NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION ARTISTS' LIVES STEPHEN COX Interviewed by Denise ...

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Stephen Cox
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NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION

ARTISTS’ LIVES

STEPHEN COX
Interviewed by Denise Hooker

F4913 Side A

[Interview with Stephen Cox at his home on the 12th of May 1995. Interviewer
Denise Hooker.]

Tell me when and where you were born.

I was born in Bristol in 1946.

Well, I'd like to try and go back to your grandparents really. Did they play an
important part in your life, did you know them?

No I didn't know them at all. I had one grandparent who I knew. My father's mother
died of cancer long before I was born, and his father, I don't even really know
anything about him. My mother's father was in the Navy and was gassed in the First
World War, before I was born, and my grandmother was someone who I knew and
grew up close to in Bristol in the suburb of Bedminster.

Did you go to her house, or did she come to you?
Stephen Cox
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I think probably it was reasonably traditional; it was one of those neighbourhood
situations, my grandmother lived just three or four hundred yards down the road in a
house that survived bombing. Our house was destroyed and my mother took the
family to live in another part of south-west Bristol, Bishopsworth, for a period of
time. Again I'm not quite clear about the proximity of my grandmother at that time,
but I think probably she stayed in her own home, and we moved back to Bedminster
to a house that was rebuilt on the ruins of the old house in Hengaston Street.

So - it's a marvellous name, isn't it - that was your mother's house?

That was my parents' house.

Your parents' house.

Mm, which was a rented house, a small terraced house. The rest of the family, I
suppose if one doesn't talk about one's grandparents because one has very little
recollection of them, I mean there are some rather interesting skeletons in the
cupboard which me might talk about one of these days, but let's say in the nature of
the family my father had a reasonably, I say reasonably large family, I think probably
had about six brothers and sisters, about half of them lived reasonably close by, but
we didn't really have a very very close association with his side of the family. And
my mother's side of the family were spread reasonably throughout Bristol in different
parts of south Bristol mainly, and they all came together usually for high days and
holidays, Christmases and bank holidays and things like that, so we did actually get
together and there was quite a strong family sense of communion in terms of getting
together, and the house seemed to be a place that people, other parts of the family
rather more distant, people, cousins who lived in Wales, when I say distant we're
talking about a very very short distance in terms of these days but we might see other
members of the family once or twice a year and they would drop by in the cars that
were not very many in those days.

So, did your grandmother talk to you about your grandfather, or her parents?
Stephen Cox
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She came to...yes, she didn't really. I've got very little recollection of my
grandmother bouncing me on her knee; maybe she was too frail in a way. She was
always very old I suppose in terms of my recollection of her. I'm the youngest of four
sons and I think I only ever remember my grandmother being really quite old, and I
don't think she was...she suffered from deafness, I don't think conversation was
particularly easy for her. And so the history of our family is rather more, well as
time's gone by it's been rather interesting that my mother's sister seems to recall some
of the rather interesting aspects of quite curious early relationships in the family.

Tell me about those.

Well one very curious thing which was always...was never spoken about, and it seems
to be that my grandmother married her half-brother, and it was to do with an adoption
in her family of someone, a child, and they grew up together, but it transpired that the
half child, the half-brother was the issue of a relation that went to live in America and
left his wife behind, presumably divorced, and I think he left when she was pregnant.
So there was a kind of a strange...anyway, I can't quite get it clear in my mind, but
there was a notion that a part of the family wasn't...the family wasn't spoken about a
great deal, and possibly it was because of, there was this little bit of suspicion over the
way things worked. [BREAK IN RECORDING - TELEPHONE]

Do you feel deprived only having had one grandparent?

[LAUGHS] I think, probably, it's...yes I suppose I am in a way, I suppose
one...everybody else has... I think it's unusual in actual fact to only have memory of
one grandparent. My brothers possibly have recollections of grandparents on the
other side, I think not; it all seemed to happen after the First World War.

Do you know what your grandfather did?

My grandfather on my mother's side, who was in the Navy, was in fact a time-serving
sailor, but he was also, rather interestingly he was an instructor in what was called the
Nautical School at Portishead, which was a borstal, a place where young offenders
Stephen Cox
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would be sent for the discipline of an eventual, probably enrolment in the Navy, and
he was a gym instructor, a physical training instructor. And I suppose, I've got quite a
strong recollection of my grandfather through photographs, which show him standing
barrel-chested amongst all these young crew-cutted kids jumping, vaulting, standing
in formation, sitting with sabres across their knees from fencing. He was quite an
accomplished sportsman. And it's said, I've forgotten who it was but he actually,
when he was in the Navy I think he went to America once and he actually fought a
bout boxing against a great American heavyweight, and although he wasn't himself a
heavyweight he actually lasted some time in the ring with this quite famous boxer.
And, I think he might have been champion of the British fleet or something as well,
so he was quite an accomplished athlete. And, I suppose that had a bearing...I mean
in terms of, let's say, genetically my family, my brothers were all pretty athletic one
way or another.

Did you hear anything about his family and how he was brought up?

No, I think probably that's something I would have to again interview my aunts.
Maybe that's something again that we could almost go into, because it is interesting, I
think it's quite interesting the stigma that obviously has affected an area of the history
of a family, there's a shadowy area, and of course that's terribly interesting now, but
the shame I think is something that is of interest to us, probably because, I mean it
didn't happen very much, it's happened, it's one of those things, but it's kind of
curious. It rather makes us different in a way I suppose. We seem to have survived it
anyway.

When did you in fact find out about it?

Well only recently, that my aunt, one of the few surviving aunts on my mother's side,
has been...I suppose in a way she doesn't seem to feel any more that it's something to
be ashamed of, and it's probably because she's now 80 she feels that it's a part of the
history of the family that, you know, if she can recall it, is worth, you know, telling
people so that bit of history can be sort of passed down. So I think it was probably,
it's like you were suggesting, this needn't necessarily be listened to if I don't want it to
Stephen Cox
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be for however long. But I think, again I think it's probably a matter to do with that
business of shame, as being to protect the family reputation.

And did your aunt or your grandmother tell you how she was brought up? Where did
she come from?

Well, we're all a Bristol-based family, I don't think, my mother's maiden name was
MacGill, which has Irish origins I believe. I think basically we could see that both
my father and my mother were from Bedminster, the Bedminister part of Bristol, and
in terms of upbringing I think my mother was, I know my mother was very athletic.
She went to a school called Parson Street, which is in the same area of Bristol. It's
rather interesting that this rather famous millionaire called Billy Butlin, the great
holiday camp entrepreneur, when he came from Canada he went to Parson Street
School where my mother was at school to start with, and later he went to St Mary
Redcliffe School, which was my school, and he endowed the school with gifts and
various other things occasionally. And so my brothers would come back and say that
Billy Butlin had come and given a speech at the school when they were kids. But I
think otherwise, I suppose memories of my parents' upbringing really survive through
the family photographs, the biscuit tin full of photographs, you know, wonderful
open-top charabancs, photographs of just family friends on the beach. I mean my
mother was a very attractive-looking woman, and my aunts seem to be. Another
interesting thing about my family I think probably is quite unusual is that three of my
mother's family married three of my father's family, and that is kind of, is interesting.
I think my father and a sister - and two sisters, married my mother and two brothers of
her side, and so there's...maybe that is a reason to suggest that the family was quite
close in many respects, and possibly not as extended as it might otherwise have been
in other families.

Did they live locally?

Relatively locally I think. Not within the same streets, you know, bus rides away,
different parts of south Bristol really.
Stephen Cox
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So they would have, they met through each other as it were.

Yes, yes. I forget which was the first. I had one, the oldest of the whole family was
the eldest brother of my mother's side, died of cancer early on, and I've only got very
very shadowy recollections of him, and he was married to my father's older sister, my
father was the youngest of the family. My father had to, I think sacrificed to an extent
his potential in many respects because as he was the youngest child and his mother
was dying of cancer he had to give up school to nurse her, and so he spent a great deal
of his, let's say early life when he should have, might otherwise have been at school,
looking after his mother. But I mean he was actually a very very clever man, and,
good with figures anyway.

But just to go back to your maternal grandmother, your surviving grandmother, what
do you know about how she was brought up and her family background?

Nothing.

Nothing at all?

Mm.

So she, she didn't tell you stories or...?

No, no.

I know you said she, you know, she was deaf.

Right. No I've got really no ideas about that. I think...there are some...there are some
members of the family which my brothers and I still have games about, see who we
can remember, and there are recollections of, because they are that much older than
me, I'm six years younger than the next oldest brother, and they have much clearer
recollections of, you know, whoever these aunts were, great-aunts.
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So what part do you think your grandmother played in your life?

Not really very much, I don't think so. In terms of this kind of shadowy past in this
area of the family I can't recall my grandmother doing anything except telling me that
the particular girlfriend I had at the time when she was I think probably going senile
was not going to be good for me. Outside of the fact that she kept around her some of
the memorabilia related to her husband, who was someone let's say, probably through
that memorabilia, the photographs I mentioned, and some of his, and his medals and
things that were kept by one of my uncles, that we had a sense of, let's say pride in
him, and through his athleticism I suppose one felt probably a stronger tie to him than
my grandmother who was very very, sort of a frail old lady who had had a very large
family and maybe that was...it had taken its toll. I think probably she died really quite
young, I'm not quite sure if she was in her early seventies or whether she actually
made it to the late seventies, but she was living with us at the time, and you know,
that caused a little bit of family tension. It had caused some family tension when, of
course it's always down to the wife in a family and my grandmother lived with one of
my uncles, and his wife was responsible for looking after him, and that was one of the
members of the family who weren't brothers and sisters of my parents. So, again it
caused a little family tension in the family that the wife who was not the mother was
taking care of the old lady who was getting very old and she came to live with us for a
while.

And how old were you then?

I was I suppose about, well I suppose just by saying that the girlfriend that she
particularly didn't like at the time, I was at college, I was just starting college, so I
was 17, 18, and that was the last of dear Granny MacGill.

What do you remember of her house? Did you visit her when you were a child?

I suppose I have a sort of sense of sort of, I don't know, a sense of the smells and
velvet and certain cushions and comfy chairs. Always dark, and I've got a sort of
sense of these kind of dark rooms; maybe she was always saving power.
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What kind of smells?

I don't know, I would have said it was sort of garlicky but it couldn't have been, I'm
sure she didn't use it. It must have been onions, but I don't know. I can't...I would
like it to, like it to have been a perfume or something, but, it's a very very...it's a very
very dark area in terms of recollection, and it's rather funny in a way.

How often would you go there?

Oh quite often. I used to do her shopping, you know, down the hill I remember.

How old would you have been then?

Oh, from, I mean just from after...I mean I was born just after the war, and so when I
was 4 or 5, 6, 7, whatever, I mean I would be running errands I suppose from quite an
early age. I remember she told me off once for buying some small scraping new
potatoes which were tiny like marbles which I thought were really nice-looking, and
she made me take them back and get some big ones that would be able to be peeled.
But, no, I'm kind of embarrassed to think that I don't really have that strong
recollections of that very early time.

Did she have to watch her pennies?

Yes, we weren't...I suppose she wasn't wealthy, in absolutely no way at all. I mean
we are not in any way a...and my background isn't a wealthy background.

And how many children did she have?

I think she had about nine, I think that number seems to sort of, I couldn't go through
it all. I think one died early on, and I...yes, I think one died early on. I know there
was a poem floating around somewhere of a child that died. I think it was written by
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my father, which suggests that that would have happened very very late on, but
anyway.

So did your aunts and uncles on that side, did they play much of a part in your
childhood?

I think probably inasmuch as there was this sort of, this spirit of gathering together at
certain times, which made Christmases rather wonderful because we would entertain
each other, we would sit in a room and sing songs, and people would take it in turn.
We had a piano in the house, my mother could pick out a tune on the piano, and
consequently there was a sort of sense of being entertained. My mother was...my
mother was quite capable of entertaining and having fun really, and that was nice to
remember as a child.

Just to go back to your mother then, sorry to labour the point.

No no, it's OK, I've...

Do you know what she did before she got married?

I think...no, I really haven't the faintest idea. I should have a faint idea, and, I think
in...I think in that respect, I mean if one was, you know, if these things are significant
then a little bit of research could in fact deal with this, you know, and if it is a part of
the significance of the interview we can in fact plonk it on the front.

And these lovely Christmas gatherings, would it just have been your mother's side of
the family that was there, or would your father's side have been there?

Generally my mother's side only. It was rather odd, my father's side of the family
would drop in occasionally, and they lived really quite close, and it's always been a
mystery to me as to why that might have been the case. Maybe my father was a bit
resentful that he in fact was the one who had to sacrifice his education while
everybody else went out and treated him as a dogsbody. I mean maybe he was just a
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surrogate everything, you know, if he did have to do everything, which I'm sure he
did, and maybe he even had to cook. I mean everybody was out working when he
was a child and he was at home looking after mother.

Your father was the youngest of how many children?

I think probably six.

And what did you know about those grandparents, your paternal grandparents? I
mean what did your grandfather...?

Outside, well the fact that she, the grandmother, died of cancer, I only have a
recollection from a misty photograph of what she looked like. And, I suppose it's one
of those things, maybe she died of cancer, people didn't like to talk about it, you
know, didn't like to talk about it or even talk about her. My father never really spoke
very much about it, I think he loved her very much but... I know nothing about the
other side of the family. I mean his father was never spoken about.

So you don't know what he did even?

I haven't the faintest idea.

Or what your grandmother did before she got married?

No, no idea at all.

How old was your father when his mother died?

I think he was probably about 16, 17.

So when did he leave school?

I think he had to leave school when he was about 12, something like that, 12 or 13.