Legendary Huddersfield journalist and author DENIS KILCOMMONS is a natural storyteller who brings everyday subjects to life in his own inimitable style. Denis wrote a hugely popular column in the Huddersfield Examiner for 34 years until his retirement in 2023. Now he’s back from a break and writing for Huddersfield Hub.
When I left the Blackpool Gazette after almost eight years to go travelling in Europe with Maria and Siobhan I knocked on the door of the reclusive editor who had employed me in the first place.
This was a chap who had only been seen once in the newsroom in living memory.
“I’m leaving next week,’’ I said. “Could I possibly have a reference?’’
“What? Oh yes, of course. What’s your name?’’
Instead, I asked Sir Harold Grime, an editor-in-chief of the old school. He provided one written on quality vellum with a commendation which was glowing and signed with a flourish impressive enough to keep me out of an Albanian jail.
The VW van I bought was past its best and probably old enough to have been used as a troop carrier by the Wehrmacht in the First World War. It had a panel in the floor, possibly for ammunition. Open it and the whole base was storage. We filled it with bottled baby food.
We went with Mick and Maggie who had a caravan. Mick was at that time a school teacher and they were taking off for the summer holidays.
France and Belgium were a laugh as we dawdled from one camp site to another. Siobhan slotted into a back-pack, which were new at that time, and often attracted critical looks from mothers pushing prams. She loved it, up high on my back and could see everything.
In Germany, Maria pointed out what we both knew. The dream wasn’t working. Not with a nine-month-old baby and demands of hygiene and health. Not when Maria was using her bridal veil as a mosquito net.
We decided to turn round rather than tackle an Alpine pass into Italy. We’d made that journey previously in the comfort of a Capri 1600. I suspected the VW wouldn’t make it. Turning round was the first sensible decision of the whole enterprise.
The crossing from Calais was late. Back in England I parked in a country lay-by to catch up on sleep. I woke with the dawn and, with mother and child still sleeping in the double bed at the back, set off once more.
We were in the suburbs of London and I’d stopped at traffic lights next to a bus when I noticed the passengers staring into the van. A glance over my shoulder revealed a topless Maria, still asleep with Siobhan, and the covers pushed down to her waist.
Peace and love, man.
The van actually packed in halfway up the M6. A brilliant young mechanic with a Brummie accent administered first aid courtesy of the RAC. He filled the gearbox with heavy engine oil and said with luck it might get us to Manchester.
We reached the home of my parents in Timperley. The dream trip was over. The engine was repaired and the van sold.
As an act of defiance, I took the rest of the year off and tried to become a writer.
The plus side of this was I wrote a 60,000 word manuscript for the first time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good. To keep penury from the door I wrote short stories for magazines. Men Only and Mayfair paid £30 per story which was equivalent to a week’s wage. I became published for the first time with one called War Games in Mayfair.
My editor at the magazine was Gerald Kingsland who provided encouragement and advice. He told me to keep a level head as I made my way in fiction.
He later left the magazine to go and live on a desert island at the age of 49 with a 24-year-old woman he found through a newspaper advertisement.
Oliver Reed and Amanda Donahue starred in the film version of their disastrous venture. It was called Castaway.
The idea of packing in work, being a hippy and writing had been ill-timed. Maria had supported me all the way – she always did – but we needed stability for Siobhan and a proper income.
We moved back to Blackpool to live with Maria’s mother and I got a job as chief reporter on the weekly Blackburn Times and commuted through back roads at high speeds in a Vauxhall Viva Estate.
One afternoon Maria went with old friend, hairdresser Peter Lunn, to visit a medium at a house in St Annes. One of his clients had suggested he had ‘the gift.’
He certainly had the hairdressing gift: he went on to work with Vidal Sassoon in London and New York.
The person they met was Doris Stokes, the most prominent clairvoyant in the country. She gave Maria a reading and warned her about a green estate car. She specifically said the front nearside tyre was a danger.
When Maria told me I laughed then went and checked. The tyre was worn and needed changing. Then again, so did the front offside tyre. Next day I drove at a sensible speed rather than with reckless abandon, parked in front of the office and the front nearside tyre burst.
Maria knew the car needed new tyres and talented Doris had read the anxiety in her mind.
This incident shows the randomness of life. If I’d crashed the car with fatal results the future for Maria and Siobhan would have been entirely different.
Life is a sequence of coincidences that only solidify into an unalterable narrative with the passing of the years.
I applied for jobs and had offers from The Evening Telegraph in Blackburn, a newspaper in Kent as assistant news editor and the Huddersfield Examiner as a reporter/feature writer.
The interview with news editor Peter Hinchliffe in Huddersfield was a forgone conclusion. Hinch had worked on the Daily Nation in Nairobi when I had been on the Nation in Uganda.
I had tea with editor-in-chief Dick Harrison, a gentleman journalist. He offered me the job at the money I asked and I accepted which is how Maria, Siobhan and I came to Huddersfield in 1972.
I retired from writing a column for the Examiner 51 years later in 2023.
Denis writes every Sunday for Huddersfield Hub. Click HERE for his back catalogue.
