John Edward Cooper’s Notes
David Jones
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Early Days Click here for an alternative version of this story. See also David Charles Jones.  Wednesday 26th July 19501. It is said that when Flo Jones was in labour, from her loins sprang a fully-formed figure with adult proportions but in miniature, clothed in a dark blue gaberdine mac and carrying a tan vinyl framed document case with brass corners.[1] He strode forth, with long, bouncing steps, saying, “Hello, Mums, I’m Jones—but you can call me David.” 2. But another story tacitly contradicts the facts of the first story: it has Jones, around the age of thirteen, saying, “Dad’s ill, Gran’s ill, I’m ill, we’re all ill. Mum’s really the nurse; we have to say she’s Dad’s wife, it goes down better in public.” [1] The briefcase was called “Albert”.Summer 1961 3. Some say that when Jones was a child living in Moston, Manchester, he suffered harassment from local thugs, or “Teddy Boys” as the Joneses called all such people. “Dads,” said Jones one day to Charlie Jones, his ageing, white-haired, pipe-puffing parent, “the Teddy Boys have been beating me up again.” “Right,” replied Dads, discarding his Evening News and donning his cap,[2] “we’ll move to Blackpool.” So off they went. 4. Others say that Charlie Jones, proprietor of the local Dean Mount Garage, was suffering from failing health, and was advised to “take things easy”, so he did what all Manchester businessmen do—retired to Thornton Cleveleys. [2] In perhaps the late 1950s there was an advert on television for cycling proficiency, a cartoon, in which a boy approaches his dad, who is seated reading a newspaper. “Dad, Dad, I want a bike,” the boy says. Without a word, the boy’s father sweeps the newspaper upward, it turns into a hat which he places on his head, and the two walk off. |
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