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SIR JOHN WHITMORE
When I was a kid, my mum and dad's best friends were Brian and Mavis. My dad always used to joke around when he phoned them "Hello, is this the Staincross knocking shop?" and so on. Mavis was just as bad. (In fact, it wasn't very long ago that I called my dad, who doesn't have caller ID by the way, and he answered "Hello. The Bretton Home for Fallen Women". It's an English thing I guess...)So one day probably in the late sixties, I answered the phone and heard a posh voice saying "Is this the Jackson residence?" "This will be me aunty Mavis" I thought and put on my own posh voice "It is, how may I help you today?"
'Me' aunty Mavis continued "Could I speak to Mr Jackson please?" "I'm so sorry," I said trying to sound like the Queen "But Mr Jackson is in the bog having a s*** at the moment"
I know that you've guessed. It wasn't aunty Mavis and it WAS Sir John Whitmore's secretary...
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Guns and tear gas
In training for the London to Sydney Marathon. Eric Jackson on the far left holding a buttie. Ken Chambers third from the left holding a ciggie. Roger Clarke next to him.
Thinking about it, guns are featured a great deal in Petrol in My Blood. After all, in the lawless wilds of the Congo, darkest Africa, wartime Berlin and Barnsley … yes, it was in Barnsley that my dad suffered his only serious gunshot wound … guns were definitely necessary.
In 1968, it turned out that my dad even had a gun collection at home much to my mum’s horror a) because she didn’t even allow sharp kitchen knives in the house and b) it ruined a carefully planned dinner party buffet. Here’s what happened …
My dad and Ken Chambers were due to take part in the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon in the Ford works team. The Army was also entering a team – the drivers being Captain David Harrison and Lt. Martin Proudlock. I have no idea why but the two of them came to our house for dinner one summer’s evening (the rally began in November). Mum carefully planned dinner. She wasn’t used to having captains and lieutenants in the house – this was Barnsley, remember. We kids were scrubbed up too and warned to be on our best behaviour.
Unfortunately she didn’t warn my dad …
Before dinner, he decided to show David and Martin one of his guns – a gas gun. Well, you can guess what’s coming. Yep. He accidentally set it off. The house was full of tear gas. We were all gasping and choking but the Army lads showed what they were made of. David immediately grabbed one side of the table, Martin grabbed the other and they quickly carried Mum’s careful buffet into the garden. They do say that an army marches on its stomach, after all. We had a lovely dinner in the garden and us kids were allowed to stay up way past our normal bedtime as the house was inhabitable for several hours.
Actually, it was good practice. A few weeks later for our holiday, my dad borrowed a caravan (trailer in the US) from his friend Norman Johnson who was the manager of Polar Bradford. We went to France and found a camp site right on the beach. Somehow we got embroiled in some serious student riots and early one morning, when we were all fast asleep, a gendarme threw a tear gas canister through the caravan window. Yet again, the Jackson family evacuated.
My mum and the younger two were first out and they headed to the beach, coughing and spluttering. I followed with my dad who was wearing a Gallic blue and white striped t-shirt. Unfortunately, the ringleader of the student rioters was wearing the exact same t-shirt. I had very long, permed, hippy hair and the gendarmerie mistook us for rioters. We ran to the beach hotly pursued by a horde of French police in fearsome looking helmets, shields and full riot gear…
These things just seem to happen when my dad is around!