Episode 14
Gainful employment, as was so often the case in one’s early years, (and still is) becomes a sort of ‘needs must’ shopping. In this instance, ‘shopping’ being le mot juste, as I rejoiced in a period of parcel wrapping in a large department store. The contents of these items were upmarket trinkets for the landed gentry in the Home Counties. At one point I was approached to see if I could double as Father Christmas for the upcoming Yuletide. It seems I must have been the choice of somebody totally unfamiliar with the physique of F.C. My profile was the same as 2 metres of pump water and I had to run round under the shower to get wet.
‘Never mind’, said the line manager, ‘soft furnishings will soon put that right’.
Ronda had started supply teaching in the Peckham /Camberwell area. This experience stood at a bit of an angle, to say the least, to her previous life which involved teaching in a 2 teacher country school in New Zealand.
Domestic arrangements, including the bath/ culinary experience, proceeded in an orderly fashion, until, at one point, the establishment of a long term relationship cropped up. Marriage, in other words. Hmmmm. It fell to me to get this show on the road. What better place to start than the local church? BUT, before that, antipodean parents had to be told of this turn of events.
Stair-rod rain, of almost painful ferocity , greeted me as I splashed my way to the welcoming sanctuary of the dimly lit telephone box in Putney High Street. My pockets bulged with change of varying denominations. The overseas call got underway and a chronological miscalculation immediately became apparent. Tasmanian time was around 3 a.m. Worse, the rain had re- doubled it’s efforts and, as I gazed out of the misted up window, I could see a queue had gathered around the phone box.
OH GOD! Even worse, my father was pretty deaf and my mother had to relay all the info, or if I spoke to him, I had to scream down the line. This information was immediately picked up and transmitted down the ever lengthening queue.
‘He’s getting married’, ‘Really? How lovely!’, ‘She’s called Ronda’. ‘Is that Welsh?’ ‘No, she’s a kiwi.’ ‘His dad wants to know if he has enough money…ahhh, isn’t that nice…No, She’s not pregnant…where do they live?…Tasmania, I think…So he’s Australian….when are they going home? Missed that bit…..She’s a teacher, he’s an…’
BOOM! A mighty thunderclap.
The conversation became a broadcast. A sort of grotesque game of Chinese whispers – or Chinese screams. The rain hurled down.
The drenched women were really OK in a sort of sentimental way and gave us best wishes for the wedding. The lantern jawed, cloth- capped men who were frantically trying to call about future employment, rather less charitable. And worse, the pubs were about to shut.
Later, I set off to have a chat with the vicar…
David Armitage 