Stephen Cox F4913A C466/30/01 Page 1
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Stephen Cox F4913A C466/30/01 Page 1 IMPORTANT Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. 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 F4913A C466/30/01 Page 2 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 F4913A C466/30/01 Page 3 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 F4913A C466/30/01 Page 4 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 F4913A C466/30/01 Page 5 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.