Mrs Gandhi and an Englishman Abroad.

 

I once met Mrs Gandhi; now if you knew me you would wonder how some bum of an actor with only one TV credit in the year of 1983 could get to meet the leader of the world’s largest democracy.
It had, indeed, started off as a bad year which I had inherited from the year before; in February I was offered one episode of The Angels – a BBC hospital soap – playing the role of a cop in one scene; I jumped at it; we had three kids to feed.
On the first day of rehearsals I bumped into a BBC producer, Innes Lloyd, in the lift at the BBC rehearsal rooms in North Acton – fondly known as the North Acton Hilton because of its size - and he told me that he had tried to get me for his John Schlessinger film An Englishman Abroad, with Alan Bates, but that my agent had told him I was unavailable.
As I was a big fan of John Schlessinger’s films, I wasn’t very pleased; surely we could have come to some arrangement after all I was only in one scene in ‘The Angels’ and we could have…..oh it doesn’t bear thinking about.
I did my one scene – filmed at some hospital in Coventry and started to look for another agent.
When I got home one day my wife was buzzing with excitement; I couldn’t calm her down.
She had received a telephone call from The Guardian newspaper: our fourteen year old daughter had won an essay writing competition and the prize was a couple of weeks in India for two.
The trip would include staying in New Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Bombay and Lonavala staying in the best hotels and included £250 spending money - each.
The essay compared life in The Himalayas to life in England; of course she had never been to The Himalayas and her observations were taken from her geography lessons and her reading of Victor Zorza’s Indian columns in The Guardian under the title The Village Voice – which was about a village north of New Delhi and not The Himalayas at all.
I have to take the credit for pointing out the columns to her and telling her about the competition.
My wife was adamant that I should accompany our daughter to India; it was a world away in those days – it’s a world away these days but we have seen live cricket from there – and my wife felt our daughter needed her father; as it happened she was right but that’s another story.
So we set off for India: the trip was sponsored by Air India and The Guardian and judged by the editor of The Guardian, Peter Preston and my favourite Guardian columnist James Cameron – no not the Titanic/Avatar creator.
There were two other winners: a fourteen year old girl from Bristol and a nineteen year old boy from somewhere in the home counties; his father accompanied him and the girl from Bristol was accompanied by her female English teacher.
We had to have injections for cholera, typhoid and polio and took pills for malaria.
The evening before we were due to fly out to New Delhi we met and were entertained by the Indian High Commissioner and his family at his London residence; they gave us tea with warm milk and samosas; the High Commissioner and his family were charming – as it turned out it was a taste of what was to come – and when they spoke to us they shook their heads, Peter Sellers style, which was something else we saw a lot of in India.
Later that day we were installed in a really nice hotel near Gloucester Road tube station and went out to eat at a posh Indian Restaurant close by; ‘Princess Margaret comes here often’ we were told and we felt really important.
The following morning we emerged for breakfast and it seemed the father and son, from the Home Counties, had never eaten Indian food before and were feeling a bit green around the gills; they hadn’t even tried it as an experiment when they heard they were going to spend a little time in the sub-continent; this was also a sign of things to come: on our second day in India they didn’t even make it out of their room and had to postpone their trip to the Taj Mahal so we went ahead without them; I had wondered about the title of the John Schlessinger film An Englishman Abroad but in India it was slowly starting to make sense.
Their Delhi Belly, or whatever it was, deprived them of one of the greatest train journeys I have ever taken and the wonderful experience at Delhi Railway Station; it was such a huge exciting culture shock that I can still smell and taste it now: everything out of the story and picture books came to life; porters with four or five suit cases on their heads, a blind beggar and a beggar with no hands; crowds of people asleep on the platforms; bikes, rickshaws and more bikes.
There was a certain smell about the place; a smell not unpleasant although it might have been to some; a smell I got to like even though it was probably a mixture of faeces, urine and spices; the father and son missed the first class travel on that train, and from New Delhi to Agra, we were extremely comfortable in individual reclining seats – I remember thinking ‘you don’t get this in Britain!’
The food was freshly cooked and the staff on the train was at our beck and call.
The lavatories on the train gave an introduction to the Indian way of life; there were two lavatories in each cubicle: one for the western way and one for the Asian way; the Asian way was just a hole in the floor as the Asians squat whilst we, the westerners, sit on the loo.
As we looked through the windows on the train we saw plenty of evidence of this as it was early in the morning and people were going about their daily ablutions – in public; they were standing under stand pipes washing their bodies and if we saw one man squatting for a crap we saw a hundred.
I still have the image now of men in the distance squatting with a tail going from their bottoms to the ground.
We learned that they wiped their arses with the paper in their left hands and ate with their right.
Our daughter had never flown before and the journey from Heathrow to New Delhi was a good way of getting used to it. I don’t know how long the flight was but I remember eating, drinking, sleeping, eating again and still being in the air; the flight wasn’t very full and I appeared in the ‘in flight’ movie on that flight and also on the way back; an embarrassingly small role, I have to add, and nobody noticed me in the movie but they all saw my name in the end credits.
Stepping off the plane the heat and humidity hit our ankles even though it was April and dark. It was something like five in the morning UK time but we were raring to go.
We lived in Northampton at the time – maybe that was why my acting career was going south – and whenever we told anybody in India where we lived in England, their eyebrows would lift in confusion and then they would give that charming shake of the head we had seen at the High Commissioner’s Residence; they had never heard of Northampton so we would quickly add ‘sixty miles north of London.’
Even though it was late we needed to rise very early the following morning as an extra trip had been arranged; so at five fifteen I had my first Indian breakfast: masala omelette, toast and tea with hot milk.
Two Ambassador type cars picked us up at the front of our hotel and we were whisked off to Mrs Gandhi’s residence.
Yes we were going to meet the formidable Mrs ‘G’; her official residence seemed to be in a residential area, and we were led into a huge garden; there must have been two or three hundred other people there as there was some rule in India that anyone could show up to meet the Prime Minister; whether she actually met any of them I don’t know.
After the cold and dark of Britain, we were suddenly in a heat wave and hit by extreme brightness from the early morning sun; I had my white jacket on and even wore a tie; the local inhabitants wore very loose clothes, huge bell-bottom trousers or flairs and nearly all wore hats.
Parakeets and monkeys roamed freely as we followed a smiling official towards the main building; there didn’t seem to be a lot of noise but a kind of hum about the place accompanied by the whirls of cameras, the odd call from a human in the distance and then lots of squawking from the parakeets.
Over one side of the garden was a party of people huddled together; I got the impression that this was a whole organisation that had shown up to see the premier and not just their duly elected representatives.
We were shown into a kind of outer room and the others waiting in there seemed very nervous.
I suppose as an actor I had worked, and have worked since, with well known people; well known people in show business world, that is, not world leaders who go down in history; well known people so full of themselves, sometimes, that they are very unpleasant and sometimes when these well known people suddenly become unknown people it’s a bit of a relief.
After about five minutes or so we were called and led into another room; the room didn’t seem to have any aesthetic qualities at all, the furniture was functional: a sofa, an occasional table and a few chairs; behind the table was an open French window, which led to a quiet part of the garden, and another doorway was covered by a curtain.
When Mrs Gandhi entered she did the full theatrical bit through that curtain; she walked in as if she was the leader of the biggest democracy in the world, she walked in like a world leader, an important member of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty and a figure of history.
She was accompanied by a few bodyguards; I have often thought about those body guards as it was her private bodyguard that turned and killed her eighteen months later in the grounds of that very building.
Everybody stood up when she entered and she sat down between the two girls on the sofa; our daughter and the other fourteen year old girl.
Straight away it was obvious she was very comfortable with them; she started to chat informally but I noticed she didn’t have any small talk at all; she asked them about their essays, how they liked India – even though we had only been there eight hours - and would they ever consider coming back again; then she asked them where they lived; when it was our daughter’s turn she said she lived in Northampton sixty miles north of London: “I know where Northampton is” Mrs Gandhi snapped “I was at Oxford.”
At one point I noticed Mrs Gandhi ring a bell she had secreted in her hand; through the curtain came somebody and before we could see them she asked them to get a photographer; this was the cue for us to stand behind her but it was also the cue for the bodyguards to push and shove each other to try and get into the shot.
I was standing at the end so didn’t think I had a chance of being included because when the photographer got ready to take the photo he seemed to aim it over to the other side of the room; but one of the body guards tried to get his face in to the shot and gave me a little push; I shoved gently back and in the subsequent photo he disappeared totally behind the person standing next to me; serves him right.

See above.

After the photo Mrs Gandhi shook hands with a couple of us and swept out as sweepingly as she had swept in.
I often think about those body guards.

Novel 2

 

Chapter 2

School and The Life Boys

There came a time when Finbar was seven. When he got up that morning his father, Patrick, asked him if he felt any older.

He thought for a moment and said, yes. He said that he had a spring in his step, that day, but that might mean because of his birthday.

The junior school was more, or less, the same as the infants apart that he was in the 'A' stream – one, one. There were forty five children in the class, because it was the age of the 'baby boomer' and the schools couldn't afford teaching assistants and of the forty five, Finbar finished the year forty third; not his finest moment.

So for the second year, when he would be eight, during the term, he was dropped down to the 'B' stream to two, 'B' – two two.

No specialist teachers just a regular teacher – a generalist. Mr Hennessey's class. His first name it was Fred; he was five feet three inches tall, a Yorkshire man and a Communist.

The first thing he showed the children, the class of eight year olds, in fact not quite eight was his cane; it was a short cane with a knob on one end; he said “don't worry I won't be hitting you with the knob end; that's for me to hold.”

Then he swished it.

The kids could feel the sting of it as the little fella swung it through the air; he was in his element; he was in charge of some people smaller than he was – although there was one girl, Lavinia Smith who was taller and she pushed him one day and he nearly fell over.

“If I give you the stick” he said “there's no good complaining to your moms and dads and trying to take me to court – it won't work; it's been tried before. The courts always come down on the side of the school master.”

He did give the cane on occasions the eight year olds and it was not pleasant to watch. Some of the kids, even at eight, just sneered at him after the smack.

A shock would come over the whole class room followed by silence; the little man had won again!!

One day in the art class he told everybody to draw a picture; Finbar drew a house – two windows downstairs and two windows up; with a door in the middle.

Walking up the path he drew the postman who was at he garden gate delivering letters to the house and he had a broad smile on his face.

Hennessey hovered close by then picked up Finbar's picture and took it out front; he thought it was because it was good - but no!

“Put your brushes down” he said “look at this!”

He held up the painting for all to see.

“Look at this” he said pointing at the mail bag of the postman “US Mail!”

“US Mail!!! This is not America, young man – it should say Royal Mail – or the GPO – but not US Mail. We're not Americans, you know, and we never will be – you'll see!! You'll see when the Russians come, you'll see then; then we'll see about the US Mail.” And he really articulated the US Mail and because of his Yorkshire accent it sound like a US Meal!!

Then he tore up the painting, took it over to the waste paper basket, which was right by his stick, screwed it up and dumped it. Then he picked up the stick, looked at Finbar, rolled it around his hand then put it back down again.

They looked at that stick and so did he,

They were eight years old and he was five feet three”.

One day Finbar saw a boy wearing some kind of sailor's uniform who told him he was a member of The Life Boys.

The Life Boys, in those days, was the junior version of The Boys Brigade; he was too young to join those, but he didn't like their uniforms in any case.

However, he did like the uniform of The Life Boys.

He noticed the way the sleeve went down to a cuff, neatly fitting close to the hand. It looked so grown up and fashionable, and there was also a sailors' hat and when he got home he told his parents that he would like to join The Life Boys.

The boy had told where he could join and  off he went to where their meetings were held and arranged to meet the boy at the hall of the local Methodist Church, which is where they gathered.

Finbar was a little late getting there, so the boy had already gone in. He heard them inside and knocked the door.

He waited but nobody heard his knock.

He stood outside for a few minutes, then, very gently, tried the door and eased it open. As he did so the noise of the boys, inside, subsided and when the door was wide open, he was greeted by all the boys, and a woman looking at him.

“Hello.” he said.

They all laughed; he liked this.

“Hello” said the woman.

“I've come . . “

“You're Finbar?” said the woman.

“Yes.”

He was welcomed and observed the games they played and they talked about The Boys Brigade and the activites the boys would be doing once they became members.

One or two of the boys were going off to join, and they talked about camping and kayaking - whatever that was - and that The Queen was their patron.

At the end of their session he was given all the details he needed, and the place where he could buy the uniform, which consisted of navy blue jumper, sailors' hat and a 'Sam Brown' belt.

Before leaving they had to pray and, as they were methodists

he had to pray the Protestant way. 

Like the Protestant school, he attended, he had to say 'The Lord's Prayer' with an extended ending.

The Catholic way of ending the prayer is 'and deliver us from evil, amen.'

But the Protestants added 'for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever amen.'

Like school, they would pronounce the 'amen' differently.

They would say 'are men' and he was used to saying 'Ay-men.'

The Protestants would start off 'Our Father, which art in Heaven . . .' and the Catholics would says 'Who art in Heaven.'

He could never understand why the Protestants would call Jesus a thing - which – as opposed to the Catholics personifying him as Who.

All this stuff going around his young mind, disturbed him a little and he kept the fact that he was a Catholic from everybody.

At his first attendance, in uniform, the woman he had met, was standing out in front, calling out the names of the boys to register their attendance.

She was called Miss Gabb, and when she called out the names, they would answer, 'one, Miss Gabb,' or 'two, Miss Gabb' or even 'three Miss Gabb.'

'Finbar' said Miss Gabb, when she came to his name.

'erm – er hello' they all laughed!

He liked making them laugh.

“I'm sorry, Finbar.” said Miss Gabb” you should say “two Miss Gabb.”

“Two Miss Gabb?'

“Yes.”

“okay – Two Miss Gabb.”

“You've already said it.”

“When – er Miss Gabb.”

“Just then.”

“oh!”

“You say one, because you are here, two, if you are wearing your uniform and three if you attended church last Sunday. When attending church, you get one of the wardens to sign your membership card.”

By church, she meant the Methodist Church of which the hall was an annex.

But he went to St Anne's Catholic Church on Sunday mornings.

Finbar already knew about the addendum to the Lord's Prayer and as he was attending a Protestant School, he went to St John's Convent, every Saturday morning.

This when the other boys were out playing would have been good for Finbar, as he was an only child and might have got to know his school pals a bit better, which was, maybe, why he joined the Life Boys in the first place - apart from the uniform.

“Do you go to church, Finbar,” said Miss Gab.

He didn't answer and didn't go to the Life Boys again.

He didn't tell his parents the reason he didn't go any more, but as his mother, who was well trained from her time at Kylemore Abbey School for girls, in Galway, was very handy with the needle and thread, altered the pullover for him to wear to school.

He liked that – he liked the way the sleeve went down to a cuff, neatly fitting close to the hand.

Chapter 3

                                                                Genevieve.

Novel. 1.

                                        Packing my bag.
 

Chapter 1

Piano Lessons

Where are we?

The city is Birmingham and the time would be in the 1950s, or thereabouts, when two Irish boys met each other once a week. One of them was a year or two older than the other, and when they met the elder would bully the younger.

They didn't know each other's name, but there was a look about them, that they could see, which was Irish. Two Irish accents had disappeared, after they started school, and metamorphosed into the guttural sound of a Brummy accent; Brummy being sobriquet for Birmingham. Some say the Birmingham name, was originally something like Brumagem, but it wasn't; the original place was called Beormingahâm. Try saying that, after a few pints.

That name, Beormingahâm, with the little accent over the 'a,' was the furthest thing from the mind of the two little Irish boys, for they would meet, every week, in the parlour of their piano teacher.

The elder had the first lesson, and when the lesson had finished and as the teacher went out, the big fella would jump on the little fella as he came in. He would, without any further ado, jump and wrassle him to the ground. Then, with one arm around his neck, he would squash the little fella in the face.

Not a word was spoken till the piano teacher came back.

As they got up he would thump the little fella in the back.

Then with a look that said 'don't say a word or I'll wait for you outside' he would smile at the piano teacher.

The teacher's speciality was 'The Teddy Bears' Picnic' which he would play to the new kids when they were introduced by their parents.

He had hooked fingers with long nails, and as he played you could hear the clickety click of his nails on the keys. He delighted in playing it and his sister, who's duty was to open the street door to let the kids in, would delight in hearing it, as if for the first time, even though she must have heard it a hundreds of times. 

“Oh that's lovely, Leonard” she would say, and usually the new boy would give a clap; and so would the lone parent, who was usually the mammy.

The piano teacher picked up a little stick, rather like a knitting needle, and held it in his hand' he said “when you play the music, I use this to point to the notes; not to hit your knuckles when you make a mistake. So don't be frightened.'

As the years moved on, the mammy would become 'mom' and only called the mammy in the confines of their homes.

The big boy, the elder of the two, would arrive in a car, which would be waiting outside for the lesson to finish and when the little boy arrived he would see the car, which meant he was getting a thump in a few minutes..

In the car would be his mother, usually smoking a cigarette, for it was of the time when everybody smoked.

Everybody means, those that smoked, smoked and they were in the majority; in fact at the age of sixteen, fathers would give their sons their first cigarette, and the boys would cough and splutter, nearly bringing their ring up, till they relaxed and took another drag.

The fathers could tell if their offspring had been smoking on the sly if they didn't cough, but it too late for any chastisement, as the deed had been done.

Smoking on the sly was very fashionable with school kids and it would take place in the lavatories, which were in the playground. Usually with an open roof so from outside the smoke would rise to the heavens – and all that from one cigarette which the kids would pass around. Coughs and noise would emanate and maybe the teachers would see the smoke, but maybe too, they were in the staff room smoking their own cigarettes.

The King, at the time, had recently died of something caused by smoking, and his doctor had advised that he smoke menthol cigarettes – to clear the lungs – poor fella, getting iffy advice.

In the movie, Alfie, which came many years later, there is a line from the likely lad, who said he always started the day with a cigarette to clear his lungs. Alfie'was years later, so the King's advice took a long time to disappear.

When the big kid came from his lesson he would get into the car and it would be like be like a foggy day in London Town.

On every street sign in Birmingham, there was a number as in all major cities, which was the district number, and the number where the neighbourhood where the piano teacher lived was Birmingham 12; the bully lived in Birmingham 13, which was a bit more of a leafy suburb, and his mother would stand at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes, wearing her high heeled shoes.

So there was that little bit of a difference in class conscious Britain, where people living on the end of a row of terraced houses would look down on their neighbours with disdain.

Not that Birmingham 12 was without their salubrious large Victorian houses, as there was a row close to where the little fella lived, but he had never been in any of them.

It was the days of skiffle with home made double basses, made with a tea chest, a broom stick and string; they worked too.

The little fella didn't want to learn to play the piano, as he wanted a guitar so he could form a skiffle group.

As he was passing the posh Victorian houses one day, a school teacher, whom the little fella would speak to, on occasion - nothing more than a hello - saw him and said “hello, Finbar, and how are you?”

Oh yes, his name was Finbar; the fair one.

“I'm fine.” he said.

“Looks like you're off to your piano lessons?”

She could see his little music case.

“Yes.”

“Are you enjoying them – do you like the piano?”

“It's all right but my hands are not big enough.”

“Too small for the octave?”

“Yes” he said “I want to form a skiffle group.”

“Oh?” she said “that's interesting. How are you getting on with that?”

“I haven't started properly – I'm saving for a guitar.”

“Look” she said, and took her purse from her hand bag.

“Will this help?”

She waved half-a-crown in front of Finbar's face.

He looked at it. It kind of shone against her black woollen gloves.

“Would you like that?' she said.

“Oh – I don't think so.” said Finbar.

Of course he did; he was only being good mannered.

“Okay” said the school teacher, and put the half-a-crown back into her purse.

“Enjoy your piano lesson – and don't forget – your hands will get bigger.”

With that she walked away.

Finbar looked after her, as she walked off. 

He knew she was a school teacher, but didn't know the school where she worked.

Finbar's school was a mixed infants to juniors school, for children up to the age of eleven. He or she could attend if they were due to reach the age of five during the coming term. They would stay till the age of seven then transfer into the junior school where there would be for four years, each streamed into three: one two and three or 'A' 'B' and 'C.'

From the very first day at school, Finbar screamed and kicked as soon as he was taken there. His first teacher was Miss Jones, who picked him up and carried him in, as he kicked and screamed all the way.

This upset his mother, Carmel, as she heard his screams fade into the distance, and the quieter they became the bigger the tears in her eyes.

This happened for the first few days, then she asked her only friend, Phyllis, who came from Limerick, to take him.

For some reason he didn't mind 'Aunty' Phyllis, leaving him off at school, although it wasn't the easiest to part him from his mother. The tears were not so bleating as time went on.

Chapter 2

The Boy's Brigade or The Life Boys.