大象传媒

Playing with the rabbits
Chapter 3 (Part 1)

Sometime toward the end of 1940 my mother, brother and I went to Bristol, where her father lived, to escape the bombing. This was a bit like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. We huddled nightly under the staircase in Grandpa Coles tiny terraced house, listening to the bombing of Bristol.

I remember the house from earlier pre-war visits, it smelled of gas and a mixture of furniture polish and cooking. The rooms were lit by gas mantles on the walls in each room at night, there was no electric lighting in the house. I can see the interior of the house now. From the front door there was a long narrow hallway leading to the back of the house, it was always very dark looking down there, on the left there was a staircase leading to the upstairs rooms, it had a polished well worn newel post with what looked like a large acorn on top, on the right there was a door into the front room, in this room there was a large dining table usually covered with an undercloth, surrounded by straightbacked chairs, made of a dark wood, probably mahogany, with stuffed seats in what looked like a dark green leather. There were other dark forbidding pieces of furniture in the room. Half way down the hallway toward the back of the house there was a step down, just to the right of this was the doorway to my grandfather鈥檚 study. It was quite a small room, it had a window looking out on to the tiny garden, in front of which was my grandfather鈥檚 desk. He was a solicitor and frequently brought work home. There was also a glass fronted bookcase, doubtless containing law books. Further down the hall, which was now, because of the staircase, a narrow passageway there was a door at the end, which led directly into the kitchen, where we ate most of our meals. Beyond the kitchen there was a small scullery which contained a gas cooker, a sink and quite often Gladys, my grandfather鈥檚 maid.

Gladys was a sweet natured girl with three disabilities, one was a hare lip another a cleft palate and last was a marked limp as a result of polio when she was younger. She was always good natured and rather sensitive. She had been coming to my grandfater鈥檚 ever since my grandmother died in 1938. I have few memories of my grandmother, only that she seemed tall to me and always wore dark clothes. In the only photograph of her I remember she was wearing a tall beehived shaped hat. In my memory she semed severe. My mother obviously adored her and always spoke of her in the most reverential terms. During her final years she apparently never wanted to leave the house. According to my mother it gave her palpitations, I wondered later if she had suffered from agrophobia. I did mention this to my mother at a later date and after thinking about it she said that this was possibly what it was but at that time few people knew about such a condition.

Shortly after our arrival in Bristol we were joined by my Aunt Dorothy, wife of my mother鈥檚 eldest brother, and my two girl cousins, Jean and Rhoda. Jean was about tweve and a half years old, much the same age as my brother. Rhoda was a little older than me, probably about nine. We all became instant friends, talking, laughing and playing games together. Jean had a sweet face and a placid nature. Rhoda was dark eyed and dark haired with rosy cheeks. A few days after our meeting both my brother and I announced that we were going to marry Rhoda when we grew up. I privately did not think my brother had a chance, he was much too old for her. Jean took the fact that neither of us had suggested marrying her in good part, smiling her sweet and gentle smile. It was at this time we realised how sensitive poor Gladys was. We were sitting in the front room, around the big table, playing some game, giggling and laughing as all children do when they are happily playing together, Gladys came in to do something, then went out, we continued giggling and laughing. Shortly afterwards my mother came in and said that Gladys was crying because she thought we were all laughing at her and that we should go and be nice to her. So we all trooped off and gave Gladys hugs and kisses and reassured her that we really liked her and were certainly not laughing at her. Soon she was smiling and happy again.

Somehow we all managed to huddle in the cupboard under the stairs at night. Both my cousins were nervous and frightened of the air raids. They had suffered much more intensive bombing in the London air raids even than we had in Southampton, although that was bad enough. Rhoda in particular was very nervous and would sometimes cry when the bombing got too bad. One night we were sitting listening to the pounding of the bombs when my mother said 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that noise?鈥�, 鈥淚t鈥檚 my knees knocking together with fear!鈥� my aunt replied.

I had visited Bristol pre-war on a couple of occasions with my mother, on one of these visits we went to see my uncle Oscar, my father鈥檚 next eldest brother. He lived with Aunty Anne, to whom he was not married. My mother glossed over this fact by saying that as Aunty Anne was a teacher she could not marry otherwise she would lose her job. This was in fact true at that time, married female teachers were not permitted to continue working. However, what was plain to me, even at that time, was that my Uncle and Aunt were living in sin. I had always thought of my Uncle as a rather exotic character and this enhanced this impression. He was quite quite handsome and dashing and plainly had an eye for the ladies. My mother was extremely flattered in a blushing sort of way, that Uncle Oscar had admired her legs. My uncle had also worked for the B.A.T. and had been retired early after having spent a long time in pre-war Shanghai. I suspect he had been up to no good in a raffish sort of way, however I found him fascinating. They lived in a rather elegant and at that time run down part of Bristol, called Clifton. They occupied a small flat in a house in Royal York Crescent. This crescent was a magnificent row of Georgian terrace houses overlooking the main city of Bristol. Clifton was situated on a hill near what was known as the Avon Gorge, which was a deep cut through the hills, made by the river Avon . It was quite narrow only a quarter of a mile across at this point, but some seven to eight hundred feet deep. Sometime in the 19th. Century a suspension bridge had been designed and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was appropriately called the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I was taken along to see it by my mother and uncle and some attempt was made to take me for a walk across it. At this time I had never been in a situation where my fear of heights or vertigo became apparent, I was paralysed with fear, the idea that there was nothing underneath me but a seven hundred foot drop, completely immobilised me, I could not set one foot in front of another. Seeing this my mother and uncle made no further attempt to persuade me to cross.

Near the bridge there was a small park and in it there was a steep slope of rock, which countless generations of children had slid down, so that it was polished like glass. I too slid my six year old bottom down it and again in 1959, twenty one years later when I came to live in Bristol for a year.

My grandfather told a story about the suspension bridge. Apparently, not long after it had been completed, a man committed suicide by jumping off the bridge. Before he himself jumped he threw his two young daughters off first. It was the Victorian period and they were wearing full skirted dresses with stiff crinolines, which apparently acted rather like parachutes and slowed their rate of fall so that they survived, he didn鈥檛!

After we had stayed a while with my grandfather it was agreed that we should move out into the country. My grandfather partly owned a cottage with a cousin of his called Aunt Minnie and it was agreed that my mother, my brother, my aunt, myself and our two girl cousins would live in one half of the cottage, whilst Aunt Minnie occupied the other half. What she thought about this is open to conjecture but after we had arrived and our initial greeting I don鈥檛 remember speaking with her again. We were very conscious of her presence through a permanently shut connecting door and we were frequently told to be quiet and not disturb Aunt Minnie.

The cottage was situated outside a small village about nine miles out of Bristol, on the road to the Mendip Hillst. This was 1940, there was no gas, no electricity or running water. The part of the cottage we occupied consisted of one room downstairs, with a fireplace which had a built in oven on one side and a hob for cooking. In this room we all cooked, ate, washed, read, played and generally existed. Through the door to one side of the room was a storage space and a ladder which led up to a trapdoor opening and into two small upstairs rooms. This was the entire living accommodation for two adults and four children. There was a toilet or earth closet at the end of the garden, in a wooden shack. At night there was a bucket for peeing into at the bottom of the stepladder. Water was hand pumped from a well in the 鈥減ump house鈥� which was situated at the other end of the cottage and was shared with Aunt Minnie. Lighting at night was provided by paraffin lamps with glass funnels. At night, when we were preparing to go to bed, we would wash in a bowl of hot water placed on the table, we had to be careful not to let any of the water splash on the glass funnel of the lamp as it would shatter and spray shards of glass around the room. Cooking was done over the open fire and occasionally the kettle or a pot would tip into the open fire and create such a pall of steam that we would have to run outside.

I, being the youngest, was usually sent up to bed first, having washed, put on my pyjamas and peed in the bucket. I would climb up the ladder and through the trapdoor to the room upstairs, in which was my bed. I would get into bed and listen to the two girls peeing into the bucket, longing to peer over the edge of the trapdoor opening and see what they were doing.

The first night we arrived at Redhill we were not able to stay at the cottage for some reason, probably my mother and aunt had not had time to make the beds up and get supplies in. For whatever reason we stayed just up the road in another 鈥淎unt鈥檚鈥� cottage. There was a roaring fire and we sat on either side of it on settles. We were given supper, which consisted of huge chunks of bread and cheese with raw onions. We were all packed up to bed upstairs, all four of us, my brother, myself, Jean and Rhoda. We all had to sleep together in one bed. It was such an adventure, we seemed to be awake for hours, snuggled up in that bed, with my brother telling ghost stories. An avid reader he must have read Edgar Allen Poe at that time, because I remember he told the 鈥淢onkey鈥檚 Paw鈥� story. Three or four years later, when I also had become an avid reader, I discovered it in a book of 鈥淧oe鈥檚鈥� short stories. We shuddered with delighted fear and huddled closer together in that big bed.
The next day we moved on to Aunty Minnie鈥檚 cottage. My memories of that time are a kaleidoscope of images. Roaming the fields and woods with my brother and our girl cousins to find firewood for our permanently burning fire, dragging a large branch seemingly for miles. Playing in the 鈥淗umpty Dumpty鈥� field, a field nearby with curious small mounds all over it, like tumuli. Climbing down into the nearby quarry and making our own hideout. Walking half a mile, in the early evening, jug in hand, to the farmer who sold us our milk, fourpence a large jug full. Standing in the cow barn while the farmer ladled it still warm from a bucket, whilst in the background other cows were being hand milked. Pumping water up by hand in the pump house at the cottage, icy cold in the winter. The cats, which we had transported from our various homes, ganging up and capturing a large blackbird. Walking two miles down the road to the next village, Rington and back in the afternoon. Picking primroses and cowslips at the side of the fields. Going to the village church on Sundays and my mother being outraged that the vicar used Latin as part of the service. The vicar鈥檚 wife asking me if I had ever been in the cubs and me replying 鈥淵es, but I didn鈥檛 pay my subscription, so I was asked to leave鈥�. Much to my mother鈥檚 embarrassment.

Soldiers coming by and doing training manoeuvres. One set himself up in our garden, borrowing a coat from Aunt Minnie and a head scarf. He leaned his Tommy gun gainst the garden wall so it could not be seen from the road. He picked up a hoe and appeard to be a woman working in her garden, until a column of soldiers comes marching down the road, when they become level with the garden he picks up his Tommy gun and goes through the motion of shooting them all dead, using a rattle to simulate the sound of a sub-machine gun. Two pigs escaping from the farm next door into our garden, we all go out and try to drive them back until one of them charges us and my brother, as he later puts it, leads the retreat. Country buses occasionally pass with their destinations marked on the front, one of them is bound for 鈥淧ARADISE鈥�, for tuppence.!

There was a sweet shop and general store down the road, opposite the pub, where the woman did her ironing on the counter, while she was serving.
Always hungry, we invent fake 鈥渉am sandwiches鈥� by spreading mustard on the bread and margarine and eat them with relish.

Lying in bed with my cousin Rhoda one Sunday morning she puts her foot between my legs, on my crotch, it feels very warm and pleasant and then I do the same to her. We never progressed further than that, whether out of ignorance or shyness or a bit of both, I don鈥檛 know, but it was, I suppose, early stirrings of sexuality.

Every few weeks my father came from Southampton and my uncle from London, sometimes together, sometimes at different weekends. Then the place is really crowded, four adults and four children living in three tiny rooms, how did we do it?

Aunt Phyllis, the wife of my mother鈥檚 younger brother Uncle Douglas, comes to stay with her two sons, Christopher and Geoffrey, just up the road, in another cottage. Two more cousins! So we are quite a gang now. I don鈥檛 remember any obvious resentment from the local children, but I am sure in retrospect they probably did resent us 鈥渢ownies鈥�. Aunt Phyllis was something of a dragon. Walks with her to Rington had something of the characteristics of a forced march. Her manner was icy and accusatory. The two boys were obviously afraid of her. Christopher the elder was loyal though, on one occasion when I voiced my opinion in my eight year old way, that I thought that their mother was a 鈥渂it of a dragon鈥� he duly went off and reported my remarks to her and in consequence I was treated to an icy verbal blast from her, which made me squirm. Geoffrey was always gentle and mild, just like his father, Uncle Douglas.

Both my mother鈥檚 brothers had been wounded in the first World War. My Uncle Leslie, the father of Jean and Rhoda, had been gassed with mustard gas while acting as a stretcher bearer in 鈥渘o man鈥檚 land鈥�, he took his gas mask off for a while because he could not see his way through the shell craters. He was a sweet man with beautiful eyes and thick black eyelashes. He eventually went completely blind after the Second World War, as a result of the mustard gas. My mother鈥檚 other brother, Uncle Douglas was wounded twice, the first time he recived a piece of shrapnel in his chest, when he was recovered he was sent back to the front, where he was wounded again and lost one of the bones in his forearm. The piece of shrapnel remained in his chest until he died in his eighties.

Although I now had two boy cousins up the road I preferred to spend time with my two girl cousins, until eventually they had to go to the local school in the village. I was exempted from school during that period, for reasons I was never quite clear about. In fact the schools in Southampton had been shut down for some months before we left there, due to the bombing. So, coupled with this time of not going to school at Redhill I missed nearly a year of schooling. My brother was eventually packed off to a boarding school, called I seem to remember, 鈥淧ETER SIMMONDS鈥�, it was in Winchester and he was deeply unhappy there.

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