When I took my sons crabbing years later, I demonstrated this technique and they became very adept at it. When the eldest, Richard, moved to Bermuda he took his small son crabbing on a little jetty and caught an impressively large crab. People gathered round and Richard decided to give a public demonstration of the way to hold the crustacean. Taking the crab with thumb and forefinger behind the front pincers he explained to little Harry that the crab was unable to pinch him and was quite harmless if held in this manner. Unfortunately for Richard the Bermudian crabs are somewhat different from the ones in the boating lake at Scarborough. They have a set of vicious claws at the side and Richard received a sharp nip before dropping the crab, which plopped back into the water.
A small observer, aged about six, shook his head and remarked, 'That was a very silly thing to do.'
31
Most summers, when Steel, Peach & Tozer had its 'shut-down week' and the furnaces were cleaned, we had a fortnight in Blackpool. This was our family holiday; it was modest but the happiest of times. For my parents it must have been a break from routine and an opportunity to recharge their batteries and enjoy the simple pleasures of getting up later and having someone else do the cooking. Apart from Christmas, the fortnight in Blackpool held the greatest thrill. Most families like mine, on modest incomes and where the breadwinner had limited time off work, had neither the money nor the opportunity to travel and see the world and therefore spent the holidays at one of Britain's seaside resorts. Rotherham is about as far as you can get from the sea, so apart from the day trips to Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington and the school trips to the Isle of Man, I saw little of the coast. There was, therefore, an extraordinary feeling of excitement and anticipation when the summer holiday came around.
There was much to see and do in that bright, garish, noisy town so different from the place in which I lived. I recall the promenade illuminated by a million coloured lights, the huge piers stretching out into the battleship grey ocean, the packed beach with hardly a gap between the deckchairs, the pink and white sticky rock shot through with the name 'Blackpool'. I can still see the seafront shops selling fish and chips, whelks, candyfloss, breezy postcards, cheesy souvenirs and silly cowboy hats with suggestive slogans on the front. I can still taste the hot dogs with mustard that burnt my tongue and the greasy onions drizzled on the top; the blocks of Wall's ice cream supplied with the rectangular cone in which to put it. Then there were the donkey rides and the Punch and Judy shows, the trundling open-topped trams decked out with bright lights and, of course, the Tower, rising in a lattice of metal, and Reginald Dixon playing 'Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside' on the great organ. Part of the infinite charm of those exhilarating days in Blackpool was the fact it was so wonderfully different and we were never bored.
The family stayed at Mrs Cadwalladar's boarding-house near Gynn Square, which always seemed to be full of Scottish people. It was a substantial three-storey terrace with, I guess, five or six bedrooms. The front room downstairs was set out with four dining tables for the guests. There were strict rules about mealtimes, use of the bathroom, coming in 'after hours' and 'keeping down the noise'. The food was plain and very often inedible. Breakfast was always cornflakes, undercooked fried eggs swimming in fat, greasy rashers of smoked bacon and deep-fried bread, followed by cold toast. Salad was the staple meal for tea: big weeping chunks of boiled ham or thin slices of corned beef (which resembled Mrs Cadwalladar's legs in colour and texture), hard-boiled eggs with blobs of salad cream on top, over-ripe tomatoes and wilting lettuce. Her offerings on Saturday and Sunday were sometimes more substantial: tepid brown Windsor soup followed by a fleshy boneless piece of steak with the consistency of shoe leather, accompanied by vegetables which had been boiled tasteless, or her famed Lancashire hot-pot: chunks of grey meat, swollen kidneys and chopped carrots swimming in a lake of thin greasy gravy. This would be followed by apple pie: a glutinous concoction of sour-tasting fruit beneath pale flaccid pastry. Should we children betray the slightest dissatisfaction or leave too much on the plate, the landlady's thin lips would purse in displeasure. We took to emptying our mouths into our handkerchiefs when she was out of sight and disposing of the evidence later down the toilet.
For Friday's dinner, being Catholics, we were served fish - chunks of lukewarm cod smothered in a sticky white sauce with sprigs of parsley sprinkled on the top and accompanied by pallid boiled potatoes and bullet-hard peas. The fish served at the fish and chip shops was scrumptious: mouth-watering, sizzling, encased in tasty batter. Once Mrs Cadwalladar got her hands on a piece of fish she managed to kill it again. It was as if she meant it to be a penance. One year, on the second Friday of our stay, Mrs Cadwalladar apologized for not being able to get any fish.
'Oh dear,' sighed Dad. 'What a pity.' He winked in my direction. 'Don't you worry, Mrs Cadwalladar, we'll get some fish and chips from the shop on the front.'
Being a Roman Catholic had other advantages. I was allowed to go on the beach on Sunday, make sandcastles, play games, run about, eat ice creams and ride on the donkeys like any other day of the week. Some families staying at the boarding-house, however, were of the Nonconformist persuasion and the children were forbidden to set foot on the beach or play games on the Sabbath. Their buckets and spades, balls and bathing costumes were put away as if devices of the devil, and the children walked grave-faced to chapel in their Sunday best. When they returned they had to stay in and read or play instructive games.
Our first port of call when we arrived in Blackpool was W. H. Hills, the ice cream parlour on the front, and Dad would treat us to a 'knickerbocker glory': that tall, cone-shaped glass full of raspberry jelly, strawberries, chunks of tinned peach and different-flavoured ice creams, scattered liberally with crushed nuts and topped with a shiny glazed cherry. We would be given a long shiny metal spoon but, try as we might, we never did get to the last bit of peach at the bottom of the glass.
Every morning we children, dressed in khaki shorts, white cotton cap and sandals and wearing cheap plastic sunglasses, with our Brownie box cameras around our necks on a string, would walk with Dad along the promenade from the boardinghouse to Gynn Square to get his paper. 'Smell the ozone,' Dad would say, breathing in deeply.
If the tide was out he would sit in a deckchair on the beach to read his Daily Express, keeping a wary eye on his three boys as we ran into the sea. I remember vividly the swimming trunks I wore: dark green, tight-fitting knitted affairs with a canvas belt and metal clasp which took some skill to keep on once sodden with water. There's a picture of me with my brothers, arms around each other, shivering near the sea's edge. We have just emerged from the water and are standing there in these heavy, sagging, uncomfortable outfits. After our swim we would build the most amazing sandcastles. We were equipped for the task with brightly coloured metal spades with long wooden handles. Mine was blue, Alec's red. We also had substantial metal buckets and a set each of little paper flags of all the nations to stick on our creations.
One morning we were keen to get started on our sand castles but as we followed Dad along the promenade we saw, much to our disappointment, that the tide was in. This put brother Alec in a tetchy mood and he started complaining and dragging his spade behind him along the ground, making the most awful scraping noise. He was told several times by Dad to stop but he continued.
'If you do it again,' said Dad almost casually, 'I shall throw the spade in the sea.'
Alec desisted for a while but then started again to scrape the spade along the ground. True to his word, Dad took the spade from him and hurled it into the water.
'You just threw my spade in the sea,' gasped Alec.
'And if I hear any more from you,' said Dad, 'the bucket goes in as well.'
He did the same with the false teeth. I had bought a set of false teeth made out of pink and white rock with sugar pink gums and kept on clacking them like castanets as we walked along the prom one morning. I had been asked several times to desist but continued until the
y went the way of Alec's spade. I learnt from my father that when an adult warns a child he will do something he should carry it out. It was a good lesson to learn for a prospective teacher.
The Amusement Arcade drew children towards it like a magnet. We spent our pennies on the old slot machines or to manipulate a large metal claw in a glass case to try and grab a fluffy toy. I, being a Yorkshireman at heart, didn't waste my money on the 'Laughing Policeman' but would wait until somebody else spent a penny. In a glass case was a large puppet of a policeman who came to life when a coin was posted in the slot. He would rock from side to side, accompanied by a recording of someone laughing uproariously. It was infectious and a crowd would gather around and just start laughing. You couldn't help it.
Along the Golden Mile gypsy fortune tellers sat in small colourful sheds the size of wardrobes, with fancy red velvet curtains pulled back to reveal them like exhibits. They had exotic names like Gypsy Rose Smith and Romany Petronella and they all looked the same with their wizened brown faces and dark eyes, sitting behind small tables and dressed in typically gypsy fashion - coloured scarves wrapped around their heads, voluminous white blouses and long frilly skirts. They wore great golden rings in their ears and thick silver bangles on their skinny wrists. I longed to go inside and learn about my future but my mother pooh-poohed it.
'Gypsy Jasmine my foot,' she said. 'It's probably somebody called Enid Clamp from Cleckheaton. And if they are so good at seeing into the future,' she continued, 'what are they doing in a shed on the promenade at Blackpool?'
One of the highlights of our week in Blackpool was the evening out at the variety show in the theatre on the South Pier. These were colourful lively affairs, with dancing girls, magicians, acrobats, jugglers, singing groups - the Beverley Sisters (Joy, Teddie and Babs), the Three Monarchs, Ruby Murray (later immortalized in rhyming slang for curry), the King Brothers, the Rocketeers; pianists - Rawicz and Landauer, Semprini, Winifred Atwell; soloists - Edmund Hockridge ('Canada's Favourite Baritone'), Kenneth McKellar ('The Voice of Bonny Scotland'), Ronnie Carroll ('The Irish Tenor'), Alma Cogan ('The Girl with the Giggle in Her Voice'), David Whitfield, Dorothy Squires and Ronnie Ronalde, the last billed as 'The World's Greatest Whistler'.
Speciality acts included Eddie Calvert ('The Man with the Golden Trumpet'), who would play popular favourites like 'O Mein Papa' and 'Apple Pink and Cherry Blossom White'. There was the man who swallowed live goldfish and then regurgitated them into a glass bowl (Dad later told us when we said it was cruel that they were fish-shaped pieces of carrot), a fire-eater who juggled flaming torches and who nearly set the front row on fire when he breathed out, an escapologist who writhed about the stage trussed up in chains, a small man in a red turban and a Hitler moustache with curly gold slippers who hurled a handful of vicious-looking daggers at a young woman positioned before a large wooden dartboard, and Bing Beales, this strange-looking, bald-headed, jug-eared performer with bad teeth who smacked himself noisily on the head with a tin tray as he sang the theme tune for a popular television series of the time - 'Head 'em up, move 'em out, move 'em out, head 'em up, Rawhide!' There were no warnings from the management for children 'not to try this at home'. A favourite was Syd Baker ('The Man of Bronze', brother of Hylda), who, covered from head to foot in yellowish-brown paint, contorted his muscles in time to the music.
At twelve I fell in love with Alma Cogan, the beautiful singer who appeared on stage in fabulous glittering voluminous dresses. She had a warmth and charm that captivated her audiences and when she sang she had a little sexy giggle in her voice. When I saw her beneath the lights looking down at me sitting in the stalls, I knew she was singing just to me:
You dreamboat, you loveable dreamboat,
The kisses you gave me set my dreams afloat.
I would sail the seven seas with you
Even if you told me to paddle my own canoe.
I looked forward most to the appearance of the comedians on stage and I laughed until my sides ached at the very best of the crop. Nearly all the stars at Blackpool came from the music hall tradition: Big-hearted Arthur Askey ('Hello, playmates'), Tommy Cooper ('Not like this, like that'), Richard (Dicky) Murdoch, Jimmy James with the huge glasses, trilby hat and loud tie and his gormless sidekick Eli, Dickie Henderson, Freddie Frinton, Beryl Reid, Arthur Haynes, Joan Whitfield, Norman Evans, Sandy Powell ('Can you hear me, mother?'), Professor Jimmy Edwards and Chic Murray. There was Frankie Howerd, who managed to have his audience doubled up with laughter though he said nothing inherently funny but just spluttered and 'Oooh-d' and 'Ahhh-d', jettisoning the script and departing into some wild fantasy of his own. 'No, don't titter,' he would spout, contorting his face. 'Pleeease, titter not,' he would continue in his strange throaty voice. 'Oh, pleeease yourselves.' These comedians knew only too well the comic power of accent and mannerism to create a character, and the catchphrases that were used helped the audience to bond.
I could never understand why my mother disliked the man with the silly laugh and the ukulele. She was easily shocked by anything that related to sex and the lyrics of George Formby's songs certainly had no appeal for her. Later when my brother Alec started to play the ukulele and bought a booklet containing some of George Formby's more suggestive numbers, including 'When I'm Cleaning Windows' and 'My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock', it was promptly put in the dustbin.
'You're not singing those songs in this house,' she said.
Later we retrieved the booklet from the bin, intrigued, as children so often are when parents forbid something, and examined the 'indecent' lyrics, which, by today's standards, are pretty tame:
Honeymooning couples do,
You should see them bill and coo.
You'd be surprised at what they do,
When I'm cleaning windows.
Pyjamas lying side-by-side,
Ladies' nighties I have spied.
I've often seen what goes inside,
When I'm cleaning windows.
The blushing bride, she looks divine,
The bridegroom, he is doing fine.
I'd rather have his job than mine,
When I'm cleaning windows.
Top of the bill at the variety shows was often Al Read, Salford's comic chronicler of working-class Lancashire life with his meaningless catchphrases of 'Right Monkey', 'You'll be lucky, I say you'll be lucky.' His weekly radio shows drew audiences of 35 million and his humour still stands the test of time. It was a humour that was observational and absurd rather than vicious. Unlike some comedians of today, he was never malicious or spitefully critical of others. He steered clear of religion and politics and his material had no edge to it. It was just inoffensive and funny, and made funnier still by the deadpan delivery and the range of voices he employed. He was a brilliant observer of the domestic scene, with his vignettes highlighting the idiosyncrasies of everyday life. I learnt much about timing and use of voice from this master of repartee.
My favourite of all was the great Hylda Baker with her silent stooge, Cynthia, who managed to keep a face as rigid and serious as a death mask throughout the performance. Hylda Baker was a small woman (four foot, eleven inches) and characterized the fast-talking gossip. Her catchphrases, 'She knows, you know,' 'Be soon I said, be soon' and 'You big girl's blouse' became household words. It is reputed that when she appeared at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Noel Coward observed, after the performance he had 'endured', that, 'I would wring that woman's neck - if I could find it.'
Hylda Baker was a direct descendant of Mistress Quickly and Mrs Malaprop and the precursor of Connie, the character who appears throughout my Dales books. She was one of those people who mangled and murdered the language with malapropisms and non sequiturs to great comic effect. In her moth-eaten fox fur, ill-fitting checked jacket, large handbag over the arm and misshapen hat, she had the audience rolling in the aisles with her facial contortions and her misuse of English. She would wriggle her body as if she suffered from chronic worms, crimp her ha
ir, adjust her massive handbag and announce to the audience as she came on stage: 'I don't think you've had the pleasure of me.'
'I can say this without fear of contraception,' she would say. 'I went to the doctor and he was stood standing there, his horoscope round his neck. He said I had the body of a woman twice my age. You flatterer you, I said. I nearly had a coronary trombonist and fell prostitute on the floor.'
She would look up at her silent friend. 'Oooo,' she would mouth, 'Have you been with a fella? Have yooo? Have yooo been with a fella?' Cynthia would stare into the middle distance with a blank expression. 'She knows, you know,' Hylda told the audience. 'Oh yes, she knows, you know,' she would repeat and the whole audience shouted back the phrase. Simple, innocent, silly material but hilariously funny.
After one show I waited in the rain at the stage door to get her autograph. There was no one else waiting and my father doubted if she would appear. Perhaps the doorkeeper felt sorry for me and had persuaded her to come down, for after a while, still in her stage costume, the comic genius came out and signed my book.
'Have you been stood standing there, have you, you little man?' she asked of the wide-eyed little boy. I nodded. 'I bet you've been to the Blackpool illucinations, haven't you?' I nodded but was lost for words. 'Do I get a kiss?' she asked me.
'No,' I replied, colouring up. Then I caught sight of Alma Cogan making her way to the stage door. 'But I'll kiss her.'
Hylda Baker's last years were spent in a nursing home in Horton. She died at the age of eighty-one, alone in Horton Hospital in 1986. Britain's once most popular comedienne had been largely forgotten. When I met her niece at a literary luncheon in 2001, she was comforted to know that many years after her aunt's passing the unique talents of Hylda Baker were still appreciated and that her comedy lives on.
Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad Page 27
