JAK-73

   Readers do ask! Young and old tell me they like to ‘know things’ about writers. So here goes ...

 

   I’ll start at the beginning. I was born Jean Hawkins in Birmingham, England, on 6 July 1945. No middle name. Dad was frustrated signing what he saw as his long name, so Jean it is. Mum cared full time for her children and was infinitely grateful I arrived after 8th May 1945, the date World War II in Europe ended. A Bonfire Night Fire Celebration on 5 November 21 years later was held in what was still a large bombsite. The effects of ‘war’ were my companions growing up.

 

   Dad lit a ‘jumping jack’ firework that jumped into our box of fireworks and set the lot off! He did a handstand at my birthday party and coins in his pocket tumbled to the ground. He was an electrician by day, a musician at night. Mum told of when he was lead violinist in an orchestra he stepped forward to take a bow and stepped off stage to plant one foot in a large basket of flowers. Dad was a shy man yet, basket on foot, he bowed to his left, his right and ahead to an audience erupting with laughter. He later resigned that position because it meant being away from his family too much. Instead, he played other instruments and used his baritone voice to sing. In my teens I went to some of his ‘gigs’ to dance, particularly my favourite slow foxtrot.

 

   At barely 7, I was told I had to read out a passage from the King James Bible to the whole Sunday school. Absolutely terrified at the thought, I refused; a protestor even then! As an adult I found home with Quakers.

 

   Dad having two jobs meant we had a holiday each year when few did in those rather bleak post-war years. Holidays on a farm meant being there when the pigsty roof blew off in a storm; Piglet Pandemonium tells that story. I slept in a bedroom there with a polished wood floor that followed the porch roof slope underneath it; fantastic for sliding down on a pillow when I was meant to be asleep! On holiday at a Holiday Camp Dad taught me to waltz on the path back to our cabin.

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   Mum was a ‘home mum’ and it was wonderful to come home from school to her. She baked the most delicious fruit mince tarts at Christmas. One time, when she tried a new recipe, a tart accidently fell off the plate and made an unwelcome sound hitting the floor. Mum went back to her tried and tested recipe! On a boat to the Scilly Islands we saw sharks. Horribly seasick, she said she felt she would be a sharks’ dinner.

 

   The sea colour in northern Scotland was icy and stunning and I felt very grown up when we had afternoon tea and scones at a remote cottage, but my 14-year-old self raged at being charged 3d each to get off a ferry onto a small rickety landing pier when we had paid an inclusive all-day-fare! Protestor again!

 

   When I saw classmates heading for boring jobs, I thought ‘no way’ so Mum helped me get into Bourneville College of Further Education. Hindsight says my education up to then was rather threadbare. Reason says it was due to a shortage of teachers. Mine were all female; some out of retirement because too few men returned from the war. Bourneville College was set up by Cadbury for its employees to attend one day a week of further education. My course was full-on full time and I loved it! Progress rather than protest here!

 

   Despite what drove me to further my education, I still did not know what I wanted to do! I was persuaded onto the first one-year full-time secretarial course the College was setting up. I did well, was offered a job with a Temping Agency as a permanent employee, and worked at a range of good posts. An unusual one was with a scrap metal merchant who kept me on when I asked what ‘ferrous’ meant. No other temp had asked.

 

   While at Bourneville, helped by a Saturday job at Boots the Chemist at 10s 6d for the 8-hour day, I visited Paris when the war with Algeria was on. We heard bombs going off, but saw no action. Not allowed out alone three of us remained after pairing folk off and we three did the tourist spots. I loved the Sacré-Cœur Basilica and in a street nearby we could buy delicious doughnuts handed to us on what looked suspiciously like a sheet of Izal toilet paper! Another trip was to the Mediterranean overland: mini-bus, ferry, train, ferry. A strong memory of Majorca is a bullfight and that night being served steak for dinner!

 

   A Methodist friend asked the organisers of her ‘group’ holiday to include me on two trips to Norway. Memories include June 1st (Northern Hemisphere summer) being first through after snow ploughs cleared a road over the mountains leaving snow piled twice my height each side of the road. Trekking to the next valley and high up seeing a farmer using a horse and wooden plough. Of rowing alone on a fjord. Reading with no light on at 2300 hours! Of me, yes moi, docking our ferry with 100+ passengers (well supervised!).