There were no videos or DVDs in those days, of course, but I rewound that dance scene again and again inside my head. The film had a very dramatic ending. The father is in charge of Mandy one weekend but leaves her alone in their lodging house. There’s a fire, Mandy is in peril, but the father comes rushing back and rescues her. She clings to him in her white nightie on the rooftop, the flames licking nearer and nearer. He manages to throw her to safety before he’s engulfed by the flames himself. I thought it the most thrilling film ever, though I think I’d have severe reservations about it if I ever saw it again!
It might seem odd that I remember Mandy’s films so vividly when I only saw most of them once – but I had a fantastic aide-mémoire. I kept my own scrapbook of any Mandy Miller photos I saw in newspapers or magazines, but these were just tiny blurred images. I also had a little attaché case bursting with big glossy Mandy photos, some of them ‘stills’ from her films, some specially taken publicity photos. Biddy looked at the photo copyright names in the papers, found out the right addresses and took me up to London with her to the film companies and press offices.
I was still a very shy child. I’d be paralysed with embarrassment when Biddy blagged her way through reception and then begged for Mandy Miller photos.
‘It’s for the kiddie, you see,’ she’d say, nodding at me. ‘She’s mad about Mandy.’
I’d hang my head and blush scarlet, but nine times out of ten they’d soften and let us have several photos. Sometimes Biddy had to pay, but mostly we got them for nothing. Biddy would wrap them in tissue paper and carry them carefully on the tube and train in her shopping bag. When we got home, I could spread out my new photos and relive each film, frequently inventing new scenes, completely different new plots and characters to suit myself.
I used the film photos for most of my imaginary scenarios because Mandy looked sad or anxious or tragic and that gave me more scope. I felt more in touch with that Mandy. The Mandy photographed in her own home was a different girl entirely, a blessed child leading an idyllic life. I treasured a series of photos taken at her birthday party. Mandy’s wearing a beautiful smocked Liberty frock, lighting the candles on her cake while her mother and her big sister and her friends smile at her.
Biddy didn’t make birthday cakes. She did make lovely fairy cakes with lemon-flavoured icing and a walnut stuck on top. I liked them very much but they weren’t quite the same as real birthday cake with icing and butter cream and special candles. I didn’t have birthday parties either. Biddy said the flat was too small and she didn’t have time to prepare for them as she went out to work. I was partly relieved because I’d have been horribly shy and scared that we wouldn’t pass muster as a normal happy family, but I still felt a pang whenever I looked at the photo of Mandy’s party.
At about the same time – she’s wearing the same checked hair ribbons – there’s a set of photos taken in her back garden. Mandy’s playing in her tent and climbing a tree with a friend, and then she’s swinging dangerously upside down from a branch, her plaits flying.
I didn’t have my own garden – but I could play out in The Jungle, the huge overgrown wilderness behind the flats. I was very much a girl for playing in, but sometimes I went down to The Jungle with Sue, the little girl next door. We were both meek girls whose mothers fancied themselves a cut above the other residents. We were sent out to play in clean checked summer frocks, little white socks and polished sandals. We had enough sense to steer well away from the tough gangs, who would pull our hair, tug our skirts up to mock our white knickers and then push us into the nettles.
They had a rope attached to one of the tallest trees so you could swing like Tarzan. We swung too, timidly, and we both climbed the fir tree with the easiest branches, all the way to the top. One slip and we’d have broken our necks. It was just as well our mums never found out what we were up to.
Mandy had a white poodle, and there was a lovely photo of her giving him a big hug. I decided poodles were my favourite dogs too. I had a little black china poodle on my windowsill at home, and a kind old lady at Waverley Hall won a white furry poodle at bingo on Clacton Pier and gave it to me. I was overwhelmed, though this poodle quickly developed alopecia. His fur fell out, leaving ugly yellow glue stains, and then one of his glass eyes loosened and dangled out of his head, so Biddy put him in the dustbin.
When I got my Vip, I decided I loved Pekes most of all, but I’ve changed my mind now. I can’t wait to have my little black miniature poodle.
Much to my joy, Mandy seemed a bookish girl. She was photographed several times with books spread all around her. My all-time favourite photograph of her shows her sitting up in bed in her flowery nightie, holding a gilt-embellished copy of Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie. I hope she’s somehow hung onto that book. I’ve got a first edition of it myself, bought in my twenties for ten shillings – that’s 50p in today’s money. A first edition in a dust wrapper was recently auctioned for £3000!
I didn’t know anything about the value of books as a child, but I did know the price of every doll, and I was seriously impressed that Mandy was photographed holding an Elizabeth doll. This was a special doll brought out to commemorate the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. She wasn’t a grown-up doll with a crown; she was a child doll with blonde curls and a cotton frock with a tight white plastic belt to match her neat white plastic shoes.
I longed for an Elizabeth doll but they were nearly three pounds – much too expensive. Biddy took me to see several shelves of them in Hamleys and they all smiled down at me, fanning their fingers in regal waves.
* * *
Which of my characters gets taken to Hamleys toyshop and longs to be given a special doll?
* * *
It’s Dolphin in The Illustrated Mum.
We went to Hamleys in Oxford Street afterwards, a special huge toy shop. Micky took us to look at the dolls though even he could see that Star was past that stage. I knew I should be too old for dolls too but I ached with longing as I looked at all the specially designed dolls locked away in glass cases. They had beautiful gentle faces and long long long hair. My fingers itched to comb it. They had wonderful romantic outfits too, hand-sewn smocked dresses and ruched pinafores and perfect little leather boots.
I leaned my forehead on the cold glass and stared at them all, making up names for each one and inventing their personalities. They all reached out for me with their long white fingers. They looked so real I was sure they couldn’t be cold and stiff to touch. I chose the one I liked the very best. She had long blonde curls and blue eyes and a dress and pinafore outfit the pink and blue of hyacinths, with pink silky socks and blue shoes fastened with little pearl buttons. I called her Natasha and knew she and I could be best friends for ever . . .
Children often ask me which is my favourite out of all my books. I tend to chop and change a little but I frequently choose The Illustrated Mum. I never re-read my books once they’re published – I’d find it awkward and embarrassing and want to change things – but I’ve watched the beautiful television film of The Illustrated Mum several times, and I always end up in tears.
17
The Coronation
THE QUEEN’S CORONATION was an enormous big deal in the 1950s. We thought differently about royalty then. They were like mysterious powerful gods with gold crowns permanently perched on their heads. Each school had a poster of the royal family in the hall entrance. The national anthem was frequently thumped out on the school piano while we all stood up straight, and woe betide you if you messed around or got the giggles. If you so much as sneezed during ‘happy and glorious’, you could get the cane. They didn’t just play ‘God Save the Queen’ in schools. It was played at almost every public event, even at every cinema show down the Regal or the Odeon.
The country was in a state of feverish excitement before the Coronation. People plotted for weeks to work out how they could camp overnight on the route and catch a glimpse of Elizabeth in her gold carriage. There were little replic
as of this gold carriage everywhere, complete with weeny horses. I hinted and hinted but didn’t get lucky. My only Coronation memorabilia were the silver spoon and the blue china commemorative mug given free to every school child – and Harry broke my mug a week later. I expect the spoon might still be rattling about at the back of my mother’s cutlery drawer somewhere. Maybe I’ll try to reclaim it.
We didn’t go up to London to see the Coronation. Biddy and Harry didn’t see the point so I didn’t get to wave my little Union Jack flag. However, we did see the Queen getting crowned. We got our first television so we could watch, along with hundreds of thousands of families all over the country. It was the talking point everywhere – who was forking out for an eleven-inch Bush television to see the Coronation. It was the first huge national event that the population could see simultaneously. We didn’t have to rush to the cinema the next week and watch Pathé News. We could peep right inside Westminster Abbey and see the Archbishop of Canterbury place the crown on Elizabeth’s head from the comfort of our own utility armchairs.
Biddy invited Ga and Gongon. The five of us watched the Coronation, with commentary by Richard Dimbleby – brother of the lady who declared I was an ultra-clean well-kept baby. We felt he was practically our best friend. We listened to his hushed, reverent tones, describing the scene we could see for ourselves in blurred black and white miniature.
We all knew it was a momentous occasion. It was also very very very boring. After half an hour of squatting on my little leatherette pouffe I sloped off to play with my paper dolls. I was reminded that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event and I should pay attention, but Biddy’s telling-off was halfhearted. She was yawning and fidgeting herself. We weren’t especially royalist in my family, though we’d read Crawfie’s account of her life as a governess to little Lilibet and Margaret Rose, serialized in some women’s magazine. Even so, Biddy bought a tea caddy with a picture of the newly crowned Queen looking very glamorous, and when full-colour souvenir books of the Coronation appeared in Woolworths, Biddy bought one. I leafed through the pages listlessly, but I liked the new Queen’s crown and sceptre and orb – I was always a girl for flashy jewels.
We also went together to see a children’s film called John and Julie later that year, about a little girl who runs away to see the Queen’s Coronation. I thought the girl playing Julie was quite sweet, but not a patch on my Mandy.
Biddy kept the newspapers with the coverage of the Coronation in case they might be valuable one day. Maybe she’s still got them. I wish she’d kept all my Girl comics instead!
* * *
There’s certainly no mention of the Queen’s Coronation in any of my books! I don’t think there’s anything about the royal family either. So OK, who lives in the Royal Hotel?
* * *
It’s Elsa in The Bed and Breakfast Star.
We went to stay at the Royal Hotel. The Royal sounds very grand, doesn’t it? And when we got down one end of the street and got our first glimpse of the Royal right at the other end, I thought it looked very grand too. I started to get excited. I’d never stayed in a great big posh hotel before. Maybe we’d all have our own rooms with satellite telly and people would make our beds and serve us our breakfasts from silver trays. As if we were Royalty staying in the Royal.
Maybe if Elsa achieves her big ambition to be a comedian, she might just be asked to take part in a Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen.
18
Papers and Comics
WE WERE A family with a hefty newspaper bill. Biddy liked the Daily Mail and Harry had the Telegraph and the Sporting Life and the Racing Post. Harry’s biggest hobby was horse racing. He went to race meetings occasionally, and every Saturday afternoon he crouched in his armchair, fists clenched, watching the racing on our new television. He’d shout excitedly if his horse looked as if it had a chance – ‘Come on, come on!’ – jigging up and down as if he was riding the horse himself.
I don’t know how much he won or lost, he never told us. He didn’t put flamboyantly large amounts of money on any horse. Later on, when we had a telephone, I heard him place each-way bets for a few shillings, but he was a steady punter, betting every day there was a race on.
He kept every racing paper and form book and studied them religiously, jotting down numbers and marking likely names. He squashed his suits and trousers up into a tiny corner of his wardrobe so that he could store all this information inside.
He also bought a London evening paper on his way home from work. There were three to choose from in those days. Newspaper sellers used to shout, ‘Star, News and Stan-daaaard!’ over and over again. Harry bought the Star, the paper with the strip cartoon ‘Tuppenny and Squibbit’.
I had my own comics too. I started off with a twee little baby comic called Chick’s Own, where the hard words were hy-phe-na-ted, but soon I progressed to the much more rufty-tufty Beano. I liked the Bash Street Kids because the humour was imaginative and anarchic, but I’d have liked it to be a bit more girly. I read Schoolfriend and occasionally Girls’ Crystal, but they were plain black-and-white comics. The most magical comic of all was Girl, well worth fourpence-halfpenny out of my shilling pocket money.
It was delivered every week. I was so entranced by some of the serial stories that I could barely wait for the next episode. I didn’t really care for dark-haired schoolgirl Wendy and her blonde friend Jinx on the front cover, but I was a particular fan of Belle of the Ballet inside the comic. I talked about her enthusiastically to my teacher Mrs Symons and she gently corrected my pronunciation. Up till that moment I’d been calling her Belly of the Ballette.
The best serial was on the back page. Every week there were inspiring stories about special women, written by the Reverend Chad Varah. Sometimes these heroines were well known, like Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp. Sometimes they were long-ago historical figures like Princess Adelaide, a particular favourite. Sometimes they were religious, like Mary Slessor, the mill girl from Dundee who became a missionary. Sometimes they ticked every single box, like Joan of Arc. I’d seen her picture in my nursery history book but I had no idea what happened to her. The last Joan of Arc picture strip was such a shock. The illustration of Joan standing in yellow flames, clutching her wooden cross, her eyes raised piously, made me shake with a complicated mixture of excitement, horror and pity.
I started to be stirred by current sad stories in the newspapers too. On Sundays Biddy liked to take the Mirror and the News of the World so she could have a good juicy read over her fried breakfast in bed. One summer they serialized Ruth Ellis’s story while she was locked up in Holloway, the women’s prison. I read over Biddy’s shoulder. She tutted over Ruth’s blonde hair and pencilled eyebrows and dark lips. ‘She’s obviously just a good-time girl. Look at that peroxide hair! Talk about common!’
I thought she looked glamorous and Ruth had always been one of my favourite names. I loved the story of Ruth and Naomi in Scripture at school, and there was another Ruth in a current favourite book, The Tanglewood’s Secret by Patricia St John. It had made a big impression on me because a boy in that book had climbed a tree, fallen and died. It had all been very sad, and Ruth and I had been very upset. This new true story about a real Ruth was about death too. She’d shot her boyfriend. I couldn’t help sympathizing a little because it sounded as if he’d been horrible to her. But now she’d been tracked down and convicted of murder, and in a few weeks’ time she was going to be hanged.
I hadn’t really taken on board what capital punishment meant until then. It seemed a crazy idea. If society was so shocked that Ruth Ellis had killed someone, why was it right that she should be killed too, and in such an obscene and ritualistic way? I couldn’t believe that anyone could legally drag a healthy person from their cell, put a noose around their neck and then hang them.
I didn’t think they would ever go through with it. I thought it was just a threat to frighten her. I thought she’d get a last-minute reprieve.
 
; She didn’t. They went ahead with the whole grisly procedure. They hanged her at nine o’clock in the morning.
* * *
One of my books has wonderful illustrations set out at the beginning of each chapter, lots of little pictures in a strip, like the most imaginative and beautiful drawn comic. Which is it?
* * *
It’s Candyfloss.
I’m so very lucky having Nick Sharratt illustrate my books. I think they’re all brilliant illustrations but maybe Candyfloss is my favourite. We had fun with the very last page, putting in lots of familiar faces. See how many of the children you recognize!
19
Health
I STARTED TO brood about death after reading about Ruth Ellis. I hadn’t really had anyone close to me die. Harry’s mother had died when I was a baby. His father had died a few years later, but I hardly knew him. Maybe Ga and Gongon were next on the Grim Reaper’s list. They weren’t a robust couple. Gongon had a heart attack one Christmas when I was a child. He wasn’t rushed to hospital. He stayed upstairs in bed and everyone tiptoed round, whispering and looking worried.
He made a full recovery but he was treated like an invalid after that. He retired early from work and sat in his armchair and sucked sadly on his pipe like an ancient old man when he must only have been in his fifties.
My grandmother wasn’t in much of a position to wait on him hand and foot. Ga suffered from cripplingly painful arthritis. She changes quickly in the family photo album from a little blonde woman with a curvy figure to a fat old lady in longish skirts and granny shoes. Maybe her steroid treatments made her put on weight. She ate exactly the same as my grandfather and yet he was matchstick-thin.