Chapter 34: A new home and a trip Down Under

Also the consequences of a family death...

I was just 16 when my father, John S Richardson III, died. He had testicular cancer that was not diagnosed until it was too late. He died a painful death in 1954 aged 44. It was no surprise that his death shook the family and his many friends.

It had been my intention on leaving school at 16 to become an apprentice jeweller and watch repairer. I had already been working after school and on Saturday mornings with John Woods. I did the basic alarm clock repairs, while John did the clever stuff with jewellery and watches.

As I finished my final months of schooling, John was taken aside by my father who convinced him that I was needed for our family’s newspaper and job printing business. Little did I know back then that my father was terminally ill.

I enjoyed learning to be a printer — skills that I still find useful. Additionally, I was permitted to write some of the news stories for our weekly newspaper, the “Charlton Tribune” — my tentative start in journalism. When Dad died in Melbourne on his 18th wedding anniversary, my mother bravely took over the business, although her working background was mostly that of a book keeper rather than a business woman. More on this is HERE in Chapter Ten.

Mum’s ambitions as a business woman were displayed when she started the “Wycheproof News” at the request of business men in a neighbouring town of Wycheproof. They were fed up with the truly dreadful “Wycheproof Ensign”, produced from time to time by Hugh Buchanan when he felt able. She then decided in a moment of madness to buy the unprofitable weekly newspapers, the “Quambatook Times” and “Manangatang Courier”, from the Page brothers when they moved to the town of Alexandra. The full story is HERE in Chapter 7.

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Let’s go back to extracts from my family letters which are my main source of information for my memoir:

From a letter dated September 26 1971:

Harley began crawling a couple of days ago and is into everything. We are going to have to buy a play pen this week so that we have some measure of control over his movements.

This week he learned how to pull himself into the standing position in his cot — an achievement that gives him no end of pleasure. Last Sunday he attended his first party. He was invited by one of Rosemary’s friends whose daughter was turning six. He had a marvellous time goo-gooing at all the other kids. He obviously can’t wait to be able to join in party games.

From a letter dated October 7 1971:

We’ll have a new address from next Wednesday: 16 Little Ealing Lane, Ealing, London W5 4EA. We were supposed to move in this coming Monday, but yesterday the solicitor phoned to say that vital papers hadn’t turned up and the move would have to be postponed until Wednesday. We are really browned off with the way things have dragged on. It’s now six months since we took concrete steps to buy a house.

Our trip to Australia is rapidly approaching. Ann and Noel Saunders (friends of aunty Lorna Stewart), are returning from a tour of the Continent in a couple of weeks and have agreed to take our maisonette over while we are in Australia.

Last week we sold our trusty Morris Minor van to an American student for £160 — not bad considering we paid £207 for it more than 2½ years ago. I’ve worked out that with taking repairs, servicing, registration and insurance (but not petrol) into account that the van cost us 22 shillings a week to run. Not bad.

I had an interesting day on Monday. It started as a simple request to interview 13-year-old Australian actress and singer Jewel Blanch for “TV Week”. The film company making her latest movie invited me out to Pinewood Studios, west of London. They laid on a chauffeur-driven car and a lovely lunch. It wasn’t much of an interview. I mean, what shattering statements can a 13-year-old make. To be honest, I’d never heard of Jewel before although when she was just four she had a hit record “I want to stay on Jumbo”, a novelty song written by her father. She also had parts in “Mod Squad”, “Lassie” and “Bonanza”. [No, I hadn’t heard of the hit record either and I can find no recording of it.]

There were quite a few stars kicking about the studio but the only ones I recognised were Roger Moore (“The Saint”) and Leonard Nimoy of “Star Trek”. Jewell had lived in America for four years and had developed an American accent. Her parents were nice, but I think it is pretty tough on the kid pushing her into the limelight all the time. It’s can’t be healthy for a kid of that age. The parents even had publicity photos of Jewel with her 15-year-old boyfriend.

Jewel is no longer an actor but she has became reasonably well known on the country music circuit in Australia and the United States.

From a letter of October 25 1971:

This is our final letter before we set off for Australia. Our charter flight ends in Sydney on November 3. We will be staying overnight with Reg and Joan Sang, then flying to Melbourne by Ansett the following afternoon.

We are slowly settling into the maisonette, although things are still a mess. Our dining room table hasn’t yet turned up, nor have two lounge chairs or the double bed. But owing to a cock-up by the Gas Board, we have two stoves. The one we ordered sits gas-less in the spare room while the one we didn’t order is connected to the gas mains in the kitchen. [The Gas Board later took one of them back.]

The thing we’re enjoying most is that Harley has his own room. No longer do we have to run a shuttle service with his cot between our bedroom and the lounge as we did in Shepherd’s Bush. Ann and Noel Saunders, who are taking the place over in our absence in Australia, moved in on Thursday and have now gone on a trip to Wales.

November 4 1971:

Our charter flight to Australia terminated in Sydney after several refuelling stops on the way. We stayed overnight with Cheryl/Samantha’s parent, Joan and Reg, then took an Ansett Flight to Melbourne. I think we then travelled up to Bendigo to join Rosemary’s parents, Val and Jim Batson at 59 Palmerston Street. We were exhausted.

I no longer have a copy of our schedule for this visit to Australia, but I do remember that we vowed never to set such a tight itinerary again. Between early November and the middle of January when I flew back to London, we zig-zagged all over Victoria seeing our many family and friends. It was lovely to catch up with them, but it was just too much. A significant part of the problem was that when it became known we were spending months not weeks in Australia we came under pressure to make return visits.

We were based in Bendigo with Rosemary’s parents at 59 Palmerston Street across the road from their adored South Bendigo Bowling Club. This was very enjoyable and a useful starting point for visits to other friends and family in Bendigo and the rest of the state.

The “Bendigo Advertiser” did an article on our visit.

A transcript of the full “Bendigo Advertiser” article is HERE. Not brilliant journalism and not entirely accurate, but some of the views on Russia and the UK could be of interest.

As my BBC leave was running out, I had to return to London in January, leaving Rosemary and Harley to come later.

From a letter to Rosemary in Bendigo dated January 11 1972:

No doubt you will have received my card from London letting you know that I made it. I’m still a bit stunned but should be back to my old self in a couple of days.

Noel and Ann Saunders [our house sitters] had no problems with the maisonette or the neighbours downstairs. However, after a night of uncontrolled passion in our double bed, the old dear downstairs politely complained the next day that it sounded as though a lot of furniture was being moved about. What must they have been doing?

The dining room table we’d ordered didn’t turn up until about three weeks ago, and only after Noel and Ann kicked up a terrible fuss. It’s a nice table and I think you will be pleased with it.

As a result of a pay increase while I was away, my annual basic salary is now £3,500. It will go up by £162 when I get my annual increment in July. Not too bad is it!

From a letter to Rosemary and my family in Australia, dated January 14 1972:

Well, here I am back in the “Old Dart”. The flight took more than 28 hours, about 4½ hours longer than the flight to Australia. The reason, everyone keeps telling me, is that the return flight was an uphill run.

My plane was a BOAC VC10. We had stops in Perth, Singapore, Bombay and Teheran. In Singapore, a Qantas 747 jumbo arrived and parked right next to the VC10. It made my plane look like a mosquito. It was absolutely enormous and it seemed impossible that it could fly.

I caught a taxi home from Heathrow and was here at 7am. I can’t remember what happened during the rest of the day. It was all a blur. I do remember waking up at 4am the next morning and unable to get back to sleep. As you can imagine, I wasn’t very much with it by the time I went to work that afternoon. I was given easy shifts for the first two days, but then just in case I had forgotten what it was like to really earn a living, they put me on the toughest shift for a chief sub-editor — day producer of “Radio Newsreel”. I wondered what had hit me at first and it brought me down to earth with a thump.

From my letter to Rosemary in Bendigo dated January 18 1971:

So, I’m in trouble with Mum again. Dear oh dear. She knows that I don't like airport farewells and that farewells for overseas flights are a dead loss because of the customs and immigration formalities. As for not seeing her enough during our holiday, I can't see how I could have seen much more of her without completely exhausting myself, you and Harley. There really is a limit to how much travelling we could stand. Maybe we will never hear the end of it, but my conscience is clear.

From a letter to Rosemary in Bendigo, dated January 24 1972:

The central heating people are coming tomorrow morning to give an estimate. The man at the Gas Board picked my Australian accent, so recommended an Australian installation firm called (surprise, surprise) Southern Cross Heating. According to the Gas Board, the cost should work out at somewhere between £300 and £350, but I’m hoping it will be cheaper because everything is on the one level. Tomorrow will tell. [As will be revealed later, this resulted in a protracted disaster.]

For the first time, I sat down tonight to watch some TV, Up until now, I haven’t felt much like watching TV (even in colour) because somehow it just isn’t the same when you’re not here watching with me. Anyway, tonight I watched “Z Cars”, and it’s a very-much-changed programme. It has a re-jigged theme tune and a new introduction, and it is back to being a 50- minute programme.

From letter to Rosemary in Bendigo dates January 25 1972:

The central heating chap was around yesterday morning. He didn’t think the plan to put the boiler in one of the fireplaces was a very good idea. Instead, he suggested a wall unit 17 inches wide, 24 inches high and nine inches deep be attached to the kitchen chimney, where the boiler is at the moment. The boiler would then go up in the ceiling. He said we would need seven radiators — one in each room (except the kitchen which will be naturally heated by heat wastage from the wall unit) and one just inside the front door. His rough estimate was £400-£425, but a detailed quotation should be in tomorrow’s mail. It’s more than I thought, but I hadn’t taken all the radiators into account. Still, the Houseowners’ Association says full central heating adds £750 onto the selling price of a house.

From a letter to my family dated January 27 1972:

I am slowly getting the place organized in preparation for the very welcome return of Rosemary and Harley. I miss them both a lot. The Saunders moved out about a week after I got back. They have another flat about a mile from here.

I‘m having some difficulty getting used to the British decimal money again. I don't know how many times I‘ve given shop-keepers two shillings instead of four shillings when something is priced 20 pence. I Just can't adjust to the fact that a two-shilling piece is made up of 10 units and not 20.

From a letter to Rosemary in Bendigo dates January 28 1972:

Saw “Top of the Pops” [on BBC1] for the first time since returning. Jimmy Savile was on but with his hair cut quite short and light brown in colour. He was also wearing a dinner suit. I gather it is his new clean-cut image.

After Savile died he was revealed to have been one of the UK’s worst sex offenders.

From a letter to my family date February 11 1972:

Well, Rosemary and Harley are back with me again. They were a bit worse for wear because the flight was very crowded and took 30 hours. I was delighted that Harley recognised me, but the poor kid was so exhausted he could barely raise a smile.

We are in the midst of power cuts caused by the miners’ strike. Whole areas are being cut off on a roster system.. Yesterday evening Rosemary was without power for about four hours. Fortunately our maisonette uses natural gas for heating and cooking and we have a store of candles for lighting. Life at the BBC continued much as normal because it has big emergency power generators.

We picked up our new Renault 4 station wagon today. It’s marvellous to have wheels again. It’s a basic item of transport but a couple of friends who have the same model rave about it. One of them did a round-the-town fuel consumption test last week and got an amazing 53 miles per gallon.

Rosemary’s account of her return to London, accompanied by Alma Kipner, in a letter dated February 17 1972.

Mum, Dad and Pete saw us off at Melbourne airport, then at Sydney, the Sangs picked us up and took us to their flat for the afternoon. We left Sydney about 8.45pm. Harley had a seat between Alma Kipner and me. He was very lucky to have a seat. because most of the babies and children on the flight had to sleep on the floor. The hop between Singapore and Teheran was 10½ hours (normally it is nine hours, but there was a strong head wind) and this long stretch was exhausting. Harley slept and behaved well, however I had only a total of three hours sleep.

Alma was a great help with Harley. He would have been a handful without her assistance. The flight took thirty hours, about three hours longer than normal. I hope on any future flights to Australia, we can make a break of a couple of days, say at Bangkok or Hong Kong. Thirty hours straight is shattering. The poor kid was exhausted when we arrived. I put him to bed right away then tried to wake him at teatime, but he wouldn't budge so I let him sleep through till next morning. It took ten days to break him into his normal sleeping pattern.

The power situation in England is dreadful. So far today we’ve had two cuts of three hours each and there could be more later in the day. Fortunately the weather is fairly mild. We really only depend on electricity for light as we have an anthracite-burning fire for hot water and heating, as well as two gas fires. I feel sorry for those people who have all-electric houses. When the power is switched off, traffic and street lights go out and cause chaos.

Hundreds of train services have been cancelled, milk supplies are being threatened and the price of staple foods like eggs will rocket. Candles are at a premium. If the miners don't return to work in the next week or so, I think the country will grind to a halt.

We drove to Coventry to run the car engine in. The car went like a bomb. Ian was very pleased with its performance. The section behind the back seat is an ideal spot for Harley to sleep.

The central heating is to be installed next week. I’ve already stripped the wallpaper from Harley’s room and will paint it soon. We’re looking around for carpets which will be fitted in a couple of rooms to begin with. Lots to be done.

Next chapter: The disastrous central heating installation and the Australian crooks who were responsible.

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Other chapters can be found HERE