Geoffrey Paul Saunders

Geoffrey's story

Geoff Geoff has always been, and always will be, my big brother, so I’m just going to say a few words about Geoff and me growing up together, up until his move to Oxford. I suppose most childhoods seem fairly normal to the individual…but looking back on ours, it was anything but! We grew up in a large detached building, in about 10 acres of land, on the outskirts of Leicester, called the Aylestone Boathouse, and back in the 1950s, it was the local entertainment centre. Upstairs was a ballroom, where dances were held in the evenings to the tunes of our Dad’s dance band. He was the singer, Leicester's answer to Bing Crosby, and he also taught dancing. Someone once told him his band was monotonous, so he called them The Monotones. Downstairs was a large café, frequented mainly by the local biker gangs, who referred to it as The Shack, so it didn’t make much money, but it did have a jukebox with all the latest singles on it, which we thought was great. There wasn’t much pop music on the radio back then. And, rather incongruously, it also had a table tennis table, so we would play table tennis with the local greasers. The café never seemed to close…he even opened on Christmas Day, much to Mother’s annoyance. In the grounds were six tennis courts, which people could hire: they were basically sand (what we call clay today), so we could play tennis, pretty much whenever we pleased. The building was called the Aylestone Boathouse, because it was next to the canal, and we had a number of aluminium canoes that we hired out, for 2/6 an hour with a 10 bob deposit (for anyone under 50…that’s 12 1/2 pence an hour with a 50p deposit), and we could go out on the canal in them pretty much whenever we wanted as well. Health and Safety didn’t exist then, of course, and looking back, it was all a bit dangerous, but I don’t remember any serious problems. During this time, younger brother, Andy, was born, so it was the three of us, plus Mum and Dad, living at the Boathouse. We didn’t see much of Dad though: he never had meals with us, or even come on holiday with us, like normal Dads do. Now what you need to know about Geoff then, was that he was pretty much the perfect child: well-behaved, clever, diligent and well organised. Sadly, I was none of these…and I can assure you, that if he had organised today’s events, there would have been a proper seating plan…he was always meticulous. In August 1959, Geoff took me, aged 8, to Filbert Street for the first time to see Leicester City beat Chelsea 3-1, and from then on we would go to all the home games together, and even occasionally an away match: big adventure! Naturally, Geoff had sailed through the 11+ and got a place at the Wyggeston Grammar School for boys, which was considered the best in Leicester: the Alma Mater of the Attenboroughs (amongst others), where he excelled. He was also fairly sporty and ended up in the first 15 as a wing forward, and in the cricket team as a demon fast bowler. Probably his proudest sporting moment, though, was with the Knighton United football team, made up of mainly school mates, who went on to win the Leicestershire FA Youth Cup in 1965; Geoff was the goalie. The team still holds a get together, cum celebration, every year, and several of the team are here with us today. This year’s was at a match at the Leicestershire County Cricket club a few weeks ago, and this was the last time I saw Geoff. Despite the rain, it was a good day, and I know he will be sadly missed at next year’s 60th anniversary Reunion. Where did that time go, lads! By the early days of the 1960s, however, things were not going well at the Aylestone Boathouse. With the rise in ownership of the motorcar, people could travel further afield and the Boathouse's popularity gradually declined…but Dad met a bloke called Derek, who persuaded him that the building would make a great bingo hall, and in 1962, it duly opened as the Riverside Bingo Club (later, the Riverside Casino), and it became a great success! Hundreds of bingo lovers would arrive in the early evening, and we could hear the numbers being called from our flat downstairs, every night of the week. It also made some money, so we could now afford to ditch our usual fairly dismal caravan holidays in places like Ingoldmells, and go for a week to Butlins, the height of opulence, as we then thought. Eventually, though, living in a bingo hall became a bit much, and we moved to a proper house, about a quarter of a mile away. Well, it just so happened, that two doors away from our new house, lived a lady that we boys knew as Mrs Mason, who was living with her two young children, Melanie and Brodie, and Mother became friends with her. Geoff was now in the fourth year at Wyggy, and doing well: he went on to get 10 O’ levels, followed two years later by three A’ levels, and was granted a place at Sheffield University to read Economics, just living at home during the university holidays. Now, Mrs Mason wanted to get her two children baptised, and asked our Mum if she knew anyone who had been confirmed who could act as godparent to them, so she suggested Geoff, who duly obliged, during one such holiday. By this time, I was playing the drums in a fairly crappy local group, and one day Mum suggested that Geoff should take Mrs Mason to one of our gigs, as she didn’t get out much, and it would be a nice evening out for them both. Nice evening out? She'd obviously never heard us play. Geoff did ask her, and this seemingly innocuous suggestion, turned out to be the pivotal moment in Geoff’s life. Now to the best of my knowledge, Geoff had never even kissed a girl, let alone had a girlfriend: it would’ve got in the way of his studying for one thing. But his relationship with Mrs Mason, aka Nina, soon developed, much to the surprise of us all, and to the great dismay of Mother…local scandal alert! This was the 1960s, and she promptly kicked him out of the house, and he moved into a flat…but seemed to spend quite a lot of time just two doors away…even greater local scandal alert! Geoff, however, gained his degree and got a job with British Leyland in Oxford, where the four of them eventually moved, and Geoff and Nina got married. I was best man. Mother, by now, had calmed down, and came to the wedding, as in her eyes this legitimised everything. Dad didn’t come though. In 1971, Nina gave birth to twins, Paul and Vicky, and they became a happy family of six.

Remembered by Richard Ewen