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“A Squalid
End to Empire: British Retreat from
by
Harold Smith
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For Carol
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"We are English, that is one good fact."
Oliver Cromwell to Parliament. 17 September 1656
"Sons of
George R. Parkin:
'The
Quoted in Jan Morris'
'The
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“A Squalid
End to Empire: British Retreat from
This is the story of evil committed by kind, nice, decent
British politicians. They sought to keep
To leave friends in charge of
William was our cook and our steward in
We rarely had dinner parties in
Millions died in the great Nazi onslaught on
Grace and William worked for us and we trusted them and
treated them as friends. We loved them. We left
In his private office in Government House on the
I was that young officer, and I was in deep trouble. I carefully prepared for that interview and wore a freshly laundered linen suit and, although it was steaming hot, a white shirt fully buttoned up, and a tie. I hoped to be told that a terrible mistake had been made. I hope to be allowed to leave the Colonial Service and forget all about this ghastly experience. My hopes were to be shattered. Sir James was not in a forgiving mood. John Bongard, his private secretary, showed me into Sir James' room.
"Mr Harold Smith is here to see you, Sir, as you ordered, he said, and retired.
"You know why you are here, Smith," said Sir James. "And I want you to know that all your worst fears and suspicions are absolutely correct. All the accusations you have made are correct. I am telling you this because I want you to know how much trouble you are in."
It is a cliché to say that my heart sank, but I use it
deliberately because it was somewhere in my groin. I had wanted to be proved
wrong, but I was being told from the highest possible source that my
conclusions were correct.
While I was absorbing this incredible disclosure, Sir James was pronouncing a death sentence. In his opinion I was wilfully disobeying orders on active service. The penalty was death. If the sentence was to be postponed, and he clearly deeply regretted that, I would now do exactly as I was told. As I had no choice... I listened to Sir James' terms and, when he had finished, I said nothing. I looked at the portly figure of the most senior, the most powerful representative of the Queen in the Empire, and very calmly, pronounced two words:-
"No, Sir!"
I had graduated from
When we arrived in
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The British retreated from
The vast mass of the African people was indifferent or
actually would have preferred the British to stay. But neither was it true that
the British found in
Not only is Africa denigrated by the carefully nurtured
fairy tale fashioned for the most part in
My main qualification for demolishing the myth that the
British created viable democracies out of savage tribes only to see the
ungrateful and greedy natives quickly revert to their tribalistic ways was my
personal involvement in these events. I was educated at
I have not told this story before because I did not wish to
wreck the chances of success of the new nation by revealing the truth behind
the fine but phoney ceremonial retreat. It would not have been possible to
write this book in the 1960's anyway as my health was in ruins and my survival
unlikely. By the mid-1960's too, the consequences of the British betrayal were
becoming evident and
When I suggest that the British Government meddled with the
democratic elections in
Whatever the shortcomings of British Colonial
Administration in
Much of this statement is true. Certainly, compared with
other imperialist nations, the British behaved well to their native peoples.
British historians, civil servants, academics and the colonial administrators
themselves have told the story. However, as I have indicated, they have not
always told the whole truth. The historical record does contain some
questionable events which have tended to be glossed over, and, as always, it
was the victor who wrote the history, not the subject peoples. I was present in
There are many fine, honest Nigerians who have served their
new nation well and there is much to be proud of in
It is probably too early to make a balanced assessment of
the British occupation of
The supreme betrayal of a new sovereign nation of which I
write took place when the British retreated from
What I now reveal in the following chapters is that the
British Government interfered with the elections so as to achieve Northern
domination of
I was one of the British officers serving on the
headquarters staff in
In 1986, approaching my sixtieth year, I decided, in
compliance with the convention, to seek permission from the Prime Minister, Mrs
Margaret Thatcher, to publish my account of those years in
The British Government's response to my plan to write these memoirs, was totally negative. Mrs Thatcher refused to reply to my letters. She is not often stuck for words but on this occasion she was rendered speechless. Assuming that my letter had been suppressed by the Foreign Office I wrote again using the good offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury and, when that produced no response, the Prince of Wales. I must assume after all these endeavours that Mrs Thatcher has indeed seen my letters and has no objection to the publication of my story of how the British tricked the Nigerian people.
The Governor General had told me that I had a choice. I
could give my word to keep my mouth shut and I would continue to be a golden
boy, a high flier, an outstanding officer with appropriate remuneration and
rewards, or I would never be employed again by anybody. I chose the latter
course. I had no choice really. Cheating a brand new nation out of its
birthright was evidently routine stuff if you were Sir James. I could not see
myself getting involved in this kind of intrigue. And of course I thought I
would somehow survive. And of course I did, even though I found myself
permanently retired at thirty-three with no salary or pension. I had only
graduated at
During a TV discussion about an MI5 case officer, Cathy Massiter, who had resigned and told all, it transpired that MI5 had been partly privatised and was able to turn over unpleasant chores to private detectives. One of these sleuths remarked on TV. that he had been asked to check out on a character who had been kept out of employment for twenty-five years. He had declined the assignment.
The Governor General simply could not understand why I
should make such a fuss about which set of Africans the British chose to leave
in charge in
One of my neighbours in
I was very impressed with my neighbour's exploits. His main
job was to check all foreign mail coming into
"I don't speak any foreign lingo, old chap," he assured me. "That's where all my years of training come in. I just look at the stamps. All mail from Iron Curtain and red countries I bung into the fire there..." and he indicated a stove.
"You don't read it?" I asked.
"Good God, no... It's obvious they're up to no good!"
So I should worry that my mail was opened and that I was being watched while I pottered around with my dog and cat in my old cottage at Widbrook. If I became a real threat, who knows but one day I might be fished out of the canal. The police would no doubt report that I had been complaining of being persecuted and was depressed.
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I was born in Hulme,
"My Father's name is Henry, but my Mother calls him Harry. My Mother's name is Margaret, but my Father calls her Maggie."
That was the complete composition and it pleased my teacher.
"Short and sweet, Harold Smith," she commented.
By that time we had moved from the dark tight terraces of
Hulme to the heavenly winding avenues of one of
In this first literary effort at the new and splendid elementary school built on the Barlow Hall estate I could have added that my name was Harold, but that I was addressed as 'Our 'Arold'. The Family secret, only revealed after years of pestering, was that my Father, the most true blue Conservative Englishman it is possible to envisage, was of Irish origin. And so was my Mother. Dad had once answered when I had asked him what he was, meaning what work he did,
"I'm an Orangeman."
I told my school friends he worked in a fruit shop. He was actually the key and quite senior employee in a large shirt factory, 'The Cutter,' no less. It was his job to lay out the patterns of the various bits of a shirt on to the stacks of striped flannel material so that the stripes ran the right way and there was as little waste as possible. He was really the boss on the production side of the factory, but it was only when I was sent to collect his wages one Friday afternoon so my Mam could do the weekend shopping that I found this out.
"He's the boss, Mam," I gasped. "They call him 'Sir,' and say, 'Yes, Mr Smith' and 'No, Mr Smith.'"
"He might be the boss there, but he's not the boss here," responded my Mam.
He was Irish, an Orangeman, a Protestant; his family were
from
"None of your business," they would respond, and we believed they were concealing terrible secrets.
It was not just that they were Irish and despised the Irish, but that Mam was a Catholic, and that was worse than being Irish for my Dad. My Mother's sister, my Aunt Nell, rarely called to see us. She hated my Father for being an Orangeman and despised my Mother for giving up her Roman Catholic faith to marry my Father. To my Father and Mother this was of the greatest possible importance. It took many years before I was able to force Mam to reveal that her maiden name was MacGarry, a clan or tribal name associated with the West of Ireland. I know of no famous MacGarry's but I am pleased from time to time to find writers and film makers who are MacGarry's. And one of the MacGarry's had enough brass to get himself a beautiful coat of arms.
Although my Father's discharge certificate mentions no special medals for heroic conduct, he was regarded by his many friends as being a war hero. Perhaps this was because he was one of the few who returned from three years of trench warfare with the Manchester Regiment in the first Great War. He regarded himself as incredibly lucky. All his friends had died. He had lost an eye and a leg and had a stiff left hand due, he said, to lying on that side for months in hospital beds while his wounds healed. He never complained, but then he did not grumble about anything. He never actually sat still. He was always on the move. Not so much restless, because that would suggest he was nervous, which he was not. He was perfectly content and sure of himself. He was highly principled, a bosses' man, a freemason, a heavy drinker, an Orangeman, a Conservative and he loved his country without the slightest reservation.
Before the War my Father had been a keen athlete, and his weekends were taken up by football and long distance running. After the War, with the young men dead or busy elsewhere, he was taken to the pubs and fêted by the older men. Later when he was established in a good job, it was his turn to repay their generosity and every night of his life he bought drinks for anyone and everyone. My Mother had started drinking to try to stop him but she had rapidly become hooked and probably drank more than he did. Eventually she died of cirrhosis of the liver.
Dad was always right and never saw two sides to any question. He was strict, unbending, without a hint of ambiguity and, although he inflicted much pain and suffering on his children, he was respected and adored. The rules had to be learned and were reinforced with a cuff on the side of the head.
"Don't answer back! Don't be cheeky! Speak when you're spoken to! Who are you looking at? Look at me when I speak to you!"
And general rules. "A man - a gentleman - never strikes a woman or ever lays hands on her!" (This rule made me an extremely reserved and inhibited teenager. Perhaps I was so popular with the girls because I 'did not try anything on' as the saying used to be. My best friend got an older girl pregnant when he was fifteen. I had not got to the kissing stage at that age.) Truth telling had to be one hundred per cent and lies brought on kicks as well as blows. I never lied to him, but sometimes he did not believe me and I would dive under the table for protection. Only rarely did he move the table so I was able to dodge his gammy leg which was swung with great force. If the table was moved my mother would intervene as I scrambled to get under the sideboard.
"I'll kill the little sod, I'll throttle him, I'll swing for him!"
My Mam used to say, "No one will poison you, you little bugger, you were born to swing."
Practically all the money surplus to food and rent and coal went on alcohol. Money for clothing or anything else was only extracted with great difficulty and after continual nagging and pleading.
From my bedroom window I could see through the trees the ancestral home of the Barlow's. During the long months of mysterious illness which beset me throughout childhood I peopled the Hall with its generations of Barlow children in strange costume and saw in my imagination its long hall hung with dark paintings of Barlow knights. My Father had no need of the ancient equivalent of a family photograph album to know where he belonged and who he was. He was ex-Private Harry Smith of the Manchester Regiment, an officer of the Ancient Order of Buffaloes.
Although I adored him, our life paths diverged from the
very start. One of the Barlow's, Ambrose, was a Catholic martyr and had been
cruelly executed. Ambrose Barlow was one of my saints before he was canonised.
To follow in Jesus's footsteps and pay the ultimate price for his faith! There
was a man. I doubt my Dad knew of his existence for, although intelligent, he
had little education and I never knew him to open a book or read anything
except the Daily Mail and racing papers. When we sang my favourite hymn, 'There
is a green hill far away', in the hall during assembly at
My Father served his king and country. The only top person he ever criticised and that below his breath so he would barely be heard, was General Earl Haig.
"Bloody Generals! What did they care! It was like a bleeding butcher's shop... What did Haig care?"
Then he would swing his leg and shut himself away in the kitchen.
"Dad's crying in the kitchen. He was sobbing, Mam," I would say.
"Leave him be," she'd say. "It's the war."
When very young, I would ask, "Why are you crying, Dad?"
Once he said, "For my old comrades I left in
And he'd slip out his glass eye and wash it under the tap at the sink.
When my body burned with fever as if I was on fire, I slept in his bed and would watch as he unstrapped the canvas and leather belts which held his artificial leg in place. One of his boots was laced permanently to his gammy leg and he would leave the leg with the boot attached inside his trousers when he undressed. Then he would remove the special white socks made to measure for his leg stump and rub away the pain. Only my Mother would know when his stump was raw and sore. It was a point of honour not to complain. It was something men did not do.
For the fevers my Father prescribed Fennings Fever Cure,
which was highly thought of because it tasted ghastly. Dad knew about such things
because he had had ambulance training and for a time had been a stretcher
bearer in
I would swim out of a delirium to find my Dad clinging to me. Our flannel shirts would sometimes be soaking with sweat. But sometimes I would be in one of those tranquil cool periods between fevers when my brain, though no longer inflamed, saw everything so clearly, and it was my Dad who was tortured in his sleep and re-enacting a battle in the trenches. Sometimes it was impossible to make sense of the incoherent flow of shouts and orders - perhaps that was how the real battle was. Sometimes pieces made sense.
"Mr Edwards, Sir! Mr Jones presents his compliments and requests you to bring up your men immediately, Sir! We are under heavy attack! They are in the trench!"
There would be a pause, then, "Oh God! Jesus Christ! They're all dead! Bits and pieces of bodies everywhere! Jim! Bob! Where are you?"
Then Dad would begin to sob and I would try to comfort him.
I was brought up to serve King and Country and the Empire. I was a boy soldier, and as such treated like a man. A man never ran away. He always stood his ground. A man never laid hands on a woman. The reason as I have said for my being regarded as a 'nice boy' by girls and their mothers when in my 'teens. Impatient girls undid their blouse buttons and put my cold hands inside to warm. One can be too nice!
"Don't be so bloody daft," was my Dad's response. "We are Conservatives."
All my Dad's beliefs were like that. Final and forever.
Although I adored my Mam and Dad, one of my earliest recollections, following on those of being fed with pobs and later Farley's rusks and squatting on the Daily Mail and grunting, was of total disbelief at what I was seeing. I was propped up with cushions on a settee watching my Mam and Dad and brothers and sisters. The furniture was cheap and unattractive. How did I know? The conversation was in bits and pieces, accusing, mock threatening, whining from the children. It was not elevating or educated, but common and even vulgar. I was repelled and alienated. Why had I come here? I was in the wrong place! Some awful mistake had been made!
I was a weakling. Something had to be done. I had to be taught to fight and uphold the family honour.
"Up the Buffs!" was my Dad's cry to arms.
At every opportunity I was expected to fight. If my Mother stood at the gate she would challenge a passing Primo Carnera or budding Tommy Farr and cry, "My lad can beat you!"
They would look at me and laugh, which only encouraged my Mother.
"Call yourself a lad of mine and you won't fight!" she'd say.
"But Mam, I don't want to fight!"
"Don't you want to stick up for your Mother then? Say someone attacks your Mother? Fat lot of good you'd be. Harry (my oldest brother) would look after his mother! See that boy coming. He's very nasty! Go and get him!"
And so began my career as a prize fighter. Nobody fought harder, longer or more often. I got used to pain, bruises, split lips, black eyes, scratches, kicks. In fact I welcomed them as it made my Mother happy. I was a real boy. I never won a fight in all those years and never desired to. But I never ran away and would get off the floor time after time until my assailant would explain he would lose face if he kept knocking down someone who obviously could not fight for toffee.
"He wiped the floor with you," said my Mother scornfully after watching a somewhat unequal contest with a boy the size of a furniture van.
How I longed for her to rescue me and tell me I was brave, but she never did.
"You don't want to be a bloody clerk," said my Dad when I was eleven and took the scholarship examination, so I ended up at Chorlton Park Elementary Boys' School or rather after two minutes, in the playground winded and bleeding.
I was picked up, my arms were threaded through the school railings and I was then thoroughly beaten. The gravel embedded in my knees turned septic and when the delirium finally cleared I had been away from school for ten weeks. I had no idea that I was dying; that the doctors had given me up. In 1938 the wonder cure for septicaemia, Penicillin, had not yet been discovered. It was just delirium, another fever, but it seemed like coming back from a far country and I did not care whether or not I arrived. On one of these occasions early on I became aware of the doctor examining me.
"Hello," he said. "It's the first time I've seen you conscious. I'm Doctor P. I don't know what's wrong with you. I'm bringing a colleague to see you."
Dr P. was apologetic when the other doctor arrived. The new doctor assured him he had done the right thing.
"Let's start again," he suggested. "We'll examine him from top to toe."
They pulled off my shirt. When they saw my knees they could not miss the abrasions and scabs. They parted my legs and found a large black swelling in the groin.
"Septicaemia!" they exclaimed.
The decline continued. There was no cure. I would become conscious to find Dr P. bathing my body to get the temperature down.
"We're both in trouble," he said.
Ages later I swam out of delirium and he said maybe I was going to make it. My temperature was falling.
"They can't take that away," he said.
Very gradually I recovered and Dr P. would sit by my bedside doing his pools coupon. He would bring me piles of expensive American comics. And then he stopped coming. My Father would not tell me why. I felt somehow it was my fault.
"When is he coming back?" I would plead.
My Father said he was not coming back. He had been struck off for gambling debts. I did not believe my Father. It could not be true. If it were true I would not have wanted to live.
In my absence from school the preliminaries in the
"You're new, aren't you?"
"Not really," I replied.
"Listen. I can beat everyone in the school," said
I guess he thought I looked a pale thin weakling who had just got off his death bed.
"You can't beat me," I said.
"Are you kidding?" said
He gave me a push which would have sent me six feet if the railing had not been three feet away.
"You can knock me down," I said, "but I'll never admit you can beat me."
"You're crazy," said
In due course
"Why wouldn't you admit I could beat you?" he would plead. "You were the only one in the school who wouldn't submit."
"I can't," I said. "It's the way I was brought up!"
Ten weeks into my new school and I had not had a lesson or
met a teacher. I was really looking forward to my first class. Besides I had
survived my first encounter with
"I have told you time and again for months," he yelled, "never to put a plane down on its blade."
The rest of the class gathered round in eager anticipation. From his desk Mr Ladd extracted a long leather strap. The ends of the strap were cut into thongs.
"Hands up, boy! One under the other!" yelled Mr Ladd.
"The cat of nine tails," somebody murmured gleefully.
Mr Ladd was not angry. His face was lit up. His eyes were gleaming. His tongue was hanging out. He skipped forward as if going to bowl out Don Bradman. He could not have tried harder to tear the fingers from my hand. I got six of the best. Three on each hand. As he was preparing to take aim a quiet boy wearing spectacles tried to intercede.
"He's new, sir. It's his first lesson."
"Shut up!" yelled Ladd. "I've told him a dozen times."
I was not too upset by all this. I was used to pain and the
school bullies left me alone. Apparently
In 1939 war was declared and Mr Ladd, as the dogsbody, was voted to be in charge of Air Raid Precautions. As timber was in short supply he had a good excuse for not handing out any wood for the boys to work with. As he had always been mean and acted as if it were his wood he was handing out, he was very pleased to walk around wearing a tin hat and blowing his whistle. Instead of ghastly woodwork we now got lectures, often very imaginative, on what to do if the enemy bombed us.
During one of his talks he told us what to do if the Hun decided to drop gas bombs on Chorlton-cum-Hardy. We would hear gas rattles - which Mr Ladd demonstrated. Apparently as soon as Mr Ladd learned that the Germans were going to wipe us out with gas, he would ride around on his bicycle rotating his gas rattle. We would then all put on our gas masks. However, this would not help if the enemy were dropping mustard gas. How would we know if we were being bombed with mustard gas asked a brave ex-woodworker. Mr Ladd looked at him as he had once looked at me, and I feared he was going to demonstrate his skill with the cat of nine tails again.
"You'll know about it, you just wait and see," he threatened.
"So what do we do if we get covered in mustard gas, Mr Ladd, please sir?"
"A very good question," said Mr Ladd with a snarl.
He would have smiled but there was a war on.
"You take all your clothes off immediately."
"In the street?" someone exclaimed.
"Anywhere," said Mr Ladd.
"Women too?" said a brave soul.
"Women too. Everybody stark naked."
Mr Ladd was warming to his work. Perhaps he was thinking of riding on his bicycle giving his rattle alarm for a practice mustard gas attack and making everybody he encountered strip stark naked!
"What do we do then, Mr Ladd, please sir?" asked the class.
"You run to the nearest house. Ring the door bell. Run inside and jump in the bath."
"What if there's a lady in the bath?" the whole class gasped.
"Tell her to move over and get in with her," shouted Mr Ladd, full of excitement. "All naked, all in the bath together!"
With that he ran out of the room with his tin hat and rattle and the class broke up to run round the school, telling everyone to pray for a mustard gas attack. The girls got quite hysterical. Next day a deputation of anxious mothers waited on the headmaster to ask why their daughters were expected to strip naked when Mr Ladd performed with his rattle. Mr Ladd became extremely popular and his stories, like all good yarns, were added to beyond all recognition.
When Mr Ladd suddenly disappeared, it was obvious to all the boys that the headmaster, jealous of Mr Ladd's incredible popularity, had volunteered him for something very nasty, like being dropped behind enemy lines with his tin hat and gas rattle.
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When I was a small
child I would help my older brother Harry with his newspaper round in
Northenden, an attractive
For two years I was unemployed, although my mother sent me for a number of jobs. I pretended to be stupid so as not to be employed as a butcher's boy. My mother was very disappointed. She liked the idea of cheap or free meat. When I was eleven she found me a morning newspaper round which paid three shillings and sixpence a week. Then an evening round for another three shillings and sixpence. Mr Burgess at the farm at the bottom of our council estate street could see I was a keen worker, so I took on a milk round too at seven shillings a week. I started delivering milk at five in the morning until the air raids started and I was at risk of getting in the way of fire engines and rescue squads. After my evening paper round I turned up at the farm to help bottle the milk for next morning. At the weekends I collected cash from my customers on the milk round and did odd jobs on the farm. In the holidays I cleared pigsties and weeded and picked potatoes.
My mother was not too happy when I left school and started an engineering apprenticeship at the vast Metropolitan Vickers factory. I only earned fourteen shillings a week at the factory. I loathed engineering. My first department was H Machine. I arrived the morning after it got a direct hit from a German bomb. The lathes and milling machines were hanging from their drive belts in mid-air. I was moved to K Machine. The lavatories at K Machine were in two facing rows and were so close that legs stretched into the walkway between.
My father had lost his job as a shirt cutter and had volunteered for war work. I found him dragging trucks piled high with iron castings on K Machine. The management had not noticed he had an artificial leg and a glass eye and he did not tell them. He was intensely patriotic. Women had been conscripted in large numbers into the factory and rapidly proved, after only a short training period, to be better machine workers than the men. This caused a lot of resentment. There was a great deal of flirtation and even the middle class ladies who were well spoken seemed to enjoy the sexual banter and innuendo.
My job was to drag two large steel baskets of brew tins to a lean-to boiler house at lunch time and otherwise run errands. A surprising number of men would either try to grab my penis or stroke my bottom. Some would try to get me to go home with them. If this was homosexuality, there seemed to be an awful lot of working class homosexuals at Metropolitan Vickers. The brew sheds were dangerous too. Sexual attacks disguised as initiation ceremonies were common. I learned to run fast and cry at night. The nightmares I had then I have had ever since. The initiation involved masturbation by an older youth and sometimes variations like jamming a narrow topped bottle on to a boy's penis so he could not remove it when he had an erection. If he did not get an erection a girl would be persuaded 'for a laugh' to expose her breasts or raise her skirt.
At fifteen I was on some errand when I stopped to chat to
another brew boy from the Research Department. I agreed to swap secrets. They
had few sexual initiations in Research. The people there were graduates and
college apprentices and scientists. A better class of worker. So I recounted my
stories of the K aisle brew sheds and he told me the secret of the atomic bomb
which they were working on in the top secret Research Department. A little
later I moved to West Works where I helped to assemble the switch gear panels
for the Victoria Falls Power Station and mobile switch gear units for the
My national service in the RAF. followed a predictable pattern. I tried hard not to be an electrician so I became one. At Melksham in Wiltshire I was pushed through advanced courses in electronics which I found totally boring. We had to be reasonably bright and our intake included a sprinkling of grammar and public school boys and students. When taking the end-of-course examinations I was surprised to get high marks.
"You remember very little, so you work out all the answers from theory and principles," I was informed. "The others only remember what they've been told."
I was asked what rank I would like. I settled for a pass. I was terrified I would be given stripes and recruited as an instructor.
At Melksham I discovered the joys and delights of
I volunteered for service in
The problem with electrics in a very hot climate is that
the insulation melts. The fire switches were held in place by blobs of pitch
which also often melted, leaving the engines awash with foam. One
One night I was swinging my searchlight and trying to dodge
the large dung beetles which hit the lamp and fell at my feet, when a Sten gun
opened up and bullets flew around my head. The rifle came up and I fired a
magazine automatically. I was furious that the RAF. had succeeded in training
me against all my inclinations to become a rifleman. My inhibition was not
unconnected with my father's experiences in the trenches in
"It's a bit of a let down you being alive, Smithy," said one. "We were all saying what a smashing bloke you were. We felt very sorry for you - you being dead. Now you've gone and spoiled it!"
About this time I was summoned to see my Wing Commander and was given a dressing down.
"I have here a report on your work signed by your
Flight Sergeant before he returned to the
"He didn't tell me, sir," I said.
"All right then," he replied. "So long as you know. Your grade is satisfactory!"
At that time the British were withdrawing from
During that voyage back to Liverpool in August 1948 I
cleaned the latrines all the way through the
Within days it was as if I had never been away. I would
have gone insane if I had not been saved by my old mate Frank Fairhurst, the
shop steward. Frank had news of a junior engineers' conference organised by our
Society, the Amalgamated Engineering Union. I attended that conference and was
pitchforked into battles with the communists. I was outraged to discover that
they rigged elections and found that they fought dirty. I was very quickly
elected to the Trades Council, the executive of the Fabian Society, the
executive of the City Labour Party. The following year I was a candidate for
the City Council. When Frank Fairhurst stood down as shop steward I was elected
to replace him, and Frank became a foreman. The communists now saw their chance
and the District Committee refused to issue me with credentials as a shop
steward. The works director had wanted Frank to remain shop steward. I only
pretended to force him out. Frank wanted the foreman's job. However, the works
director was displeased with me and very rapidly, to the delight of the
communists, I was out of a job. The major battles in the unions in
I found a job in an aircraft factory. Was it true, the communists asked, that I was collecting books for a book fair for the Labour Party League of Youth? Would I like a pile of books? How kind, I thought. I was checking some wiring on an aircraft when a security officer ordered me to report to the Personnel Department. Someone had been smoking or taking a break on that aircraft.
"I wasn't smoking or taking a break," I protested.
"You're going anyway," said the security officer. "Have you seen your bench?"
The works of Lenin, Marx, Engels and Stalin were stacked high on my bench. The communists howled with laughter.
"Have a good read," they shouted.
I had been out of work a few weeks when a printer on a newspaper asked if I would like a job. He was a keyboard operator. The salary seemed enormous.
"I can't type," I said.
"You won't be allowed to. It's a union agreement. They've got rid of a machine, but they've got to employ an extra man."
"And what do I do all night?" I asked.
"Nothing. You won't be allowed to."
I declined the well paid job. I disapproved strongly of this kind of trade unionism.
I saw an advertisement in the Guardian for university extra
mural courses at
"Why don't you go to University?" Ralph asked one day.
"It's impossible," I protested.
Ralph asked what I thought of one of the visiting lecturers.
"OK," I replied. "Not very bright."
"Right," said Ralph. "He's got a couple of degrees and you're brighter than he is... Remember," he continued, "knock on plenty of doors. Some doors will be slammed in your face but eventually you'll find someone who's been waiting for you."
This was excellent advice. In October 1950 I got on a coach
to
"Ruskin won't take you without money and the City Council won't give you a grant unless you have a place at College," I told him. "So write to Ruskin and say you have the money and to the Council and say you have the place."
I helped my friend write an essay for Ruskin on the closed shop. The opening sentence of his draft commenced, 'The non-trade unionist in the factory is a philistine within the gate who must be eliminated...'
"We start," I suggested, "'Some would say that the non-trade unionist...' Then we put the other point of view and proceed that way all through the essay like two people having an argument."
"And at the end?" my friend asked.
"Sum it up, pros and cons, and if you want my opinion, settle for tolerance or leave it open."
"I won't sell out," said my friend.
"You'll enjoy
Two years later when I moved to
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My first year at
I was met by the College Secretary, Ferdie Smith, who said, "You'll be staying at the Rookery in Headington," and bundled me into a taxi.
"Don't go away," I advised the taxi driver when we arrived at what had obviously been a large country house.
I then tried to explain my predicament to the students I
encountered. Conway Morgan came to my rescue. He was to be my room mate and he
was rolling a cigarette with one hand when we first met. He said nothing, but
pressed paper money into my sweaty palm. During this manoeuvre he seemed to
manage to keep one hand in his pocket and continue rolling his cigarette in a
Rizla paper with the other. No mean feat! He was like that. Con was a very dark
Welshman who could be eloquent but otherwise, unless he had something important
to say, preferred silence. He chose on leaving
Some of our lectures were given in Headington and others at
Returning from a sojourn in Shoreditch which had been made
more tolerable by that area's Shakespearean connections, I found that an oafish
oligarchy of Northern barbarians, masquerading as trade unionists, had taken
over the house committee at Headington and were being a bore. These were not
brothers but old fashioned bullies and they had drawn up long detailed rules
and regulations which licensed them to annoy and irritate fellow students.
While I was luxuriating in a hot bath one morning, one of the comrades burst in
on me to announce that this was criminal activity. The committee had drawn up a
timetable and one could only bathe by consulting this dreary document and
taking a dip at an allotted time. As the bathrooms were mostly vacant with hot
water gurgling in the pipes at all hours, this seemed like an attempt to turn
our sylvan
I found the fellow conspirator I needed playing the piano
in the common room after dinner. Robin Higgs was quite unique at Ruskin. He was
a
'No baths today
But we are dirty!
No baths today!
What can we do?
Take a furtive dip?
And risk persecution?
Big Brother is at the keyhole
Watching you!'
That evening, returning from a rare visit to a local pub, the staircase in the Rookery was dark. As I reached for the banister rail, yells and the thud of falling bodies came from the top of the staircase. I stood aside as the thugs of the oligarchy stumbled and bounced down the stairs.
"Sorry lads," said Robin, who was massively built. "I didn't see you crouching on the stairs in the dark!"
Robin revealed to me over a mug of cocoa that he had overheard the mob planning a Tyneside Friday night ritual, namely to kick the shit out of someone. The target was my good self and the lads had removed the light bulb and were lying in wait when Rob had accidentally kicked them down the stairs! Not since my schooldays, when belatedly the school champ Dawson had become my chum, had I known the joy of having a protector. Robin's massive presence terrified the oligarchy. They never found their rules and regulations.
"Where did you hide their ghastly constitution, Robin," I asked one sunny day.
"The one place those ignorant bastards would never think to look," said Robin.
"The library?"
"Naturally," said Robin.
Ruskin had been a delightful experience. The College
specialises in courses for mature students, and I found the tutors to be very
kind and generous with their time. Ruskin is in no way inferior to the older,
richer and more prestigious colleges of the University and achieves extremely
high academic standards. Ruskin is an oasis of liberal civilised values to
which students and scholars have been drawn from all over the world. It was
established by two young idealistic Americans at the end of the nineteenth
century. An act of great generosity from the
In December 1950 I attended a student conference at
Transport House. The chairman was an old friend from
"You are going to have your photograph taken for the Daily Herald," said Peter. "Pick out a pretty girl from the hall."
At the back of the hall was a young lady with a golden halo. The halo was her plaited fair hair pinned up. I pointed to her and called and she came forward. That was how I met Carol. We had our photographs taken and the next day I apologised for being a bit slow and asked her to marry me. There were a lot of good looking men at that conference and I was taking no chances. We sat holding hands in the foyer of Transport House when the porter decided to play Cupid and showed us into the TUC. General Chamber.
"It'll be warmer up here and a bit more private," he said.
Which goes to show one should never underrate the TUC. The brothers mean what they say about love and fraternity. Trade unionists are magnificent people. Sometimes a little foolish because they are very ordinary like the rest of us, but big-hearted, very generous and very loyal. What few Conservative politicians understand is that they are also intensely patriotic, conservative and yet liberal minded and the salt of the earth. Harold Macmillan understood them which is why I think he will go down in history as a truly great Prime Minister.
I now had a problem and Billy Hughes, the Principal of Ruskin was, quite rightly, rather cross. I had been accepted to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Catherine's Society by the Censor, a reverend gentleman, and I had changed my mind.
"What are you playing at, Harold?" asked Billy Hughes. "You've done extremely well to be accepted and now you say you won't go!"
"But I've also been accepted by Magdalen," I said. "And Balliol are quite keen."
"Good God, Harold," said Billy. "How many Colleges have you applied for?"
"Twelve," I said. I was taking Ralph Ruddock's advice literally. "I didn't think any of them would want me," I added.
I apologised to Billy Hughes, and suggested we take it that I had gone the wrong way about applying for admittance to a College and had been severely reprimanded. He should reply to the Censor accordingly and smooth his feathers.
And would I go to St Catherine's? asked Billy.
"No," I said. "He wrote me an extremely abusive letter without giving me a chance to explain. I acted in ignorance. That letter was meant to hurt."
The Censor of St Catherine's was not mollified. If I would
not go to his College, the doors of every other
Perhaps the President of Magdalen had seen me out of politeness. His butler had taken my dirty raincoat and held it at arm's length. The President's study had large faded tapestries covering the walls.
"Hello, Mr Smith," said Boase. "Excuse the old clothes. I'm weeding the garden."
The butler poured the tea from an exquisite Georgian teapot and I thought, 'This is better than working in the factory.'
"So what have you been doing with yourself?" asked the President.
I explained about Ruskin. I had the University Diploma in Public Administration and had been awarded a State Scholarship in addition to my Cassel Scholarship.
"I was born into a working class family in
"Tell me about
"I was guarding the
"What was?" asked Boase.
"To see Karnak and
He threw back his head and laughed. "Mr Smith,"
he said. "All my life I've wanted to go to
Harry Weldon was extremely friendly and we had a glass of sherry. I was beginning to drool at the thought of Magdalen. The very atmosphere made me tingle with joy.
"I'm a socialist, but not a communist," I told Harry Weldon. (I thought it as well to make that clear.)
Weldon chuckled. "Surprise me, Smith. Surprise me," he said.
After the Censor had got to work, Weldon saw me again. "What's the old sod up to, Smithy? What have you done to him?"
"I told him I didn't want to go to St Catherine's..."
"Quite right too!" said Weldon. "Who would want to go to the Cats' Home with that burke! Tell him to piss off!"
I nearly upset my sherry glass. "It's all right your telling him what to do, Mr Weldon," I said. "Sitting here in Magdalen sipping your sherry. He'll have my balls!"
Harry Weldon roared with laughter and tears ran down his face. "That's the stuff, Smithy," he said. "Tell the old bugger to go and..."
I began to form the impression that Weldon had no particular respect for men of the cloth. Some days later Boase sent for me.
"I'm afraid, Smith," he said, "you may be called on as a Magdalen man to make the supreme sacrifice..."
It seemed that Magdalen was supporting Balliol who needed some new laboratories on condition that Balliol helped Magdalen put through some crafty wheeze. Unfortunately the Censor of St Catherine's support was also needed. His friends were making noises and...
"I think I must withdraw my application, sir," I said.
"I knew you'd understand, Mr Smith," said Boase apologetically. "It's Balliol's labs and our little scheme and..."
'Oh well,' I reflected, 'it was nice being a Magdalen man while it lasted.'
Towards the end of term I was doing my washing in the basement at Ruskin when I had an idea. I was not committed to any College now. Balliol had probably got its laboratories. I would start again. I wrote to the President of Magdalen, apologising for my ignorance of the proper etiquette when last I applied. I now had no commitments and wished to make a fresh application...
Boase replied next day. 'Dear Smith. Glad to have you with us...'
I was a Magdalen man again.
"Good God, Smith," said Boase. "We let you in for three years and now you want senior status and to do the degree in two years. Did you ask Harry Weldon?"
"He said it was all right with him if you agreed."
"And the Dean of Arts?"
"He said if you agreed..."
"Look, Smith," said Boase. "Just because they let the Prince of Wales do it before the war doesn't mean..."
"The way those regulations are drafted," I said, "I'm sure they'd let me do it."
"Go on then, Smith, old chap," said Boase. "Tell them the story. Tell them the story."
I was housed with the Rhodes scholars in a set of rooms opposite the College. The sitting room was furnished with a deep club-type leather suite and limed oak sideboard, table and chairs. Mr Edwards was my scout and we became good friends.
On matriculation day the Junior Dean of Arts at Magdalen lined the new boys up in a crocodile. We were wearing sub fusc, that is dark suits, squares, gowns and white bow ties. The Junior Dean was taking no chances. He placed four reliable grammar school boys at the head of the crocodile and shoved choir and organ scholars - Dudley Moore was not untypical- who were notoriously wayward, in the middle. I was with the oldies, the Rhodes scholars, bringing up the rear, but the Junior Dean, suspecting we might slip into the pubs on the High Street, shoved us in the middle of the crocodile too.
Off we went down the High and into the Sheldonian which always resembles a Costain building site. I was chatting to Colin Eisler, a New Yorker, about everyday matters like the meaning of life and how to make a good cup of tea. We were plunging down a stone corridor when a labourer with a wheelbarrow blocked our way. We paused and then a man with a ladder came along. We set off again, but this time Colin and I were leading the back end of the Magdalen matriculation crocodile. We went round the building and passed the man with the wheelbarrow again when the cry went up, "We're lost!" and our followers deserted us and started opening every door they came to. Colin and I ran after them and then some smart public school boy got the scent and we burst in on the matriculation ceremony. There was one small problem. We had come through a door behind the Vice Chancellor who was on a raised dais. The Vice Chancellor looked startled as the Magdalen mob propelled by those behind hustled past him. As I squeezed past I noticed he was reciting his Latin speech from a script concealed in his mortar board.
The Junior Dean of Arts was somewhat displeased. His Latin speech slipped out of his hat. When he got us outside he just shook his head and groaned.
"Do you think we got matriculated, Sean?" asked Colin.
"About that pot of tea, Colin," I said.
An
I was invited to lunch and thoroughly enjoyed the burnt
sausages and mash. I detest rare sausages. Miss Rosemary and I had a contest of
apologies. She apologised for the burnt sausages. I apologised for being so
greedy and eating every last burnt sausage. I think I won. Henceforth I was
introduced to everyone in
"I'm told you're the politest man in
"I like burnt sausages," I confessed.
"Tell me," she said. "What is the University? Is it the Colleges?"
The politest man in
"You really are deaf, Harold," said Miss Rosemary one Sunday afternoon."
"I really don't think so, Miss Spooner," I responded.
"Humour me, Harold," said Miss Spooner. "I've made an appointment for you at the Radcliffe tomorrow."
"So you're not deaf," said the hearing specialist.
"That's right," I said.
The specialist covered his lips with his hand and continued talking. I tried to peer around his hand. How could I hear if I could not see?
"Can you hear now?" he asked, letting me see his lips.
He stuck a hearing aid in my ear and I recoiled. The traffic noise was awful and a whole aviary of birds was singing madly. I was being assaulted by a battery of sound. So, courtesy of Miss Spooner, I became officially deaf and was issued with a hearing aid. When I wore it I didn't need to turn it on as people shouted my head off. Not that I had much time for social activity at Magdalen. There were one hundred tutorials to attend and one hundred essays to write. We were all so busy. Friends one wanted to know better, Alf Morris, Guy Barnet, Gerald Kaufman, Fred Jarvis, all rushed by.
"Hi! How are you? Fine. See you!?"
Each week at Miss Spooner's one knew where there had been a
revolution because she always had for tea the very latest batch of refugees.
One sometimes wondered where last month's refugees had gone. Everyone was made
to feel somebody special. I had my title. A shy Dagenham shop steward, which
seems improbable, blossomed after being introduced several times as a very
important trade union official. Another visiting shop steward held the whole
room transfixed with a long boring yarn but it was not his story which was
spellbinding. It was his table knife which he waved above his head in a repeat
of the speech which paralysed
"Did we take their stinking offer?" demanded the docker.
The assembled professors and refugees shook their heads vigorously.
"No, we didn't!" said the docker emphatically, the knife and its cargo of jam cleaving the air.
On the last syllable the knife and jam parted company and everyone's eyes rose to the ceiling with the raspberry jam and then down to the fine Persian carpet where it landed.
"Oh sorry!" exclaimed the docker and he ground the jam into the carpet pattern with his boot.
"What a thrilling story," said Miss Spooner faintly.
"Lovely jam this!" said the docker reloading his knife.
If I was polite, what were the Spooner ladies? Saints, I think.
My friend Neil Smelser compared being a student at Magdalen
to living in a monastery. Perhaps unlike Neil I found everything about Magdalen
joyful and sheer delight. Like Neil I was not overawed either by Magdalen or by
Yet we had so little time to appreciate the magnificence of
Magdalen. Two or three years may seem time enough but in my case a hundred
tutorials and a hundred essays left too little time for friendships and the
astonishing range of social and political activity available. How did I find
time to convene the Cole Group, to give papers to the Labour Club, to entertain
ex-Ruskin people who were also reading politics to tea each week, to walk
around
Neil was a Rhodes scholar from
"Look after Helen, Sean," he would say and he would be away.
Was Neil trusting or did he know that Helen would pin my ears back and would still be giving men - and me as the sole representative available - hell when he returned much later? My daughter Helen was named for Neil's Helen and she is an active feminist too.
We wore short black gowns, but only when we had to wear them, which was usually for lectures and formal dinner in Hall. Neil and I had only one mortar board between us. We were really mean. At the end of term we would assemble in the Hall for Collections which were known to Magdalen undergraduates as 'The Inquisition.' In turn we would go up to the high table carrying our square and the dons would make sarcastic comments on our progress. Quite accurately after a term of Philosophy, Harry Weldon reported I was in danger of discovering the subject any time now. On one occasion Neil had preceded me as usual carrying our square. He was on his way back and my name had been called when the President took him aside to compliment him on his work.
"Your square, sir!" the head porter yelled as I set off up the Hall minus my mortar board.
The assembled scouts grinned as I indicated that I was carrying
an invisible square under my arm. I managed to stand alongside Neil at the high
table and our square disappeared from under Neil's left arm and reappeared
under my right one! The dons must have thought we were a stingy pair. Actually
it was Neil who was the radical. He loathed bullshit and the
Neil and Colin Eisler lived on the top floor of a beautiful
old pile called the
"What's wrong with the drapes?" said Neil, puzzled.
Colin paraphrased Oscar Wilde's remark about the wallpaper in his room where he lay dying, "One of us will have to go."
Each day Colin took the offending curtains down and
whenever he returned they would be back in place.
The
Although I mixed mainly with American and Commonwealth
students at Magdalen because they were older, I had no problems with the boys
from the public schools such as Eton, Harrow or
The vandalism used to annoy me, particularly as the damage was meticulously recorded and costed and added to our bills. As the vandals were often rich and some of those who did not take part were poor, this did seem inequitable. Some of the public school boys appeared to have been starved for years. Being from the working class and a fastidious eater, I would rarely clean my dinner plate and would be surprised when a well-to-do ex-Etonian would offer to finish off my scraps. In conversation the public school boys would tell stories of hunger and deprivation which made my working class upbringing seem rich and privileged. They would also be contemptuous of their parents and critical of the lack of love shown to them. Too often they felt they had been packed off at an early age to get them out of the way. And some complained that excuses were made for sending them off in school holidays too. They would be aghast when I piled jam on my bread.
"You can't do that, Sean," they would protest.
When I queried why not, they would say, "You can't. It's not allowed."
"Pretend you're working class," I would say, "and pile it on."
Maybe they thought nanny or the school matron was still watching them.
All in all the student body at Magdalen was very mixed and
quite cosmopolitan. No one was nasty to me, no one patronised me. I sometimes
made the point that I felt so much at home because the
"It's you rich sods who are the interlopers," I would claim.
Yet in my second year I became a little weary of Magdalen. And that because I fitted in too well. I felt the balance I had struck was threatened. I loved the deep leather chairs, good food and amusing chatter. Perhaps I felt I was being seduced. Most of the friends I had made in my first year were now in digs and I had chosen, as this was my final year, to keep my rooms in College. A joke that I was 'the college communist' stung me. At most other times I would have laughed it off by saying 'how true' and how 'it paid so well, the floor of my rooms had been reinforced because of the weight of the sacks of Russian gold.' Perhaps all my friends felt the same. A realisation that the world out there would have to be faced and some adjustment was necessary.
I decided that I had to junk all the
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I joined another Union, the Municipal and General
Workers, and became a
My job was to move crates of butter along a conveyor belt and bind the boxes with wire on a machine happily named, 'The Gordian.' A homosexual theatre buff with rotting feet, who shuffled around stacking empty cartons, told me of a young bloke he had recently helped escape from the factory on to the stage. The young bloke's name was Maurice Micklewight, and I have often wondered if Michael Caine, when he became famous, remembered the factory hand who took pride in helping others get on.
There was much ribald laughter and teasing when I took my place on the conveyor belt. The girls on the butter packing machines were not accustomed in those days to have students in their midst. I say 'students' because, having recently seen the Doctor series of films like 'Doctor in the House,' they decided I was a medical student. When I protested that I was not, they said I was really a psychologist, one of those doctors who listened to your dreams. They had seen that film too! The girls would invite me to listen to the glorious sexy dreams they had had and ask me to say what they all meant! The machines were very close to the conveyor belt and when the girls created a log jam, the men had to take turns to move along the conveyor and squeeze past the girls. We were timid and reluctant to do this, especially as we knew from experience that the girls might force us against the conveyor for a 'bit of fun' and all the girls would howl with laughter.
Before going to the packing machines the solid packs of butter would be mixed with salt and water in massive churns. The salt was kept in the cellars and because of the large number of rats down there, some cats were kept in the cellars. The sacks of salt we brought out of the cellar would be pungent with the stink of cat pee. The workers claimed that this is what gave the factory butter its appeal.
The butter would pass through the packaging machines in a variety of cheap paper or fancy silver wrappings, heading for a cheap corner shop or a Knightsbridge store. We all knew it was the same butter but when the men slipped some packs into their pockets they preferred the posh wrapper, for even they felt it tasted better. My refusal to steal the butter myself was eventually to lead to bad feeling. I was not only superior but dangerous. I pretended to take the butter, but they were not deceived. I might tell on them. Perhaps I was a boss's man, a spy? It was time to move on.
When I applied for the post of Labour Officer with the
Department of Labour in
Helen was of course the most beautiful baby ever born and Carol and