and my Monday afternoon at the old people's get together. I also started writing.
It began a couple of years before when my daughter was due to go into hospital to have her tonsils out. I wanted to give her some reassurance about hospitals and so I created a little character, called a Chunkle, who had some adventures, one of which was in a hospital. He made it all seem fun and not a bad place to be, especially only for a few days. Then he grew, and not wishing to be seen as sexist, I wrote another one where the creature went to a cricket match. Eventually there were some ten stories.
Then my wife asked if I could write some fun poems about the different types of play that children undertook. She was doing a course on pre-school children and had all the facts. I wrote a complete book with five or six poems about some ten or more types of play. I remember floor play, table play, sand play, water play and I even wrote, in poetic form, the way to produce play-dough at home. The book was never published and sadly seems to have gone missing.
The previous year our babysitter, the daughter of the guy for whom I did voluntary work, had needed an operation on her knee. She wanted to be a dancer and have her own school, which I gather she has since done, and it seemed sad that the operation might curtail this dream. I had re-written the words to “Bright Eyes” (sorry Mr Batt) and given it to her when we visited her in the hospital. I now had the idea to make a short film about a young dancer who had a dream that she couldn't attain. I spent time in these six months writing a screen play and learning a lot about such things but, just when I was planning to look for ways to produce it, things took a strange twist.
Mrs Thatcher, bless her little cotton handbags, had introduced the Youth Opportunity Programme as a way of getting young people out of unemployment, or off the list if you are cynical. Our local council, who indirectly ran the Youth Club I worked at, began a scheme and some kids at the youth club had started on it. One evening we were talking and one guy said that I should come and teach the so-called Life and Social Skills part of it because all the tutors were women who only did the job part time and were useless. His actual comment was that none of them had ever had a real job and so what did they know. A generalisation, I accept, but not without an element of truth. I might have mentioned that, in his last few months, my father and I had long chats and he told me how he had intended to go into teaching but wanted to experience the world of work first and then got stuck in that world.. It was a fact that some of these tutors hadn't really done that.
Needless to say I was interested and went along for a chat with the woman who ran the course, on a full-time basis I should add. She liked me, I was curious as to whether I could do the job and also seemed attractive to her as a curiosity. My young friend had been right; all other tutors were female. I duly started work as a Life and Social Skills tutor in September 1982. I would work, at first, one day a week. This soon evolved to 2 and by the end of the year I was the designated assistant, working a full 3 days a week,
The young people on the course were there for, I think at this time, 13 weeks and they were given four days training in practical skills. As far as this scheme was concerned that meant hairdressing, cooking, baby-care, painting and decorating, woodworking and working in the environment. Needless to say these options split on a sexual basis. However, for one day a week, they all came together, in groups of fifteen, for these Life add Social Skills sessions. Our brief was to help these young people with basic skills and prepare them for the world of work and the life that went with it.
Most, if not all, of the young people were so-called failures at school, although it was pretty soon clear to me that school had failed them. As a result they hated anything that remotely might look like a school lesson. In some aspects we were on to a winner. Teaching how to use a bank account and write cheques had not been covered at school but any attempt to improve their literacy and numeracy skills was often accompanied by the cry, loudly, of “this is just like school” and the subsequent sudden lack of interest and numerous attempts to disrupt anyone who did want to learn.
Discipline could be a problem. In order not to seem like school, the “classrooms” (sh, don't tell them) were just rooms with seats around the side more like a doctors waiting room. I sat in with a few of the existing tutors at first and saw their problem. My way of gaining control, when it is necessary, is to raise my voice. Women, by nature, can do this but it comes out like a high pitched squeak in many cases. Ask dear old cotton handbags about changing your voice for effect. They also, in my view, used video material far too much. In a 3 hour morning session for example, they would usually include an hour or more of video as part of the resources. Now some of these, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Video Arts were very good indeed, others produced by, for example Barclays on how to open a bank account, were not. The problem was also getting them back into “classroom” mode when they had just sat and watched TV.
After a couple of weeks I decided I wanted to try something different. We needed, when there was a new intake, to have some idea of how many skills these young people had. Until then they had done ice-breakers, which I hate, or tests, which I hate. Morally, I felt it wrong to impose these things on the young people when I didn't agree with them myself. So, I wrote a complete day session called “running your own radio show”. The young people were all given a list of about 100 popular songs with each one's running time and told to fit 16 into an hour show. Luckily (?) each one was a full minute or minutes and a half long. They were told to allow half a minute for each introduction and space for two 1 minute adverts. They had the morning to do this. They were also told that whoever did the best would be given a tape of all their choices. This was 1981, we had tapes.
I also told them they could talk while working if they wanted but they did have the lunch time deadline and I would be wandering around to check on progress. My concern was not whether they would enjoy it but would I be able to keep control by giving them so much freedom. I needn't have worried. My supervisor did pop in after 20 minutes and ask me to keep the noise down but she knew what I was doing and supported it. By lunch time I had the plans for 15 radio shows. Not only that but I was greeted with questions as to what would we do that afternoon.
They soon found out. When they came back I told them they now had to write the two adverts, they could choose the company, but I wanted to collect, at the end of the training day, from everyone the text to the two adverts. Again they could talk as they worked and again I wandered around. At the end of the day I had my adverts, I had my radio shows and, more importantly, I knew who had literacy or numeracy problems. I was no longer the teacher, I was the facilitator, a word I actually don't like, but one so accurate. At least half those who had been there told me, as they left, that it had been great fun.
Of course I had shot myself in the foot because the news of the “fun day” spread and other groups, tutored by other tutors, wanted it. I was asked to write it all out as a lesson plan, something we had to do for each session anyway. This is where other problems arose. The most important skill, in my view, for any tutor, teacher or facilitator, is their own personality and their own ability to react to their classes. This is the difference between stand-up comedy and a comedy sketch. Comedic actors can have fantastic timing, bring a script to life but, without a licence of their own personality, if an audience doesn't like it, they are stuck. Stand-up comedy can be done differently. If the audience don't like your planned performance of satire, providing you have the personality and the knowledge, you can try slapstick, audience participation or whatever. This to me is most akin to being a teacher or whatever word you want to use for those of us who try to bring more knowledge to others. A lesson plan, or a resource such as the radio show one, restricts the user if they simply follow it. The idea is there but you may have to adapt depending on your audience, their mood or even the weather outside.
By the end of the year I was beginning to write lesson plans and resources for others as well as collaborating with colleagues on new resources. I was happy in my work for the first time ever. I had been happy at work before and I had enjoyed certain aspects of it but now it was all encompassing. Despite only being employed for 3 days a week, I worked more.
We had also become involved in some local events too with my wife helping to run the local carnival. I was asked to think up an event and, as the London Marathon had begun the previous year, came up with our local equivalent, the Wivenhoe Mile. Participants had to run from the old water tower, in Tower Road would you believe, down the main street, finishing at the railway station. I measured it out, liaised with the local police about closing roads for the ten minutes or so and, in June of 1982, the first event took place. Everyone had a wristband with a number on and we had about 70 entrants. My job was to drop the flag, start the stop watch I held, run out of Tower Road ahead of the feled, leap into the back of a Matra 4X4, tailgate open, driver ready, and lead the field down the route and stop the watch as the leader crossed the line and then try and work out the times of all the others. It worked but a funnel at the end would have worked better as we noted wristband numbers of finishers. My own son, aged 5, did it although my daughter arrived last, in the car of the lady who was picking up stragglers.
Talking of athletics participation, one of the things we did with our youngsters on the YOPS was to spend an afternoon on the Colchester garrison Assault Course. Funnily enough some of the female tutors didn't like this experience as trainees expected them to join in so I would often swop with them. These went well on all but two occasions. The first was when a trainee fell off the scramble netting from the top, she just lost her grip, and, I felt, the army instructor was a bit slow to react and the other time was when, for some reason, we couldn't use the assault course so were taken indoors to the firing range. Two wide, targets at the end and a group of over-excited 16 year olds being told they could fire a gun, was a little scary. Fortunately, and quite rightly, our instructor put the fear of god into everyone and discipline was incredibly strict. All shots went forwards, sometimes the target was hit and I, for one of only twice in my life, fired a live round or two.
I now had a job and maybe a career I really liked. Next year I would enjoy even more. Of course, as in my earlier office jobs, I was unqualified paper-wise to do what I was doing.
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