Gordon Taylor

“When I was about 15 they took me out but I don’t remember going out before that. After the Second World War they would take me out quite a bit but before that it was much too difficult. No help at all in those days.” Gordon Taylor
 
Born 30 April 1924
 
Educated at home

Gordon Taylor Tape 1 Listen here:
Born in Brixton, south London, 30 April 1924. Father Bill was a member of a large family (brothers and sisters all lived in the same basement room). Mother did not know who her father was and at three ... 00:31:16

Gordon Taylor Tape 2 Listen here:
Aged 8, Gordon started walking. He knocked his knees together and would wear a pair of trousers out in about six weeks. No medical help. Discipline and corporal punishment. Gordon doesn’t remember going out ... 00:27:10

Gordon Taylor Tape 3 Listen here:
Gordon fell down the stairs at age four. Fear of a railway arch. Mother’s love of window shopping: Home and Colonial, WH Smith, Scroggies. Buying the newspaper ‘News of the World’. The baker and milkman ... 00:31:27

Gordon Taylor Tape 4 Listen here:
Electric baths at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Father had lung haemorrhage in 1931. Learning to walk aged 7. People at the hospital treated Gordon as “mental”. Lack of support. Using a wheelchair at 10 but it ... 00:25:50

Gordon Taylor Tape 5 Listen here:
Mother went to Cheltenham when she was three weeks old until she was about 12. Wartime food queues. Battle of Britain and air raids. Bomb shelter. Experience of house being bombed and living in one room for ... 00:31:55

Gordon Taylor Tape 6 Listen here:
No real friendships at the work centre. Reading technical books. Astronomy. Mother died of cancer when she was 59 in 1958. She had a heart attack in 1952. When father died, his family wanted him to go into a ... 00:28:01

Gordon Taylor Tape 7 Listen here:
Growing chrysanthemums in a training centre in Southend. Working on a mechanical drill in 1964. Offered a workshop job in Birmingham, in the Meadway Centre, and stayed for 15 years. Education at ... 00:31:41

Gordon Taylor Tape 8 Listen here:
Swimming at Heathcoat, a rehabilitation centre. Memories of a summer holiday in about 1935. Learning to walk. Spastics Society offered Gordon a job in Birmingham when the Meadway Centre ... 00:29:01

Gordon Taylor Tape 9 Listen here:
Early memories of being scared of a railway bridge in Norbury. Inaccessible roads and pavements. Street beggars. Horses and carts selling vegetables and fresh bread. Dustman and the coal man used horses and ... 00:31:37

Gordon Taylor Tape 10 Listen here:
Attitude of family to Gordon and Kath and to money. Coach trips to Scotland. Visits to London to the Albert Hall and the Proms. Learning to drive. Had to give up growing chrysanthemums in about 1980, ... 00:24:28

Gordon Taylor Tape 11 Listen here:
Lack of sex education. Gordon didn’t go out with girls until age 40. Visits to cinema. Father bought a car in 1955, a brand new Hillman Minx. Family holidays in Devon. Model aircraft. Gordon was labelled ‘mentally ... 00:31:34

Gordon Taylor Tape 12 Listen here:
Reading. Friend Stuart Haymer. Heathcote rehabilitation centre. Visit to headquarters of the Spastics Society. The Gordon Taylor Chrysanthemum. Jack Walman, chrysanthemum grower. Blue invalid cars. ... 00:29:20

Download a transcript of the Gordon Taylor interview (PDF, 365kb)