AN INCH TOO SHORT

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire of Scots parentage, I was registered there at birth as Ranald George Carlyle Reid but by the time I was christened at Gilcomston Church in Aberdeen where my maternal grandfather was an Elder, my name had been changed to Neil Smith Carlyle Reid. I was told later that this was because the English were calling me Ronald not Ranald. My older brother Ian was born in 1931 and my sister Kirsteen known as Kirsty in 1939.

My father graduated M.A. at the University of Aberdeen in 1927 when he was 22. The economic challenges of the twenties and consequent difficulties in finding secure employment resulted in many Arts graduates spending a further year taking a teaching diploma after graduation and then teaching. One of the last Acts of the Scottish Parliament in 1697 was to determine that every parish in Scotland should have a school and that education should be available to all free. England adopted similar educational policy in 1875 almost two centuries later. Scotland's history with four Universities by 1500 when England had two and the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 with political authority centred in London followed by the divisions created in 1745 brought about the Scottish Enlightenment but also reduced economic development potential and resulted in large numbers of generations of well-educated Scots necessarily having to seek employment in England and abroad during the following centuries.

My father came from a poor but respectable family his father, a lithographer who worked much of the time in the US, had paid his own fare home to volunteer to serve as a Jock in the Gordon Highlanders at the late age of 37 in 1914, and to be killed near Amiens in France in 1917 at the age of 40. This left my grandmother with a 6" bronze plaque bearing thanks from the King and Country and a private soldiers pension. She had two daughters and two sons the eldest son was killed on a motorbike at age 16, leaving my grandmother to raise the other three children, two girls and my father who was the middle one. Caroline the eldest daughter was too old to be eligible to compete for the Kitchener Scholarships which commenced in 1921, so she worked for a bank then immigrated to South Africa again working in a bank and was commissioned in the South African Air Force during the Second World War. When Verwoerd and his apartheid government were elected in 1947 Caroline said she refused to live under the Nazis and moved to Southern Rhodesia at that time providing the best education available to the black population in Africa and the agricultural breadbasket of the African continent. She died in 2004 aged 101 in what had become Harare, Zimbabwe, by then a destitute country, under the appalling Mugabe Dictatorship.

Both my father and his younger sister Joan won Kitchener Scholarships to attend University. My paternal grandmother died at a comparatively young age, just two weeks prior to my birth and my father's only comment to me later in life was that she had worked herself to death raising her children alone. In consequence I only knew one set of grandparents. Although my mother was a year older than he, she and my father attended the same secondary school, Aberdeen Central School later renamed Aberdeen Academy. My mother was the eldest of six and her father was a Police Inspector in the Aberdeen City Police where his father-in-law, my great- grandfather, had served as a Chief Inspector. My father was a regular visitor as a child to my grand-parent's home and was I think much influenced by the stability and family structure within the home. Thus it was that following graduation in seeking secure employment in the economically stressful period of the late 1920's he turned to the Police. There was however a problem, in that the minimum height requirements for the Scottish Police Forces was 5'10". My father was 5'9". In consequence being ineligible he of necessity considered England where he found that the City of Bradford force was thought rather progressive, having introduced a system of district police boxes. Painted red, each was about 5' Square, with a small door, a fixed desk along one wall, a single chair and a telephone. Each Constable had a beat which started and finished at the box, where he reported at intervals. Even Bradford, with a height restriction of 5'9" had momentary doubts, as the Constable responsible for taking measurements of recruits, made my father cringe by banging the measuring bar on his head and then saying: "Half an inch too short." Re-measurement however was made and it was accepted that he made the grade with one eighth of an inch to spare. Another measurement taken for uniforms, which provoked comment, was that in a force of 320 members, my father had the largest cranium upon which to balance the famous British Bobbies pointed hat. So, he was accepted and became the first University graduate to join a police force in Britain. A compulsory five years had to be spent as a Constable before seeking promotion, but in 13 years he had risen through the various ranks to become a Superintendent, a record for any police force in the country.

My mother debated entering University as she had an excellent record of academic achievement. However, she followed her main interest and attended Gray's School of Art, where she took both the Diploma and Post Diploma courses, completing five years study in four. She then took a further year of study obtaining her teaching Diploma. When a student she earned some pin money by singing and giving stories on childrens programmes in the early days of the BBC. This followed taking part in concerts across the North-east of Scotland as a member of the Students charity group. In 1928 she moved to London and for curiosity submitted her portfolio to both Heals and Liberty's. Both offered her positions as a designer within a week. She in the brief intervening period was offered a position teaching, security again beckoned and she accepted. The relationship with my father never ceased, he was her only boy-friend when she was fourteen and he thirteen. In early 1930, she left employment in London, moved to Bradford and married him.

Bradford although built almost completely of gorgeous cream Yorkshire stone, was black. At that time the centre of the World's woollen industry and in the heartland of the dark satanic mills it boasted one mill chimney for every day of the year. The City is set in a basin, with a stream, the Bradford Beck, known justifiably as "t'mucky beck" running largely underground in a culvert which proved to be of insufficient capacity in 1948 when following prolonged downpour water rose up through the drainage system and flooded the City centre to a depth of 4'6". My older brother Ian, younger sister Kirsty and I were born in Bradford. Had our father had been one inch taller we might well have been born in Scotland. The saying "Where there is muck, there is money", may well have been coined in Bradford. Originally a small market town in Airedale where sheep and wool had been the staple economic base for generations, the industrial revolution transformed it with much of Australia's wool production being imported there for conditioning and processing.. The Leeds Liverpool Canal the construction of which had commenced in 1770 gave transportation access over the Pennine Hills to Manchester and the west coast with the Five Rise Locks which had been completed at Bingley adjacent to Bradford in 1774 being the highest in the country. The high humidity and ready access to large volumes of soft water from the millstone grit formations in the Yorkshire Dales provided ideal conditions for storing and washing wool. Wool derived wealth was the reason why the Rolls Royce Motor Company sold more cars in Bradford than any other city in Britain. The largest mill chimney in the world Listers almost 300 feet high was built entirely of Yorkshire stone and it was said that prior to being raised to their elevated position a horse and cart was driven around the capping stones, dominated the western skyline. The Lister family's original mansion and 54 acre gardens later became the City Art Gallery and the City's largest public park with a lake, an example of a petrified tree and also of a prehistoric cup and ring boulder.

Yet, despite the prosperity Bradford also boasted 25,000 back to back houses. These were in terraces running up the hillsides with a central wall dividing houses on each side and stone privies. In consequence there was no through airflow. Living and working conditions resulted in the actual physical growth of Bradfordians being inhibited. To provide bathing opportunities other than a tin one in front of the fireplace, the City of Bradford Corporation built 27 swimming pools with "Slipper baths". In contrast to the housing many of Bradford's public and private buildings were magnificent. Some of that money was used to employ the best architects of their day, and buildings such as the City Hall with statues inset of the Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain. St. Georges Hall seating over 1600 now the oldest concert hall still in use in the UK commenced construction in 1849 following an architectural competition and opened in August 1853 having been financed by a group of German origin Bradford Jewish wool merchants. It was there where I went as a boy to hear the Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbarolli playing Elgar and the Rite of Spring by Frederick Delius, the latter had attended school at Bradford Grammar School. Other splendid buildings included the Swan Arcade, the Jacob Behrens building in Forster Square, and Rawson Market, Bradford's public buildings compared with any City in the country in architectural merit, but they were all uniformly black. Given a good wash, Bradford could have been the Paris of the north. The places of worship were predominantly chapels. The traditional West Yorkshire non-conformist Wesleyan, Congregational, Methodist and Salvation Army chapels, far outnumbered the Church of England churches although of course it had the Cathedral. Many of those chapels have gone or now have minarets attached and serve as mosques following the importation of mostly illiterate peasant workers from Pakistan to do shift work at a time when many mills were performing three eight hour shifts per day. The City has been wantonly re-developed as its historical buildings have been torn down, the Swan Arcade for example a predecessor of the later concept of shopping malls having been opened in 1880 was demolished in 1962. Indeed a Labour MP, named Mitchell when asked about Bradford on the BBC around 1975, responded, "Bradford? e'ee I knew Bradford when it was still standing." With the centre of the City at about 350 ft., and with outlying districts like Queensbury rising to over 1,000 ft. smoke hung over the central basin and those 25,000 back to back houses whilst the outlying modern suburban districts looked down upon it. The working class bordered on the edge of poverty and even in post Second World War years, I saw a family drinking their tea from jam jars. Corner shops sold a concoction called sarsaparilla and Fish and Chip shops were to be found in every district with an even larger number of pubs and bars.

At the time I describe, some of the worst slum areas had already been cleared, to make room for new small slum clearance walk-up apartment dwellings three stories high on the original sites like White Abbey and with new small semi-detached houses being built on City Council estates on the outlying edges of the City. This increased the need for transportation and the City ran an efficient mixture of trams, buses and trolleybuses to serve the community. However, the livery colour was a sombre dark navy blue complimenting the blackened buildings. In about 1946, my brother Ian suggested to the Deputy Head of Bradford City Transport, Mr. Lyall Christie that the colour should be changed to pale blue and cream to cheer the place up and behold, it was! The hills, some of which were very steep, made transportation difficult, and many of us developed the ability to "leg on" and "leg off" buses when moving. The traffic included all the vehicles carrying the massive bales of wool, most of which originated in Australia and to enable sharp turning and mobility, mechanical horses were used. These were three wheeled power units, hitched to low lying flat decks. All the mills and wool storage buildings had jutting out arms with pulleys which lowered cables with claws to set into each side of the bales and then raise them to whichever warehouse floor level was their destination. The streets beside the mills were cobbled and the clatter of the wood and leather clogs worn by the mill workers resonated along them.

My first home was in Fairbanks Road where I was born being about half way up the hill from the centre of Bradford but I have no memories of it. Shortly afterwards, we moved further uphill to Whitby Road still terraced, but with small gardens and a back lane. The ice cream man used the back lane to sell his 3d cones and 2d and 4d wafers. Today his lovely little pony drawn cart with four barley twist brass corner supports for the canopied roof to cover his ice cream tubs will hopefully be in a museum. At the top of Whitby Road was Duckworth Lane with numerous small family operated private shops supplying a multitude of kitchen and household needs a branch of Martin's Bank and a Police Station. One of the little grocery stores named Gilletts, sold chocolate marshmallow biscuits with a little daub of red jam in the centre, at two for a penny, and if well behaved when shopping my mother would buy one for each of us, in return, Ian and I carried the brown leather shopping bag between us. Mrs. Ingham an antique dealer sold her wares from her fairly substantial house quite close to the shops. My mother's knowledge of and interest in art, drew her into Mrs. Ingham's house and that is where I first became aware of the beauty and craftsmanship of so many antiques. I also learned of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Mrs. Ingham's knowledge of art was limited, my mother's was not. In consequence she made some wise purchases with the little money she had. I recall a wonderful box with a reclining dragon on the lid, which she purchased for a small sum because it was black knowing that it was a deep tarnish of silver. Some 8 inches long, it proved to be solid silver and she later at a time when life was difficult for her gave it to my sister as a 21st birthday present. For me, the object of most attraction and beauty was an art nouveau glass vase. The upper layer of maroon glass covered deep yellow glass and was cut in the cameo form of flowers. It sat on three deep blue ball shaped feet and was signed Richare. My attraction to glass, its plasticity, form and feel has lasted all my life. That vase was my 21st birthday present from my mother and I can look at it as I write. She purchased the vase in 1929 in London, where she saw it being used as part of a window display in a ladies boutique. When she approached the shop owners, they did not wish to sell, but a week later following another approach, relented and her prize cost two weeks of her teaching pay.

My earliest memories are predominantly related to Aberdeen where my grand-parent's house was our second home. I remember clearly, the wedding reception for my mother's youngest sister Margaret, when she married Peter Nagele in 1937 and I was three. The reception was held in the Palace Hotel at the junction of Union Street and Market Street, adjacent to the end of Union Bridge, the Hotel eventually burned down in 1942 and after many years as a vacant site was replaced by a C & A store. I recall the Hotel's large dining room overlooking Union Street, the window positions and how the tables were placed, the bride and groom sitting at the top table, and that on my plate was a red pickled pepper which I was told I didn't have to eat. I do not recall my clothes, but was told in later years that I wore a blue satin romper suit. Another early memory is of Mr. Duncan. His daughter Nettie was a close friend of my grandmother and being single, lived with her father and we visited them. Mr. Duncan sat in a winged armchair beside their fireplace, he had a white spade beard and a budgerigar sat in a cage on a stand beside the chair. Of further fascinated interest to me as a child was that he used a spittoon which sat in the fireplace. The room had French doors opening on to a garden profuse with flowers. The old man engaged me in conversation and told me all about the Boer War and a siege at Mafeking which had ended in 1900 having lasted six months. However, at the time of the Boer War, Mr. Duncan was 60 years old, having been born in 1842. When we had our conversation he was 96 years old and lucid. In later years I have wondered whether the doubts expressed by politicians about the verbal history of the North American Indians is a matter of political convenience rather than conviction. My youngest grandchildren, born in the 21st century are verbally separated from Mr. Duncan born 160 years ago only by me. My grandfather took Ian and I for walks in the 340 acre Hazelhead Park which continued into the woods on the western edge of the city and where in season, we gathered blueberries and yellow raspberries. The park had been the grounds of a mansion and contained a wonderful maze with a high tower from which the supervisor could direct those who got lost in the maze, back to the entrance – a cause for relief for many.