Postcards from the Rhine
by Steve Brazier
Among my late mother's papers in the garage, between photos of relatives I never knew are four postcards I sent her from Germany in 1962 and 1964. They spark more Muni memories.
In 1961 I gave up German with Frau Walter despite coming 8th in the third year exam. In my report she wrote: "would have done better if he'd not missed one of the questions". But the vocabulary was difficult and picking ten 'O' Level subjects meant hard choices. Instead, I wanted to stay with the inspirational Mr (Terry) Langford. Poor at maths and flummoxed by the equations in Chemistry, I felt he could get me through 'O' Level Physics. Imagine my horror when a new physics teacher arrived to undermine my fragile confidence. I think her name was Mrs Pearson but as she insisted on being addressed as 'Madam', to our initial disbelief and then horror, her surname was never uppermost in my mind. She was fierce, spoke a bit posh and wore a lot of tweed. Early in 1962, she took a WMGS party to Germany in the Easter holidays. Madam' had a husband who taught at Wednesfield Grammar.The holiday was a joint venture with about ten of us and perhaps fourteen of them. It was my first trip abroad.
Finding the cost was a problem but my mother, bless her, had resisted outraged public opinion by getting re-married (only) three years after my father's death. My step-father offered to pay my fare. What a brilliant bloke he was. A railwayman who drove the 'Kings' to Paddington, had a fund of stories and was a paragon among step-parents. I know because 20 years later I became a very flawed step-father myself. I shall write more about him one day.
The bus left the Muni about 5.30 a.m. I was on my own as my mother was on her honeymoon inItaly (railwaymen got free travel) and my older brother had either absented himself or chose not to help (typical). So I set up three alarm clocks, including the new Goblin Teasmaid, a wedding present. About 4a.m. the Vauxhalls council estate was rudely awoken as they all went off. I was already awake, too excited to sleep. A large borrowed suitcase held all the hand-me-down clothes I possessed. Cliff Richard's B-side "Travellin' Light" was a favourite but I did not heed its advice and I took too much. Wearing my best clothes, including new trousers, I walked the long way round as the West Park was still padlocked. I dreaded the coach journey to Dover (I've written about my extreme travel-sickness here before). Let me now turn to a primary text: the first postcard I sent home read:" ....coach journey was fine. I didn't even feel sick but the boat made up for all that. I felt really ill. It was really rough going over. And was I glad to get off".
Clicking on the picture will allow you to
view the rear of the card.
That night, exhausted after a train journey to Cologne, the bed continued to move like the cross-channel ferry. And what strange bedclothes. None of us had ever seen a
Federbett, although most of us nowadays own one and call it a duvet. No longer in my new trousers, which I had ripped when tripping over my hefty suitcase on the
cobbles as we boarded the ferry, we explored Bad Godesberg. Marvelling at the cultural differences and cheap cigarettes. Apfelsaft
was another novelty. Delicious though pricey. The local cafe had Elvis Presley's 'Good Black Charm' misspelt on the jukebox.. The owner was Argentinean. Where in
England did we live? We said "near Birmingham", thinking he'd never have heard of Wolverhampton, But without naming the town, he cried "Ah ! Vulverhampton
Varnderers!". They were famous in those days.
Madam and her Wednesfield colleagues took us up Cologne Cathedral, up the Drachenfels hills, round the Bundestag at Bonn and on some Rhine river boats.
But the culture was less exciting than the things we did in our free time. Smoking in our rooms and a form of Postman's Knock with curtains drawn. I think there were only a
couple of girls in our Muni group. One of them was certainly Denise Jarman, with whom I was smitten.
We didn't mix much with the Wednesfield pupils, who were younger
than us. But one was persuaded to drink some orange juice mixed with cigarette ash (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME). He collapsed
in his room. The subsequent court of enquiry delivered an open verdict. There was crawling along third floor window ledges from room to room; pouring water on passers-by
from upper windows; throwing stones in the Rhine. At fifteen, finding fun is not difficult.
Clicking on the picture will allow you to
view the rear of the card.
Another postcard home quotation: "
Some of these Wednesfield teachers are rats" . Perhaps this was harsh as they would regularly check up on our antics
without appearing to notice the smell of tobacco and smoke drifting from under the beds when they called . At least they gave us a warning knock. And Madam dispensed block-buster
tablets to mitigate the epidemic of constipation due, she said, to the 'change of water'.
Clicking on the picture will allow you to
view the rear of the card.
Worse for me was the food. It had not begun
well. Madam had ordered a cooked breakfast for us on the ferry. Even in Dover harbour, the sea was rough enough to send glasses behind the bar sliding to the deck. I took one
look at the bacon, eggs and fried bread and rushed up on deck where I spent the next four hours.
Everywhere below stank
of vomit. Only Bob Baker was unaffected. All red hair, freckles and an impish grin reminiscent of Dennis the Menace, he picked his way round the bodies on the decks, eating
gleefully to annoy the afflicted. I had only ever had home cooking, so the hotel's cold fried eggs and ham, macaroni, strange meat and potato casseroles and thin soup were
inedible. Roger Elkin and I walked out of one meal without touching it.
Pleas for chips perplexed the hotel staff. Nowadays, I would prefer what we were offered to my Mom's
fare. Another postcard quotation:'
Clicking on the picture will allow you to
view the rear of the card.
Six of us went back two years later hitchhiking from Cologne either along the Rhine (Patrick Isherwood, Richard Cliff, Brian Foster and I) or on to Switzerland.
(Bob Baker and Roger Elkin). German Youth Hostels are never hard to find: always on top of the biggest hill. Though managed by overbearing German youths, they made their
English equivalents look like slums. We encountered other young tourists - hordes of Dutch cyclists singing Beatles songs in impeccable English as they rode by. Algerians,
concerned and kind after I woke them in a shared dormitory by falling in my sleep from the top bunk onto the floor. I hitchhiked with the other arm the next day. Grave talk of the
US Presidential elections and danger of the neo-fascist Goldwater winning and plunging us into WW3. Resonance there with today's US president. Elephant jokes, told in broken
German. The broken German being funnier than the punch lines: Example: "How do you get an elephant down from a tree? Sit it on a leaf and wait for autumn."
I had allowed two days to get from Frankfurt to Cologne for the train home. But hitching was easy then with a Union Jack on your rucksack. A Citroen 2CV went all the way in two hours and oddly, the German drivers gave us hard-boiled eggs. Gradually, foreign food became normal and back home, my Mom discovered Vesta ready meals. Paella, beef curry, chow mein. Eating foreign muck was to my taste after all and my gourmet apprenticeship had begun. At university in London three years later, I was ready to go on to the degree course, specialising in Bloomsbury's Indian cuisine and Schmidt's German restaurant in Charlotte Street, where Len Deighton's hero of 'The Ipcress File' and 'Funeral in Berlin had his lunch. Their waiters were famously rude to customers, especially if they failed to tip. But they had real Schwarzwalderkirschtorte and three course meals cost 4 shillings and sixpence. My fondness for Germany went into abeyance for forty years. Then, retired and wanting a challenge, I returned figuratively to Room 6 and Frau Walter and took a German degree at Nottingham University. The 'O' level Physics (grade 4) still pays dividends: I ease tight jam jar lids by briefly inverting them in hot water.
Stephen Brazier 1958-1965
Published WMGS OPA Newsletter Spring 2018
The author surveys the Bad Godesberg skyline. Room-mate, Roger Elkin was behind the Kodak Brownie 127. April 1962.