05 Please Sir!

by Jack Sheffield

  Mary had a captive audience and we all settled back to enjoy her reminiscences. Having been brought up in Leeds, I was familiar with Busby’s department store. Founded in 1908, it was a grand Victorian building that became a Bradford shopping emporium and was famous for quality merchandise at bargain prices. Opposite the old Theatre Royal Picture House, it commanded an ideal location for the shoppers of West Yorkshire and was rightly known as ‘the store with the friendly welcome’. The founder of the store was Eric Busby and, in later years, his three sons had carried on the tradition of excellent service and value for money. Mary was one of many with happy memories of this famous store.

  ‘I remember it well,’ said Vera. ‘It was particularly exciting at Christmas when Santa arrived in the Busby Grotto.’

  ‘That’s right, Miss Evans,’ said Mary. ‘My boss heard I was good at art so at Christmas I went to help out in the Display Department … which is where I met my Gerald. I had to make up buckets of glue size and whitening and then paste grey-coloured paper over wire-mesh “mountains” to make Santa’s magical kingdom.’

  ‘Gerald is Mary’s ‘usband,’ explained Shirley. ‘’E’s a picture-framer now in a shop in Thirkby.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mary with a smile. ‘Gerald and I used to see each other in the canteen. You could get lobster patties for five old pence and green figs and cream for six old pence, a real treat. Gerald bought me a transistor radio. He paid for it with ‘saved-up’ threepenny bits … I’ve still got it now. We did our courting behind lift number six. It wasn’t the most romantic spot but, in those days, beggars couldn’t be choosers.’

  Everyone laughed. It was good to hear this animated lady relive her working life. We sipped our tea and finished off the bread pudding.

  ‘I remember going with my mother to the sales,’ said Vera. ‘They were something to behold – queues as far as you could see, chairs outside for the elderly and the first seventy-five got a cup of tea.’

  ‘So were you always a hairdresser?’ asked Anne.

  ‘No. After that, I worked in the Lamson Room, collecting the tubes,’ said Mary.

  ‘Lamson?’ queried Jo.

  ‘Yes. When you bought something in the store, the assistant put your money into a small numbered tube and then inserted it into a pipe that ran right through the store. It was incredible how it worked and we would send it on its way back to the right department, carrying your change, with a terrific whooshing sound. It was like a miniature spaceship.’

  ‘I remember those,’ said Vera.

  ‘Altogether there was ten miles of tubing to take each transaction to the right place,’ said Mary. ‘Each department had a number – for example, Haberdashery was number six – so nothing went astray. The whole process only took two minutes to get to us and back, so, while the customer was waiting for her purchase to be neatly wrapped, there was no delay.’

  ‘And you always got the correct change and a receipt,’ said Vera.

  ‘What a good idea,’ said Sally. ‘It’s certainly got more style than all these new electronic systems.’

  Jo looked puzzled but nodded anyway.

  ‘I agree,’ said Mary, ‘and all the Busby family made sure it worked well. They used to walk the floors and there was always a lovely atmosphere. Our motto was ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ and that’s what we did. Mr Arthur and Mr Eric were always polite and friendly. Best of all was Mr Paul, who always stopped for a chat … He was a very handsome man … and then there was Mr Ernest, who gave me a lovely cosmetic tray when Gerald and I got married. You don’t get bosses like that any more.’ She looked up at me and blushed. ‘Present company excepted of course.’

  Everyone smiled and gazed in admiration at this eloquent lady. However, it was obvious to us all that Mary still missed the ker-ching of the cash registers, the whoosh of the overhead Lamson cash carriers and the chatter of shop girls.

  ‘So what happened to Busby’s?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Sadly, it changed,’ said Mary. ‘It merged with Debenham’s in the late fifties and the name Busby disappeared. Then three years ago the whole store burnt down.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Anne.

  ‘It was the end of an era,’ said Vera.

  ‘I still miss it, but I’m trying to do something worthwhile with my life, so now, in my spare time, I paint with my water-colours,’ said Mary.

  ‘You’ll have to have a look at the children’s artwork for the exhibition on Saturday,’ said Sally.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mary.

  ‘And perhaps show the boys and girls how you paint in water-colours,’ I added.

  ‘It would be a pleasure,’ said Mary.

  The bell rang for afternoon school and we all hurried off full of bread pudding and happy thoughts of shopping in the world before supermarkets.

  It was before school on Friday morning when, from my office window, I saw Mary Attersthwaite walk into the middle of the village green and stare up at the school. She was carrying her artist’s materials. A large leather bag was over her shoulder and an easel was under her arm. Curious, I went out to see her.

  As I approached, Mary opened up her folding canvas seat, picked up her notebook and opened it to the next clean page. With swift confident strokes of a soft B pencil she sketched the broad outline of the school and the tall horse-chestnut trees. Then she shielded her eyes from the sharp April sunshine and shaded in the patches of shadow as they would appear in morning sunlight. It was a brilliant instant drawing.

  ‘Good morning, Mary,’ I said: ‘a beautiful morning.’

  ‘Perfect for a painting, Mr Sheffield,’ she replied with a smile. ‘No wind and good light.’

  I watched her as she erected her wooden easel, spending time getting the legs level on the tufted grass. On a board of thick plywood she had attached a sheet of water-colour paper, held fast with masking tape, and then she fixed it at a slight angle on the easel, tilting towards her. With a soft pencil, so as not to leave any grooves on the smooth paper, she sketched the school once again with its bell tower and sloping slate roof. I said nothing, her concentration being intense.

  Finally, satisfied, she sat down, filled her water pot from her bottle of fresh water and hung it from its loop of string on a hook at the side of the easel. ‘Time to begin,’ she said.

  ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘perhaps, later this morning, you might allow some of the children to see how it progresses.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Sheffield. It would be a pleasure,’ she said.

  Then, with the confidence of experience, she picked up a large soft brush, opened her tin box of paints and began with broad sweeps to create a damp wash of pale-blue sky.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, Mary,’ I said. ‘What a wonderful way to spend the morning,’ I added a little wistfully.

  Mary paused and looked up at me reflectively. ‘I’ve walked a long road, Mr Sheffield … and it’s been a life full of light and shade.’ As she resumed her painting, a mantle of peace surrounded her.

  Back in my classroom, while the majority of answers to some of the questions in our Countryside Project were well informed, Theresa Ackroyd once again provided alternative, if perfectly logical, solutions. In answer to the question ‘Why are electricity pylons dangerous?’ Theresa wrote, ‘You might walk into one.’ Likewise, to ‘What problems might hedgerow removal cause?’ her response was: ‘All the cows will escape.’ I smiled and wrote in the margin, ‘We need to discuss this, Theresa.’ It also occurred to me that, on occasions, children provide better answers than the ‘right’ ones.

  Ten minutes before morning break the children in my class were surprised when I asked them to stop work. They looked up at the clock, thinking I had made a mistake, but, significantly, no one complained. I led them out of school on to the village green, where Mary glanced up from her painting and waved in acknowledgement.

  By the time we gathered round her easel, I noticed the water-colour had progressed dramatically. She was clearly a qui
ck worker. Her keen eye had identified the lightest parts of the subject and she had painted these first, gradually moving on to the detail. The children were fascinated by the techniques described by Mary. ‘Then, boys and girls,’ she said, ‘I use this square-ended brush for the gable end of the school and for the windows.’ She dabbed on a little more paint and the roof tiles and windows sprang into new form.

  ‘Cor, can we ‘ave a go, Mr Sheffield?’ asked Dean Kershaw.

  ‘Good idea, Dean,’ I said. ‘We can do some painting this afternoon.’

  While the children walked back into school I stayed with Mary. Soon a group were playing ‘Kiss-Catch’ on the playground while the younger ones were enjoying a game of ‘What Time is it, Mr Wolf?’

  Alice Baxter and Theresa Ackroyd were turning the ends of a large skipping rope and children were jumping in and out, singing their skipping rhyme.

  Mary chuckled. ‘Some things don’t change, do they, Mr Sheffield?’ and she murmured the familiar rhyme along with the chanting children.

  ‘Each, peach, pear, plum,

  I spy Tom Thumb,

  Tom Thumb in the wood,

  I spy Robin Hood,

  Robin Hood in the cellar,

  I spy Cinderella …’

  ‘The happiest time of their life, Mr Sheffield,’ said Mary. I smiled and walked back into school.

  * * *

  On Saturday morning I set off to do some shopping in Ragley on my way to Beth’s cottage in Morton. We had decided to go into York to see the Children’s Art Exhibition and, in the meantime, Beth was doing some packing, which made me realize how close the wedding was.

  I pulled up alongside the single pump on the courtyard in front of Pratt’s Garage. Victor lumbered out to meet me while rubbing his grease-blackened hands on the bib of his filthy overalls. ‘Could you fill her up, please, Victor?’ I asked. He didn’t look happy. On the other hand he never did. Through gritted teeth I asked the inevitable question, ‘And how are you, Victor?’

  He sucked air through his teeth and I knew it must be bad news. ‘Well, Mr Sheffield,’ he said mournfully, ‘ah get pains in m’back when ah put mi jim-jam bottoms on at bedtime.’ He winced painfully. It was a tough life being a martyr.

  ‘So have you been to Dr Davenport?’

  ‘Yes, ah’ave, but that were no good.’

  ‘Why not, Victor?’ I asked.

  ‘Well,’e sed ah’ve got t’go to an Austria-path, but ah told’im ah’ve no wish t’go abroad an’ Yorkshire’s jus’ fine f’me.’

  ‘And what did Dr Davenport say to that, Victor?’ I asked.

  ‘’E jus’ gave me one of ‘is septic looks,’ said Victor; ‘y’know the sort.’

  ‘I certainly do,’ I said as he ambled off to get my change.

  * * *

  Ragley High Street was busy with shoppers and I pulled up outside Piercy’s the Butcher’s. When I walked in Old Tommy Piercy was serving a young man in a smart suit, who said curtly, ‘I’d like some steak.’

  The ladies behind me winced visibly. He hadn’t said ‘please’ and it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  ‘Rump or sirloin?’ asked Old Tommy, equally unimpressed.

  ‘Sirloin,’ said the young man. ‘Four slices, each one a half inch wide.’

  Again there was a muttered reaction from the ladies in the queue. Old Tommy glanced up at the man, weighed up his pinstripe suit and his aloof manner and began to carve.

  ‘I said a half inch,’ repeated the man.

  ‘That’s what y’gettin’,’ said Old Tommy brusquely.

  ‘I’ll have you know that in my profession I work to ten thousandth of an inch,’ he said.

  Old Tommy leant over the counter and waved the sharpest knife in Yorkshire under the visitor’s nose. ‘Well, young man,’ he said firmly, ‘watch ‘n’ y’ll learn summat … ‘cause ah’m exact.’

  Following his departure, the ladies in the queue gave Old Tommy a round of applause and he bowed modestly. ‘Off-comers,’ he muttered: ‘ah’ve no time for ‘em.’ Then he turned to serve me with a smile. ‘Now then, young Mr Sheffield, what can ah do for our village ‘eadmaster?’

  ‘Please may I have two steaks, Mr Piercy, and perhaps you could select them for me.’

  He sliced two large sirloin steaks. ‘’Alf inch each,’ he said with a chuckle.

  ‘Exactly, Mr Piercy,’ I said.

  The door of Nora’s Coffee Shop was open and the gentle sound of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘April Come She Will’ drifted outside from the juke-box. I walked in to find Nora, Dorothy, Big Dave, Little Malcolm and Timothy Pratt staring in wonderment at a large British Telecom poster on the wall. It read, ‘It doesn’t cost much to stay in touch.’ Apparently, direct dialling to Australia was now available for only £1.38 per minute and there was no longer any need to go through the operator.

  ‘Our Kingsley’s been t’Australia,’ said Timothy.

  ‘Is that’im what keeps fewwets?’ asked Nora.

  ‘That’s’im, Nora,’ said Timothy.

  ‘Y’can wing diwect to Austwalia now,’ said Nora.

  Dorothy shook her head forlornly as she rearranged a pile of two-day-old hot-cross buns. ‘Ah don’t know nobody in Australia, Nora,’ said Dorothy, ‘but ah wish ah did.’

  ‘Well, ah’ve got Auntie Wuth in Canbewwa,’ said Nora, ‘but she’s ex-diwectowy.’

  ‘Mus’ be a long cable under t’sea,’ said Big Dave philosophically.

  ‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ agreed Little Malcolm: ‘mus’ be a long ‘un under that Specific Ocean.’

  ‘No, ah don’t think so, Malcolm,’ said Dorothy. ‘It’s summat t’do wi’ stalactites that fly up in space.’

  ‘No, not stalactites, Dowothy,’ said Nora, ‘it’s them satellites they send up in wockets. Isn’t that wight, Mr Sheffield?’

  ‘Er, yes, Nora … So it’s just a coffee and a hot-cross bun, please.’

  ‘Comin’ up, Mr Sheffield,’ said Nora. ‘C’mon, Dowothy, f’get Austwalia; you choose a nice hot-cwoss bun f’Mr Sheffield an’ ah’ll get ‘is fwothy coffee.’

  Half an hour later, with a bootful of shopping, I pulled up outside Beth’s cottage on Morton Road. The hallway was full of cardboard boxes with labels on them that read, BEDROOM, KITCHEN, LOUNGE and, of slight concern to me, GARAGE, as I had always considered the garage to be my domain.

  ‘I hope Bilbo Cottage has elastic walls, Jack,’ said Beth with a grin. She looked relaxed in a checked blouse, a fashionable ‘Sherpa’ woollen quilted waistcoat, tight stonewashed jeans and calf-high leather boots. Reaching up to kiss me, ‘Missed you last night,’ she said mischievously.

  We set off for York and, twenty minutes later, parked on Lord Mayor’s Walk alongside the city walls. The grassy banks were swathed in daffodils that lifted the spirits on this sunlit morning. We held hands and I felt content knowing that, in a little over a month, this beautiful woman would become my wife. Under the magnificent archway of Monk Bar we scampered up the narrow stone stairway on to the Roman walls, one of the great sights of England. We paused to enjoy the glorious views of the Minster and peer over the lovely gardens of Gray’s Court, behind the Treasurer’s House, where as a student I used to sit on the spacious lawn and read the poems of T. S. Eliot. Then, at Bootham Bar, we descended into York’s medieval streets and there before us was York Art Gallery.

  We joined a queue and waited behind two harassed women. It appeared their view of children’s art was slightly jaundiced to say the least. One was leaning on a push-chair filled with groceries and the other was clutching a holiday brochure. A heated debate had ensued. ‘Ah ‘ate art,’ said Push-chair Woman. ‘Ah prefer photos.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Holiday Brochure Woman, ‘but ah ‘ad t’come cos of our Clifford’s penguins. God knows why’e painted penguins.’

  ‘Tell me abart it!’ replied Push-chair Woman. ‘Our Darrell painted a picture of ‘is tortoise.’E were gonna paint ‘is ferret but t’little bugger wunt keep still.’


  ‘Ah know what y’mean. Anyway ah’m jus’ showin’ me face an’ then ah’m goin’ t’travel agents. We’re off t’Benidorm.’

  ‘Benidorm? What’s it like, then?’

  ‘Like Skegness wi’ sun.’

  ‘Oh well, we’re goin’ back t’Butlin’s. We love Butlin’s: everything’s free f’kids an’ y’get proper food – no foreign rubbish.’

  ‘It says ‘ere in t’brochure y’get good food where we’re stayin’,’ persisted Holiday Brochure Woman.

  Push-chair Woman shook her head knowingly. ‘Yeah, but y’don’t get spam fritters in Benidorm.’

  There was a long pause. This was clearly the knockout punch. ‘So where’s these bleedin’ penguins, then?’ said Holiday Brochure Woman and, as the queue moved forward, they disappeared into the crowd.

  It was an excellent exhibition and while we were admiring Jimmy Poole’s painting of Scargill, his Yorkshire terrier, chasing Maggie, Vera’s black-and-white cat, a familiar voice said, ‘Aren’t children’s paintings tremendous, Mr Sheffield?’ It was Mary Attersthwaite.

  ‘Hello, Mary,’ I said. ‘Good to see you … This is my fiancée, Beth Henderson.’

  Mary smiled and, after introductions, she had an in-depth conversation with Beth about children’s art. To Beth’s surprise she discovered that Mary lived near her school, just outside Hartingdale, and, before long, they had both agreed to begin a water-colour painting club in the school for children and adults.

  So it was that a long and happy relationship began and Mary found her new niche in life.

  A week later, Shirley brought into the office a large package, neatly wrapped in brown paper, and placed it on Vera’s desk. ‘A gift for the school from Mary,’ she said.

  Vera unwrapped it and, to our delight, we saw it was a beautifully framed, water-colour painting of Ragley School signed by Mary Attersthwaite. ‘I know just the place,’ said Vera and, by the end of the day, she had hung it on the wall above my desk.