We divided into two teams, and to start someone would find a sixpence. The captain of one team placed the tiny coin of silver under the table, and then each one in turn held their hands under until the captain put the sixpence into one of their hands. Then, watched by the other team, they brought up both clenched fists. The other team took it in turns to guess, plump for a hand, and call out ‘Peace’ if they thought the sixpence was there. It sounds simple, but there were tricks and different calls, which was why it was called ‘Conned ’em’.
On this occasion the betting built up into quite a big pile of money. I disappeared under the table and started to pray I would win everything. They watched as I made my retreat, and as usual Raymond, my cousin, was looking very suspicious. I had a flash of instinct and knew who had the sixpence, so I came out from my hiding place and called out ‘Peace!’ at Raymond.
And that was it. I’d judged correctly: he had the silver sixpence and I’d won the pot. He was furious and stormed out of the room.
It was only much later that I discovered that Raymond was not Uncle Henry and Auntie Hilda’s natural son, but had been adopted. Even at a very early age I had a sense of my own entitlement in the way I was treated by Mum and Dad, and Hilda. I could see that Raymond was sort of humiliated in, or by, my presence. Even so, and despite the fact that he terrorised me somewhat – although not too seriously and certainly not traumatically – we spent a lot of time together.
Looking back I can see how there was a slight conspiracy in the family to protect me as someone different, not quite run-of-the-mill, something that in a way cosseted me as special, as if somehow they knew I was going to break the mould, but were not sure how this would happen.
Throughout my childhood, Mum would often be sitting at her Jones sewing machine, extending the life of worn sheets and towels by cutting and re-sewing the less worn outsides to form the middle. Until rationing was stopped in 1952 our allowance of clothing coupons, just over a hundred a year, made people thrifty and careful to re-knit jumpers which had been unpicked for the wool, and to save and cut down old suits.
Kids wore smaller versions of what their parents wore. Mum kept and stored everything that could be re-sewed or adapted for other use, and as a child I had just three sets of clothes, one for school, one for play, and one best suit. I ached for more grown-up clothes. Tea, meat, butter, sugar and footwear: all, too, were rationed.
No dishwasher, no washing machine: Mum did everything on her own. She never had a big wardrobe, and didn’t have many clothes. Yet as she worked in a store drapery department, and was the boss’s secretary, we always had these lovely materials around the home which she’d make into costumes for me, tasteful wallpaper or decorations, and plenty of knick-knacks, although these were rather kitsch. Otherwise there were net curtains in the front room to stop people looking in, and rich drapes. Very house proud, very clean, and while she was out at work during the day Mum worked hard in the home, but now when I look back I can see she was a terrible cook.
Dad and I would never complain, but her best shot was cooking a joint for Sunday lunch. Her Sunday roast was passable, although well done – and it would always be very well done. Later I would be able to say that she couldn’t ‘nuance’ a rare steak. For her it was just meat, and whatever the meat was – lamb, beef, pork – it came out the same. I remember her omelettes were always open, like Spanish ones, large and on the leathery side. Sunday afternoon teas were of tinned salmon, spam, cucumber, radishes, bread and butter; altogether our food was plain and wholesome. She wasn’t interested in cooking; she didn’t have time to be interested.
Mum spoke, like Dad, with an East End accent, but was slightly more educated than he was. She had been to Hackney Cassland Road School, quite a good school near where my other grandmother lived, and she’d even learned to speak a bit of French.
I had only ever visited this granny once, as a very young child, when I had some flowers – a bunch of anemones – pressed into my hand to give her, and I was waiting outside the door.
‘Can I take my flowers in to Granny?’ I asked.
Mum said yes and I marched boldly in with them, and laid them beside Granny on the bed where she lay asleep.
I looked at Granny Lapland as she lay there. She seemed so peaceful and I did hope she would like my anemones.
There was a strange atmosphere in Granny’s room, as if time were standing still.
It was only later that I found out she was dead.
I knew from the age of six, when I dressed myself up in Mum’s wedding veil, that I was going to be an actor.
‘Do you know what you want to be when you grow up, Derek?’ I remember Mum asking me one day when I was older.
‘Oh yes, Mum, I know – I’ve always known. An actor.’
Would Mum and Dad mind, would they oppose me? It was a world they knew nothing about, nor did I.
‘Don’t you worry, dear, we’ll see you right. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet whatever you do.’
‘Oh well, it will be something different from your Dad and Uncle Henry – less boring perhaps – although as a chef Henry always fancies he’s a bit different from the run of the mill, don’t he?’
Henry was short and stocky, sandy-haired and freckled. He had a great sense of fun, and sometimes took risks, putting big money on horses and dogs. Later he’d take me with him to Walthamstow dog stadium, which was very exciting.
For a short time I joined the cubs and scouts, and once went to an annual camp. I remember with no affection sleeping in a tent in a famous scout park, being endlessly soaking wet, and loathing the communal life when we lived off things called ‘twists’ and ‘dampers’. We ate a sort of soup, which I suppose was chicken soup with barley, and which we made ourselves.
In the evening we sat around the campfire singing the usual ‘Ging Gang Goolie’ – ‘Ging gang goolie, goolie goolie goolie, watcha!’ – and being very silly. We played awful games like ‘British Bulldog’, when ten boys would be pitted against one, which was an excuse for a roughhouse. I am physically not very brave, so it didn’t suit me at all.
When I acted in plays as a child, I was always dressed up in all the ‘best frocks’, because Mum made or provided the costumes. It soon became apparent that, with Mum’s involvement, school was an extension of home and home an extension of school. She was outgoing, gregarious, chatty and quite extrovert, sometimes even flamboyant, and would speak her mind without inhibition. She could be very demonstrative. I was quite shocked later on when she met the famous actress Diana Wynyard in a car park opposite the Old Vic. She threw herself at her, and kissed her.
But there were other times when I heard her crying out in pain and anguish – though never directly in front of me, for she didn’t want me to know she was suffering from an illness I wasn’t supposed to be aware of. She would never complain how terrible the pain was. She tried to hide it, and sometimes she’d just go upstairs to be on her own. I was never taken up to see her.
Dad would ring up the doctor at once. Mum was careering round the room like a wounded animal, trying not to show pain, bumping into furniture, and never able to find relief, while Dad would prevail on her to sit down.
She’d had a mastoid operation before I was born, and the middle ear problems she suffered were recurrent. Our doctor visited us every week to examine her.