Murphy Turner and Stephen Luckhaus

00:01 Hi, my name is Murphy Turner. I am 44 years old. Today's date is Sunday, September 26th, 2021. We're recording and Wilmington North Carolina with Stephen luckhaus. And he is my father-in-law.

00:19 Okay, my name is a Steve or Stephen. Luckhaus 77 years old and today, which is Sunday. September 26th, 2021. We recording in Wilmington, North Carolina, and my interview Murphy Turner who is my son-in-law.

00:39 So, I'm his father-in-law.

00:43 Alright, well, thank you for coming Steve. I've never called you Steven. No, no one ever does. Is that are you legally though? Like, on the birth certificate? Your statement dph?

01:04 Well, thank you for coming. See if I can work with it. I appreciate your time. I know there's a lot of Demands on it being a retired, man. You're very busy.

01:15 So first question, when were you born July 16th 1940 for 1944?

01:29 And where were you born? What? I was born in a hospital. Small town of duck hamster, which is just North of London England. Okay. So, yeah, I mean where my parents live, my dad was in the Army at the time and my parents lived in my mother. And but the local hospital was kind of very full of

02:11 Returning soldiers being treated and so they maternity cases what would handle by this constant? Which is kind of about 30 miles outside of North West London out of. Was he fighting over? He was, he was an Act tax Elgin, Auntie April. He was a sergeant serving, primarily. I thinking in Belgium, and then I'll be stuck in the UK or so, but I'm so

02:51 Did your mother how?

02:58 I believe I have heard that you were evacuated out of the city when you run younger or that. I want us as a family. My, my mom and I think it one of our sisters at least lived in an accommodation rented, accommodation in a place called Finsbury Park, which is north London fairly close to the city. And they were, they were bombed there. So they got moved to Mill Hill Langley Park. What's the name of the street? And so that's where she was and then that got bombed.

03:46 And in fact, it was a Doodlebug V1, which was like a pilotless plane which just flew and eventually ran out of fuel and then just came down and landed. So I landed about apparently I'm told all this.

04:08 Who's free hundred feet from the house, but fortunately it landed in a small stream stream even so it blew in the house of the windows and doors and said it was like 2 in the morning. Apparently, was that my brother is older than me. Anyway, parently fortunately a Dorf.

04:50 Fluor all came across onto the top of the bed and rested on the headboard above my mother. And there was glass in the door. So she was somewhat protected by this week later. I was born my brother and my cousin is at that point like they were then evacuated to North Wales. So so I was not evacuate but my brother.

05:28 Tell me a little about the evacuation of into.

05:32 Little Village called Diana. And another kid, dude. I didn't know from Birmingham. Apparently, the people that were not very nice. But what was the deal there? Did they, did they send them with family or did they send? It was apparently a woman and her daughter? And I need people to take evacuate. So I don't know. I don't know that there was a family such as I was a couple of apparently.

06:23 I used to wet the bed so sorry. And apparently they've my brother and sister and cousin some information back to my mother moved to another town in what year was gold Lampeter and then my brother and I had to spend 15 months while they're from sort of mid 44, through till late 45. You're a newborn at this point, right? When my brother has a recollection of

07:07 Dad coming up, Mom and Dad coming out to Lampeter with me to show to show my Brian throat. So he seems to recall that he was, he was with a stationmaster. Sorry. Wish it was has no recollection of ever going to school then. So he came out. Okay. In the end.

07:52 Yes, so that's probably more than you needed to know. But I was a sedating though, you know and date.

08:08 What was your childhood like? So you're in your back. In, London. Your brother's back in London. You're in the 50s.

08:15 It was fine. I mean we will, we will.

08:20 Working Class People are very little money. We had rented, accommodation, London, wasn't the, the house that, you know, the home of luxury at that has no no no, no. No, I mean obviously a lot of bombed-out buildings around so things are in short supply.

08:42 Nina, my brother nor I have ever sort of remember, we can go hungry now. We know we had shoes but I will say that she was very often and holes in the bottom and so pieces of cardboard with you. So I can have put your stuff in the hole but it was like we probably won't do anything that situation. I mean that, you know, and so we lived in in Langley Park, which was nice house. We shared it with two other families. My it was it was a big house. So my my mom's sister, Daisy, and her husband and two children.

09:37 I had one part of the house. My dad's sister Rose, her husband and one child had another part of the house and then mom and dad, and my brother, Brian. I'm sorry. I was there to see what shed and there was some tension is here. And then my, my dad really didn't care for my Daisy. My mom sister, who is thought to have somehow? She was about all this. Who is my mom? And my dad sister's son. He was the other cousin Michael was young. I didn't play with him much and the other Diana who is evacuated with the 18. She was much older. So it was a Richard and I play together.

10:32 The trouble was okay.

10:37 Sounds corny. But I mean, we did, we walk to school about a mile each way. It was an uphill, both ways, but it wasn't a one of them, but it was sunny and the broken glass, of course, that's a real right?

10:53 You talk about broken glass.

10:57 The night. We got bombed one before I was born. My brother was at home and was with actually sharing a bed with his own, my own Rose, and I took when the bomb went off and he got up, I need was walking around and there was broken glass all over the floor.

11:21 It was it was fun. We didn't know was Brian a good Big Brother.

11:31 Play. I Need You difference. Should have made it.

11:35 We didn't really attract a great deal, you know, he was 8 years older than me. So I'm for he's 12. I mean this I had my truck is 8 years older than I am and he's not a crystal set. It is it was a

12:07 A radio device that used crystals that that created a electric current when you have put them together and you could pick up signals. We are sitting right on the edge. So trying to get the crystal set to work.

12:40 I was ill for some reason. I don't know. How would I would have been?

12:44 45, something I can remember.

12:48 So I'm Ill I'm in bed, flu or cold or something and

12:54 I bet he will my mom and dad bought me like a little plastic golf set for Christmas. The beginning of a lifelong passion, passion is a bit strong and I can remember Berlin standing at bottom of the bed, trying to demonstrate how to use this little plastic golf club and the end of the golf clubs flew off and hit me on the nose, up my nose.

13:23 Really Christmas. I've always assumed to this day. That it wasn't done maliciously. That was I mean,

13:37 Yeah.

13:40 So they actually stole one of my questions. I was going to ask. What was your favorite food as a kid? My mom was not a great cuz she was a typical English. Cook with roast potatoes, Brussel with soil, cabbage gravy. And that was, that was, like, sand is in the way we would eat. It was overdone, but I thought it was, it was, it was

14:24 I don't want my dad and he was at my dad was a hairdresser. You say, hairdresser Barber as a lot of boy, in a barber shop in North London.

14:45 Do you like 14 or something? So?

14:49 My dad does not.

14:51 Educated. But it was highly intelligent, very small man with great respect for him. So then he eventually in the I guess he even went to school and became a ladies hairdresser. So he never owned a great deal of money, but I'd like to say my brother and I don't have any new came out.

15:28 Well, according to them poor imitations of my father. Oh, wow. Yeah, he was wonderful. So that's why we lived in a land where I went to school with bicycle deansbrook, which is about a mile away. And like I said, that was elementary schools. With that one, went to until I typically 11. And then you took an exam, call the 11-plus. And then you are the one to what was quarter grammar school if you post a job or a secondary, modern school, if you didn't, okay, so that was a trade school, essentially, a secondary. Modern school. Yes. Yes. It was. Yeah. It was a lesson. Well, as you did if you went. So now my brother

16:28 I went to high school, Crush College. I on the other hand was because about three weeks before the exam. I'd been playing soccer or doing something on the way home from school for run over and broken my arm. And so I was in playing, that's my excuse for not coming to retake it. Or is that I went I went to the second remote in school.

17:10 And they were like this and it was like, you know, I was top of every clothes and it might be a little break so it's okay. You're both just been saved for posterity.

17:30 Couple Recollections from Mill Hill to 294 Mill Hill.

17:37 So at the bottom of a straight, this would be maybe.

17:41 5152 somewhere in that ballpark might be 53. I live in 789 something like that. There was an American Family American Service, family living at the very bottom of the, it was a cul-de-sac. And this guy was, I think it was a major in the Air Force, American Air Force, and he had an enormous big American station wagon. She was pretty unusual for kids, who are used to play with a little bit but no, but I do remember one time, quite know how it came about.

18:26 They took me to an American Air Force Base. Going to play School tours, Islip, which is presumably. We're about 15 mi from where we lived at to watch an American football game, which was of no interest to me, whatsoever. I mean, I'm a seven year old English. Get what, what time do I do? I set up a second.

19:01 That does the father gave us money when we got there. I remember, but it was stripped money. It was to use on the base. And so we were able to come by.

19:19 Oak mocha kotta and I know, I remember that. Apparently, if you, if you took back to empty Coke bottles, you got one full one.

19:31 So I can remember spending a goodly part of the day. We would go around and find as many empty cup of and I guess the American servicemen so that maybe they should take my kid. So we would know we we got a dozen bottles, empty bottles, take a bath and we got half a dozen full ones that we drink those and we got half a dozen. Empty ones that we get three and four ones. We drink. And so we drank and copious amounts of Coca-Cola.

20:08 And the other time.

20:11 Where we lived at the roads, the roads sloped down the road that we lived on, we lived on the corner. So the main road should have slowed down but for about a hundred yards to a junction at the bottom, where the road turn, right? Under the Railway Bridge and then lest it would go up the hill and it's a very low-lying area. I need to get flooded. And so, you got rain, and then people would drive their cars into the water and get stuff. So we would hang around that, and then we don't help push him out and maybe we would get to him 6 or something about 10 piece, $0.20, England, post-war on the other thing. I do, remember,

21:04 It came back to Cadbury chocolate.

21:08 Coronation. So that we big street parties for the Queen's coronation and which the combination itself I think was in 53. She got whatever.

21:21 And I want a couple of races and at least we went back we went down to to the shuttle Bay Area of North London, by my parents. They died cousins down there and that these big street parties in Bunting and racism. And I want a cup of Caprice chocolate balls, which I thought was this was great because Austin has a simpler times, but you came out of it. Okay, for Less. What can I eat, Let's skip forward a few years. Can I ask? What? What?

21:55 What did you do for fun? When you were a young man?

21:59 So I don't really want to put that strives for that and fails miserably and thinks you're going to die the next morning and it turns out you done. I was going to ask like were you or did you think you were cool then when you were young tried to be but I wasn't particularly cool. I mean I played soccer play. I mean I played soccer, I did track and field and all those things. And when I went to

22:43 Kenton County school which school fights at 11:12 onwards in the playground and various teams, and we didn't have much money. So now my

23:13 One of my favorite aunt, actually, at my aunt mord and her husband Fred. My mom sister, they had no kids, but they had a grocery shop in a little village called homebridge in Essex. So, it was about,

23:35 50 mi from where we live. 40 miles from where we live. Like an insignificant trip. No, no, no, no, no store. So I would spend Summers there.

23:57 8 9 10 through probably 2:15 or something like that. In effect. My mom and dad was shipped me down there. So fantastic idea. Typically, they would put me on the train in Liverpool Street and and around would meet me at the station and Railey and then in that they had a car so they will let people without kids. So I would spend. And then that was great. I eat, I heard that a couple of friends down there twins. Actually, whose grandparents actually look softer than their parents were divorced for a rough start the grandparents.

24:39 Fred and Millie hurdle used to own and run.

24:45 An establishment called The Smuggler's Den which was I drinking establishment on the river, not a pub. No, not a private club, a very nice. So, so the twins. David and Michael live there. And I wish to hang out with them and we would go swimming and they were way more mischievous than I, but one of them died. A thousand volts through a man that point.

25:27 12-bolt. But maybe a little older, don't remember exactly. But anyway, but we are used to help my aunt and uncle in the store in practice to self motion and I'm sorry, but I used to enjoy that cuz I the shop was open 5, 1/2 days a week. So Thursday, they shut down often. Go to the local Town. Major town court, South End Result was not much of a spot. None, the less they had entertainment there. They, they had, like, dodging cars, and that kind of thing. And so I would have came and I will go there and give me like, half a gram.

26:27 Tony said he sent but it would have been enough at the time of the restaurant and then my uncle who is always like to be if they would often stop on the way back up in the evening, some Pub and I would stand by the door where the lemonade 7Up and a bag of chips.

27:02 Why are you asking this? What we, how did I get onto this? I think I asked you if you were cool. I wasn't particularly cool.

27:11 I think you were cool though. I guess at times I did. I used to have

27:17 Winklepickers shoes, winklepicker shoes at the time shoes. With very pointy toes and narrow drainpipe trousers. And and that was a cool. You had the height of fashion 44, 1960, sort of Kelly, my wife your daughter. If she had imagined you wearing very wide ties and polyester suits and then

27:52 All right. Let's skip a little further forward then and when did you meet your now wife, Kathy?

28:00 Okay. Well, that was in the 1970. So

28:05 I was living at that time when I left school.

28:12 I did not go to university, did not go to college. I would twenty-twenty hindsight. I should have known. I was but I was lazy and I know, you know, I can start working even though I passed. So I ended up working in the insurance business and I was up in the Midlands living in.

28:34 I was living in a little village called Oakbrook, which is just outside doggy. Anyway, I used to come down from time to time to visit. My brother. Brian, was in London. And yes, I'm sorry, Brian, Brian. And he's been with Pat and their two daughters Jenna Tracy. We're living in London. North London, edgware, stand, stand, never nice house. They're really nice. He was a pharmacist that he's a pharmacy and so I would come down from time to time and one time there was this girl laugh.

29:12 Eras, like and it turns out like a. She'd been to Ireland with her family. Was a, some of her family were originally from you. And the family have been to Island be as previously or whatever. Enjoyed it while she was there. She had met my sister-in-law. So really that was there and Pat's brother, they were worth from the same Village. And so she just wanted to travel to Travel and Adventure in New Jersey. Get a job in Ireland, but she was able to get a job. In England is a temporary secretary.

30:08 And I'm sort of a few weeks before she was due to come over it with, it was some old and isolation that she contacted with you guys for a week or so, until I find an apartment, what she ended up staying there, for about five years, when she was living with my brother and Pat and so forth. And so one thing led to another and she would have been 19. 19 looked about twelve sure like your daughter. Yes, I'm pretty positions and then she traveled. She went to North Africa. Israel that tempting berries place around here.

31:08 As a waitress at a resort six months or something. And then she come back to stay with Brian and Pat soda and Indian rupee weakened of one thing. Led to another and 76 is when we actually moved here.

31:32 So you guys got married in in England. We got married attending it in England at 18 months. And then it was like she convinced me that this little town in New Jersey, by the hell. Did you move from New Jersey line with the old? Do you have to do is pick it up. We have the right, you have the right accent for it. That was a key part actually, because I did end up, I came, it was so he came over and lived in Italy with my mother-in-law. Bought a house for tonight in New Jersey live there forever.

32:23 How did you first Mount Mount? Hope was sent to adjust. North just outside Rockaway, New Jersey. So we were there for a little while and then we were able to buy the house in downtown shooting Township and move there and then Kelly was born. And then subsequently Robin was born when I was working for Prudential at the time. It was and I'm sure and Save in insurance when you get off the plane and I guess I need to find a new the local manager of the local Prudential office. Okay, and I became an agent for Prudential.

33:16 I know you don't pay for you. I made a living. It was good. I was pretty good Agent. Not great, but pretty good. But then I got a very fortunate break my accent, was that day when looking to put together a small kind of training / marketing team to help promote what you would call variable, products, life insurance products and I had some knowledge of those pretty good speaker and good on my feet and a cute accent and so

33:53 We're on the photo with this lady. I ended up getting this job. As part of this team, was looking for a subsidiary of Prudential, corporate her life, and Jim Temple who died recently. And I was just out for his service. Will you use to put on training meetings and instead of marketing and promotional meetings around the country for agents? And it was like it's way harder than I'd ever work because my life, but I loved it. And how long did you work? There? I have to pass. It is always. So basically with individual life insurance and then I retired and I ended up as a vice president which is

34:53 What is President, Lincoln's? Vice president?

35:08 Now, we'll tell you one of the greatest Pleasures I had.

35:14 In my traveling days, I would have to go to some nice places. Some I'm still around when he would come over cuz you're so I got the opportunity to take him to some interesting. Is it working though? I work hard all his life, never had any money. Really? He didn't even drive until he was 65. Wow, brother. You got his license in your, you got a little VW Volkswagen Bug and drove for about 5-10 years, might be. But anyway, so he would come over and when I get to take into some interesting or so that was always a great pleasure that I had. Anyway, I was going to ask if we can maybe through five questions of my 20 or so. Is that what you're trying to tell me? I'm surprised at how much detail

36:14 Crystal might be making it all up. I could just be the dementia starting, an early. What?

36:22 I'm going to skipped it to way down here. So, okay.

36:29 If you look back at the the 7078 years, so write 70.

36:37 You can't remember now. How old? I am 12:44. So maybe seven years. Is there any moment you would say you are most proud of or like an accomplishment that you are just still tickled that you made.

36:59 I don't know.

37:01 Look, there's any.

37:04 One moment that I would say.

37:10 II. Guess if I look back.

37:16 I managed to raise a nice family.

37:20 Support them and and and and the decent. And no, no, there's no one has been reasonably reasonably good one. That would be what I would have done, okay, for themselves, they work hard and and, and and, you know, married. Okay, is it was so. So, can you describe your perfect day right now, like a year 77 that is proper English breakfast.

38:21 T rather than coffee, probably. Okay, then probably 18 holes of golf on one of the I mean I live we live in around 18 holes of golf old. I look just like today.

38:42 Then maybe topped off with with a couple of beers post golf straightening out the world with whoever I played golf with and maybe a sandwich there and not necessarily of sandwiches a saving my appetite probably forever. Really nice grilled steak with fried french fries, a few glasses of wine talk talk with the maybe a little cheese in Port that would that would be pretty good time. So if you want to organize that I will work on it. I will definitely work on it. I owe you one for doing this for me.

39:21 Last question. And this one is, is, is from your, your youngest daughter. Robin younger that I only have two. Well sissy, I'm just know. Youngest employs more than two young. I'm only implying things here. Well, so if I could just get Grandma problem, okay, so from robbing the youngest of your two daughters younger.

39:55 Which one is your favorite child? Yes, absolutely.

39:59 Absolutely, you've got it. Nailed their younger and older not younger. Sister. Notice, if I had three daughters, you would've been grammatically, correct? Yes. Robbins going to be mad that you didn't answer the question.

40:15 She knew cuz she's pretty intelligent that I wouldn't answer that question. So, you know, I'm going to have to gouge somebody's always out now.

40:34 Steve.

40:37 Thank you. Thank you for sitting down with me. Thank you for telling me stories about your youth. It was really very interesting. I appreciate your time. It was very interesting. But whatever. It's

40:54 Yes, thank you. My faithful.

40:58 Just asking the questions, pushing the button and letting me go.