If I Don’t Write It Nobody Else Will

Oddly enough for a delicate child, I never saw the inside of a hospital, not even to visit John and Vernon; but I hadn’t escaped completely unscathed. I was laid low for a few days with mandatory mumps, and I must say I quite enjoyed the experience, propped up in the bed with hot milk; and, best of all, Grandma Sykes brought me a comic to read every day, wiped my face with a warm flannel and combed my hair. I’d never had such personal care and attention in my life.

On the day of the doctor’s visit, Grandma Sykes was like a nervous chicken awaiting a fox, plumping up the pillows, giving my face an extra shine, stuffing the comic in a drawer, even running a damp cloth over knobs on the bed rail until there was a rat-a-tattat on the front door. Grandma smoothed her apron and gave me a warning look as if to say, ‘Don’t go away.’

Dr Law was respected by the whole community, where it was generally accepted that he was a fine man. I’d seen him in his surgery a few times—once just to pick up a prescription for cough mixture, and on another occasion when John had pink eye and I went with him—and on each occasion Dr Law was seated behind his desk, which we had to go round so that he could examine little patients without having to bend down. On the two days when he had called at our house about the scarlet fever and diphtheria I hadn’t been at home, and I’d never actually seen him standing up, so when he had to duck his head to enter the bedroom where I was prostrate with mumps I got quite a shock. He was immense, well over six feet tall; his brown hair had an off-centre parting, and he exuded good health and breeding in stark contrast to the pinched white faces of undernourished Lancashire.

As he approached the bed, he spoke in a deep, melodious Irish brogue. ‘And how are you this morning, young man?’

Grandma, following him in, brought up a chair.

‘Thank you,’ he said in a dark velvet voice that made her blush, and he sat down to put his stethoscope on my chest. ‘’Tis a fine morning,’ he said as he listened to my heartbeat.

I nodded, as it was still uncomfortable to speak.

He stood up and, placing his stethoscope in his bag, he said, ‘You’ll do.’ Then he nodded and Grandma saw him out.

When they’d left the room, I slipped out of bed and wobbled over to the window. As Dr Law climbed into his trap, he said a last few words to Grandma, raised his trilby to her, and then slapped his reins on the pony’s rump and clip-clopped to his next patient. Oh, if only I could grow up to be half as good a man as Dr Law.

There was only one drawback to the billeting arrangements. At five thirty every weekday morning, the knocker-up came, a man shouldering a long pole with wire prongs on the end of it with which he tapped on the front bedroom window like brushes on a snare drum to let my father know that it was time to rise and shine. However, Granddad was in the front bedroom now, and so he had to scramble out of bed in his shirt, tippy-toe to the window, push it up and stick his head out to let the knocker-up know that they’d got the message; then, pulling the window down, he tiptoed on the cold oil cloth into our bedroom to wake up my father. This done, he’d tiptoe back to his own still-warm bed, because his place of work was closer and he didn’t have to get up until seven thirty—what luxury!

The services of the knocker-up cost my father a penny a week. Imagine: on those cold, dark, winter mornings, the unfortunate man would have to tap, tap on bedroom windows 240 times a week just to earn a pound, barely enough to keep him out of the workhouse. And by the way Granddad didn’t tiptoe in order to be quiet: if he’d put his feet flat down in winter they might have stuck to the below-zero linoleum.

Talking of shirts: they were the standard sleep attire for males; the ladies wore nighties. We all knew about pyjamas, of course—we’d learned about them from American films. We were aware that the well-to-do brushed their teeth, but a toothbrush had yet to make its appearance in our house or in any other domicile on our patch. Most of the grown-ups ate with false teeth, their smiles a bright uniform plastic. These dentures were heirlooms and, like spectacles, were handed down. Using these was better than having porridge at each meal.

Across the road from the top of Houghton Street where the Ashtons lived was the start of Oldham Edge, a large area of sparsely grassed ups and downs that could have originally been a breakaway from the Pennine chain. It was bisected from the Royton end to the heights of Oldham by a straight road in desperate need of repair possibly, in fact almost certainly, built by the ancient Romans. The whole hilly, hummocky area rose to magnificent views of commercial Oldham. A dozen or more black factory chimneys belched dark smoke straight up on a rare calm day but in a capricious wind all the smoke would suddenly veer at right angles to the chimneys and then move as one in another direction like synchronised smoking. On Sundays, however, there was no such entertainment as the cotton mills enjoyed a day of rest and it was on these days that the workers—the younger ones, that is—got together for their sport on Oldham Edge. In the summer there was cricket, but there were not many matches because of the weather and because flat bits of Oldham Edge were sparse. In the winter there were games of football requiring unknown talents when dribbling along the side of the hill, which had piles of clothing at either end for goalposts.

I once played footie one Sunday when the light wasn’t good and ominous dark clouds had been assembling since early morning until the whole of the sky was black. I can’t remember how the game was afoot when the heavy leather ball flew over my head and before I could pull myself together I was trampled under a stampede of players. There must have been forty or fifty a side on that pitch, and as they were mostly young men wearing ordinary working clothes it was difficult to know who was on the opposing team. How I got involved in the first place, wearing my only shirt and an old pair of off-white army underpants over my own short pants, I’ll never know. Then the ball went over my head again, this time in the opposite direction, and I was faced by a sweating mob chasing the ball. I didn’t hesitate: I joined them. I could have been trampled to death. Then, to make matters worse, the monsoon broke, as heavy a deluge as I’d ever seen. Immediately the pace of the game eased up. It had to, as within a few minutes large areas of Oldham Edge were waterlogged and to kick a ball when it was floating was against all the rules of the game. Everything spluttered to a halt when one of the young bucks picked up the ball and walked disconsolately homewards, and everyone slouched off. It was too late for running and we were all wet through.

Hair plastered to my head, I went as well, but not home. The nearest port of call was 8 Houghton Street. When I knocked on the front door it was opened by Auntie Edna, and straight away she turned to shout into the room, ‘Another survivor from the Titanic.’ I later discovered that I’d turned up at the wrong football match: I should have been enjoying a kickabout with other little boys half a mile away.

Standing on the bed one day, I found that I could just about reach the bulkhead, a small space beneath the rafters, and I was curious to know if anything was stored there. I wasn’t tall enough to see, but by swinging my arm about I came into contact with a leather suitcase. I swept it down on to the bed in a cloud of dust. It wasn’t heavy, and so at first I thought it must be empty, but when I opened it I found an old dog-eared hardback book, with a yellow cover, entitled Tudor Kings and Queens of England. I wasn’t too interested, because my attention was drawn to the lining of the suitcase, which was an old newspaper. I opened it out and my eye was taken by drawings of slim young women advertising dresses buttoned at the neck but with skirts down to the calves—very daring, as the paper must have been at least ten years old and the present year was barely into the 1930s. It had the latest styles, mind you, all priced under a pound, and the most modern handbags from Italy, less than ten bob. There were no photographs in the newspaper just drawings. How I wish now that I’d kept it to the present day, but then again how many things would I have kept had I ‘some power the giftie gie us’ (Robbie Burns). I was just about to close the case and chuck it back when a sudden thought swept through my mind. Tudor Kings and Queens of England? I’d never read a book in my life but there’s always a first time. Taking the book downstairs, I sat on a buffet and flipped through the pages. I realised that it was going to be a stiff test because it contained no pictures.

Chapter One and I embarked on my first literary expedition. Page two, page three—diligently I read every word, not understanding any of them. By dinnertime I was three parts through the turgid, boring kings and queens of England, but with a slice of bread buttered with condensed milk I pressed on. Dad, who was out of work in the depression of the thirties, came home after a fruitless job hunt, took off his cap, coat and scarf and, seeing that I was already eating my dinner, stuck a slice of bread on the end of the toasting fork and held it over the fire. I wished I’d thought of that, but then again condensed milk and toast was unthinkable. I went back to my book. I hadn’t far to go now, and I was devouring the book page by page, reading every word religiously. I even read what some unknown had written on the bottom of page 163: in a spidery hand he’d scrawled, ‘Remind Amy about Saturday.’ I remember turning the corner of the page down in case I might want to read it again. It was intriguing…Perhaps Amy was his intended, or maybe they were already married and what was happening on Saturday? A dance, a football match…Ah, but could the writer be a girl and Amy her best friend? I stared unseeing at the page before me, and then I pulled myself together and concentrated—only a few more pages to go now.

Eventually near teatime I came to the most wonderful part of the book: just two words, ‘The End’. Snapping the book shut I stood up and stretched. I’d been hunched for hours but it had been worth it.

I casually edged towards my father and said, ‘Dad, I’ve just read a book,’ as if I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He said, ‘What’s it about?’

I stared at him blankly. I was flummoxed. Wasn’t it enough that I’d read it? After all, that was the achievement—surely I didn’t have to understand it as well. On second thoughts it might have been better to have counted the words instead of reading them. Then I could have said, ‘Dad, there are twenty-five thousand, four hundred and twenty-six words in this book, not counting the title.’ I just looked at him. He was staring at me pitifully, as if I was slightly backward, and on reflection I think he had a point.

I can’t ever recollect my father having a serious talk with me or anyone else for that matter. He was a quiet, gentle person and never, ever, did I hear Dad swear, to the day he died in 1972, but if provoked beyond all endurance he always used the same innocent alternative. It was ‘broad lastic’, uttered through gritted teeth. It scared the daylights out of us. I know it sounds innocuous, but throughout my life I probably heard as many expletives as any other veteran, and none as dangerous as ‘broad lastic’ when growled by my father.

He was a man of principles and on election day he would vote Conservative, the only one in a community of staunch, long-live, die-hard Labourites. Dad even put a photo of our local Tory candidate in the front window. This was unfortunate for John and me when on the day before the votes were counted the young sons of Labour supporters came out with rolled-up yellow paper bound by string, which they whirled about their heads, and lambasted us for betraying the working class. However, on the following day all was forgotten and we carried on playing together as if nothing had happened, which was true as the Liberals usually got in.

Every Sunday, while other tired, weary fathers lay a-bed till dinnertime, our dad was preparing himself for his morning’s hobby: he was a campanologist or, in common parlance, a bell-ringer.

Whatever the weather, he would stride across the Mucky Broos to St Mary’s Parish Church, not in his drab, worn, workaday clobber, but completely transformed in black bowler hat, overcoat—always unbuttoned—flapping behind him like an opera cloak, stiff white collar, black tie and highly polished shoes protected by pearl-grey spats, which intrigued me. I can remember watching him fastening them over his shoes, dexterously making them secure with a buttonhook, which he always replaced on the mantelpiece, out of my reach. Every time I watched him going to church my heart swelled with pride, even though I knew that in the lining of his bowler was rolled-up newspaper to prevent it from falling over his eyes, that his overcoat had only one button left and that his shoes once belonged to his father and had more balled-up newspaper in the toes to prevent him from walking out of them in the damp Broos. From a distance he was a real bobby-dazzler, but close up the rag-and-bone man wouldn’t have given him fifteen bob for the lot. Anyway, what do fancy clothes matter? It’s the man inside that drives the engine. Dad looked forward with excited anticipation to his stint in the belfry, just as a keen football supporter will push his way through the turnstiles at Boundary Park to stand for almost two hours on a cold, windy terrace to watch Oldham Athletic.

Arriving at the church opposite the war memorial, he strode over the gravestones, one of which was for a whole family: husband, wife and six children, who all died within a week in the year 1734. What a tragic story behind that! If this was the graveyard, how old was St Mary’s Parish Church? I can imagine my father opening the great front door which led to the stone steps winding their way up to the belfry, ‘Good mornings’ to the seven other ringers, overcoats and jackets on hooks in the corner, sleeves rolled up as they approached their allocated places, a nod from the conductor, and then with a creak and a rattle of the bell ropes the Sunday morning silence shattered by the clamouring of the bells. The opening round was usually reasonable, but then the rot set in and the bells seemed to compete, jostling with each other for a piece of the action. It was as if a mighty hand from above had scooped up all the bells to fling them down to earth, clanging and banging as they bounced down Barker Street.

I don’t wish to sound disloyal, but the bell-ringers cocooned in their sheltered belfry do not get the full benefits of their efforts. I’ve never mentioned this observation to a soul and to all campanologists, in spite of my uneducated criticism; and in fact I would never ever swap the bell-ringers for the soul-less chimes of a press-button carillon. As I was writing this I heard a loud grinding noise: it could have been my poor father turning over in his grave…

Vernon and I were in the old St Mary’s Parish Church choir and John joined us when he was eight years old. Also in the choir was Dad’s older sister, Aunt Mag, and an alto Aunt Marie, Dad’s younger sister, who was the first lady bell-ringer in England. Mother was exempt because she was cooking the dinner. How’s that for a family record? We almost outnumbered the congregation. While Dad and Aunt Marie were bouncing up and down on their ropes, Vernon, John and I were making our way to the church to bring joy and hallelujah to the faithful and this journey by Robin Hill Baths, up Barker Street, and through the Tommyfield market was at times an eerie experience. Every Sunday morning Oldham was a ghost town; it was as if the whole population had been spirited away to a distant planet.

Apart from the battle of the bells, the occasional distant cockcrow and the clacking of our footsteps, all was silent. Walking through a deserted Tommyfield was a depressing experience. The whole area was littered with the detritus of a hectic Saturday night—cardboard boxes, straw, wrapping paper, chip paper—disturbed from time to time by a marauding wind, but on days when it was really blowing the predominant noise was the flapping of the stall coverings, like the sails of a three-master crossing the Bay of Biscay in a force nine. This was bend-forward-and-hold-your-cap weather, which we preferred to the malignant calm as we made our way to church.

As for Saturday night, the market was a cacophony of voices, laughter and the constant shuffle of hundreds of feet tramping through the stalls lit garishly with single electric light bulbs or lamps, blue smoke busily curling through the lights from a chippy or a hot dog stand, candy floss machines for young and old. No two stalls were alike—clothing, footwear, crockery, herbal remedies, cheap jewellery; in fact that little world of Tommyfield market catered for almost everything, and if money was tight many people just shuffled round to enjoy the quick-fire repartee of the vendors. Strange as it may seem, the crockery stall invariably drew the biggest audience. A fat jolly man held a dozen dinner plates, slapping them as he announced, ‘I am not going to ask you five shillings…I’m not even going to ask you four bob,’ and then with a triumphant slap he would launch his punchline, ‘Half-a-crown the lot.’ There was a stirring in the crowd, and after a slight pause there was a surge forward, hands outstretched proffering half-crowns while two assistants busily wrapped dozens of plates in old newspaper. Most of the crowd would not even have house room for a dozen dinner plates, but it was Saturday night and what a bargain! There was more crockery to be had, more people to be had and above all there was entertainment. And now as the dawn of Sunday morning creeps silently over Tommyfield, what a contrast to the night before!

I was getting older by the day; in fact in a couple of years I’d be in double figures, so I should have known better…but my friend Richard and I were up to our old shenanigans after nightfall. It wasn’t brilliant, it wasn’t even funny, but you have to remember that in those days we didn’t have wireless, let alone television. Here’s what we did. We’d reach up and rat-a-tat the door knocker of a house in Ward Street, and then scoot across the cart road, flinging ourselves on the darkness of the Mucky Broos to watch the developments. Someone would invariably open the door, and look up and down the street, only to find it deserted. Then they’d close the door, wondering if they had imagined the whole thing. As I said, it wasn’t brilliant, but when did a bit of mischief deter a child? We took it in turns to rat-a-tat another door and another until the game palled.

It couldn’t possibly go on unchallenged and the more doors we knocked on the closer we were to discovery—and so it was on one particular night. It was my turn to rat-a-tat, which I did peremptorily, but there was no time to cross the street, as the door was opened immediately by a young athletic man. I was almost paralysed, scared out of my wits, and I ran panic-stricken for the corner of the street. Richard was already safe in the anonymity of the dark Broos. My little legs were no match for the confident stride of an angry man, and as I rounded the corner his heavy hand grasped my collar and lifted me off my feet, and I am sure he was about to do me serious damage when a deep Irish voice from the darkness shouted ‘Oi!’. I was petrified, and more so when I recognised Constable Matty Lally. I could have survived a blow but not a custodial sentence. I wasn’t too relieved when Matty Lally advised the man to go back home and leave it to the law. The man went off muttering—no one argued with the law—and when he’d gone I tensed for the well-deserved official wallop; but the policeman bent down to me and whispered, ‘How many motor-car numbers did you get?’ I hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was talking about but it was a great let-off.

It wasn’t until I was well tucked up in bed that I connected Constable Lally’s ‘How many motor-car numbers did you get?’ to my motor-car spotting day on Featherstall Road—and I lay there wondering what a remarkable memory he had to recall an incident that must have taken place years ago. It was my last thought before sleep took over and sadly that was the last time I saw my new-found friend Constable Matty Lally.

Dad’s hobby was mending pocket watches. Well-to-do men sported pocket watches chained across the front of their waistcoats—wrist watches were, as yet, an unknown in the cotton towns of the northwest—and so to see Dad bending over a backless watch, eyepiece screwed into his eye socket, was a fairly regular occurrence. But on one particular day he was immersed in a larger contraption with dials along the front. He was peering into the innards of the thing with such concentration that he didn’t notice me. In fact if the house had fallen down he would still have been bent over his work, standing on the foundations. This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds because he was insulated from his surroundings by a large pair of earphones clamped round his head.

‘It’s a wireless set,’ he said, answering my enquiry. ‘A cat’s whisker,’ he added, which left me no wiser—what had all the wires and valves got to do with our Tiddles? ‘There’s something there but I can’t make out what it is.’

‘Can’t you make it louder?’ I said helpfully.

He took off his earphones and pointed through the window at the house opposite, in whose backyard was a tall mast as high again as the house. As far as I was concerned it had always been there, but I had assumed that it was a flag pole, although on Remembrance or Empire Days I’d never seen a Union Jack fluttering from it. ‘He can get signals from all over the world with that: it’s a wireless mast.’

Then he stared into his own little contraption and I noticed one of the valves flashing a feeble light nervously, like a child attempting its first step. Quickly Dad slipped on his earphones and listened excitedly for a few moments; then he took off his headphones and transferred them to my head.

I listened intently, and then with a shriek I yelled, ‘It’s a band, it’s a band.’

A moment of history marking the day I heard magic from the airwaves.

I don’t know how, or from whom, or what day I learned that the one I thought was Mother was not my mother at all, and that in fact my real mother had died when I was born. I couldn’t absorb it at first, and when I did it wasn’t earth-shattering: I took it in my stride. It wasn’t a catastrophe—after all, a catastrophe to a little boy is when he puts his hand in his pants pocket and finds a hole where his hard-earned penny should have been, so the news of my real mother was hardly a tremor on the Richter scale. However, a few days later when Dad and I were alone in the kitchen—it must have been Sunday morning because Dad was shaving at the sink, towel tucked into the top of his trousers as he stropped his razor and then pinched his nose to shave his top lip—taking the bull by the horns, I blurted, ‘Dad, what was my real mother’s name?’

He cut himself and after a ‘broad lastic’ he glanced round and, satisfied that we were alone, he muttered, ‘Harriet.’ Then he took a little piece of paper and stuck it on to his top lip to make the blood coagulate. Next he lifted his face to the ceiling and began scraping under his chin.

Thinking that I’d at last opened the door, I said, ‘What was she like?’ and he cut himself again. Why didn’t he just go to the barber’s?

Exasperated, he put down his razor and sent me out to play, and that was the end of the matter. But I didn’t let go. Every time we were alone together and I approached him he found some excuse to forestall any question. I had to know why it had been kept secret from me for so long but as I cleared my throat to ask, the drawbridge came down with a bang—it was a ‘no-go’ area. Nevertheless in the mess of half-formed thoughts and ideas lurking at the back of my head questions as yet unformed required answers.

A few mornings later, I was luxuriating in bed between sleep and full awareness, John not yet awake by my side, the beginning of a perfect day—when suddenly a roller blind in my head shot up, illuminating my mind. No questions or answers about my real mother but, more importantly, explanations! I knew now why the lady called Mother lavished so much love and attention on John: John was her son and I wasn’t. I now understood why Dad was reluctant to even discuss my real mother: it would have been extremely tactless even to mention her name in front of Mother. His life began again when he married Florrie Ashton. The discovery also clarified the three sets of grandparents—the Staceys, the Ashtons and the Sykes—and here was a troubling thought: would I have to give up the Ashtons for my own kin and join Vernon at Grandma Stacey’s? I shuddered. Grandma Ashton must have known about me for years but she’d always treated me with kindness and affection as John’s best friend. It also made it clear why many people regarded me as an adoption gone wrong—a puzzling thought, but now I knew the reason I was strangely comforted.