Shadows From The Past, Part 2

First published in 1995

Memory is a funny thing. There has been a great deal of uproar recently about recovered memories, yet many people can remember isolated events from their childhood quite clearly. These come unbidden as flashes of memory. The problem, I think, comes when one tries to recall events. In memory, the present merges with the past, and retrieval is biassed by the reason for trying to do so.

Nevertheless, I have many clear memories of particular episodes. The memory of going into hospital for a tonsillectomy, when I was about three, has always stayed with me as a series of snapshots. That the event has remained so clear would seem to mean that it had made a considerable impression, yet it was more than just an event. I can vaguely remember sitting in a cot in a grey ward. Most vividly, I can remember being dressed up in the operating gown, with the hat and being interested in the great light over the operating table. I can remember the fear taking over when they placed the flannel over my face and began pouring on the anesthetic. I can remember yelling at the top of my voice.

This was 1941, in the middle of the Second World War. I imagine there was little money to spare, in a privately funded service, there would be a shortage of staff and shortage of time.

In those days, it was assumed that small children do not remember pain. Children's hospitals, although separate, were organised on adult lines. Children who were upset were told to be "big boys" or "big girls" respectively. Visiting hours were short, often only an hour a day. In the 1950's two psychologists, the Robertsons, produced a shattering series of cine films which showed the despairing behaviour of small children suddenly deposited in homes, kindergartens and hospitals, possibly alone from their parents for the first time. Across the country, there was a move to allow parents to be with their children, even providing space for them to stay together. Even now there are nurses who are more interested in their own convenience than the welfare of their patients, who ask, "When is this experiment going to end?" I can tell them that it is no experiment. It is here to stay if I have anything to do with it.

Some fifty years later, I saw the Robertsons' films at a time in my life when I was trying to make sense of my past. My stay in hospital took on a new meaning that shocked me. One film was of a little girl alone, for probably, the first time, in hospital. Then there appeared a little boy, named Henry I think, who had been deposited in a kindergarten. He stood there completely immobile, frozen and passive in this, to him, totally alien environment. I suddenly found myself identifying with the children very deeply and I found the whole session intensely disturbing.

So I have this snapshot memory of myself, sitting in the high sided cot on the ward. Is it just that the colours have faded from my memory, or was the whole scene laid out in shades of grey? I set out to review the feelings I had then, to try and relive the experience. Yet I had to take care not to impose my adult interpretation on what I, as a child, would feel.

What was certain was that I was in a strange and alien place. I was among these strange creatures that I had never come across before - other children - and among strange, bustling grown-ups. A few months ago, I was talking to a reporter from a local magazine, and she put an opposite interpretation on it - that I might have asked whether, if I didn't feel like a 'big boy', was I one? In the end, I discarded the idea. I could resurrect no such feelings at all.

It seemed, from my studies, that I should feel that my mother had deserted me, but I didn't. I knew that, once the operation was complete, she would return and I could go home. I had no reason to mistrust the promise that the experience would only last a few days. So, I think I simply withdrew into myself and set out to survive.

I can remember very little of the period after my return from hospital. Possibly I played up, as a reaction to the experience, or perhaps I was a normal inquisitive child. I can remember being in trouble from time to time. I have always had this picture of an occasion when my Mother appeared like some sort of avenging angel, with her slipper in her hand.

There were good memories as well, though. We used to visit my Aunt Marjory each Summer in St. Ives in Cornwall, travelling by train overnight. I have this picture of the wartime train, packed tight with soldiers, sailors and airmen. I remember sitting on the floor of the toilet, the only spare space on the train, with Mum opposite me. My Dad who, with his artificial leg, couldn't stand for long periods, sat on the seat. I have the feeling someone took pity on us, for I can vaguely remember the three of us moving into a compartment, and of my looking in awe at all the people in their uniforms.

My aunt used to meet us at St. Ives station in her car. I remember because it had what was called a dickey seat which pulled out at the back for Mum and I to sit in. I can remember the studios fronting Porthmeor beach, where my Aunt lived.

Christmas was a special time, as it is for many children. I have already written about Auntie Margaret's food parcels from New Zealand, full of mysteries like tins of peaches, pears, ham and so on. Each year I would get the Rupert annual, and a book from Aunt Marjory. One I remember was Orlando, the Marmalade Cat. Another book, a year or so, later, was Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, and my Dad used to read to me from it.

There were no other children nearby, for were they all away at boarding school, so I was pretty much alone. I remember next-door's nanny, and their eldest daughter, and liked their friendly greeting. I embarrassed my mother greatly by asking why Nanny had cushions in her jumper. This was something you weren't supposed to talk about. The only regular friend my mother had was a lady named Mrs. T. She had one daughter, "A" who was the only other child that I played with, in those years. We didn't play with dolls, or dressing up. We made slides, climbed trees and explored the countryside together. The next door neighbour's sons, would be home from boarding school, every so often, but they were older than I. I didn't like them and they didn't like me. However my relationship with my two male cousins wasn't brilliant either, when they came to visit.

I spent most of my time among my parent's collection of books. They had some beautiful old editions of Shakespeare's plays with marvellous engravings. These were my undoing, for I became fascinated with the Midsummer Nights Dream and The Tempest. I invented a fairy tale land of my own, and drew a map and started to write a book.

Unfortunately, lulled into a false sense of security by feigned friendliness, I told someone about it. From then on, for the rest of my childhood, I couldn't go anywhere in the village without shouts of "Fairy" following me. The connotations were unfortunate, but probably apt. Certainly, if nothing else did, this taught me that having an imagination was not a good thing.

When I was four, my parents bought me a set of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia, all ten volumes, which kept me occupied for hours. I still have it, dog-eared and falling to pieces.

Every evening my father arrived home from work, and every so often he would empty his pockets of fawn ninepenny exchange bus tickets. At that age you would think I wouldn't have an accurate idea of time, yet, one evening, I suddenly asked if I could go and meet him at the bus stop. Perhaps, my mother unthinkingly made some worried comment, or a programme came on the radio. She was always certain that this wasn't so. Near the bottom of the hill, I found him standing against the wall with the foot from his artificial leg in his hand. I ran back home to fetch Mum. We took a pair of crutches and the pram. She helped him to take the leg off and limp home, while I pushed the pram as well as I could, with the leg in it.

Articulating artificial legs, like his, were fairly rare and, during the war, virtually unobtainable. So, the following day, I went with him to Horton's garage on the outskirts of the village where, in the workshop, the car mechanic, scratched his head and worked out what he was going to do about it. The extension into which the ankle pin fitted was aluminium, which was then virtually unweldable. He must have been able to do something, for the leg served my father until the National Deposit Friendly Society bought him a new one.

Toys were very scarce. I remember Dad brought home a toy train made out of bits of wood and sawn off broom handle. One Christmas, I got some Meccano. Those who know it will remember it came in different sized sets of pieces, with intermediate sets to upgrade from one to the other. The instruction booklet, of course, was based on these sets. Since mine was not an official set, I found it impossible to build all the wonderful things that were displayed, especially the excavator you could make with set twelve. However, I could build four wheeled vehicles which would skim across the floor, and the windmill. I was given a clockwork motor for my birthday, so the sails would go round by themselves though, on one occasion, they nearly took my finger off.

When my father came home from work, he would sit for a while to read the Daily Telegraph. Often, I would sit on his knee trying to pick out words, which indirectly caused another problem. It was the time of the Atlantic convoys and the papers were full of the Liberty ships. A few days later, I was with my Mum when she visited her friend, Mrs T. Suddenly, 'A' appeared in the doorway, saying, "Mum! Where's my liberty bodice?" Making a possible connection to liberty ships, I asked "What's a liberty bodice?" I can still remember the shocked silence, as 'A' was shushed out of the room. You simply didn't mention women's undergarments in public. I can still remember the public outrage, later on, when posters advertising brassieres appeared on the London tubes.