Summer of ’62

August drew to a close quietly, under a benign sky.

Traditionally, it is a hot month in which we endure the “dog days” of summer, but not this year. As reports came from around the Northern Hemisphere of oppressive heat and drought, our temperatures remained well within the comfort zone with just enough periodic rain to keep the land refreshed.

Although last summer was not excessively hot hereabouts, we went many weeks without a drop of rain and remembering it made this summer that much sweeter.

If all summers were like this, even I would be a fan.

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It seemed that I was the odd (wo)man out in a family that craved hot weather.

Returning from Asia, in 1962, we lived for a few months in a small flat in Richmond. There were only two bedrooms, so my brother and I took it in turns to sleep in the living room.

As I recall, the weather was not especially bad, but we were in England, so it must be cold and windows were kept tightly shut. In those days, I was myself accustomed to warm temperatures, so I wouldn’t have minded the lack of cool air, but Mum, Dad and Brother all smoked heavily…

These days I would not be able to tolerate such an atmosphere, but back then I was used to it, I suppose, though I shudder now at the memory of the fug.

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The flat was on the second floor – possibly first as this was in England, – the middle floor anyway. It overlooked the central courtyard. I seem to recall that we kept busy those few weeks though I couldn’t say what with, except for Mum, of course. She spent her days in the kitchen enjoying the availability of all those ingredients she’d been without for so many years.

In 1962 it would seem there was a glut of apricots. They were very inexpensive, so they appeared in different forms at almost every meal until I was sick of the sight of them, but Dad was temporarily unemployed, so we had to be frugal.

My brother had remained at boarding school in England, six years before, so although he had not been deprived of many things we had missed, he appreciated Mum’s cooking.

Mum was pleased to have proper flour for baking and a loaf she could cut in slices for sandwiches! The butcher had a range of meats on offer and Sainsbury’s provided cheese and butter. For her private treats, she enjoyed a Cox’s orange – which was confusingly actually an apple – and a little box of chocolates. Mum adored chocolate.

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Father’s only dietary requirement was that the food must be soft. He disliked most meat because he had poorly fitting false teeth. Confronted with a steak, he would moan miserably. Additionally, he claimed to dislike onions, although when Mum disguised them in a meal he didn’t know the difference.

For years, I’d not seen a candy bar. I seem to remember fancying Picnic bars and I loved Aero chocolate, though my sweets of choice were lemon sherbets and pear drops, but 1962 was the year I discovered yoghurt! And in those days you could get little containers of mousse. They became my favourites and I was particularly pleased with the availability of proper milk – and cream. Somehow then, I must not have been lactose intolerant!

We had no television. My parents scoffed at the thought, until many years later they came to live in America. Mum would have preferred to remain without, but Dad became devoted to his TV set, never mind that he complained about much of what he saw. He had directed documentary films and he viewed himself as something of a film critic.

If there was a program about cooking or gardening, Mum would pay attention. Otherwise, she concentrated on her latest embroidery or perhaps some knitting and letter writing, which was still a means of communication back then.

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My parents were fortunate, I think, to find a landlord who was willing to let a flat for such a short period. It was near Richmond Park where we could walk and throw around a boomerang – that did not come back!

We spent most evenings playing cards or Mah Jong, Dad complaining bitterly when he didn’t win, which began to grate on my nerves because he seemed to get angry with whoever won. I couldn’t see the point of a game where you had to play to lose! It made me not want to play at all, but that would have made me a spoilsport.

As small kids, my brother and I had avoided our father. Mum warned us always that we must BE QUIET if he was at home, something we took to heart, not wanting to provoke his anger. Thus, that Summer in Richmond was quite different. We had been acknowledged!

During the day, Dad was out looking for employment and I daresay he and my brother went a few times to cricket matches. I was with Mum, shopping most days and then, while she was busy in the kitchen, I was reading or listening to my tiny transistor radio. I enjoyed mystery stories and there was one radio station that played music I liked.

When Dad was at home, he spent time at the window watching the comings and goings of other residents. A flat in the building across the courtyard from us was apparently rented by BEA crew. There was a great deal of activity over there. It never occurred to me that I would one day be in an airline uniform myself.

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Although parts of that Summer are quite clear in my memory, an equal amount has become fuzzy. My mother and I arrived in England in March and would have gone initially to relatives outside London, then presumably to visit my grandma in Wiltshire, but I have no idea where we waited for my father to join us, nor when or how he arrived from America, where he’d been hoping to get a book published.

All I know is that we must have been installed in the flat in Richmond fairly promptly since, to my disgust, it was determined that I must attend the remainder of that school year at a convent in nearby Barnes. More nuns. My father was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, yet his daughter must be educated by nuns. That was one of those unasked questions – why?

It wasn’t awful, but I had been gone from England six years and I felt seriously disconnected. I doubt I was expected to learn much in those few weeks. I suspect it was a means of getting me out of the way.

Soon school “broke up”. My brother arrived from Ipswich and we were a family again.

The last time we were ever together for more than a handful of days.

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