by Paul Rowson
The first of these was to catch the boat to the Isle of Man with three other employees to renovate a house that my new boss had recently bought. Our trip coincided with the TT event and so we had to be at our place of work very early and stay there until late, as the roads were closed for the races most of the day. On first meeting my new workmates I instantly disliked them and the feeling was reciprocated. It is amazing how quickly you can go off people and the feeling of mutual loathing had already been engendered by a conversation on the ferry going over.
One of the guys, proving that pomposity is not the sole preserve of the middle or upper classes, informed me that he played in a band and had it on good authority that the Beatles had never touched their instruments during the making of The White Album. He knew this for a ‘fact’ because one of his mates had played on the sessions. Instead of ignoring him I poured scorn on his ridiculous assertions and so daggers were drawn, metaphorically speaking, before we had disembarked.
On arrival each day at the site we were locked on our own little island as bikes roared past which at least made it impossible to hear the never ending drivel emanating from my co worker’s mouth. The days passed slowly and the loathing had almost become hatred. Work progressed even more slowly, mainly due to the fact that we were barely speaking. The ramifications of our fall out included cement being mixed when not required, walls being knocked down which should have stayed up, strengthening joists being incorrectly placed, and as a result, someone today is living in a house at Ballacraine that could fall down at any moment. We sulked and bickered through the evenings and sailed back to Liverpool in silence.
During my last week which was also my second week of employment in ‘England’s Northwest’ as we are now obliged to call it, I had the career enhancing opportunity to see my first dead body. Having had the word on our Isle of Man debacle, the firm’s owner had put me with a benevolent older and long serving employee and we were digging in the garden of a terrace house as preparatory work for the erection of an extension.
Confirming every stereotype of northern friendliness, as our ‘hosts’ were not around, the elderly woman next door leant over the fence and asked us if we’d like a ‘cuppa’. A minute later she popped out again and asked us if we would like some toast with it. This generosity was all the confirmation we needed that a break was due, so we downed tools and lit up. I was going through my cigarette phase which lasted about three days and was killed off by my having to bum full strength filter free fags from the man I was now chatting to.
No toast or tea was forthcoming and after ten minutes we tentatively peeked over the fence but could not see into the house. A gentle call received no response and so we considered the options. She could have been called away which was unlikely. She could, being quite old, have simply forgotten about the offer she had committed to and was probably watching telly unaware that major construction had been halted. She was in fact dead.
When we eventually plucked up courage to climb over the fence and investigate we eased into the lounge via a patio door to see her sitting up peacefully in a high backed lounge chair. She was partly facing away from the door and we could not, at first, see her face and so called out nervously. Upon getting no response we went further into the room where it became instantly apparent that she was dead, although sitting as though alive and upright in the chair. My fellow labourer then demonstrated the power of television by remarking that he had just seen a film the night before where death was confirmed by holding a mirror under the nose of the person thought to be deceased. There was one on the mantelpiece so that’s what we did. When no breath clouded the mirror we were certain that we were looking at a dead body.
Flippancy is the default mode for many when faced with difficult situations and it’s the default position for me in almost any situation. “Let’s see if she’s done the toast before we do anything….I’m bloody starving”. She had so we brewed up, had two slices of toast each and then, suitably refreshed, phoned for an ambulance while the kettle boiled. There was the added bonus of not being able to do any work for the rest of the day as the ambulance came, relatives arrived and then the police showed up requiring statements. It was CSI Wigan all over.
Only when I was home and on my own did I think seriously about the day and realise what a brilliant death it had been. To reach old age unscathed, to die in a chair in your own home with your last living act being an offer of generosity and kindness to strangers was a dignified and graceful way to shuffle off this mortal coil. Without really being aware of it, I realise now that it affected me profoundly for years to come as I witnessed more brutal exits.
Manual Labour – One Day 1965
Cycling out to the farm on a warm summer’s day I was quite looking forward to my first ever job and was equally enthusiastic when It ended six hours later. I had cycled there the day before, knocked on the farmhouse door, and been told I could do some painting of barns. Now I was being given a large brush and a huge can of green paint. The farmer pointed at the nearest barn, brusquely told me to start painting it and with that disappeared into the fields on his tractor. No one else seemed to be around.
The lower part of the wooden barn that I was supposed to be painting was caked solid with hardened cow dung. As I had been given no instructions or other implements to work with, I took my first professional executive strategic decision and painted over the cow dung. Never having painted anything before, the green paint was soon all over me, all over the ground and certainly all over the cow dung. When I got any paint as far as the bare wood it was so dry that the paint had almost no effect.
After about an hour when the lumpy green cow dung on the lower reaches of the barn gave it, in my view a distinctive look, the farmer returned. He got of the tractor in silence. He viewed my work in silence. He viewed the green paint on the floor in silence. He walked over to my bike, which was leaning against an adjacent building, still without a word. He wheeled it back to where I was standing in silence and motioned me to get on it. He dismissed me with a wave of the hand at the same time recovering his powers of speech saying simply but witheringly “I don’t think so”.
Barman– Twelve Days 1967
The King Charles pub in the centre of Leeds does not exist anymore. Nowadays at exactly the place where the entrance used to be a man sells paintings of Bob Marley, beanie hats in Rasta colours and old style reggae CDs. In truth it barely existed when I worked there during the Christmas break of 1967. It was a throwback to another era even then as I, with my natty little maroon acrylic barman’s jacket, worked from the customers’ side of the bar. They ordered from their seats and I then went up to the counter, got their drinks, put them on my tray, then returned and served them. This was, after all, the lounge as opposed to the public bar.
The landlord, and indeed all the staff were friendly and even when he sounded a minor note of caution, it was delivered in such a mellow tone implying it was the sort of warning that he had to give, that I though no more of it. His words were along the lines of “In the unlikely event of a fight make sure you get behind the bar before I pull the counter shutters down”. I looked up and observed that there were indeed shutters running the length of the counter and then instantly forgot about his words of advice.
Even though it was approaching Christmas there were times at lunchtime when it was quiet and I got to know some of the customers. An ex marine used to stand at the bar every lunchtime and slowly drink three pints. The first one was usually supped in a moribund silence but he became garrulous after the second. “In the marines we had to change our underwear twice a day” he would remark on a daily basis to no one in particular. If that failed to elicit a response he brought out a battered old colour photograph of him in some swamp in Costa Rica. He would then buttonhole the nearest customer or me and demand “How many people can you see in that photograph?” The obvious answer that I fell for the first time was ‘one’, whereupon he would triumphantly extol the camouflage skills of the marines by point
ing out six other well disguised bodies blending in with the foliage.
Unfortunately after three pints he could never remember who he had impressed with this photograph and was distraught when he produced it to someone who casually, after a brief glance en route to the bar, replied ‘seven’ without breaking stride. He would then drink up and leave in high dudgeon but always returned next day for a repeat performance. I was comforted by the fact that he was almost certainly wearing clean underwear for my entire stint at the King Charles - old habits die hard.
Unimaginable though it may seem today when they live in gated compounds, but on my third day a well known professional footballer walked in to get as he freely offered ‘a break from the wife who’s bleedin’ spending my money on presents faster that I can earn it’. He was a striker for Sheffield Wednesday and quite happy to converse with the several people who recognised and approached him. It’s always interesting to get an insider’s view on sport when it is delivered away from the media glare and his anecdotes were funny and self deprecating. One though amusing, destroyed a little bit of my innocence. He described an end of season home game at a previous club, which had no consequence for them but could mean if they won, that the club they were playing were relegated. The managers were long time friends and a draw was agreed before kick-off.
Home team players were informed of this in an oblique way and sure enough with two minutes to go the game was petering out with the score at 0-0. Tragedy struck when a half hearted and speculative long shot from our man at the bar telling the tale, slipped through the hands of the away team’s keeper and trickled over the line for a goal. Relegation, and all that implied, was now staring them in the face with no time to remedy the situation. The home team’s manager was apoplectic on the touchline screaming at our hero “What the fuck are you doing you moron…..I’ve given my word…I’ve given my fucking word”.
The irony of a man dishonest enough to fix a game, yet furious that his honour had somehow been compromised by a freak goal, was deliciously told with exquisite timing by our footballer at the bar who clearly had a second career waiting in entertainment.
Apart from that it was pretty routine stuff. At night it was couples out for a pre-Christmas drink, a few girls out for a night on the town but nothing like the scenes played out in city centre pubs today. On my penultimate evening there was a big crowd in and a different, but difficult to define, atmosphere. Unusually the marine, normally a lunchtime drinker, was on his barstool and clearly ‘under the influence’. A boisterous group of three men were in the corner, and they were loud but not actually causing trouble.
When taking an order off those men one of them got up to go the gents. In doing so he must have passed the marine, who I could see whipping out his photograph to ask the standard question. What happened next was to prove for me a practical reminder to beat a retreat in future when intuitively you feel that discretion may well prove to be the better part of valour. I think the marine must have taken offence to the photograph question from a man who had clearly been asked it before, and decked him with one punch. His two mates rushed in to take retribution knocking the girls group over in the rush to get to their friend. Pandemonium ensued much in the fashion of one of the bar room brawls you see in early cowboy films. The difference being that these were real punches resulting in real blood flowing and accompanied by screams and epithets. I barely noticed the shutters until they were almost down - and far too late for me to get on the right side of them.
Stuck in the melee my unease turned to fear when someone was glassed. Just as quickly fear was replaced by relief as a path momentarily opened to the door and I beat a retreat outside. There I remained, until the police arrived, shivering in my little maroon acrylic barman’s jacket which was my only protection against the freezing cold and biting wind. I only noticed when a passing reveller called out derisively “three pints of bitter and two Babychams please” that I was still holding my tray.
Barman - Fourteen Days 1968
It was during this more up market job at the Mansion House in Roundhay Park Leeds that what my friends refer to as the ‘Eddie Waring incident’ took place. The head waiter, at what was a formal dining room where there was ‘dancing after supper’, used to attend the same Catholic church as my mother. Remarking on my nonappearances at mass and then hearing my mother’s lament that I ‘was going off the rails’ Michael, who was an old school martinet but a kind man beneath his austere demeanour, took pity. He said that he would willingly get me a job for the Christmas holidays if only I would get my haircut. This was not even up for discussion as far as I was concerned despite my mother’s pleas. However two regular staff left at short notice and, with Michael now in a desperate hole during the busiest period of the year, he relented. After an hour’s instruction on the intricacies of silver service, I started next day at lunchtime.
Waiting on tables is hard work in any setting but at the top end in a busy restaurant with demanding clientele it required a fair amount of skill. An amount of skill, I freely admit, that an hour’s training had not enabled me to achieve. Dining out in 1969 was a much less relaxed affair than it is now and the choice was not much more than fish and chips in paper or a formal sit down English meal.
Grasping steaks between a spoon and fork, serving from the left, taking the wine order, clearing up from the right, not smashing into waiters exiting the kitchen as you were entering and a dozen other things were all proving a bit much for me on that first day.
After about half an hour Eddie Waring, the legendary rugby league commentator, walked in. He was the man who made the game famous, or an object of fun depending on your point of view, with his idiosyncratic commentary style. Latterly mine is now the former view despite reservations. He was accompanied by three colleagues and they sat down at one of the tables under my ‘command’.
Ordering went without incident with all four men opting for steaks. I remembered correctly how they wanted them done and even managed some small talk as I took the wine order. I walked from the kitchen with increasing confidence carrying the great man’s steak on a silver platter. The steak was cooked in a jus, or as the chef still called it ‘gravy’ and he had applied a liberal amount. As I smilingly leant over to serve Mr Waring while simultaneously, and I felt effortlessly, gripping the steak smoothly between my spoon and fork, he emitted an orgasmic grunt which I felt it polite to ignore.
That, I can see with the wisdom of hindsight, was a mistake because in leaning over I had unknowingly allowed the ‘gravy’ to slide off the platter resulting in serious burns to what I think in medical terms is referred to as the genital area. In the circumstances I think Mr Waring’s stoic reaction was to be admired. Michael came to my rescue and I beat a retreat. You can say what you want about his commentating style but he was charming about the whole incident while obviously in considerable discomfort. They left without dessert and it was three days before Michael let me serve anyone else.
Barman – Twenty Days 1970
It was about as good as it could be in 1970. I had finished the first year at an undemanding college in Liverpool where my rare appearances at the third rate lectures were the only blot on the social horizon. A summer of indolence loomed, England were at the World Cup in Mexico and, untroubled by the need to do any ‘academic’ work, I was looking forward to staying up each and every night to watch the live games which were to be shown at the college bar.
Although I was flat broke I had survived the year and just about scraped through the exams which, in truth, any hard working fifteen year old would have passed. It was the ‘hard working’ bit that flummoxed me as at this point I had never been motivated enough to explore the possible benefits of ‘hard work’. Sitting anxiously in the exam hall on the week before the World Cup I had panicked when turning over the anatomy paper and my mind had gone blank.
Carefully noting the movements of the invigilators I scrawled on a piece of paper ‘What is a sensory motor action?’ Scrunching the paper up int
o tiny ball I waited for the right moment and, when the coast was clear, passed it to my friend sitting at the desk in front of me. After what seemed an age he opened and scrutinized the note. After a further pause he wrote something down on the same paper. Salvation was at hand although I was risking a lot and the chance of humiliating discovery was a thought I could not entirely put aside.
Choosing his moment carefully, and without turning round, a hand was extended and I quickly grabbed back the paper. An invigilator sauntered past and when he had moved up the aisle I opened the note and furtively and read his response which was ‘Haven’t got a fucking clue mate’.
Was this a sort of karmic payback for our recent attempt to muck about in the divinity paper which all students at this Catholic college had to take? In a hopeless effort to make up for the fact that we had not been to a single lecture the same friend and I thought we might impress in the exam by quoting a non-existent theological paper and thus prove our diligence. We hatched this brainless idea after a night’s drinking when it all made perfect sense to our alcohol addled brains. Nowadays, of course, a quick Google search would have rumbled us but we were still using pen and ink in those pre-computer, pre-internet days.
So it was that we dreamed up the fictional Professor Whitworth who came into existence at the same time as his seminal paper on the Greek apostolic teaching entitled ‘Fundamentals of Kerygma’. As I recall it I embellished this further in the exam by ending with a quote from the noble professor. We scraped a pass somehow but for weeks I kept getting notes in my pigeon hole from the Head of Religious Studies asking for the source paper and the name of the Prof’s publishers.
All that was history now and, as I walked into the bar at eleven o’clock in the evening to get ready for the first game, I knew my luck was in. As the last of the evening drinkers left, a hard core of about fifty student football fans started to order their drinks in preparation for an all night session watching World Cup football. My closest pal was on bar duties. The student bar at this small teacher training establishment had only one full time bar steward and a couple of cleaners. Students earned spare cash by filling in as bar staff and my pal worked the longest hours of any. I shall refer to him as ‘my pal’ in view of the fact that he went on to become a highly respected head teacher and to name him would be to shame him.
