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An Oral History 1985-2015
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 118047" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Walford Gazette headline about Johnny Allen: “I CONFESS - NIGHTCLUB BOSS CONFESSES TO STRING OF GANGLAND MURDERS ... Tony Monroe KILLED IN 1977.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Barry Clark: There used to be a big gang of them tearaways - Graham, [Darren], Nick Cotton, Rod Norman.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot: When my Nick was young, it was fists. None of these here knives. Well, not many.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline: They were a bit wild, you know.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carmel Roberts: Darren and [Graham] were great mates.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kathy Beale: [Nick] was always getting [Barry's] brother into trouble in the old days. Nothing serious, just a couple of people mucking about in cars.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot on Graham Clark: He was always leading Nick into bad ways when they was young.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Cotton: From what I heard, it was the other way round. Graham was the one that got caught.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot: That weren't Nick's fault.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot on Nick: He was such a lovely little boy. He’d do anything for anybody, but then he changed. He turned onto the drugs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot: I tried the best I could.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Nick: The best you could turned me into a killer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot: I never turned you into a killer. What turned you into a killer was the heroin.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot to Nick: You started dying the moment you injected your first poison, heroin. How old was you — nineteen, eighteen, younger? You were the cross I had to bear.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot to Nick: I wasn’t an affectionate mother, not after you was a child. I hadn’t been brought up that way, I didn’t know how, and then when you were a teenager, your eyes, when you were on the drugs, they frightened me. I wore meself out praying to Jesus that he’d change your life. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot, talking to God about Nick: I brought him up to believe in you, to love you, but he changed when he was led astray by those wicked drugs and he laughed in me face, he jeered at me faith.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline: [Nick and Graham] were breaking into these fruit machines. Graham got charged and sent to the remand, but Nick done a runner. It was obvious he stitched him up. I'm not saying Graham didn't get what he deserved, but that Nick was supposed to be his best mate, wasn't he?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Graham Clark to Nick: I thought you and me were great mates back in the old days. Then suddenly I find out you dropped me in it, left me to carry the can. That upset me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Barry on Nick: He was an addict then. He'd have done anything for a fix.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Darren Roberts on the gang: We all got split up, didn't we? I haven't seen Mickey Fyed since I was fifteen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Darren: I was fifteen when I left school and since then I've never asked anyone for a penny. Anything I've done, I've done for myself by my own efforts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil Mitchell: I [walked out of my exams early].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin Wicks: I never had [much] learning when I was young.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Barry: My mum used to tell the headmaster [I was too easily led astray]. He reckoned it was me who did the leading.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Graham on Barry: Mum used to wait on him hand and foot.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian Beale: I haven't played [Subuteo] since I was a little nipper. I used to win all the cups, the leagues, the championships, everything. Mark was always second.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark Fowler: You what?!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: You never beat me once, did you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: It wasn't worth playing. You'd scream blue murder if I beat you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: I did not!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: Yes you did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: Bar of chocolate, board game, me, Mark and Michelle — hours of fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Denise Fox: Handstands was my thing — “Bow to the King, curtsey to the Queen, show your knickers to the football team.” Then you tip ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur Fowler to Michelle: When you and Mark were kids, you looked up to me. I was something. I was the earner, the husband. I was the centre of [Pauline's] little world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur on Michelle: We wanted so much for her and Mark. We wanted to give them the whole world.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur: When you were kids, we did the best we could, but there was never any money to spare.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle Fowler: No, but you loved us.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur: No two kids was loved more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle: Well that's all that matters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur: No. No, it should be, but to get on in this world, you got to have money. You got to have privilege, there's no other word for it, and we couldn't give you that because we didn't have it to give.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline to Mark: You kids, you had far more than me and Pete ever did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle: We didn't really go further than Leigh on Sea for our holidays.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Felicity Barnes: And you always went there?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle: Year in, year out. We quite enjoyed it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur: Our Michelle, she was a timid little thing. I always remember, there was this dog on the beach at Leigh on Sea. Stamping and snarling it was. Frightened the life out of her. I chased it off and gave the owner an earful. Put her off dogs for life, that did. Didn't put her off Leigh on Sea, though. She always loved the seaside.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline: Do you remember nagging your dad to get you a dog like ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: Shep [from Blue Peter].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline: Shep, that's it. And that bloke was always saying, "Get down, Shep!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pam Coker: I’d have loved a dog but my Les was never keen. Worried about slobber on his tailcoat.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Suzy Branning: I wanted a dog since I was [twelve], but Mum said she had enough to deal with.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol Jackson to Derek’s daughter Alice: The time Derek brought that dog home, right scrappy little thing. Turns out someone was trying to drown it so your dad jumped straight in after it despite the fact that he could barely swim. Your granddad gave him a clout when he found out and said he had to get rid of it. He never did. He was a stubborn so and so even back then. What was he called, that dog?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Jack Branning: It was Biggles. The only book Derek ever read.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Max: Don’t sound like the brother I remember.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Carol on Derek and Biggles: Always by his side. Proper little double act they were. It was a scruffy little one. Stunk to high heaven. We had him for years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Rose Cotton: Andrew’s always been a sucker for a lost cause. When he was a kid, he brought home a right scruffy stray dog. Great lump she was, matted fur and a dodgy eye. A weak later, we all had fleas. Then she took a bite out of his ankle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: Benjo, he was our dog when I was a nipper. Man's best friend, he was — loyal, devoted — but we couldn't train him so Mum just had to get used to it in the end and stopped trying.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Lisa Shaw: What happened to him?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: He drove us all mental.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Andy Hunter: When I was a kid, we used to have this dog. Loved me to bits. He'd sit there looking at me for hours because I was his world. All that dog</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">wanted in life was to make me happy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Alfie: I used to have a pet dog when I was a kid — Harry.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle to Arthur: Remember when I was little? A right daddy's girl, weren't I? Never gave you a moment's peace. I mean, who built me a den in the backyard? Who mended me bike? Who was my elephant and carried me round the front room?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Slater on Kat: She hung on my words. My daughter, my little shadow. Kat was proud of me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur to Michelle: Do you remember when you had [your own little vegetable patch]? You were so proud of it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Garry Hobbs: I'm useless with plants. Never had a garden.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sam James: Gardening’s about putting down roots and reaping the rewards. That’s what my dad shared with me when I was young.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Blossom Jackson on her grandson Alan: His mother always kept him on a tight leash. Temper tantrums weren't allowed in our house.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Blossom on Alan: When he was a boy, he would never let you know what was going on [in his head]. I remember one time, he must have been about nine or ten, he came to stay with us for a week in the summer holidays. He was all right for the first day or two, but then he turned all quiet and moody. I thought some of the other kids must have been picking on him. I even went round and asked some of their mums and dads. No one knew a thing and he wouldn't tell me. In the end, it turned out that a friend of his had been stealing and he didn't know what to do about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil: I've led a very sheltered life. Bus shelters, mostly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ricky Butcher: I spent a whole holiday [sheltering from the rain] once. Me and me mum and dad and Diane went to Clacton, stayed in this B&B. Every day we got turfed out after breakfast and they wouldn't let us back in until after tea. It poured down every flipping day. The worse thing was finding a bus shelter with room in it because there was all these other poor sods that had been turfed out of their B&Bs as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ricky: Dad took me and Diane [on holiday]. I tell you, we were so worn out afterwards he had to carry us up the stairs, one under each arm.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline to Michelle: First day back [at school], tantrums all the way, clinging to your mother. Then you'd see some friend or other - I wouldn't even get a kiss good-bye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Pauline to Michelle: [Arthur] used to go down the school, dinnertimes, and watch you in the playground. You weren't supposed to know. He just wanted to make sure you weren't being picked on. You hated going to school.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle: When I was little, I really enjoyed learning.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Arthur on Michelle: I always knew she was clever, really sharp. She got this prize from primary school, a dictionary. What did she get that for? Good conduct, that's it. Cor, I was so proud.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mr Franklin to Michelle: You used to have curly hair. Friends with Kelvin Carpenter. Always had a lot to say for yourself — "Mouthy Michelle Fowler."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Michelle: You were a great teacher. You were one of the best.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather Trott on Paddington Bear: He was my friend when I was little.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather: My ninth birthday, my dad got me these Paddington Bear books and he said when I was ready, one day after school I could be Teacher, I could be Mrs Minchington, and properly read him one of my stories from the new books in his shed. I chose Friday. I practiced every single day to myself till Friday, till I almost knew "Paddington at the Seaside" off by heart. Then Friday came and I was ready. That day, it seemed like it lasted the whole of the summer holidays. I came home from school and he wasn’t back yet so I sat and I waited in his shed. And then I looked all round the garden for me dad and I shouted and nothing, not even a note on the pillow, nothing. Just gone. Just dropped like a big sack of spuds.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley: You know it wasn’t because of you. You know that. Your dad left because of your mum.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather: It was still me he left. It was still me, nine years old, with this hole or this knot or something wrong in my tummy. And I’ve still got this feeling after all these wasted years. It’s like I’m still sat there in the shed, just waiting for him to come home, just to walk up the path. All of those things he chose to miss — Christmas Day, Father’s Day, birthday. Every single day I’m meant to be happy, I’m left with this knot. It’s like all those tears have gone down the wrong way and I’ve swallowed them. I know it’s not my fault, but that’s what he’s left.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather on her dad leaving: It was my fault as well. He couldn’t stand living with me. I was horrible. I was a greedy lump, always in tears, always in</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">trouble. He couldn’t stand it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty: You were only a kid. How could you know?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather: Mummy told me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather to Queenie: It wasn’t my fault Dad left. That was a cruel thing to say. I was only a little girl and he loved me. If your marriage broke down, then that’s between you and Dad, not me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil: I've been in the [motor repair] trade ever since I left school. I've been knocking out dodgy motors all me life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kevin Wicks: I’ve been selling cars all my life.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty Peterson on how he became a mechanic: It was me dad.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Emma: He's a mechanic too?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty: No, no. He just thought it would be cheaper if he got one of the kids to fix the car.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty: I served my time [as a mechanic].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty on himself and Phil: We used to work in a haulage company together.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ben Mitchell: Driving lorries?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty: Yeah. Big ones, yeah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie Slater, speaking about car maintenance in 2004: It's all too easy these days, that's the trouble. Take torque wrenches for starters. I mean, in the old days a mechanic used to be able to feel how tight a nut should be. And all this diagnostic stuff — good old mechanics used to hear a cylinder missing fifty paces away. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Charlie: Years ago, when I visited garages, you could eat your lunch off their working benches.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil: I remember when I got my first car. Polished it for a week.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Minty: I used to have an Alvis.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil: Diane Baker's been rigging motors for years. I did a bit of "repair work" for her and her old man a few years ago.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil on himself and Tony Woods: We used to be in business together.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Phil on Sidney Gibbs: He always did have ideas above his station.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Billy Mitchell: He always looked up to you and Grant.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Derek Harkinson: I remember watching Mary and Alex [his children] playing around the [Christmas] tree when they were [young].</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Mark: I can remember doing the Nativity at infants. Chelle was the Angel Gabriel one year. Wasn't very angelic, though. Kept throwing a wobbler because her halo fell off.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: Michelle was the Angel Gabriel.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sharon Watts: Kelvin was Joseph.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: You were the Virgin Mary.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Sharon: And you were ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Ian: I was the innkeeper.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Joe Macer on a silver crown made out of tinfoil: Your handiwork, is it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Martin Fowler: Michelle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Blossom Jackson: I always used to get my husband the same thing [for Christmas] every year — a bottle of Jamaican rum, the very best — and he never complained once.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Audrey Trueman: I used to make a real effort at Christmas. The kids love it, don't they? All that excitement — the carols, the presents, Midnight Mass ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather Trott on Midnight Mass: Mum would never let me go.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Audrey: ... and then Mum would start complaining about the gravy, my ex head off out and Anthony, well, if that boy wasn't making his brother cry, he was sticking something in his ear. You know, we once spent a full Christmas Eve in casualty because he got some little marble thing stuck in there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Heather: Mummy never used to make a fuss at Christmas. She always said Santa wouldn’t bring presents to little pigs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Shirley Carter, speaking to Tina 2014: Why’d you get [Stan] a present? He never got you any when you were kids.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot, showing Nick’s daughter Dotty an old photograph: There’s your father. That was at Christmas.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Kirsty “Dotty” Cotton: Look at Dad’s flares!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Dot to Nick: Do you remember that beautiful vase Ethel give me that year? Blue crystal it was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 18px">Nick: Oh yeah. I remember flogging that to get some cash to buy some heroin.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 118047, member: 22"] [SIZE=5]Walford Gazette headline about Johnny Allen: “I CONFESS - NIGHTCLUB BOSS CONFESSES TO STRING OF GANGLAND MURDERS ... Tony Monroe KILLED IN 1977.” Barry Clark: There used to be a big gang of them tearaways - Graham, [Darren], Nick Cotton, Rod Norman. Dot: When my Nick was young, it was fists. None of these here knives. Well, not many. Pauline: They were a bit wild, you know. Carmel Roberts: Darren and [Graham] were great mates. Kathy Beale: [Nick] was always getting [Barry's] brother into trouble in the old days. Nothing serious, just a couple of people mucking about in cars. Dot on Graham Clark: He was always leading Nick into bad ways when they was young. Charlie Cotton: From what I heard, it was the other way round. Graham was the one that got caught. Dot: That weren't Nick's fault. Dot on Nick: He was such a lovely little boy. He’d do anything for anybody, but then he changed. He turned onto the drugs. Dot: I tried the best I could. Nick: The best you could turned me into a killer. Dot: I never turned you into a killer. What turned you into a killer was the heroin. Dot to Nick: You started dying the moment you injected your first poison, heroin. How old was you — nineteen, eighteen, younger? You were the cross I had to bear. Dot to Nick: I wasn’t an affectionate mother, not after you was a child. I hadn’t been brought up that way, I didn’t know how, and then when you were a teenager, your eyes, when you were on the drugs, they frightened me. I wore meself out praying to Jesus that he’d change your life. Dot, talking to God about Nick: I brought him up to believe in you, to love you, but he changed when he was led astray by those wicked drugs and he laughed in me face, he jeered at me faith. Pauline: [Nick and Graham] were breaking into these fruit machines. Graham got charged and sent to the remand, but Nick done a runner. It was obvious he stitched him up. I'm not saying Graham didn't get what he deserved, but that Nick was supposed to be his best mate, wasn't he? Graham Clark to Nick: I thought you and me were great mates back in the old days. Then suddenly I find out you dropped me in it, left me to carry the can. That upset me. Barry on Nick: He was an addict then. He'd have done anything for a fix. Darren Roberts on the gang: We all got split up, didn't we? I haven't seen Mickey Fyed since I was fifteen. Darren: I was fifteen when I left school and since then I've never asked anyone for a penny. Anything I've done, I've done for myself by my own efforts. Phil Mitchell: I [walked out of my exams early]. Kevin Wicks: I never had [much] learning when I was young. Barry: My mum used to tell the headmaster [I was too easily led astray]. He reckoned it was me who did the leading. Graham on Barry: Mum used to wait on him hand and foot. Ian Beale: I haven't played [Subuteo] since I was a little nipper. I used to win all the cups, the leagues, the championships, everything. Mark was always second. Mark Fowler: You what?! Ian: You never beat me once, did you? Mark: It wasn't worth playing. You'd scream blue murder if I beat you. Ian: I did not! Mark: Yes you did. Ian: Bar of chocolate, board game, me, Mark and Michelle — hours of fun. Denise Fox: Handstands was my thing — “Bow to the King, curtsey to the Queen, show your knickers to the football team.” Then you tip ... Arthur Fowler to Michelle: When you and Mark were kids, you looked up to me. I was something. I was the earner, the husband. I was the centre of [Pauline's] little world. Arthur on Michelle: We wanted so much for her and Mark. We wanted to give them the whole world. Arthur: When you were kids, we did the best we could, but there was never any money to spare. Michelle Fowler: No, but you loved us. Arthur: No two kids was loved more. Michelle: Well that's all that matters. Arthur: No. No, it should be, but to get on in this world, you got to have money. You got to have privilege, there's no other word for it, and we couldn't give you that because we didn't have it to give. Pauline to Mark: You kids, you had far more than me and Pete ever did. Michelle: We didn't really go further than Leigh on Sea for our holidays. Felicity Barnes: And you always went there? Michelle: Year in, year out. We quite enjoyed it. Arthur: Our Michelle, she was a timid little thing. I always remember, there was this dog on the beach at Leigh on Sea. Stamping and snarling it was. Frightened the life out of her. I chased it off and gave the owner an earful. Put her off dogs for life, that did. Didn't put her off Leigh on Sea, though. She always loved the seaside. Pauline: Do you remember nagging your dad to get you a dog like ... Mark: Shep [from Blue Peter]. Pauline: Shep, that's it. And that bloke was always saying, "Get down, Shep!" Pam Coker: I’d have loved a dog but my Les was never keen. Worried about slobber on his tailcoat. Suzy Branning: I wanted a dog since I was [twelve], but Mum said she had enough to deal with. Carol Jackson to Derek’s daughter Alice: The time Derek brought that dog home, right scrappy little thing. Turns out someone was trying to drown it so your dad jumped straight in after it despite the fact that he could barely swim. Your granddad gave him a clout when he found out and said he had to get rid of it. He never did. He was a stubborn so and so even back then. What was he called, that dog? Jack Branning: It was Biggles. The only book Derek ever read. Max: Don’t sound like the brother I remember. Carol on Derek and Biggles: Always by his side. Proper little double act they were. It was a scruffy little one. Stunk to high heaven. We had him for years. Rose Cotton: Andrew’s always been a sucker for a lost cause. When he was a kid, he brought home a right scruffy stray dog. Great lump she was, matted fur and a dodgy eye. A weak later, we all had fleas. Then she took a bite out of his ankle. Mark: Benjo, he was our dog when I was a nipper. Man's best friend, he was — loyal, devoted — but we couldn't train him so Mum just had to get used to it in the end and stopped trying. Lisa Shaw: What happened to him? Mark: He drove us all mental. Andy Hunter: When I was a kid, we used to have this dog. Loved me to bits. He'd sit there looking at me for hours because I was his world. All that dog wanted in life was to make me happy. Alfie: I used to have a pet dog when I was a kid — Harry. Michelle to Arthur: Remember when I was little? A right daddy's girl, weren't I? Never gave you a moment's peace. I mean, who built me a den in the backyard? Who mended me bike? Who was my elephant and carried me round the front room? Charlie Slater on Kat: She hung on my words. My daughter, my little shadow. Kat was proud of me. Arthur to Michelle: Do you remember when you had [your own little vegetable patch]? You were so proud of it. Garry Hobbs: I'm useless with plants. Never had a garden. Sam James: Gardening’s about putting down roots and reaping the rewards. That’s what my dad shared with me when I was young. Blossom Jackson on her grandson Alan: His mother always kept him on a tight leash. Temper tantrums weren't allowed in our house. Blossom on Alan: When he was a boy, he would never let you know what was going on [in his head]. I remember one time, he must have been about nine or ten, he came to stay with us for a week in the summer holidays. He was all right for the first day or two, but then he turned all quiet and moody. I thought some of the other kids must have been picking on him. I even went round and asked some of their mums and dads. No one knew a thing and he wouldn't tell me. In the end, it turned out that a friend of his had been stealing and he didn't know what to do about it. Phil: I've led a very sheltered life. Bus shelters, mostly. Ricky Butcher: I spent a whole holiday [sheltering from the rain] once. Me and me mum and dad and Diane went to Clacton, stayed in this B&B. Every day we got turfed out after breakfast and they wouldn't let us back in until after tea. It poured down every flipping day. The worse thing was finding a bus shelter with room in it because there was all these other poor sods that had been turfed out of their B&Bs as well. Ricky: Dad took me and Diane [on holiday]. I tell you, we were so worn out afterwards he had to carry us up the stairs, one under each arm. Pauline to Michelle: First day back [at school], tantrums all the way, clinging to your mother. Then you'd see some friend or other - I wouldn't even get a kiss good-bye. Pauline to Michelle: [Arthur] used to go down the school, dinnertimes, and watch you in the playground. You weren't supposed to know. He just wanted to make sure you weren't being picked on. You hated going to school. Michelle: When I was little, I really enjoyed learning. Arthur on Michelle: I always knew she was clever, really sharp. She got this prize from primary school, a dictionary. What did she get that for? Good conduct, that's it. Cor, I was so proud. Mr Franklin to Michelle: You used to have curly hair. Friends with Kelvin Carpenter. Always had a lot to say for yourself — "Mouthy Michelle Fowler." Michelle: You were a great teacher. You were one of the best. Heather Trott on Paddington Bear: He was my friend when I was little. Heather: My ninth birthday, my dad got me these Paddington Bear books and he said when I was ready, one day after school I could be Teacher, I could be Mrs Minchington, and properly read him one of my stories from the new books in his shed. I chose Friday. I practiced every single day to myself till Friday, till I almost knew "Paddington at the Seaside" off by heart. Then Friday came and I was ready. That day, it seemed like it lasted the whole of the summer holidays. I came home from school and he wasn’t back yet so I sat and I waited in his shed. And then I looked all round the garden for me dad and I shouted and nothing, not even a note on the pillow, nothing. Just gone. Just dropped like a big sack of spuds. Shirley: You know it wasn’t because of you. You know that. Your dad left because of your mum. Heather: It was still me he left. It was still me, nine years old, with this hole or this knot or something wrong in my tummy. And I’ve still got this feeling after all these wasted years. It’s like I’m still sat there in the shed, just waiting for him to come home, just to walk up the path. All of those things he chose to miss — Christmas Day, Father’s Day, birthday. Every single day I’m meant to be happy, I’m left with this knot. It’s like all those tears have gone down the wrong way and I’ve swallowed them. I know it’s not my fault, but that’s what he’s left. Heather on her dad leaving: It was my fault as well. He couldn’t stand living with me. I was horrible. I was a greedy lump, always in tears, always in trouble. He couldn’t stand it. Minty: You were only a kid. How could you know? Heather: Mummy told me. Heather to Queenie: It wasn’t my fault Dad left. That was a cruel thing to say. I was only a little girl and he loved me. If your marriage broke down, then that’s between you and Dad, not me. Phil: I've been in the [motor repair] trade ever since I left school. I've been knocking out dodgy motors all me life. Kevin Wicks: I’ve been selling cars all my life. Minty Peterson on how he became a mechanic: It was me dad. Emma: He's a mechanic too? Minty: No, no. He just thought it would be cheaper if he got one of the kids to fix the car. Minty: I served my time [as a mechanic]. Minty on himself and Phil: We used to work in a haulage company together. Ben Mitchell: Driving lorries? Minty: Yeah. Big ones, yeah. Charlie Slater, speaking about car maintenance in 2004: It's all too easy these days, that's the trouble. Take torque wrenches for starters. I mean, in the old days a mechanic used to be able to feel how tight a nut should be. And all this diagnostic stuff — good old mechanics used to hear a cylinder missing fifty paces away. Charlie: Years ago, when I visited garages, you could eat your lunch off their working benches. Phil: I remember when I got my first car. Polished it for a week. Minty: I used to have an Alvis. Phil: Diane Baker's been rigging motors for years. I did a bit of "repair work" for her and her old man a few years ago. Phil on himself and Tony Woods: We used to be in business together. Phil on Sidney Gibbs: He always did have ideas above his station. Billy Mitchell: He always looked up to you and Grant. Derek Harkinson: I remember watching Mary and Alex [his children] playing around the [Christmas] tree when they were [young]. Mark: I can remember doing the Nativity at infants. Chelle was the Angel Gabriel one year. Wasn't very angelic, though. Kept throwing a wobbler because her halo fell off. Ian: Michelle was the Angel Gabriel. Sharon Watts: Kelvin was Joseph. Ian: You were the Virgin Mary. Sharon: And you were ... Ian: I was the innkeeper. Joe Macer on a silver crown made out of tinfoil: Your handiwork, is it? Martin Fowler: Michelle. Blossom Jackson: I always used to get my husband the same thing [for Christmas] every year — a bottle of Jamaican rum, the very best — and he never complained once. Audrey Trueman: I used to make a real effort at Christmas. The kids love it, don't they? All that excitement — the carols, the presents, Midnight Mass ... Heather Trott on Midnight Mass: Mum would never let me go. Audrey: ... and then Mum would start complaining about the gravy, my ex head off out and Anthony, well, if that boy wasn't making his brother cry, he was sticking something in his ear. You know, we once spent a full Christmas Eve in casualty because he got some little marble thing stuck in there. Heather: Mummy never used to make a fuss at Christmas. She always said Santa wouldn’t bring presents to little pigs. Shirley Carter, speaking to Tina 2014: Why’d you get [Stan] a present? He never got you any when you were kids. Dot, showing Nick’s daughter Dotty an old photograph: There’s your father. That was at Christmas. Kirsty “Dotty” Cotton: Look at Dad’s flares! Dot to Nick: Do you remember that beautiful vase Ethel give me that year? Blue crystal it was. Nick: Oh yeah. I remember flogging that to get some cash to buy some heroin.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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An Oral History 1985-2015
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