Open Writing

Strange that I did not consider five years in the RAF as work. It was war service, fun, danger and travelling the world at His Majesty’s cost. First of all I needed to get to know my parents again. For four years we had not spoken to one another - no mobiles around in those days.

It was some weeks/months later that Victor returned from naval service in Australia and a little while longer before he was demobbed. Peter had by now decided to make the Royal Marines his career. When Victor and Peter were finally home at the same time, my parents organised a big party at the London Trocadero where our young pre-war friends and the three of us celebrated our return home. Many were still in uniform.

I wanted to enter the family dental supply business and so started a nine to five-thirty business life, with nine to one on Saturdays. Suits, tie and hat were the firm routine. All the young men who had disappeared as Territorials came back safely. One had been taken prisoner in Italy, but he too was in good shape.

The three partners, Solly and his brother Joe plus Mark Schottlander, were beginning to become elderly and no longer had quite the same amount of fire in their bellies, particularly after the war years that had been very dull and negative from a dental trade viewpoint.

Each partner had a son who also joined the company. Leslie Schottlander was the oldest by some 15 years and had been in the company before the war, so he went selling overseas straight away. Lynford, Joe’s son, was next in age. He was already married and divorced and about to get married again.

Salary appeared good at that time. it was £300. Per annum. It slowly moved up until several years later I reached the magical figure of £1000 p.a. My main activity was selling to the dental dealers round the country. At that time there were many of them, and Lancashire or Yorkshire or Scotland would take a week each, including dental schools and a few dental practices.

My father was also handing over his export territories to me. We did trips to Holland, Spain and Portugal together, and then I took them over. After his frightening First War flight, my father never flew again.

Thus we visited Spain by taking a ship from Dover to Calais and the train to Paris. A change of station enabled us to take the sleeper to the Spanish frontier. There we left the train and walked over the frontier to find a Spanish train.

This was the time of the Franco regime, and there were no foreign tourists or English spoken. It surprised me to find out that my father spoke no French or Spanish. Thus my limited Spanish from two terms at school proved in valuable. I resolved to become proficient in the language. We managed a lengthy trip by train through Spain and Portugal, where I had to convert to French.

My father was obviously highly regarded and, because of the limited value of their import licences, we collected a good number of orders. He was also owed a fair sum of money dating back to the Spanish Civil War. His customers were anxious to pay these debts (plus a substantial amount), which enabled them to import from us. At that time Spain was short of everything, and their amount of foreign currency and the value of their import licences limited our sales.

As we travelled around I kept a record of the cost of fares between each city. At the end I realised that we had overpaid the well-known British travel agent by many hundred pounds. A letter to them brought their immediate repayment of the overcharge with a brief letter of apology. However I have never used their services again.

Although I remained an enthusiastic user of train services throughout my business career, I usually found that flights to the overseas starting point made sense. For Paris it was possible to take the train sleeper from Victoria Station and leave the Paris station for a 9 am appointment. For British trips a train sleeper to Newcastle, Edinburgh or Exeter was a good way to start the journey and meant no working time was lost.

I started a London Spanish course on our return and soon after took a two-month trip to Spain. There I spoke and read Spanish the whole time and was able to build a close relationship with the Spanish dental dealers. TV, cinema, theatre, papers and conversation were all in Spanish.

I also met a 30-year-old single lady at the house of an American dentist who had resided in Madrid for most of his working life. During the Spanish Civil War he had escaped to London and stayed with us for several months, regaining his strength with the aid of my mother’s cooking. We had watched him putting on weight day by day.

I asked this young lady if she would join me to go to the theatre to see the famous gypsy dancer, Carmen Armaya. After some hesitation she answered “Sí.” So we met, enjoyed the show and I then took her to dinner.

There she revealed to me that it was the first time in her life that she had gone out with a young man without a chaperone. The only reason she had said yes was because I was English and we had met in the house of an American, so I must be all right.

There was also another young woman who was not quite so particular about a chaperone. So my Spanish matured day by day, and I was also writing letters in Spanish.

Whilst normally on a business trip I always stayed in a top hotel, this time I stayed in modest places and managed the trip very economically. It was also possible to spend time with various members of the dental trade. A weekend with a family in Seville was a delight. Two children and two mothers-in-law made a lovely Spanish family. The mothers-in-law looked after the home, attending to all the shopping and cooking.

Valencia was also great with the good fortune of being there over Easter and seeing the wonderful Easter parade, followed by a magnificent firework display.

From Madrid I took the train to Toledo. Travelling second class, I had a group of peasants as fellow passengers. A little boy, who must have been three or four years old, kept running into our carriage and pulling down his mother’s blouse, enjoying a drink from her breast.

Toledo was interesting, with an old synagogue that had later been converted to a church when the Jews were thrown out. The original building was not as tall as the neighbouring churches because it was not permitted. However, when you entered, it was necessary to go down several steps, and from the inside the building was taller than the churches.

Whilst I did some business it was really a holiday, and my Spanish became pretty fluent.