Although I shouldn’t say it the place came together very well, our hard work and ideas were well rewarded and next door to a pub too!
The boy was coming good and only forty seven more years to go……my pin-up girl had struck gold.
THE OPEN ROAD
There are times, few and far between, when I do like to feel superior to Victoria, and being seven years older gives me the opportunity to be generous and with a wonderful sense of helping my star girl to become as wise, and for a short while, on the same level as myself. Then I step back in a self-sacrificing way.
So it was with driving, we spent many happy moments with a long handle brush, sitting side by side in the kitchen practising gear changing, and synchronising feet and hand movements, later in an old Ford van then onto real driving.
Two or three lessons only, with a lucky driving instructor, possibly a Masonic friend of her father, a smile or two at the test man and there she was, passed first time and ready for the road.
Vicki never became a Rotary type driver, the polite, ‘after you’ approach was dumped for the formula one ‘out of my way’ spirit, no gap was considered too narrow for her car to fit through, and no parking space was ever too small. All in all she is a really competent rally type driver, a typical Taurean.
LAST OF THE LOVEY DOVEY
BIGTIME
At this stage in life, I had just cracked £1,000 a year barrier, and with a firms car too. It was amazing what you could do on twenty pounds a week.
We had married on a humble fourteen pounds a week, five pounds went in housekeeping – rather handsome I thought and I tried to keep it to five pounds for as many years as possible. I do remember going to Blackpool with my brother Martin to look at the newly opened TVR works (he being single bought himself a TVR Vixen in kit form) but I spotted an unfinished fibreglass speedboat hull tucked away in a corner of the factory. Twelve pounds and it was mine. Englishmen have sailing in their blood; even those of us who live nowhere near water and don’t know the first thing about sailing whatsoever. I could see this hull finished, painted up, engine installed, all for next to nothing and in no time at all. Back home, it somehow lost some of its appeal and, it was harder to justify the capital outlay. The next day, I slunk back to renegotiate the ownership of the boat with a very understanding Mr TVR.
The double whammy that followed was first going out to work did not really appeal to Vicki and, after working for nearly a full year, retirement beckoned. Secondly, the thought of a car for nipping around in did appeal, who would have guessed that?
So in a generous and weak minded moment I said ‘of course – just as you wish’, that’s exactly what blind love does for you. She looked so pretty – never much make-up – so naturally beautiful I could admire her all day long.
I even took her to Blackpool in its more upmarket shopping days, I don’t know how or why but we found ourselves gazing in admiration at fashion boots. Those very shiny black leather high heeled thigh boots in Vernon Humpage, the name is burnt forever into my wallet, costing more than a week’s wage, but those boots, a miniskirt and her legs…what’s money anyway, to a man on a thousand a year?
So while I committed myself to a lifetime of earning the family bread, a car – a small economical family car was a burning need. Something to get the shopping, transport Vicki, Angela, our baby, and pram, etc., and for visiting grandparents and friends. So I found myself in a car showroom in Chorley, second-hand and continental cars, owned by a friend of ours.
Peter said they could find something that ‘would fit the bill’ but there in his showroom was a fabulous, lovely early Porsche sports car, open top, dark blue, rear engine, very low, very sleek, the early ones weren’t very fast. The gear lever was like a knitting needle and the interior was even a little Spartan – but for around eight hundred pounds or maybe less. I wanted this car badly, Vicki would love it, Angela wouldn’t care – the pram and the shopping wouldn’t fit in anywhere. ‘Oh’ I knew this was a heaven sent investment opportunity, a collector’s classic par excellence. Dragged to the back of the garage and there into the real world, Peter showed me a pale blue Renault 4L, a sort of utility estate type vehicle. It needed some work done, but it would be vastly less money and would be an ideal low cost first family car.
When I got back home and told Vicki what I’d arranged – all was well – for a while favours were bestowed upon lucky me and even if I left a dirty mug on the wrong side of the sink I only received a minor ‘bollocking’.
The problem was that the Renault took longer and longer to appear. It was always next week, ‘we are waiting for a new bit or something’. If pushed ‘you want it to be safe don’t you’ was raised. The truth was I had screwed Peter down to a very low price and his father, who owned the business, realised this was a nonprofit transaction for a friend, so urgency was never on the cards. It seemed to take so long, and Vicki gave me so many third degrees ‘when is this car coming’. At long last it arrived, thank heavens! The 4L proved to be a very practical, reliable and economical vehicle with masses of luggage space, a great first family car.
Within a very few years I’d bought her an old, tired, pale blue MGB sports car – not at all practical or economical, but she loved it to pieces and no moans about lack of space at all.
It does cross my mind that the Porsche might have been OK after all.
NEARLY NORMAL
MOVING HOUSE
Three years after we had bought our first home, a new housing estate was growing in the fields behind us, and although our little cottage was a very cosy little home, we needed and wanted more space. So we made our own ‘For Sale’ sign, stuck it up outside, priced the cottage just above the new houses behind and sold it for £3,550 in six weeks or so. The small cottage still with tenant. There was no way I was going to pay an estate agent’s fees to sell my ‘des res’ when I earned my living by selling.
Feeling a bit smug, I went about life as usual until I met up with an old codger I had known for a long while, but hadn’t seen for ages. He heard I’d got married. ‘Now lad’ he says ‘tha’s a married man now eh. As tha getting her sorted yet?’
I shuffled my feet and made clucking noises ‘Nay lad out wi’it’. I had to admit I didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Well, lad, as she given you permission to fart in bed yet?’ There is just no easy answer to this but what a gem of Anglo Saxon folk law!
Off we went to a long low cottage in the Ribble Valley that had been a small farm long, long ago. Out in the wilds on Longridge fell with a huge garden, stream, wood and fields. This we bought with a mortgage from the Halifax and, in order to have our application approved, the building society surveyor had to inspect the property, and this was at our cost too. I met him there one cold, dark winter afternoon, he looked over the house, didn’t go up the loft or lift a carpet – he could see the value, and he was one of those sensible and practical souls you don’t see so often today.
Normally there would be an agonising wait for the building society to evaluate his report and for the result to come through. After thirty minutes or so, when he was leaving he turned to me and said ‘I hope you and your wife will be very happy here’. A great guy and what a relief.
This was the ideal house for a young family to grow into, spread our wings, acquire pets, apart from winter cold it was paradise. The cold months, at first without central heating or a kitchen Rayburn stove, it was at 450ft up on a hillside, were very, very cold and bleak. We stocked up on coal, food, beer, etc. and being snowed up for a few days was a special treat, even the odd electricity break didn’t last too long. It was about this time, I began to lose some of the authority in our relationship…. . she stopped calling me ‘sir’ and I lost sole owner ship of the TV controller. But I was still a king of sorts!
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
In Florence Nightingale mode this woman is lethal, she loves to be in charge, controlling not only the amount of pain she inflicts, but prolonging it by having me securely pinioned,
so that I cannot escape. I had a thorn in my finger from battling with the berberis, so trying to get the thorn out myself – but, as ever, eagle-eye has spotted my efforts. ‘Come here’ she commands ‘I’ll get it out for you’! This is what I feared. ‘It’s got to come out’. She tucks my arm round her middle, blocks me out with her body, so she can go to work – regardless of my objections or pleas ‘not to hurt’.
‘If it doesn’t come out your finger will become septic and drop off’ she crows with glee. For a moment or two she wheedles away – prodding and squeezing my poor finger. ‘No good, I’ll have to get a needle’ she says joyfully. I think of running but am not fast enough.
Back having selected one of the biggest and sharpest of needles, she throws me to the floor quickly getting the upper hand. Then using a sort of head lock, a second to reposition herself permanently, she has me in total submission. One knee in my groin, a delicate area; and an elbow is pressed hard to my throat – where an Adam’s apple should be. ‘Don’t move’ she hisses ‘or it will take a lot longer’, bolts of pain stab my poor finger – long drawn out bouts of agony follow. I can’t speak or call out, no movement at all, even breathing is now difficult —— maybe I’ll pull through but its touch and go.
Sitting up in the recovery position, wiping away some lingering tears, with thoughts of a cup of tea and a lie down passing through my befuddled brain, my mother, gentle soul, would perhaps have given me a small piece of fudge for being a brave boy, the dentist awards a cheap sort of paper badge for acts of heroism, but the Masai warrior just spits out ‘there you are – a tiny little splinter – what was all the fuss about’.
ANIMALS AT NOOKS
We got two donkeys, some geese, ducks, a cat and two dogs plus a second daughter Katy. Central heating and a d.p.c. were installed and for at least two weeks we had deep trenches dug everywhere in the house, through the stone slab floors, creating a real assault course.
The year brought a very dry summer that made the injection of a damp proof course of silicon liquid into the nearly three feet thick walls, a challenge. I worked on the principle that the more silicon that was injected into the walls the better the chance of success. So I bought in packs of beer, lager and cigarettes for the two man team of installers. The dry sandstone walls absorbed silicon in ratio to the consumption of beer, when their boss came out to check the finished job he was a bit upset at the number of empty forty five gallon silicon drums that were on site. But if a job’s going to be worthwhile you can’t be penny pinching – not on a fixed price contract! Over the years I think the beer money was well spent and until oil became too dear, we basked in the luxury of a warm kitchen and on occasion other rooms too!
By this time Vicki had a little Yorkshire terrier named ‘Yuk’ which for its small size made a lot of noise and had an amazing amount of bravado. How often he’d go off visiting local farms, if there was a welcoming bitch around, and who do you suppose had to scour the countryside for this roaming romeo who was not for coming home either.
Now my dog was a bulldog, ‘Bumble’, or as he was sometimes called ‘Humble Bumble’. A very strong, heavy good looking brindle dog. He was active and walked all over the fell with me. As a warm affectionate dog he was great, but so dense or strong willed, no amount of training made the slightest difference to him.
Bumble had two principle vices, which we could never change. The first was to catch you around the ankles as you went through a doorway. In particular he targeted Vicki, if she was answering the front door, Bumble obviously to protect her was anxious to check out the caller first. So he would run through her, shoulder charging her out of the way, this caused many furious reactions from a wild woman, who lashed out at him with anything to hand. You had to admire him, he never backed off or changed his ways.
A playful dragon
Bulldogs tend to be sloppy eaters, so his large feeding bowl was kept in the back of the house, where he consumed vast amounts of food very quickly. Whenever he entered the kitchen, he always, always made a detour to check out Yuk’s feeding bowl. Sometimes finishing off a small amount that Yuk had left for a later snack. This infuriated her ladyship, she would catch him out time after time whacking him with a rolled up newspaper, screaming at him. After a while he developed a sort of contrite cartoon style of shrinking into the quarry tiled kitchen floor and to please her even further he would wee on the spot in mock terror. These were some of the few occasions when I’ve seen her beaten, except I’d be the one to mop up the mess – but what a dog!
As he grew older he’d lie on the floor watching TV with us in the evenings and every now and then – very quietly he would drop an S.B.D eye watering……everyone would chorus ‘phew Bumble’, he would raise an eyebrow and plead the Fifth Amendment.
HERO TO ZERO
I was content, reading my newspaper, at peace with the world, when I heard this wailing and crying. The front door flung open and in poured a very distraught young woman, all tears and sobs. ‘I’m sorry’ she says which is in its self, very, very rare, throwing herself at me. I rose to the occasion, I was so noble, so gallant I put my arms around her, hugged her gently to me ‘What is it’ I asked, ‘it can’t be that bad’. She had only left the house a few seconds before off out to do a little shopping.
‘I backed’ sob, sob ‘my car into your van’ (crashed would have been a good word). ‘There, there’ I said, stroking her lovely long hair and enjoying a brief moment of masculine supremacy. ‘As long as you are alright, sweet heart darling, cherub, angel flower, nothing else matters’ I said. Really I was excellent, generous and kind. Precious one had reversed, without looking properly, her smart dark blue Vauxhall estate car across our small car park into my bright red van in broad daylight.
I dried her tears, kissed her better even though I knew the insurance policy wouldn’t pay out on accidental damage on private land. Few women could have been treated better – no blame, no awkward questions – just pure affection.
THAT WAS SATURDAY
THEN ON SUNDAY
I went downstairs before anyone else – quite rare I admit, and for some reason, perhaps it was the sunshine, I decided to have scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. I was enjoying this when halfway through appeared Fate. She took one cruel look and exploded ‘Oh, no, you’ve used THE EGG! THE LAST EGG! You thoughtless, stupid, selfish man. You used the last egg, how could you? That’s it, now we can’t make cakes’. On and on she ranted.
I tried in vain to explain that there would be more eggs, hens will lay again, supermarkets will continue to stock eggs, I can go out and get any amount of eggs even on a Sunday. But nothing would stop the storm, once started it has to blow itself out. So much for equality of give and take. What a difference a night makes!
The storms of our married life are often, but thankfully they don’t usually last too long. Soon she’s tripping around, the sun is shining and she is looking great.
My misdeeds are filed away, ready to be produced should another war break out. It’s amazing that next time – on a totally different topic – should a misdemeanour, no matter how small occur (and I’m not perfect all the time) out will come a barrage of past poisoned barbs – linked with always having to have the last word.
I’ve tiptoed through life always opening and holding the doors for sweetness and light, remembering to raise and lower the toilet seat, never, never, heavens no leaving skid marks inside the w.c. bowl, but put a used coffee mug on the wrong side of the sink and the sky falls in.
Somehow I don’t get the respect and open-mouthed admiration that I thought was my due. My judgment is questioned and the fact that I am older and wiser counts for nothing. I get the sneaking feeling that being a husband, is perhaps not quite, all I had imagined it should be.
NOT NOW TIME
Country life suited Vicki, an old pair of jeans and a worn sloppy sweater – she looked a million dollars, that’s not to say she didn’t look even better in less. All the same this girl looks great working. I remembe
r her climbing down from the loft in cut-off jeans and a small torn shirt thing, all covered in cobwebs – she’d been doing some wiring work. I let her do the electrical work, and anything else, that is dangerous. First it is to protect the breadwinner and second, it’s good practice for her, to be competent and self-sufficient, in case anything happened to me. And thirdly there’s something very sensuous about a dusty, dishevelled girl in old clothes.
Why, oh why, do women look at their most alluring when it’s ‘not now time’?
Preparing to go out is another example of this, her in and out of the bath, trying on clothes, changing her mind, standing around in tiny underwear and high heels – whilst we make decisions, try this, try that but DON’T touch! Ah well, such is the life of a martyr.
She could wear anything and look great, from a black bin sack at a fancy dress party to a dress she made herself out of dish cloths and to torture me most of all, when we left, late as usual, we set off in the car, she would put a foot up on the dashboard and then cream her legs. How the car stayed on the road is a miracle in itself.
Which reminds me it is Saturday night – hooray!
SPARE OUR BLUSHES
The thought of doing naughties – although the spice of marriage – is fraught with disappointments and despair. It’s like skipping through a minefield with a bit of plea-bargaining thrown in. How to arrive at a pre-planned ‘spontaneous moment of heaven’ – without careful reconnaissance work is impossible. Even a ‘certainty’ can become a ‘possible’ and an ‘almost’ can turn into ‘not a chance, NO!’ in a split second.
The Squashed Man Who Married a Dragon Page 3
