Making it so, p.1
Making It So, page 1
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To the memory of Ruth Wynn Owen and Cecil Dormand: inspirational teachers not only of English literature, but also of acting and the meaning of theater
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whippt them not: and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherisht by our virtues.
—William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
Chapter One
We called it t’bottom field, never wondering where, in relation to “t’bottom,” t’middle field and t’top field might be. Reflections of this kind were pointless in our working-class corner of Northern England—not just to us kids, but to the whole community. They led you nowhere, and had you been foolish enough to articulate them aloud, you’d have been given a belt round the ear and a lecture: “Who the bloody hell does tha think tha art, asking stupid bloody questions like that? Ya want to get a grip, lad.”
All of us lads lived either on Camm Lane or the street with which it intersected, Towngate. Enough mystery in those names alone to attract several ear-belts. What the heck did “Camm” mean? I had no idea then, but I have since learned that the word is English of Norman ancestry: a habitational name for someone from the French city of Caen. “Habitational.” The mere utterance of such a mildly erudite word would have gotten me kicked off to bed without any supper.
And what about “Towngate”? There was no proper town or gate to be seen anywhere. It was a little cobbled lane with a short row of houses and, behind them, a triangular lot with houses on two sides. Like the dwellings on Camm Lane, these houses were small and austere, mostly “one up, one down.” Those of us privileged to live on Camm Lane looked down upon the Towngate kids because, compared to us, they appeared slovenly and their environment coarser—there always seemed to be a lot of yelling coming from that direction. Nevertheless, two of my friends lived there. My pal Fred’s family was so hard up that he wore Wellington boots to school, without socks, every season of the year.
Mirfield, my hometown, sits in what was known as the West Riding of Yorkshire: the westernmost subdivision of Yorkshire, the United Kingdom’s largest county. People who know me from my stage work or as Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard are often surprised to learn that I come from the North of England. The North, as we call it, is analogous to the industrial Rust Belt in the United States: blue-collar and tough, with cultures and attitudes distinct from the snootier South, and London in particular.
During my childhood, Mirfield had a population of around nine thousand. Along the river stood several weaving sheds, a humble term for what were, in fact, textile mills that rose four or five stories high. My mother, Gladys, worked in one of them. The rest of our local economy was agricultural, with farms that grew corn, wheat, brussels sprouts, and kale. This kale was not destined for fancy salads. It was grown solely to feed livestock, which must have been why the Mirfield cows always looked so healthy. Their milk was delivered not in cartons or bottles but in large pails on a rickety cart drawn by an old horse. The dairyman ladled the milk by hand into my mother’s large kitchen jug. It was often still a little warm when it arrived, and it was delicious. I don’t believe pasteurization was a part of the process.
T’bottom field, my refuge, was one of several fields in the area that were left unplanted, reserved for occasional use by grazing cattle and sheep. This field was also the site of parish church festivals, summer bring-and-buy sales, brass band concerts, and football and cricket matches. In September 1945, when I was five years old, it was where the town’s adults held a V-E (Victory in Europe) picnic celebration for us children.
In certain corners of t’bottom field, the grass grew tall. One of my private pleasures was to lie on my back among this grass and watch the clouds drift across the sky. At times they formed recognizable shapes: animals, castles, sailing ships, mountains. These were a marvelous tickler of my imagination and afternoon dreams.
I had many flying dreams. I loved them. All I had to do to get airborne was gently flap my arms up and down. I would rise slowly and vertically, higher and higher, never fearful, until I reached a point where I maneuvered myself into a horizontal position. From there I would swoop down, leveling out and flying fast, just above the ground. Then I’d suddenly lift my head and climb back up again until I was flying between the clouds. For some reason, I never went above the clouds in these dreams. Maybe this was because Mirfield boys like me weren’t expected to have lofty ambitions. Certainly none that would ever take me into outer space.
* * *
I was born on July 13, 1940, on a Saturday afternoon around five o’clock. My father was away at war. My arrival was slightly delayed because my mother’s midwife, having examined my mother that morning, decided that I was not yet ready to appear and declared that she was going to a movie matinee at the Vale Cinema, half a mile away in the center of Mirfield.
But not long after the midwife’s departure, my mother’s water broke and I was on my way. I suspect that, having heard the midwife say that she was going to the pictures, I had decided that I wanted to know what movie she was seeing, who was in it, and who directed it. A neighbor of my mam’s volunteered to go to the cinema to fetch the midwife. But my mother, a kindly soul who loved the movies, refused this offer, saying that she could hang on until the midwife got back.
So, there I was, eager to get out but delayed by my mother’s determination to let the midwife enjoy her movie until the end. I like to think that it was then, patiently waiting in the birth canal, that I came to understand that movies are important, and that acting was to be the main purpose of my life—that is, as soon as it could get started. In any event, my mother and I held on. The midwife arrived in due time and out I came: not exactly camera-ready, but after a slap on the bottom and a quick hosing-down, I was ready for my close-up.
I was named after my father, sort of. Though his given name was Alfred, his army buddies called him Pat. This was because he had a temper, and where I grew up, “throwing a Paddy” was slang (and an anti-Irish slur) for pitching a fit. On account of my father being English rather than Irish, “Paddy” got Anglicized to “Pat.” He embraced the nickname. Before he went away to war in 1939, he instructed my pregnant mother to name me Patricia if I was a girl and Patrick if I was a boy.
Though he was a stranger to me in my early life, I learned that my father was a fierce, formidable man. In the 1920s and ’30s he served in India as a member of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry: the KOYLIs, as they were known. He rose in rank from private to sergeant, earning a row of ribbons that he wore proudly on his chest. By the time of Britain’s entry into World War II, he was already in his forties but nonetheless an eager founding member of the British Army’s esteemed Parachute Regiment.
Though he was arguably too old to be jumping out of airplanes, the regiment used my father’s age to their advantage as a recruiting tool. He had a small, defiant mustache and, like all the men in my family, a prematurely bald head. The recruiting officer would have Dad stand beside him. At a crucial moment in his recruiting speech, he would nod at Dad, who then whipped off his red beret to reveal his hairless pate. The officer scornfully addressed the young soldiers, yelling at them, “What’s wrong with you lot? If an old man like this can jump out of planes, shouldn’t you be doing it as well? Or are you all too lily-livered?” It worked; the conscripts queued up to become clones of my father, Sergeant Stewart.
Years later, my father explained to me why the soldiers in the Airborne Divisions were such outstanding fighters. Twice during the war, he had jumped, under fire, into German-held territory. Every soldier who boarded the transport plane was initially fearful, he said. But once they survived the experience of jumping out and their parachutes opening, they became utterly fearless. Dad said he had heard men singing and whistling, playfully calling out to their fellow parachutists as they floated through the air. And those who made it safely to the earth, freeing themselves of their parachutes without getting shot, became unstoppable warriors.
Well, after hearing this, I promised myself that I would also become a parachutist. Like my father, I, too, would boldly see the clouds from above! The only difference was that I would never have to worry about being shot at as I floated down. I was downright impatient for this experience as a boy. But somehow, it… just hasn’t happened. Not long ago I read a news story about an eighty-year-old grandmother who jumped out of a plane while tethered to an experienced parachutist. She landed safely on the ground and had the time of her life. Good for her—but what I’ve come to realize is that I prefer to live in my dreams.
My father did not live long enough to see me become Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I have often wondered what he would have made of Star Trek: The Next Generation—the spectacle of his son, who strongly resembled him and was forty-six years old when cast, commanding an interplanetary spacecraft. Would he have been proud? Would he have wanted to have been aboard the starship Enterprise, standing over my shoulder, nudging me when the moment came for Captain Picard to say “Engage”?
In fact, h e was very much with me. But it would take me years to comprehend this.
* * *
My wife, Sunny, loves to tell friends that I had a Victorian childhood. In many respects, she is right. One of my earliest memories is of sitting atop the steps that led to the yard in front of our house, 17 Camm Lane, and watching the lamplighter light the gas lamps along our street. He came around every day at dusk. With one pole he opened the hinged pane on the lamp. Then he turned on the gas, and with another pole lit the flame. I used to shout “ ’ello!” to this man, and he would respond with either “Ay oop!” (“Look out!”) or “Ow do?” (“How are you?”). How much more Dickensian can you get?
We spoke with heavy Northern accents, in a Yorkshire dialect nearly incomprehensible to Londoners, let alone Americans. “Hello” was rendered in our tongue as “ow do.” “Nothing” was “nowt.” “The window” was “t’winder.” “Leave me alone” was “Geroff!” If I wanted to ask a pal to come out to play, I would say to him, “Ata laykin aht?” “Ata,” descended from “art thou,” meant “are you.” “Laykin” is a very old word for playing; in Shakespeare’s day, actors were sometimes called lakers. “Aht” is “out.”
Our house, and four others just like it, were arranged around an elevated yard set back from the street. It was eight steps to the top, a number I clearly remember from a game my pals and I played, hopping up and down the steps while counting. I should explain what I mean by “yard.” It was a big rectangle of crushed cinders and dirt bordered by large slabs of stone in front of each house. In front of each door was a boot scraper to help you get the cinders off the soles of your shoes before you entered the house. I am still unaccustomed to the American usage of the word “yard.” Our house in Los Angeles has both a front and a back yard, but these, to me, are more like lovely gardens.
Just to the right of my childhood home were two air-raid shelters known as Anderson shelters. They must have been put in place right around the time I was born. They were made of corrugated steel and half-buried in the ground, with curved roofs. These shelters were meant to serve all five houses in the yard, but I don’t recall them ever being used. When the sirens went off, which was a rare occurrence, we hurried across the road in our pajamas and dressing gowns to the big stone cellar of my Auntie Annie’s house.
The only function the Andersons ever served for me was as a private spot for an innocuous age-nine kiss and cuddle with a girl. But not quite private enough: One afternoon, as I was taking shelter, as it were, with my female friend, our moment of intimacy was interrupted by our next-door neighbor, Lizzie Dixon. Lizzie was an otherwise kind woman who, like my mother, worked in the weaving sheds, as did her husband, Gilbert. She just happened to poke her head through the shelter’s opening at an inopportune moment. When she caught sight of what this girl and I were up to, Lizzie told us off in no uncertain terms. To her credit, she never ratted us out to our parents.
* * *
17 Camm Lane, as I have said, was a classic “one up, one down.” The ground floor had a front door—there were no others—that opened straight into the living room. This room was square, with a large window to the left of the front door that looked out onto the cinder yard. Upon entering, you came upon two stone steps with another door above them, which opened to a flight of steps, also stone, leading to the upper floor. Below this staircase was another door and another flight of stairs, leading downward to the cellar.
Let’s start there, in the cellar. Everything was bare stone or brick. Against one wall, and attached to it, was a stone table. On that stood what my parents called the “safe.” Its contents were not precious valuables but food: fresh meat, bacon, vegetables, and milk. The safe’s door was covered in mesh so that the cellar’s cold air could penetrate it, but not the bugs. I remember Sunny’s shock when she asked me how we kept things cold, and I told her that I grew up with no refrigeration of any kind.
The cellar was divided in half by a brick wall, and behind this wall was a coal chute coming down from the yard outside. Our coal arrived in bags carried on the backs of deliverymen, who dumped them next to an iron lid in the stone pavement in front of our house. These bags were then tipped over so that the coal could empty into the cellar. This process created a lot of coal dust that the mesh in the safe couldn’t keep out, so every item of food that was brought up from the cellar had to be washed.
In the center of the ground-floor living room stood a large wooden table with four wooden chairs around it. There was no upholstery on these chairs. There was a sideboard where cutlery, plates, and glasses were kept, as well as my jigsaw puzzles and board games. Well, I say “games,” but there was only one, Monopoly, which I loved to play.
It’s strange now to reflect on a game about money and property being the primary source of entertainment in a household as poor as ours. I loved owning Mayfair and Park Lane, though I had no idea what those names represented except wealth. I also loved owning the railway stations, all four if possible, which doubled the fines of other players landing on them. If I was playing with pals, I always insisted on being the banker, but if I played with my brothers or parents, I was considered unqualified for the job.
I still have this Monopoly set. The original box is long gone, but the cash, cards, and game board, while faded and dog-eared, have survived from my youth. Occasionally, when I visit the homes of friends these days, I will see a Monopoly box sitting on a shelf, and the urge to play almost overwhelms me.
The floor of our living room was covered in ancient and cracked linoleum, with a smallish handmade rag rug set down in front of the fireplace. Ah, the fireplace. It was the centerpiece of our house. It was made entirely of black iron, but my mother cared for it as if it were made of marble. She polished it every week with a paste she called “blacking,” and when she was done, it shone.
In wintertime, you would find me sprawled on the living-room rug in front of this fireplace, usually in the company of our family dog, a handsome Border Collie named Rover. I firmly believe that Rover recognized me to be the youngest Stewart and took it upon himself to cosset and cuddle me. I was only ten when he passed away, and I missed him dearly thereafter.
In the fireplace’s center was a grate in which we burned the coal from the cellar, or, if times were hard, coke. I loved this fire, though I was never allowed to touch it. The first and only time I picked up the poker to have a go, my father, who happened to be home at the time, grabbed it from my hand and said firmly, “Never touch another man’s fire.” I have passed on this lesson to my children and grandchildren.
To the right of the grate was a hot plate, heated by the coals underneath, on which it was possible to boil water or heat up soup or broth. To the left of the grate, also heated by the coals, was the oven, in which my mother cooked joints of meat. But the fire’s main function was to heat the room, which it did beautifully. For years, that fire was the only source of heat in the house, though by the time I was in my early teens, a small fan heater had been purchased.
To the left of the fireplace was a shallow stone sink with a cold-water tap above it. That was it for us—no running hot water. To the side of the sink was a small gas ring burner, where water could be boiled if there was no fire.
Up the stone steps was a small landing with a door into my parents’ bedroom. To the left of their door was a narrower, flimsier door behind which was a double bed that I shared with my brother Trevor, five years older than me. I suppose that this would have made our home, technically, a “two up, one down.” But in name only—the bed took up almost all the space in the room. There was barely enough clearance to open the door, and behind the door stood a very small wardrobe where our few clothes were kept. The wall that separated the two bedrooms was very thin, and sounds in one room could be clearly heard in the other, which led to some uncomfortable though intriguing noises.
Above one side of our shared bed was a double-paned window. Throughout the winter or in wet weather, it was kept closed. But on summer evenings, after I had been put to bed, I opened the bottom pane, and the sill was exactly level with the bed. I could hear the voices of my parents and our neighbors as they sat on their doorsteps gossiping and passing the time of day. They kept their voices quiet, as there were several other children’s bedrooms overlooking the yard. But occasionally my ears could make out a laugh, or the sound of a match being struck to light a cigarette. I loved those warm evenings and friendly, reassuring sounds. I felt safe and protected by all the adults down below.
