FLYING HIGH

1. MAKING AN ENTRANCE

I was born at an early age, of mixed parents -one male, one female, which was the norm in those days though things have since changed. I first saw the light of day in the Sorrento Maternity Home, Moseley, where my mother had been in labour for three weeks. 'If I'd been in a proper hospital they'd have given me a caesarean,' she would say. I'm grateful they didn't, I might have been named Stanley after the knife. Mum's difficult pregnancy, her interminable labour, the 300 stitches needed to reconstruct her and the fact that the doctor had afterwards told Dad, 'Don't let her have another, it could be fatal', meant that I grew up with a deep sense of gratitude, and rightly so! I had a wonderful start in life. Apart from two doting parents, I was born in Birmingham and I was a Roman Catholic, two facts that more than anything else made me what I am.

There was apparently only one major air raid after I was born, the BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) factory once again being the intended target. I was in no danger because Dad was an air-raid warden. At the outbreak of hostilities, he had applied to join the Fleet Air Arm but was turned down because he was in a 'reserved occupation' -the work he was doing at George Ellison Ltd in Perry Barr was essential to the war effort, and he couldn't be spared. He harboured dreams of looking down on the Bismarck from the rear seat of a Fairy Swordfish but had to make do with putting out fires. He did get a war medal, being the ARP table tennis champion, and he became something of an ARP legend for a different reason. One summer night when on fire watch, all civilians having taken refuge in their shelters, Dad found a deck- chair in a garden. He sat in it and dropped off. The Luftwaffe duly paid their visit, bombs fell just a few streets away but Dad never woke up, slept right through it.

Yes, Dad could sleep! If sleeping had been an Olympic event, Dad would easily have made the British team. He was calm and unruffled; Mom described him as 'a steady chap'. She, on the other hand, was volatile, quick-tempered and did everything at a hundred miles an hour -I'm like my Mom! They'd been married eight years by the time I came along. When I questioned Mom about this in later life, she said, 'Don't blame me, you'd have been a lot older if your Dad had managed to stay awake a bit longer.' Bless him!

I don't remember the war though one of my first recollections is of VE Day -come to think of it, it was more likely VJ Day. A string of triangular flags was strung from our front bedroom window to the corresponding window on the opposite side of the road. There were long tables in the middle of the road for as far as the eye could see. Everyone was deliriously happy and the weather was so good that I was forced to wear a sun hat.

Growing up in Birrningham after the war was idyllic. We lived in a three-bedroomed terraced house with an outside 100, no bathroom and a front room which opened straight on to the pavement. Written in pencil on the brickwork of each doorway in the street was a six-figure number. That was the Co-op number of the occupants and it enabled the milkman and the breadman and the coalman to write your number on the bill before you'd managed to get the door open. One of the first things you learned was your mom's Co-op number -176841 -there, it just slipped out after all these years. Women were house-proud. The front window gleamed; the net curtains were as white as an angel's wing and the front step -well!! The doorstep was washed at least once a day and then attacked with pumice. Most steps were worn away from constant ministration. The cleanest woman in the street was the one with the most dangerous step. Small boys too came in for excessive cleaning. Before bed each night, I would sit on a kitchen chair while Mom scrubbed my knees with a scrubbing brush and red carbolic soap. The whole house had a clean smell made up of carbolic soap, Cardinal floor polish and lavender furniture polish; you didn't need a mirror, it was possible to see yourself in every bit of furniture.

Dad was a metronome; you could set your watch by him. At the expected time, I would stand on the unsafe step to catch sight of him as he turned the corner at the bottom of Ombersley Road. At this point, I'd launch myself off the step and career towards him. He walked faster than most people run but slowed to my pace as I fell in beside him and took his hand. Once inside, the strict routine continued: a peck for Mom then, with shirt sleeves rolled up beyond the shoulder and shirt collar tucked right in, he'd attack his face, hands and arms with carbolic soap and cold water. Once clean, he'd relocate to the living room where his dinner was already on the table. He ate his dinner, always cleared the plate, and, as he took the last mouthful, he'd rise from the table to sit in his chair. Within minutes he'd be asleep. Sometimes he fell asleep in mid-chew. At ten o'clock precisely, by which time I was tucked up in bed, Mom would wake him with a cup of Cadbury's cocoa which he'd drink and then retire to bed. He worked ever so hard in a factory , building the metal frames which housed electrical switch gear, but his need to spend most of his life comatose still puzzles me.

Mom was a wide-awake woman who wore her Catholicism openly. She'd been in the Legion of Mary and had a great devotion to Our Blessed Lady. It was inevitable that I should be infected with her enthusiasm for her faith, as indeed I was from a very early age. She was also an accomplished amateur pianist and the most important piece of furniture in the house was an upright piano which stood proudly in the front room. Mom polished everything in the house daily, the piano being the last to receive her attention. Having buffed the rosewood to a rosy glow, she would then dust the notes and, as if forced to do so by some aeolian wind, her fingers would begin to play.

From the age of about two, I was taught to sing. First nursery rhymes then simple songs; by the time I was four I had quite a large repertoire. Family parties were frequent. Both of Mom's brothers, Uncle George and Uncle Frank, played piano too so music filled whoever's house we were gathered in. Mom would have rehearsed me prior to the event and I'd stand beside the piano giving full vocal vent for the benefit of cousins, uncles and aunts. There's a fine Brummagem word, 'poppy-show', which describes someone who can't wait to be the centre of attention - it fitted me perfectly.

I am a child of the wireless era. There were three choices for the wireless listener: the Home Service which was all talk, the Third Programme which was all classical music, and the magnificent Light Programme to which we were permanently tuned. While I was still very young, I became addicted to the laughter I heard on the wireless. The highlight of the week, for which I was allowed to stay up very late, was Variety Bandbox. Sunday night between nine and ten, the cream of variety acts came out of the speaker. There were three resident comedians who took it in turns to top the bill: Derek Roy, Arthur English and Frankie Howerd. I couldn't possibly have understood the jokes when I was four but I loved them all and picked up their catch phrases: 'Play the music, open the cage.' 'No don't, don't mock!' 'Naughty Francis!' 'What a funny woman!' There were dozens of them. I'm proud to say that I shared the stage with Derek Roy and Arthur English in pantomime and with Frankie Howerd in several radio and TV shows.