Читать книгу Friends for Life - Jan Fennell - Страница 10

In 1951, as a three-year-old, my mum and dad took me to the Festival of Britain celebrations, just across the river in Battersea Park. The images of that day are burned indelibly into my memory.

I was too young to understand the wave of optimism the Festival had inspired. But I do vividly remember the sheer joy of the occasion. I remember my father and Uncle Fred were both wearing white shirts. In the sunshine they seemed dazzling – just like everything else in the park.

Battersea Park was filled with people. I recall the carousels and the candy floss, the sounds of the hurdy-gurdies and the fairground hucksters inviting people to ‘Roll up, roll up’. But the thing that created the greatest impression was the little grey-white pony that was giving children rides in a special arena.

I immediately asked my parents for a ride. But, just as quickly, my mother made her opposition plain.

‘You don’t want to go on that nasty smelly thing,’ she said. I was dressed in a smart new plaid dress, I remember. ‘You don’t want to ruin your nice dress.’

It was my Uncle Fred who conspired to help me. My mother wandered off at some point. I remember Uncle Fred bending down, beckoning to me and whispering. ‘Come on, come on. Now’s your chance,’ he said.

I ran over to the pony arena with him. Before I knew it I was being lifted on board the beautiful grey-white pony.

I’d yet to meet Uncle Jim’s Kitty so this was the first time I’d sat on a horse. I can still remember the pungent smell. It was lovely then and remains so to this day. Forget your Chanel No. 5. As I was led around the arena on horseback I remember feeling on top of the world. I felt like a princess, it was so special. I would have stayed there all day.

One of the attendants led the pony round in a slow circuit of the arena. As he took me back to where I’d started I saw my time was up. I could see my dad and Uncle Fred with big beaming smiles but behind them was my mother with a face like thunder.

‘I thought I said she couldn’t, Wal,’ she snapped at my father as I was led away from the arena a few moments later. ‘What’s the point of putting her in nice clothes if they’re going to smell of filthy animals?’

The incident confirmed something that was already becoming clear to me. There was a clear hierarchy in our house. And I was at the bottom of the pecking order.

My parents’ attitude to children was a throwback to the Victorian era in many ways. I should be seen and not heard. My opinion wasn’t of any importance to anyone. All that mattered, to my mother at least, was that I present a happy, polite, smiling face to the world. Unless, that is, she wanted to show off my singing and dancing abilities at a family gathering. Even then, the only words I got from her were chastisement if I hadn’t done something to the standard she expected.

At the time this upset me deeply, but I no longer feel that way. I understand now that she was merely reflecting the values passed on to her. She and my father were trying to provide a better life for me than they had enjoyed themselves. But it was as if they had had me out of a sense of duty, and then resented the duty that came with it.

There was no doubt they gave me the best they could afford. They bought me lots of toys, for instance. But then they would spoil it by not allowing me to play with them because they got in the way and messed up my mum’s house. I was only allowed to play with one toy at a time.

There was no point arguing about things like this. I was expected to accept that they did things for my own good. If I ever upset the apple cart, they’d say: ‘After all I’ve done for you …’ And if I protested too much, my mother was very quick to smack.

If I was at the bottom of the pecking order at home, my mother was very much at the top.

My father would literally wait on her hand and foot. He would say that he was so lucky to have her, he would do anything for her. He would protect her from being upset, even if it meant hiding the truth.

If anybody said anything she didn’t like or upset her, the waterworks would start and she would just cry. He couldn’t cope with that, he’d fall to pieces. Of course if I tried a similar tactic, it didn’t work. They would tell me: ‘We’ll give you something to cry for.’

So when I started showing an interest in animals, I sensed there would be problems from the beginning. Mum didn’t like me being near them, it was as simple as that. To her it was more important that I look immaculate and well turned out. And animals didn’t fit in with that.

As I have said, my mother’s feelings always came first. She always got her own way. But she was asking too much in this instance. And fortunately there were members of the family who were willing to conspire with me.

It was my grandmothers who best understood the closeness of the bonds I was forming with animals.

The family had a number of dogs and by the time I was five or six I had formed a mutual admiration society with all of them. Wherever I went a dog would appear. My cousin Doreen, to whom I was very close, had a smashing dog called Tinker. He was ever so playful, a lovely long-coated creature, and I would spend endless hours playing with him. As a family we used to go on camping weekends to Walton in the Mole Valley. I recall there was a dog called Bunty in the tent next to our regular spot. My job was to go and get water from the standpipe but I always ended up playing with Bunty, a big shaggy dog like a mop. Playing with Bunty was the highlight of the weekend for me.

Nan Fennell knew how lonely and unhappy I was at home and encouraged me to cherish these new friendships. I will never forget what she said to me once. ‘They are a part of your life that is magic, that is special,’ she told me. ‘No one can spoil that. When you have the love and trust of an animal, nobody can ever spoil it. That is your secret happiness.’

She also defended my love of animals in the face of my mother’s hostility. Whenever my mother had a go at me in her presence she used to say: ‘She’s got a love of animals. It’s in her and it always will be, you can’t change that.’

But it was my mother’s mother who did most to conspire with me. Nan Whitton, as I knew her, lived nearby. She was a lady, in the very real sense of that word. She came from landed gentry in Northamptonshire but had become estranged from her family, the Thorneycrofts, after marrying a sailor named Edward Whitton. The family thought he was ‘beneath her’ and made no secret of it. Tragically he’d died during the flu epidemic of 1922 and she’d been left to fend for herself with four children. It was a tough life, yet despite the hardships she’d remained a dignified, gentle woman. I never once heard her swear or even lose her temper.

She had a real air about her. She was six foot tall and always immaculately turned out. She’d always dress up, even to go to the shops, putting on matching accessories and carrying an umbrella with a bow. Whenever I went out walking with her I’d see workmen doffing their caps to her as if she were a member of the aristocracy. She’d return the compliment with a gracious nod.

At home she’d spend hours doing embroidery and reading – something not many of my family did. I can also remember painstakingly polishing her silver with her.

This may well have been where my mother got her airs and graces from. But whatever their roots, Nan Whitton knew her daughter’s moods better than anyone, so she provided me with a source of affection that was a real life-saver at times. ‘I’m always here for a cuddle,’ she’d say. And she saw how fond I was of her cat, Smokey.

Smokey, bless him, was the ugliest cat you’ve ever seen. His head was lop-sided. He was a big black moggy. Yet that cat was so affectionate. He had a purr like a traction engine. I lay on the landing looking at Smokey one day. Nan was in the kitchen. I said to her: ‘Why do you love Smokey?’ I was confused because my mum used to tell me you could only be loved if you were beautiful, that ugly didn’t get loved.

My nan looked out of the kitchen and said: ‘Only me and his mother could love him.’ To her the fact that he was ugly didn’t matter. To her ‘beautiful is as beautiful does’. It was a thought that would have been lost on my mother. But it made a big impression on me. Mum didn’t like me playing with Smokey, of course. I’d try like mad to brush the hairs off but as soon as I took one step into the flat she’d say: ‘You’ve been near that cat again.’

So Nan Whitton taught me to carry two cardigans with me. I always used to have a little bucket bag in which I put a spare cardigan. I used to wear one while I was with the dogs or cats then change over. I would take the cardigan covered in hairs around to Nan Whitton. She must have been a magician, because somehow she always got the hairs off.

And it was she who helped me spend time with Digger, the first dog I really considered my own.

Digger belonged to our friends Peggy and Eddie, who lived in East Molesey. He was a little sandy-coloured Cairn terrier, a great little dog, hardy and a lot of fun. He and I got on like a house on fire. Whenever I went there, he was as pleased to see me as I was to see him. He would be up on his hind legs. He was my boy. He was there for me. Every time I looked at him or spoke to him his tail wagged.

With Digger, as with all the dogs I met at the time, I felt there were no conditions, I could be myself rather than the person that other people wanted me to be. He didn’t make me feel as if I was in the way.

I was so fond of Digger that I went to great lengths to orchestrate time with him.

Once I feigned sleep in order to stay the night at the house rather than go back to Fulham. I lay on a sofa with my eyes closed and heard my dad saying: ‘She’s exhausted.’

My mum said he should carry me out to the car. Finally Peggy said: ‘Oh, let her sleep here the night, we’ll run her back tomorrow.’

I thought: ‘Yes.’ Isn’t that pathetic?

I had to go along with the charade now and it was very odd lying there as my dad carried me up to a strange bedroom. Of course, as soon as the house was quiet I slipped down to give my canine pal a cuddle and I was up at the crack of dawn the next morning playing with him.

It was during a summer holiday that Nan Whitton helped me to effectively adopt Digger. Uncle Eddie used to work in Munster Road in Fulham where he had a workshop. Every day I went round to collect Digger from him, then took him to my nan’s house. Of course my mother knew nothing about this. It only lasted a few weeks but I still look back on it as a great time.

My secret friendship with Digger taught me much. Being with him seemed to change the world around me. Confined within my mother’s world no one spoke to me. Out walking Digger that summer I found people stopping for no apparent reason and talking away to me. I saw that dogs were great icebreakers.

I can remember how people used to tell me stories about their dogs. I could see the happiness they brought into their lives. By the end of the holiday, my nan and I had our own favourite memories of our time with Digger; we nicknamed him Digger Doughnut because of his love of the buns we’d slip under the tables of cafeterias we visited together during that long summer.

It only strengthened my determination to form more lasting friendships like this.

My mum had her secrets too, hidden parts of her life that only increased the distance between us. It was while we were out shopping one day around this time that I got a glimpse of a darker and more dangerous aspect to her life.

Shopping was the one subject my mother was happy to talk to me about. Her love of clothes was great. And it formed the centrepiece of our weekly expeditions down the North End Road.

We would start with a meal at Manzi’s, the famous eel and pie shop. I would have pie, mash and liquor, she would have eels, mash and liquor. Then we’d head off to pick up the week’s provisions at the local stores. My mother would always look in Madam Lee’s fashion house. She’d spend what seemed like hours there, looking at things and trying them on. She’d ask the proprietor to put things by for her until the following week. She bought a lot from there. When we’d finished our expedition we’d head to Dawes Road and a bus back home, laden with shopping.

While we were waiting for the bus home one day I became aware that my mother was angry. We had seen two large men walk by us and head into a doorway. As they had done so they had recognized my mother and said something to her.

I knew who they must be, but – as I had been taught – I said nothing.

The London of the 1960s was run by gangs. Fulham’s leading gangster was Charlie Mitchell, or King Charles as he was known locally. The men who worked for Mitchell were enormous gorillas; their hands looked like bunches of bananas. Bits of their ears were missing, they were gruesome. But you didn’t ask questions. That’s what I was always told: ‘Don’t open your mouth, their business is their business.’

My mother’s connections with Charlie Mitchell were shadowy but I knew they were mainly through her brother George, who was his book-keeper. Mitchell had a number of legitimate businesses – things like money lending and bookmaking – and George looked after the books for him.

I would continue to be given glimpses into this murky world in the years that followed. A friend of my Uncle George, Mickey Salmon – Mickey the Fish – took a dive for Charlie Mitchell for dog doping. He came out of prison when I was about fourteen, and we all went to a club for a party for him. Prison hadn’t been good to him; he looked terrible. It was a private party and I remember the owner asking me to fetch some glasses. I went over to a table and I can recall a man with terrifying eyes looking at me, smiling and saying: ‘Hello, love.’ I replied: ‘Thank you.’ When I asked my Uncle George who they were, he just said: ‘You keep away from them, just keep away.’ It turned out to be one of the Kray twins.

After Uncle George died unexpectedly in his early fifties, leaving his second wife and their four young children, my mother went to see his widow and asked her if she was going to be OK. She just told my mum to go upstairs. My mother went up to the bedroom and found rolls of money strewn on the bed, hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

It was George who was at the root of her anger that day, it turned out. Being a child I only heard part of the story, but I do know that my Uncle George’s personal life was a bit of a problem. He used to take off every now and again, just disappear. He would take time out.

It seems that on this occasion the rumour was going around that Uncle George had absconded with some of Charlie Mitchell’s money. It was absolutely untrue but the situation was complicated by the fact that Mitchell’s colleagues needed George’s signature to actually get to their money. So for a while all their businesses were tied up.

The two men my mother had seen that day worked for Mitchell. Something they said to her must have set her off, because suddenly she grabbed me by the arms and said: ‘I’ve had enough of this.’

Charlie Mitchell’s main offices were right opposite the bus stop. She went through the front door and barged straight in. There were five huge guys around a desk. My mum said: ‘Now look, I’ve had enough of this, my George is as straight as the day is long and you know that. Any more of these lies and I will bring the law into this office, I know enough to have you put behind bars.’ I stood there and thought to myself, ‘What’s she doing? She’s lost her mind.’

I was thinking, ‘Someone’s going to pull a gun.’

Charlie Mitchell sat behind the desk. He was scary. Instead of standing up and threatening her, however, the mood was conciliatory. Mitchell said: ‘Nona, come on, sit down, let’s talk about this.’

But my mother was having none of it. She stood up with her shopping and stormed out again, leaving me in the room. It was only when she got to the bottom of the steps that she shouted: ‘Janice, come on.’ I was still shaking when we got home that night.

Looking back, it was a terrifying yet intensely revealing moment in my young life. It showed me a woman I had never seen before.

She loved her baby brother and was prepared to go to any lengths to protect him. In some ways I admired her for doing that. Yet in others it made her seem an even more distant, almost unknowable figure. I felt I knew her less well than ever.

It was the one and only time I came across Charlie Mitchell. Not long after that incident he survived an attempted shooting in Stevenage Road, near Fulham Football Club. Some time afterwards, like so many of London’s gangsters, he fled to Spain and the so-called Costa Del Crime. His exile in the sun didn’t get him far enough away from his enemies, however. He was shot dead there in the 1970s.