Bingo, beer & Andy Capp Britain
The ‘best prime minister we never had’ is sitting on a tangerine chaise longue in The Lady offices, drinking a cup of black tea and talking about nappies, chauvinism and elastic bands. The Labour MP, former Home Secretary, and now acclaimed writer, who once was tipped for the top job, has just published the second part of his memoirs: Please, Mister Postman. Charting his early career in the Post Office, it paints a vivid portrait of 1970s England, a nicotine-stained nation of bingo halls and bitter, where men were men and women wore pinnies.
‘It all seems bizarre and strange now… and I admit I was kind of guilty of it,’ he confesses. ‘With three small children, my first wife still did all the washing, changed the nappies, washed the nappies… did all the washing by hand, did all of that. She cooked, too – I never went anywhere near a gas stove. Not until my 30s.’
Orphaned at the age of 13, Johnson was brought up by his teenage sister, Linda, a story told in his first book, This Boy, which won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. The sequel begins in 1967 when, aged 17, he is looking forward to hitting the big time with his band, the In-Betweens.
The following year, however, has a few surprises up its sleeve, not least ‘marriage, fatherhood, a new job as a postman’. Like millions of other Britons, Johnson’s young family had no car, fridge, vacuum cleaner, washing machine or phone. And the endless day-to-day chores fell exclusively to his wife, Judy. In fact, in many ways, 1971 wasn’t all that different from 1951.
‘It’s not as if I can mitigate my appalling record of domestic inertia by claiming that I was any kind of handyman. It was Judy who changed the fuses and wired the plugs,’ Johnson writes.
‘I’m conscious that this creates a fair impression of Andy Capp; of a bloke with a self-centred social life that left his wife to look after the kids, cook, wash and make a comfortable home. And that was pretty much the division of labour back then. I worked as many hours as I could to bring home the bacon and Judy ran everything else. My boozing may have been confined to Friday evenings and Sunday lunchtimes and my gambling to Sunday bingo and cards, but I was none the less perpetuating the male lifestyle adopted by my father…’
As a politician known for his strong sense of social justice, Johnson is, of course, more than relieved that Britain is now a substantially more equal place. In fact, he tells me that his ‘two abiding passions are great equality and the abolition of poverty’.
Fifty years ago, however, sexism, racism and homophobia were rife. ‘[The black immigrant] Kelso Cochrane was murdered on the corner of my street,’ Johnson says. ‘You could put signs in shop windows: Room to let, no Irish, no dogs, no blacks. The law changed that.
‘The law also allowed women to do jobs that they were previously barred from… I think the law has a very important role to play, similarly, with homosexuality and things like that… It becomes the excepted norm that you don’t treat people that way; you don’t deride people that way. It might still happen in dark corners and under people’s breath in the privacy of their own room, but no one would do it in polite society.’
So, ultimately, you have to legislate for tolerance?
‘The law can set a standard of behaviour… the law eventually stopped 13-year-olds being shoved up chimneys… law is necessary,’ he says. ‘It’s what takes us from being Philistines and barbarians and cavemen to a modern culture and what is acceptable behaviour. The problem is that people make the laws, of course.’
Johnson certainly hasn’t had it easy, the central tragedy of Please, Mister Postman being the suicide at 34 of his beloved brother-in-law, Mike – ‘the kindest, gentlest, most decent man I’d ever know’ – who had spent years successfully hiding a prodigious alcohol problem.
1. A young Johnson with daughters Natalie and Emma 2. Alan Johnson visits The Lady
In the flesh, however, talking about his book, Johnson is rather jollier and jazzier than his political persona. He is wearing an easy smile, ironed black trousers and a slightly shiny blue shirt. He is likeable, open, optimistic. In fact, I get the impression that he believes we modern Brits just don’t appreciate how good things are.
In his book, Johnson introduces Johnny Farugia, the delightfully eccentric and hard-working Maltese manager of the shop he worked in as a teenager. ‘You ****in’ Brits, you dun deserve dis country,’ Farugia would tell his staff . ‘Always you moan. You dun appreciate wad you got.’
Four decades on, did Farugia have a point? ‘Yeah,’ says Johnson (his speech is peppered with colloquialisms). ‘That’s the case I always make about the people in Hull [his constituency as an MP]. Anyone who comes from Hull moans about it all the time. I come from London, the people who come from outside the place, come into Hull and think it is a wonderful place. And if you put that on a larger scale with Britain, we moan about this country, but Jesus, if we went to some countries in the world, we would soon want to get back.’
Once considered a future occupant of Number 10, does he ever regret not going all the way? ‘Better to be the best prime minister we never had than that bloody useless Johnson running the place.’
And besides, there are advantages to being out of the limelight as a backbench MP. At least you aren’t required to eat a bacon sandwich for the cameras at 5am, a stunt that recently backfi red on Labour leader, Ed Miliband. After all, can anyone look glamorous with a mouthful of breakfast bap?
‘I think that would be a question Ed Miliband would be asking now!’ Johnson chuckles. ‘I don’t know why the people around him allowed him to do that. You cannot eat a bacon sandwich elegantly at 5.30 in the morning.’
Of course, this week, politics is all about Scotland. So how does Johnson feel about the vote? ‘I’m appalled by the prospect that there might even be a close vote,’ he says. ‘To me, the union of the United Kingdom, the vision of a shared, wider future on this very small island… must be the progressive way forward. Narrow nationalism is… not progressive.’
And as a former postman, what does he think about the plague of red elastic bands, used by postal workers and then discarded, which now blight so many British streets?
‘Well, we did our bit – we, the London postmen,’ Johnson replies. ‘When I joined in 1968, the Post Office was trying to encourage us to use elastic bands. We had used twine, and we were taught how to do a slipknot for our bundles. Having learnt the skill, we were reluctant to be deskilled by using these elastic bands, so we just continued to use the string. ‘I challenge any one of your readers to have seen a piece of this string thrown on the ground, because when you fi nished your bundle, you put the string back in your bag to tie your next bundle. So that would have solved the problem. I’m afraid you have to blame the management of what was then the GPO in the late 1960s for the scourge of elastic bands. Not the union. We argued against new technology. There is no need for elastic bands.’
When he’s not writing, Johnson loves music. He was in several bands in his youth and, after giving up for the 11 years he was a minister, he has again taken up the guitar. But would he ever return to the stage?
‘Well, I’m younger than McCartney and Jagger,’ he points out.
And what would his band be called?
‘It wouldn’t be Ugly Rumours, that’s for sure!’
How about Alan and the Postmen?
‘Maybe The Silly Old Sods,’ he laughs. ‘Or The Post Cards… something like that.’
Look out, Kate Bush.
Please, Mister Postman by Alan Johnson (Bantam Press, £16.99).
‘It all seems bizarre and strange now… and I admit I was kind of guilty of it,’ he confesses. ‘With three small children, my first wife still did all the washing, changed the nappies, washed the nappies… did all the washing by hand, did all of that. She cooked, too – I never went anywhere near a gas stove. Not until my 30s.’
Orphaned at the age of 13, Johnson was brought up by his teenage sister, Linda, a story told in his first book, This Boy, which won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. The sequel begins in 1967 when, aged 17, he is looking forward to hitting the big time with his band, the In-Betweens.
The following year, however, has a few surprises up its sleeve, not least ‘marriage, fatherhood, a new job as a postman’. Like millions of other Britons, Johnson’s young family had no car, fridge, vacuum cleaner, washing machine or phone. And the endless day-to-day chores fell exclusively to his wife, Judy. In fact, in many ways, 1971 wasn’t all that different from 1951.
‘It’s not as if I can mitigate my appalling record of domestic inertia by claiming that I was any kind of handyman. It was Judy who changed the fuses and wired the plugs,’ Johnson writes.
‘I’m conscious that this creates a fair impression of Andy Capp; of a bloke with a self-centred social life that left his wife to look after the kids, cook, wash and make a comfortable home. And that was pretty much the division of labour back then. I worked as many hours as I could to bring home the bacon and Judy ran everything else. My boozing may have been confined to Friday evenings and Sunday lunchtimes and my gambling to Sunday bingo and cards, but I was none the less perpetuating the male lifestyle adopted by my father…’
As a politician known for his strong sense of social justice, Johnson is, of course, more than relieved that Britain is now a substantially more equal place. In fact, he tells me that his ‘two abiding passions are great equality and the abolition of poverty’.
Fifty years ago, however, sexism, racism and homophobia were rife. ‘[The black immigrant] Kelso Cochrane was murdered on the corner of my street,’ Johnson says. ‘You could put signs in shop windows: Room to let, no Irish, no dogs, no blacks. The law changed that.
‘The law also allowed women to do jobs that they were previously barred from… I think the law has a very important role to play, similarly, with homosexuality and things like that… It becomes the excepted norm that you don’t treat people that way; you don’t deride people that way. It might still happen in dark corners and under people’s breath in the privacy of their own room, but no one would do it in polite society.’
So, ultimately, you have to legislate for tolerance?
‘The law can set a standard of behaviour… the law eventually stopped 13-year-olds being shoved up chimneys… law is necessary,’ he says. ‘It’s what takes us from being Philistines and barbarians and cavemen to a modern culture and what is acceptable behaviour. The problem is that people make the laws, of course.’
Johnson certainly hasn’t had it easy, the central tragedy of Please, Mister Postman being the suicide at 34 of his beloved brother-in-law, Mike – ‘the kindest, gentlest, most decent man I’d ever know’ – who had spent years successfully hiding a prodigious alcohol problem.
1. A young Johnson with daughters Natalie and Emma 2. Alan Johnson visits The LadyIn the flesh, however, talking about his book, Johnson is rather jollier and jazzier than his political persona. He is wearing an easy smile, ironed black trousers and a slightly shiny blue shirt. He is likeable, open, optimistic. In fact, I get the impression that he believes we modern Brits just don’t appreciate how good things are.
In his book, Johnson introduces Johnny Farugia, the delightfully eccentric and hard-working Maltese manager of the shop he worked in as a teenager. ‘You ****in’ Brits, you dun deserve dis country,’ Farugia would tell his staff . ‘Always you moan. You dun appreciate wad you got.’
Four decades on, did Farugia have a point? ‘Yeah,’ says Johnson (his speech is peppered with colloquialisms). ‘That’s the case I always make about the people in Hull [his constituency as an MP]. Anyone who comes from Hull moans about it all the time. I come from London, the people who come from outside the place, come into Hull and think it is a wonderful place. And if you put that on a larger scale with Britain, we moan about this country, but Jesus, if we went to some countries in the world, we would soon want to get back.’
Once considered a future occupant of Number 10, does he ever regret not going all the way? ‘Better to be the best prime minister we never had than that bloody useless Johnson running the place.’
And besides, there are advantages to being out of the limelight as a backbench MP. At least you aren’t required to eat a bacon sandwich for the cameras at 5am, a stunt that recently backfi red on Labour leader, Ed Miliband. After all, can anyone look glamorous with a mouthful of breakfast bap?
‘I think that would be a question Ed Miliband would be asking now!’ Johnson chuckles. ‘I don’t know why the people around him allowed him to do that. You cannot eat a bacon sandwich elegantly at 5.30 in the morning.’
Of course, this week, politics is all about Scotland. So how does Johnson feel about the vote? ‘I’m appalled by the prospect that there might even be a close vote,’ he says. ‘To me, the union of the United Kingdom, the vision of a shared, wider future on this very small island… must be the progressive way forward. Narrow nationalism is… not progressive.’
And as a former postman, what does he think about the plague of red elastic bands, used by postal workers and then discarded, which now blight so many British streets?
‘Well, we did our bit – we, the London postmen,’ Johnson replies. ‘When I joined in 1968, the Post Office was trying to encourage us to use elastic bands. We had used twine, and we were taught how to do a slipknot for our bundles. Having learnt the skill, we were reluctant to be deskilled by using these elastic bands, so we just continued to use the string. ‘I challenge any one of your readers to have seen a piece of this string thrown on the ground, because when you fi nished your bundle, you put the string back in your bag to tie your next bundle. So that would have solved the problem. I’m afraid you have to blame the management of what was then the GPO in the late 1960s for the scourge of elastic bands. Not the union. We argued against new technology. There is no need for elastic bands.’
When he’s not writing, Johnson loves music. He was in several bands in his youth and, after giving up for the 11 years he was a minister, he has again taken up the guitar. But would he ever return to the stage?
‘Well, I’m younger than McCartney and Jagger,’ he points out.
And what would his band be called?
‘It wouldn’t be Ugly Rumours, that’s for sure!’
How about Alan and the Postmen?
‘Maybe The Silly Old Sods,’ he laughs. ‘Or The Post Cards… something like that.’
Look out, Kate Bush.
Please, Mister Postman by Alan Johnson (Bantam Press, £16.99).