Uncle Henry & My Incredible Life

My thanks to Literotica for being here for all writers and readers. Plus thanks to Randi for her editing skills.

*

How to describe my uncle Henry? He was a complicated chap. He was really as crooked as anything, yet he would never do anything to wrong another person.

Make no mistake, if someone tried to take the piss out of him, he would be an implacable foe and would deal with them accordingly.

In general, he did not, to use that age old expression, 'sail close to the wind' at times. What he would do was get a ruddy huge steamboat and sail wherever the fuck he wanted.

Our family originally came from the poorest part of Aston, near the city centre. Aston was a slum, but to be from the slum part of a slum was the very pits.

In spite of his humble beginnings, Henry always knew he was destined for great things, including great wealth. In fact, he was probably a millionaire several times over, and back in the 1950s and 1960s, that was a really big deal. Especially for someone coming from Aston.

Eventually, my dad and mom, plus Henry, moved from Aston to Ladywood, a slightly better area, which was a couple of miles away, on the other side of Birmingham's city centre. Uncle Henry lived in a large house a couple of streets from us.

His house had a fairly big yard behind it, from where he operated his various enterprises. This was before he moved a bit closer to Edgbaston. His adventures there will come later.

He had his fingers in many different pies. Immediately after the Great War (as it was then called) he had made a rapid fortune as a scrap metal dealer. Luckily for him, he'd been just too young to be called up for service.

He'd been in the USA during the mid-to-late 1920 and had made an absolute fortune during prohibition, but after making a killing by helping to run genuine Canadian booze into the San Francisco Bay area in an old tramp steamer, along with a legitimate trade in things like imported Canadian foods and the like, he realised the Mafia were moving in and he managed to skip back to Britain, after leaving a fortune in US banknotes in a safety deposit box in a San Francisco bank. He also had an account with the same bank. He'd bought some property in a prime area of the city, which was managed by a real estate company on his behalf.

During the Second World War, Uncle Henry had run black market operations in Brum, as we locals called our home city, but he had also put dances on for American service personnel. Despite some of Henry's moral failings he wasn't a racist, so when the American Armed Forces came to the Midlands after the US had joined Word War Two, he began organising dances for the Americans who were stationed in and around Birmingham. This was helped by the fact he'd picked up a love of jazz music whilst living in San Francisco and had a decent collection of jazz records, though he also had amassed a group of jazz musicians as his friends. Uncle Henry never learnt to play an instrument, though he did have perfect pitch.

Senior US officials tried to ban his no colour bar policy, meaning that the US Army did not want black Americans GIs to be allowed into the same dances as white GIs, but he told them to go away in forceful terms. Uncle Henry was definitely no racist, and despite the protests of the American commanders, Uncle Henry won. It paid to have friends in high places, it seems, like the city council.

He organised dance nights, talent shows and the likes, which were open to all races and proved very popular with many people in the city. They were especially the black service personnel and some of their white fellow GIs, mainly from the West Coast and the Northern states of America as it happened. They would help him by getting him supplies that were generally unavailable locally due to the war, rationing and needing to use official coupons to buy stuff like clothing, food and confectionery.

He made another fortune, much of it, again, in US Dollars.

The war meant many different things, most of them tinged with sadness, or worse. To me, it meant my fairly cosy life was ruthlessly shattered when a bombing raid of over 400 bombers laid waste to a vast portion of Birmingham city centre.

Our part of Ladywood was devastated. Our house, which was in a little courtyard just off Ledsam Street, was obliterated, killing my mom and trapping me in the wreckage.

I was pulled out by a fire crew from the fire station in Ladywood, plus some members of the Ladywood Home Guard Factory Unit and some special constables, plus an air-raid warden. I found all this out years later by chatting to the neighbours who had survived the darkest days of the Birmingham Blitz.

I remember as they pulled me out of the wreckage that one of them had shouted: "It's Dave Earp's little lad! I think he's gonna be okay. Can't find his mam, though! Will someone tell his dad?"

Another voice answered: "I 'ope 'is dad's all right. 'es reserved occupation, 'e works at the Birmingham Small Arms factory. They got a right pastin' tonight, they did!"

I was taken to the Birmingham Children's Hospital (or hospikal as we Brummies called hospitals, for some unknown reason) and declared remarkably well, given the circumstances. The Birmingham Children's Hospital was at Ladywood Middleway, a stone's throw from the ruins of our house.

As the disembodied voice had feared, my father had been killed in the raid on the BSA factory, where had had worked as a rifle proofer, a very important job, which was why he hadn't been called up. At nearly four years of age, I was an orphan.

They were puzzling over what to do with me, I was fit and well, if a little bruised. I heard vague mutterings about sending me to a children's home in Erdington and perhaps arranging a fostering place at some outfit in North Wales, when a large figure wearing an expensive looking Astrakhan Coat strode into the ward and sort of took charge.

He said: "That young man is my nephew, Paul Earp. My name is Henry Earp, his dad's older brother. I'll take young Paul home with me."

That was how I began my life living with my uncle Henry. It was a slightly strange lifestyle. In a part of the Birmingham city centre where the majority of houses were tightly packed back-to-back, Uncle Henry's house was by the Edgbaston Reservoir, (aka the Rezza) which was less than a mile from my former house, as it was actually in Ladywood, rather than in the slightly more distant and very posh suburb of Edgbaston. That is where Warwickshire plays county cricket, as it happens.

The only close relative we had was a maiden aunt who lived in a lovely house in a village called Hollywood, which was in Worcestershire, and although it was only about seven or eight miles to the south of Birmingham, it was, up until they basically wrecked it in the 1950s with massive housing developments, a rural community filled with farms. We used to visit her several times a year. I think it was the shock of these developments that precipitated her death, in 1955.

Uncle Henry had been widowed at an early age by a particularly virulent flu epidemic. He rarely talked about Gloria, his wife. He had been 19, she 18. They'd both had to get permission from their parents, as although the legal age for marriage was 16, the age of consent was 21. They had no children.

Pretty soon I realised that although he wasn't exactly crooked, a great deal of what my Uncle Henry did was not strictly legit. He wouldn't cheat anyone, but working a fiddle on the black market, selling stuff that people wanted to buy off ration, he was all for a bit of that.

Actually, a lot of what he sold off ration were tinned foods. Uncle Henry explained to me that he had realised that a second world war would be on the cards, so from 1936 until rationing of foodstuffs and the like was brought in during 1940, Uncle Henry stockpiled preserved foods, mainly tinned and bottled items, and he began discreetly selling them to the well-heeled of the posher and more well-to-do suburbs of Birmingham.

However, he did help to feed people who were on official duty in the city, like fire wardens, police officers, firemen, medical staff at the hospikals, Red Cross workers, Salvation Army, St Johns Ambulance Brigade and the like. The police, he didn't have to bribe, because they turned a blind eye to him and his suspect deals.

Uncle Harry was not averse to hard collar, as we Brummies' refer to hard work, but it wasn't all hard work. We'd visit the cinema (usually The Ledsam cinema in Ledsam Street, though I think it was really called The Regent Cinema), plus we'd go to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on most Sundays.

Sometimes we'd even go to church, we'd attend the Annibynwyr Welsh language chapel, can't quite recall which part of Brum that was in, but we took a bus to get there. Uncle Henry did this in memory of my mom; when I asked him why, as the only Welsh word I knew was cwtsh, which my Welsh mom taught me. It meant cuddle. Funny, the things you remember, but they were always very welcoming and kind to us. I think Uncle Henry helped them out with donations for roof repairs, the purchase of Welsh language hymnals and the like.

I helped him with his work, as much as a little scrap of a lad could help, but he was very keen that I should gain an education, something he explained to me he'd never had the chance to get, but wanted to make sure that I got. So, I want to the Birmingham Oratory School and eventually I found myself attending the Birmingham College of Advanced Technology, gaining a degree in English and business studies when I was 22, in 1963.

After the war, Uncle Henry had taken the probably very wise decision to get rid of his more insalubrious businesses and to concentrate on legitimate business enterprises.

One of those was a publishing house called the Birmingham and District Periodical Publishing Company, or BDP as it was more commonly known. Its main title was the Midland Business Digest, a monthly magazine aimed at providing local business with news of business opportunities of interest to them. It was highly and outrageously successful, even more so than Uncle Henry had expected.

One day, when I was in my mid-twenties, Uncle Henry decided to have a serious talk. "Our Paul, what exactly do you want to do with your life?"

That set me thinking. After a pause I responded. "Well, continue to help you run the magazine, eventually settle down and get married."

He pulled a face, and shook his head. "Well, that's all well and good, but you got your degree and I want more for you. Let's face it, Britain has had its day. Two World Wars have left us all but an economic cripple. The Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, was murdered and we are left with that smug, self-satisfied clown Harold Wilson as Prime Minister. And what is the government's answer to our economic woes? Close down one third of the bloody railway network! And the perishin' Tories were no better!"

"What do you suggest I should do, Uncle Henry?"

"As you know, I have certain business interests in America. Well, the San Francisco area of California, to be more precise. What I want to do is to open an American office of the Birmingham and District Periodical Publishing Company, to feed business related stories back to the Midlands Business Digest.

"Why San Francisco, you might ask? Because to my way of thinking, New York is old hat, Washington is full of political leeches and windbags, and Los Angeles is tinsel town, and not to be taken serious. I have a good feeling about San Francisco. I feel it's going to be going places in the very near future."

He was right, as it turned out. Probably more right than he could have guessed.

"Right, young Paul! You are going to get yourself a passport, I'm arranging for a work visa from the US consular office in Brum, and you'll get yourself a nice pair of suits from Burton's. And don't worry about flights to the USA, you are very lucky. BOAC have just launched a flight from Heathrow to San Francisco via New York. And you'll start as I mean for you to continue. You'll get a first class train ticket from Snow Hill to Paddington, then the Underground to Heathrow Airport. And as you are an officer of BDP, you will fly first class, too."

He also advised me to take a minimal amount of clothing, as he thought it advisable to buy most of my clothing locally in San Francisco so I wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb, as he put it.

He gave me a letter of introduction to present to the bank and a key to a safety deposit box and the details of the account with the bank, the Bay Area Mercantile Banking Corporation, which I was to use to launch the American office of BDP.

Uncle Henry also gave me the address of the property that BDP owned in San Francisco. Apparently, it was not far from the Embarcadero, and as luck would have it, I found out later, a step or two away from the dreadful Embarcadero freeway. I mean, what the Hell were the San Francisco City Fathers thinking, for goodness sake?

I must admit that I was relishing the idea. I had no ties to keep me in Birmingham, or Britain, except for my Uncle Henry. My last girlfriend had dumped me in favour of the youngest son of a butcher in Birmingham Market. "He's got more prospects than you have," she explained, sympathetically. "He's won prizes for his own special recipe pork sausage, you know!"

"Dear me, Dolly," I thought, "if only you'd have waited a little while, you, Dolly Savage, could have been flying first class to the USA, with me!" I thought about sending her a letter in advance, or a postcard from San Francisco, but I decided that would be petty and beneath an officer of BDP. Though it was very tempting, let me tell you.

So it was, that in early October 1964 I wished my Uncle goodbye at Snow Hill Station, under a giant, internally illuminated sign for HP Sauce, which at that time, was made in Aston, Birmingham, which would fill that part of the city centre with the delicious aroma of boiling HP fruit sauce.

The journey by a steam-powered Snow Hill to Paddington express was a doddle, and getting across London to Heathrow Airport via the Tube was not as difficult as I'd feared, although I'd only ever been to London three times before.

I booked into to the Fortes Airport Hotel to spend a night in great comfort and some style, before I headed off to the nearby airport (a short taxi ride away in a ubiquitous black cab) to catch my VC10, which departed at 12 noon.

We stopped at New York to refuel (and, possibly, for a flight crew change, I can't quite recall) and carried on to San Francisco International Airport. In total, we flew for a little over 12 hours (not counting the pause at New York) and I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of it. Especially as it was first class, with some really nice cabin attendants who looked after their passengers very well indeed.

Getting through customs was relatively easy, and I booked a ride on a Westland-Bell SK-5 Hovercraft, operated by an outfit called, I seem to recall, San Francisco and Oakland Helicopter Airlines. I'd seen newsreel footage of hovercraft at the news-reel cinema, the Jacey Tatler Cinema, in Station Street, just round the corner from New Street Station, in Brum, so I was thrilled to be able to book a ride on one.

I was starting to feel a bit knackered, what with what would become known as jetlag, so I caught a cab to the BDP offices and I made my way in the lift to my top-floor flat. To the right, I could see the dreadful concrete highway, but straight ahead I could see San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Prison Island, which, with a shudder, I realised had only closed down two years before I arrived in San Francisco.

Uncle Henry had got the agents to freshen up the flat, sorry, apartment, and to provide some snacks and some bottles of pop.

I showered, ate and drank and fell into a deep and wonderful sleep. I was now in my new home. And loving it!

The next morning I had a shower, finished up some of the snacks and pop, though I realised I'd have to remember to call it soda now I was in the States. I also reset my watch from British time to Californian time.

I got dressed in jeans and a tee shirt and decided to take a look at the building. On the top floor was my spacious three bedroom apartment, which had a kitchen and a dining room, plus a lounge. The master bedroom had a modest but nice patio area that looked out over the Bay. What a view!

There were four floors to the building, the apartment, the BDP offices on the next floor, beneath that was a company called Baytech, on the next level, the ground, was a lobby area and a coffee shop, plus a store to one side that sold newspapers and pretty much anything else you could think of.

I knocked on the door of Baytech and walked in, when invited. There was a woman inside who was quite large, in a muscular way, but also rather attractive, with blond hair in a bob.

"Hello, can I help you?"

"Hello. My name is Paul Earp."

She looked puzzled. "Earp? As in Wyatt Earp, the US Marshal of 'Gunfight at the OK Carrel' fame?"

I closed the door behind me and shook my head. "I'm sorry, I don't know. But Earp is an old family name in Birmingham, England, where I come from. I suppose we might be related somewhere in the distant past, but I don't know."

She smiled. "It doesn't matter. I was just being nosey. My name is June Tabour. I own Baytech, which is an electronics research company. How can I help you, Mr Earp?"

"You can help me, I hope. I work for my uncle, Henry Earp, who owns this building. I am going to launch a US base for our publishing company, BDP, using the offices on the floor that's beneath my apartment that I just moved in to. Obviously, I want to know how things are. How the agent works with you and for you. It's been a bit difficult for my Uncle to keep tabs on things as he was last in San Francisco well before World War Two broke out, and with communications limited to airmail letters and the odd telegram, I'm sorry to say we might have let things slip, a little bit.

"Would you care to join me in the coffee shop downstairs so you can fill me in, please? My treat, of course."

She agreed and we walked down to the coffee shop.

We sat down with two very large cups of coffee and she said: "Do you have a business card?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. I only arrived from England, yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to get anything sorted. If you have anyone you can recommend who can do print jobs like business cards, and the like, please give me their details."

She smiled. "Yeah, I have a young lady runs a print shop back of the Embarcadero. She's good and reasonably priced, too. So, tell me about yourself, Paul. I have known several Brits, but none with your cute accent. Where are you from, exactly?"

We then spent a pleasant hour chatting, sharing our life stories, plus a mutual interest in electronics, though mine was merely amateur tinkering, building simple radios from designs in Practical Wireless magazine.

I told her about my fairly traumatic start in life, about my Uncle Henry and all that he'd done for me. I told her all I knew about Birmingham and the wider Midlands region, she told me about her life. She was nearly 28, a few years older than me; born locally, she had attended Stanford University and had gained greatly from what she described as the amazing efforts of the Provost, Frederick Terman.

"He even invested some money in my company, Baytech Electronic Research. He's a truly inspirational man," she explained. "He actually encourages his students to start their own companies, like he encouraged me. And I wasn't the only student business he invested in. I only hope that I can live up to his expectations of me."

She asked me if I had anyone 'back home' a sweetheart or a love interest. I explained my slightly sad story of Dolly Savage. She nodded and smiled. "Boy! Is she ever in for a shock! She will be married to a butcher's boy and here you are, running the American side of your family business!"