Saturday, 31 January 2015

Growing up in Scarborough in the sixties: 1962


MARTIN’S MUSINGS

By Martin Dove

Growing up in Scarborough in the sixties: 1962


Martin in 2015

January of 1962 was a bleak month with heavy snowfalls in Scarborough, which was fine for a kid of 13, going on 14, who loved nothing better than a mass snowball fight with his schoolmates. It also meant that rugby was often cancelled at school too, which suited me just fine.

The biggest blow for me though in January, was discovering that I was too old for Wray’s annual Christmas party, and missing out on free sweets and crisps. I did still manage to get into the Plaxton’s Christmas party however, where I was entertained by Uncle Ray, a ventriloquist with two dummies Ted, and Gerry, and when we got bored with that he produced Esmeralda, the glove puppet as his back-up plan.

 


Bayko

As a boy of 13 I was fascinated with Bayko, which was a construction toy consisting of a rectangular Bakelite base with a square grid of holes, into which you would insert little metal rods, into which you would then slot bricks, doors, windows, roofs and chimneys. I spent most of my winter weekends busily engaged with my Bayko. Of course my DEB evenings were still going strong too. Curto and Freebloke were still regulars, along with Cousin Dave, Tony Wade, and characters called Oog, Tucker and Twidsey.  Dove’s Entertainment Bureau now included magic tricks, and my favorite game of all, which was invented by my brother Barry, draught football. This was played on a patterned carpet on the floor, with two pawns at either end for goalposts, and eleven draughts each, which were the footballers. Players placed their men in whatever position they liked, and then it was game on. The ball, a marble, was placed in the centre, and each player had a pencil, which was used to flick the man against the ball, towards the opponent’s goal. We had rules for throw -ins, corners, goal kicks, and penalties, and this game was loved by everyone. In fact I was still playing it with my son, Robert, well into the eighties! Inventing games at DEB nights was encouraged and Curto came up with two classics, Tony’s car rally, and Tony’s pub crawl. The pub crawl game involved travelling round Scarborough, with a limited amount of money, and after visiting six random pubs, and buying a drink in each, you had to have enough money left to get into the Billiard Hall, and you also had to still be sober! This was only a board game, I must stress, although playing the game for real was only a few years away!

 

I was also a great fan of R Journet’s perplexing puzzles, which I bought from a shop in town called H O Taylor for 2/3d each. The shop was like a cross between Ryman’s and The Works, with games, books, pens and stationery.  The puzzles were small hand held games, which were basically a wooden box with a glass top. Inside the box, unsurprisingly, was a perplexing puzzle, which usually involved getting a ball around a course, whilst avoiding the hazards, or slotting a number of balls, into different holes. 53 years later, I still have these games, although they are looking rather worse for wear!

 

              

Martin’s collection of perplexing puzzles.

 I loved the movies growing up and saw 26 films in 1962. We still had four cinemas in Scarborough in those days, the Odeon (now the SJT), the Capitol, (now Mecca Bingo), the Gaiety (now BHF) and the Londesborough (now Betfred). Films I saw included Blue Hawaii (Elvis), Carry on cruising, Follow that dream (Elvis), Hey, let’s twist, Love me tender (Elvis), and The pure hell of St Trinians. Observant readers will see an Elvis theme here, and I was a big Elvis fan, as was my brother, Ray. I can remember seeing Elvis in Jailhouse Rock at the Gaiety cinema in 1957 with Ray, when I was only nine years old. Everyone in the cinema was on their feet, throughout the film, dancing, jiving, rocking and rolling. As Elvis was singing “The band was jumping' and the joint began to swing. You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing. Let's rock, everybody, let's rock” teenagers were fighting, others were jumping up and down on their seats, and the whole place was just like a prison riot had broken out! In fact, one youth in the circle, got so excited dancing around that he fell off the balcony into the stalls, leapt to his feet, shouted “I’m OK, let’s rock!” and carried on dancing!

 


Jailhouse Rock poster.

As well as Elvis, I developed a serious crush on Helen Shapiro in 1962. I loved everything about her, from her beehive hairdo, to her deep foghorn voice. Helen had hits such as “Walking back to happiness”, and “Don’t treat me like a child.” It’s fair to say that I was pretty obsessed with the delightful Helen, so you can imagine my excitement, when I heard that she was coming to Scarborough’s very own Floral Hall. I had already seen her films “It’s Trad Dad,” and “Play It Cool,” and I owned all her records, which I played all the time, so to see her in the flesh would be a boyhood dream come true. The big day dawned in June and along with my mate Dave we took our seats in the Floral Hall (demolished in 1989), after paying our 1/6 for a ticket. Helen was top of the bill and in those days you certainly got value for your money, with several other acts on the bill, some of which were also big stars in their day. On the bill were Colin Day, The Four Jays, Dave Allen, Inge Lise, The Red Price Band, Captain Fleming’s Chimps, and Lenny the Lion. Needless to say the show was fantastic, and Dave and I hurried to the stage door after the show as I wanted Helen’s autograph.

I gave my programme to the guy on the door, along with dozens of other fans, and waited eagerly for its safe return. Sadly when the chap came back with the programmes, he gave them all to one fan, and asked him to share them out. I’m sorry to say, not only did I not get the autograph, I didn’t even get my programme back! 

 


Martin’s 1962 diary.

My Dad was the local secretary of the baker’s union, and regularly attended regional meetings, and in April 1962, I was delighted when he asked me to join him on the train to Newcastle. To modern readers, this may seem strange, but as a lad of 14, this was the furthest I had ever been away from home! I can still remember my first look at the Tyne Bridge, and the excitement of being in a big city, for the first time in my life. My dad gave me some money and left me to explore Newcastle on my own, while he went off to his meeting. I loved I-Spy books, so this kept me busy for ages, as did my other hobby of collecting matchbox covers, which I would find discarded on the streets. I also went to the Hancock Museum, which was, and still is, one of the finest Natural History Museums in England. I had a fancy for a quarter pound of mint imperials, so popped into a sweet shop to buy a packet. To my amazement, the shopkeeper didn’t have a clue what I was asking for, and when he spoke to me, I realised that I couldn’t understand him either. This was simply a case of a naïve Yorkshire lad, trying to have a conversation with a Geordie, but I might as well have been speaking to a Martian for all the sense it made. Needless to say, I left the shop without my mints!


Tyne Bridge.

I got my first ever job in July of this year, clearing tables, and washing up at Jaconelli’s ice cream parlour on the seafront. I was paid £1 for working seven hours, which doesn’t sound very much, but a cinema ticket was 2/- in those days, so a day’s pay, would get me into the cinema ten times. The job was menial, and tedious, and the hours would drag by, but the job did have one saving grace, my sink was right next to the radio, and on Sundays, I could listen to Pick of the pops, presented by Alan Freeman on the BBC Light programme, (there was no Radio 1 or 2 in 1962.).  This became the highlight of my week. There was no form of social media around in the sixties, so listening to the weekly count down of the hit parade, was the only way to find out who was number one. Right up until almost 7pm, I would wait with bated breath to see who was going to be top of the pops. Artists such as Elvis, Cliff Richard, Ray Charles, Helen Shapiro, Roy Orbison, Neil Sedaka, Billy Fury, and Adam Faith, were all dominant at this time. The Mersey Beat explosion was yet to come.

I much preferred listening to the radio to watching TV, and would listen in my room on my transistor radio most nights. I enjoyed comedy as well as music. The Braden Beat was one of my favourite shows, as was Beyond our Ken. I also listened every Saturday morning to Brian Matthews, who presented Easy Beat. The show that I never missed was Jack Jackson’s Record Roundup, where he would mix comedy clips with modern pop music. That man had a terrific influence on my teenage years, giving me a love of comedy and music, which I still have to this day.

 

I was still finding money by sieving in the sand and I was not averse to the occasional visit to Webster’s, the local rag and bone man. My mum would send me down there with some old jumpers that I had outgrown, and I once got 2/4d for 4lbs of wool, which I spent on four DCs (Detective Comics), one ACG (American Comics Group), and one Batman giant annual. Marvellous!

In the summer months, when I wasn’t working, I often went to Scalby Mills on the miniature railway, which is still going strong over fifty years later. Along with Ray and his friends I regularly played pitch and putt at Peasholm, something I still do every summer, and I also went to see the dancing waters at the Olympia, on the seafront, which is now an amusement arcade. I no longer went to the bob a job barbers with my dad, I now had my hair styled at Tribbels gentlemen’s hairdressers on York Place.   On Shrove Tuesday, I would go down to the seafront with my mates to watch the skipping, and in those days, the bigger teenagers were quite happy to grab anyone they vaguely knew from school, grab them bodily, carry them down to the sea, and chuck them into the water. Needless to say the perpetrators would often end up just as wet as the victims! 

My parents went away to the Lake District for a week in early October, the same week as Scarborough Fair, and I stayed with my Uncle Dick, and Auntie Florrie on Cross Street in the old town. I loved my Uncle Dick to bits, he was a smashing bloke, but staying with them again in 1963, did cause a bit of a family rift, as you will read about in the next chapter!

 


Martin’s Mum & Dad in The Lake District.

Sadly my granddad, Wally, passed away in October, just a year after his beautiful wife Rose in 1961. The Dove numbers were to remain the same though, as in November my Brother Barry’s wife gave birth to a baby girl, Eileen, named after her mother.

I now only had one grandparent left alive, my mum’s mum, Granny Fishburn, who lived in the old town with her faithful dog Judy. (My Granddad Robert Fishburn died in 1958).  I visited her as often as I could, and I remember that she always gave me raw tripe to eat. Tripe is edible offal, taken from the stomachs of different animals, with grand names like blanket, honeycomb, carpet and bible. It sounds disgusting, but I loved it! Honeycomb tripe was my favourite, which I would shake on loads of salt, and enough vinegar to fill every wonderful honeycomb. What a treat!

 


Honeycomb tripe.

 

My health was still not good in 1962, and I missed a total of 12 days off school, mainly with asthma, and as a result my doctor sent me to St Mary’s hospital for a weekly breathing exercise regime. I once wrote in my diary that there were “only four kids breathing at St Mary’s”, so I’m not sure if the rest had stopped breathing, or maybe there were only four of us there? On another occasion I wrote “mucked around with hats at St. Mary’s, and then had to lug them around town”. Goodness only knows what all that was about as I’ve long ago erased it all from my memory banks.   There were several hospitals in Scarborough in 1962, St Thomas’s on the seafront, St Mary’s on Dean Road, Cross Lane hospital, and the main one on Scalby Road.

 

A major turning point in my young life was getting my first guitar in December. This was something I had craved for ages, and my mum finally agreed to buy me one as an early Christmas present. I thought I was so cool, and couldn’t wait to learn, with the ultimate aim of joining a band. I had three career goals as a 14 year old, comedian, actor or musician, and how did I get on with those dreams? That will all be revealed in future chapters. I took my playing seriously and went for guitar lessons with Richard “Tab” Slater, who lived on Castle Road. I was often at Tab’s house from 7pm until 10.50pm, and then I would have to walk home, carrying my guitar.

 

 

Martin with his guitar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Famous and historic events from 1962

 

Dr No, the first James Bond film, is released.

BBC television broadcasts the first episode of Z-Cars.

Debut of the Rolling Stones

Panda Crossings are introduced.

 

Monarch - Elizabeth II

Prime Minister - Harold Macmillan (Conservative)

 

 

Martin Dove

January/2015

 

 

Coming soon…1963.

 

Martin starts working at Cooplands.

Martin’s budgie escapes.

Martin decides to live with Uncle Dick. Bad idea!

Martin sees The Beatles live on stage.