My final farewell to a wonderful grandfather

Harry Lloyd, a hard worker and a jolly grandfather

The news of my grandfather’s death was a shock but after 10 minutes sitting quietly in Tony’s office I had composed myself. He had given me that time to let it sink in before returning.

I told him I needed to call my parents to find out the arrangements for the funeral and said I would need the day off and a day either side for travelling but he told me I could take the week off as bereavement leave.

“No, I’d rather travel up the day before the funeral and then back the day after. I’d only need the three days.”

I had to steel myself to make the call home but once I had dialled that familiar number I felt better and after a few rings Dad answered. Straightaway he asked if I was alright. Typical of my father, putting the feelings of others first.

I knew that he really cared for my grandfather and had known him a lot longer than I had, from the very first days when he dated my mother while she was on holiday in Rhyl in the 1930s.

I told him I was fine and asked about the funeral arrangements.

The funeral was to be on Thursday with a church service at Rhyl followed by interment at Bootle cemetery in Liverpool where he would join my grandmother, Celia, in a family grave, surrounded by the graves of family and friends. His family ties to Liverpool went back generations, it was to be many years before I found out how many.

I told my father I would drive up on Wednesday morning and probably travel back at the weekend, Saturday or Sunday. He told me I should think about whether or not I wanted to see Grandad as he would be in the Chapel of Rest at the funeral directors’ and the coffin would not be sealed until first thing Thursday morning.

I don’t remember quite how I managed to work over those two days, I must have gone into automatic mode. On the Wednesday morning I left Burnham after breakfast to drive home to Wales. I still considered Rhyl as my home and certainly Wales has always been home to me. All the other places I have just been visiting.

It was lunchtime before I arrived and parked my car in the large back yard.

When I walked through the back door my mother was there in the kitchen and I reached out and just held her tight. I had always had a special relationship with my mother and at that moment we did not need words.

Ivy Pierce, nee Lloyd

I went through to the shop to see Dad and let him know I had arrived safely.

Later that afternoon I decided I would go and say my final farewells to my beloved grandfather. Mum offered to come with me but I said I would rather spend some time alone with him.

It was not far to Tong’s the funeral directors. I used to pass it every day on my way to grammar school. I told them who I was and they showed me into the chapel and left me on my own with my grandfather.

His coffin was rested on trestles and as I approached and looked down at him I felt almost a sense of shock going through me. It was true, all that I had been told, he really did just look as though he had fallen asleep.

He was dressed in his smart suit, wearing a white shirt and a tie.

His face still had a rosy glow on the cheeks, just as when I had seen him last a few weeks before. I reached out to tough his cheek and received my second shock – he was icy cold.

My hand jerked back, involuntarily, as I felt that cold, waxy flesh which had once been a living, breathing person. Then I returned it to rest it again lightly on his cheek.

I was there for at least 20 minutes. I talked to him the way I once talked when we were playing cribbage. I reminded him of the fun we had and how much I had enjoyed the visits to Wrexham to hear him play for the local amateur operatic society. I talked of his friendship with Anton Mutschler, who stayed with us as part of a youth holiday exchange system.

I talked of shoes and ships and sealing wax and of cabbages and kings.

It did not really matter what I said, it was the feelings behind it.

This was the man who, on the day that I was born, had written to my mother to welcome me to the world and had illustrated the letter with one of his little sketches. This time it was of a robin and in recent years I have used it as an illustration on my various writings.

The sketch made by my grandfather on the day I was born

I had so many memories but I also had questions. Questions I should have asked years before during a whole decade when I often had him to myself at home.

In time I asked those questions of his daughter, my darling mother, and discovered just what an amazing man he was. I will save the stories of his exploits for another time but suffice it to say he had served in two world wars, the first of which had cost the lives of many of his friends and family, as well as working through the terrible 20s.

He had married his sweetheart, had four children, two of whom had died long before him, and he had lost his darling wife and had to live on more than two decades without her.

HaRRY lLOYD AND cELIA c RAIG ON THEIR WEDDING DAY IN 1918

It was only as I leaned over to kiss his forehead in a last farewell that I realised the tears had been streaming down my face and they had now dropped onto his as though he too had been crying as we said goodbye.

The next day we accompanied him on his return to Bootle, in his beloved Liverpool. He had been born there and lived there for more than 50 years. He had always been an avid Liverpool FC fan, although in later years he also followed Wrexham FC.

That drive took us through parts of Liverpool I remembered from the times we had visited family in that great city, which had also given birth to my mother and to myself.

After we said our farewells at the graveside Mum took us to see the graves of other family members including those of her own grandparents. It seemed to me at the time that we were related to half the people there.

We returned home and it all seemed so normal that at any moment I expected to see Grandad sitting in his comfy armchair and watching television, except we would never see him there again.

It was a sad day yet a happy day as well as we had our memories of this wonderful old man who had spent his life laughing and joking with others despite the tragedies he had seen.

I stayed until Sunday and then drove back to Burnham ready for a new day at work on Monday afternoon.

It is almost half a century since I said goodbye to Grandad.

He is with me still.

Death comes too close for comfort

Dealing with death becomes a part of life for many journalists, especially those working on regional dailies or weeklies when the people involved are part of their community.

Whether it is a case of natural death, by old age or a long-term illness, or sudden death by accident or design (a house fire or fall as opposed to murder) a reporter either deals with the obituary or funeral report or will report on a sudden death, usually by attending the inquest.

I had been dealing with funeral reports since my early days as a cub reporter, and had dealt with cases of sudden death, although until my first doorstep interview in Basildon I had normally attended the inquests for information and reported what the family and other witnesses had said.

Death in your personal life is entirely different and often the first case you have to deal with is in teens or later when a grandparent dies.

By the time I became really aware of family members beyond the immediate household, other than as people who turned up now and again at birthdays or Christmas, I was fast running out of grandparents.

Both my grandmothers had died before I was born.

My paternal grandmother died when my father was still in his teens and I was told her sudden death came about a year after the shocking death of her eldest daughter, my father’s favourite sibling, his sister Dorothy who he had called Dodo from the moment he could speak.

I believe my maternal grandmother died in the late 40s or possibly very early 50s when I wasn’t even a year old. She had been very ill in her last years and had had a leg amputated.

My paternal grandfather used to visit us in Chesham but I am not sure whether my memories of him were real or conjured up by photographs especially one taken when I was about two or three.

A young curly-headed Robin looks up at his grandfather Rev. Edward Vyrnwy Pierce

He was seated on an armchair in the garden and I am stood at the side looking up at him. He died, aged 80, a year or so later, well before we moved to Rhyl.

My only remaining grandparent was my mother’s father, Harry Lloyd, a lovable man with a pink face and a wreath of white hair, or that, at least, is the way I remember him best.

My early memories involve visiting him in Wrexham, well Southsea actually which is just outside Wrexham, where he lodged with a family friend after he retired from the civil service. Sometimes we three children would stay for a few days and would go out for country walks and even go blackberry picking in season.

At other times it would be an evening trip to see a musical performed by the Wrexham Amateur Operatic Society at the local college. Grandad was a violinist in the small orchestra.

A young Harry Lloyd in the 1920s

At the time I had not known that he had actually been a semi-professional musician in the 1920s with his own string trio playing at dance hall in the evening.

I still remember many of the tunes from Oklahoma, South Pacific and similar musicals which were popular in the 1950s.

In the early 1960s Grandad came to live with us in Rhyl.

This involved a bit of an upheaval because the house, which included the shop and a flat with external access, only had three bedrooms – one for my parents, one for my brother and myself and one for my sister.

The flat, which included former upstairs rooms from when the property was a girls school, had originally connected with the house by doors from the landing which had been blocked off with plasterboard.

The tenant had moved out and before it was relet my parents opened up one of the doorways leading into the main front room and then closed off the access to the rest of the flat, which now had a kitchen, bathroom and toilet, a living room and two small bedrooms.

My brother Nigel and I were moved into the new large bedroom and Grandad had our old room.

They were happy years when he was with us, I remember him teaching me to play cribbage and later letting me join in when the elderly aunts visited from Liverpool for a Sunday afternoon card session, games such as gin rummy and Newmarket.

They bet on the games using matchsticks but I am now certain that the sticks represented real money, probably a halfpenny a time, and Grandad probably subbed me for my stake.

I do know that if I did well he often gave me threepence or sixpence which represented some of my winnings, at the same time he absorbed many of my losses.

My Grandad the gentle joker wearing my school cap and wielding my hockey stick (the eagle-eyed among you will note I prefer the Indian head hockey stick)

It was a wrench to leave my parents and Grandad when I moved to work in Basildon (my brother and sister had both married and moved out by this time, but when I said goodbye I knew I would be seeing them all again at Christmas.

Except I headed back home sooner than that and under very difficult circumstances.

It was on a Monday morning early in November that I received a call at the office from my mother.

She was ringing to tell me that my dear grandfather had died peacefully in his bed some time in the early hours of Sunday morning.

When I put the phone down I sat there stunned and I am sure tears were trickling down my face. It was certainly enough for Tony Blandford, the editor, to come over and ask what was wrong.

At first I couldn’t even get the words out until finally I said: “My Grandad’s dead.”

He suggested I go into his office to get my thoughts together and take in the news.

This was my first close death in the family. It took some time to take it in.

NEXT: Going home to say goodbye.

Knock! Knock! Who’s there?

Boris Johnson doorstepped when he was Foreign Secretary and news broke of his row with his girlfriend at her flat

DOORSTEPPING – we’ve all heard about it. A politician or an entertainment celebrity is alleged to have done something (cheated on the wife; fiddled their taxes; taken a bribe) and members of the press are on their doorstep waiting for them to step outside and face a string of questions and a barrage of camera flashes.

Some just ignore the questions and chat away without answering a single question (Johnson has that off to a T) while others smile and offer simple answers of the yes or no kind and head off to work without being offensive.

Jeremy Corbyn chats with members of the press outside his Islington home.

Others tend to run away.

Michael Gove just keeps running

Doorstepping has not always been so in-your-face. At one time it just meant calling on a person without making an appointment beforehand.

In the 60s and 70s reporters did not rely on the telephone to get their stories as they do nowadays. At that time telephones were the exception not the norm. If you wanted to talk to somebody about a story it was a matter of calling at their home or work to speak to them face to face.

The call might be to get reaction from local people about plans the council had for their area; or there might be a story affecting a number of people – such as an overflowing drain; then again it might be just to get up-to-date information on a local organisation or sports team.

In most of these cases ringing the doorbell was not a problem.

During my time in Basildon I did a number of such calls.

My first, however, was not a vox pop, or anything to do with an incident in the area where I went to make my call. I was tasked with the hardest doorstep of all – calling on a young widow, and when I say young I mean teenage, whose husband had died over the weekend.

The information from the police was that a young man had been out with friends at a local nightclub and following an incident at the door to the club he had fallen down the steps and died from head injuries.

I had his address and the name of his wife and the fact that she had a young child (that last titbit came from a young policewoman, who one of the police team who had informed the young widow about the death).

Armed with this information I headed to the address I had been given and noted a number of people on the pavement outside. I recognised some as journalists but I was too recently arrived to be recognisable.

The house was one of a modern terrace and the neighbour’s front door was was to the far right, out of earshot of anyone outside the the widow’s door.

Instead of joining my colleagues I rang the bell of the neighbour’s house and when it was answered by a young woman, probably a couple of years older than me, I introduced myself as a reporter from the Standard Recorder.

Her first reaction was to say: “I have nothing to tell you. If you want to speak to Sue you’ll have to join the queue but I don’t think she’s going to answer while that lot are outside.”

I told her: “I’m not here to ask you questions about your neighbour, I actually want you to help me do her a favour. Until somebody has a story they will be there waiting. Some of them will be keen to sell a story to the nationals and won’t care about her once they have talked.

“What I want to do is to let her tell her story the way she wants it to be told. I want to find out what sort of man he was and how they were settling down to parenthood. I’m not going to make up details or print anything she doesn’t want because we are a weekly paper and we are here for all our readers not just this week but every week.”

I’m not saying that her face had been hard up to then but what I said seemed to make it soften a bit.

She invited me into the hallway and pushed the front door to.

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“All I’m asking is that you call on Sue and ask her if she is willing to talk to me about her husband, Gordon. I won’t be writing about what happened the other night, we couldn’t say much about that because police are still investigating. What I want is for her to tell me the real story about her and Gordon up to the point before he went out that night.”

Something must have convinced her I was serious, whether it was my boyish look of sincerity or the soft Welsh accent (which seemed to slip into my speech at certain times). She said she would go and talk to her neighbour but it could take half an hour or more and the best thing would be if she called me at the office (it turned out she was one of the few in that street to have a telephone) to tell me whether Sue had said yes or no.

Before leaving I asked one more favour: “Could you ask if she would mind if I had a photographer with me? The only pictures taken would be those she agreed to.”

I returned to the office and told Tony, the editor, the situation and he told me to get the photographer to stand by and if we got the go-ahead we could go straight there.

Forty minutes after I had left the neighbour phoned and said Sue had agreed to the interview and for a photographer to be present. We were to go straight to the house in 20 minutes.

With that the photographer and I headed off and pulled up across the road. The group on the pavement had thinned out but of those left a few knew our photographer and realised I must be a reporter.

“You’ve got no chance,” one said. “She’s not even answering the doorbell except for some woman from next door.”

“Ah well, worth a try,” I said and rang the bell.

The door was opened by the neighbour who ushered us in, leaving our colleagues on the pavement with their jaws dropped to their chests in surprise.

We were shown into the living room where Sue was waiting for us, holding her baby, Hayley, in her arms.

At first glance you would have thought she should have been in school. The tragedy may have left her with puffy eyes but she still had that schoolgirl look about her.

I introduced myself and the photographer and expressed my sympathy over her tragic loss.

We then sat down, or rather Sue and I sat down, she at one end of the sofa and me on an armchair facing her. I got out my notebook and stressed to her that I would not use anything she did not want used and any photograph would be at her discretion.

She was shy and somewhat withdrawn at first but as I asked questions about how they had met, and what Gordon was like, she started to come out of her shell and before long it was as though I was doing a feature interviewing one half of a couple celebrating a special anniversary.

She told me how they met at school, he was a couple of years older than her, and that they started “going steady” within a few weeks.

His main interest was football and he played for two teams, one was a club team he had played with since his schooldays and the other a works team. One was in a Saturday league and the other in a Sunday league.

Other than the football training and matches and the pair of them going out to the cinema he rarely went anywhere. Especially as in the early days he was saving for the furniture they would need when they got their first home.

The pair were the ideal couple for Basildon New Town, young, starting a family and looking forward to the future.

A couple of months after they married she got pregnant and he had devoted himself to being there for her, although she had insisted he go to his football matches.

Then a few months after the birth she suggested he should go out for the night with his mates, something he had not done for a very long time.

He had gone out that Saturday night and promised not to be back late.

He never came home.

By now Sue was crying and I asked her if she wanted us to go.

I knew I was sitting on one of the best stories I had ever had but I didn’t want to upset her. That was the promise I had made to the neighbour.

Instead she asked us to stay and said she would have to pop upstairs to freshen up if we wanted a photo.

At that she suddenly asked if I would hold the baby while she was gone and before I had a chance to say anything I found myself cradling a small bundle with a little pink face and tiny hands poking out of the blanket.

Naturally the photographer could not resist taking a few pix of me, claiming that he just wanted to make sure the lighting was right. He did give me a copy but after all the travelling I have no idea if I still have it.

Once she returned and we were done I asked if she had a picture of Gordon we could borrow. She gave us one taken of the both of them with the baby a few weeks after the birth.

My first front page byline with the picture of the tragic trio.

The story almost wrote itself and because the picture Sue had provided was so perfect we didn’t use the shots taken by our photographer.

My story and byline were also used in our evening paper (a little bit of a bonus cashwise for me) and I later received a letter from Sue thanking me for being so kind.

Sue and Gordon were typical of many young couples in Basildon. Oddly enough I had another story in the Recorder that week involving another pair of newlyweds the same ages as Sue and Gordon.

This was not heartbreaking tragedy, however, They had recently married and ordered new furniture for their home including a brand-new bed.

Within a week one of the legs broke (no sniggering in the back there) and they had to prop it up with a tin of beans while the company they bought it from arranged for a replacement, unfortunately for them that took weeks.

Newlyweds Christine and Peter show the tin of peas supporting their marital bed

Mea culpa – mea maxima culpa

Sorry I didn’t get back to the tale of our young reporter on his big adventure in Essex but a few things happened before I got round to it which made me think carefully about friendship, something I have talked about before.

Friendship is important.

We begin making friends when we are very young and we continue making them all our lives. Often they become lifetime friendships, such as my friendship with Roger Steele. We met as five-year-olds and continued that friendship until three years ago when he died.

He was a good friend and we were almost like brothers until I left Rhyl – but was I a good friend? I have begun to realise that the answer to that question is not an easy “Yes” or “No”.

Roger came to visit a couple of times when I lived in Basildon. When I moved back north we saw each other more often. When I moved to Australia, of course, he was unable to visit as often but we corresponded, occasionally, and certainly exchanged birthday and Christmas cards for a few years.

On my return to the UK he was one of the first people I visited and five years vanished in a flash over a few pints and a game of darts.

Then I moved again.

Then I went abroad again.

Then I was home again.

We met up and had a few pints and a game of darts.

Then I moved again and visits to North Wales were limited, and I moved even further (although I remained in the UK) and returned to Wales less and less. Yet when I did visit a knock on his door or a quick phone call and it was like old times.

Then for a few years it was back to Christmas cards. After a while return cards did not appear but then again it was possible he had not kept up with my changes of address – to be honest I cannot recall them all.

I did keep in touch with goings on in Rhyl via Facebook and noticed the name Steele crop up quite often. I sent a message to Tilly Steele and asked if she was related to Roger and it turned out she was his niece, daughter of Roger’s older brother David – guitarist at many a late night party in the 60s.

Tilly said she would be calling on Roger within the next few days and would say I was trying to get in touch.

She did get back to me but it was to tell me that Roger had died a few days earlier before she had a chance to visit him.

That left me wondering if he knew I was still his friend.

Certainly when I attended his funeral his family welcomed me, especially Roger’s older brother and sister David and Diane. I met again his niece Lynda Dykstra who I had last seen when she was still a schoolgirl.

What made me flinch inside was when they said how Roger often talked about me.

Since then I have been contacting other old friends via Facebook but again sometimes I have been too late. For instance I made contact with a lot of old friends from Rhyl Little Theatre – the Roberts’ sisters, Gwyneth, Val and Christine; Sian Roberts, daughter of one of the best woman journalists I have ever known, in fact one of the best journalists I have ever met – Ruby Roberts. Yet when I mentioned some of the plays I appeared in and people I had worked with it was to be told Glyn Banks, a fine actor who could play the porter in Macbeth as easily as Huck Finn in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, had died last year.

I have been in touch with other colleagues from the world of journalism and I have often mentioned on here the best journalist and friend I have ever had – Peter Leaney.

Earlier this year I found his address and wrote to him but heard nothing.

Then in early May I was told by a journalist friend that Peter had died on May the first. That was one of the things that brought me to a halt with a jerk and has made me think what friendship really means.

There have been times I have been back in the north and could have called in on Peter, just as I could have called in on the Little Theatre or looked up other friends from Wales.

Everywhere I have been I have made new friends and then I have moved on and put those friendships in little boxes and tucked them away in the attic which is my memory. I have never forgotten them but I haven’t looked in those boxes very often.

I know some of those friends have shuffled off this mortal coil and memories are all that remain. I can only hope I can catch up with others before we all take that finale on the stage of life.

My failure to be a good friend to so many people who have been my friend is my fault, not theirs.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I still have the memories but I must try to be a better friend.

Up in court on my first day in this Brave New Town

The bustling concrete jungle known as Basildon

At 8.30am on Monday, 9th October, 1972, I entered a Brave New World – Basildon.

Although that comparison to Aldous Huxley’s sci-fi classic would cast me in the role of the Savage whereas I felt I was the explorer in a concrete jungle.

The drive from Burnham-on-Crouch, where I was living in a rented caravan for two weeks, allowed me to see the gradual change from rural Essex to the urbanisation and mid-century Brutal architecture.

By the time I reached the centre of Basildon New Town I found myself longing for the company of others as I took on the role of Welsh journalist/explorer Henry Morton Stanley seeking Dr Livingstone.

Henry Morton Stanley
Dr David Livingstone

I drove into the car park which lay behind Southernhay and positioned my car opposite the back door of the Recorder office.

Within minutes I saw a bearded figure heading for the back door and was 99 per cent certain I had seen him in the editorial room when I came for my interview.

I got out of the car, locked the door and followed him in.

The door opened onto a corridor with a kitchen to the right and what were probably toilets to the left. Ahead was an open door and I went in to the editorial room where I was to be working for the foreseeable future.

As I entered the man I had followed in turned and, with a smile on his face, said: “Ah Robin isn’t it? Welcome to Basildon and the Standard Recorder. I’m Barry Brennan the deputy editor. Tony won’t be in for a while, he’s at head office.”

After shaking my hand he introduced me to others in the office: Bobs Hurley, a slim, clean-shaven man in his 30s, the chief reporter; John Howard, a short bearded man, senior reporter; Peter Biscoe, about my age, slightly heavier in build, reporter; a man whose name I cannot remember to this day (even though he was to get me into trouble with my future wife and her friends), sub-editor; and a gray-haired woman, Elizabeth, who worked part-time and whose husband had been the staff photographer who had died a year or two before.

With introductions made I was shown my desk, an old-fashioned wooden table-size desk with two drawers to the right hand side, on it was an old sit-up-and-beg typewriter, a cream-coloured phone, and a wire filing basket.

It was in a corner which put my back to the partition between editorial and reception and had me facing across the other desks to where Bobs sat at his own desk keeping an eye on the reporters.

Barry showed me the stationery cupboard filled with all the paraphanalia a good journalist needed: notebooks, pens and pencils, copy paper, carbon paper, typewriter ribbons, paper clips and staplers and staples.

I was shown the kitchen which had all the makings for tea and coffee and the spare mugs for general use; the toilets, opposite, and the darkroom. I was told I would meet the photographer later.

After the general introduction Bobs gave me my first of many assignments – a trip over to Billericay to cover the local court.

Bobs told me there were two courts running that morning, a regular court and a juvenile, both starting at 10 and both having good cases running.

“You’ll meet Julian Barnes from the Billericay office there. He’ll cover the main court and you can deal with the juveniles. It’s alleged some young lads beat up a man and left him at the side of the road.

“Julian can fill you in on the magistrates, court officials etc. He’s a good lad and I’m sure you’ll get on.”

Driving from Basildon to Billericay was a reversal of the morning journey, taking me from the concrete jungle back to genteel civilisation in a proper little market town.

The juvenile court was straight forward and it turned out the lads before the court were more victim than aggressor.

Rather than setting on the man one of their number had actually been grabbed by the man, a lorry driver, and hit. Seeing their friend being beaten they went to his aid and eventually chased him off.

Also they had not dumped him at the side of the road, as claimed by a late-arriving witness, they had picked him up when he fell and took him to safety at the side of the road.

The “victim” failed to turn up at court and the magistrates were told he had no recollection of what had happened.

The magistrates decided there was no case to answer against the boys, two aged 15 and one 16, and the case was dismissed.

During that week I did the emergency rounds – police, fire and ambulance; sorted out and wrote up recollections of older townsfolk from the war (including the rector and his family who were unscathed when the rectory was hit by a bomb); wrote up my fist story on the battle between older residents and the Basildon Corporation over compulsory purchase orders; interviewed a businessman who had been dumping rubbish bags at the council offices because thy hadn’t put up proper signs to the tip and people were dumping rubbish in his boatyard; and even interviewed a 70-year-old man who had recently returned from Australia, where he had lived for five years, and said it wasn’t as good as it was cracked up to be (the previous week the paper had reported on the large number of people who had turned up at a meeting about emigration).

It was a good and varied first week in my new job but as I read the paper that Friday and checked off my contributions little did I know what would soon be coming my way.

A fine weekend in the country

Though I say it myself my memory is quite good, short-term and long-term.

The long-term memory, in particular, is normally excellent, even down to what I wore on a particular day.

There is one foggy area, however, and that deals with the weekend from Friday, 6 October, 1972, up to 8.30am on Monday, 9 0ctober, 1972.

I do know that at lunchtime on the Friday my colleagues at the Rhyl Journal took me to the nearby White Swan (affectionately known as The Dirty Duck) for a farewell drink.

The White Swan in Rhyl – a retreat for journalists

That evening was spent at the Rhyl Yacht Club where I had spent some happy times during the 60s and early 70s.

On the Saturday morning I spent time with friends and family before setting off for adventures new with my car packed full of cases, bedding and personal items.

This is where part of the fogginess occurs.

Over the decades I have had many cars – Morris Minor, Austin Cambridge, at least one Toyota, a Datsun, Volvos, couple of Meganes, even a Rover and a Chevrolet – but I cannot for the life of me remember the car which carried me off to a new life.

All I can remember is that it was a red hatchback with decent heating and a radio cassette player.

I took a cross country course towards Essex, intending to take my time and enjoy the drive.

I stopped overnight at a village pub (no point arriving on Saturday if the caravan wasn’t available), and to this day still cannot remember its name or the name of the village.

I was up with the lark after a refreshing night’s sleep and soon got back on the road for the final leg of my journey to a new life.

Even in October Burnham-on-Crouch was a pretty place and I soon found the home of the caravan and cottage owner.

The caravan was on a piece of land with three others next to the cottage which I would move into two weeks later.

It was better than the basic 1950s caravan I had expected although not quite up to the mark of a mobile home. The stove was on bottled gas and the caravan had been linked to the electricity. Quite cosy all round.

It didn’t take long to settle in, I didn’t have much with me and I intended going home for Christmas when I could fetch more stuff.

I popped into the local pub and had a traditional Sunday roast before heading back to the caravan for a nap.

Next morning I treated myself to a hearty breakfast and then headed for Basildon.

My new life had begun.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam XXI-XL

by Omar Khayyam

translated by Edward Fitzgerald
XXI.
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean -
Ah, lean upon lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXII.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears -
To-morrow? - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

XXIII.
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.

XXIV.
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch - for Whom?

XXV.
Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie;
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End!

XXVI.
Alike to those for who To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
'Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There!'

XXVII.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Works to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVIII.
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; One thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

XXIX.
Myself when Young did easily frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

XXX.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -
'I came like Water and like Wind I go.

XXXI.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXXII.
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate.

XXXIII.
There was the door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was - and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIV.
Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, 'What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?'
And - 'A blind Understanding!' Heav'n replied.

XXXV.
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd - 'While you live,
Drink! - for, once dead, you never shall return.'

XXXVI.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make, and the cold Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take - and give!

XXXVII.
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with it's all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd - 'Gently, Brother, gently, pray!'

XXXVIII.
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations roll'd
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mould?

XXXIX.
Ah, fill the Cup:- what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?

XL.
A Moment's Halt - a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste -
And Lo! The phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from - Oh, make haste!

Time to take flight to the Lost Lands

Once I had got my breath back, following the phone call which set me on a new path, I realised I had a lot to do and just four weeks to get it done.

I got the call on Friday, 8 September and I was due to start on Monday, 9 October.

In between I had to give in my notice, continue working and find accommodation in reasonable reach of Basildon.

The first task was easy. I just had to go over to the office and let Brian know. I could sort out a formal letter of resignation over the weekend.

Other than finding accommodation there was not much else to do.

Which meant my work would continue as normal.

As well as copies of the Recorder Tony Blandford had given me two editions of the Southend Evening Echo which was also part of the Westminster Group.

Over the weekend I went over the small ads looking for anything suitable, even a B&B would have done, but could find nothing.

Eventually I was given a number by one estate agent for a holiday let company with a couple of cottages in – BURNHAM-ON-CROUCH.

Burnham-on-Crouch Hgh Street – unchanged for decades

By this time I was getting desperate, I had less than two weeks to find somewhere to live, and decided to try this last hope.

I knew a little bit about the town as it was a hotspot for sailing including small boats such as our family GP. The trouble is it was over 20 miles from Basildon and would be a good half-hour travelling via B roads to get to work, and the same to get back at night.

The woman who answered said they did do holiday lets and would be happy to rent out a small cottage at a reduced out-of-season rate for six months.

Sounded reasonable as Tony had said it could take a few months to sort out the corporation accommodation.

Unfortunately there was a problem. “Just a slight problem,” said the charming lady.

Th cottage wouldn’t be available until Sunday, 22 October.

My heart sank at the prospect of having to start my search all over again, but then that charming voice, which would have suited an angel, broke in: “We do have a caravan which is available from Sunday, 8 October. You could use that for two weeks until the cottage is available.”

A miracle. After all two weeks in a caravan couldn’t be that bad, even in October.

A simple little caravan like this would be OK for two weeks.
Although one like this would be better.

I sealed the deal then and there and said I would post a cheque as deposit and would see her on 8 October.

What a relief.

With everything settled I was able to relax and concentrate on my last couple of weeks working in my beloved North Wales before setting out to England – or Lloegr as it was once called, a reference to the Lost Lands stolen by the English more than a thousand years ago.

Looking ahead the only way is Essex

Snowdonia viewed from the Vale of Clwyd: This was the “back garden” I grew up in for 17 years.

Despite finding my desire to travel to foreign lands effectively blocked, I still had itchy feet and wanted to break out of my little bubble and see, at least, a new part of this country we call the United Kingdom.

Despite the myth that all journalists yearned to work on Fleet Street (a real street in London at that time but they all.moved out) for one of the daily newspapers, this had never been a great attraction to me.

Maybe if I had been brought up in London I might have got a job as a copy boy on one of the dailies and made my mark.

I lived far from the Street, in glorious North Wales, and got my grounding in journalism with reporters who were part of their community.

I kept an eye on the jobs section of the UK Press Gazette which, although a young publication (launched in 1965), was becoming a staple of the industry.

It wasn’t long before I spotted a tempting ad for a local paper in Essex seeking a newly-qualified senior reporter with NCTJ.

What made it especially interesting was that it was part of the Westminster Group which was a well-established group with roots in regional journalism.

The ad was for a weekly newspaper, with links to an evening newspaper, based in one of the still-growing new towns in Essex – Basildon.

I sent off my details, CV with accompanying letter, on the Saturday morning, and then just waited for a reply, which arrived the following Friday.

The letter was from the editor of the Basildon Standard Recorder, Tony Blandford, and invited me to come down for an interview on the following Thursday.

My editor, Brian Barratt, knew I was applying for jobs and as soon as I mentioned the interview he said I could have the day off and take the Friday as well as it would be a long day.

I telephoned the number on the letter and spoke to Mr Blandford’s secretary, confirming that I would be at the interview on Thurrsday.

On the Saturday I went out to get a new suit at Hepworths – it was there or Burton’s and my brother-in-law happened to work at Hepworths.

My current suit was a few years old – I’d had it long before I wore it to my brother’s wedding in 1969 – and I’d already set my mind on a new one.

I was torn between two of a similar style but in different colours. One was a sort of greyish-green with a fine stripe and the other in a medium-brown with a fine stripe.

In the end my brother-in-law suggested I get both and could have a third one free (I didn’t realise that his commission was so good that he would still be making some even with the three for two deal).

I took the three, the third was grey with a paler stripe. All were single-breasted, two-piece suits.

Fenchurch Street railway station: My gateway to the future

On the Thursday morning I took an early train from Rhyl and got to Euston in good time to get over to Fenchurch Street station to get a train to Pitsea station. There was no train station at Basildon itself.

I was wearing the brown suit with a lemon yellow shirt, a pure woollen green tie with a red dragon central motif (still got it) and brown Chelsea boots. Very smart.

As we neared Basildon I had the windows of my compartment open to get fresh air (well I had been smoking heavily) and flicked a cigarette end out only for it to be blown back in, catching on my trouser leg and leaving an unsightly burn.

Tragedy.

It was about 12.30. I had to get to Basildon town centre from Pitsea station, find out where the office was, have a bite of lunch and be cool and calm for my interview at 2pm.

On top of that I had to make myself presentable.

The first part was easy.

I got a taxi and asked to be taken to Basildon town centre.

The route took us through streets of houses all looking very much the same and all obviously post war.

It was quarter to one when I was dropped off at one end of the town centre (as it turned out the opposite end to where the newspaper office was located).

Locating the office would be easy and lunch could wait. My priority was to get the hole in my trousers fixed.

I was wearing a double-breasted car coat, three-quarters the length of a normal overcoat, so it covered the hole while I had it on but I would need to take it off in the office.

Basildon Town Centre 1972: A wide pedestrian area with plenty of light and a wide range of shops.

Where I stood gave me a good view down the central pedestrian area of Basildon with large stores on either side including, I was glad to see, a Woolworth store.

This was a store with promise and was certain to have a haberdashery counter where I could get needle and thread.

Having selected a thread that reasonably matched the suit colour, and a packet of sewing needles, I went off to find a suitable public convenience where I would have the privacy to do some running repairs.

I must admit this gave me one more good impression of the new town as the premises were clean and fresh and the cubicles also tidy.

A few minutes later I was all set for a public appearance. The thread was a reasonable match and would be almost invisible at a few feet away.

Finding the office was easy, it was set half way along a parade of smaller shops, including a gentlemen’s tailor, a betting shop, a newsagent and, fortunately, a small cafe where I was able to get a ham roll and a cup of coffee.

Southernhey, Basildon: A row of shops destined to be my new base on the next leg of my journalistic journey.

A few minutes before 2pm I paid for my lunch, having left a tip on the table, and headed for the Recorder office.

It was the standard front office seen at newspaper premises throughout the land, I would see many more in my lifetime. A friendly receptionist asked me to wait a moment while she checked to see if Mr Blandford was in his office.

When she came back to show me through it was bang on 2pm.

The editor’s office was an area partitioned off from what was clearly the editorial department. There were about eight desks, four with typewriters and telephones on them, but only three desks were occupied.

The editor’s office was roughly seven feet wide and 10 to 12 feet long. About four feet from the door at one end was a desk across the width, with enough space to one side to let someone pass.

As I entered the bearded man behind the desk stood up and extended his hand across the desk.

“You’ll be Robin, of course,” he said. “I’m Tony Blandford.”

I had my coat over my right arm and shifted it to the left as we shook hands – I was still conscious of the repair job on my trousers.

He indicated for me to sit and I laid my coat across my lap.

All this gave me time to assess the man before the interview began.

I already knew, by first sight, he was under six foot. He was in his shirt sleeves and looked slim and wiry, with a full head of dark hair and a full, but neatly-trimmed, beard and moustache to match.

At this time I still found it hard to judge a person’s age if they were over 30 and could only surmise that he was in his 30s.

As I took all this in he spoke.

“Well now, this is a very good CV you have provided and I see you have had a lot of experience in a relatively short space of time.

“Why do you want to join this newspaper?”

I had prepared myself well and Brian Barratt had also chatted with his editorial friends around the country so I had a good idea of what to say.

As it happened the majority was based on my feelings about what I wanted to be as a journalist – serving the community and providing them with news and information they could rely on.

I think I did most of the talking in that interview and before I realised it Tony was saying: “Well that sounds excellent. Now, tell me, if you were to be offered the job when would you be able to start?”

I had this one cracked because I had discussed it with Brian.

“Four weeks from the next Monday after I was offered the job. If I was offered it today then I could start four weeks on Monday.”

“Very good. I’ll be in touch, probably tomorrow, to let you know my decision.”

That was it.

I said thanks and told him I would be available on my home phone number as I had a day off on the Friday.

We shook hands and then I was on my way out.

The office now had six or seven people busy at the desks. Some looked up as I passed through and then I was outside and it was 3pm.

I went back to the cafe and had a cup of tea while I glanced through copies of the paper that Tony had given me.

I then headed back across the pedestrian centre to a taxi rank and was driven back to Pitsea station.

By 9pm I was home again. I had stopped off at a chippie on the way from the station and sat at the kitchen table having a late dinner while my parents bombarded me with the questions.

Despite the heavy day of travelling I felt too hyped up to sleep well that night.

The following morning I couldn’t settle and probably read the same page of my book three times without realising.

Because our phone was also used for the shop it would have been silly to jump up every time it rang – but I did.

Then, at 11am, the phone rang and I heard my father say: “I’ll just get him.”

I was there in a second and almost tore the phone out of my father’s hand.

“Hello,” I said.

“Good morning Robin. Tony here. I was very impressed by your knowledge and enthusiasm and I believe you would make an ideal addition to our editorial team.

“I think you said you would be able to start four weeks on Monday, that’s still OK?”

“Oh yes, definitely. I mean to say that’s fine.”

“Good. I’ll be sending you a letter today with the formal offer and all relevant information and pay will be based on the basic for a senior reporter with a review after three months. Oh, did I discuss accommodation at the interview yesterday?”

“No. I thought I’d have to find something and hoped you might send details of letting agents.”

“Right, well there’s good news and bad news. As you know the town still has the original Basildon Corporation handling a lot of the property rentals for local young people and those coming to the area to work.

“You would qualify for housing but not immediately. It could be up to six months before anything suitable is available. There will definitely be something for you.”

With that we closed the conversation after agreeing that we would see each other the following month.

I turned to my father and said: “I’ve got it, I’ve actually got it.”

The future lay wide open.

Not innocent but certainly naive

My father, Sergeant Dispenser David Pierce RAMC, who taught me consideration for others.

Looking back on my life I realise how naive I really was aged 22. I do mean naive because I certainly was not an innocent.

My naivety was more a lack of information on issues that maybe I should have been more aware of.

I had a lucky escape over South Africa because if I had gone out there I would have seen first hand how the white supremacist government treated the non-white citizens. At that stage I would have protested vociferously and would probably have spent time incarcerated in a South African prison (one for whites only of course).

Although there had been a growing anti-apartheid movement in this country since the early 50s it did not really make much of an impression in North Wales.

A lot of the reporting was based on demonstrations against South African sports teams visiting this country and vice versa.

At the time this would have been covered in the sports pages and, apart from rugby, sport did not really concern me at that time.

If it had been an issue over musicians boycotting SA, as happened in the late 1970s and the 80s (think Paul Simon and Graceland), I might have taken it more seriously.

As it was my views on people, whether black, white, yellow or brown, were mainly based on my father who saw everyone as equal.

When he talked about his wartime experiences in the RAMC, part of which included time on troop ships going from Dublin up the east coast of Africa, he talked about “the soldiers” or if he was talking about African troops then he did not say “African” but used their country as a form of differentiating between them.

Thus he talked about English, Senegalese, Kenyans, Sudanese or South Africans when talking about troops from that region.

He had a lot of time for these coloured troops and I never heard him use the term “black” or “nigger” or any of the other derogatory terms used to denigrate people who are not white.

He did not call himself a socialist and, as far as I am aware, he was never a member of any political party, yet his beliefs, which he demonstrated in his way of life and his attitude to others, made its mark on me and has remained with me ever since.

At this point my knowledge of Africa was mainly gleaned from books and stories by people such as H Rider Haggard.

His stories mainly covered the latter years of the 19th century and the pre-war years of the 20th century.

Many were based on his character Alan Quatermain who was a mixture of HM Stanley and the great white hunters of that era.

Quatermain was what would then be called “a good egg”. He treated native Africans, especially Zulus, as “noble savages” and would often side with them against the colonial government and the Boers.

Even to this day I am torn when watching Zulu between supporting Stanley Baker, Ivor Emmanuel and the South Wales Borderers (actually the 2nd Warwickshire) or the Zulus who just wanted these people out of their country.

I normally sing along with Ivor and Co. to the martial sounds of Men of Harlech but still have admiration for those men who ran towards the Briish lines wearing very little and carrying cattle-hide shields and a short stabbing assegai.

My reading of Haggard not only introduced me to Africa but also to that part of North Africa which has bewitched so many of us – Egypt.

After all Ayesha – or She* as the character is commonly known – was said to have been an Egptian princess who stepped into the Fountain of Youth and was condemned to live for eternity leaving her beloved behind as he would not face the dangers of the Fountain with her.

*Ayesha has come down to us as “She Must be Obeyed”, especially when Rumpole of the Bailey talks about his wife.

Having enjoyed so many adventure stories as I was growing up in North Wales I was about to start my own adventure by leaving home and heading for a foreign land – Essex.