A childhood memoir of life before polio, and immediately after, and my magical childhood adventures in and out of a wheelchair
The Fish and Chip Wagon and My Father
I was six. My father used to drive the mobile Fish and Chip wagon to Reculver about three times a week. Reculver and its Towers (Reculver Towers) were the ancient ruins of a church. Long before I was born the Towers sported splendid pointed spires. But they were long gone, only depicted in old photographs. They were considered dangerous and they had to be pulled down. A Roman `Dig` remains on the site. The Towers stood out like a huge `H` from the viewpoint of Herne Bay’s promenade, a huge letter `H`.
I used to go out with my father in the Fish and Chip Wagon during the day and ring the bell, so the people would know we were frying. Up and down the streets of Herne Bay we would go. But this was during the day. The Reculver run was in the evening. I so wanted to go with my dad during the evening.
The evenings were full of magic. The shadows would curl about me warm and safe. So I hid in the van, all comfy and cosy, whilst my father, unknowingly, drove us to Reculver. When we arrived and my father discovered me, he didn’t know whether to be angry or not. I took him completely by surprise. He accepted the fact that: ''Now yer here, son, you can ring the bell...and keep me company!'' I melted into the warm night like velvet. Ate fish and chips and played the arcade machines. Yes, I even got a couple of coppers (pennies) for my pains.
The sights and smells were so much more delightful after dark. And the fish and chips? I have never tasted cod like you could buy in those far off days: thick, chunky fillets that had a milky, sweet taste, fried in a batter so thin and crisp that you broke through it like a yielding, shattering, crust. The secret? Ah, the secret of this was to flour the fillet first, then immerse it in batter, not too thick and not too thin. Slap it, first one way and then the other, on the side of the bowl, so catching the excess batter. Then slide the fish into the slightly smoking peanut oil.
We sold cockles, whelks, and mussels and jellied eels, too. We sold crab and lobster, all prepared by my father and mother, their meat tasting like the sea itself, though without the salt: the sea could not reproduce its salty self in these creatures, they gave forth only sweetness.
I drowned that night in warm, soft breezes. I moved through the dream-like, shadowy night like a soft, velvety pulse. I was safe and warm with my daddy, safe and warm in his strength. Never mind that he took us children, unbeknown to my mother (whose waitress-tips for the season she had saved in our separate postal accounts) to the post office: lifted us up onto the counter to sign our names. Then on to a bookie, where horses ran our cash into the ground! Oh yes, my father was a giant in those far off days. But he became a fallen Goliath, felled by one single stone. My mother.
My father developed a stomach ulcer. His worrying of bills not paid saw to that, his worrying and addiction to all things good and fine. If he wanted a new suit then he would go out and be measured for one. If he wanted the finest fillet steak, not forgetting to put it (and the suit) on tick, then he would bring it home and cook it with onions. We didn't have steak. Only once in a blue moon
My dad was addicted to gambling in all its various forms: the dogs, the horses, card games that went on far into the night, the smell of cigars and the chink of money coming up from the front room, the occasional laughter. Farmers, dairymen, restaurant owners, all would indulge in the game of poker and all were subtly 'ripped off' by my father's cheating. Their cards were marked alright, probably from the beginning. He did it, not for the money, but to feed his ego. Joe Bura lose? That would never do.
Each winter was the same. My father lived far beyond his means. My mother was the complete opposite. My father craved the good life and spent money like a man possessed with wealth that he never owned. My mother would make us clothes out of remnants of cast-offs. We were not poor but our father made us so. Always the bank was on his back. He never learned to live within his means. He couldn't do it. His father was a professional gambler who died in poverty. All his brothers: Nanky (Arron), Louie (Laborvitch), Barney (Barnet, Buck), Maxie (Maximillian), Jackie (Jacob), all, ALL, were touched by the shadow of gambling, all perhaps with the exception of Barney who became the success story of them all: Bura and Hardwick Animations. For the BBC they made Trumpton, Camberwick Green and many others. I cannot say whether his sisters: Faye, Betty, Patsy, or Doris were affected by this disease. But I think not.
The ulcer gave him much pain. He would double up with the agony of it. Milk of Magnesia was the only thing to give relief from his torment; but not the torment of his debts that rose and rose. At last a hospital appointment was made and he went in for the operation, the operation that was supposed to eradicate him from hell.
As it turned out a new kind of hell descended upon him; he always claimed that the blood transfusion was so cold, just out the fridge and that is what caused him to suffer a clot of blood to the brain. In effect he could no longer feel his left arm or the left side of his face. He was smitten with epilepsy.
The sight of my father screaming as the ambulance men stretchered him away in front of an audience of customers eating their fish and chips, whilst he clung on pitifully to the banister in protest. They had to prise his fingers apart. And all the time he screamed this awful scream.
When home again he drank his way to freedom. Alcohol and drugs to prevent his 'fits' left him happy in a sad sort of a way. He became no longer my father as I had known him when the drink was upon him, which was more often than not.
My mother worked hard. My father also worked hard. There is no doubt about that. But then he would disappear. He would either be in the bookies or the cinema. In those days in the early 50's we had two cinemas: the Odeon and the Casino. The Casino was right next door to our restaurant. Sandwiched between the two was Macari's Ice Cream Parlour. The manager of the Casino often complained about the smell of fish and chips that the customers used to sneak in. But when my father sneaked in by the Casino's back door, fresh from the fryers and reeking of fried fish, he had to turn a blind eye. Often my mother would send in a waitress and find him asleep in front of that silver screen.
After the operation things began to deteriorate. Money began to disappear from the till when dad began to drink. All the time she supported him and us by putting her energy into maintaining the family and keeping us all together. She had to find the money for my little sister Melvina to go to White Lodge: the training school of The Royal Ballet. Melly was potty about 'dance' and worked hard to get there, and there was my Dad living the life of a single man and all that that implied. She had to find the money for my even younger brother Kevin to stay at a local private school as she felt that this was the direction to go in his education. And all the time Dad had been carrying on with my mother's best friend. Not only that but he'd made her pregnant!
Enough was enough. My mother filed for divorce. He had humiliated her beyond belief. It was as though he had physically beaten her up. Her anxiety caused us all to suffer with her. She was afraid to go out, afraid even to lift a phone. He had ground her face into the mud. But she got up out of the mire he had pushed her in and fought for another day, not for her but for us kids!
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