David Poulson – Dad – worked in the theatre most of his life which may account for his focus on appearance, both his own and other people’s. Creating your public image by how you dressed, what stories you told, what accessories you could flaunt (think car, watch, jewelry, cigarette holder) was part of who he was – and it went beyond his professional need when casting a play to assess whether someone “looked right” for a part. Toddler David (around 1928) didn’t choose the sweater and knitted shorts – conventions used to be that little boys wore shorts and you advanced to long trousers at the right age (11-ish). Utterly daft concept (why should little kids have cold legs?) . Once he was old enough to make his own choices, a very different (less cuddly, more jet-set) image took shape.
David’s early years were spent on the south coast of England, near enough for summer outings to beaches for the perennial kid favorite of sun, sea and sand. Whether it was that experience, or his work with BOAC in France and North Africa (after the Navy said his eyesight was no good he worked in shorts-suitable hot spots such as Marignane, Cairo, and El Adem from 1943 – 1948), that established his love for hot sunny weather, he became a huge sun worshipper. The tennis shorts in Cairo are a typical shorts length – above the knee – and much less effective at showing off slender long legs than later shorts choices. Take this as the “before” picture in his style evolution. He did have good legs – something he would point out in stories of being a young actor in a revue in drag, and also loved to demonstrate in very short shorts whenever the weather cooperated.
So where do the cars come in? Cars were another of David’s big loves – and were frequently part of the “set” for whatever photograph he arranged to have taken of himself. No cars in the top three pictures, but he was too young, too wet and too far from home, respectively. He and Margo took driving holidays in France after we’d all left home and many pictures just so happened to include the car as well as the man and his shorts. Margo never shared the driving – he used to mumble about not liking being driven – so she would navigate and he’d drive. For those who haven’t driven in unfamiliar places without a SatNav/GPS, a good navigator is a huge asset. One who can keep refiguring the route as the endlessly talkative driver ignores directions is the human model for the computer based “recalculating route” function on current GPS systems when you miss a turn. I wasn’t there in France as Margo set up the picnic lunch, however I am all but certain as he stretched out his legs and leaned back, David said “This is a bit of all right then!“. A favorite phrase of his for sun-soaked time, whether on a beach, in our garden in Austin, Texas, or some roadside spot in France, Italy, Spain or Portugal.
David’s first car was an Austin 7- he told a story about horrifying his mother by removing the engine and putting it on her draining board in the kitchen while he worked on it – I assume dripping oil over things as he worked. No pictures of that, but this is the car with David at the wheel, Billie on the right and Yvonne at left, parked outside John & Billie’s final home together in Salisbury, at 2 Francis Way. Bungie (dog) has found his way into the back of the car and is investigating. Interesting that the road wasn’t yet paved (likely around 1952). The car heading the blog post was David’s second, and his first Jaguar (I think a Mark IV, probably about 1948). I don’t know where that was taken, but again, no paved road, so probably not where they lived in the early 1950s on Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town. David never bought a new car, and always (in spite of various attempts by Margo to get him to buy something cheaper that got more miles to the gallon) bought Jaguars. Even when David wasn’t in the picture – and where clearly Margo isn’t happy about what’s going on – the Jaguar of the moment is still part of the photo:
I found a picture of David in shorts, I assume taken by Margo, but probably with his direction, draped over an unfamiliar car at Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire (from May 1989). I thought it was a tad rude to be leaning on someone else’s parked car to get your picture taken, but also that a picture “at Lake Sunapee” would look much better if you took a few steps past the parking lot to have just lake and scenery in the background. When cleaning up the scan, I realized why the shot was staged that way. David was leaning on a Cadillac. These days, Cadillacs are old people’s cars, but from David’s perspective, this was probably seen as a quintessentially American luxury car and he wanted to be photographed with it as the backdrop!
For the shorts in the hot sun theme, without a car, we have David age 36 and about 46, on the beach in St. Tropez, and somewhere in South Africa when he took a freelance directing job there. Grandfather David is still in the sun and in shorts in France around 1991. The animal in his preferred habitat, so to speak.
Sometimes the habitat doesn’t cooperate – such as the very windy beach in France in 1991. Doesn’t look at all like a shorts day to me. Another role David undertook is encouraging the next generation of car lovers, and one can’t start too early. My brother Mike is being allowed to “drive” the early 1970s Jaguar (whatever type that was). This was stationary, but I believe all four sons were allowed to sit in his lap and “drive” down the driveway at some point. A level of car enthusiasm was definitely passed on, but there are no Jaguar customers in the next generation, even though they were propped next to his car (encouragement?) a fair bit too.
One Jaguar David always admired from afar was the E-type. Margo and he went to a number of Jaguar owner events around England (several photos of their car parked in a field somewhere), but one had an E-type in which you could sit – I wonder if he put on a “potential buyer” act to get someone to take his and Margo’s photo in this car. He can’t have been campaigning for one now the kids were all gone, surely…
No tale of David’s love for sun and shorts would be complete without mentioning Gozo, part of Malta politically, but a world apart at the time we first went there for a holiday in the late 1960s. Our first trip was cheap night flights to Valetta in Malta and a free stay in the farmhouse of a theatrical agent friend of David (and I’m certain we couldn’t afford even that). It was the first time any of us kids had been out of England or swam in truly warm water. It was an eye-opener that there were more ways to enjoy the ocean than carefully hobbling over shingle beaches, pushing your way through seaweed accumulated at water’s edge, getting in quickly and swimming vigorously to warm up, finally running for the towel when getting out as the cool breeze was rapidly turning your skin into blue-ish goose bumps! For those who haven’t been swimming in Worthing, that’s my best recollection of swimming there when visiting Yvonne’s parents.
The collection of Gozo pictures I have were taken by David – Margo was always busy with kids when we were there and so couldn’t be drafted to photograph his delight in shorts and sunshine. The shot at left is a grab from film taken on the flat roof of a friend’s house where we stayed the second year we went, on the hill overlooking Xlendi Bay. You can’t see the full view of the swim shorts, but David’s nut-brown tan (courtesy of olive oil if I recall correctly) hints at how much time he spent in the sun.
After the first few trips, David went out by himself , staying at The St. Patrick’s Hotel in Xlendi Bay (the person in the photo was just an acquaintance). He returned having taken out a lease on a flat just outside Gozo’s capital, Victoria and I don’t think he discussed this with Margo first! It was offered as a rental to defray the costs, but I don’t think this helped money management (along with buying Jaguars, fueling them…). We would rent a convertible Triumph Herald in Valetta after the flight from England and then drive (too fast on windy roads as I remember it) to the ferry from Marfa to Mgarr Harbour on Gozo. Another speedy drive to the flat in Victoria, then over the following days, trips to the beach as early as we could given David’s lack of interest in an early start. “I’m on holiday…”
This is a typical pack up from a day at Ramla where all of us (this wouldn’t have worked had seat belts been required) squeezed in for the drive back to the flat. Sometimes we went to swim in a pool at the Cornucopia Hotel for the day – good for small children and also less-sandy lunches. Margo in a bikini was a frequent part of the photos, but I don’t recall ever seeing a photo of the two of them, together in Gozo (which is a shame – surely one of the older kids could have been roped in to do the honors? Were we really such unthinking jerks then??).
After Margo died in November 1998, the family bought David a present of a plane ticket to Austin, Texas (where I lived at the time), thinking it would improve his spirits to be on holiday and in warm sun. He returned to England with a new love for Jimmy Buffet songs (Jeffrey’s doing) all about drinking in the Florida sun, plus a description he liked from a colleague of Jeffrey’s: Texas has two seasons, hot and effing hot! He said he played the CD and thought about effing hot weather when driving somewhere on gloomy days at home. With a nod to his long-standing love for the good life in hot weather, I chose as the final music for his funeral Jimmy Buffet’s Boat Drinks, where the last line of the chorus is “I gotta go where it’s warm!”