 My father was brought up in very poor circumstances.
His mother Georgina Evans (nee Bourne) was
a hotel maid, and his father, also called
John Evans, was occupied in the tanning trade.
In a way the personality of my Dad has always
been a little like the few photographs that
I have of him - blurred and indistinct -
enigmatic and unfathomable. I often feel
the need now [in my own old age] , although
he is long-time dead, to reach out to him,
and ask him to explain himself, and the way
that he thought about the world whilst he
was here - but it is MY selfish and indulgent
need, and not his - for he is beyond the
reach of 'need,' as we all are eventually.
The family lived in Rockingham Street, which
was located off Stanley Road in a poor area
of Liverpool. He was the eldest of six children.
He'd a brother George, as well as four sisters
- Ginny, Aggie, Minnie and May. The last
named May - or Edna May to give her correct
name was illegitimate. When the father of
the family - John senior returned from soldiering
in the First World War, he discovered the
child, and threw out his wife Georgina. She
fled to Blackpool and went back to her hotel
work, leaving the unfortunate ex-soldier
with six children, one of which wasn't his
own child. Of course he couldn't cope with
the children, and hold down his job as a
warehouseman at the same time, and the children
were taken into care and sent to the Leyfield Convent in Honeysgreen Lane, West Derby.
In 1920, my father John and his younger brother
George got into trouble over swinging on
a shop-blind outside a butchers in Stanley
Road, and the young boys were hauled up before
the Stipendary Magistrates. My father John,
being fourteen and the older of the pair
was given the opportunity of either going
to Borstal or joining the army. Perhaps,
unsurprisingly, he chose the latter, and
soon after he signed on as a drummer-boy
in The Royal Welsh Fusiliers. [correct spelling]
A short time later he found himself on board
a ship to India, where he was to remain for
twelve years serving in Karachi, Bombay,
and the Pass area.
After appearing before the magistrates my
father's brother, George elected to go down
the mine in 1921 at the age of thirteen.
He then found a job in a Blackpool garage
he was seventeen. On his return to Liverpool,
he lived with Aunt Sal in the Barlow's Lane
area, [off Bradewell Street]. Subsequently
he joined the same regiment as my father
The Royal Welch , and went out to India where they met up.
My father and George returned to Liverpool
from India in 1933. My father John met my
mother Annie Elizabeth Roberts on the bridge
in Stanley Park, Walton. She was a machinist
working in The Dunlop Rubber Company in Rice Lane, Walton. At that time, she
lived with her mother and father in the family
home at 54 Eton Street, Walton. According
to my father, he was a virgin at that time.
He was twenty seven years of age. My mother
was two years older at twenty-nine. She was
"much more worldly” my father told me
later. Soon she was pregnant but unfortunately
miscarried. My mother's brothers, Arthur,
and Ernie insisted that my father do the
right thing and marry their sister. According
To Auntie Nellie, they almost frog-marched
my father down to Brougham Terrace Registry Office, where they were married on Saturday 5 November
1932. They set up home in Eton Street with
my mother's parents. My brother Frank was
born on the Thursday 28th of December 1933,
and I followed on Monday 4th of February
1935.
There were no jobs to be had in Liverpool.
Unemployment was very high. George returned
to Britain in 1934 and told the fourteen
year old Nellie that he intended to marry
her when she was old enough.
In 1936 George was called up and sent to
Palestine to join the British 'Peace-keeping'
forces there. He was in the Middle East for
six months. John, being a married man at
the time escaped the call-up. George Evans
and Nellie Aldridge were engaged on 3 September
1936, which was Nellie's birthday, and the
couple married on 27 March
1937. My father attended his brother's wedding,
and the reception at 138 Formosa Drive in
Fazakerly which is on the outskirts of Liverpool.
During the Second World War Nellie and George
had a house in Luton Grove, Walton, but in
this pre-war period they lived in a number
of places including Millersdale Avenue in
two rooms - then to live with Lily Aldridge
[married to Jack Thornberry] in Beatrice
Street, Bootle, where Dorothy was born. Then
they moved to a flat above the Catholic Repository
in Stanley Road. Whilst George and Nellie
lived in Beatrice Street they were very short
of money. My father used to call in to see
them on his forays down to the docks where
he tried to get a day's work. Apparently
he possessed a 'tally,' which at least meant
he was eligible if work was available.
On one occasion, they were all very hungry,
but all they had to offer him was rice pudding.
All three of them sat around the table communally
eating from the rice dish straight from the
oven. My father told me that on the docks
men used to be herded into a pen like animals
where they stood in a mass hoping to be selected
for a job unloading the ships. It was said
that if you bought the foreman a drink in
the crowded Dock Road pub, you stood a chance
of being taken on and taking bread home for
the family. The proud ones did not get taken
on. The bitterness engendered in those days
poisoned the labour relations on the Liverpool
Docks for fifty years. fathers passed the
stories of their humiliation on to their
docker sons. The cries of "Scab!"
echoed down through the decades, right up
to the lockout dispute, which has only just
ended now as I write in 1998 sixty years
later.
Like many unemployed working- class men,
my father moved politically to the left.
He toyed with joining The Communist Party,
and set off to walk to London to join the
International Brigade to fight in The Spanish
Civil War against General Franco and his
Fascists. Luckily for him, the war was reaching
its final deadly conclusion at that time,
and the Recruitment Office was then closed.
The tragic death of my brother Frank at the
age of two years was a contributory factor
in the break-up of my parent's marriage.
Left alone in the kitchen the unfortunate
child pulled a kettle of boiling water over
his chest from its position on the hob.
Covering the child in a blanket, my desperate
father ran the mile and a half to Walton
Hospital. There was no time to try and find
a telephone box, and no taxis to be hailed.
It was to no avail - the poor child died
shortly afterwards from pneumonia. The whole
episode was traumatic with mutual blame and
recrimination. When World War II broke out my father enlisted in his old
regiment, and as a veteran was soon rewarded
with the rank of sergeant. Off he went to
war.
Much later in life when I was in my twenties
and he was in his early fifties, we were
to meet again.
In or about May 1941 my mother could stand
the constant air raids no longer, and she
left Eton Street and went to live in Gronant,
North Wales with a girl called Edie Richards
who used to live next door to her in 53 Eton
Street. When Nellie asked my mother why she'd
chosen to go and live in Wales instead of
joining me, her son, in Worcestershire, my
mother didn't supply her with a satisfactory
answer. When my mother returned from Gronant
in early 1945 my father came home on leave.
They found the house at 54 Eton Street was
in a dreadful state, having been occupied
and abused by friends of my Granny Evans,
who my mother had allowed in on a temporary
basis whilst she was away.
According to Nellie's account, as my mother
and father surveyed the devastated house,
my mother had said to my father
"Who's going to clean all this up?"
My father jokingly, but perhaps inappropriately
replied -
"Perhaps the fairies will do it!"
He was sitting on a long white bench as he
spoke. My mother flung herself on him in
a fury and pushed him over. He fell backwards
striking his head on a chair. She then fell
upon him and gouged deep cuts down both of
his cheeks with her long fingernails. He
fled from the house and sought shelter at
Fazakerly Army Barracks with his brother
George who was a sergeant there. It was the
break up of the marriage. He was so ashamed
of his face that George brought his food
to his room - rather than show his damaged
features.
My mother then left the family home and travelled
down to be with me in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire.
In my wartime childhood years, I was only
to see my father twice.
One of the two occasions was in the summer
of 1945 during a visit he made to Boraston
Mill, in Boraston, near Tenbury Wells in
Worcestershire where my mother after eventually
joining me, had found accommodation for us
both. My mother called me to the bedroom
window and pointed:
"Look! It’s your Dad!"
I remember seeing a khaki-clad figure marching
down the hill towards the Mill House. I ran
to meet him and shyly stopped a few paces
in front of him.
"How are you son?" he said.
I recall the white piping of his sergeant's
stripes as he swung me up onto his shoulders.
With me astride him, we walked down to my
waiting mother. Later that day strolled together
through the apple orchard towards the ruined
summerhouse.
He threw stones with both arms. I was very
impressed at this feat of ambidexosity. As
a little lonely boy, I was very proud of
this tall confidant stranger who was my father.
As suddenly as he appeared he left.
The years passed by until one day in 1948
my mother took me on the ferryboat to New
Brighton on the opposite side of the River
Mersey from Liverpool. My father was stationed
in the old red sandstone fort that guards
the entrance to the river. We walked across
the wet raised causeway that connects the
fort to the promenade. My mother and father
were arguing heatedly. It was their final
meeting. They were never to meet again. My
father already had another woman down in
Oxford, her name was Audrey. They'd two children
together - a girl named Valerie and a boy
called Clive. According to Auntie Nellie,
Audrey was a Land Army girl from Cambridge
working in Oxford just after the war when
she met my father. She'd some money from
an inheritance and bought a house in Sunningdale.
She became pregnant, but being in The Salvation
Army was rather ashamed of the fact and didn't
tell my father at first. After my mother's
attack on my father in Eton Street, he left
Liverpool and went down to Oxford to live
with Audrey. The baby was a girl, which they
named Valerie. Later a boy was born to them,
which they named Clive. Audrey was quite
ill in hospital, so Grandma Evans arranged
for one of my father's childless sisters
- Agnes (who had been widowed but had then
recently remarried) to look after the child.
They never got the baby back from Agnes.
After the tragic death of her first husband
Billy Aldridge, who lost his life following
the sinking of The Laconia, she married Dick
McGowan, a man who proved to be a kind father
to the adopted Clive. They lived happily
in Medlock Street in the Kirkdale area of
Liverpool. Nellie tells me that my father
once made a visit to Aggie's house to see
his son Clive, who had by this time been
adopted by the couple. When my father heard
the young boy call Dick 'daddy!' he broke
down and had to leave the house. Blinded
by tears he almost got knocked down by a
passing car as he crossed over Westminster
Road.
When my half-brother Clive grew up, he married
a Liverpool woman and had five children.
Clive went to work in Thailand. On his return
he found that his wife had gone to Butlin's
Holiday Camp - met a man and run off with
him and her children. Clive promptly went
back to Thailand, where married a Thai girl
and had another five children.
I returned to civilian life in Liverpool
in 1955 after serving in Egypt with the Gloucestershire
Regiment, and I'd a strong desire to meet
my father again. His brother, my uncle George
was a bus conductor with The Ribble Bus Company
at the time, and knowing that he was aware
of my father's whereabouts I accompanied
him to The Ribble Bus Company Club. That
evening I plied him with drink, and whilst
he was a little tipsy, he confided to me
that my Dad was working as a night porter
in The Mitre Hotel in Oxford. I promised
George that I wouldn't tell anyone how I
got the information, and gave my word that
I wouldn't tell my mother of my intention
to seek out my father.
Even at that date, my mother and father weren't
divorced, for in those days both spouses
had to be in favour of a legal divorce before
it could be enacted. My mother, who remained
very bitter towards my father, always spitefully
refused her permission to give my father
his freedom, so that he could marry Audrey
and give their children legitimacy. They
remained legally married up until the time
of his death in the early seventies. Even
on her deathbed in 1997, my mother retained
her bitterness towards my father whom she
maintained had betrayed her and ruined her
life. She never looked for another partner.
Telling my mother that I was going to a weekend
Engagement Party, I travelled down to Oxford
by train and soon found The Mitre Hotel, which turned out to be one of the most
well known of the city hostelries, much loved
by the more wealthy students.
Entering the rather grand reception, I enquired
at the desk for Mr. Evans.
"That's Mr Evans at the top of the stairs!"
she said. "Mr. Evans!" she called
out. "This gentleman would like to see
you!"
It was a moment charged with drama. I walked
to the foot of the stairs and looked up at
the uniformed figure above me.
"Mr. Evans? I said. "Yes sir! -
Do I know you sir? Have you stayed here before
sir!"
"No I haven't." I replied "Where
was it then sir?" Said my Dad.
"Liverpool! I replied. My father's face
blanched visibly. "Are you Jud?"
he asked quietly.
"Yes." I said. He descended the
stairs, and putting his arm around my shoulder,
he led me towards the bar.
"I've another life down here son,"
he said quietly, “people here know me as
John and know nothing of my past life in
the north. Do you mind calling me John -
just to keep everything in order?"
We sat in the oak-panelled lounge and sipped
our drinks.
"There's another side to every story
you know son." He said, toying with
his glass.
He spoke in a whisper so that the bar-staff
couldn't hear.
"Your mother was a bitch to me you know.
I couldn't put up with it any longer. I just
had to get away. She attacked me on many
occasions and in the end tore deep scratches
in my face.
That was the end when she did that.
Again, I was hearing bitterness and bile
about the ill-matched union - this time from
my father. All of my young life and teenage
years I'd been subjected to a vituperative
account of my father's failings from my mother.
Now the verbal abuse was coming from another
quarter. I sat there and listened glumly.
I was caught up between all this bottled
up hate and frustration.
There was a staff party down below in the
staff room later that night - someone was
leaving. There was a piano, and in the manner
of the times, people sang. They gave 'Their
Song' (always after much encouragement and
egging on by the others.)
I gave my party piece like every one else.
As we reached the small hours and the beer
continued to flow my Dad got drunk. Suddenly
he banged his glass on the table and said
he wanted to make an announcement.
“This lad isn't my nephew."
His tearful eyes swept the room meeting everyone's:
"He's my son!" he proclaimed proudly.
I wept with him overcome with emotion and
pride.
I saw a lot of my father after that meeting
and grew to love him, and I like to think
he felt the same. He visited me a lot in
Liverpool when I had the floating nightclub
The Clubship Landfall on the Liverpool Docks, and was very proud
of my success in business.
My father had a heart attack on New Years
Day 1971 whilst running for a train in the
London Underground. He died three days later
on 4 January 1971. He was only sixty-four
years old. Like many men of his time he wasn't
very diet conscious and subsequently was
overweight.
My mother was never aware of my relationship
with her estranged husband. I kept it from
her. It would have caused her pain. I met
my father's partner Audrey at the funeral
on 4th January 1971. We sat together in the
leading funeral car to and from the crematorium
in South London where they took him. She
was a nice, homely sort of a woman, the type
that makes a good wife and mother.
|
