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Chapter 1

First Memories

I’m Chas, the one who plays the piano in Chas & Dave. I was born in the North Middlesex Hospital, Edmonton on 28 December 1943. Albert and Daisy Hodges were the ‘proud’ parents. (So my Mum tells me, and I believe everything my Mum says.) Brother Dave was nearly three years old. Mum wanted me to be called Nicholas but Charles was the traditional family name on my Dad’s side. So I became Charles Nicholas. ‘Chas’ was also the familiar nickname for Charles around Hackney, where my Dad came from, so ‘Chas’ it was.

My earliest memories were when I was about three. Music among the most vivid of ’em. My Dad was a lorry driver and worked for an Italian named Romano. Romano owned a farmhouse in Ashford, Kent, that was to let and Dad decided that we should move down there. Edmonton was alright, where we were living with my Mum’s Mum and Dad, but he wanted something better for us. We moved to Kent in the summer of 1947. It was good down there: I loved it. Considering I was only young and we were only there for about six months, I have a lot of vivid memories about that time. The journey down in my Dad’s old green van. Me asking Dad if it was putting your hands on the steering wheel that made it move along. Dad taking his hands off the steering wheel while we were going along to prove that it wasn’t. I was impressed. The arrival at the farm. Being met by Ginger, the farm hand, who never lifted a finger, let alone a hand! Dad at the top of an apple tree slinging apples down to my Uncle Bert. Waking in the morning to see the hunt go by. I thought it was a magnificent sight. Stella our Alsatian. Peggy and Spike the greyhounds. Collecting new laid eggs and being chased by one of the cockerels. Was I frightened! He was nearly as big as me! I injured my finger slamming the door of the run and I remember Mum making me sit quiet with my finger in a glass of TCP. Dad wringing the cockerel’s neck in case he pecked us kids’ eyes out. Me getting chased again by the cockerel! (We had two cockerels. A wild one and a tame one. Dad had wrung the wrong one’s neck!) Garlic in my Wellingtons. (An idea of Mum’s to keep the colds away. Found out later this is what the Romans used to do.) The pond in the woods that had witches (another idea of Mum’s to stop us kids going near it). New discoveries like oak apples, mole hills, cowpats and straw. Brother Dave chucking some 12-bore cartridges behind the Rayburn stove and Mum going mad even though Dave kept insisting that it didn’t matter ’cos they were dead ones. Dad coming home with a rabbit for dinner. Spitting out the lead shot. The smell of Dad’s van in the garage. Car fumes even now bring back happy memories! Me and my brother and Stella the Alsatian playing in the haystack. ‘Housewives’ Choice’ on the radio. Songs like ‘Cruising down the River’ – a popular song I liked. I told my brother, ‘That’s my song!’ ‘No it’s not, it’s the lady on the radio’s.’ Little git. Early memory songs, ‘Feniculee Fenicula’. ‘The Thieving Magpie’. I’d watch magpies from my bedroom window with that tune going through my head.

One day we had company. My Mum announced them to me and my brother as being ‘off the stage’. I remember standing in this sunny room as the couple went into their act. The lady played the piano and the man sang. The song was ‘Blue Room’. They were on the posh side but they were quite good at what they did. (I had ’em sussed although I was only three.)

It was a good memory. It was music. Grown-ups always looked happy when they were singing. Especially when someone was playing the piano. Why didn’t they do this all the time?

I have fond memories of that place. I loved it. It was where my Dad lived. When I think of him walking about, or drinking a cup of tea, or working on his old van, it was all down in Kent, I didn’t remember him before that. I was too young. My Mum doesn’t have the same affection for the place. But it was different for Mum. To her it was where my Dad died. The day before my fourth birthday my Dad died of wounds from a 12-bore shotgun. I remember it happening but I was too young to take it in. Not see him again?

Dead? No! All dead people died before I was born.

It was his own hand that fired the gun. Nobody knew why.

We left the farm before the New Year and came back to Edmonton to live with my Nan, Grandad, and Great-grandfather.