My brother was always playing with a ball, whether it be football, cricket, tennis, snooker and as he matured, golf. During the long school summer holidays he’d spend more time in the local park with his mates, than he did around the house, mind you with a house that had a lawn the size of ours, even when home he would be chasing a ball around. I wasn’t interested in sports of any kind, watching or participating! As I entered my teens, I began my senior school, St Josephs Catholic Secondary Modern, which was situated just off the centre of town. I disliked my time there intensely and the four years seemed an eternity, there was a great deal of bullying and I wasn’t very tall, it was only in my final year that I shot up and was left alone to get on with my schoolwork. The area was very rundown and generally in poor condition, with long rows of red bricked terraced houses and studded with dirty, noisy old factories that had all seen better days. Years later I would learn that it was also a well used red-light district when the sun had set! Meanwhile at home, just because I’d been allowed to watch ‘Quatermass and The Pit’ didn’t mean that I was given free reign on the TV, as in 1961 I can recall hearing other lads talking about something called ‘A for Andromeda’ at school and on the way home on the bus. In November 1962 I was privy to a four part BBC serial called ‘The Monsters’, but can only recall some scenes at the climax in which the monsters from a lake, destroy an underground lab and save the day. Whenever I hear ‘The Crystals’ sing ‘He’s A Rebel’ I think of this now lost TV serial, as I’d purchased the 45 rpm single shortly after it had been screened and somehow the two became forever inextricably linked. I did manage to see ‘A for Andromeda’ when it was re-broadcast the following year and to be honest I found it a little tedious, but of course I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time. When Mr Worth, our next door neighbour, took his son Robert to the cinema he would occasionally take my brother and myself along, as a treat. They were nearly always family films and I can recall enjoying Walt Disney’s ‘Babes in Toyland’ and the fabulous ‘Mysterious Island’. There was also the odd drama/adventure, as with ‘North West Frontier’ in 1959, which had affected me for several days and I had found it difficult to get rid of the images of a train filled with dozens of slaughtered passengers and buzzing insects, there was also a scene were the young Prince had been actively encouraged by villain Herbert Lom, to play with a stick in a fast turning water wheel…. Remember I’d be around eleven years old. I now rate this film pretty highly and keep a copy near to hand following recent TV broadcast.
Leave a Reply