growing up in Gants Hill

Mum and dad were married on March 12th 1955. Contrary to many weddings these days, their son wasn’t there. Dad was 25 and mum, just 18. Today, mum’s age and the seven years difference would have raised a few eyebrows, but not so these days. 

I still have a cracking picture of their wedding. They’re the two in the middle at the front.

A little over a year later mum and dad lost their first child. They were obviously distraught and one cannot contemplate such emotional trauma. Martin Robert Jago was born on May 1st 1956 and passed away a few days later from medical complications. As you’d expect, sympathy and commiserations poured in and they just couldn’t escape the hurt from that devastation. To support a change of environment while they both grieved, dad made a decision to apply for a position of employment as a piping designer in Niagara Falls.

Soon enough, they were on a ship to Canada.

When relocating to Sarnia a few months later, their second son came along;

me in front of a spectacular sunset.

Of course, they were delighted to finally acquire parenthood status but with no family or close friends from blighty around them they were terribly homesick.

Back to England they floated and immediately moved in with my dad’s parents Alouitious and Kathleen in a decent semi at number 25, Middleton Gardens, Gants Hill, Ilford, Essex.

No doubt being groomed for stardom, mum registered me at a photographic studio in Gants Hill where I got to try out several outfits. 

What on earth were you thinking, mum?!

Education beckoned and after my career in gentlemen’s attire came to an abrupt end I was enrolled into Newbury Park Primary School on Perryman’s Farm Road a couple of hundred yards from the Green Gate lights on the busy Eastern Avenue.

I was a bit of a rascal and was always in trouble for mischievous behaviour like tripping someone up in the playground or throwing a ball at a window. Ken Aston our headmaster was Chairman of FIFA at the time. Once, refereeing a football match in the World Cup Finals of 1966, he was infamous for bringing down an Argentinian footballer with a Mick McManus like wrestling hold. Could you imagine that happening, now? 

I also felt the wrath of Mr. Aston once as he caned me across the hand, using a long stick tucked away down the side of a filing cabinet. I remember running back to the classroom, balling my eyes out.

On one sadder occasion, I desperately wanted to go to the toilet. But Mrs. Anderson wasn’t having any of it and I persevered at the front of her class while I shuffled around on my seat as a vein started to appear on my forehead. Close to panic, I darted from the room and on the way to the toilet, I didn’t quite make it and had to duck off sideways into the large, green cloakroom where everyone’s coats were hanging. Now, let me tell you right here and now, this moment in my childhood was one of the most emotionally traumatic. I found myself in the relative peace and quiet of the cloakroom and pulling down my shorts, took off my undies that were in a sorry state. Pulling my shorts back over my poor arse, I stuffed the soiled pants into my pocket and hoped to get away with it.

At that moment, I almost had a cadenza as Mr. Aston came around the corner and asked what I was up to…..again? He saw the tears on my bowed face and the gibbering explanation then spotted the filthy undies poking out of my pocket and clearly knew I was not in a good place. And in truth, he wasn’t either! 

But he sympathized and cleaned up, Mr. Aston walked me back to the classroom and proceeded to tell all the sprogs that they must not wait if they need the khazee but get to a toilet on the double. As such, all the tots were now made quite aware that Mitch had been caught short. Thankfully, I don’t have any photographs of this particular memory.

The neighbourhood around Middleton Gardens was a heaven for rascals like me. In the sixties no parent was worried about their seven or eight year old nipper heading off to Valentine’s Park with a football. Or, out till dark on our bikes and go-karts. Gardens had fruit trees and I remember scrumping for plums by walking along the top of a high brick wall and reaching out over a large prickly bush to snag a branch toward me then fill a plastic sand bucket. One fall and I’d have been tangled up in the middle of that bush, cut to shreds and lost forever.

Biking with the boys and girls in Valentines Park was a treat. My 20 inch bike was with me every hour of every day as we kicked up a speed through dry ditches, wooded trails and shot across the occasional, manicured flower bed. Memories of that gorgeous park have tremendous clarity.

I remember a huge elm tree we all used to climb, the boating lake and ducks, a large pavilion for choc ices, a few large scary, concrete drainage tunnels and the swimming pool which was a regular haven in the sixties and seventies. Once you managed to brace yourself to dive into the deep end, hyperthermia would quickly set in. When I started receiving football kits as birthday and Christmas presents, I would head over to the park for a game with any match being played. “Okay if I join in, mate?”

Apart from wearing shirts with West Ham colours, the team I have supported since I was 8 years old, I had a Man City away strip with red and black stripes. Football in Valentines Park was a tremendous memory and I would often wander back into the house covered in mud only for mum to give me a slap for being so dirty. “They don’t do that in the adverts”, I would say, my bottom lip quivering.

One entrance to the park quite close to Middleton Gardens had a pitch and putt golf course. Every Friday night my dad would get home from work and with mum, together they would play 18 holes and if mum happened to beat dad, it would be deaf and dumb sandwiches for the weekend.

My sister Deborah Lynn came along a couple of years after me followed a few years later and a second sister, Caroline Dawn, or Caz as she now goes by. Because of the short age gap between us Deb and I played a lot together. I remember her crawling across the living room carpet at an age less than one while her two year old brother grabbed the carpet cleaner and seized an opportunity to roll it over her knuckles. Nice lad.

On another occasion I was jumping around on Deb’s bed and accidentally kicked her in the face. She fainted as her eyes rolled around inside her head and I opened the window and shouted down to my mum who was hanging clothes on the line;

“Mum, MUMMMM…..I’ve killed Deb.”

Half the neighbourhood were at the front door.

My grandma had a pompous sister, Edith, who had married a French Count just after the war. She once visited us in Gants Hill and my mum would have a few sleepless nights at the worry of it all. On one visit and in a state of shock at seeing our little black Austin, Auntie Edie sat down with dad and wrote out a cheque for £750. He was flabberghasted but of course, accepted this impetuous spot of generosity before purchasing a brand new, yellow Ford Cortina Mark I, as seen below on the black and white picture.

Now, you may well have noticed that this image of the car with mum and Deb is rather odd for one reason and one reason alone. The picture is taken on a beach quite near to swimmers in the ocean. Such waters do have a recognised tendency to move in and move out, not once, but twice over the course of a day. Well, soon after this picture was captured on Pendine Sands in South Wales, we all climbed in and with the old man at the wheel, headed along the sands where, for a couple of miles you were allowed to drive. 

A few minutes later I seem to recall mum mentioning the sign that we had just passed. Apparently, it read;

DANGER: SOFT SANDS

NO VEHICLES ALLOWED

Well, dad had latched onto this a bit late and in one moment of immediate theatrical hilarity decided to continue without stopping for fear of getting stuck but turn his new Cortina in one wide, sweeping arc not away from the waters edge, but toward the incoming sea where the sands looked, sort of, well, flatter.

The car quickly came to a halt and the four of us climbed out and stepped into the waters as our new Ford Cortina was soon engulfed by the sea. It had not been three months since dad drove it off the showroom floor! Poor old dad.

Back at the B&B, we waited for news from the garage. The car had been recovered by a RNLI lifeboat, washed down with fresh water and was left to dry out.

Three days later and we were back in the car again heading off to see dad’s sister, Marian. Always entertainment this because my Auntie Marian, her husband Tony and their ten children lived on a farm near Llandeilo. The journey down to the farmhouse took us off the main road, down a lane and to a bridge that crossed a rocky, fairly brisk moving river a foot or two deep.  Now, off to one side was a bridge. But the old man took one look at the thirty feet long bridge and decided he was not going to risk scraping his new yellow car on the iron railings. Instead, he was going to drive through the river and up the other side, unscathed. This is a joke, right dad? 

Now, let me tell you, as a small lad in need of constant attention, excitement and entertainment this was a dad made in heaven! With my dear mum frantically yelling at him as he backed the car up the lane, there was no turning back. Dad had made up his mind and began accelerating toward the noisy river. In second gear, and by now with four of us screaming he entered the waters and accelerated toward the other side. In one quick jerk, we all bounced around and the car stopped, the engine cut out and we quickly started taking on water. Again. But this time, the water entering the car was fresh water and not salt water we had seen four days before. Alighting the vehicle this time was not quite as simple as it was a few days earlier. The strength of the current was trying to tip the car over as we all negotiated the river up to our knees in icy mountain waters.

Andrew, Marian’s young son appeared from nowhere riding a tractor. As an already experienced farm hand he knew exactly what to do. Within half hour the car had been winched up to the bank with waters pouring out of the engine compartment and doors.

With the car drying out for a second time in a week, the kids enjoyed life on the farm with cows, haystacks, chickens and all the smells in abundance.

My time in Gants Hill mostly seemed to have hot summers and snowy winters. I remember walking up Perth Road every Saturday morning to watch Saturday Morning Pictures at the Odeon. Films that included The Three Stooges and Old Mother Riley with Disney cartoons thrown in, too. I would buy an everlasting strip and a bag of black jacks for tuppence.

Dinners were fairly regulated by having fish on a Friday, egg and chips at least one other weekday and a roast on a Sunday. On the radio were broadcasts of the Goons, Jimmy Clitheroe, a program called Sing Something Simple and Family Favourites, a morning show steered toward the overseas forces who had not been told the war had finished in ’45.

A television, usually a black and white BUSH unit on a rental basis had two buttons, 405 and 625 which referred to the lines on a channel, 625 having the better clarity. Watch With Mother and The Flowerpot Men were good early sixties stuff followed a few years later with shows like Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds. “Errrr, geee…..Mister…..Tracy”.

The Saint was always a regular watch on a Sunday night when mum would wheel cucumber sandwiches and a pot of tea into the living room on a hardwood tea trolley she had made in Woodwork classes. Way to go, mum!

The Man From Uncle, Mission Impossible and Doctor Who were never missed, either. In fact, Doctor Who bordered on ‘X’ rated material when considering the sleepless nights eight-year-olds had after watching things called Daleks and Yetis. Of course, space exploration was coming into the fore around then and Lost In Space was a favourite Deb and I would watch.

Then there was Bewitched and The Dick van Dyke Show on a Saturday.

I joined the Cubs. Prickly, green jumper, a scarf with a hankie tucked inside all held together with a leather woggle. The church hall was at the Ley Street end of Perth Road and the same hall I first went to Sunday School at the age of 6. Mum or dad used to walk me there in the snow.

Rossi’s ice cream parlour in Barkingside was a real treat with ice cream sodas served up on Sundays. Or picking blackberries at Lambourne End near Hainault Forest.

Sports Day at Newbury Park was a hoot. Sack races, egg and spoon, obstacle courses and always an ice cream van stationed not too far away.

There were a few events we were asked to attend. One year there was a choice of going to the ballet to see Coppelia in the West End, or join a field trip to Regents Park Zoo. Well, you’d think I would plump for the zoo, right? But you’re wrong. There was a girl in our class called Lynn Rogers and I was besotted with her. I noted she had ticked off the box for the ballet, so I ticked that box, too. Come the event, there were eight lasses at the ballet and I was the only boy!

I remember dating Lynn later on when I was about 12 years old. It was my first ever date and I took her to see Gone With The Wind at the Odeon. Her dad had dropped us there and I had planned to walk her home. My dad had given me three weeks pocket money in advance on a decent interest rate and told me to pay for her ticket but also buy her a box of chocolates. Which I did. I had my arm around Lynn the entire four hour movie and by the intermission, it was anaesthetized. I was about as nervous as a young lad could be on his first time out with a girl. 

On the way home she actually offered to pay back the three shillings and can you believe it, I bloody took it! How sad was that. Wonder where she is now, dear Lynn. 

Amazed, I passed my Eleven Plus exams and was enrolled at Ilford County High Grammar School for Boys. Based in Barkingside it would be a forty-five minute journey from Middleton Gardens. So, at the age of eleven wearing a new pair of trousers and carrying a new brief case I started school in Form 1B with about thirty other lads.

Teachers at the school were formidable. James Boardall for French, Bill Gibbons teaching Chemistry, Phyllis Hare, English Language and Literature, Noel Martin, Pete Jenkinson for PE and Football, Barry Jermie for Mathematics, Bertie Bown for Science, with Bernie Winter for History.

Frank Young was the headmaster and Mr. Taylor, his deputy. I loved the physical stuff and decided to try out for the school football team. At Newbury Park I had played for the school team but ICHS was a different kettle of fish with dozens more boys to choose from.

One afternoon after school, all the lads were kitted out, the goalposts erected and we each put on a yellow or blue bib to try out for a place on the team. I was picked for one side and defending a corner, jumped up to head the ball. I made poor contact with the ball and it veered off toward my own goal and clattered off the crossbar. The Maths teacher with a clipboard rushed over to congratulate me and asked my name before he quickly scribbled it down and rushed off again. He had no idea that I had almost scored an own goal but that was how I got to play grammar school level football for the next five years at Ilford County High! You couldn’t make it up.

Bless my dad, the family always had an annual holiday. Most years we would go to Butlins or Pontins. As a young lad, the week was filled with entertainment. Gambling at Bingo, swimming pools, eating cartons of chips on the way back to the chalet and loads of sports events.                          

We went to a south coast Butlins one summer and in a tennis match with mum one afternoon, I think we had an altercation over some line calling. I threw my racket down, strutted off the court and in my whites, wandered off around the camp and walked into the Ballroom where auditions for a talent contest were about to close. 

Within five minutes I had entered the audition singing Eidelweiss from The Sound of Music movie. God only knows why I had made this decision but two minutes later my name was included in the list of 20 successful finalists. I rushed home to tell mum and dad and we geared up for the Friday evening. The auditorium was packed to the rafters and all the finalists played their part by dancing, performing gymnastics or singing. I went on last and after the song, remember this blistering applause from a dark audience in front of me. The results came through with the chap on the microphone saying….”and tonight’s winner is vocalist, Mitch JAAAAAAGOOOOOOO!”.

Bloody hell. I had won a free week’s holiday back at another Butlins camp for all the summer’s winners around the country.

Mum and I returned to Butlins a few weeks later but at a different resort where I came nowhere in the competition. However, what I do recall is the publicity I received from the win. The Ilford Recorder wrote an article and published the picture above. (Not the image where I came 19th out of 19 in a Mr. Universe contest). Mr. Young announced my win at Assembly one Monday morning and I started doing a few gigs at various events across Ilford.

From my Frenford Youth Club off Ilford High Road I hooked up with a guitarist called Pat Carney and sang songs including Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head by B.J. Thomas and If I Had A Hammer, by Trini Lopez. These events freaked me out with so many nerves but it was all fun, I guess. 

I then gradually started playing football more seriously and at a Pontin’s Holiday Camp was part of a team that week where I also came first in Sportsman of the Week competition.

Ilford County High had a discipline system I had not heard of at other schools. Each form had a half inch thick ‘Rep Board’ measuring about 30 inches by 20. On the board was taped a white sheet with grid lines. Down the left side of the sheet all the names of the 30+ pupils would be listed while across the top all the 15 or so weeks of that school term would be noted. If someone played up in a class or misbehaved, the teacher would ask the offending individual to bring ‘the Rep board’ at the break.

“Jago, bring me the rep board at break”

The teacher would then apply his initials to the appropriate field. Once three placements had been made in the same week, the teacher who applied that third initial would draw a bold border around that box and that was called a ‘detention’. This essentially meant you’d be staying after school the following Monday where you would sit with other offenders writing down the words, “I will not misbehave in class” seven hundred and forty-three times.

Two or three detentions in one term, then more Mondays after school. If you had a fifth detention you had the choice of the cane or loss of privileges. On one occasion, I had an awful term and found myself with 5 bold borders and therefore had to make the choice. Being the chicken-hearted chap I am, I chose the loss of privileges. Well, the following day I’m sitting in a history lesson and in walks Mr. Martin, our football coach. He whispers in the ear of our teacher and points to me. I leave the classroom wondering what all the fuss is about. Turns out, that week was a critical cup semi-final against Fairlop school and I was down to play. But because I had gathered several detentions and had chosen the path of less pain I was not eligible to play in this particular football match. 

So, Mr. Martin waltzed me down to the headmaster’s room where I waited outside while he went in and effectively, asked Frank Young to cane the crap out of me instead of removing my eligibility to play football for the school.

It had all happened at breakneck speed. One minute I was scribbling down notes on Stephenson’s Rocket, the next I’m walking into Mr. Young’s office with a tight arse.

With Doc Martin as we called him now well and truly back to his PE class, I was asked to stand facing the wall in the Head’s office in front of a large, framed picture of a Second World War Spitfire. Unfortunately, there was no non-reflective glass on the print and facing the wall could see Frank Young at the other end of his office, flexing his bamboo cane. I winced as he came rushing forward and thrashed that cane onto my arse. Returning to the back of his office he repeats each chapter until I have had six of the best. I leave the room, disgraced and in tears with a very sore backside.

Things didn’t get any easier as the following week I acquired a sixth detention and had loss of privileges anyway! That week I had a basketball match……no-one stepped forward.

Other sports I represented the school at were swimming, tennis, chess and cricket for just one match. But playing for the school in footie were the most memorable times of my school life. Mum and dad would come to most matches and mum would usually be seen standing in the rain alone while dad agreed to run the line. I hooked up with some great lads; Simon, Norman, Russ and Micky from ICHS, with Stephen, Anthony and Howard from other neighbouring schools. We would holiday together, have parties at someone’s house while their parents were away, play cards and some of the boys smoked but I absolutely hated it and have never smoked in my entire life. We would all end up in other schoolmate parties where there were very pretty girls.  

We would bring back bottles of beer and chat up girls around the Gants Hill Wimpy Bar. On Saturday nights, Gants Hill Odeon showed dodgy movies and we would all buy a ticket and watch some light porn with lots of wobbly bits. 

There was a great Indian restaurant in Gants Hill called The Curry Emporium. Their Mulligatawny soup was sensational. The Chinese restaurant was also superb although I cannot recall the name of it, or the smart English restaurant just around the corner on Cranbrook Road.

In Ilford, the American Hamburger bar was great but the best burgers I remember were found at an outlet near The Kings Hotel in Seven Kings.

I left Ilford County High at the age of sixteen with too few ‘O’ Levels to move into sixth form. I messed around too much, didn’t knuckle down and revise for my exams but failed seven of the ten efforts. 

I enrolled in an apprenticeship for a petrochemical piping designer in Holborn, London and I’m still doing this at 65! This meant an alarm clock each work day and walking to Gants Hill tube station where I would grab a Central Line train to Holborn.

As my teenage years moved along I started driving and managed to pass my driving test six weeks after my 17th birthday having only had five lessons! I was soon out and about with my old man’s Cortina Mark II and dad was not a happy camper when he used it just once a week and the fuel tank was on vapour. I bought myself a metallic pale green, 1600E. It had walnut dashboard and the birds loved it. My best friend Gary and I would head off to country pubs like The Retreat, Fairlop Oak, Hainault Oak and The Chequers in Barkingside while frequenting nightclubs like Oscars, Room At The Top and Tiffany’s every Saturday night when the last twenty minutes would be assigned to slow songs for slow dances.

So, after twenty years living in Middleton Gardens my mum and dad sadly divorced and it was time for us all to move on from Gants Hill. Dad moved to Abridge, mum and Caz to Colchester and Deb took off to Italy in 1978 and she never lived in England again. 

When Caz left school mum took her to Majorca where they had seven years running bars for the tourists. Caz later married a cloggy and moved to The Netherlands after a couple of years back in England in her early twenties. 

At the age of twenty I also moved on and took the first of many, overseas engineering assignments. This one with a picture below, in The Ivory Coast where I worked as a piping designer on a sugar refinery.

Truth is, I will never forget these years in Gants Hill. So many great memories, stories and people. Thank you to everyone who touched my world and made my time very special growing up in Middleton Gardens between 1958 and 1978.