Jacky Daydream Read online

  I read the beginning of Jane Eyre too. Biddy had a little red leatherette copy in the bookcase. I fingered my way through many of these books, but they were mostly dull choices for a child. Jane Eyre was in very small print, uncomfortable to read, but I found the first page so riveting I carried on and on. I was there with Jane on the window seat, staring out at the rain. I felt a thrill of recognition when she described poring over the illustrations in Bewick’s History of British Birds. I trembled when her cousins tormented her. I was horrified when Jane’s aunt had the servants haul her off to the terrifying Red Room. I shivered with Jane when she was sent to the freezing cold Lowood boarding school. I burned with humiliation when she was forced to stand in disgrace with the slate saying LIAR! around her neck. I wanted to be friends with clever odd Helen Burns too. I wanted to clasp her in my arms when she was sick and dying.

  I read those first few chapters again and again – and Jane joined my increasingly large cast of imaginary friends.

  * * *

  Which girl in my books has Jane Eyre for her imaginary friend?

  * * *

  It’s Prue in Love Lessons.

  For years and years I’d had a private pretend friend, an interesting and imaginative girl my own age called Jane. She started when I read the first few chapters of Jane Eyre. She stepped straight out of the pages and into my head. She no longer led her own Victorian life with her horrible aunt and cousins. She shared my life with my demented father.

  Jane was better than a real sister. She wasn’t babyish and boring like Grace. We discussed books and pored over pictures and painted watercolours together, and we talked endlessly about everything.

  I didn’t base the character of Prue on myself, even though we shared an imaginary friend and both had odd fathers. I was quite good at art, like Prue, and I was also fond of an interesting Polish art teacher at secondary school – but I didn’t fall in love with him!

  24

  Television and Radio

  HOW MANY TELEVISION channels can you watch on your set at home? How many channels do you think there were when I was a child? One! The dear old BBC – and in those days children’s television lasted one hour, from five to six. That was your lot.

  I watched Muffin the Mule, a shaky little puppet who trotted across the top of a piano, strings very visible. He nodded and shook his head and did a camp little hoof-prance while his minder, Annette Mills, sang, ‘We love Muffin, Muffin the Mule. Dear old Muffin, playing the fool. We love Muffin – everybody sing, WE LOVE MUFFIN THE MULE.’

  Children’s television was not sophisticated in those days.

  Annette Mills’s speciality was performing with puppets. She also did a little weekly show with Prudence Kitten. I adored Prudence. She was a black cat glove puppet, ultra girly, who wore flouncy frocks and pinafores. You couldn’t get colour television in those days so I always had to guess the colour of Prudence’s frocks. She had her own little kitchen and bustled around baking cakes and making cups of tea, especially when her best friend Primrose was coming on a visit.

  There was another puppet on children’s television called Mr Turnip, an odd little man with a turnip head. He was best buddies with a real man called Humphrey Lestocq. No one could spell his name so viewers were encouraged to call him H.L. when he appeared on his television programme, Whirligig.

  There was a slapstick comedian specially for children called Mr Pastry, a doddery old man who kept tripping over and making lots of mess. Comedians on adult television weren’t necessarily more inspiring, though Biddy and Harry and I laughed at Arthur Askey, especially when he did his ‘Busy Bee’ song (don’t ask!), and Harry had a soft spot for Benny Hill.

  Television went wildly upmarket and downmarket, in those days. There was The Brains Trust, with its bombastic introductory music and its little quote from Alexander Pope: ‘To speak his thought is every human’s right.’ Even panel games were treated very seriously. We watched What’s My Line? every week, hosted by Eamonn Andrews (chatty Irishman), with Lady Isobel Barnett (posh dark-haired lady), Barbara Kelly (lively Canadian blonde), David Nixon (bald magician) and Gilbert Harding (grumpy intellectual). Eamonn and David and Gilbert wore full evening dress with bow ties; Lady Isobel and Barbara wore long dresses with straps and sweetheart necklines.

  Some of the children’s programmes were posh classy affairs too. Huw Wheldon had a talent show for children called All Your Own. He seldom chose showy little singers and dancers with ringlets and toothy grins. Huw Wheldon specialized in pale spectacled geeky children with high-pitched voices who played the cello or collected stamps. There was once a glorious troupe of strange children who acted out a mad chess game, singing at the end, ‘Ro, ro, rolio, tumpty tumpty tum. Now the battle’s over, we’ll have lots of fun!’

  ITV started up when I was about eight but Biddy fought not to have it. She said it was common. Maybe we simply couldn’t afford a new television set. Everyone at school was talking about all the new programmes, especially Wagon Train.

  ‘Silly cowboy rubbish,’ said Biddy, sniffing.

  Then she weakened, or maybe Harry forked out so he could watch his horse-racing on the new channel. We had a brand-new television with a fourteen-inch screen – and ITV. I still wasn’t able to join in the Wagon Train discussions at school. We watched one episode and Biddy poured scorn on it. It wasn’t just silly cowboys, it was sentimental. Biddy said it made her want to throw up.

  I was sometimes allowed to watch cowboys on children’s television: the Lone Ranger with his trusty friend Tonto – or was that his horse? No, that was Silver. You saw him rearing up at the start of the show, the masked Lone Ranger waving on his back. I didn’t like cowboys particularly, I just liked the part where they moseyed into town and stomped bowlegged into the saloon bar. I longed to be one of the naughty ladies who ran the saloon. I loved their flouncy ruffled skirts and their fancy high-heeled cowboy boots. There was also Davy Crockett with his furry hat. For a while every small boy wanted one of those hats with a weird tail hanging down the back. They all hid round corners and fired at each other with their toy Davy Crockett guns. He had his own theme tune: ‘Davy – Daveee Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.’

  This was always requested on Children’s Favourites on a Saturday morning, which was on the radio. Practically every child in the country listened to Uncle Mac and the selection for each Saturday. He rarely played the current favourites in the Hit Parade. These were special children’s songs, played over and over again throughout the fifties. The lyrics themselves were repetitious:

  How much is that doggy in the window?

  (Woof, woof!)

  The one with the waggly tail.

  How much is that doggy in the window?

  (Woof, woof!)

  I do hope that doggy’s for sale.

  How about:

  There’s a tiny house

  (There’s a tiny house)

  By a tiny stream,

  (By a tiny stream,)

  Where a lovely lass

  (Where a lovely lass)

  Had a lovely dream,

  (Had a lovely dream,)

  And her dream came true

  Quite unexpectedly

  In Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen

  Bogen by the Sea.

  That was sung with great gusto by Max Bygraves, who recorded any number of comedy songs. I was very fond of his ‘Pink Toothbrush’ song, which always made me laugh.

  Best of all was ‘Nellie the Elephant’ – by Mandy Miller! Mandy had made records before. They were dire – even I had to admit it, though I still loved playing them on our wind-up gramophone. We owned very few records. Harry liked Mantovani, and we had the soundtrack to South Pacific, and the Mandy recordings. Mandy’s best effort so far had been singing, ‘Oh let the world be full of sunshine, for Mummy, for Daddy and for me.’ She didn’t always stay in tune either. But she really came into her own when she made ‘Nellie the Elephant’. It was a sweet, funny song with a proper story and she