THE1950s
0074 - Norman Killey
After Brian Wrench left our school, at the end of the fifth form, my best school-friend became Norman Killey. His parents lived nearby, in one of the very big houses in Oxton. This they ran as a hotel, so Norman spent much of his life in the caravan in the grounds, since his bedroom was needed by guests!
There are certain events I remember about Norman, but generally I just have a rather bland image of him as a very good friend. Norman also stayed on in the upper sixth, since he was also trying for Oxbridge. Unlike me, though, he did what was necessary. In particular he became an athlete, a long-distance runner, and that was what Cambridge wanted. As result he did get into Cambridge.
Even though his home was close to the school, I rarely went there; since it was used as a hotel and we got in the away. Generally, I suppose, we just hung out together while we were at school.
Paradoxically, my main memories of our time together came after I went to university. I lost touch with him almost immediately, as I did with all the other friends that I had at school. Fate brought us together again at the end of my first year at university, when the work placement people sent me to the Strowger works of the AT&T; to work in the lab there. To my astonishment, when I got there, I discovered that Norman was also working there in his vac job from Cambridge! So the first summer of university I spent largely with him. There wasn't really much work to do. Just about all I can remember is folding numbers of samples of polycarbonate film and very unscientifically tossing these in the air and to see if they broke on landing!
It was the physical lab, so it was fitted out with various pieces of sophisticated scientific kit. One of these, used to test telephones, was an anechoic chamber. We occasionally went in there, and it was an eerie experience – since, once the door was locked, there was not a sound to be heard, not even your own breathing. It was almost sensory deprivation.
I think I just messed about. Norman at least built a rig to test out various components. To load this, though, he brought together several hundred 150 watt lights on a board. This was precariously perched on top of a cupboard; filling the laboratory with brilliant light, on and off, day and night. Perhaps more important, the laboratory had a glass roof and we were under the flight path to Liverpool airport. I don't know what pilots thought of this very bright flashing light when they came into land!
One afternoon we tried some test for parapsychics; one of my more interesting hobbies. Thus Norman tossed a coin and I predicted what it was going to be: heads or tails. Eventually we completed 60 tosses in a row; all of which I got right. I imagine the odds on this must be something like trillions to one. Of course, as with most such parapsychology experiments, there was no one there to check us and we would have been dismissed as frauds. So we never mentioned this to anyone!
Also that summer I did eventually go back to Norman's house. One of the very few times I ever did so. We played tennis on their grass court; also something I rarely did, though I loved playing tennis. In my teens I used to spend hours knocking a ball against the side of the house, it was just that I never actually was able to actually put this into practice in tennis matches; where did an isolated teenager find a partner to play with? Anyway, this tennis match was mixed doubles with myself and Norman, his sister Jean and his girlfriend. Jean was an attractive, albeit slightly plump, girl; a nice handful anyway. We played until the sun had gone down. It was very late dusk when we moved on to mowing the tennis court, with the old mower that they used. All this time we were larking around as teenagers are wont to. However what I had not appreciated was that the mower was quite oily, which, mixed with the tennis whites which we were wearing, made for one of the most embarrassing moment in my life.
The denouement came when we went into the parents’ drawing-room. As we went in, blinking at the light, I looked at Jean, to see that her tennis whites were covered with beautiful oily handprints in all the strategic places. I never was allowed to see Jean again!
hits