1066 and all that

This year is the 900^th anniversary of Harold getting one in the eye from those pesky Normans. The end of last month saw the 50^th anniversary of one of this countries better days when we put one over ‘the other Becks’ in beating Franz Beckenbauer’s German team to win the 1966 Soccer World Cup. 

 

By a strange quirk of fate memories of the Battle of Hastings are most commonly depicted in colour through the Bayeux tapestry while most of us who were around for the world cup will probably have watched the match on a grainy black and white television set. The colour footage that is trotted out at every opportunity to relive our former glories was captured on film. Colour broadcasts did not emerge in the UK until 1967 and even then initially it was only on BBC2.

I was 8 at the time of England’s greatest footballing success and remember the occasion well. The family had been planning their annual break for several months – on this occasion it was to be a fortnight at a bungalow in Dymchurch. It was only at the last moment that my father learned that there was no television on the site so, having meticulously packed and secured everything in place ‘Myrtle’ the family car was unceremoniously stripped to make way for the TV set. (more on Myrtle later). For those who never experienced the pleasure of watching the white dot disappear from the screen when the set was turned off I should perhaps explain that television sets in the mid-60s were typically around the size of a modern dish washer with a screen area the equivalent of the door on a small washing machine. Packed full of diodes and valves the sets were both bulky and heavy.

I should also explain that in addition to mum, dad and yours truly the other passengers were my 5 year old brother and 2 year old sister. Allowing for cumbersome buggy, baby necessities, food for at least 3 days and clothes for every permutation of British Summer to describe conditions inside my father’s trusty Wolseley 1500 saloon were extremely cramped.

For the first half of the 70 mile journey mum occupied the front passenger seat together with my sister and her ‘tardis’ handbag of baby stuff. I can’t recall exactly where we were when we were forced to stop as my brother took the opportunity to demonstrate his prowess with projectile vomit, pebble-dashing both inside and outside of the rear of the car and securing him a place in the front passenger seat for the remainder of the journey in the process. 

 

In hindsight you could argue that my parents’ should have anticipated the situation since my brother did have previous form for travel sickness. Undaunted by the delay we managed to make it to the site shortly after lunch. Cases were quickly despatched to the bedrooms and the next hour was spent finding a suitable position for the TV set, which if I recall correctly was balanced between 2 chairs. There were no extension leads in the 60s, or if there were we certainly did not have one, which restricted our options in placement of the bulky set. The remaining time prior to kick up was spent trying to find the optimum positioning of the aerial. Personally I was happy with the picture when my brother was standing on the chair by the bay window holding the twin pronged device above his head. Unfortunately, standing still for longer that 10 seconds has never been my brother’s strongest suits so we were forced to accept the next best option and dangle it from the curtain rail using a coat hanger and elastic strapping.

Memories of Myrtle are fairly mixed, thankfully she had red leather seats, it sounds plush but they were not very comfortable, especially once your brother had puked on them! I remember there being a lot of chrome on the car and wood panelling on the dashboard; the radio was functional but the sound quality from the solitary speaker was usually drowned out by the noise of the engine. It seems to be a generational thing that so many cars look alike. My knowledge of cars is not good but there are certain shapes of cars that to the untrained eye could have been manufactured by any one of 30 different companies. In the 50s cars were influenced by curves while in the 70s angularity was the vogue. In the 60s the overwhelming trend seemed to be the ‘bubble’. The Austin A30, Rover P4, Morris Minor, Ford Popular, Humber Hawk, Sunbeam Rapier, Hillman Minx and Wolseley 1500 all had a pronounced ‘bubble’ to their cabin – hence ‘Myrtle, the turtle’ - a noble beast but not renowned for their speed, or elegance. (A bit like the driver actually).