The Beginning Thoughts and Recollections of Terry Dactyl

The Beginning:

  Thoughts and Recollections

  of Terry Dactyl

  Brian Leo Lee

  Published by Brian Leo Lee

  Copyright

  2011

  Brian Leo Lee

  Cover

  Copyright 2011

  Brian Leo Lee

  The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved.

  Memories of long ago, do they come as a flash, a sudden thought from out of nowhere. Do present days' experiences jolt you to a time when you were much younger?

  Are you happy to relive those thoughts or do you try to hide them by pretending they never happened. Can you be sure that they really did happen to you, or are they figments of your imagination, to be manipulated as you please.

  Occasionally, do you try to piece together your life so far? To link the events which may have had positive or negative effects. Which even now, today, you might wish had never happened. I have and this is what I remembered about my early years.

  Terry Dactyl

  Chapter 1

  First things first, I was born in Manchester, 16th November 1937. My dad Dougie Dactyl and mother, Mildred (Malloy) lived at 18 Moodle Lane, Manchester. He worked in an engineering factory.

  Early recollections standing on a Booth Hall Children’s hospital bed, aged two or three, listening to a song on the ward radio, 'You are My Sunshine'. I was in for a tonsil operation, so I was told, many years later.

  Also around that time, of walking up the path to our new home, a semi, 13 Newfield Crescent, Crossacres, Manchester. (Later to become one of the countries largest overspill housing estates)

  My brother Edwin was born in Blackpool, June 1940. My mother and I had been evacuated from Manchester because of the threat of German bombers. We then returned to Newfield Crescent some months later.

  Our house suffered from some damage when a bomb landed two roads away and debris crashed through the roof. This must have been the December 1940 raid on Manchester, which was hit quite badly, according to the news reports.

  The air raid situation led to the installation of an Anderson bomb shelter in our back garden. This was a hole in the ground into which curved corrugated steel sheets were fixed. The top half was then covered with soil. You had to climb down into the dark interior, through a very small entrance. Inside there were four wooden bunk beds with interlocking cloth strips as the bed base.

  Crossacres was only three or four miles from Ringway airport, which at that time, was a war target.

  Air raid warning sirens were a regular occurrence. Then if it a was a night time attack, having been woken up in a bedroom with blacked out windows, the family would hurry down to the air raid shelter. You used to listen in the dark to the noise of aero engines. There was a difference in the sound between the English / German ones.

  Over the next few years we spent quite a few nights in that shelter, with just a candle for light. It was often very damp and cold.

  I was told many years later that we had to lodge a Polish Paratrooper, whilst he trained at Ringway. Poly Joe my dad used to call him, mother told me later.

  Dad was also in the Home Guard. He kept his unloaded rifle in the hall. Later on, I used to play with it in the living room.

  I had my own gas mask of course, which I had to take to school. Babies had a special gas mask container. It was like a small rucksack with a very large transparent cover, air tight except for the special gas filter.

  I went to nursery when I was around four/five years old (Brownley Road School). There were underground air raid shelters in the school grounds too, on the edge of the playing fields. I can remember going down the steps into a long dark passage. Wooden benches were fixed along each side. We sat close together, holding our gas masks. I assume now that the odd oil storm lamp was the only safe lighting available.

  This was the time when my sister Milly was born 19 April 1942 (at home). I can remember going up stairs. We had a ‘home help,’ a nurse or neighbour, looking after Edwin and I. Upstairs in the bedroom I looked at my mother and saw lying next to her, a head, just a head poking out of the sheets. It was of course Milly. I was very surprised.

  A year or so later, sometime in the afternoon, according to my mother, Dad was upstairs asleep after working a nightshift. Edwin and a friend found some matches and set alight some papers, which were in a cupboard in the living room. Fortunately, no one was hurt and there was little damage to the living room. The fire brigade, being on the scene very quickly, soon doused the fire.

  During the summer term of 1944, I moved to St Paul's, a catholic all age (5-15) Elementary School in Crossacres. We used a slate and a piece of chalk for practising the alphabet.

  The next year I was in Miss Sheridan’s class. We learnt to read with a book about a Farmer, Old Lob and his horse Dobbin. I was lucky that she allowed me to write with my left hand, apparently it was the practice at that time to beat a left-handed child in order to make them use their right hand. It was said that this caused many of those kids to stutter.

  Sometime during this year, the Headmaster Mr Chanter, asked me to take Edwin home from school because he had been sick. Edwin was taken to hospital, suffering, I learnt many years later from a tumour.

  He died in November 1945, aged five.

  The funeral was at my grandparents’ (Malloy) house in Blackley, North Manchester.

  Edwin lay in his coffin in the parlour. The lid was off and I went in and I saw his face for the last time. Fair hair, freckly cheeks, face very serene. I was nearly eight years old.

  He was buried in Moston Cemetery, North Manchester.

  I remember on the way to the cemetery as the cortège passed along the road, every man I saw wearing a hat or cap would doff it in respect of the hearse. You don't see much of that these days.

  Newfield Crescent celebrated the end of the war with a street party. Every house brought out their tables and chairs and put them in the middle of the road. Food rationing was forgotten. It was a happy day.

  Crowds thronged the centre of Manchester to see the spoils of war. A complete V 2 rocket was later shown in the city centre.

  To get to the town centre from Crossacres, we would travel by bus for about three miles to Barlow Moor Road. Then we would change to a double - decker electric tram.

  At the terminus the tram did not turn round for the return journey. There was a driving control at both the front and rear of the tram.

  To return back along the tramway tracks, all the conductor did was remove a long pole with a hook on one end from the bottom of the tram (about 20 feet long or 6 metres) and hook the trolley pole down from the electric overhead cable.

  Then he would walk around the tram and replace the trolley pole. The tram could now make the return journey without being turned round. It was always fascinating to watch.

  Chapter 2

  Then In 1946, November, brother Charles was born.

  That winter became known as the infamous ‘1947 winter.’

  In January 1947, the snow came up to my knees. For weeks I had to walk through the snow to school. I wore old socks as gloves. Snow blocked roads caused serious shortages. The house was freezing. The snow covered roads lasted until March.

  My mother told me years later, that she pushed Charles, in his pram, down to Gatley, the nearest railway line, to plead with the railway - engine drivers for some lumps of coal. Domestic coal was not available for weeks.

  During this period I began my first steps to musical stardom. It didn't last long.

  I was lent my Aunty Vera's violin and lessons were arranged fo
r me to learn how to play it. The very old lady (to me at that time) a Mrs Jenson, charged half a crown (12.5p) per lesson.

  The violin lessons were in the evening after tea. I would walk for about 25 minutes to her house and the weekly lesson, which lasted for about three quarters of an hour.

  I was supposed to practice three nights a week in my box-room sized bedroom. It was mid winter, snow lay on the ground and my bedroom was always freezing. No central heating, no double - glazing, no fitted carpets, only linoleum covering the floorboards and a single-bar electric fire for heating.

  A scared cat sounded more melodic than my violin practice sessions. After about six weeks I decided that this was not for me. The violin was quietly forgotten.

  I also had to help out with the shopping. The nearest shops were about a mile away.

  There was another group of shops on Greenwood Road but they were further away.

  Every Saturday I had to collect the family shopping. Armed with a list, I would work my way up the row of wooden shops.

  These, I have only recently found out, were temporary shops built to serve parts of the new Crossacres estate.

  The housing planners forgot to factor in the need for sufficient shops in the original plans. I learnt later on.

  First, the butchers a Coop, queuing for ages (no self service in those days).

  Ration books were needed for some things. In the grocers, (Coop) again, queuing again I would hand in a list to an assistant, ration book for sugar, bacon etc

  The shop assistant would cut a wedge from a large slab of butter and using two little wooden ‘paddles’ pat it into shape, weigh it and then wrap it in greaseproof paper.

  Sugar was scooped up from a sack, weighed and put into a small blue paper bag. Sugar paper was quite strong and was often used for many other purposes.

  A side of bacon would be fitted to a hand-slicing machine. Rashers were cut to order.

  Biscuits were in large tins and were bought loose by the ounce/pound.

  The bill and your money for payment were put in a metal canister, which was then fixed to a wire carrier. The canister was then catapulted along the wire, to a cashier who sat in a cage set in the middle of the store. A receipt and any change would then be sent back the same way.

  It took quite a while to shop in those days. I would then walk up to the greengrocers. All the produce was of course loose.

  In the sweet shop/tobacconist, I picked our individual 2oz a week, per person, ration of toffees.

  A shopping bag for greens etc, together with the meat and groceries meant a slow walk home for a small kid like me. I did this most Saturdays.

  A bonus was being able to chew the corner off the crusty loaf I usually had to get on most Saturday mornings. I remember that the bakers shop was one of those that priced items in farthings. Four farthings equalled one penny.

  There was a daily milkman from the Coop. The Coop was popular because of the Divi. The Dividend was about 5d or 6p today - for every pound spent.

  A handcart from a local farm (our Crescent was just across the road from the edge of the estate) brought fresh milk in a large churn. They ladled the milk into a jug if you bought from them. Mother preferred the Coop. A bread van came round every day as well.

  Now and then a handcart containing a large grindstone for sharpening knives and scissors would come round.

  Sometimes a horse and cart 'rag and bone' man used to come, offering 'Donkey Stones' for old clothes etc. These were a kind of soap - stone for cleaning front doorsteps, leaving them either white or cream coloured.

  That summer the whole family went on holiday, the first that I can remember, to Rhyl, North Wales.

  We stayed in an old army camp, the 'Sandy Beach Holiday Camp'. The ex-army huts were made into ‘chalets.’

  To get to the beach you had to pass through an old barbed-wire fence, conveniently broken and then squeeze through a line of concrete blocks, ‘Dragons Teeth’, old anti-tank traps. There was a great sandy beach to play on.

  Once we had a day trip to New Town, Liverpool. We went from Central Station, Manchester, on a steam train.

  I can remember crossing the River Mersey on the ferry and walking along the promenade of New Brighton.

  Sometime afterwards, I can remember going to the shops with my mother and hearing the sound of a hooter.

  ‘That must be one of the ships on the Mersey at Liverpool.’ I said.

  Of course it wasn’t. Liverpool was 35 miles away. It was the sound of a local factory hooter.

  Chapter 3

  The house in Newfield Crescent had 3 bedrooms, one a small box room and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs we had a tiny hall behind the front door, living room, a kitchen and by the back door, a toilet on one side (no toilet paper except for old newspapers cut into small squares and hung by a piece of string tied to a nail fixed to the door) and a coal store on the other.

  As I have already said, the floors were covered with linoleum (freezing to the feet in the bedrooms during winter). No slippers then! A large carpet square was placed over the lino in the living room.

  We did not have a stair carpet for years. Then we got a strip of carpet, laid only in the centre of the stairs, held down by stair-rods.

  The fireplace in the living room also heated a cast iron oven range in the kitchen. They were back to back through the wall. This had to be wiped with Black Lead grate polish.

  There was also a gas heated water boiler standing in one corner of the kitchen for washing the clothes. A gas stove stood next to it. A pantry was fitted under the stairs.

  The two larger bedrooms had tiny coal fireplaces, only used when you were ill. There was always a rack full of drying clothes hanging above the kitchen table.

  I can remember that my Dad used to often cook pigs - trotters, cow - heels and tripe, things my mother would never cook for herself or us.

  To this day, I can’t look at tripe, let alone eat it.

  One of my favourite meals was ‘Pobs,’ hot milk poured onto a bowl of lumps of bread sprinkled with sugar.

  Another thing Dad liked to prepare were herb medicines. There were jars of strange seeds and herbs that he kept, for which none of us knew the purpose they were used for.

  We had a small radio to which I listened to the Children's Hour and in the evenings, Tommy Hanley's ITMA. (It's That Man Again- a comedy programme). Later, Dick Barton - Special Agent, was a must!

  At this time, many of my friend's families had radios that were powered by a wireless accumulator, a glass jar battery. They had to be taken to a hardware shop for recharging.

  This also reminds me of that time when many of my friends wore clogs. Leather uppers with wooden soles shod with strips of iron. They could kick the pavement or road and make sparks.

  I pestered my mother for a pair. I never did get any. Later I understood why. My family did not wear clogs. There was a pecking order of social standing to which my mother adhered to most strongly.

  I think it was the summer of1947 that I went to Eire - with my grandparents (Malloy) to visit Aunty Vera and Uncle Joe Herne.

  They lived near Galway on the west coast. We went via Holyhead on a ferry, (steerage way- i.e. 3rd class at the stern).

  The sea crossing to Dun Laoghaire was through a raging gale. Most of the passengers were seasick.

  I didn't know what to expect since this was my first sea trip, so I probably survived the trip much better than most other passengers.

  I stayed in Eire for about six weeks, with my new - found cousins. Shaun, Thomas and Mo. It was a painful experience in some ways because my cousins did not wear any shoes during the school holidays (Sunday Mass excepted). I had to follow suit. Ouch! I never knew that there were so many small stones or thorny plants lying around waiting for you to tread on them.

  There was no rationing there and I believe I lost my thin, pasty looking complexion.

  One side effect of the holiday was the fact that I arrived back home, three weeks after the
school term had begun.

  This meant I was not put into my year group, of about 45/50 pupils, in each class. The school was obviously over-subscribed.

  I had to join one of the two classes in the school hall. They were back to back with a dividing curtain between them. Quietness was the order of the day.

  My class teacher Mr Landy kept order with a short piece of knotted clothes - line. He would walk between the rows of cast- iron framed double desks and if you were caught talking, flick you on your back with it.

  Most of the other teachers used a leather strap on your hands. Later on in the senior classes, one teacher Mr. Mullane would, if you were late, use a cricket stump to hit your backside several times. He saved the strap, for pupils making ink - blots in their exercise books. I remember one time at least half the class of 45+ (all boys and aged 13+ years) being lined up at the front of the class and given the strap, three or four strokes each for untidy work.

  This wasn't really fair, since the ink pen nibs were terrible and it was practically impossible to write well with them, especially if you were left handed like me.

  There was also the problem of bits of blotting paper hidden in the ink-well, put in there by your 'best' friend for a laugh, because the pen- nib clogged up and made ink blots in your work book. Look out for the strap!

  I was, I suppose lucky. When I was in Standard 2, the year for formal writing lessons. As I said earlier, I was allowed to use my left hand for writing. In most schools, I would have been forced to use my right hand.

  Good old strap! I must say. (Joke)

  Around this time we began to take a monthly delivery of a Children's Encyclopedia. I could not stop reading them.

  Over the years I always said that it was these volumes of books, which gave me an insight to the world of the arts, sciences and literature. My elementary school certainly did not.

  I became an avid reader. When I visited Grandma (Malloy), if it was a Saturday, I would get several library books from Blackley Library.

  Little Grandma (Dactyl) really was small and lived in a terrace house, a long row going down a steep street. It was about half way between the city centre and Blackley. I can only remember going there once. She was dressed in a black full-length skirt and probably wearing a black shawl. Many of the old women at that time went out in black shawls. I assume this was the Irish tradition of the time. (This part of the city had a very large Irish population). I must have been about 4 or 5 years old.