Forty Years On: No. Luton Airport!

Even though our week in Majorca via Clarkson’s (see How many cigarettes to Arenal?) was only going to cost some trifling amount like £35, this and the spending money were going to take some raising.  Which is why June, 1971 found me reporting back to Bovril/Marmite for duties, whilst Kev headed off to the delights of regular night shifts at the Ashby Biscuit Factory, affectionately known as ‘Muck and Dust’ after its former owners, Meredith and Drew.  Sun, sea, sand and anything else beginning with ‘s’ (like sangria, of course) seemed a long way away as we trooped off to work.

Now that I had reached the grand old age of 16, I was no longer considered to need sinecures like the cap filling job at Bovril/Marmite and was instead made part of the small army of students employed each summer to cart heavy things about.  As I was still only 9 stone soaking wet and looked like the ‘Before’ part of the Charles Atlas adverts, this was not exactly my dream employment.  The only way all of this was made bearable was the promise of a week in the Majorcan sun at the end of it and the various milestones along the way, such as paying the balance to the travel agent, collecting the foreign currency and getting the British Visitors Passport (BVP).  Do you remember those?  They cost a few pounds, lasted for 12 months and were really useful documents that anyone could get from a main Post Office.  Having said that, my first BVP was issued by the Burton Employment Exchange in Cross Street.  I nipped out of work one lunchtime and walked into town to Woolworths on Burton High St to the only photo-booth I knew, to get my passport photo.  You can see the result below.  I have a collection of these which I sometimes inflict on people during my ‘guest speaker’ talks for local societies.  This is probably my favourite.  I think it looks like someone wanted for questioning for Indecent Exposure.  The expression on my face should give you a good indication of how much I was enjoying my vacation job.

I’m glad that I kept my first BVP because it tells me that I withdrew the princely amount of £30 in pesetas from Barclays Bank on 31^st August 1971 (you were still limited by The Exchange Control Act 1947 as to how much cash you could take out of the country, but I don’t think that my stash worried the authorities). 

Finally, the great day arrived and, with our bags packed, we headed off to Luton Airport.  As we had little money left for anything other than the holiday, we scrounged a lift from my Uncle Ron who happened to be travelling in that direction as part of his job.  The only downside to this arrangement was that we had to be dropped off at the airport before 10.00 am as Uncle Ron had to get into London to start his day, and our flight was not until the evening.  I was terrified of the concept of flying (still am to a certain extent) and, given a full day of hanging around an airport with nothing better to do than wind myself up and drink, I was not feeling a lot of pain by the time we boarded the aircraft.  A good illustration of this is that I put my lemon scented hand towel in my tea instead of the milk, and drank it.  I also could not cope with the stuffy sensation of the pressurised cabin and went to the toilet for a breath of fresh air!  Whether I thought, in my befuddled brain, that I could open a window in there, I really don’t know.

Eventually, we landed at Palma Airport and I had my first experience of walking out of the aircraft door, into the oven-like heat of the Spanish night.  Immediately my nostrils were assailed by the singular smell that always reminds me of a combination of dodgy drains and cheap cigars (but not necessarily in that order).  We had finally arrived on foreign soil (well, tarmac) and the holiday started here.  


Find out how it all developed at Forty Years On: A Spanish Bee in Your Bonnet

You can find more stories from The Slightly Odd World of Phil Whiteland in e-book format - Steady Past Your Granny's - Kindle Edition (UK) or Steady Past Your Granny's - Kindle Edition (USA)

Forty Years On: How many cigarettes to Arenal?

Continuing a story that begins in Forty Years On and Counting and continues with Putting a lid on it

Four weeks or so of diligently providing caps for (arguably) the nation’s favourite sandwich spreads, provided me with untold wealth.  Well, untold wealth from my point of view, my only comparison being the meagre rewards from my paper round before Mr. Kidger in Uxbridge Street, Burton, finally dispensed with my services (which is another story altogether).  Inevitably, all of this money burned a hole in my pocket and, one second-hand moped later (yet another story) I was returned to my usual impecunious state.

September arrived and I presented myself at Burton Technical College (as it then was) in Lichfield Street for my first day of lessons under the new regime.  I was to study ‘A’ Level English Literature and Economic & Social History.  As these two subjects together did not fill my week sufficiently to satisfy the Education Authority, I had also opted (rather optimistically) to take ‘O’ Level Mathematics. 

Day 1, and my first lesson of the week was History with the wonderfully laid-back Mr. M as our teacher.  The class was small, perhaps 15 students in total, and comprised of a large number of girls, mostly from my old school, plus two lads, me and Kev.  It soon became apparent that Kev was everything that I was not.  Tall, blond, handsome and supremely at ease with people in general and women in particular, he contrasted sharply with the short, dark-haired youth, with a face that only a mother could love, parked at the other end of the row of seats (me, if you were in any doubt).  Whilst Kev could charm birds from trees, I looked more like a candidate for Dutch Elm disease.  Crippled with shyness, I found it difficult to even hold a conversation with my ex-Anglesey classmates, let alone someone I didn’t know at all.

Tea break came and we trooped off to the Refectory,  Kev in animated conversation with some of the girls, me trailing along behind. This is probably how things would have stayed had my addiction not compelled me to take a leap of faith.  I had absolutely no cigarettes.  I hadn’t even been able to ‘borrow’ one from my dad’s packet (probably because he didn’t have any either).  So, by tea break every fibre of my being was screaming.  This was particularly galling as one of the main attractions of Burton Tech was that students were treated as adults and were allowed to smoke with impunity.  It was, therefore, particularly hard to be cigarette-less on the first occasion when I didn’t have to nip behind the bike sheds to indulge.

“Erm, you don’t happen to have a spare fag I could borrow?”

I surprised myself with this outburst, but needs must when the cravings drive.  Kev looked back up the stairs, said “Yeah, sure” and produced a packet of Players No. 6 Tipped, a rare luxury for someone who had previously existed on a diet of Senior Service Extra, Benson & Hedges Sovereign or Players No. 10, all of which had filter tips that were nearly as long as the tobacco portion, and that wasn’t saying much.

We chatted and, over the rest of the academic year, became firm friends.  It was a good match because he had cigarettes, money and an easy confidence with girls and I wished to acquire all three.  As the next summer holidays approached, we talked about how we could spend these doing something marginally more exciting that putting caps on jars of vegetable and beef extract.  Kev had dreams of hitch-hiking through France and grape-picking.  Exciting as these sounded, they came crashing up against my deeply conservative inner adult (other people have an inner child, I have an inner adult, it’s depressing but it keeps me out of trouble).  I set about modifying Kev’s ambitions.

It was 1971 and package holidays were being made available for the masses by firms like Clarksons (remember them?)  Somehow, I managed to persuade Kev to abandon his dreams of life on the open road and a bohemian existence amongst the peasant farmers, and settle instead for a week at the Hotel Arenal Park, Arenal, Majorca, of which more next time in No, Luton Airport!

You can find more stories from The Slightly Odd World of Phil Whiteland in e-book format - Steady Past Your Granny's - Kindle Edition (UK) or Steady Past Your Granny's - Kindle Edition (USA)

Forty Years On: Putting a lid on it!

Last time (Forty Years On and Counting) I was on the verge of leaving Anglesey Secondary Modern in Burton and setting off for the heady delights of Burton Technical College.  There remained the small matter of what I was going to do in the interim?  Staying at home sleeping was, apparently, not an option.

At that time, my dad was a Departmental Manager at Bovril/Marmite in Wellington Road and (with a bit of persistent nagging on my part) he managed to wangle a summer job for me in the warehouse.  This was quite an achievement because, having an August birthday, I was still only 15 when I left school.  In addition, I was about 8 stone dripping wet and looked like the “Before” part of a Charles Atlas advert.  So, dressed in a bunch of my dad’s old clothes (I took the view that turning up in my school uniform might not be a good move, and there wasn’t much else) I presented myself to the foreman at 7.30 on Monday morning.  I immediately found that my first difficulty was trying not to call anyone in authority ‘sir’, as had been drilled into me for the last 10 school years.  The foreman took one look at the pathetic spectacle before him, almost buried in a set of white overalls, and clearly decided that I was “too light for heavy work”.  So, while the small army of university students were set to work offloading lorries and stacking boxes, I was detailed to assist on the production lines.

This was actually something of a ‘non-job’ but it still presented me with more than a few challenges.  I was responsible for filling the hoppers on each line (about 6 in all) with the lids that would go on to the jars of Bovril or Marmite.  Usually, the girls on the line covered this task.  Obviously, these hoppers had to be kept full at all times, otherwise lidless jars of beef or vegetable extract would be literally pouring off the line.  Unfortunately, this involved two of my main nightmares, climbing things, and being in full view of a group of very confident women (the production lines being a largely female preserve then).  Given that I would blush scarlet if anyone of the opposite gender even looked in my direction, this did not bode well.

I was shown what to do by my foreman.  The job had a lot in common with those ‘spinning plates’ variety acts that used to appear on such things as The Good Old Days (and a certain bank advert now).  I had to carry a box of lids up to the top of the steps by each hopper and pour the lids in as necessary.  Climbing steps with a box in one arm, whilst gripping the rail like something possessed with the other, was a challenge, but was as nothing compared to teetering over a churning hopper whilst the production line whizzed below and a series of ribald remarks issued from the girls on the line.  For the rest of the day, and the next four weeks, I had to run from one line to the other, keeping all of the hoppers filled and making sure that fresh supplies of the lids were brought from the warehouse as necessary.  It was quite a responsibility!

My first big mistake happened at the end of Day 1.  I had been told that my normal hours of work were 7.30 to 4.30, so when the production lines stopped and the girls lined up at the clocking points to clock off, so did I.  After all, this was how it worked at school, when the bell rang, you headed home.  What I had not allowed for was the additional hour each day of ‘voluntary’ overtime for the warehouse workers.  I was rapidly educated on this matter the following morning by my Supervisor and the rest of the team.  The deal was that everyone stayed for overtime, even if there was nothing to do.  By going home, I had rocked the boat, as Management would wonder why everyone else in the warehouse needed to be there, if I didn’t.  I guess this was my introduction to industrial relations!


For the next thrilling instalment, see How many cigarettes to Arenal?

You can find the whole 'Forty Years On...' story and a lot more in the same vein besides, in 'Crutches For Ducks the second book in the 'nostalgedy' series.