1974 Canadianisation..........................

Living in Montreal was fine by me. Loved the place, at least in retrospect I did. Then came another surge of good old Quebec separatism. Seven years after the FLQ crisis, "they" were at it again. The stunned Pepsis wanting to go their own way, have their strange religion, questionable language and doubtful culture.

Before we knew what was happening, the provincial governemnt in Quebec City had passed Bills 22 and 101. The specifics have long since faded but the effects came fast enough.

In essence, the English language was outlawed. Suddenly we had some small sense of how the Jews must have felt in Germany in the 30's! The Royal Bank became Banque Royale, street names were frankified, restaurants (no matter what their nationality) had to display menus in French only. It went on and on; endless regulations appeared, large and small. The intention clear; to sweep away all but the French launguage, but most of all: outlaw English.

Then it seemed to get more personal. Service in stores, once easy in English, became complicated - clerks etc suddenly seemed to speak only French. Out of the blue we were told that our children would have to change schools if we wished them to continue to be educated in English. Every day a new and nasty wrinkle would appear.

'Landed immigrants' had always sounded a shade offensive to me. A sort of second class citizen somehow. Legally they had the same status as Canadian-born folk but ... and the "but" always gnawed at me. We were, after all, landed immigrants ourselves; it said so on the little yellow slips in our passports.

I reasoned, if we were to subject to the indignities of living in Quebec's bigotted environment, then mayhap we should do it as full Canadians.

So, we'd seek Canadian citizenship. AND ............. if we did, we'd damned well do it in Canada!

We drove to Ottawa!!! Out of Quebec and into Canada and there did we become Canadians.

"Screwez vous, Quebec!!!"

(The lady judge who performed the deed was in her fifties and about as frustrated with the Francophonic side of life as we. She made the process simple and quick. I think she waived the traditional quiz about Canadian geography and politics and history. We paid and signed and emerged with our certificates)

Soon after the above, a promotional bulletin for Halifax appeared on the notice boards of Air Canada. I bid on it and we struggled free of La Belle (dingaling) Province.

I was bitter then at being driven out as an undesirable. I'm quietly bitter still.

1958 - 1995 97 Mansfield Road, Layton, Blackpool, Lancs.

Of the four places I could perhaps call home, this address evokes emotions. From the heights of joy to the depths of sadness.

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Before I embark on this little tale, a thought or two. Of the half dozen or so who may be reading this blog, all are 'related' in some way to the marriage between Glennys and I. All, in one way or another are related to Glennys. She and I separated almost ten years ago in September 1997.

I think all of you readers feel strongly about that separation and I'm sure you aportion the blame based on what you know or have assumed about the nearly forty years that preceded it.

The blog is about my life from 1939 to the present day so the tales told herein are mostly about the first 58 years and therefore cover all of my marriage.

The point I'm trying to make? It's often very difficult to write about those times gone by. Difficult because my mind is littered with sadness and regret and guilt. Difficult too, because as I write, I imagine that my readers are troubled by a variety of emotions too as they read my words.

All but one of the "assumed audience" have been involved in marital breakups directly and affected by other breakups. This seems to be part of the fabric of our society. It's not new and only archaic laws held many couples together in earlier times. No folks, I'm not making excuses or pointing fingers.

So here we are, we strangely entangled few, sharing the nearly seventy years of of our little slice of history. I seem to be the teller of tales for the moment. I love the job I've given myself. But sometimes it's difficult ............. very difficult ............ to write of long past events while so very conscious of my readers' emotions.

Enough!

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On then with the tale of 97 Mansfield Road.

It was home for me from the very first time I visited in 1958.

The last visit? That was perhaps 1995. Looking back they both have an aching sadness about them now.

My first visit was the stuff of romance. Remember, this was, in effect, day one of the beginning of Hutton sons and Hutton grandchildren - mayhap a whole dynasty, although of course I didn't know it at the time. It went something like this (details blurred by time):

In 1958 I was at R.A.F. Weeton on my Airframe Fitter's course. Three of us trainees had formed a loose alliance. Geoff 'Boffin' Bellingham, Sid Trendall and myself. A more dissimilar trio it would be hard to imagine. Boffin only figures as an odd statistic, so for now can be put aside. Sorry Boffin.

One fateful, sunny day, probably a Saturday, Sid and I had taken the bus the nine miles into Blackpool in search of adventure (airman couldn't afford cars in those far off days!).

Perhaps drawn by a poster advertising hydroplane racing in nearby Lytham St. Annes we'd gone to watch. Now Sid was worldly wise and skilled in the art of charming the girls (I patently wasn't!). He, a rough and ready Londoner, would have called it 'chatting up the birds' I suppose. Soon enough he was 'chatting up' a waitress in the lakeside cafe. Having made a date with her and he then bethought himself of me. "'Ere," he said to her, "got somethin' for my mate here?"

She assured him she'd find a partner for me. Ecstatic and affeared by turns I began looking forward to what was, in essence, my first date. Thanks Sid.

A few days later Sid and I were again on a bus headed for Blackpool, it was raining. I was wearing a borrowed tie and a borrowed raincoat and in the throes of a fearful headcold.

The foursome, Sid and Maggie and Glennys and I, met up and we all went to a movie. I think it was "Boy on a Dolphin" with Alan Ladd and Sophia Loren. There mayhap began my infatuation with the lovely Miss Loren. She climbed from the sea into a boat in a soaking wet dress - how could I help myself?

Despite my doubtful attire and my mucous-blocked condition, Glennys agreed to another date, amazing.

Meet again we did but it was a little more chaotic and went thus:

On the day of the next date, I missed the bus and had to catch the next. Of course she was long gone when I alighted at Blackpool's bus station. Then began a small epic of determination, of which I am occassionally capable.

Knowing approximately where she lived. I caught a bus for that area. Getting off by guesswork I set about knocking on doors, calling, I think, at every fourth house. Glennys Ward- Eversley is surely a rare enough name and I reasoned that sooner or later I'd find someone who knew her. If not that street, maybe the next. How long I tried or on how many doors I knocked I don't know. I likely saw it as exciting and romantic and worthy of a knight on a horse. In the end the knocking didn't work and I remember asking a passing maiden if she knew the name. Surprisingly she did and offered to show me where she thought Glennys lived. (Another tribute to my boundless charm!).

In time we stopped and she pointed down what I was to come to know as Mansfield Road. Perhaps I started the 'every fourth door' approach again, I don't know but in time I knocked at number 97 and her mother answered the door.

Glennys wasn't home and I set off on another fruitless search where her mother thought she might have gone. Cutting the long story a little shorter I returned to #97 to wait and in due course she came home. So began the affair ............... and a seemingly endless series of returns to Number 97.

Sid Trendall? He eventually married Maggie his date.
Boffin? He started dancing lessons in Blackpool and in due course, married his instructress.
As history relates, April 4th 1959 I married Glennys and began making little Huttons.
All three of us ........ surely aircraft mechanics are the sexiest of men!


It was almost certainly 1995 that I was to visit 97 for the last time. Glennys and I were living in Bourton-on-the Water for that strange year we came back again to England. Mother-in-law Rena was perhaps visiting Andrea. It was agreed we'd drive up to Blackpool and stay a couple of days and perhaps re-visit old haunts - a sort of memory lane affair.
The first evening we made up the beds but, come time to retire I found the nicotine impregnated house was just too much for me. My respitory system rebelled and, as far as I can remember, despite the late hour, we packed up and headed back to the Cotswolds.
Little did I think that that would be my last sight of the old place. Soon after, Altzheimers began its cruel attack on our beloved Rena.

As for the 37 years in between the two events mentioned above? We came and went, to and from #97. Pictures show Andrea and Mitchell and Martin and Sherri and Glennys and I and Rena of course, in front of the old place at widely differing dates.
The little Batten/Hutton subtribe stayed there before and after Singapore, before we emmigrated. Brief visits, short holidays. Any housing moves or assorted crises. I fear we quite took the place AND the welcome for granted.
Rena grew a magic looking garden in front with displays of roses.
Martin and Trish even visited during their honeymoon.

Now? Strangers no doubt live there and know nothing of "us". With Rena's depature the Horrocks connection with Blackpool ended. She was the last of the family to live in Blackpool as far as I know.
"They" had come from Manchester to Blackpool in the 1800's no doubt in search of a better life ........... now their descendants are scattered like dandelion seeds.

But #97 lives on in memory at least.

1956 I Learn to Ride a Bike ......................

"Nineteen fifty six!" I hear some exclaim, "but that makes him seventeen."

Indeed it does, or did. I'm a slow learner or maybe that should be late developer.
The whys of the late bike-riding are simple enough. Nobody ever bought me one, none of my small circle of childhood friends owned one and, at the time, all our destinations seemed within walking distance.

So childhood and school had passed without my mastering the bicycling knack. The one try I'd made in about my eleventh year had bruised me and my ego and removed some quantites of skin, so I'd not persevered.

When my mother and Reg elected to move to Southend-on-Sea I'd found a bicycle in the garage. Some spark had lit in my rather timid breast and I decided this was an ideal oportunity to try and teach myself.

On a succession of early mornings I ventured forth with aforesaid machine on the quiet of Branksome Road and proceeded to wobble my way into this new freedom. I did manage at least one minor collision with a parked car and no doubt many anxious moments as my skill slowly developed.

Suddenly I could travel faster than I'd ever run and further than I'd ever walked. The sense of new-found freedom must have been wonderful. Far greater because of my advanced years - I suspect a wonderful boost to a very fragile ego.

The wonderful thrill when first I descended the seemingly suicidally steep hill down to the sea- front at the Kursall. The brakes blocks must have been very hot and my heart rate much elevated! But, suddenly, gloriously, triumphantly ......... I COULD RIDE A BIKE!!!!!!!!

I crammed many, many miles into the next couple of years as I sought to make up for lost time. My first courtship , my first jobs were courtesy of the bike I'd bought .... a bright blue Phillips "Kingfisher", second hand of course. ...... the hours I lavished on that trusty steed!

Later, I nearly killed myself on it in London but that was me and a trolleybus, not really the bike.

At left the only known picture of biker Cliff - at RAF Kirkham 1957