Road to the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  Once a particularly vicious beast called Major, a huge redhaired mongrel, attacked a small girl while my mother was visiting the area, seizing its victim by the leg until the child’s mother warded it off with a broom handle. The angry mother carried the distressed child to Nurse Phinn for first aid, saying she had told the police umpteen times about the dog but they had done nothing about it.

  ‘T’police never like coming down to Canklow, you know, nurse,’ she observed. This came as no surprise to my mother.

  On her way back to Ferham Clinic that afternoon my mother called into the police station and laid it on thick, saying that the child could have been savaged to death by this rabid dog and that something had to be done urgently. She would be reporting the incident to the Chief Medical Officer. As a result of my mother’s intervention and her great gift for storytelling, the owner of the dog was summonsed and told to take the beast to the vet to have it ‘put down’, otherwise there would be a substantial fine. The authorities would pay a visit in the near future to make sure he had complied with the order.

  Several weeks later Mother happened to call at the man’s house. At the door stood a dog. It was the same size as Major, with the same pricked-up ears, tail, face and cold eyes. It was an identical creature but it was jet black.

  ‘Down, Colonel,’ ordered the owner.

  ‘Where is the other dog,’ asked my mother, ‘the ginger-haired one?’

  ‘Oh, ’e ran off, nurse,’ the man told her bare-faced. ‘Must ’ave sensed that ’is days were numbered. Not seen ’im this side of a week.’

  ‘And this dog?’ enquired my mother, eyeing the shiny black mongrel suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, this is another one,’ said the man. ‘His name’s Colonel and ’e’s as gentle as a lamb.’ The dog displayed a set of teeth like tank traps.

  My mother later discovered that the owner had dyed the dog black to evade its execution.

  She accompanied a social worker to the house some weeks later when she wanted him to look at a baby who was under-nourished and whom she thought might be neglected. My mother warned him about the dangerous dog and suggested he rattle the gate to see if the beast was about.

  ‘No need, nurse,’ said the man casually. ‘I can handle dogs.’

  As she walked nervously behind him while he sauntered up the path, the Hound of the Baskervilles appeared from round the back.

  ‘Be careful,’ my mother warned her companion, reaching for the pepperpot and ready to swing her bag. ‘That dog’s vicious.’

  ‘Don’t worry, nurse,’ he replied nonchalantly. ‘I have come across many dogs in my time.’

  The creature, the size of a small bear, bounded towards them, teeth bared, tail in the air and ears back. The social worker, whom my mother described as a small insignificant-looking man with a bald head and large ears, remained perfectly motionless until the dog leapt up. He then promptly punched it on the right hinge of its jaw, knocking the beast out cold. ‘You have to know how to handle dogs,’ he told her calmly. ‘I was a boxing champion in the army.’

  After that, Major or Colonel was indeed ‘as gentle as a lamb’.

  At a parents’ meeting at Canklow Woods Junior School when I was an education adviser in Rotherham, I met a grandmother who remembered Nurse Phinn with great affection. She related to me the time my mother dressed the wound of another child who had been bitten by a stray dog on Canklow Road, how she calmed down and reassured the whole family and told them she would report the matter to the police when she had returned to the clinic. My mother, so the woman told me, left the house to find the rabid-looking creature snarling and slavering at the gate. She reached into her bag, produced the pot of pepper, took off the top, proceeded down the path and threw the contents into the face of the dog. The creature coughed and sputtered and ran off whimpering. At this point the man of the house emerged and asked my mother rather sheepishly, ‘Has it gone, nurse?’

  My mother would tell me tales about when she was training to be a nurse and would bubble with laughter. Mischievous doctors would send young trainee nurses up to the pharmacist for a couple of ‘fallopian tubes’ or a packet of ‘Bowman’s capsules’ (Bowman’s capsules are tubes in the body surrounded by blood vessels). They would send the innocents up to Sister (never to Matron, who took a very dim view of these pranks) for some ‘islets of Langerhans’ (the inside cells of the pancreas which produce hormones) or a couple of ‘unciforms’ (the hamate bone of the wrist). My mother herself, as a young nurse, had been subjected to such a trick when a doctor asked her to fetch his ‘anatomical snuffbox’. She later discovered this was an area of the wrist surrounded by tendons and not an actual container.

  When she became a theatre sister, part of her role was to induct the new recruits into the profession. She warned the trainee nurses to be wary of such tricks. One particular surgeon, not noted for his sense of humour, was an irascible, impatient and rather rude man but my mother said he could be forgiven for his personality defect because he was such a skilful surgeon and had saved many lives. My mother warned the new recruits to be very wary of this particular surgeon, not to address him at all but if he were to speak to them to always answer him as ‘Mr’, rather than ‘Doctor’, for in the medical world surgeons and consultants are correctly referred to as such. They were told that if he gave them an instruction they should follow it to the letter. He had been known to throw a whole tray of instruments on the floor of the operating theatre in a furious outburst. On one occasion he asked a young nurse watching proceedings nervously from the door of the operating theatre to make herself useful and ‘fetch sister’s coat’. Thinking this might be a ruse, she asked him if this was some sort of joke. The surgeon exploded and demanded that she ‘fetch sister’s coat immediately’ as instructed.

  ‘Do as you are told, nurse!’ ordered my mother, as red-faced as the surgeon. The young nurse scurried off and returned carrying my mother’s coat. The surgeon looked heavenwards and, controlling his temper, informed her it was the ‘cyste-scope’ that he required.

  One trainee nurse, a permanently cheerful Jamaican woman with a beaming smile and sunny disposition, was assisting the anaesthetist in another operation.

  ‘Arm board,’ he said, meaning the device on which the patient’s arm rests prior to the administering of the anaesthetic. The nurse nodded and smiled but made no move.

  ‘I said arm board, nurse,’ repeated the anaesthetist sharply.

  ‘Ah’m bored too, doctor,’ she replied pleasantly, ‘but we’ll soon be going home.’

  My mother would, on occasions, commit her stories to paper and read them to me, and I still possess her lively accounts written carefully on white unlined foolscap paper. A favourite character who appeared in many of her accounts was Jinny. In one she wrote the story of their first meeting.

  I first met Jinny whilst on my rounds as a health visitor. My superintendent had requested that I call at the young woman’s house as there had been complaints from neighbours regarding Jinny’s welfare. I duly called at the mean little terraced dwelling and knocked tentatively on the paint-peeling door. After what seemed to me a great length of time the door slowly opened and a face with large, sad grey eyes, a runny nose and an open expression peered at me. It was clear that the poor woman was mentally deficient. She was dressed in a shabby and heavily stained long black dress and her greasy hair, in need of a good wash, was tucked up untidily inside a sort of tam-o’-shanter.

  ‘Who is it?’ came a voice from within.

  ‘It’s a lady,’ replied the woman, staring at me as if I were some strange exotic creature.

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘What do you want?’ she snapped.

  ‘I need to speak to your mother,’ I told her.

  ‘Got no mother,’ she said bluntly. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Your father then.’

  ‘Got no father,’ she said. ‘He run off.’

  ‘Who looks after you?’ I asked.

  ‘Granddad.
’

  ‘Well, I need to speak to him. Tell him I’m a nurse.’

  My words were conveyed to the person inside the house. ‘She’s a nurse and she wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Tell ’er to come in,’ said the voice.

  ‘Have you a dog?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I shall come in.’

  Inside the dwelling, which had an unpleasant musty smell, sat an aged man as close to a blazing fire as physically possible, his feet in a bowl of steaming water. He ignored me.

  ‘Jinny, fetch me some more ’ot watter, will tha?’ He looked at me. ‘It’s good for my rheumatics, tha knaas.’

  The young woman scurried off, returning a moment later with a large blackened kettle full of boiling water, which she proceeded to pour into the bowl. ‘Slowly!’ snapped the old man. ‘I don’t want bloody scaldin’ to deeath!’

  The old man informed me that his granddaughter was ‘not reight in t’head’ and had been allowed out of Middlewood, the mental institution in Sheffield, to attend her mother’s funeral and had never been collected. ‘Anyroad,’ he said, ‘what does tha want?’

  I told him, as tactfully as I could, that the authorities felt he should have some help with Jinny. He grunted, then turning to Jinny said, ‘Get t’nurse a cup o’ tea.’

  I thanked him but declined the offer for I saw the unwashed crockery on the table, the dust and dirt and the untidy state of the room.

  A young man then appeared in the scene, stripped to the waist. ‘If she dunt get weshed,’ he told me and pointing to Jinny, ‘I’ll bloody swing for her. She stinks!’ He then left the room as quickly as he had entered.

  ‘Lodger,’ said the old man. ‘Fine figure of a man, isn’t he, nurse?’ He winked.

  I didn’t reply but told him I would take Jinny to the clinic and make sure she had a bath and her hair washed and I would arrange to have her feet, which seemed to cause her some distress, seen to by the chiropodist.

  ‘Tha not tekkin ’er back to mental place then?’

  ‘I’ll speak to the doctor,’ I told him.

  I collected Jinny the next day, watched by several curious neighbours, and at the clinic saw to it she had a good hot bath, had her hair washed and was given a change of underwear and some fresh clothes. She looked a different person and beamed when she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  Then the chiropodist arrived, a big, bumptious man who always managed to appear at the clinic in time for tea. None of the nurses liked him for he was a lazy man and a snob to boot. He stood by the window, staring out and fingering his silver watch chain with one hand and in the other holding the small cup between a fat finger and thumb.

  ‘The medical officer asks if you would please attend to this person,’ I told him. The chiropodist surveyed Jinny with distaste. ‘Are her feet clean?’ he asked me.

  ‘They are,’ I replied.

  ‘I am rather busy today,’ he told me, extracting the watch from his waistcoat pocket and glancing at it. ‘Can it wait?’ I had an idea he was intending to send an assistant to deal with this particular client.

  ‘No, it can’t,’ I told him, sharply. ‘The medical officer says she is in need of urgent attention.’

  When Jinny uncovered her feet the chiropodist gasped in disbelief and gave me a look which would freeze soup in pans. ‘Dear God,’ he mouthed, staring at the talons which were displayed before him.

  ‘Doctor won’t hurt me, nurse, will he?’ groaned Jinny.

  It was with great satisfaction that I informed her that, ‘This is not a doctor, Jinny, it’s the man who will cut your toenails.’

  The chiropodist gave another grimace. The job having been done, I enquired of him when he would like to see Jinny again.

  ‘Never! Never! Never!’ he growled, pushing his instruments roughly into his bag and making a hasty departure.

  My mother’s stories, written in meticulous longhand, show a real talent for storytelling. There is sharp observation, lively dialogue, an authenticity and attention to detail which make her stories very entertaining. I am sure that if a certain editor at Penguin had not seen some potential in my own writing and opened a door for me when she read the first drafts of my Dales books, my stories about the life of a school inspector in Yorkshire would, like my mother’s, have remained unpublished.

  7

  My mother loved music and could play any popular melody on the piano. Although she could read music, she tended to play by ear and if a tune came on the wireless she could replicate it in no time at all. There were many evenings and Sunday afternoons when we would go into the front room to listen to her play and we would sing along. My father’s favourite song, which he used to sing in a deep bass voice, was ‘If I Were a Blackbird’. I would crouch under the piano with my back to the mahogany and whistle along.

  Mum had a collection of large black vinyl 78-inch gramophone records which she played on the radiogram in the front room. There were one or two classical pieces – Chopin and Mozart – but mostly they were popular melodies and songs performed by Josef Locke, John McCormack, Kenneth McKellar, Alma Cogan and David Whitfield. She prized ‘If I Were a Blackbird’, sung and punctuated with whistles by Ronnie Ronalde. For the Christmas party at Broom Valley Juniors the children were asked to bring along a record and I was allowed to take the precious 78. It says a great deal about my mother that she trusted an eight-year-old boy with one of her most treasured possessions. Of course, the inevitable happened. I used to take a short cut to school through the allotments, and that day was just emerging through the iron gates leading on to Broom Valley Road when two boys from the estate jumped out on me, grabbed the record and flicked it like a Frisbee high over the green sheds and cold frames until it shattered on a far wall. I flew at them red with fury, but being much bigger and stronger than I, they punched me hard in the chest, pushed me into the nettles and ran off laughing. I was distraught and spent the whole of the Christmas party sulking in a corner and wondering whatever I should tell my mother. When I arrived home I didn’t go into the details of how the record had been smashed. I just said I had dropped it and I was sorry. Some parents would, no doubt, have berated the child for his stupidity and lack of care, but my mother merely said, ‘It’s only a record. We can get another.’ But we never did get another.

  My mother’s reaction to the broken record was typical. On another occasion, my brother Alec and I were wrestling in the front room and I fell backwards into Mum’s china cabinet. In the large reproduction piece of furniture Mum kept her bits of precious china, her tea service given as a wedding present, assorted Coronation mugs, small cut-glass trays, commemorative plates, a small porcelain figurine of a lady with a parasol given to her by her friend Mrs Gill, a paperweight brought back by Dad when he was in Egypt with the army and other delicate items well out of reach of the children. I crashed back into the cabinet, smashing the glass and most of the contents.

  Two miserable boys waited in trepidation at the bottom of Richard Road for the Cowrakes Lane bus to stop on Broom Valley Road. Mum, in her blue health visitor’s coat and clutching the brown case, saw us and rushed to meet us. ‘Whatever’s happened?’ she asked, a frightened look in her face. We explained as we followed her up the hill heads down, not wishing to meet her eyes.

  ‘That’s a very silly thing to do, isn’t it?’ she said after an interminable silence. ‘A silly and dangerous thing to do.’ We continued to stare at the ground. ‘Are either of you hurt?’ We shook our heads. ‘Well, I hope it’s taught you both a lesson.’

  On our hands and knees we collected together all the bits of broken china and, with pathetic expressions on our faces, deposited them in the dustbin. We gave up our pocket money for two weeks to help with the repair. My sister now has the cabinet with its tell-tale signs of damage.

  The experience did not teach us a lesson. A couple of weeks later, Alec and I were at it again, wrestling – this time in the living room. Alec, who staggered back and fell, tried to
regain his balance, reached out and knocked the large orange vase kept on the mantelpiece. It shattered into a thousand pieces. We had a short discussion and this time we decided to lie and blame Whisky the cat. When Mum came in we told an elaborate tale about how the cat had jumped from the chair, frightened by a backfiring car in the road.

  When my mother was eighty years old I finally told the truth. I was at her house, just around the corner from where I lived, with my three little boys on our Saturday morning visit and the vase came into the conversation.

  ‘Do you remember that very ugly vase that I used to have, the bright orange one?’ she asked me.

  ‘I think so,’ I equivocated. ‘Why?’

  ‘There was one of these antique programmes in the television and one just like it sold for quite a lot of money. It was a Clarice Cliff and they’re very collectable.’

  ‘I have to tell you the truth,’ I told my mother, finally. ‘It’s been on my mind for many years. I broke the vase. The cat was innocent.’

  She thought for a moment before replying and then, much to the delight of my children, she said, ‘Well, you had better go up to your room and say a prayer of contrition for blaming the poor cat. And,’ she added, wagging a finger, ‘you can go without your tea.’

  In my parents’ front bedroom was a large and ugly dressing table with three deep drawers. The bottom drawer was a veritable Aladdin’s cave where my mother squirrelled away all sorts of presents. If any of us wanted a gift for a teacher or a girlfriend Mum would find something suitable from her bottom drawer. It was full of boxed lace handkerchiefs, bottles of scent, scarves, gloves, small leather purses, pieces of jewellery, cufflinks, bath salts, tablets of sweet-smelling soap and small china figures and dishes. We were not allowed to delve into her store of precious items. One teatime we were asked about the gloves. Mum had been given a pair of pale brown kid gloves with fur lining and had searched her bottom drawer for them but to no avail. Her friend Mrs Gill, who always bought tasteful and expensive presents, had given them to Mum at Christmas. Mum felt they were just too nice to wear and put them away. We all pleaded ignorance. One morning, some weeks later, my mother was visiting the primary school which my brother Michael attended, to assist with the TB injections. She looked through the headteacher’s window to see her eldest son in the playground, in goal, wearing her prized gloves. She never said a word until he got home and then a few sharp words were said. He was an adult when she mentioned it again in passing. The following week Michael presented her with a brand new pair of pale brown kid gloves with fur lining.