Bob Servant

by Bob Servant

  To this day Frank pretends that his school jumper had what he calls an emergency exit. The fact of the matter was that it had been knitted by his aunt who was a bad one for the gin and she’d given the thing three arms. I looked at this guy, sitting in the corner with an extra arm starting below his chin as if he was an elephant and thought, ‘Jesus, we’ve got a live one here.’

  A few days later I was walking through the playground, checking out the skirt and minding my own business, when I heard a terrible wailing. It was Frank and he wasn’t wailing about his jumper but about his sandwiches. About a year before, Scotland’s first-ever curry house had been opened in Dundee by a man called Bert McKintosh who had been stationed in Calcutta during the war. Dundee had only had fish and chip shops in the past and Bengali Bertie’s caused chaos because people weren’t used to the spices.14

  Looking back I think that Bengali Bertie’s must have burrowed into my head like a rabbit because later I would also be a fast food revolutionary in the Cheeseburger Wars. At the time though the only effect that Bengali Bertie’s had on me was through watching Frank trying to eat his sandwiches.

  In those days your sandwiches at school would usually be leftovers from dinner the night before. With my mum being so busy with the Amateur Dramatics15 I usually just kept some of my chips from dinner and stuck them in a white bap. Some of the other kids had more complicated arrangements but no-one had anything like Frank.

  Frank’s mum, who you’ll meet shortly, was a right character. I liked her, but a lot of people thought she was a weirdo and I can see why because she used to get a wee bit obsessed with things. At the time she was obsessed with Bengali Bertie’s. She’d be up there every night getting a few dishes and in the morning Frank got what was left in his sandwiches.

  Right from the start Frank had told her he didn’t like the food from Bengali Bertie’s, so his mum used to try and trick him and he’d pull out some right crackers for lunch as a result. Corned beef nan breads, pakoras on sticks to look like toffee apples, the whole sorry business. On that particular morning his mum sprung a real belter on him, a tandoori bap which she’d said was special mince.

  He’d just taken his first bite when I walked past and heard his wailing. He was in a bad state, to be fair, panting away with his tongue hanging out like a little dog. Forty years later I know that losing his dignity in public has been Frank’s life work but at the time I felt sorry for the guy. I walked over, took out my Barr’s Limeade and poured a very generous amount into his mouth.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, when he’d got his breath back.

  ‘No bother,’ I said and walked off. There was quite a lot of skirt watching and I did one of those Just Doing My Job looks that are used so well on women by firemen, doctors and funeral directors. It definitely gave me a boost with the skirt, helping Frank out with the limeade, but it also made us pals.

  Well, I say pals. He tried to chat to me a few times so in the end I drew up some rules. If I was talking to girls he was to stay well away because of him looking funny and if I was talking to any of the better boys then he had to do the same because of his jumper situation. Other than that, we were inseparable.

  Maybe it seems unfair to say that meeting Frank was a bad thing for me and held me back. But then again maybe it doesn’t because, fuck me, he’s put me through the mill.

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  13 I think Bob is again referring to the television presenter Alan Whicker but I don’t really see his point. I have checked the photos in Whicker’s autobiographical Journey of a Lifetime and don’t see any great progression, negative or positive, in his looks as the years have passed.

  14 See The Dundee Courier, 10 July 1961 – ‘Delhi Belly Kelly To Stick To Jelly (Dundee family man Grant Kelly won’t be re-visiting the controversial new Indian takeaway in Grey Street. “I won’t be going there again,” said Kelly yesterday, while preparing to attend his son’s fifth birthday party)’.

  15 See The Dundee Courier, 5 August 1961 – ‘Where now for Extra Rare Ribeye? (“She’s outgrown us and she knows it,” says Broughty Ferry Amateur Dramatics Secretary Arthur Justice.)’.

  5

  Mum and Uncle Harry

  I remember when my Dad died I said to my Mum that it was just me and her against the world. She agreed that things weren’t looking good for me but pointed out it was a bit unfair to drag her down with me. That was really her in a nutshell – she had a real can-do attitude and after Dad died she concentrated on enjoying her life. She had all that success with the Amateur Dramatics and then she concentrated on enjoying her life with Uncle Harry.

  I was fifteen when Uncle Harry moved in with me and Mum. He wasn’t my real uncle and I thought it was a bit much that they made me call him that, but it made them laugh and I suppose as long as someone was getting something out the joke then it wasn’t all bad. It was annoying though. I was old enough to know what the two of them were up to and even if I hadn’t been I would have soon worked it out because of the way Uncle Harry kept filling me in on the details.

  I wouldn’t have minded Uncle Harry telling me the stuff that he and Mum had been doing but the High Fives were out of order. Don’t get me wrong, Uncle Harry was pretty much the first man in Dundee to regularly go for the High Five and I was glad to be part of it in that respect, but I didn’t enjoy it at the time. To this day I don’t really enjoy High Fives because I associate them with Uncle Harry waking me up to apologise ‘for the noise’ and then asking if I had ‘a spare one going for the big man’ and making me High Five him. This went on for about six months and things got more and more tense until Uncle Harry built the tree house.

  When Uncle Harry started building me the tree house I was the happiest kid in Dundee. When he said I had to live in it I was probably the saddest. In the summer it was not too bad but once it got towards the winter it became a complete joke. I asked Mum if I could move back into the house and she said that as an artist she needed space to imagine which I suppose made sense but made me feel a bit down.

  In the end I went to stay with Frank and his mum and at least they appreciated the company (Frank and his mum always told people that his dad died during the war which is a bit cheeky. The war was going on when he died but, come on, the guy had a heart attack in Debenhams).16

  I have to say that I had a good time staying with Frank and his mum that winter. The end was in sight with school and Frank’s mum had got over her Bengali Bertie’s obsession and wasn’t a bad cook. I suppose Frank was growing on me a little bit the way that a stray puppy would, or a winged bird, or a crippled lion. Not that Frank could ever be considered a lion, crippled or otherwise.

  So I was in a decent mood when Christmas came round and Mum very kindly invited me round to the house for dinner. I hadn’t seen much of her and Uncle Harry so I was excited when I stuck on my best gear, brushed my hair and headed round to the old place. We said our ‘Hellos’ and sat down to dinner and Mum nearly knocked me off my chair by asking if I’d ever considered emigrating to Australia.

  I felt like I’d taken one in the puss from Joe Louis. Australia! I said, no, I hadn’t, but I’d love to. Uncle Harry had a good laugh at that and Mum said that she’d only asked because she and Uncle Harry were emigrating to Australia and they were wondering if I had any tips.

  Mum got a wee bit annoyed with me after that because she said that it was Christmas Day and the last thing she needed was to see someone crying. I apologised, and I suppose I was being a bit over the top, but by then the atmosphere was beyond repair. Mum stuck my dinner in a Tupperware box after Uncle Harry had chosen the best potatoes for himself. She suggested I eat my dinner on the way home because their cases wouldn’t pack themselves.

  I remember one thing she did though which always makes me smile. Uncle Harry told me to bring back the Tupperware box but Mum said that I should ‘just keep it’ which was a really nice touch and one that I’ve never forgotten. Even so, I must admit I felt a little bit sad on the walk home to Frank
’s that night. He and his mum gave me a decent welcome but my heart wasn’t in it so I went up to bed.

  The arrangement was that I slept in Frank’s bed and he slept on the floor beside me because, as I told him, I was the guest. That night, the last night I saw my Mum, Frank waited till I was nearly asleep and then whispered, ‘Don’t worry, Bob, you’ll always have me.’

  I don’t think I’ve ever felt as low in my whole life as when Frank said that. He really put the boot in.

  _________________________

  16 See The Dundee Courier, 18 August 1944 – ‘Broughty Man’s “Stubbornness” Leads to Tragedy (“He said he’d get the trousers on if it was the last thing he did,” says shop assistant Joan Downie, “but the last thing he did was to say that.”)’.

  6

  Joining the Merchant Navy

  Joining the Merchant Navy wasn’t one of those good ideas you have that turn out not to be a good idea, like a picnic or a side parting. It was one of those good ideas that wasn’t even a good idea in the first place. Needless to say, it was Frank’s idea.

  It was the spring of 1962. I was sixteen, already wowing the skirt, and had eyes like Omar Sharif. I could have done anything. Finished school, entered a trade, or trained to be a chat-show host. But no, for the first and last time I listened to Frank.

  I got up to go to school one day and Frank was nearly hyperventilating. I was worried because he was ironing my uniform at the time. His hands were all shaky so I said he could have a short break and tell me what had wound him up. He said he’d just heard on the wireless that the Merchant Navy had set up a training centre in Dundee and suggested me and him should join up.

  I told Frank to count to twenty then get back to the ironing while I had my bath. I have to say I was interested. I’d read a bit about the Navy in comics and it certainly offered more excitement than taking on an apprenticeship or going into the Dog Eat Dog hell of the mousetrap factory. At breakfast I said it was a possibility. Frank was buttering my toast at the time and nearly took off a finger but his Mum said she wasn’t sure. She said I shouldn’t leave school this close to my exams because I was clever enough to pass them and she said Frank shouldn’t leave school because he needed the supervision.

  I pointed out that I was unlikely to pass my exams because I was dedicating most of my time to chasing skirt and that Frank would get a lot better supervision in the Merchant Navy than anywhere else. Frank’s mum wasn’t the brightest – it was only a few months since Frank and I did that torch trick on her17 – and the two of us soon talked her round.

  We went into school and told them we were quitting that same day. The teacher said I was wasting my life and I said that one day I would be back to show him my medals and walked out with my head held high and all the skirt looked at me with big eyes. Frank shouted that one day he’d be back to show the teacher his gun which provoked a different reaction and I heard some screaming and then Frank ran past me and I met him back at the house.

  The next day Frank and I caught the bus up to the docks and there’s no doubt we were both a little nervous. When we actually got to the training centre, though, we were absolutely delighted. It was a big warehouse with all these bits of ships, and ropes and big maps on tables. Best of all was that in the corner there was a row of uniforms. ‘Look, Bob,’ said Frank, ‘uniforms.’

  It was a wonderful moment. These days it seems just about anyone gets a decent uniform. I saw a traffic warden recently who looked like he’d just got back from Iraq. But back then it was hard to get hold of a uniform and when you did get one, no matter how shite is was, the skirt thought you were in the SAS. And now here were Frank and myself on the verge of getting hold of some of the best uniforms going. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better we met Alf Whicker.18

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  17 See The Dundee Courier 16 January 1962 – ‘Broughty Woman “Embarrassed” Over UFO “Mix-Up”.’

  18 Oh, right, hang on.

  7

  Alf Whicker

  Alf Whicker was an interesting guy. As a kid he’d apparently been a right looker and took the Bonniest Baby cup in the Broughty Ferry Gala Week. Then he’d run away at fifteen to join the Merchant Navy and this was him back in Dundee to set up a training centre. He’d certainly seen a bit of life. His face was all red from the sea and he had scars and tattoos and, if truth be told, Frank and I were both impressed by the guy. And that was before he started talking skirt.19

  Alf got all the boys together and reeled off these stories about going round the world and some of the sights he’d seen. He talked about how he’d been to islands where the local women wore grass skirts and Frank and I nearly keeled over when he described them. I mean, if you’d made grass skirts for some of the women that Frank I are were chasing in those days you’d be talking about rolling up bowling greens but the way Alf Whicker put it we were going to have a cracker of a wife in every port. ‘Hopefully not in Tayport!’ I joked and Alf Whicker told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t allowed to make jokes.

  He was a tough guy, was Alf Whicker. He talked so much about foreign places that Frank and I used to say that he wasn’t really Alf Whicker, he was Tony Whicker20 off the television but we always kept our voices down.

  Things started not too bad for me and Frank at the Merchant Navy. The first few weeks was rope stuff, learning the bits of boats and reading maps. It was when we had what’s called the On Land Exam after three months that everything went wobbly. Guess whose fault that was?

  Frank had promised me he’d been paying attention. After every day I’d say, ‘So you got that?’ and he’d tap the side of his head and say ‘Locked down, Bob, locked down.’ Soon I’d learn that if Frank taps his head and says anything at all it should be cause for alarm but back then I was still learning and probably enjoying the course too much to notice Frank was toiling.

  Unfortunately for me, the two of us had been paired up and you had to sit the exams together. The night before the exam I suggested we go over a few things and Frank got a bit nervous. Then I started testing him and he folded like a pack of cards. He was crying and kind of hitting himself quite hard in the legs and calling himself stupid and saying he was hopeless and all this.

  I have to say I didn’t handle it brilliantly. For the first hour or two I was largely agreeing with him and suggesting other things he should call himself and other places he should hit himself. Then I realised that he was going to take me down with him and I suppose seeing any man like that does something to you, so I told Frank to pull himself together and we started revising. We were up most of the night and even on the bus to the training centre I was showing him knots.

  Alf Whicker got everyone together and explained the process. The On Land Exam was one day and if you passed you got to do the Open Water Exam the next day at the Monikie Reservoir. If you passed that you were in, you got your uniform and you were off to the High Seas. ‘And you know what happens there, don’t you, lads?” said Alf Whicker and gave one of those winks that weather forecasters do when they want you to know they’re really talking about sex.

  First up was the maps and I managed to sneak Frank a look at my sheet so we got through that OK. Then was the parts of boats which I had written right up Frank’s arm and he managed to not make it too obvious he was looking. Then came the knots and Alf Whicker announced we all had to do a reverse rolling hitch double bend which, as some of you might know, is the Hitler of the knot world. It’s an absolute bugger of a thing to do and it took me a good while to get mine together. By the time I turned round to help Frank it was all too late.

  To this day I don’t know how he managed to do what he’d done. The rope was in these big wild loops on the floor and then all over Frank. He’d got one of his feet tied up near his arse, his other leg had the rope wrapped round his knee and then his upper body was twisted to the side because the rope was round his neck. He was sweating badly, possibly because of the pressure of the exam or possibly because of t
he rope round his neck and was kind of whispering, ‘Help me, Bob, Jesus, Bob, help me,’ over and over again.

  Before I could sort it out Alf Whicker shouted ‘You!’ and marched over to Frank. I was already starting to pack up my things and Frank, surprise surprise, had already started to cry when Alf Whicker asked ‘When did you go to Tahiti?’

  It turned out that Frank had tied an arrangement that was an exact replica of something used by dolphin fishermen in Tahiti. Whicker told us they tied themselves like that so they’re not thrown off their canoes when they hook a dolphin and that it had taken him two months to learn how to tie the knot himself. Frank was gibbering away, and his leg was clearly losing circulation, so I cleverly stepped in and said that Frank and I had learnt it together from a fisherman in Arbroath.

  Alf looked at us both, said he’d never been prouder, and that he’d see us tomorrow at Monikie Reservoir. What a moment. Frank and I were singing on the bus home that night and the next day we rolled up at Monikie, one day away from joining the Merchant Navy.

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  19 OK, disregard all previous references to the television presenter Alan Whicker. Bob was indeed referring to an Alf Whicker.

  20 I think Bob is referring to the television presenter Alan Whicker.

  8

  Not Joining the Merchant Navy

  One day, that’s all we had to do. One day and we’d be in the Merchant Navy. Christ, even now I get hot and bothered thinking about that day at Monikie. I go up there sometimes, for a nice walk with skirt or to have a wee fish with a pal and every time I’ll say, ‘Did I ever tell you when Frank fucked up the Merchant Navy for me here?’ Usually my pal will say, ‘Yeah, you have.’ Sometime the pal’s Frank and if it is then I make him listen to it all over again.