Private - Keep Out!

by Gwen Grant

  ‘That young Pam’s talking to you,’ she said to our Rose. ‘I know she is,’ our Rose said, ‘but my name is Rose, not Rosie.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to answer her though, would it?’ our Mam said, and Rose said, ‘I’m not speaking to anybody who calls me Rosie,’ and so our Mam said she didn’t know what things were coming to and if she’d ever been so bad mannered, her mother would soon have nipped it in the bud, and our Rose glared at poor old Pam Byelow until she stopped shouting at her.

  ‘I don’t know why she wants to sit with you,’ I said, ‘because I’d sooner sit with a monkey than sit with you,’ and our Mam just got the back of my legs right. I didn’t know she was behind me and she said, ‘That took you by surprise, young lady,’ and our Rose laughed her stupid head off and our Mam said it was all her fault anyway for being so rude to poor old Pam Byelow and that she’d better watch her step for the rest of the day because she was never too big, and, no, she never would be, and our Dad said, ‘Oh, Lissy, Lissy. You’ll wear yourself out checking them kids,’ and our Mam said, ‘They’re going to grow up decent if it kills me,’ and then she looked at us all thoughtful and said, ‘and them as well.’

  So I had to sit with Granny Bates and even though I told our Dad when we were halfway there, he wouldn’t come and change seats. When our Mam said, ‘Now, John, I think you’d better,’ he said he wouldn’t, not for any money and that the exercise would be good for my legs. I must have got Granny Bates’s bag down a million times between our house and Cleethorpes. The bus stopped at a cafe and we all got out and had some tea and all us kids had some pop and it was so good that I had three bottles.

  We were going really fast and everybody was saying, ‘We shall be there before we know where we are,’ when I thought, ‘I wish I hadn’t had all that pop’, and, of course, when I asked our Mam when the bus was going to stop again, she said, ‘We’ve only just stopped. He won’t stop again till we get to Cleethorpes,’ and I said to her, ‘He’ll have to stop, Mam, because I want to go to the lavatory.’ She nearly had a fit.

  She started going red and then she said to our Dad, ‘If I don’t leave that young madam behind this afternoon, it won’t be for the want of trying,’ and I thought, ho, yes, very nice I’m sure.

  Anyway, our Dad went down to the driver and the driver started shouting and when I was getting out, he said to our Mam, ‘I hope she’s not going to do this tonight. I’ve got a home to go to as well, you know,’ and our Mam said, ‘What’s a few minutes to you?’ and we had to go behind this hedge. It wasn’t very nice and I kept thinking someone would come along and see me and our Mam just stood there saying, ‘If I’ve told you once about drinking pop when you’re on a bus, I’ve told you a thousand times,’ and I kept saying, ‘Yes, Mam,’ and a rotten old stinging nettle stung my legs, and by the time we got back on the bus our Mam wasn’t saying a single word and neither was I because I was fed up to the back teeth.

  Anyway, just after that, another little kid had to go to the lavatory as well so they had to stop the bus again and the driver kept shouting and raving about how we were going to be all day getting there and was anybody worried about seeing the sea after all, and perhaps we’d all be happier if he parked the bus in a field, and everybody started telling him to shut up, little kids couldn’t help it, so when he had to stop the bus for Granny Bates, he nearly had a fit.

  ‘I wish he would,’ our Mam said, when she and Granny Bates got back into the bus. ‘Miserable old devil!’ But he didn’t, although he stayed bright red all the way there.

  Anyway, we got there in the end and I asked our Mam if I could walk on the sands on my own and she said, all right, but I wasn’t to go too far away. So I started walking. I just wanted to be on my own for a bit.

  I hadn’t gone very far when I saw this funny thing lying on the sand. It was big and round and it had all pointed spikes sticking out all over it and it was made of iron because I bashed it with a stone and it went, clunk, clunk. It had a funny cap on it as well and I tried to get it off but it wouldn’t budge. I thought, rotten old thing. Neither use nor ornament, so I started using it as a target and pretended I was a dive-bomber and every time I was near it, I dropped a bomb on it. The bombs were only stones off the beach but they made a good loud noise, and I had a good time and when I’d finished playing, it came in useful for leaning against.

  So I was just sitting on top of it when our Dad comes walking down the beach and he starts shouting, ‘Get off that. Get off it,’ and I waved to him and pretended not to hear. I never asked him to come looking for me. You’d never believe all the fuss that went on next.

  Our Mam came rushing down the beach and she was shouting to our Dad and screaming at me and I thought, ‘What have I done now?’ and so I burst into tears because I hate anybody shouting at me and then our Mam and Dad came up and our Dad picked me up and carried me away and there was the police there and some soldiers and everything, and the next thing, everybody on the entire whole beach had to get off it and our Lucy said, ‘Trust you to clear the beach. There can’t be anybody else in the world who could do that,’ and I thought, well, I don’t know what I’ve done.

  And then our Tone says, ‘Do you know what that was, what you were playing with?’ and I said, ‘No, but it weren’t much good, whatever it was,’ and he said, ‘It would have been if it had blown up,’ and I looked at him and said, ‘Why should it have blown up?’ and he said, ‘Because it was a mine, that’s why,’ and I said, ‘I don’t feel very well.’

  Our Joe said, ‘You ought to have let her get blown up now, Mam. Save us all a lot of trouble later,’ and our Mam said, ‘Well, I don’t know how I’m going to keep her in one piece and that is a fact,’ and I thought, well, it’s not my fault, and then nobody spoke to me for ages because they couldn’t go on the beach on account of me.

  I said to them, ‘You want to blame the Germans. They were the ones who put it there,’ and our Mam said, ‘It had to be you to find it though, didn’t it?’ and our Tone said, ‘If she’d been in the war, it wouldn’t have lasted five and twenty minutes. Everybody would have surrendered. Ha, ha, ha!’

  I could have been an angel by now flying round heaven playing a fiddle and nobody would be bothered. Our Lucy said, ‘An angel! They’ll not let you into heaven. Not if they know what’s good for them, that is,’ and our Pete said, ‘I can just see it now. Her getting up there and St Peter saying, “Yes?” and her saying, “It’s me,” and St Peter opening the gate and saying, “You’ve come to the wrong place, you have. Down below.”’ Then they all started laughing again and our Mam said, ‘Stop tormenting her,’ but I don’t care. I’m going to be rich and famous when I grow up and I shan’t even speak to them when I pass them on the street, so there.

  Anyway, because we couldn’t go on the beach for ages, we walked round the town and I managed to lose them all in one of the shops. So I went and had a great big ice-cream cornet and a stick of rock, peppermint rock it was, and it was pink and white, just like usual, you know, and then I bought a hat and it had Kiss me Quick on the front of it but nobody did. I thought, what a rotten waste of money, but I left it on because you never know.

  Then I had to find our Mam and everybody because it was tea-time and I was starving hungry and anyway I hadn’t got any money left even though we’d all been given five shillings each when we got on the bus.

  Our Tone said, ‘Come on the big dipper with me,’ and I said, ‘I haven’t any money left,’ and he said, ‘I’ll treat you,’ and I went on with him and when I got off I wished I was dead. But I wished I was dead a long time before I got off. I cut my head open on the back of the seat I was in and our Tone looked at me and he said, ‘I’m never taking you on anything else,’ and when I got off, I said to our Mam ‘Look at my head, Mam, it’s bleeding,’ and she went all white and said, ‘I give up,’ and we had to go to the St John’s man and he fixed it up all right.

  I’ve decided I don’t like the seaside.

  We didn’t get b
ack home until nearly midnight and I was so tired I couldn’t open my eyes. Anyway, I was sick three times coming back on the bus and so was Granny Bates. She kept groaning, ‘Oh, I knew I didn’t ought to have had those fish and chips. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!’ I went and sat with our Dad and the bus had to stop about a million times because all the kids and Granny Bates had eaten too much.

  Then – yuk, yuk, yuk – that stupid twerp Danny Howard from Shore Street grabbed me and tried to kiss me and I said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ and I bashed him right in the face and he hit me back and said, ‘I was trying to give you a kiss,’ and I said, ‘Blooming cheek!’ He pulled my Kiss me Quick hat off and said, ‘What’s that say, then?’ and I said, ‘That doesn’t mean you. That only means handsome people. Not horrible ugly mugs like you,’ and he hit me again and I said, ‘I hope the bus runs over you and squashes you flat,’ and then I had to run back to our Mam because he looked as if he were going to murder me.

  Huh! Cheeky devil! Still, it was a day out. I suppose it was all right. Anyway, thank goodness, that’s it till next year.

  8

  ‘Why did that burglar shout for the bobbies?’

  Things have been very quiet since we came back from the seaside but I’m glad to say they looked up a bit yesterday.

  The man next door jumped out of his bedroom window last night. He stood on the ledge and shouted, ‘I’ve had enough I tell you. I’m going to put an end to it all,’ and Mrs Elston, who he’s married to, shouted, ‘Don’t jump, Fred! Don’t jump,’ and the old chap who belongs to the Sally Army (that’s the Salvation Army), he comes rushing out of the house pulling up his trousers and shouting to his wife, ‘Get me braces, Ethel! Get me braces.’ Then he sort of skidded to a halt underneath the bedroom window and shouts to Mr Elston, ‘Now then, Fred. Don’t be foolish,’ and then Fred (Mr Elston, that is) shouts, ‘I’m done for,’ and jumped.

  I don’t know what all the fuss was about because when we were trying out our Mam’s sheets to see if they made good parachutes, we jumped off the bedroom window-sill as well. Mind you, it hurt a bit because the sheets didn’t behave like parachutes at all. Where we got hurt most though was where our Mam clobbered us for using her sheets in the first place. They’re not very high, our houses, you see. There are only two rooms downstairs and two rooms up and if you’re a little bit taller than usual and you’ve got a stool, you can touch the bottom of the bedroom window-sill with your hand.

  Anyway, Mr Elston (Fred, that is) jumped off the bedroom window-sill and you’d never believe the commotion. His wife, Mrs Elston, ran round and round in circles and she was shouting and yelling, ‘Oh dear, oh dear! Whatever’s going to become of us all now?’ And then she suddenly stopped and threw her hand up to her head and said, ‘Dear heavens! The insurance! I never paid him last week,’ and leaving Mr Elston (Fred, that is) on the floor, she rushed in to find her insurance book.

  Our Mam picked Mr Fred Elston up off the floor and brushed him down. ‘I had to do it,’ he was saying. ‘I had to do it,’ and then his wife, who he’s married to, Mrs Fred Elston, she came rushing back into the street, waving the insurance book in the air. ‘Don’t you ever do that again,’ she said to Mr Fred Elston. ‘I wouldn’t have got a penny off the insurance if anything had happened to you.’ When our Mam and Dad came in, I noticed they were laughing their heads off. You can’t make people out sometimes, can you?

  Of course people don’t jump out of their bedroom windows every day but it makes a change when they do.

  Our Mam says it’s not been Mrs Elston’s week at all this week because Mrs Elston’s husband, Fred, who jumped out of the window, only went back to work this morning and Mrs Elston found a burglar in her kitchen when she got back from up town shopping.

  I says to our Mam, ‘All the exciting things happen to other people,’ and she said, ‘We can do without those kind of exciting things, I am sure,’ and she looked at me and said, ‘He might have stolen you,’ and I said, ‘I didn’t know burglars stole little girls,’ and our Mam laughed and said, ‘They don’t, you daft thing. Anyway,’ she said, ‘what would you have done if he had?’ and I said, ‘I’d have shouted our Prince,’ and then me and our Mam looked at our Prince who was having a nice little snooze in front of the fire and our Mam said, ‘Yes well …’ I said, ‘I don’t think it would have done much good though, Mam,’ and our Mam said she didn’t think it would have done much good either and then she asked me where he’d got the blue bootees from that he was wearing.

  So I told her about the little kids from next door coming round and asking if they could have Prince to play with. He’s a black spaniel, our Prince, and he’s the kindest person in the whole world. I said, ‘What are you playing at?’ and little Betty (the girl from next door, that is) she said, ‘Mams and Dads,’ and I said, ‘What do you want Prince for then?’ and she said, ‘He’s going to be the baby,’ so I thought, well, poor little kids, why not, and so I shouted our Prince and he came from under the table wagging his old tail and little Betty picked him up and sat down with him on her knee, because she found she couldn’t carry him. All his back legs were scraping along the floor.

  They put a little hat on him with a blue pom-pom on it and a little coat and a lovely pink frock. I don’t know where they got it from. Then, they put him in their dolls’ pram and wheeled him up and down the street and our Prince just laid there like a great soft kid. He got fed up in the end, though, and the last I saw of them all was Betty and her little mates chasing after our Prince. He looked a right sight he did, with that bonnet and frock on. They’d even put four little bootees on his feet and now here he was, turned up in the kitchen again without any of the baby clothes except two little blue bootees. I says to our Mam, ‘He’s not really what you’d call a watchdog, is he, Mam?’ and she said seeing as how he shoved everybody out of the way in his hurry to get under the table whenever it thundered, she thought he wasn’t a watchdog at all.

  Our Dad came in then and our Mam started telling him about the burglar at Mrs Elston’s. ‘Terrible it was, John,’ she said, and then Mrs Elston came rushing round because she’d seen our Dad come home and she wanted to tell him all about her burglar herself. She said, ‘I’ve never been so surprised in all my born days,’ and our Mam said, ‘It’s a good job you gave him a bash on the head, Matty,’ and Matty (that’s a queer name, isn’t it?) said, ‘Well, there he were, large as life and twice as ugly, rooting through all my drawers, he were. I never felt so mad in all my life, I never.’

  Anyway, this burglar was shouting for the bobbies when our Mam went round. She said, ‘There was this awful noise and then I heard somebody shouting ‘Help! Help!’ and I went rushing round, with Granny Bates and Old Flo, who just happened to be here having a nice cup of tea, and there’s Mrs Elston and she’s got this fella on the floor and she’s hitting him over the head with her umbrella, and it’s a big heavy umbrella that one, you know, and she’s got this poker in her other hand and she’s shouting, “I’ll show you, you devil,” and it’s this burglar who’s shouting “Help! Help! Fetch the bobbies”,’ and our Mam burst out laughing and had to sit down.

  It was very exciting though because they fetched the bobbies and they took this burglar away and I’m glad about that because it’s a bit scary to think of burglars in the back kitchen, even if they don’t steal little girls.

  Our Mam and Mrs Elston and Old Flo and Granny Bates had to have some warm water and sugar with a drop of Indian Brandee in it afterwards because our Mam said, ‘All of a sudden, we were all shaking when the bobbies had been and took him away,’ and they all had to go and sit down and suddenly Mrs Elston (Matty, that is) burst into tears and they were all saying, ‘There, there.’

  Our Dad says to our Mam and Mrs Elston, ‘You sound as if you did all right between you,’ and Mrs Elston said, ‘I wouldn’t like it to happen again though,’ and our Mam said, ‘I shouldn’t think any more burglars will come up here. The last I heard of him, he was shouting, �
��It was all for nothing, anyway. She hadn’t got anything worth pinching,” and Mrs Elston said, “That’s very true”.’

  We were all sitting on the step tonight when a big policeman came round the corner of the street. The one with the stripes on his arm, and he was carrying a bunch of flowers wrapped in white paper. He marched up to Mrs Elston, and we’re all sat looking at him with eyes as big as buckets, our Mam said, when he says to Mrs Elston that she’d been ever so brave and he’d brought this bunch of flowers from the Cop Shop for her.

  Our Mam says I must never say ‘Cop Shop’ again in all my life. ‘Shows a lack of respect, that does,’ she says. It sounds nice though, doesn’t it? Cop Shop. Oh well, I suppose I’d better call it Police Station.

  I was laid thinking about Mrs Elston’s burglar and the policeman all last night and I thought I’d play at detectives today for a change. But now I wish I never had. I was only playing at being Sherlock Holmes and I put our Prince on a piece of string and took that old pipe out of the sideboard drawer and walked up and down the street. Well, of course, everybody laughed and that, like they always do round here, but they left me alone.

  I got pretty fed up with being a detective after a bit and our Prince sat down and wouldn’t get up again and I dropped the pipe and it broke, so I thought, I’ll be a detective in plain clothes. So then I went and stood outside the betting shop round the corner although I know it isn’t a real betting shop but a house really and I’ve heard our Mam say a thousand times, ‘They’ll end up getting caught one of these days, they will,’ and I stood outside there and stared at everybody going in and out.

  It was all right at first and then this old woman marches over to me and she says, ‘What you staring at?’ and I says, ‘You!’ and she went, ‘Oh!’ – screech, screech – and this other old woman comes up to me and says, ‘What you doing?’ and I muttered, ‘Police.’ Just like that.