Interview with Gordon Hartington Taylor

 

Born 30 April 1924

 

Educated at home

 

Died 24 December 2008

 

Gordon born in Brixton, south London, 30 April 1924. Father Bill was a member of a large family (brothers and sisters all lived in the same basement room). Mother did not know who her father was and at three weeks old she was sent to a place in Gloucestershire until she was 12. Corporal punishment by Gordon’s mother, not father. Father was gassed in the First World War. Mother took Gordon to hospital every day for a bath and ‘electrical treatment’ because he could not sit up at nine months. Gordon couldn’t walk aged 7 so went to hospital for 6 weeks for ‘observation’. Hospital regime and attitudes to bed-wetting.

Aged 8, Gordon started walking. He knocked his knees together and would wear a pair of trousers out in about 6 weeks. No medical help. Discipline and corporal punishment. Gordon doesn’t remember going out before he was 15. After the Second World War, he was taken out quite a bit. Gordon’s house was bombed and the whole family had to sleep together in one room for about 2 years. Flying bombs. Wartime queues for food. Parties on Christmas Day and birthdays in Brixton. Grandfather was a drayman and drove a wagon with shire horses. He lived to be 91. Memories of grandmother.  

 

Gordon fell down the stairs at age 4.  Fear of a railway arch. Mother’s love of window shopping: Home and Colonial, WH Smith, Scroggies. Buying the newspaper ‘News of the World’. The baker and milkman used to come every day, with horses and carts. Attitudes to disabled people – most were in institutions. War veterans begging in the streets. Family moved to Norbury to a better house with a back garden. Mother’s background. She stayed near Swindon, in a village called Upper Stratton. Gordon’s belief that grandmother was a prostitute. Father got a job with the Civil Service. Mother was a telephone operator. They got married on Christmas Day in 1922. Mother and father were 25 when Gordon was born. Parents accepted Gordon’s disability. Many visits to hospital. Having an ‘electric bath’.

 

Electric baths at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Father had lung haemorrhage in 1931. Learning to walk aged 7. People at the hospital treated Gordon as “mental”. Lack of support. Using a wheelchair at 10 but it was thrown away. Gordon didn’t go to school. Mother taught Gordon to read. Reading technical books and scientific books. Friends. Playing chess. Making aircraft models. Stamp collecting. Little contact with other disabled people. Moved to Birmingham.

 

Mother went to Cheltenham when she was three weeks old until she was about 12. Wartime food queues. Battle of Britain and air raids. Bomb shelter. Experience of house being bombed and living in one room for two years. Post-war celebrations in the street. Flying bombs in 1944. Lack of sex education. Visits to the cinema every week. The Crazy Gang comedy act. Gordon was over 40 before he started to go out with girls. Gordon had no money of his own. Gordon went to an educational work centre for about 5 years in Norbury in Croydon, doing basket work, making sea-grass stools and chair seats.

 

No real friendships at the work centre. Reading technical books. Astronomy. Mother died of cancer when she was 59 in 1958. She had a heart attack in 1952. When father died, his family wanted him to go into a home. Stepmother Kathleen met Gordon’s father on a coach trip to Scotland. She offered to look after Gordon. Father and Kath were married for 2 years and therefore she wasn’t allowed to have father’s state pension. She got his Civil Service pension. She was about 50 when he died. Father was gassed in the First World War and had a haemorrhage in 1931. He left work in 1961. Gordon decided to move with Kath to Birmingham. He was offered a job at Meadway, making carburettors and other car components. Gordon worked there for about 15 years. Gordon was bored by his job and had rows with the foreman.

 

Growing Chrysanthemums in a training centre in Southend. Working on a mechanical drill in 1964. Offered a workshop job in Birmingham, in the Meadway Centre, and stayed for 15 years. Education at home because authorities labelled him ineducable. Gordon read and listened to radio for schools. Walking. Friend Mick who used to play chess with Gordon. Gordon didn’t meet any girl. Staying in holiday bungalows on east coast. 

 

Swimming at Heathcoat, a rehabilitation centre. Memories of a summer holiday in about 1935. Learning to walk. Spastics Society offered Gordon a job in Birmingham when the Meadway Centre opened. Spastics Society gave Gordon part-time employment at home making jewellery. Visits to Scotland in the seventies and eighties with stepmother Kath, travelling by coach and staying in hotels. Plymouth Brethren and religion. Voting Conservative. Growing Chrysanthemums and won three cups in 1970. Musical concerts at the Albert Hall, the Fairfield Hall in Croydon and the Festival Hall in London. Rachmaninov, Brahms and Mahler. Sir Simon Rattle. ‘Toc-H’ and other leisure groups for disabled people.

 

Early memories of being scared of a railway bridge in Norbury. Inaccessible roads and pavements. Street beggars. Horses and carts selling vegetables and fresh bread. Dustman and the coal man used horses and carts until about 1935.  War veterans begging in the streets. Family doctor was the only source of help. In 1931 Gordon’s father was very ill but no war pension so that’s why he never bought a poppy. Advice to a young person with cerebral palsy. Reflections on education. Attitudes haven’t changed much. Offered computer training at Helen Lay. Aged 50, living with Kath, was the best time.

 

Attitude of family to Gordon and Kath and to money. Coach trips to Scotland. Visits to London to the Albert Hall and the Proms. Learning to drive. Had to give up growing Chrysanthemums in about 1980, after about 15 years. Gardening. National Chrysanthemum Society. A flower named after Gordon was in Jack Walman’s catalogue. Spent about 14 years collecting stamps. Stamp fairs. Queen Victoria stamps. Stamp dealer in Weston Super Mare. Australian stamps.

 

Lack of sex education. Gordon didn’t go out with girls until age 40. Visits to cinema. Father bought a car in 1955, a brand new Hillman Minx. Family holidays in Devon. Model aircraft. Gordon was labelled ‘mentally defective’ when he was five. Mother’s childhood in Gloucestershire.

 

Reading. Friend Stuart Haymer. Heathcote rehabilitation centre. Visit to headquarters of the Spastics Society. The Gordon Taylor Chrysanthemum. Jack Walman, chrysanthemum grower. Blue invalid cars. Helen Lay Centre.