This morning’s dominant bird calls at The Firs were of wood pigeons; those without a mate crying ‘uni-ted’, and those happily paired off ‘take two cows taffy, take two cows’. I worked on tidying the bed inside the concrete ring and digging over a bed outlined earlier in the year.
The combination of gardening, my mother, and my sisters got us reminiscing about the garden we grew up with in Stanton Road. This was a very small, bare, patch which went with our rented maisonette. I don’t remember much growing there at all except for the Browns’ plum tree suckers and incessant convulvulus. These permanently invaded our garden and it was my job periodically to have a blitz on them. Elizabeth does remember some plants I successfully grew.
Mr. and Mrs. Brown lived next door. In sixteen years I don’t remember ever having seen either of them. I think there was a disability involved. Mr. Brown made Elizabeth a doll called Minnehaha. It was the Browns’ television, I believe, which was responsible for my teenage fantasies. No, not those fantasies. In those twilight moments between being awake and asleep, I would hear the three discordant notes which Mum said were coming from their television. I believe it was a closing down signal. This led me into thinking how wonderful it would be if you could have a picture frame on your wall and a gadget that could tune in to and display in this any of the films currently being shown on any of the four cinemas Wimbledon then boasted. We didn’t have a television and the only one I had ever seen was a small wooden cabinet bearing a postage stamp sized screen. This was for the occasion of the coronation in 1953 when those of us at school who didn’t have a television were billeted with those who did. Being a tall lad I was seated at the back from whence I peered at a tiny black and white haze. Little did I imagine, in that teenage dream world, what my grandchildren can now hold in the palms of their hands.
Elizabeth and I took time out to visit the current exhibition of her artist friend Hilda Margery Clarke, where we also met another local artist, Susan Anderson, and had a good chat. As I have mentioned before, Margery was a tutee and close friend of L. S. Lowry, as is evident in some of her work. This collection was a fascinating forty year retrospective.
Jacqueline brought Mum up to join us for the evening meal. My niece Danni and her boyfriend Andy had also arrived earlier. This naturally led to the usual reminiscing, some of which may find its way into future posts.
The journey back was through gorgeous early summer evening light, bringing everything into sharp focus and casting long shadows across the fields.
18 responses to “Prescience?”
[…] On the North side of the park lies Melbury Gardens, where I watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, on a miniscule television set. (See post of 27th. May.) […]
[…] the Queen’s speech at 3 p.m. I reflected on the first time I had see her on television, as recorded on 27th May. The technological advances available since her coronation are quite astounding. Not only is […]
[…] his brother King Edward VIII in 1936 and his death in 1952, when his daughter, our present Queen, crowned in 1953, took over the […]
[…] making use of ‘The Dragon’s Tears’, ‘Prescience’, and ‘The Abdication’, I drafted more of ‘A Knight’s […]
The description of your neighbour’s television sound and the sequence of thoughts it triggered is priceless. You were definitely a prescient boy.
Many thanks, Uma
I may have mentioned this before, but my grandfather and other men of his village banded together to build their own TVs for the Coronation. The vicar went down to London to get the parts and they ran evening classes to complete the sets. I still have the screen magnifier they used to use in front of the tiny screens (I believe they were 7″ in those days.)
Wonderful, Quercus. 7″ was about right. Many thanks.
🙂
[…] 5 of The Crown which focussed on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I have already recorded, in ‘Prescience?‘ my first ever TV viewing of this event which took place on 2nd June, […]
My Dad bought a television in 1953 to watch the Coronation. I was only 1 year old, so don’t remember, but apparently half the street packed into our 3-room upstairs flat to watch it. We had the same television when I was old enough to remember watching Andy Pandy, and Muffin The Mule. It was BBC only, though later converted to receive ITV by the use of a ‘plunger’ at the side that switched channels. Reception was poor, even in central London, and it used to spin constantly, like the wheels of a one-armed bandit.
Later in life I also lived in Wimbledon. From 1977-1985, in Braemar Avenue, Wimbledon Park SW19.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you very much, Pete. We have more in common than WordPress 🙂
I liked your Forgotten post. WP wouldn’t let me like and rejected my e-mail when I tried to follow. This is not the first time that has happened
Thanks anyway, Derrick.
Best wishes, Pete.
Great memories. From 1960 we lived near Rugby close to the Rugby Radio Station which was a hub for UK military communications (It has gone now of course). Quite often our TV set would pick up interference as soldiers posted overseas phoned home via the masts. Mum was forever on alert to switch off the TV if any of the conversations became inappropriate, if you know what I mean!
I can’t imagine 🙂 Thanks very much, Andrew
That’s wonderful
Thanks very much, Gary