Life In The Nineties

Alice and Loudon will both be turning nine in the year 2017. We entertained them to a Christmas meal in 2016. Loudon walks around to the shops to get a newspaper every day and claims to play squash. Alice goes out to visit the doctor but spends most of the day upstairs in her comfortable white bedroom watching TV. Robert visits regularly. The wonder of the modern age is that Alice and Loudon can talk to America and see everybody on screen. Daughters are Laura in London and Clare in California (nicely alliterative that - helps me remember who's who and who's where). Alice and Loudon both have sticks to help walking and they struggle up the steps. Here are some lovely photos of them still laughing, as always.

25 Life in Hatch End & Holidays in America

Life In Hatch End 

Alice was busy in the Acorn Players.  She was friends with several councillors and mayors in the Conservative party.  On New Year’s Day she often had friends over for late morning drinks and sometimes they stayed on for the family lunch. When we went to live in the USA and rented our house to a Japanese family she was friends with them. Alice was also friendly with My mother Netta, and Trevor’s mother Pearl. She was also very friendly with the Morgan family living opposite.

Holidays in America

Alice and Loudon and Robert and Laura who lives in London went to the USA for the wedding of grand-daughter Amy in California.

Alice and Loudon and Robert and Laura who lives in London went to the USA for the wedding of Grand-daughter Amy in California with husband and baby.

They made several trips. After Alice had her pacemaker fitted she could travel to the US by plane but did not feel like a coach tour.

Although Alice could not travel, Robert went instead with Loudon and had a great trip. They took a coach ride via Las Vegas and went to the Grand Canyon. They paid extra for the helicopter ride down to the base of the canyon. Money is paid to the Native Americans who live there, and the trip prices included this surcharge and what was said to be a Native American breakfast. Robert says, ‘It was just the same as an English breakfast.’

Neighbours

Chris says, with a wry grin, that Loudon, being of Scottish origin, a Protestant heartland, is probably C of E, but is an atheist, or at least seems to be - and can be quite vociferous on the subject. 

Loudon would probably have argued for atheism, even if he thought the opposite, just to get a lively discussion going. I always tried to be polite when Loudon expressed a surprising view, or tried to contradict me. It was years before found the courage to I query Robert whether his father Loudon really held a view on something he had said. 

Robert replied, “No, of course not, Angela. He was teasing you”.

Milk, Shops, Restaurants, Film, Fire, Flood, Earthquake

Milk, Shops, Restaurants

In the 1980s Hillview Road had milk deliveries. Milk arrived in glass bottles with foil tops.  Then during a hot summer, I found a hole in the lid, several days running. The first day I thought it was the milkman’s thumb and careless handling. But it happened again. Alice had cats. A catalogue company was advertising protective tops for milk bottles. 

I phoned Alice and asked, "Is the problem caused by the milkman or by cats, and will plastic bottle tops help? "

Alice answered, “It’s not the postman and not the cats. Probably birds.”

Film

Dates of notable events in the UK and Hillview Road

Film of You Don’t Have To Walk To Fly, TV film, starring Bob Hopkins, filmed next door at the bungalow, 6 Hillview Road. The Film  was released in 1984. The road was closed for the day during the filming. A van was parked at the end of the road with food and toilets for the actors and filming crew.

Fire

A fire happened in the garden of a house opposite. in 201? A fire engine turned up fast and the fire was put out by the crew including a firewoman. 

Flood

I  researched on the local Harrow council website and found that Hatch End has suffered from floods in 1977, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004. Harrow Council with the EO (Environment Agency) then pul in plans to prevent flooding.

On one occasion I drove home from Barbara who lives around the corner and was faced with what looked like a river. I phoned Alice to ask how deep the water was outside her house and mine. She looked and said it was only up to the kerb stone. So I decided to drive back. First, I would have a landline phone. Second I needed to protect the property. I needed to be where people could find me. Id didn’t want to spend all night in the car. I phoned Barbara and asked her what to do when I got home.  “She said, take everything off the floor, fill a thermos with a hot drink, get a packet of biscuits and then go upstairs.” “I replied, “There isn’t an upstairs. I live in a bungalow.” At this point I had plan two. Plan two was Alice.

The other useful thing I can do in a power cut is phone Alice and Loudon and ask if they have lights and can see lights further along the road. Oddly enough, streets here in London are not designed with large sections with one electricity and grid, another district with a different one. We have a system whereby every third house is on your grid and you can have not two but three companies operating in the same street. The advantage is that if your neighbour is on a different system, you can get warmth and light and a hot drink chez your neighbour.

Earthquake 

24 Only In America

Thanksgiving in America

Robert says: Thanksgiving in America is much better than Christmas in England. You eat and drink and see family, but don’t have to organize presents. It lasts just one day.

What do you do? You eat turkey. Then you sit and watch the Macy Street Parade in New York on TV. And the Philadelphia Dog Show.

23 Last Memories of Loudon's Father

Loudon's father was a major in the British Army. Around 1957 before he died, when he was terminally ill at Bexhill, he confided in his daughter-in-law Alice, who had been a nurse: "I have been told I have three to six months to live. I can't have cream or whisky. What would you do?"

Alice replied: "I'd do what you are doing now."

He said, "Thank you, my dear."

Alice says, "He drove a car, ate food, and enjoyed himself. He lived about four months longer and died at the 9th (last) hole of the golf course.

"He was walking up the slope to the last green. He put his bag down, sat down beside it, and fell asleep."

Loudon adds, "I still have his golf bag - I gave it to our son Robert. Golfers don't like schoolboys. Golfers are very anti-social."

Angela thinks: This was news to me. I'd always thought that golfing was social because you walk around in groups, unlike card playing, with poker faces. Even bridge is notorious for bad tempered bridge players, sitting in silence, stuck in wheelchairs, staring at their hand of cards, playing for money. Angel opens eyes wide in surprise. "What do golfers do that's anti-social?"

Loudon: 'Don't trespass, on my patch."

Angela: "What about bridge players?"

Loudon: "Bridge players are worse."

Alice: "My mother would not play cards.

22 Angela's Party Turn

Angela’s Party Turn

The Parkins’ garden pond has had fish and toads. For a party Angela was invited to give a five minute turn. This consisted of challenging the audience to guess whether she had three self-playing pianos inside a large tote bag. She did.

She could not play happy anniversary (the smallest piano had six self-playing tunes. So she played Happy birthday to you. Somebody in the audience had a birthday.

Angela followed this by a chat with a hand puppet frog. It nodded and agreed that the Parkins were excellent neighbours, who provided good food and drink. The family had had plenty to drink so they were in a good mood and were a good audience and laughed a lot.

Alice and Loudon also came to watch Angela perform at the talent show organised by the Moon & Sixpence pub, on the high street, where comedian Barry Cryor regularly goes to drink and socialise. Barry was going to introduce the evening and Angela was confident that the audience would be attentive and appreciative. Unfortunately, the pub discovered at the last minute that they needed a music license because two or three of the acts were singers.

The event was postponed until the following week and to a change of venue, the Lawn Tennis Club in Clonard Way. This was down a suburban street, with a hidden entrance. Torrential rain was not encouraging for the performers, supporters, audience, or parking. Parking was on the muddy field. We parked near the venue, then hemmed in by other cars. A walk across an unlit field to the clubhouse which was not open when we arrived so we sat outside until somebody with a key turned up.

Barry Cryor did not appear as originally advertised. We did not know whether he had taken umbrage or was not available because of the change of date. Angela’s first act which took place sitting down could not be seen or heard by those at the back of the audience. The organiser suggested that a volunteer needed for the act should be a child contestant, who was tongue tied so there was no jolly repartee. A final reading of a comic poem could not be heard because people were shouting drinks orders at the bar.

Angela then appreciated how important it is to have a ‘good’ audience like Alice and Loudon’s family.

Blurb About Alice and Loudon. A Summary.

Blurb About Alice and Loudon.  A Summary.

Alice and Loudon have lived in Hatch End fifty years, since March 1965. Their house is number 8, which is a lucky number in Chinese.Their gabled detached house has wisteria draped across the doorway, a front garden and a long back garden.

Their back garden has apple trees, a pond and, hidden at the far end, a fox's lair. The Parkins used to have two cats. Now they put out food for the foxes.

Loudon is keen on gardening. And DIY. He enthusiastically makes coffee.

Alice cooks in the kitchen designed by her daughter. She serves coffee and biscuits at a table in the window overlooking the garden, with the fig tree on the left and the garage on the right.

We moved next door to them in 1980 or 1981. From neighbouring houses we can often hear Loudon playing the upright piano and Alice's peels of laughter. Alice used to be busy in amateur dramatics. Loudon used to be a keen player of squash. They are still enthusiastic supporters of the local Conservative party.

Now Loudon likes to sit in the sunny Conservatory. He reads The Telegraph newspaper which he collects every morning, with the American international herald newspaper. 

He strokes his little beard and tells long stories about people they know and places they have visited, sometimes interrupted by Alice.

They are great neighbours. They do all the things good neighbours should do. In the old days they would help you jump start your car. In later times the job of a neighbour was to lend a ladder, take in a parcel or look after keys. Plus of course taking you in when you were locked out.

We are always invited in, never left standing on the doorstep. I only stand on the doorstep when they are out. In their covered porch you used to be able to stand looking at the singing frog. (Not a real English frog. Probably made in China.The real wildlife is at the back on the pond.)

They used to have a flat in Malta on timeshare, which they eventually sold after some difficulty. They love to go to America to visit the family, whose photos decorate the side tables in the living room. 

Angela Lansbury 2015