'No,' I said.
That was pretty much the extent of the conversation until we arrived at the cinema to join the queue for the film.
'So what do you like doing?' I asked her.
'Knitting.'
'Oh.'
'I've knitted this cardigan. Do you like it?'
'Yes,' I lied. It was a horrendous pink affair. She stood out like a huge shapeless ball of candyfloss.
'Don't your feet hurt in those shoes?' she asked.
'No.'
'I'll knit you a scarf if you want.'
'Great,' I mouthed. This girl, I thought to myself, has the personality of petrified wood.
In the cinema there was a row of double seats at the back. The arm rests had been removed so couples could snuggle up to watch the film and more likely have a good snog when the lights went out. Brenda, armed with a large carton of popcorn and a bag of liquorice allsorts which I had bought for her, headed for the rear seats.
'I like it down the front,' I said, striding down the aisle before she could argue.
Brenda sat through the first part of The Amazing Colossal Man munching away merrily. The film was a version (and a very poor one at that) of the King Kong classic but set in the atomic age. The eponymous hero was a colonel who had been exposed to a massive dose of radiation during a nuclear bomb test and had mutated into a fearsome giant.
In those days girls were inclined to scream and boys to whoop really loudly when anything frightening appeared on the screen. If there was a romantic part, particularly one involving kissing, there would be great jeers, howls and smooching noises from the audience and some brave boy would shout out, 'Gerrem off!'
Brenda sat there motionless, her eyes glued to the screen, posting popcorn into her mouth. She crunched away noisily. When she had consumed the contents of the carton she started on the liquorice allsorts. Just as the monster appeared on the screen Brenda suddenly thrust her face forward and planted her lips on mine. This occurred a few times before the lights came up. It was a quick, unexpected, jerky, liquorice-popcorn tasting experience and not particularly pleasant.
'Are we having chips?' she asked, as I walked her home. I noticed that her teeth were black from chewing the liquorice allsorts.
'If you want,' I sighed.
'I like scraps,' said Brenda.
Scraps were the bits of fried batter which came away from the fish and they were given away free. I asked for two-pennyworth of chips and scraps.
'Do you like scraps?' asked Brenda.
'Not really.'
'What fish are we having?'
'Fish?' I repeated.
'I like haddock.'
'I'm not that hungry,' I told her, thinking of the dwindling resources I had in my pocket.
'You can have a bit of my haddock if you want,' she said. 'I'm not that bothered,' I replied.
'Are we having mushy peas?'
I sighed again. 'I suppose so.'
I said goodbye to Brenda at the gate of her house. I saw the curtains move inside and a face appear at the window. Her parents had no need to worry, I thought to myself. There was no way I was going to try anything on. I kept a good distance because I didn't want to be pounced on again.
''Bye,' I said.
'I'll start on your scarf,' she told me.
'Great.'
'What film are we going to see next week?' she asked.
'I'll let you know.'
She puckered her lips.
''Bye,' I said walking off, touching the few odd coppers left in my pocket.
That was my first fleeting romance. It was a 'brief encounter', for I found that scraps were the only thing Brenda and I had in common.
22
In the 1950s Rotherham town centre was a colourful, bustling place with a wide range of shops: butchers, bakers, confectioners, herbalists, opticians, greengrocers, jewellers, haberdashers, grocers, chemists, cobblers, outfitters, sweet shops, bookshops, shoe shops, sports shops, toy shops, nearly every conceivable retail outlet. Blue and white double-decker buses could be seen everywhere, and trolley-buses with electric overhead cables that sparked in the rain like fireworks trundled down the main streets. Today the centre of the town is a rather sad and sorry place, like an old dowager who has fallen on hard times, still a place with character and history but rather faded and neglected. Many of those varied and individual shops of the 1950s - Mason's jewellers, the great stores of Muntus and Speed's, Waddington's men's outfitters, Tattersall's fruiterers, Glover's fishmonger's, Cooper's toy shop, Danny Williams sports - have disappeared, as people prefer to visit the vast nearby Meadow-hall complex or one of the superstores that have sprung up near the town, where they can buy every conceivable product in comfort under the one roof, in the warmth and out of the rain. Something special has been lost, I feel.
Some Saturdays I was taken by my parents into Rotherham to help with the shopping, get kitted out with new clothes and have the dreaded haircut. Dad often called in at the Masons Arms on Wellgate 'just for a half ' on the way into town, agreeing to meet us when all the shopping had been done, and he would help us carry it back. I often wished I could go into the pub with Dad. It was an intriguing, noisy, bustling world, thick with tobacco smoke, where men argued and laughed and told jokes, played darts and sat at sticky tables playing dominoes. There seemed to be a glow of contentment inside the doors.
'Not for you, young man,' Dad would tell me. 'Wait until you're older. You help your mother with the shopping and I'll see you later.'
Our neighbour, Mrs Evans, had her shopping delivered from Beaumont and Stevenson's, 'quality grocers', but we never did. It was much more interesting to take a trip into town, walking from shop to shop, meeting people and on occasions ending the visit with a coffee and a cake in Davy's Cafe. On my sortie into Rotherham with my parents I should have much preferred staying with my father in the pub, where a row of men propped up the bar talking and laughing and putting the world to rights, but I had to go with my mother into the town centre.
Like many people at that time, my mother shopped for her groceries at the Co-op because she could get her 'divvy'. The idea of the Co-operative Society was that customers should share some of the profits, and for a small initial payment (I have an idea it was two shillings and sixpence) you became a member and were given a dividend number. I guess many people my age can still recall their Co-op divvy number. Mum's was 29305. As my mother queued, waiting to be served, I was intrigued by the method of payment for goods. The shop assistant placed the money in a small metal cylinder which was attached to an overhead wire, and with a sharp pull on a lever, the missile would shoot off at high speed to a cashier who would deal with the purchase. After a short time the cylinder would shoot back on the wire with the customer's change and a receipt inside.
We would invariably call into Boots the Chemist, where patent medicines were dispensed. My mother, ever health-conscious, purchased jars of cod liver oil and malt, a brown, viscous, not unpleasant-tasting concoction, and a strange mixture called Fennings, guaranteed to ward off colds, influenza, coughs and other chesty ailments. There was also a small library in Boots and we rarely left without a purchase. Then on to Schonhut's, the high-class butcher's, housed in a mock Tudor building, for the Sunday joint of beef or, for a change, a cut of pork. The butcher, a broad-shouldered, big-chested man with great beefy arms and wearing an immense apron, was a frightening figure who wielded a giant cleaver over a blood-stained block of wood. His red cheeks shone as if they had been scrubbed. I remember my father telling me that during the First World War with the prevalent anti-German hysteria a mob had attacked Schonhut's, smashing the windows and making off with the meat and the pork sausages, until the police arrived in force. I remember thinking that the looters would not have dared try that on if this giant had been behind the counter. Next stop was Stanilands or Graftons for the bread, and if I was lucky, a doughnut or a custard cream, Stockdales for the fruit and finally W. Muntus and Co., the large department store, a rab
bit warren of a place, where my clothes were purchased. We would then meet my father outside F. W. Woolworth on College Street. The bulk of the shopping was passed over and my mother would leave us to buy the last few items and later to meet us outside Davy's Cafe, while I went with Dad for the dreaded haircut.
On Saturday mornings there would be a row of men and glum little boys waiting for their haircuts. Reg, the barber, was a small bald-headed man with a fleshy face, a red nose the shape of a turnip and fat white hands. He was irritatingly jaunty and garrulous, and what was more annoying was that he was inordinately slow. It wasn't that he spent a long time on the job in hand - namely cutting people's hair - it was because he never stopped talking. There were long pauses between cutting the hair or shaving a customer when he would discuss national and local events. The barber's was an exclusively masculine world where the topics of conversation centred largely around football and work.
Even as a child I was fascinated by other people's language. Reg had a rich repertoire of sayings which peppered his conversation. Of the goalkeeper at Rotherham United he once remarked, 'He's about as much use as a poultice on a wooden leg'; of a recently deceased neighbour, 'Well, that's another page turned in the great book of life'; of the meanness of a customer, 'He could peel an orange in his pocket'; of the boy who broke wind, 'Close t'back door'; of the woman of ample proportions who served in the hardware shop and was noted for wearing a low-cut dress beneath her overall, 'Her suet dumplings are boiling over.'
My father was first in the barber's chair, this large swivelling throne of a thing with a simulated brown leather covering and an adjustable footrest, and he remained there while Reg snipped a bit off the back and trimmed the wisps of hair that were combed across his otherwise bald pate. He then scraped the back of his neck with a cut-throat razor, trimmed the moustache and eyebrows and removed any stray hairs in the ears.
'Now then, young fella-mi-lad,' the barber would say when it came to my turn, 'let's be having you.'
He placed a plank across the arms of the chair, lifted me on to it, wrapped a large sheet around me which smelt of shaving soap and a sickly sweet cologne and asked, 'How do you want it?' Before I could tell him I just wanted a trim or 'a tidy-up', he turned to my father and asked, 'Short back and sides and good bit off t'top?'
'That's fine,' said Dad.
'Could I have it a bit longer this time?' I would ask plaintively. I hated going to school on the Monday with a head like a coconut and everyone asking the same inane question: ''Ave you 'ad your 'air cut?'
'No problem, young fella-mi-lad,' Reg would say, but would then proceed to scalp me.
I just wanted this prolonged and painful experience to be over as soon as possible, so when he started on the interrogation I would answer the questions he fired at me in monosyllables.
'How's school then?' he'd ask.
'OK.'
'Behaving yourself, are you?'
'Yes.'
'Do you play football?'
'No.'
'Cricketer then, are you?'
'No.'
'What do you play?'
'Nothing.
'Been on holiday?'
'No.'
'You're a right little chatterbox, you, aren't you?'
'No.'
Sometimes he would ask an embarrassing question with a sort of snigger, such as, 'Got a girlfriend yet, then?' I wouldn't even deign to answer and would shake my head. The only occasion I said anything above the one-word answer was when I saw him reach for the electric clippers, which buzzed like a frantic bee. I would then mention the spot on the back of my neck, touching it with my finger to indicate the location, and ask him to be careful. My request would come to nothing, for invariably he would slice off the top of the spot, whistling as he did so. I would yelp and wonder if he had done it on purpose because I'd been less than friendly when he interrogated me. Then the barber would reach for a strand of cotton wool, dip it into some liquid and press it on my neck. The stinging sensation was indescribable and there would be a sharp intake of my breath. This was followed by some word of wisdom from Sweeney Todd, such as, 'Wait till you're shaving, young fella-mi-lad, you'll get used to a few cuts.' This produced a few laughs from the customers, which made me colour up with anger and embarrassment. The final part of the ordeal was to have talcum powder puffed on to my neck, followed by a vigorous brushing down.
On one occasion a Teddy Boy was sitting on the bench when we entered the shop. He was leaning back casually, legs apart, chewing. The other customers stared at him as if he were an exotic specimen in a museum case, but he was unconcerned. The style of hair and dress that he affected said to the customers that he was an idler, a troublemaker, a ne'er-do-well. But I was irresistibly drawn towards this character, whose sophistication elevated him above the conventional teenagers of the time. I was full of admiration for someone who had the courage to walk around the town in his powder blue suit, string tie, crepesoled shoes, yellow socks and with this wonderful coiffure. He sported a hairdo that was a work of art. His shiny, black, heavily brilliantined hair was slicked back on both sides, rising from his forehead in one smooth wave and tapering at the nape of his neck. I knew there was no way that Reg was going to give him 'a short back and sides' and 'a good bit off t'top'. When he asked the barber to be careful of his DA and leave his sideburns alone, being an inquisitive child and seeing Reg's lips purse with disapproval, I asked my father later what a DA was, but he was evasive. It was a friend at school who told me it stood for 'duck's arse' - the shape of his hair at the back.
My father, I recall, equivocated on another occasion. As he paid the bill, Reg would invariably ask Dad a question, always the same one, to which my father always shook his head. Reg spoke in a sort of sly, whispery voice, the sort spies used in the radio plays. I was intrigued.
'Something for the weekend, sir?' he would enquire.
I asked my father what it meant as we left the shop one Saturday. He reddened and dismissed my enquiry. 'Something you don't need to know about,' he told me. 'And don't go asking your mother.' Once, when out of my father's hearing, I asked Reg. He tapped his nose. 'That's for me to know and you to wonder,' he told me. This made it really mysterious.
Clustered around All Saints' Square were cafes and shops, banks and offices. The building I remember most was Davy's Cafe and Restaurant, where we used to meet my mother after the scalping at Reg's. The restaurant was above the food emporium, which smelt of ground coffee and smoked bacon. In the shop, sugar was dispensed from open sacks with a silver scoop, weighed in great brass scales and the contents poured into stiff blue paper bags. Butter was uncovered in a huge mound, and the shop assistant would pat the creamy slabs into squares of the required weight using a wooden spatula. There was a huge bacon slicer, and joints of bacon and legs of ham wrapped in white muslin. The shelves were stacked with jars of pickles and jams, boxes of biscuits and cereals. I remember being fascinated by the long strip of brown flypaper that hung down from the roof and gathered struggling insects on its sticky surface.
When I was in the sixth form a group of us would hurry out of school after the bell had sounded for the end of morning lessons, run down Moorgate and Ship Hill, and on to the High Street to Davy's Restaurant. There we would have meat and potato pie or cod and chips, beef with Yorkshire pudding or two fat chops. This would be followed by spotted dick or jam roly-poly, bread and butter pudding or apple crumble. I always seemed to get very generous portions, because my Aunt Nora's best friend, Ivy, was a waitress there and always made a fuss of me. Following the substantial lunch we would catch the bus back to school and attempt to keep our eyes open during the lessons that afternoon.
It was in Davy's that I developed my skill at eavesdropping - an important attribute if one is to become a writer. Ladies who lunch, businessmen and lawyers, shoppers and salesmen would be on neighbouring tables and their conversations intrigued me. I would often entertain my friends by mimicking these people. Sometimes my Uncle Doug, who
worked in the finance department at the Council Offices, would appear with his colleagues, and on those occasions I made sure I was on my very best behaviour, lowering my voice and not laughing too heartily. He was a rather severe-looking man was Uncle Doug, with white winged eyebrows, and was of 'the old school', who believed that young people should be seen but not heard.
Food played an important part in our family life. I was not a fussy eater but I turned my nose up at some of the delicacies to which my father was partial: black pudding (a black sausage containing pork, dried pig's blood and suet with chunks of white fat in it), pigs' feet, liver, cowheel, polony (a fat sausage made of bacon, veal and pork suet), 'penny ducks' (a mixture of cooked offal heavily spiced and seasoned) and chitterlings (the intestines of a pig). Dad's favourite meal was tripe and onions. Mum would cook it in milk and drizzle chopped onions on the top. Of course, none of us children could be persuaded to try any. We would watch with screwed-up faces as Dad devoured the sickly white concoction and then licked his lips dramatically.
There was a tripe shop in Rotherham and on Saturday, if I didn't go into town with my parents, I was sometimes sent to get a large piece of the white rubbery honeycombed delicacy for Dad's tea. I never minded going to the shop because the owner was a most interesting woman. She had steely white hair, a round red face and large salmon pink hands and would stand behind her counter, arms folded implacably under her impressive bay window of a bosom, which wobbled like a bouncy castle when she moved. I became accustomed to waiting in the queue and privy to the proprietor's observations on life. Specific members of the locality were openly discussed, their opinions, prejudices, secrets, daydreams, aspirations and, of course, what they got up to. I would be quite content to wait and listen as the proprietor took her time, slicing a piece of tripe, weighing it ('It's just a bit over, love, is that all right?') and wrapping it in white greaseproof paper, all the while holding forth and entertaining her clientele. I enjoyed the patter, listening to the rhythms, the turns of phrase and colloquialisms of speech. I think people would have been quite happy to go there for the conversation alone. Her observations were vividly illustrated with expressions, idioms and a dry Yorkshire sense of humour, which was delivered in the dead-pan manner of a comedian.
Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad Page 19
