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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 116175" data-attributes="member: 22">1963Will Passmore, manager of the Springville Residential Home: Joan [Harris, Pat’s sister] and Michael got together in 1963. There was a big furore about it at the time and apparently your mother was veryembarrassed.Pat Evans: That was the year Mum told me Joan had died.Len Harker on Joan: How old was she?Pat: Twenty-two. My mum got this letter. I wanted to go to the funeral, but she said it was all arranged and done.Pat’s mother’s address: Mrs Harris105b Kallow RoadNorth WalfordLondonE21Pat: Why did Mum lie to me? Why did she say she [Joan] was dead?Len: Only your mum can tell you why she told you that.Pat on her mother: She told everyone [Joan] was dead because she didn’t want them to know she was becoming a woman. She was that ashamed of her?Will Passmore: Parents didn’t get the support in the sixties that couples get nowadays.Pat: That don’t mean she had to deny everything about her own daughter.Norman Simmonds to Pat: Remember Frank’s twenty- first? You in your fancy dress gear? Oh, his eyes just lit up. We all had such a good time that night.Frank Butcher: I remember my coming of age as if it was yesterday. I remember seeing double for a week after that.Pete: I remember my eighteenth birthday. What a riot. I ended up stark naked in a holly bush with the mother of all hangovers.Frank: Not to mention he ruined a great career as a choirboy!Aunt Sal: ’63, that was a good year. Peggy was coming up to twenty-one and I know you wouldn’t think it, at least in Peggy’s case, but we were lookers back then. The fellas in that club we went into, they certainly had the charm. The things they asked us to do would have made your hair stand on end.Archie Mitchell to Peggy: I can still see you [at twenty-one], hair piled up high, skirt so tight it made me eyes water.Peggy: I often thought of a career on the stage, but I never had the guts.Jane Beale: It turns out Peggy was a go-go dancer in a previous life.The Walford Gazette on Peggy: “She was once a go-go dancer at the Shangri La Club, a notorious sixties club for gangsters and hard men.”Peggy on a photo of herself as a go-go dancer: 1963 this was taken.Christian Clarke: You looked beautiful.Tanya Branning: Peggy was a bit of a stunner in her day.Peggy: I've always traded on me looks, I suppose. Enjoyed having a figure men liked looking at.Peggy on a necklace: Eric gave it to me on our third wedding anniversary. He put it in a pie. He wanted to surprise me. He did and all - I broke a tooth.Archie: I used to envy Eric, the way you ran around and kept those boys in order.Peggy: Yeah well, the harder I worked, the easier it looked.Archie: You still managed to look like a million dollars.Peggy: Nothing came easy in those days. It was all sweat and tears.Archie: Even then I knew it was you I should have married, but family came first.Peggy to Phil and Grant: Families always come first. You were taught that before you could walk.Phil: You taught us a lot of things, Mum.Peggy: Yeah, and number one was "You look after your own".Babe Smith: Family comes first, always has.Peggy on Grant: He was walking by ten months, you know. Grant was ever so advanced for his age.Peggy: I used to bath my babies in the kitchen sink. Grant loved it. The way he howled when I used to take him out!Peggy: I used to hang that [a mobile with monkeys’ faces on it] over Phil and Grant’s cot.Billy Mitchell: I would have thought they’d be more baseball bats and boxing gloves.Phil to Grant: You used to like "Home again, home again, jiggety-jig" when you was a kid.Peggy on Grant's teddy bear: [He was called] Gris, [as in] grisly. Grant never went anywhere without him when he was a toddler.Grant: Grant and Gris were a double act.Lofty Holloway: Basil was the name of my teddy when I was a kid.Danny Taurus on his band: Danny Taurus and The Zodiac — the East End's answer to The Beatles.Pete: That bunch of scallywags! I must have roadied for you every gig you did around here. Nearly ruined me for life it did, lifting all that equipment about. Mind you, the birds were all right.Pauline Fowler on Danny: He was never that good — not in the singing line anyway, but at least he used to look like something.Pete: I can still remember those birds hammering on your dressing room door.Danny: That's what happens when you're a dead ringer for Elvis.Pete: My old man used to say, "When it comes to women, always remember the three Fs - find them, feed them and forget them."Stan Carter: I’ve always been a fan of the female form. 1960s, that was the time. All them birds in their mini-skirts. Felt like we’d never seen legs before. Happy days.Pauline: The swinging sixties, it was all mini-skirts and Beatles and everything was free and easy — and nice girls definitely didn't. And then hey presto, in a few years, nice girls definitely did.Michelle Fowler: Did you?Pauline: Not when I was your age [fifteen], no, but later on.Michelle: With Dad.Pauline: No, before Dad. I was just finding out what things were like, experimenting.Danny on Pauline: She was a right little raver.Pete: You never told me you fancied Pauline.Danny: There's a few things I never told you about me and Pauline.Pauline on her and Danny: My mother would have killed me if she'd have known.Danny: Pauline, when I was a cub and you were a kitten, you could walk into a room and light up the party, like the Blackpool Illuminations.Pauline: You always were a charmer.Danny to Pauline: You used to always be singing. I couldn't get you to shut up.Danny: You were always the girl for me, Pauline.Pauline: Every girl was always the girl for you once.Danny: You always were very sweet.Pauline: Was I?Danny: Oh yeah, the sweetest.Pauline: You were never keen on me back then.Danny: I was!Pauline: You certainly hid it well then.Danny to Pauline: If I remember rightly, you usually got what you wanted.Pauline: The trouble was, all the boys I ever met, I compared to Dad - my dad. I thought he was the most fantastic man who ever lived.Ethel Skinner: Do you remember Den's dad, Dennis? He was a hard man, wasn't he?Dot Cotton: He gave Den a few thick ears.Ethel: I always thought old Dennis was very handsome.Den Watts, speaking to his daughter Vicki in 2003: What's with the clothes? My old dad had a string vest like that.Den: The barneys I used to have with my old man when I was a kid over the most stupid things you wouldn'tbelieve. I had a quiff once.Michelle: You weren't a teddy boy, were you?Den: Yeah, I was. My old man thought a quiff was an affront to the British Empire. We nearly came to blows over it. Anyway, it was resolved somehow. Oh yeah, he got some barber in Stanton Hill to chop it off. And that was that, the war was over. Well, one of the battles anyway.Kathy Beale to Ted: Remember the way Dad used to go on at you? "I am not having those winkle pickers in this house!"Derek Harkinson: I can remember some truly awful rows when I was growing up, like when I refused to have my hair cut. I wanted to be a Rolling Stone. My mother was determined I was going to keep my short back and sides. She threatened me with a frying pan.Pauline: I remember something like that when I got my first pair of stilettos.Derek: Of course it wasn't about hair at all, not really. It was about power. Teenagers have this need to assert themselves, to be able to say, "I'm different."Pauline: So what happened with your hair then?Derek: Oh, it sort of grew into a war, we fought for six months, and then she gave up.Pauline: So you won then?Derek: Not really, no. As soon as I'd grown it, I realised it wasn't me at all. Then I got my first job with the insurance company and I had it all cut off.Pauline: So she won?Derek: No. It wasn't about winning. It was about growing up - or rather, being allowed to grow up.Pauline on Den: Him and Pete, they were a right pair of wide boys, weren't they?Lou Beale: Den always sailed pretty close to the wind, but he had a habit of always coming smelling of roses.Pat: Angie always did like roses.Johnny Allen: I did have an aunt called Angie.Reverend Duncan on Den: He was brought up with the faculties to survive in a hard community. And he used these faculties.Den: I've always broken the law. I mean, not conspicuously. I just bent it a little bit, you know, just like me dad. I thought I was different. Fat chance.Den: When I was [young], my dad took me to one side and said, "You best watch yourself. You're far too cocky for your own good. You think there's nobody in this world but yourself." And do you know something? He was absolutely right.Chalky Whiting to Den: You always were Jack the Lad - but Jack the Lad in Walford don't amount to much.Pat on Den: He was a bit of a Jack the Lad when he was younger, but I don't remember any pregnancies.Den: I've had to dodge a few irate fathers in my time.Den on his mother: Older generation, facts of life, always embarrassed.Kenny Beale: Remember Chrissie Stevens? Bit older than us. Worked at Woolies. Well built girl, dead pale face and that amazing red hair. We were all after her.Den: Yeah. Wasn't a real redhead.Kenny: You never!Den: I most certainly did.Kenny: You always were advanced for your age.Den: And you were always young for yours.Kenny: That's true enough.Pat to Den: You were streets ahead, even when you were younger. Classy dresser, good dancer. Not like Pete. He had two left feet. You could charm the birds out of the trees.Pauline: Do you honestly think I can remember all the girls that Dennis Watts knocked about with? He was always sniffing round some tart or other.Pauline on Den: He was always looking for a bit of stray. It was like a religion with him. I hated it.Michelle: He never even looked at you, did he, Mum?Pauline: No he didn't, and if he had ...Patrick Trueman: When I think of some of the decisions I made as a young man ... Still, the women and them, I’ve got no regrets there.Patrick: I've had quite a few, you know — Emma, Agnes, Rita, Cheryl, Audrey.Audrey Trueman, Patrick’s future wife: When I first came to England, I took any job I could.Terry Raymond: I left school at fifteen without an O Level to my name.Eddie Moon: School never did me much good.Terry: I was out working when I was fifteen.Pat to Tom Clements: I remember your sister from the old days. We used to work in a factory together. Shoulder-pads.Pat on Big Mo: She never could take her drink.Big Mo to Pat: Never could hold your drink, could you?Jim Branning: I always used to make me own beer, lager.Ethel on the Queen Vic landlord: Remember the chap before [Den]? I remember his anniversary. He had a barrel of beer on the counter all day. The whole street was legless.Lou: You included.Ethel: Your old man used to lie on the floor with his mouth over the spout.Johnny on the Queen Vic: I always liked this boozer. I was virtually brought up there.Dot: I’ve been coming in here [the Vic] more years than I can count.Dot to Mick Carter: I’ve been coming in here [the Vic] since before you was bornPauline on the Queen Vic: I've been coming through these doors more years than I care to remember, even when I was a youngster.Dot: My Charlie said something to me once. He said the best pint he ever had was the one he wasn't supposed to be drinking, the one he had with one eye on the door expecting me to walk through any minute.Ethel: My old man liked a drop of the Vera Lynn.Ethel: I remember my William getting so sociable he couldn't walk up the stairs.Ethel on her fur stole: My William bought it for me. He had a very good winner on the dogs.Ethel: I got a lovely new winter coat from [the co-op] when my William died.Ethel on William: [Fifty-three] when he died. You cope.Pauline: Was there ever anyone else serious?Ethel: William's were very big shoes to fill. A man in a million [is] very hard to replace.Pauline: And I thought you were the local floozy, Ethel Skinner.Ethel: Just a lot of talk — mostly. But I had a lot of fun on the way.Dot on the Dalston Classic cinema: I went there once or twice with Ethel, my friend. She was rather keen on one of the ushers.Dot to Ethel: Do you remember telling me about that time you went to a dance and you met them Americans what said they was cornet players in Count Basie's band and you went back with them to the hotel in their van? I bet you didn't need no encouragement.Ethel: They weren't cornet players.Dot: No, and they weren't even Americans. They was pig farmers from Essex. Still, you had a lovely time and you had a comical story to tell. I'd have just gone home.Dot to Ethel: You had quite a life, didn't you? Always jumping in off the deep end. Used to envy you that.Dot to Ethel: You always got away with everything and I never did.Dot, speaking shortly before Ethel's death in 2000: You're still the same silly Ethel what danced the night away and come home with all them ridiculous stories.Dot: I loved Ethel. Mind you, I didn’t approve of her morals.Big Mo on Ethel: Had the filthiest sense of humour in any woman I met — men too, for that matter.Dot: I used to chaperone Ethel sometimes when she was after a new man. You’d have thought it would have been the other way round, seeing that she was so much older than me. Poor Ethel, she used to accuse me of spying on her.Dot on Ethel: She was in [the Vic] one night with a man I didn’t like the look of. He was unsavoury, none too clean. Anyway, they had one drink and then he scarpered. Then Ethel, she went off to the lav. I thought the poor thing had gone off to have a cry, but she’d been gone so long that in the end, I went in to check up on her. And do you know what? That artful little cow, she’d only climbed out the window and gone off with him. She was out all night.Pat: I’ve done some walkabouts in my time that would make your hair curl.Pat: I was in Southend.Geoff Barnes: The day Kennedy was shot?Pat: Yeah. It was wet and windy and they were playing Tommy Steele on the radio. At least, I think it was Tommy Steele.Geoff: With or without his Cavemen?Pat: Oh, definitely with.Geoff: So what were you doing in Southend then?Pat: That would be telling, wouldn't it? Actually, I was with a bloke. I was - well, let's just say me husband didn't know about it. There was nothing toit. I was in love with somebody else, but he wasn't in love with me. Not then anyway. Still, it was the swinging sixties. Sometimes I think I kickstarted the permissive society all by meself.Geoff: It's the war that did it, you know. Turned everything upside down. Kids brought up on bomb sites. Some without fathers, some without homes. Is it any wonder we rebelled?Joe Macer: Space travel, rock and roll - it was our era. We invented the teenager.Pauline: Do you know, I remember the first pair of jeans I ever had. Sat in the bath for hours trying to shrink them to size.Pauline to her son Martin: I bought this [black and white dress] in Carnaby Street, long before I married your dad. I felt I could conquer the world when I wore this frock.Pat: I used to get me thigh-high boots in there [39 Carnaby Street]. Pete couldn’t get enough of them.Peggy: The sixties, they were exciting, glamorous, innocent times and full of hope.Pat: The sixties — that’s when Walford really was somewhere.Peggy on the swinging sixties: I was too busy getting black eyes and having babies to get involved in all that.Derek: The swinging sixties, the era of personal freedom. Well it may have happened in Carnaby Street, but it never got round to the suburbs.Derek: I grew up in a warm loving home with two parents who taught me that life was all about getting a job, getting married and settling down. Back then, being gay wasn't an option.Nigel Bates: The best Christmas I ever had was in — Debbie Bates: 1963. New policeman's outfit, red pedal car and Aunty Hilda dancing on the coffee table.Nigel on how Santa enters houses that don't have chimneys: You turn yourself into fairy dust and come through the letterbox. That's what my mum used to tell me when I was little.Lofty: I got a pair of slippers at Christmas and a tangerine. My dad used to buy me cars sometimes. Auntie Irene bought me games and colouring books and that. My mum never had time for toys. Said the place looked untidy. I mean, if I ever left any of my things lying around, she'd just chuck them in the bin. So I never used to play with them much really.Lou to Pete: Boxing Day was always open house when your dad was alive.Lou: Albert used to do his magic tricks. The Disappearing Spoon, that was favourite.Pete on Albert: He used to like Alan Breeze.</blockquote>

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