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Chapter
2. A False Start
My journey started eighty years ago in 1923, the year that England’s
Arthur Havers won the Open at Troon, the last British victory for
eleven years; the 21-year-old American amateur Bobby Jones took his
first major title – the US Open and the first Wembley Cup Final-the
famous ‘White Horse’ final-was won by Bolton Wanderers.
I left home with few regrets, for in retrospect, the last few years
had been little else but work and school – and I really was glad to
get away from school. For the last year I had spent most of my time
standing in for teachers while they were doing something other than
teaching. I was in what was known as ‘Standard X7’ – and I was the
only one in it. I was expected to study on my own, which was
difficult in a classroom with upwards of twenty pupils. As I
approached my 14th birthday, Dad decided that it was time to leave
and this I did at the Whitsuntide holiday.
A week or two later I was on my way to Ipswich to join Charles at
the club he had joined after the war and begin my career as a
professional golfer. I was put on the London train at Malvern and
was met by my brother at Paddington Station for the onward journey
to Ipswich - quite an adventure for a 14-year-old in those days. I
was now looking forward to working in the shop and learning the
trade, but school had not quite finished with me yet. Charles had
received a letter from the Education Authority stating that I had
left school too soon. The rule was that you could leave at the end
of the school year in which you attained the age of fourteen, so I
had to attend a local school on weekdays and work at the Golf Club
at weekends. I finally completed my education at the end of July,
without adding very much to my knowledge.
After this ‘false start’ I returned to full time employment at
Ipswich Golf Club, where it was now time to get down to work in the
shop and learn the trade - and there was much to learn. It was a
busy club and there was always something to do, but the modern
assistant will not recognise the job as it was then. Minor repairs
like replacing whipping and fitting grips will be familiar enough,
although whipping is little used now and the process of fitting the
leather grips was quite different to the modern rubber ones, which
were to appear in the thirties. Leather grips were still in regular
use for another thirty years and they needed constant maintenance
with substances like beeswax or castor oil to ensure a good grip.
Alternatively a powder could be applied, such as flour or the
special dry hand powder that my brother George promoted for a
Manchester dealer. Wooden shafts were still the norm and I had to
learn how to finish off the shafts fitted by Charles. This was a
lengthy job. You had to sandpaper the shaft until it was smooth then
rub water into it to bring up the grain. When it was dry you
repeated the sandpapering and wetting until all the grain was
brought up. The final rub down was always with a very fine grade
sandpaper. The next stage was to fill the grain by rubbing
solidified pitch over the shaft and heating it gently over a gas jet
to soften the pitch. Having done that, you then rubbed as much off
as you could, using a cloth moistened with linseed oil. This would
leave the pitch filling the grain and produced the mottled look. The
final stage was to polish the shaft using French polish. A wad of
cotton wool was soaked in the polish and wrapped in a piece of
linen, which had a touch of linseed oil applied. The shaft was then
polished working from end to end and turning constantly to get an
even spread and a good finish. These jobs kept me very busy as
shafts were always splitting or bending with age and most players
would have a club repaired rather than buy a new one, particularly
if it was a favourite.
Making up an iron club could take as long as two hours – and in
those days would sell at about 10 shillings (50p). 15 shillings was
in the top range. Woods were a little more expensive; in the 17s 6d
to 21s range – how times have changed!
One of my less enjoyable tasks was to deal with ‘repaint balls’.
These were the used balls we bought in from ‘finds’ on the course –
and there were many. The first job was to wash them in a large bowl
filled with a solution of caustic soda. This was left overnight to
remove the old paint, but considerable care was needed, as too
strong a solution would burn the covers. The repainting was a messy
job, done entirely by hand. A spot of special golf ball paint was
deposited in the palm of the hand and applied to the ball, turning
it until it was loosely covered. It was then rolled between the
palms of both hands until an even spread was achieved. The ball was
then placed gently on to a special rack and left for a couple of
days to dry and harden before a second coat of paint was applied.
Nowadays the process would certainly not meet with the approval of
the Health and Safety Executive. The balls sold at 4 to 6 pence each
and there was always a ready market due to the heavy loss of balls
in the gorse and heather on the course. Balls were by no means as
durable as they are today and they were very easily cut if you
‘topped’ a shot. Golfers were known to repair the cuts with tacks to
prolong the life of a ball, but they would have to abandon them
eventually.
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