OW"T OUT O"TNOWT

Junior school was becoming a real concern not only with my learning but I was getting picked on by a lad who was in a higher form, who came from a well to do family he had an evil streak, he made mine and other young kids life a misery, one day he caught me on my own on the way to school, he dragged me in the woods and kicked the hell out of me, he was a nasty piece of work. Many years later I was to bump into him in a pubic house in Derby, he was inebriated and obnoxious, I reminded him of his seamy past, telling him what a bully he was and embarrassing him in front of the perceptive smiles of the regulars, he did not deny it but said he could not remember me. School was difficult for me so it was I couldn’t wait for the weekends to arrive so I could live in a safe haven for a couple of days. On the Fridays after school I would rush through the Osmaston Park to my very crowded home, practicing another word I couldn’t say properly, trying to pronounce it over and over again,
“ Rorry, shit, lorry, lorry lorry, rorry shit again.”
This was a simple word, not one of my usual longer words that could not be pronounced. I could not pronounce it correctly for more than three times on the trot, “ rorry,” it sounded like baby talk, I kept thinking about how stupid it must sound to other kids at school, once at home it did not matter any more until Monday morning came around.
On Friday nights the house was hustle and bustle, my mother would be collecting the house keeping money off all the working family members. My eldest sister Janet and her husband Ron who had just moved in, my brother Colin who had just started his apprenticeship as a pattern maker, all would sort out our family’s finances.
My sister Nora and myself always hopped the electric meter man had been to read the meter during the week, so we too may have some pocket money to spend. We would enjoy watching this man when he called in the holidays, he would empty it of the pennies, sixpences and shillings on to the work surface of the kitchen cabinet my dad had made, he would count out at great speed the coins stacking them up in columns, he would check the amount against the meter readings, the meter was set at a higher amount to the price of electricity. He would slide this money due into little paper bags and seal them with a flick of his wrist, drop these in his leather bag then dash off to his next call leaving the extra amount in small piles. My mother would divide these up into piles decreasing in size, one to put back into the metre, one for her and two for pocket money for my sister and myself, this was all we got for pocket money until he called again; I always hoped we had used a lot of electricity so there may be extra high piles of coins in the rebate.
Usually I could not wait to see what my dad had brought home from work for the caravan he was building in the back garden.
My father had decided to build a large six-berth caravan, my uncle who was in charge of the millwright section at Rolls Royce had started to build one. My mother must have told my farther he could easily build one as he was a coach body builder at carriage side, the name given locally for the British Railways Coach Building Works. It was interesting how these two men tackled this job, one from an engineer’s perspective and one from a joiners view; one had metal struts for a framework the other timber. My uncle Roger built his inside a garage in two half’s lowering the top half on to the bottom half as it would not fit in one piece in his garage. My father had started the project sometime back and was now reaching the fitting out and finishing off stage, the project was moving on quicker as my brother Colin and brother in law Ron were giving him a hand. To fit this twenty-foot caravan into the back yard he had demolished his work shed and the greenhouse then started building a chassis out of an old axle, springs and bed irons from old metal beds from a scrap yard. Visits to various scrap yards were common, from one scrap yard situated in the middle of town tucked in behind Cockpit Hill where they specialised in scraping old trolley buses, he purchased the middle section, the floor of upstairs the ceiling of downstairs of one of these buses, a huge amount of material in this one section contained all useful stuff with which to build with.
Cockpit Hill was a fun place to visit on Saturday market, a visit to Sid Sharrots the pet and tropical fish shop who had branched out upstairs into a model shop, here all the kids would go and stare at the rows and rows of model railway engines and rolling stock in locked glass cabinets, a visit here to see them was never missed although knowing full well we could not afford any of them. On Cockpit Hill the market trader’s set out their stalls and folk would gather round as they shouted out touting for business, offering cut-price goods. Nobody was as good at it as Mad Harry, he would do his usual act every week, and nobody knew what he was going to sell you next.
“ I’m not asking four pounds, not three pounds not two pounds not even one pound.” slapping his hand down on the goods ever time the price was lowered,
“ I am asking one pound ten shilling for these beautiful bed sheets and there are four in a pack.”
The ladies would clabber forward to buy these, my mother included; he took six pounds off each of them. On getting them home she discovered they only fitted a two-foot mattress, I could see the look of disappointment on her face, but she made out she knew and said they were for the caravan. My mum was always a sucker for Mad Harry’s chat, she was to replace our round cider stone pot bottles we used for hot water bottles with rubber ones from Mad Harry’s, she was please as punch with her purchase until she came to fill them up, the sealing washers were missing on their screw caps. My farther sorted them out so we could enjoy this new luxury that we could hold between our knees in bed after they had cooled down a little.
My sister Nora and I did miss our nightly race across the living room floor balancing and rolling on our old pot bottles like log roller’s on the Mississippi river, it was apart of the nightly ritual after she had her rags put in her hair to curl it for the next day and after we had our toes smeared with black ointment to help cure our chilblains. After our race it was supper, the stale bread that had been placed in the range to be baked to a crisp was covered with dripping from some part of an animal my mother had cooked and saved the fat drippings in a beaker. The range was the focal point in the house, built with two ovens either side of the fire, it had little flue covers made in cast iron all around it s main casting, it was soon to become my job on Saturday mornings to dismantle the entire range, empty the soot out and clean the whole range with Zebra stove blacking.
My dad returned home always dead on the dot, five forty five, never a minute early never a minute late, the old wall clock’s chime struck-out three times to announce his arrival, I did not know how he did this; I peered from behind the clothes maiden that was covered in steaming clothes that were hugged round the range fire, he took a hidden bundle of wood from under his heavy mackintosh tied up in thick string, which he had made a loop in to throw across his shoulder, he lowered the bundle to floor. My father was a giant of a man with a square chin and huge hands a real gentle giant, he took his pay packet out of his jacket pocket counted out some notes for my mother then replaced the packet back into his pocket, my mother never knew how much he earnt, a topic of many an argument. I undid the knots and rolled up the string, everything was saved in those days, my mum took it off me to place in a tin marked string, this would be used at Christmas to tie up the linen on top of our home made Christmas puddings, I knew she would be soon asking me to return the sixpenny joeys that I had found in the puddings last year to stir in with the mixture this year while making a wish. I played with the pieces of timber making an imaginary fort out of them. My dad nipped out to his shed and brought in a wood chisel, he picked up the largest piece of flat wood, he prized the chisel into the end of it, to my surprise out of the plank end slid a mirror, the kind you got in the toilets on railway carriages which had etched in the corner L.M.S, with the remaining pieces he placed round the mirror to frame it.
He told me I could go with him the next day to collect a barrow full of timber he had bought from the scrap off cuts at work. The following day we were in the carriage side works loading up a four-wheeled trolley the type that they used on stations that had a big handle you steered and pulled them with.
This was loaded high; we headed for the gate, “ OK Fred.” The man said, as my dad gave him a chitty.
As we pushed and pulled it out of the gate, I could see the pleasure on my dads face. After getting the trolley home we unloaded it and he started again with his chisel on long lengths of timber, many were hollow, out poured the goodies, sliding track, strip brass and aluminium, screws and screw cups, nuts and bolts, door catches and the like. Also on the trolley were bundles of maroon painted destination boards with exotic names sign written on them EDINBOUROUGH dash LONDON, NEWCASTLE dash BIRMINGHAM and other cities of the country. These boards use to fit on the roof of the maroon and custard railway carriages of the L.M.S. the London Midland Scotland railway company, my dad smiled again as he sanded one of the boards, and ran his hand over the fine red grain of the timber, “ Do you know these are all made out of Brazilian mahogany” The caravan indeed was taking shape at the expense of British Rail.
I was privileged to have such a clever dad, who could with scrape and a bit of pilfering make something out of nothing. There was kids around who had nothing, some others who had a far worse deal, there fathers had died during the war or left their mothers and their mothers had abandon them too, eventually these poor kids were asked to line up in some schools in front of cards, marked New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, and bluntly told to pick a country, then were marched off to have their tonsils pulled out and shipped out overseas, some thanks to some of their dads for dying in action. My father had escaped going to war, he was the eldest in his own family and he was fairly deaf, the family raised their voices an octave or two when speaking to him. Before the war he was a model builder for Rolls Royce on the car manufacturing side, building full size wooden models of new cars, then during the war he worked away from home doing long hours, he must have had a little time off or I would not be here today. His own farther had died in an accident on the LMS railway where he worked. The London Midland Scotland Railways had an orphanage in Derby town, Saint Christopher’s for railway children, his mother now left on her own could not afford to feed all her children my farther volunteered himself to go there. Here he suffered. Every individual had their head shaved on arrival then given harsh hardwearing clothes to wear. He told me he would have never survived those days if it weren’t for his friend, as he could not hear the wake up bell in the mornings. His friend woke him up and helped him through the long days then in the evening his friend told him what he had missed throughout the day in lessons, a true friend. He learnt how to use his hands in the woodwork classes, he excelled at this, and this helped him in his future work. A few weeks before Christmas you would never see him, he would be out in his shed making Christmas presents not only for us but also for our cousins. The best toys he made always seem to leave the house, large rocking horses, wooden trains, small brick trolleys, wooden rattles, wooden guns that fired elastic bands, farmyards and dolls houses, forts, model theatre stages and the like.
I had been told my eldest sister Janet had received a sack of ashes one Christmas for being naughty, I could never imagine my sister being naughty, my sister more or less looked after me since I was born. I awoke this Christmas to find an empty sack at the bottom of my bed, I could not think what I had done wrong. I stepped out of bed and stood on a small white cowshed, a trail of small building lead out of the bedroom down the stairs, I found the last piece with all the farm animals in front of the large range. My dad was fast asleep in his chair still holding a paintbrush, I knew then who the real farther Christmas was. I was pleased to have him, although as a youngster he hardly spoke to me, I did not get to know him very well until I was eighteen or so. This giant of a man was only ever to hit me once, we had our cousins around for a weekend I had a crush on my cousin Unise and thought she was beautiful, she was my sister Nora’s age, the girls did not want to play with me, I got upset, hit my cousin then ran out of the house, my dad was soon in hot pursuit, I ran down the garden, jumped over next doors hedge and jumped and dived over the whole row of hedges in the avenue I thought I had lost him but he followed me over the lot, he caught up with me, gave me a walloping and dragged me home by the scruff of the neck crying. Mum and dad had another argument over it; these were commonplace in the house they happened over the smallest thing, they even argued about where furniture should go.
“ We’ll have the settee over there Fred.” my mother would say.
He would move it,
“ No, over here.” he would move it again,
On the sixth time of moving it backward and forward an argument erupted, my giant of a farther picked up this heavily made three-seater settee to shoulder height and flung it across the room, it bounced off the wall and fell to the floor.
“ It can bloody well stay there.”
He then stormed out of the house, but this argument was of my making, which made me feel worse.
“ How dare you hit my child?” She shouted as if he had no authority over me.
Later on in the evening my dad pulled me to his side, even though he was not a tactile man who had few words for his children he said,
“ Son, in your future life promise me you will not ever hit another girl or women.” I vowed I wouldn’t.
I got to thinking it was my sister Nora’s fault anyway so one day I waited upstairs in my mothers bedroom window for her to come out of the back door and dropped an old encyclopaedia on her head which knocked her out, I thought I killed her. I found this encyclopaedia on a piece of furniture that very few homes in our avenue possessed, that was a bookcase, most homes in the area were devoid of books, my mother was really middle class and had this set of books before they were married, my father was working class. Even today this meagre item of furniture and what it contains draws a line within our social structure and standing differences.
My mother also contributed to making things out of very little. Most of our clothes she made for us, she took in extra sewing for other folk. On one occasion when I was a very small child, she was asked to make a small boy a satin shirt for a wedding, after she made it, it was modelled on me, she like it so much before the woman came to pay for it my sister and I were whisked down into town to Jerome photographers to have our pictures taken. She taught us all how to knit, to sow and how to darn our own holes up in our woollen socks with the aid of a wooden mushroom. She made rag rugs to cover our flooring, in winter months we would drag these on to our beds to be used for extra blankets. My mother wore outlandish clothes for the times and continued to do so throughout her life however she had become a frail short woman who had a lot of medical problems so spent a lot of time in hospitals; she seemed to enjoy her visits there, I dare say it might have been the bed rest, I thought it part of my education visiting those hospitals scattered around Derby, I started making a list,
Nightingale Women’s Hospital,
DRI, Derbyshire Royal Infirmary,
Manor Hospital,
City Hospital,
Bretby Hospital where a trip into the country was to be had.
She would come out of hospital and proudly showed everyone the latest operation scar. I don’t know what they did at her but it must have worked for she lived until she was ninety-four. Like most women she could do several jobs at a time, even when convalescing she could read a book, listen to a play on the wireless, knit a jumper keeping up with the knitting pattern as well as tell me off for drawing rude pictures in the ice on the inside of her bedroom window. She loved little children but did not seem interested in us after a certain age, so as a small children she looked after us all well but my sister Janet was the constant influence in my life as she was around when my mother wasn’t.
My mother took on a part time job working in a children’s home and if she was working over the weekend I was dragged along to stay with her. In the home were abused little children of my own age; I was fed, bathed and bedded with them. At times they terrified me, I was playing cowboys and Indians with them one night as we got ready for bed, I tied a little black boys wrists up with his pyjama cord, as I was playing a cowboy who had captured an Indian, he screamed the house down. I could not have known he was a twin to his sister and they had been tied up and left by their parents, the twins were a bad omen for this family. I did not know I had done wrong but was chastised by another residential care worker who said I should know better, she roughly pushed me out of the room hurting my arm, I asked to stop going there, my sister took over once again.
My mother enjoyed party times and always made sure we had plenty in for Christmas, everything was still on ration so she saved a little of something each week throughout the year for this celebration. She would store this up in the top cupboard; no one was to touch it until a week before Christmas. I would go along with her on her weekly shopping expedition to the local Elton road co-op. The co-op was spacious building with long counters down each side, diary produces and the like down one side, fruit and veg down the other. Behind the counters was as busy as in the front of them. You would start at the door to work your way around, my mother clutching her ration book in her hand.
“ Two pounds of sugar please.”
This would be weighed out into thick blue bags, folded neatly at the top dabbed with a little glue, placed upside down while the glue dried.
“ Anything else?”
“A half-pound of butter.”
This would be cut with wire from a large block and battered into to shape with a couple of grooved wooden butter pats and wrapped up in grease proof paper which we also saved for greasing cake and pudding dishes. After each purchase my mother would hand over a coupon to cover them,
“ Has the brown sugar come in yet?”
“ Yes but your only allowed a pound of it.”
It seemed everything was weighed out unless it came in a tin and there wasn’t many tins, the only item you could get without a coupon was a limited amount of broken biscuits or not so fresh greens. At the far end of the store stuck high in the air like a pulpit in an old church was the cashier sitting in a box, from this box was wires stretching out either side down to the counters some ten in total to above the shop assistance heads, when your shopping was done the assistant placed your money along with the coupons and your divvy number in a brass cup that screwed on to a holder on the wire, the assistant would pull this back against a spring then would release the cup and holder by pulling a handle, your money would be catapulted up the wire to the cashier in his ivory tower, your change would return by gravity.
The posh folk got the delivery boy to get your goods home on his big black and white painted bicycle with a big basket on the front, no such luck for our family I had got my trolley made out of our old pram. A quick stop in the butchers department next door for a small joint for Sunday, my mother was one from last generation to know every cut of a cow, sheep or pig and would explain to the butcher in detail the very little piece of the anatomy she wanted.
One item from the shopping, usually the hard to get hold of like brown sugar, sultanas, raisins and the rare tins of fruit were placed in the top cupboard for a Christmas feast.

My farther later in life said my mother was mutton dressed as lamb, but at least I thought she knew the cut.
My mother said my father could have made more of his life, to me he made everything.
At one time when they first met things must have been different for them both, it would seem that my mother was a beautiful little feisty temperamental red headed girl who fell for a placid tall dark and handsome young man with a motorbike, they both shared an accident on it, nursed each other back to good health and later married, although they stayed together for life it would seem both of them nursed dispirited hearts.

The adults in the family worked hard to finish the caravan off, a site was booked at Ingoldmels Point near Skegness on the east coast.
The only problem was we did not own a car to tow it there.