Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs (24 page)

It was well known that several Soviet ships were en route for
Cuba and orders were sent out to US Navy ships to demand they return and to fire warning shots and then open fire on them if they did not. The whole world held its breath as this confrontation between the two superpowers continued and the prospect of the Cold War turning into a real war, and a nuclear war at that, seemed to grow ever closer.

The Missile Crisis reached its height eleven days later, on the afternoon of 25 October. It was then that the first flotilla of Soviet ships was due to meet the American blockade. On that fateful afternoon, my friends and I had Games and we were all ferried as normal to our school ground to play football. But none of us felt like playing. The atmosphere was so tense you could literally feel it; we all stood around in silence, just waiting for the news that the world was at war. We knew we would be one of the first places in line for nuclear attack as America's leading ally with nuclear weapons of our own trained on the Soviet Union, and London would be a prime target. Even the teachers didn't try to force us into playing, as they must have felt the same as we did. It was a very strange, surreal afternoon, standing around doing nothing, just waiting for the first missile to fall.

On the coach coming back, Murray said to me, ‘Something must have happened as the ships should have met by now.'

This didn't cheer me up too much as, although you would have thought we'd be at war by now if the ships had actually met and the fact that we weren't could only be good news, there were all sorts of explanations that could mean it was still only a matter of time. But, as I learnt from the television news when I got home, it was good news and the Soviet Union had
ordered fourteen of its ships, presumed to contain missiles, to turn round and go back home. Although this eased the tension considerably, the dispute still rumbled on for a few more days. Finally, however, on 28 October, agreement was reached to remove the missiles already in Cuba in exchange for an undertaking from the USA that it would not try to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. The whole world breathed an almost audible sigh of relief.

One of the spin-offs from the Cold War was the space race and the continual efforts of Russia and the USA to outdo each other in this field. This was all very exciting stuff, seeing the great rockets blasting off into the heavens, and I took a great interest in what was going on as at each step the Russians seemed to get there first, with Yuri Gagarin being the first man in space, Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space and Colonel Leonov the first man to walk in space. This led to President Kennedy's pledge that the USA would be the first country to land a man on the moon and that it would be done by the end of the decade.

Just over a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, I returned home from Speech Day at Parmiter's and switched on the television to hear the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. I couldn't believe it. It came as an enormous shock to the system. Kennedy had seemed to crystallise the hopes of my generation and when he was elected President it was an affirmation that the world was definitely changing and the old order giving way to the new. He was young, charismatic and a symbol of what the younger generation was capable of. We were hopeful that his election would herald
a new dawn, not just in politics but the more general sense of a better world. His assassination was a shocking and bitter blow to all those hopes.

K
ennedy was part of the second youth revolution but, whereas the first – the mid-1950s rock'n'roll explosion – belonged exclusively to the young, which the older generation tried to avoid and denigrated at every opportunity, this second revolution caught everyone up in the sweeping changes it made to society.

Apart from the political side, it affected the whole way we lived. Everything was caught up in the changes including music, fashion, art, television, cinema – just about everything. My first realisation that a fundamental change to our way of life was underway came on 4 December 1962, just two weeks after
That Was The Week That Was
first aired. I came home from school, did my homework and put on one of my favourite television programmes of the time,
Tuesday Rendezvous,
a combination of
chat, little comic sketches and music featuring early skiffle stars Wally Whyton and Bert Weedon and their puppet characters, Pussy Cat Willum, Ollie Beak and Fred Barker. As well as the regulars, most programmes featured a guest singer or singers so, when the main presenter, Muriel Young, introduced a new musical group from Liverpool, it was nothing unusual. But as soon as the song began with its wailing harmonica introduction it was clear that this was something completely new. I even shouted out to Mum, ‘Come and listen to this!'

Mum looked in from the kitchen where she was preparing tea and said, ‘That's different,' and stopped to listen.

The group was, of course, The Beatles.

The next morning at school, everyone was talking about The Beatles and their spellbinding performance the previous evening. It was the first time that the performance of a pop group on television had gripped everyone so completely that it was all they could talk about in the playground. It seemed obvious that The Beatles were going to carry all before them as they engulfed not just my generation but everyone.

The outward manifestation of Beatlemania were the girls who screamed at their concerts. Other pop and rock stars had had their fans of course, but there had been nothing quite like this. The Beatles changed the whole world of music and fashion. By 1963, the old rock'n'roll music scene had become quite stale and very samey, but the success of The Beatles created a whole new explosion in musical talent appearing on the scene with a completely new type of sound. They were followed by groups like Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas and Freddie and the Dreamers, who
completely dominated the charts for the next couple of years. And pop music itself became big news. Before, the charts had been confined to musical papers and the young, but now they made the national newspapers and when the Dave Clark Five knocked The Beatles off the No. 1 spot one week in 1964 it was a sensation that was reported on the front page of many of the leading daily papers.

New peak-time television programmes sprang up, including
Ready Steady Go!
and
Top of the Pops. Ready Steady Go!
in particular became an iconic programme of its time. The show went out early on Friday evenings with the tagline ‘The weekend starts here!' Even Dad gave in and let me watch it. The Mersey sound pioneered by The Beatles conquered everyone and everything.

As well as
Ready Steady Go!,
I listened to
Pick of the Pops
on the radio every Sunday afternoon. Introduced by Alan ‘Fluff' Freeman with his familiar catchphrase ‘Hello, pop pickers', this gave a rundown on that week's Top 20. I also bought the weekly
Record Mirror
and we would have discussions at school about which were our favourite and least favourite songs in that week's charts. Pop music was now omnipresent in a way it never had been before, and groups and the charts became a staple topic of our conversation, rivalling sport and politics.

In fact, it came home even closer to me and my friends at school as one week a record called ‘Wipe Out', recorded by the American group the Surfaris, reached the Top 10. A boy in our class called Tony told us that he was in a group called The Monotones and that they were going to record a cover version of the song, which he said their producer reckoned would make
the Top 10 as well. This was amazing news. A boy in our class would soon be in the Top 10, his record played on
Pick of the Pops
and quite probably we'd see him on
Ready Steady Go!
For a while, Tony basked in the admiration we all felt for him and was treated as if he was already a celebrity.

A couple of weeks later, on perusing my weekly copy of
Record Mirror,
I came across an article about a new up-and-coming group from Essex called The Monotones, together with a photograph. I looked hard at the faces in the photo but couldn't see Tony anywhere. The next day, in front of several classmates, I showed him the picture and asked him why he wasn't in it. He suddenly went pale, coughed and muttered, ‘Oh… er… I wasn't feeling very well the day they took the photograph so I missed it.'

Sadly for Tony, this brought nothing but laughter and cries of, ‘Oh yeah?', ‘Of course, Tony!' and some other more unkind and ribald comments. Poor Tony! His celebrity world had suddenly gone pop and he never really recovered from this ‘outing'.

But it wasn't just music that changed and worked its way into every facet of society and conversation. Fashions too changed and became newsworthy. Models such as Jean Shrimpton, ‘The Shrimp', became superstars and celebrities in their own right. Following The Beatles' style, hair was allowed to grow longer and longer. The universal short-back-and-sides vanished forever. This obsession with new fashion was responsible for the creation of a new teenage movement, the Mods, who lived for fashion and initially looked to the clothing of top designers in France and Italy, opting for tailored suits, polo shirts and parka jackets, which became their trademark. However, when Mary
Quant introduced the mini skirt in 1964, the focus of clothing fashion changed and placed Britain right at the centre. We were moving into the era of Swinging London, when this country was at the forefront of the youth movement throughout the world and everything, music, fashion, films and television, reflected this.

Personally, I was not in tune with the new Mod fashions, being much more in sympathy with their great rivals, the Rockers, especially when the Mods adopted a very close-cut style, as I liked to wear my hair quite long. The Rockers opted for a more casual leather jacket and jeans look. I preferred this because it was much more comfortable and I couldn't really be bothered with hunting down the latest fashions. The other big difference between the Mods and the Rockers was that the Mods' chosen form of transport was the motor scooter, whereas the Rockers preferred much more powerful motorbikes, which again chimed more with my own life as an avid speedway supporter.

The two groups hated each other and large-scale fighting broke out between them. The first big set-to was at Clacton over the Easter of 1964 but very soon there were large-scale disturbances at other seaside resorts such as Margate, Brighton and Hastings. Such fracas naturally caused moral outrage in Parliament and in the newspapers too, but there is no doubt that much of the indignation was whipped up by the papers themselves with exaggerated and even downright dishonest reporting and deceptive headlines.

Although, along with everyone else, and particularly youngsters of our age, my friends and I were embroiled in
the general mood of Swinging London, we never went so far as to take part in any riots at the seaside. To us, they seemed mindless and we felt that the way to change things was through our political activity and that Beatlemania and the upsurge in popular and folk music were manifestations of the young winning over the hearts and minds of the population to a better way of life that made older people more accepting of the youth of the day and showed them that young people had the energy and the will to change things. That was why the election of Kennedy in America was so crucial to this new hope and why his assassination was such a major setback.

Another phenomenon to grow out of Beatlemania was the introduction of pirate radio. The first to start broadcasting was Radio Caroline, with D.J.s such as Johnnie Walker, Emperor Rosko, ‘Cardboard Shoes' Keith Skues and Tony Blackburn. Shortly afterwards, Radio London began broadcasting from just over three miles off Frinton-on-Sea, with Ed ‘Stewpot' Stewart, Dave Cash, Kenny Everett and Tony Windsor. They were on for twenty-four hours a day, broadcasting non-stop pop music at a time when all you could get on BBC was
Saturday Club
for two hours on a Saturday morning and an hour of
Pick of the Pops
on a Sunday afternoon.

The start of pirate radio coincided with the beginning of the easy availability of portable transistor radios so I was able to listen to Radio London, which was my favourite station, at home in my room at night without disturbing Mum and Dad. During the holidays when Mum was at home with me, she would listen as well. Her favourite D.J. was Tony Windsor, whose show ran from 9am to 12 noon. Quite often, at about
11am, she would say to me, ‘Time for elevenses and T.W.' And we'd sit down with a cup of tea – she still hadn't got round to liking coffee – and a biscuit for a half an hour or so to listen to Tony Windsor. Mum loved his trademark ‘Hel-lo', with the ‘Hel' being said in his normal voice and the ‘lo' in a very deep voice.

For me personally, this fascination with The Beatles had another very pleasant and satisfying spin-off one night, as I was able to take advantage of this mania to ask another girl out. Her name was Maggie Steele. She was a little bit older than me and very good-looking, with dark-brown hair, hazel eyes, a lovely warm smile and a beautiful figure. In a word, she was bloody gorgeous and I fancied her like mad. She was a member of Hackney Y.S. and I had spoken to her several times but never on our own. Knowing I couldn't stand it any longer, I asked her over to the local pub after a meeting. Fortunately, she said, ‘Yes, okay, I'd like that.' She didn't sound too enthusiastic but at least I had my chance now. Over a couple of pints, I chatted her up and discovered that unsurprisingly she was very keen on The Beatles. As it happened, their first film,
A Hard Day's Night,
had just been released and was showing at the Mile End Odeon, so I seized the opportunity and asked her if she'd like to come out with me to see it.

Disappointingly, she said, ‘Oh, I've already arranged to see it with Anne.' (Anne was a friend of hers, who also went to the Y.S.)

We carried on talking about other things for a bit and then suddenly she said quite out of the blue, ‘Of course, I could always tell Anne I'm going with you.'

I was a bit taken aback at first and it took a moment for the penny to drop that she'd gone back to my original question. Eventually, I asked, ‘And will you?'

She gave me one of her warm smiles and replied, ‘You know, I think I will.'

As if that wasn't enough to make my night, she then leaned across and kissed me on the forehead. I was on cloud nine. My mind was just racing. What should I say? What should I do? No words came.

Fortunately, I didn't have to say or do anything as she got up at that point and said, ‘I'll have to go now but you can call for me next Friday at seven and we'll go to the pictures.'

Stupidly, I was just about to say, ‘We can't go Friday, that's Y.S. night', but I just caught myself in time and instead said, ‘Friday it is then.'

On the bus home from the pub, I couldn't stop thinking about her and what had just happened. The next week seemed to drag on interminably until at last Friday eventually arrived. Although it was a night my parents would be expecting me to go out anyway, I thought I would tell them what I was doing, but I was still a bit guarded about how I broke the news to them. I just said, ‘I'm going to the pictures with a friend tonight to see
A Hard Day's Night
instead of the Y.S.'

Dad said, ‘When you say a friend, they usually come in two sexes. Is this a male friend or a girl?'

For some reason when he put it that way, I felt faintly embarrassed and mumbled, ‘Oh, it's a girl I know from the Y.S.'

Mum gave me a big smile and said, ‘Well, in that case, you'd better put a nice shirt on and look smart.'

Dad said nothing. I wasn't sure whether he approved or not; Mum obviously did.

When I arrived at Maggie's house, her father opened the door and said, ‘So you're Norman, are you? We've heard a lot about you.'

I wasn't quite sure what she could have said about me as we didn't really know each other that well, but it sounded very promising.

Before I could respond, Maggie came to the door and said to her dad, ‘See you later.'

She lived fairly near the Odeon so we walked and as we did so she took my hand and we continued to hold hands till we got there.

There were an awful lot of teenage girls waiting to go into the cinema when we arrived and during the film itself there was such a lot of screaming going on that I didn't hear most of the film. Fortunately, Maggie didn't join in. I put my arm round her and she leaned her head on my shoulder.

After the film, we went to a nearby pub, the Bancroft Arms, for a drink (saloon bar, of course!) and then she said, ‘I think we'd better get back now.' So we walked back to her house and she let herself in and said, ‘Do you want to come in for a bit?'
Did I?
Put like that, this was an invitation I certainly wasn't going to refuse. She led me up the stairs to her room and asked me if I wanted a coffee. I have to say that at that particular moment coffee wasn't exactly the uppermost thought in my mind and I didn't actually answer her at all. I caught myself just staring at her.

Maggie looked at me and, as if she could read my thoughts, laughed and said, ‘No, nor do I really!'

She then sat on the bed and patted the space next to her. I sat down. ‘That was a really good evening,' she said, ‘thank you.' She then rested her head on my chest and added, ‘I'm feeling very tired,' as she dropped her head down.