The Boyhood of Burglar Bill

by Allan Ahlberg

  Ronnie found no earwigs that day, it was the wrong time of year, but he did share a bit of his gran’s scrag-end with Archie, inviting him to perform a three-legged leap for it. And he would’ve shared one of his sausages with us. He wanted us to get a fire going in the bushes and cook it. We tried begging matches from a couple of fishermen (Mr Skidmore had departed), but had no luck. Thus Ronnie’s grandma’s sausages survived and he took them home.

  Four days to the final – well, three and a half now. A practice match had been arranged by Spencer, with Leatherland’s lot again, for Monday after school. Tuesday too, probably. As for Wednesday, that depended on the unpredictable Mr Cork. Would he be marching us down to GKN’s ground as usual, have us running around for an hour and a half before the final? You wouldn’t put it past him.

  One other worry we had, looking ahead to the final itself, was: the shirts. Spencer had received a letter giving details of various presentations, speeches and so on. The teams would get to shake hands with the Mayor and Mayoress of Oldbury, Alderman and Mrs Haywood of Haywood’s Outfitters fame. How well did they know their own stock, we wondered? Were they liable to recognize it, if it shook hands with them? We’d find out soon enough.

  20

  Lucky and Unlucky Omens

  Accles & Pollock made weldless steel tubes of every kind and for every purpose, right the way down in size to hypodermic needles. There was a story told, and popularly believed in Oldbury, that in the 1930s an American steel-tube manufacturer sent Accles & Pollock a sample of their finest-diameter tube, claiming it as ‘the smallest in the world’. The grimed and sweaty men of Oldbury had a good look at it and, eventually, sent it back with one of their own inside it.

  Accles’s sports ground was up on the Wolverhampton Road. We needed a bus to get there. There were fourteen of us, all told: the team, plus Spencer, Brenda and Patrick Prosser with his well-autographed if grubby plaster cast. We charged upstairs to the smoke-filled upper deck. Normally, the conductor would have put a stop to this, but we had him outnumbered. Tommy Pye instantly went into a panic, claiming he had lost his fare. He found it almost immediately, in his hand. Ronnie had to be dissuaded from hiding under a seat to avoid paying his. There was a scramble to occupy the front seats, a constant barrage of yelling. You’d think we were mountaineers communicating across a valley. Only Tommy Ice Cream was quiet and, temporarily, Wyatt, consuming a pork pie.

  ‘Read it again!’ yelled Joey.

  Spencer, looking smart in a jacket and tie, took out the letter from the Parks and Cemeteries department.

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Read about the presentations!’

  ‘The medals!’

  ‘Ray Barlow!’

  ‘Right,’ said Spencer, a little wearily. ‘It says here, “On the conclusion of the contest –” ’

  ‘Contest?’

  ‘Contest?’

  ‘“Of the contest, players and officials alike –”’

  ‘Hey, look – an ambulance!’

  In those days an ambulance (and a million other things) was considered an unlucky omen unless responded to with the appropriate ritual.

  ‘Touch y’collar!’

  ‘Touch y’collar!’

  ‘Don’t swallow till y’see a dog!’

  ‘“Players and officials –”’

  ‘Aren’t you ’ot in that?’

  Ronnie in his balaclava makes no reply.

  ‘“Will assemble in two parallel lines on the –”’

  ‘A dog.’

  ‘A dog!’

  ‘Another dog!’

  ‘If we win –’

  ‘When we win.’ Ronnie (naturally).

  ‘When we win.’ This was Edna May, looking, I have to report, rather fetching in a Fair Isle bobble hat and with a gap-toothed smile. She had lost a tooth from a smack in the face from the ball in the semi-final. ‘Will Spencer make a speech?’

  ‘No,’ said Spencer.

  ‘Yes!’ yelled half a dozen others.

  ‘Spotty dog!’ cried Tommy Pye.

  A spotty dog was considered to be a lucky omen, needing only to be observed for the luck to stick.

  ‘I could make a speech!’ Edna May again.

  ‘Me too!’ Brenda.

  ‘Well… don’t.’ This in a menacingly sepulchral voice, suddenly and startlingly from the back of the bus. A large, untidy-looking man with a greyhound between his knees and a cigarette in his mouth was scowling at us. He said no more but we got the message and whispered from then on.

  ‘Trev.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trev.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Show ’em y’leg.’

  Cheerfully, proudly, Trevor rolled down his left sock to reveal a lumpy bruise on his shin. Earlier in the day he had collided with, been mown down by is nearer the truth, Nellie Shipman. Nellie Shipman was a cantankerous blind woman who, like Tommy Ice Cream, roamed the streets, though in her case at surprising speed and laying about her with a white stick, connecting in this instance with Trevor’s shin. The protests and cries of pain she regularly provoked guided her steps. None of this ‘tap, tap’ business. A blind man was another lucky omen, but not, it seems, a blind woman. Not Nellie Shipman. Not for Trevor.

  The man with the greyhound got off the bus at the Brades. The conductor came up to collect our fares.

  ‘Read it again,’ said Joey.

  21

  Pomegranates

  Accles & Pollock’s sports ground was situated to the north of the town, an oasis of football and cricket pitches, tennis courts, bowling green, running track, set down in an otherwise blasted landscape of waste tips, slag heaps, marl holes. Tall poplars marked its boundary on the Wolverhampton Road. There was an imposing pair of weldless steel-tube gates, through which at a quarter to six on that Wednesday evening we rowdily and shyly passed.

  The pitch itself was amazing, the best we’d ever played on or ever would, most of us. Full size of course, the goalposts too, a ludicrous space for ten-and eleven-year-olds. Not that we minded; the bigger the better. There was a covered stand near the halfway line and other temporary seating set out around the pitch. The sun was clipping the tops of the poplars, projecting their shadows across that huge expanse of grass.

  THE OLDBURY AND DISTRICT

  QUEEN ELIZABETH II CORONATION

  CUP FINAL

  ROUNDS GREEN PRIMARY ‘A’ V.

  MALT SHOVEL ROVERS

  VENUE: ACCLES & POLLOCK’S

  SPORTS GROUND

  DATE: 22 APRIL 1953

  KICK-OFF: 6.15 P.M.

  First half. As I write this now, pen in hand, ink on paper, down the garden in my shed, my hand is shaking (truly), slippery with sweat. I want you to feel it too, all those knotted stomachs in the changing room, that breathless on-the-edgeness. I’d hate you to think it was just some kids kicking a ball.

  By the time we stepped out, clattering down the pavilion steps, everybody was there: parents, kids, dogs, dignitaries. I spotted Mr Reynolds sitting in the stand, and Mr Glue looking, with one black eye… wary. He’d had a fight, we learnt later, with one of those so-called mates of his. Mr Ash had flitted in and out, wishing us luck. A couple of constables and an inspector, prompting unease in one or two of our more guiltily inclined hearts. No sign of Uncle Ike yet, or Dad. Mum was there, frowning as usual, hat crammed on her head, Dinah on a lead. No offices would get cleaned tonight, not by her anyway.

  We won the toss, lined up and kicked off, stitching passes up the field:

  Ronnie to me –

  me to Arthur –

  to Trevor –

  to me again –

  ball inside the full back –

  Wyatt –

  loping stride and dipping shoulder –

  lovely left foot –

  goal.

  Goal! Thirty seconds flat and their lot hadn’t touched it. The crowd was stunned. There were more of their supporters than ours, Rounds Green being just down the hill, not ha
lf a mile away. Anyway, what a start! Our faces shone like beacons in the oddly luminous (but locally familiar) light that was already enveloping the ground. We were winning and could end up winning. Why not? Why ever not?

  And yet…

  There was something, something peculiar, a sense of strangeness that many of us felt even before we had any reason to feel it.

  It could’ve been the light. (British Summer Time was operating now, by the way. The clocks had been put forward, transferring an extra hour of daylight to the end of the day.) Accles’s beautiful ground was an oasis all right, but the surrounding nether regions did not give up that easily. Slag heaps and waste tips, hardly two hundred yards away, steamed and puckered like hot swamps in the daytime and glowed in the night. Radioactivity could not be ruled out.∗

  It could’ve been the crowd, which though large enough for a crowd was too polite, too subdued somehow, to actually be one. Intimidated, perhaps, by the formality of the seating and the presence of dignitaries.

  But, no, not the crowd, not the light. The strangeness was, well, it took some working out, but here’s a clue: this is their first goal, scored as they lined up and kicked off after our first goal:

  pass –

  run into space –

  ball to feet –

  pass –

  run –

  dip the shoulder –

  lovely right foot –

  goal.

  And our lot never touched it. That was the peculiar, the disconcerting thing (like all those Ackerman faces in the semi-final): the similarities between the teams. They played their football the way we played ours, held their positions, passed it around and so on. But it didn’t stop there. They had a big goalie, a beanpole of a boy, as tall as Tommy Ice Cream if not as wide. They had a Tommy Pye as well, a tiny little golden-curled eight-year-old named Sammy Turpin, who all the mothers once again instantly felt protective towards. They howled disapproval if we went anywhere near him.

  The match proceeded in its increasingly symmetrical fashion, like a chess game, each side confronting the other with itself. They even had an offside trap. It was like playing in front of a mirror. It was a good game, even so. The pitch was flat and true, and considering our ages and inexperience, we played well, all eleven – no, be fair – all twenty-two of us.

  When half-time arrived it was 3–2 to them. Families and friends gathered about us. Mr Skidmore, Uncle Ike and Mrs Prosser sought to give us the benefit of their advice. My mum, always uncomfortable in company and away from her own doorstep, approached, gave me a hopeful half-smile, but didn’t speak. Dad had yet to arrive. Tommy Ice Cream, meanwhile, was astounding everybody by sounding off to Joey and Trevor. His vocabulary had continued to expand. ‘Kickit!’ and ‘Shoo!’ he explained. And sometime later, ‘Gol!’ (goal) and ‘Spenceth!’ (Spencer says).

  With half-time almost over, Rufus rolled up (no Albert) in an overcoat and a trilby hat, carrying a crumpled bag full of – wait for it – pomegranates.

  I know, I know, unbelievable, but it happened. Anyway, oranges were rare enough in those days, so why not pomegranates? Rufus cut them up into halves and quarters and I suppose thereafter we… ate ’em. I can vaguely remember eating pomegranates back then, buying the odd one from Bastable’s on the way home from the grammar school. You ate them – yes, I do remember it – you ate them, like cockles and whelks, with a pin. But there we are, that was it, the final flourish, the last exotic cherry on that luminously glowing, mirror-imaged cake. Pomegranates.

  ∗

  Second half. Spencer took up his position behind Tommy Ice Cream’s goal, directing Tommy’s siege-gun kicks and mighty overarm throws. Tommy Pye and Sammy Turpin squared up in midfield, dribbled each other, tackled each other, bowled each other over like a pair of bantams. (The watching mothers were dumbstruck, I’ll bet, not knowing who to yell for, or at.) And they scored, a long-range shot in off the bar; and we scored, a long-range courageous diving bullet header from Joey. And Wyatt chatted with the crowd. And Ronnie argued with the ref. And they scored.

  Our stars were the usual: Tommy Pye and Wyatt in attack, Joey in defence. But others of us shone that evening, and all of us worked our socks off. I’d like to give a special mention to Arthur and Edna May. Arthur was an unshowy player, cool and understated. He tackled people, got the ball and calmly fed it on to Wyatt or me. Made no fuss. Ran into space. Passed it.

  And Edna May: Edna May had easily her best game. It helped, I suspect, that the full back marking her – with an extra flush to his freckled cheeks? – was clearly smitten. (He had a tooth missing too.) She was alert from the start, up for it. And brave; would sacrifice more teeth if she had to. Like Arthur, she did the simple things, no fuss. You almost forgot she was a girl. And then, the not-so-simple: showing up on the left wing, to Wyatt’s consternation (and their right back’s), setting Wyatt free, his blinding shot then ricocheting around the goal mouth, to be bundled in at last, or neatly tucked away I rather should have said, by me.

  The pace was frantic; we sped across that vast pitch like pocket dynamos, pink-faced in the pink light, damp hair plastered to our boiling heads. And the crowd was a real crowd now, roaring and boiling themselves. Mrs Glue was there (with Mr), and my dad, dirty-faced from work. Ice Cream Jack in his long brown overall of a coat had materialized next to Spencer. The tall blond god-like figure of Ray Barlow himself was standing up in the stand. A great game – oh yes! – and a memorable time, seared forever into our brains and pounding hearts. Joyful and dazzling. Oh yes…

  Pity about the result.

  22

  Shaking Hands with Ray Barlow

  We could’ve won, should’ve won and nearly did. Hit the bar – denied a penalty – they were hanging on at the end. There again, they did hang on and we didn’t win. There again (again!), ‘Yeth and noth’, we did win. Sort of. Y’see, when you come to think about it, and I’m not just saying this because we lost, the semi-final was our final. Beating Amos and Vincent Loveridge, showing Mr Cork. Rising up out of the bottom pitch. Doing it on our own. Getting a team up.

  The final was fantastic, win or lose; the crowd cheering, having our photo taken for the Weekly News, shaking hands with Ray Barlow. Shaking hands with Ray Barlow! Getting our medals, and treasuring them still, some of us, in their shiny golden cardboard boxes. Showing them off to our mums and dads, uncles, sisters, dogs. Tremendous, all of it. But for sure, the semi-final was the thing, the big event, the glow that has lingered, in my mind anyway, down all these years.

  As for the shirts, no problem. Alderman and Mrs Haywood greeted us, one and all, shaking our grubby hands and smiling. Of course, their valuable stock, if it was their stock, had undergone a transformation in the past few weeks: dyed and shrunk up, tailored, singed. Its own mother wouldn’t have known it. Nevertheless, for some of us melodrama still ruled.

  ‘’E looked at me.’

  ‘And me!’

  ‘What else d’you expect?’

  ‘Yeah – he’s shakin’ y’hand.’

  ‘Otherwise you’d miss each other!’

  ‘Shake somebody else’s.’

  ‘Reynolds’s!’

  ‘Ray Barlow’s!’

  ‘The ref’s!’

  ‘All the same, ’e looked.’

  I caught sight of Tommy Ice Cream’s face, round and moon-like, wondering. His medal flat out on the palm of his hand. And I recalled him shaking hands in his turn with all of them, solemn and attentive, thinking to himself… what? What was he thinking? I’ve no idea.

  Then, ‘I looked at ’im,’ said Ronnie.

  ∗

  We left the ground in fading light, its luminosity snuffed out but with a greenish tinge condensing yet around the street lamps. Out on the driveway beyond the imposing gates a pony and cart was waiting. The silvery gleam of a milk churn in the back of the cart caught our collective eye. Ice creams were served by the silent but hospitable Ice Cream Jack, real name, I’ve lately discovered, Giuseppe. The cornets t
hat we got that night, doubles and triples, lasted us half the way home as we waited patiently at the bus stop or walked on impatiently to the next. The crowd of us plus family and friends gradually broke up into smaller clusters, pairs, individuals. The night closed in. Plumes of smoke from the brickworks’ chimneys rose up into the sky. The underside of clouds threw back a radiant glow from Danks’s furnaces. Dinah tugged me along, urgently to nowhere in particular, the next stop. I finished my ice cream.

  PS I meant to end this chapter here, but suddenly realized – Ray Barlow! You won’t know who he is, was (is?). Ray Barlow was a prince among footballers, the elegant left half for West Bromwich Albion. In those days WBA were the top team in the land. Exaggerating? Not at all. They won the FA Cup and very nearly did the double. Maybe in recent times, the last forty years or so, other upstart teams, Man United, Chelsea, have popped up to challenge their position, but it’s only temporary. Take my word, we’ll be back. Anyway, Ray Barlow, an ace player, gracing the Hawthorns with his cool, unflustered play. As boys in those more robust times, we often found ourselves passed down, like rolls of carpet, over the heads of the 40–50,000 cloth-capped crowd to the front of the stands, to stand with our noses barely above the parapet, with a perfect view… of the players’ ankles. Ray Barlow’s elegant ankles.

  Part Two

  23

  Resting Where No Shadows Fall

  It was the blackest day (smother amid smother), yet it began so well. Spencer came round. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Thruppence!’ He had picked it up off the pavement outside.

  ‘I dropped that!’ I declared, turning my pockets out and frowning.

  ‘No,’ said Spencer.

  Mum gave us each a stick of rhubarb and some sugar in a twist of paper. We left for the park. It was August now, school holidays, a baking thunderous day already and it was only half past eight. In the street we passed a doubly shaky Mrs Moore shaking somebody’s hand. Monica Copper was in her garden. I gave Spencer a shove and started running as we went by.