are soon dried. Children, like puppies, adapt themselves soon enough to a new home if it has familiar things—a blanket, a toy, people who are not strangers.
They
were not separated, and Mum and Grandy had moved with them. Old men, like old dogs, find change less easy. The year was 1947. Edward Laverick was sixty-one , not yet eligible for his old age pension (he had renounced the other), but not eligible for a new job either. He had no money, and nothing to do.
It did not matter, Daphne said. They could manage without money from her father. And she would give him pocket-money from her own salary until the old age pension came along.
She gave him a pound a week. He gave up smoking. He did odd jobs about the house. He looked after the fires, and emptied house refuse into the dustbin, and took the washing to the launderette, and was entrusted with shopping under instruction, since most items of food were still rationed at that time, and, for what was not, Daphne was at school, and could not queue. There was a small garden atthe back of the house, and he planted vegetables in it, and tended them. He saved three shillings a week out of his pound towards Christmas and birthday presents for the twins. In the evenings, he would read books from the Public Library, which cost nothing.
Then, when he did get his old age pension, Daphne would take none of it. She said that he more than earned his keep, and that it was good for a man to have money of his own.
This was Edward Laverick, author of
The Forgotten Men
.
But all that business of writing a play was over and done a long time ago. It belonged to the past, to the days of “self-improvement” and of evening classes, when he was sustained by something too vague to be called ambition, a sort of undirected hope that if he worked hard and learned enough, he would become in time—what? He didn’t know; never asked; it was enough to feel himself growing, and know that he pleased his parents. That was before he had been “caught” (as one used to put it), before he had found himself—he supposed he had asked Janet; he must have done so; but “found himself” better describes what happened—found himself married. He had never gone on with that sort of thing, that writing; it had not been his idea in the first place. It was Mr. Lambert, who gave the English classes at night school, who had encouraged him, and had made him rewrite it over and over again, and had sent the play when it was finished to a group of people he knew who had founded their own company because they couldn’t stand the sort of thing that was put on nowadays. That had been in 1904, which was a very long time ago. Edward Laverick himself in those days had had a great taste for the sort of thing that was put on, and would go in the pit or the gallery whenever he could afford it. If he could have written the sort of thing that was put on, hewould have done so, but every time he tried, Mr. Lambert had told him to be “true to himself”, and had made him rewrite it. They had told him he was a “primitive”, which sounded almost as if he hadn’t taken trouble with his play, when, truth to tell, he had slaved on it. They had said that the renaissance of the English theatre must come from below, that art was not artificial, but was about real life, and that the whole silly crew of West End dramatists were not worth a tenth of one real person like Edward Laverick. (They had said, in fact, about Edward Laverick in 1904 very much what people were saying about Norah Palmer’s genuine original dustman in 1961, but the tide was not with them.) Then they had put Edward Laverick’s play on a stage one Tuesday afternoon, and they hadn’t got it right. They weren’t the people Edward Laverick had in his mind when he wrote the play. What they said didn’t sound right, and they didn’t remember it all. And very few people came to watch it. Edward Laverick, sitting with Mr. Lambert in the stalls, had felt like part
They
were not separated, and Mum and Grandy had moved with them. Old men, like old dogs, find change less easy. The year was 1947. Edward Laverick was sixty-one , not yet eligible for his old age pension (he had renounced the other), but not eligible for a new job either. He had no money, and nothing to do.
It did not matter, Daphne said. They could manage without money from her father. And she would give him pocket-money from her own salary until the old age pension came along.
She gave him a pound a week. He gave up smoking. He did odd jobs about the house. He looked after the fires, and emptied house refuse into the dustbin, and took the washing to the launderette, and was entrusted with shopping under instruction, since most items of food were still rationed at that time, and, for what was not, Daphne was at school, and could not queue. There was a small garden atthe back of the house, and he planted vegetables in it, and tended them. He saved three shillings a week out of his pound towards Christmas and birthday presents for the twins. In the evenings, he would read books from the Public Library, which cost nothing.
Then, when he did get his old age pension, Daphne would take none of it. She said that he more than earned his keep, and that it was good for a man to have money of his own.
This was Edward Laverick, author of
The Forgotten Men
.
But all that business of writing a play was over and done a long time ago. It belonged to the past, to the days of “self-improvement” and of evening classes, when he was sustained by something too vague to be called ambition, a sort of undirected hope that if he worked hard and learned enough, he would become in time—what? He didn’t know; never asked; it was enough to feel himself growing, and know that he pleased his parents. That was before he had been “caught” (as one used to put it), before he had found himself—he supposed he had asked Janet; he must have done so; but “found himself” better describes what happened—found himself married. He had never gone on with that sort of thing, that writing; it had not been his idea in the first place. It was Mr. Lambert, who gave the English classes at night school, who had encouraged him, and had made him rewrite it over and over again, and had sent the play when it was finished to a group of people he knew who had founded their own company because they couldn’t stand the sort of thing that was put on nowadays. That had been in 1904, which was a very long time ago. Edward Laverick himself in those days had had a great taste for the sort of thing that was put on, and would go in the pit or the gallery whenever he could afford it. If he could have written the sort of thing that was put on, hewould have done so, but every time he tried, Mr. Lambert had told him to be “true to himself”, and had made him rewrite it. They had told him he was a “primitive”, which sounded almost as if he hadn’t taken trouble with his play, when, truth to tell, he had slaved on it. They had said that the renaissance of the English theatre must come from below, that art was not artificial, but was about real life, and that the whole silly crew of West End dramatists were not worth a tenth of one real person like Edward Laverick. (They had said, in fact, about Edward Laverick in 1904 very much what people were saying about Norah Palmer’s genuine original dustman in 1961, but the tide was not with them.) Then they had put Edward Laverick’s play on a stage one Tuesday afternoon, and they hadn’t got it right. They weren’t the people Edward Laverick had in his mind when he wrote the play. What they said didn’t sound right, and they didn’t remember it all. And very few people came to watch it. Edward Laverick, sitting with Mr. Lambert in the stalls, had felt like part
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