Fifty Years Ago: Tuesday 20th July 1976
(Gosforth, Age 14.9)
Slept in, at long last!
It took a bit of getting used to not being up for 7.00 reveille at Corps Camp. Anything past 7.30 felt like a lie-in to me. I’d always been an early riser, and even now there was a sense that the day was already underway without me. Mum would be up, moving around downstairs in the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing, the familiar sounds of home filtering up through the house. Still, after camp, and with the Montreal Olympics keeping me up later than usual, the extra sleep felt deserved.
I had a dentist appointment for 10.00 and needed to buy a bike padlock first. The bike was a second-hand racing bike I’d had since my thirteenth birthday. Nothing fancy, but it represented freedom. The padlock was probably paid for with money Mum had given me for the purpose. Nobody had ever stolen one of my bikes; it was simply what you did if you intended to leave it anywhere.
I got to the dentist for 10.00 but didn’t actually see him until 11.00.
It infuriated me.
The orthodontist occupied a huge Edwardian house that had been converted into consulting rooms. The waiting room felt more like a gentleman’s club than a surgery: high ceilings, heavy furniture, deep chairs, adults sitting patiently with magazines. I can still picture it. Being kept waiting for an hour felt like an abuse of power. At fourteen I already had a strong sense that other people’s time should not automatically be considered more valuable than mine.
My older brother was meeting me at the swimming baths at 12.00. Somehow I got there in time.
The baths already carried a history for us. I remembered when the pool had first opened and we’d gone together as boys, perhaps seven and nine years old, sharing a changing cubicle and exploring the place with the excitement of pioneers. By now I was a competitive swimmer and we were regulars during the holidays.
I did a few lengths. There was the springboard and the high-diving platform to try out, and the shallow training pool as well. The place seemed enormous when I was younger. Even now it still felt like a small world of its own, filled with chlorine, echoes and the slap of water against tiled walls.
On the way home we dropped in to see Granny Wilson.
Her house was a typical 1930s semi-detached. There was the front room, reserved almost entirely for guests and special occasions. As grandchildren we practically only entered it on Boxing Day. Everyday life took place in the back room, which served as parlour, dining room and television room all at once.
Granny asked endless questions.
She knew everything about everyone and maintained a constant stream of information through her three sisters. One of their grandsons, Christopher, occupied a curious place in family lore because he was exactly one day younger than me. Or rather, he wasn’t supposed to be. Mum and his mother had both been in the same nursing home and I had arrived later than expected, leaving Christopher permanently one day behind me. Such tiny details seemed strangely important to older generations.
Lunch.
Dad eventually turned up.
By then he lived ninety-six miles away at Appleby. He often came to Newcastle for meetings and would stay at the Gosforth Park Hotel. Usually he had to visit his own mother in Melton Park before seeing us. He had long since warned us never to bank on him. Plans could change. Meetings appeared. Other commitments intervened. By this stage we had learned not to expect punctuality.
The word eventually probably contains a note of irritation.
Being a father was not always his first priority.
At Appleby we lived by different rules. Dad expected us to be self-reliant. We might see him properly at the evening meal, but otherwise he would often be in his office, driving somewhere across the north of England, or attending meetings as far away as Hull or Manchester. We learned to adapt ourselves to two different worlds: Mum’s house in Gosforth and Dad’s castle at Appleby.
I forgot my diary!
Quelle tragédie!
The phrase was entirely theatrical, but the frustration was genuine. Keeping a daily diary depended on having it to hand. I certainly didn’t want Mum or a curious grandmother stumbling across it and having a read. By now I already understood its value. One of the pleasures of writing every day was being able to look back and discover exactly what I had been doing on this date a year earlier. The diary was becoming a conversation between different versions of myself.
I saw my big sister later.
Then supper, prepared by the castle cook, Mabel.
Mabel was part of the fabric of Appleby Castle. She lived in a cottage within the courtyard and had probably cooked for previous owners long before we arrived. Family legend had it that she had effectively served her apprenticeship under the famous Yellow Earl of Lonsdale. Her meals were solid, high-quality British cooking, prepared in a kitchen designed for catering on a scale far beyond that of an ordinary house.
We were not visitors there. However unconventional our family arrangement had become after the divorce and remarriage, we were still the resident family. Children came and went between households, but Appleby remained one of our homes.
Looking back, what strikes me is how much of the day was spent moving between different adults and different versions of family life: the orthodontist in his grand Edwardian house, my brother at the baths, Granny in her semi-detached parlour, Dad arriving on his own timetable, my sister, and finally Mabel presiding over the vast castle kitchen.
Nothing especially dramatic happened.
Yet beneath the surface was the quiet business of adjustment. Schoolboy, cadet, swimmer, grandson, son, brother. Home in Gosforth, home in Appleby. At fourteen, I was already learning that different places required different versions of yourself, and that moving between them was simply part of everyday life. Fifty years on, that seems to me the real subject of the day.
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