I have loads of excuses and several genuine reasons for not getting my thoughts down. Chief amongst them must be the sad news that my father-in-law Dennis passed away in early December and, what with Christmas and everything etc etc...... Nuff said, bad times.
So, where do I pick up the thread? The last entry discussed the RADARS Traditional Radio Rally which is always enjoyed by all (including those who attended but who ought to wash more often ...).On the strength of our dwindling Club funds we are going to do it again but this time in the summer!! A Rochdale Radio rally but with shorts on! This time its branded as a Summer Flea Market and Junk Sale. I just hope there's more junk on sale than fleas... Make a date in your diary for Saturday May 12th, kick off at 10.30am.. £2.50 to get in... No charge to get out.
Going back to the thread of the life story, I can pick things up just past the endless Saturday afternoons down at the back of the TV shop with Dad and Ray and journey onwards to sixth form and my first 'real' job prior to leaving Birmingham and going off to college.
I'll need to explain in a little more depth a few points that stick out in my mind as needing to be got off my chest before progress can be made though....
Generally, sad to say but with hindsight, I wasn't a very happy chappie throughout my childhood. Although there were certainly some happy times, most of my memories tend to dwell on the negative rather than the positive. I can certainly say that my love of radio definitely pulled me through some really scary times. As I've mentioned before, I look back and wish that my Dad had taken more interest in my radio pastime and of course Grandad Thomas McGuire was in Ireland and not exactly down the road to go and ask advice.
I was a very nervous kid. Very timid and deemed 'shy' by most of the family. I had failed my 11 Plus exam, so was henceforth at this time labelled 'a bit thick' (a smidgen of racism here pointed at my Irish heritage fuelled this!) and went 'up' to the catholic Secondary Modern School attached to my primary school.... The wonderful Rosary RC School where the Sisters of Charity and Marist Brothers dominated the staff and the pupils alike. The catholic religion has a lot to answer for and no, I wasn't abused aka the recent scandals.... er, unless you call being beaten with the cane several times?? This wasn't just if you did something out of line and perhaps 'deserved it' but we were beaten on a daily basis, in lessons, for not getting spelings rite or youre sums rong. It left an impression not just on my receiving hands but deep down too... Unfortunately this was the norm in those days and we are only talking about the middle 1960s?? Just what a kid like I was at that time really needed to nurture and boost confidence... Add a generous amount of bullying and the ridicule of my classmates for the occasional public weeping episode (well, the cane DID hurt!) and you can imagine my state of mind as a 10 to 13 yr old?? I sensed that the key to my poor relationship with my Dad at this time was no doubt as a result of his failure to relate to a son who wasn't a 'lad' in the traditional sense. I was a loner, quiet, no good at sport, emotional and cried a lot.
The change came when I was put in for the '13 Plus' exam. Birmingham Education Authority were at the forefront of the demise of the 11 Plus and instituted a second chance arrangement for any budding 11 Plus failures who fell foul of circumstances beyond their control and who were misplaced in secondary modern school. Credit to my Mum here as she found out about this and approached the school to get me entered. If she hadn't poked her nose into this it might have never happened for me and, well, this story would be very different. Together with a couple other mums (and dad's I suppose) pressure was applied at the school and a group of us were entered for the new exam.
I remember the day the application forms were given out in my class to me and a chap called Paul. Funnily enough we got on well and sat together in lessons. We were like minded and similar in that he was very good at art, quiet like me and also couldn't play football. Again, not a 'lad' in the accepted sense of that era in working class Saltley. The event sticks out in my mind due to attitude of the teacher dishing out the forms... Mrs Czepiel (pronounced 'shepezel')... just dumped them on our desk, looking down her nose and sneering 'Not a chance!' to both of us. Again, wonderful confidence boosting practise.
Suffice to say that Paul passed the exam and went to Moseley Art School and I passed and went to Bordesley Green Boys Technical School. I think my life really started at this point and the changes came on rapidly. I went up in my Dad's estimation, I suddenly had a fresh start with a load of boys so had to shape up, so to speak, quickly learning from past mistakes and not repeating them.
Looking back it was a bit of a duck to water situation. My confidence grew, my reputation grew and I started to think I was worth it.
The first day kicked off this instant progression in a peculiar way. The first lesson of the day following Registration and Tutor Group was P.E.. I trotted out from the changing rooms barefooted and chested as decreed by the rules, or so I thought, and proceeded to run around doing warm ups with all my new classmates. Unknown to me the shorts were meant to be worn commando style. At the shrill of his whistle the 'master', a Mr Lunn, stopped everyone in their tracks and singled me out as the only one flagrantly flouting the rules with the damning evidence of visible underpants slipping out from beneath the shorts.... In full view of everyone I was made to strip naked, removing the offending underwear and correcting my breach of the rules.....
Now as first days at a new school go this was pretty traumatic but in another way it earned me a great deal of respect from all the other boys present. This wasn't due to my perfectly formed and obviously impressive physical endowments but due to my new classmates' universal sense of fairness and justice. Mr Lunn was a hated figure, an obviously warped old git. The rest of my classmates rallied to my situation. I was instantly became one of them, part of the gang. So indirectly Mr Lunn helped me enormously to fit in quickly and settle into my new situation. I'm proud to say that one friend, Pete Ward, is still a true and dear friend to this day some 40+ years later....
The technical nature of the curriculum was brilliant and suddenly I became known to be 'good' at things...Well, except French and Maths but neither have held me back in later life! (As a side comment, amongst several, I gained 'O' Levels in Physics, Technical Drawing and Metalwork which I think proves that my thinking is very connected to things of purpose rather than abstract symbolism... So what if X + Y = a banana... Who cares? ) I even got good at football scoring six goals in one game... It was nice to not be one of the last men picked when teams needed picking for a change!
I carried on at the TV shop with Dad and Ray until football, ie Birmingham City FC, took over my Saturday afternoons. I hardly missed a home game from 1968'ish till I went to college in 1973. Freddie Goodwin, Bob Latchford and Trevor Francis, jumpers for goalposts... ah, those were the days....
The pressure of school work and hormones took their toll over the next few years but radio still featured in my life even if it was reduced to Tony Blackburn in the mornings and Johnny Walker whilst doing my homework... But then again we did have Jenson's Dimensions and the fledgling John Peel, not to mention The Old Grey Whistle Test on TV. Needless to say these programmes were listened to mainly in my bedroom on an old HMV 1126 and I still lay awake into the early hours listening to Luxembourg 208 and the North Sea International and, of course, Radio Caroline... And Short Wave was still a daily twiddle of the tuning knob just to see if anything interesting popped up....
My first proper job came along in the summer of 73 just before leaving for teacher training college. Having finished my 'A' levels in June I had until late September to find work and hopefully gather some funds to help sustain me through the summer and help boost my grant... In those days tertiary education was free and we got a maintenance grant to live on. This grant was boosted by money from Mom and Dad so any extra I could get would help ease their burden a little.
Enter stage right Mr Sothers of C.A Sothers (Electrical) Ltd of Soho Birmingham. I duly turned up at Washwood Heath Labour Exchange and was sent to Bromford Bridge Petrol Terminal and told to ask for 'Bob' the site foreman for C.A Sothers Ltd who were engaged on a job there on behalf of Shell. I found him down a hole, he hired me. So started a long relationship with the small Brummie electrical company which sustained me from the summer of 1973 right through to Easter 1976 in that they employed me every vacation from college throughout my studies.
Thanks to Mr Sothers, the owner, I managed to earn more in 'real terms' than perhaps I ever have since! He took me on every holiday, including Christmas and Easter, as a casual worker. As a student I didn't pay tax or much national Insurance. Weekends and overtime was always available and when we worked out of town we got a generous subsistence allowance and travel allowance. In the days before electronic payments I enjoyed a brown envelope every Friday which was stuffed with money, or at least it felt that way! I remember taking home one Friday £115 which in the early 70's was equivalent to maybe ten times that today!.. Well, petrol was 30p a gallon and a pint of beer about 20p??? I think he was a real gent and I think he took me on because in some way he wanted to 'do good' and give someone a helping hand on the ladder of life. Many thanks to him...
The Christmas and Easter holidays were usually confined to boring stock taking and over the course of three years I must have counted and recorded every tool, length of cable and all the electrical fittings appertaining to the industry they possessed at least twice. The summers were a different matter. Given the extended time available, July to October, I was able to get stuck in on a variety of sites all over the Midlands and ultimately the infamous summer of 75 down in the east end of London. I was even once given my own 'job' in charge of two slightly younger apprentices to dig out and re-cable some fire proof cabling for a large pumping station over at a petrol storage depot in Bilston. We did the job in three days and were richly rewarded!! In the next blog I will reveal the details of the summer with Sothers down in the east end of London sandwiched between the Avon perfume factory and the abattoir... It was certainly a smell that lingered....
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