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.
1986
Again, I will not detail every week of our coastal journey but I think a few memories are in order. The first was in Belford where we saw a still born calf being born and I will forever remember the lights of oil rigs anchored outside Aberdeen. The loneliness of Scotland is amazing, we once drove for nearly two hours and only saw one other vehicle.
The Isle of Man crossing should never be brought up again, and I use my words carefully. Brown paper bag manufacturers products were thoroughly tested, and found wanting. We arrived in Blackpool in time for a quick look at the illuminations, this time a poor choice of words as it took us 5 hours to drive along the prom. I am not great lover of theme parks but we went onto one at Blackpool and my daughter wanted to go on the pirate ship, that swing gondola type thing which nearly reaches the horizontal. I objected but my wife disagreed. Knowing what I know now I think my daughter, then aged ten, may well have been at the lower limit height-wise. I gather she found it hard to stay in her seat but somehow survived. I couldn't watch.
In Liverpool we had gear-lever problems and took the motorhome to a garage. A typical scouse mechanic entertained us for half an hour as he made repairs. We knew it would be fun when he lent into the van, wobbled the gear-lever about and, when it came off in his hand, asked if this usually happened. It was at this time we popped home for a week and when we returned we had a puncture that I noticed one morning. I decided to change the tyre myself but the spare on that motorhome was fixed horizontally under the back of the vehicle. I lay under it, undid the four bolts, not realising their were only three, so that when I undid the third the wheel fell down and landed on my left hand, crushing my two smallest fingers. The pain was incredible and I could literally see the finger swelling up. I quickly removed my wedding ring and ran indoors.
I put the hand under cold water, I've no idea why, and after half an hour the pain lessened and I went down and finished the wheel change. We then went out for the day. The problem with this sort of venture is that injury and illness have to be ignored where possible. I had to go to a chemist in St Ives in Cornwall some four months later as the wound was still oozing some sort of yellow pus. Well don't read while you eating. Talking of cold water, a little later in the trip I had severe toothache which lasted about a week. My way of dealing with this, as we travelled on, was to take frozen water with us and drink the freezing liquid, once it had part melted, during the day. Eventually the pain disappeared, just outside Lynmouth if I remember. We did call a doctor out to my son when we were in Holywell Bay in Cornwall as he had his first ever asthma attack.
We had another van related problem in South Devon when it broke down for no reason, It was January, snowing and the AA came out and agreed to load us on their flatbed truck and take us to their service point. They then decided they could take us on to our destination, which was to be Dittisham, although by then it was nearly midnight. They had no idea where they were going and we went down one narrow country lane, turned a corner, and the headlights of the flatbed lit up a rushing river about 15 yards in front. We stopped and reversed. We also ailed to drive the motorhome up Porlock Hill, in an incident that was sort of repeated 10 years on at the Honister Pass. You will have to wait. We watched Live Aid in Ulrome and saw the Challenger space disaster in St Austell. Regardless of all the arguments and unpleasant atmospheres, it was an amazing experience.
As I said before, I had the offer of a job on my return. I was to run the tutoring side of training to be provided by a local, Colchester, organisation. The plan was for me to be in place late June and start training in August. However, when I came home at Christmas and popped in to see them, the boss asked me if I could start earlier so I would have everything in place sooner. He also said they would be moving to new premises and I could help with this.
We therefore stopped our travelling a little earlier than intended and came home late March. The two young people who had travelled with us stayed on with us at my sister's house for a while and we went out three times at weekends to cover the rest of the coast from Portsmouth to Dartford. During the May half-term, both children had returned to their primary school and slotted back in, we went down to Eastbourne to visit a friend and look at that part of the coast. We actually took our old tent, six-berth, and put it up on a site near the friend's house. Unfortunately, remember I was the only adult male on this trip, I did most of the putting up and then crawled round the bottom of the tent hammering in the pegs for the guy roped. As I stood up from the last one, my back locked. I could not move.
The friend suggested, as her husband was away, that we all come and stay with her for the night and this we did. I spent that night flat on the floor and I couldn't bend at all. I was no better the next day but we still went out, I have no idea how I sat to drive the van. The following day we took a stroll into Eastbourne and my son say some go-karts. He pleaded to go on but he was too small. He could only travel in a two-seater with an adult. My wife didn't want to take him so I said I would. I gently lowered myself into the kart and we set of, pretty quickly, and did about 20 laps. My wife's final comments of “you are an idiot” ringing in my ears as we sped around. Imagine my surprise when we stopped and I stood up and got out with no pain and no immobility. The bouncing with my back so low to the ground had obviously put back whatever had dislodged. No pain isn't quite correct and I have had some back pain every minute of every day ever since but it has only locked like that on two other occasions, one in Poland, one in New Zealand, of which more later.
Before I turn to how work was, I must tell you that we stayed at my sister's house until the end of September and then rented a place for six months which took us well into 1987. We had at least 3 meals a wekk with my mother but still my wife managed to argue with her. Personally, I also found it difficult in these situations as, firstly, I didn't want to take sides and secondly, if I had, I also found it difficult to see why people couldn't just accept mother for who she was. Funnily enough both my wife and my sister, the two people who had the worst relationships with my mother, always come across as nice, caring people. Knowing what I know now, to me, there is a undercurrent of dishonesty in both of them. I was once told that what people say about others tells you more about them. Both my sister and wife maintain I am dishonest, something I dispute. Maybe it tells me more about them. It seems clear that my son was bought a pair of roller skates at some stage and tried them out on his grandmother's patio.
To be honest, what I thought was going to be my ideal job, turned out to be nothing short of a disaster. As Head Tutor I would have total responsibility for training the retail and clerical trainees plus tutoring the computer aspect of the courses we would offer. My overall boss was ex RAF, totally out of place in business but very much a club man with appropriate tie, He knew nothing about training. My actual boss, head of training, knew a bit about putting trainees in placement but nothing about training them on site.
I had been told we were moving to a brand new purpose built set of offices on 2 floors where I, my tutors, admin staff and trainees would have sole use of the top floor. I started on April 2nd and we moved into the new building in December of that year. In between times we tutored in their old building, where one classroom was virtually in the reception area of the offices, and for 2 months were sent out to the basement floor of a local print works. I was given an office in that basement, while my tutors worked from the empty new building but came across to tutor.
I had promised both young ladies I would find them work when we returned and the one who had been doing my secretarial work on the trip joined in July as my secretary and secretary to the tutors. In the first 3 months, before trainees started, my job was to write all the courses and interview, and appoint, the tutors. It was agreed we would have 2 full time and 3 part time tutors. We advertised and I decided that I would hold a group interview with a dozen or so I thought suitable. I asked them to prepare a brief example of how they would deal with a subject that would be taught to our trainees and deliver the 5 minute piece to everyone else.
It is a well-known fact I do not suffer fools. It seems amazing that I managed to pick 10 out of 12 who fitted that category. Two turned up late, one chose to write her session on the white board but couldn't spell, one forgot what she was talking about. My wife, who wanted to continue doing training, also applied. She and one other impressed enough to be given the full time positions. I managed to find 3 part timers and we were ready for trainees in August.
There was so much disruption in those first months that the the undercurrent of personal problems probably got hidden. I spent my time pacifying tutors who were effectively working in a building site or a cellar, trainees who were being talked down to by tutors and the beginnings of a personal attack that would emerge next year. I think that is enough for this year though, don't you?
Back to the top
