Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [7]
Most of the music I was introduced to from an early age came from the radio, which was permanently switched on in the house. I feel blessed to have been born in that period because, musically, it was very rich in its diversity. The program that everybody listened to without fail was Two-Way Family Favourites, a live show that linked the British forces serving in Germany with their families at home. It went out at twelve o’clock on Sundays, just when we were sitting down to lunch. Rose always cooked a really good Sunday lunch of roast beef, gravy, and Yorkshire pudding with potatoes, peas, and carrots, followed by something like “spotted dick” pudding and custard, and, with this incredible music playing, it was a real feast for the senses. We would hear the whole spectrum of music—opera, classical, rock ’n’ roll, jazz, and pop—so typically there might be something like Guy Mitchell singing “She Wears Red Feathers,” then a big-band piece by Stan Kenton, a dance tune by Victor Sylvester, maybe a pop song by David Whitfield, an aria from a Puccini opera like La Bohème, and, if I was lucky, Handel’s “Water Music,” which was one of my favorites. I loved any music that was a powerful expression of emotion.
On Saturday mornings I listened to Children’s Favourites introduced by the incredible Uncle Mac. I would be sitting by the radio at nine o’clock waiting for the pips, then the announcement, “Nine o’clock on Saturday morning means Children’s Favourites,” followed by the signature tune, a high-pitched orchestral piece called “Puffing Billy,” and then Uncle Mac himself saying, “Hello, children everywhere, this is Uncle Mac. Good morning to you all.” Then he would play a quite extraordinary selection of music, mixing children’s songs like “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” or “Nellie the Elephant” with novelty songs like “The Runaway Train” and folk songs such as “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and occasionally something at the far end of the spectrum, like Chuck Berry singing “Memphis Tennessee,” which hit me like a thunderbolt when I heard it.
One particular Saturday he put on a song by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee called “Whooping and Hollering.” It had Sonny Terry playing the harmonica, then alternately whooping in falsetto, so fast, and with perfect timing, while Brownie played fast guitar accompaniment. I guess it was the novelty element that made Uncle Mac play it, but it cut through me like a knife, and after that I never missed Children’s Favourites, just in case he played it again, and he did, like on a rotation, over and over.
Music became a healer for me, and I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all the emotions of fear and confusion relating to my family. These became even more acute in 1954, when I was nine and my mother suddenly turned up in my life. By this time she was married, to a Canadian soldier named Frank MacDonald, and she brought with her two young children, my half brother and sister, Brian, who was six, and Cheryl, who was one. We went to meet my mother when she got off the boat at Southampton, and down the gangplank came this very glamorous, charismatic woman, with her auburn hair up high in the fashion of the day. She was very good-looking, though there was a coldness to her looks, a sharpness. She came off the boat laden with expensive gifts that her husband Frank had sent over from Korea, where he had been stationed during the war. We were all given silk jackets with dragons embroidered on them, and lacquered boxes and things like that.
Even though I knew the truth about her by now, and Rose and Jack were aware of this, nobody said anything when we got home, till one evening, when we were all sitting in the front room of our tiny house, and I suddenly blurted out to Pat, “Can I call you Mummy now?” During an awful moment of embarrassment, the tension in the room was intolerable. The unspoken truth was finally out. Then she said in a