Road to the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  At 6.30 p.m. we ate a substantial meal and spent the evening playing board games, watching black and white films on the old projector, reading, writing letters and postcards home, drawing, playing Bingo (it was then called Housey-Housey) or just talking. There were no television, computer games or mobile phones.

  My parents warned me before I set off for the Isle of Man to be careful and try not to have an accident – as was my wont. I did try, but one year I was swimming in the clear blue waters of Port Erin Bay when pumping its way towards me I saw this huge mass of translucent jelly, purple in the centre and with long stringy tentacles. I had never swum as fast in my life, and thrashed towards the shore closely followed by the other swimmers. One of the tentacles, however, attached itself to my arm and later my hand and wrist swelled up, turned a strange blue colour and started to hurt. My friends were fascinated but entirely unsympathetic, predicting that it would not be very long before my arm withered and fell off. Mr Firth took me to the doctor, who prescribed the appropriate medicine. After a couple of days the swelling went down and the colour faded. Rather than warn us all of the dangers of swimming in a sea inhabited by such dangerous creatures, Mr Firth informed those on his dinner table that evening that life was full of risks and then gave a very informative lecture on the life cycle of the Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish.

  When three boys arrived back at the school after the first day looking like cooked lobsters and complaining of sunburn, Mrs Clark smeared them liberally with calamine lotion and that was the end of the matter.

  Another year my brother Alec came into the school after a day’s fishing off the pier carrying a huge conger eel that he had caught. Another feared creature with its razor-sharp needle teeth, like a huge black and slimy snake, this predatory creature lived in the shallow coastal waters of the island. One snap of its massive jaws and you could lose your fingers. Rather than telling my brother off and warning others not to fish off the pier in case such a monster of the deep might be caught and could maim them for life, Mr Firth and the teachers dined off conger eel that evening, cooked to perfection by the cook. Alec was given a taste and half a crown for his efforts.

  It was with a great sense of excitement that I visited the Isle of Man nearly forty years later. In 2001 Pat Corrin invited me to speak at a charity luncheon in Douglas and I jumped at the chance to revisit the island. Jack, her husband, a true-blue Manxman and former Deemster (high court judge), took me on a nostalgic tour. I was made to feel so welcome. A year later I was back, this time at the invitation of the Senior Primary Education Adviser, to run a course for teachers, and I was able to visit Castle Rushen Primary School. It was very different now. Although the squat, square, grey stone exterior had changed very little in the intervening years, inside, the building was unrecognizable. Gone were the hard wooden floors, the metal-framed windows, the long cold green-tiled corridors, the wooden desks and the small, rather smelly toilets. I stood with the headteacher in this bright, welcoming and cheerful entrance, the walls covered in children’s writing and paintings, and was taken back forty years, to when I stood on that spot, an eleven-year-old with his little case and an apprehensive expression. It seemed a world away.

  40

  I was susceptible to girls since reaching double figures, but it was only when I was fourteen that I first started seriously thinking about them. I found out all too soon that I had a habit of falling for those who showed little interest in me, unlike my best friend Peter, who had his pick. Even when the girl had never met me the relationship seemed to flounder.

  I was fixed up with a pen-friend by a colleague of my mother’s and began corresponding with Katie, who lived in Milwaukee. Her photograph showed a bright-eyed, blonde-haired, all-American girl with a massive smile. She looked stunning. The photograph I sent her was of a dark, brooding, rather plain-looking boy. My letters must have seemed dreadfully pedestrian compared to hers, despite the fact that I embroidered and exaggerated and sometimes invented stories to make my life seem less drab and where I lived more exciting. Katie lived in a place as far removed in my mind from Rotherham as I could imagine. The photographs of the town in which she lived exuded affluence. It looked a clean, safe, wholesome place with long, straight, leafy streets, huge wooden houses with verandas and beautifully tended gardens, a stately white town hall and an imposing hospital. There was a diner with a huge neon sign above it, a grand picture palace, gas stations, a plaza and a high school as big as a castle.

  Katie’s letters would tell me about the wonderful facilities at her school, the sports stadium, baseball games, swimming pool, ice hockey rink, running track, the high school band, the cheerleaders, the drama productions, the wonderful student social areas and her academic success. In one letter was a picture of her in a ballgown before setting off for the high school prom. She was on the arm of a tuxedoed boy with a tanned face, a cheesy smile, a huge bow tie, his hair slicked back. Of course, I knew his name just had to be Chuck. What could compare – that I had just summoned up the courage to dive from the first block at the swimming baths? That I had been to see the stuffed animals at Clifton Park Museum? That I had learnt three chords on the ukulele? That I had reached Grade 4 on the piano? Despite my efforts to try and make my life of some interest, it must have sounded to her a pretty dreary existence, and the letters stopped.

  After the disastrous date with Brenda, I was very apprehensive when my best friend Peter suggested that I make up a foursome. He was ‘walking out’ with a strikingly pretty, dark-haired girl and she had this friend, Jocelyn (I have changed the name to save her blushes), a thin, shy girl with thick straw-coloured hair and as long-legged and languid as a heron. Like many boys my age, I had become very fastidious about my personal appearance and spent a deal of time examining my face in the mirror for spots, brilliantining my hair, dousing my body with my brother’s after-shave, scrubbing my teeth and making sure my fingernails were clean. I am sad to admit that it did not have the desired effect.

  For a few weeks the four of us went to the cinema, played tennis, took bus rides to Sheffield, drank strawberry milk shakes at the Ring o’Bells Café in All Saints’ Square, listened to Beatles’ records and went for walks around Clifton Park – all very innocent. There was no ‘hanky panky’ as my Aunt Nora would say.

  I had a sneaking feeling from the very first that Jocelyn only went out with me because she liked Peter and this was a way she could see a lot of him. I noticed the way she looked at him when he was talking and it was pretty obvious after a few weeks that she had a crush on him. Well, what girl wouldn’t? He had curly, straw-coloured hair, the looks of the male model and a physique to match, and he was clever, confident and good company. Peter’s father was a distinguished alderman of the town, a justice of the peace and a school governor and the family lived in a house overlooking the playing fields. Peter’s elder brother was an actor. When my friend tired of Lynne and found another girlfriend, Jocelyn gave me my marching orders, but I can’t say I was that bothered and certainly didn’t lose any sleep over it. We had little in common – I liked books and reading and she liked dancing and clothes. I did once persuade her to go with me to the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield to see a production of Julius Caesar, but I guess she only agreed because Peter’s elder brother was in the cast.

  In 2005, at the time of writing this account, I was appearing at the Broadway Theatre in Catford as part of my tour, An Evening with Gervase Phinn. I had not thought of Peter for many years, so it was a surprise when at the book signing after the show I looked up to find him there with a great grin on his face. I had not seen him for forty years. Much to his embarrassment and to the amusement of his wife, Andrea, I reminded him of our innocent exploits with the girls of Rotherham in the 1960s and of the string of girls who would queue up to go out with him. With Peter was his young son. Things got even stranger when he told me that the young man’s name was Finn.

  The next girlfriend was Judy and she was very different from Jocelyn. She had thick curly blonde
hair like a doll’s, which stuck out at the sides like giant earmuffs, and she had small breasts like the knobs on my grandmother’s dresser. I met her in Rotherham Library, where she was poring over a thick tome in the corner of the reference section. I was revising for my O levels and sat down at the large oak table opposite her. She kept on glancing up when I had my head down and I kept on glancing up when she had her head down. When we glanced up at the same time, we started laughing and got talking. Then there was a coffee at the Ring o’Bells Café and I asked her out to the cinema.

  I guessed that Judy would prefer to see a romantic film where all the people seemed to do was talk in posh accents, give deeply meaningful looks and snatch the odd kiss, but I loved the films with excitement, films which in their sheer inventiveness had my eyes glued to the screen, films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Blob. They were badly acted and the special effects were sometimes laughable, but I was hooked on them. I didn’t mind if you could see the zip down the back of the costume of The Man from Planet X, or that Godzilla was a magnified puppet and about as frightening as Noddy. However, after the last unforgettable experience with Brenda, when we’d seen The Amazing Colossal Man, I decided to give Zombies of the Stratosphere a miss and take Judy to see a historical adventure.

  We went to the Tivoli (the ‘flea pit’) to see The Black Rose, a romantic, action-packed tale starring Tyrone Power (what a name!). The bastard son of a Saxon nobleman flees medieval England for the Far East, where he falls for a beautiful Eurasian woman on her way to the court of Kublai Khan. He rescues the beautiful slave girl and confronts the Mongolian warlord, wonderfully overacted by Orson Welles behind heavy Oriental make-up. Judy sat through the film with her hands clasped tightly on her lap, totally impassive. When I tried to slide my arm around the back of her seat, she winced as if I had flicked water in her face and shuffled her body forward. And out of reach. There was no way I was going to chance kissing her. I thought it was a brilliant film, Judy thought it was stupid. It soon became apparent that when I made a comment or an observation she would take an opposing point of view.

  The big showdown came on our next date. It was over blood sports. I couldn’t get excited either way about fox-hunting but I did enjoy going out to Wentworth Woodhouse to see the hunt setting off from Lord Fitzwilliam’s stately home, all resplendent in red coats (I was told by Judy that they were actually called ‘pinks’), white breeches and highly polished black boots. Judy was a vehement opponent.

  As a child I was always kind to animals (and still am), and never so much as pulled a leg off a crane-fly or stamped on a cockroach, but I couldn’t get all upset about fox-hunting. I had seen what a fox could do when I went up to Archer’s Farm. When the fox had broken into the hen coop and had bitten the heads off every one of the chickens, it had left the magnificent feathers of the rooster scattered all around the farmyard. Mr Archer had shaken his head angrily. ‘I know the bloody creature has to live,’ he said, ‘but why doesn’t it just take one of the chickens instead of killing the whole bloody lot!’ This, of course, cut no ice with Judy.

  Then there was the fact that my brother Alec went with his falcon to Boston Park. This to Judy was barbaric. I disagreed. It was an amazing sight to see the bird of prey fly high up in the sky, wheeling around gracefully before plummeting on its unsuspecting prey. To see my brother swirl the lure around his head and see the falcon winging its way back to land on his gloved fist was astonishing.

  Although I could see things were deteriorating, I agreed to accompany Judy to the girls’ high school Christmas dance. This was held in the school hall – a dark, cold place that smelt of floor polish and cabbage. It had been decorated with sprigs of holly and trimmings, pictures of snowy landscapes and other festive scenes to brighten the place up, but it still looked and smelt like a school hall. There was, of course, no mistletoe. It was a decorous affair and girls had been warned by the head-mistress in a special assembly to wear appropriate outfits: three-quarter-length dresses, low heels and no plun ging necklines. Boys should wear ties and sober jackets and come with a formal invitation, otherwise they would be refused entry. Some teachers observed proceedings with eagle eyes from the vantage point of the hall balcony, while others stalked the floor ensuring that nothing untoward happened. The dancing was of the ballroom variety and included the Gay Gordons, the Military Two-Step, the progressive barn dance and the waltz. It must have looked comical, big strapping lads with slicked-back hair and acne galloping, spinning, twirling their partners and then, for the waltz, shuffling around the floor treading on feet. The waltz was an opportunity for us to make contact with our partners. We were told by the teachers prior to the music starting that the boy was allowed to encircle a girl’s waist but must keep his partner at arm’s length, a full yard apart. Inevitably, as soon as the music started, we pulled the girl in close so our bodies touched, until we were spotted by a hawk-faced teacher who soon put a stop to any of that.

  During the evening I got the chance of dancing with Barbara, a big-bosomed, athletic girl who pulled me to her and then clung on like a limpet until we were separated by a tut-tutting teacher. Barbara had soft brown eyes and smelt of flowers and made my heart flutter.

  ‘You’re not a very good dancer,’ Judy told me waspishly as I walked her home. ‘And I saw the way you were smooching with Barbara. She’s a man-eater, you know.’ Was Judy jealous, I wondered? I didn’t say anything but savoured the memory.

  Things were not going well, and they went further downhill when I was invited round to her house for tea. It was a large detached villa with spacious rooms with high ceilings, heavy velvet curtains and a ticking grandfather clock in the hall. The front room (which Judy called the ‘lounge’) was meticulously tidy, with a marble fireplace, two great armchairs and a sofa covered in cushions, a thick plain brown carpet, an antique sideboard and a heavy oak bookcase full of books. Clusters of porcelain figures and fancy plates were displayed in alcoves. It was the sort of room I imagined Sherlock Holmes would have in Baker Street.

  Judy’s mother, a stern-looking, pinched-faced woman with close-set, unsmiling eyes, observed me with a sort of amused tolerance, but her jowly, thick-lipped father, the very image of a military martinet, treated me with barely suppressed animosity. I sat nervously on the edge of the sofa as if at an interview for a job, fielding a whole lot of questions about my family, my background, my father’s occupation, where I lived, what were my hobbies and which school I attended.

  ‘So you don’t attend the grammar school then?’ asked Judy’s mother, her voice dripping with condescension.

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I failed my Eleven Plus.’

  ‘Really?’ She cocked her head in an arrogant fashion. There was clear surprise in her voice when she observed, ‘And Judy tells me you are sitting your O levels?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that students at a secondary modern sat O levels,’ said her father.

  ‘Well, at South Grove we do,’ I told him.

  ‘And do you think you will pass them, young man?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said simply.

  He gave a dismissive grunt. Judy’s mother gave a dry little cough and looked chillier than ever.

  ‘And do you attend church, Gerald?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And my name’s Gervase.’

  She arched an eyebrow and made a little moue with her mouth.

  ‘I go to St Bede’s at Masborough,’ I told her.

  ‘The Roman Catholic church?’ She gave an unconvincing smile but there was no mistaking the disapproval in her voice.

  The interrogation was endless and Judy made no effort to help me out. There remained a polite and meticulous coldness, and I knew for certain that I was an unsatisfactory suitor for their precious daughter. I could well do without this, I thought. I declined a drink of lemonade and said I had to go. How I wish I had had the gumption to tell them, ‘I have to dash, I have an appointment at the VD clinic this aftern
oon.’

  I saw Judy at the library the following week. ‘Mummy and Daddy don’t think it’s a good idea that I should see you any more,’ she told me.

  ‘I couldn’t agree with them more,’ I replied, and returned to my books.

  When I was fixed up with a blind date by David, another friend, I was glad to wave goodbye to Judy. David’s new girlfriend had an exotic sounding name – Ophelia or Giselle or something of the sort – and each Saturday morning she attended ballet classes. The owner of the dance school, an extremely regal-looking woman with a wonderful coiffure, had given her premises – a small dark annexe adjoining a looming black stone Methodist chapel – a grandiose name, something like the Marcia Mann Academy of Dance and Dramatic Arts. One Saturday, David, keen to show off his new conquest, took me down to the annexe. We placed three house bricks on top of each other to enable us to peer through the window at the girls, who were going through their balletic motions. There were about twenty or so girls of amazingly different shapes and sizes, in pink or white tights and short frilly skirts, cavorting, bending, stretching, jumping, leaping about and kicking their legs in the air. An old woman sat at an upright piano hammering away while another woman, in black, with silver-white hair and a hooked nose, put them through their paces. We were so engrossed in watching the budding ballerinas that we were unaware of the small window opening. Miss Mann’s assistant, another witch of a woman, with a face that if looks could maim would have had us on crutches, bellowed out at us. ‘Depart, you adolescent voyeurs, or I shall be compelled to call the constabulary!’ I had no idea what a voyeur was, but I liked the sound of it and used it the following week in an essay for Mr Pike.