by Dave Spikey
We had a great goalkeeper, Eddie Hopkinson, who got a well-deserved England cap or two. He was a great shot-stopper and when I was ten or eleven I cut out a magnificent photo of him flying through the air, arms flung high, back arched and legs extended behind him majestically – and he signed it. A couple of years ago, just before he died, bless him, I brought my album down to the Reebok and showed it to him. I said what a fantastic picture it was and he looked at it, smiled and said, ‘Aye, but I missed it!’
Another legend I’ve had the pleasure of meeting is Freddie Hill. Freddie was one of the most cultured, skilful midfield players I ever saw; how he didn’t get more England caps is baffling. I once saw him, away at Gigg Lane, take the ball wide of the box and shape up as if to cross. All the defence, including the goalkeeper, took a step out ready, as did most of the crowd to get a better view, and then Freddie dummied the cross and passed the ball into the empty net from about twenty-five yards. Brilliant, he was.
One of my best memories from the Bromwich Street training ground was that during the 1966 World Cup, Brazil trained there for a time. There were no restrictions on us watching them and on one occasion I bet there were about 10,000 fans down there. Watching Pelé, Da Silva, Gerson … in Bolton!
Blow Me, It’s Christmas
CHRISTMAS AS A kid, of course, was brilliant – and the countdown started after Bonfire Night. In the weeks building up to the big event, we’d be making our hugely ambitious Christmas present lists and rehearsing carols with the school choir and ‘orchestra’. I was on triangle and vocals, with Dewek Wigby still on wooden blocks. I had a fair soprano voice and once sang the opening verse to ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ as the choir entered the church for the Christmas Carol Service.
From December the 1st, we took turns opening the doors on the advent calendar. A couple of weeks before, we’d put up the Christmas decorations and make new ones. Yes, that’s ‘make’ new ones, usually the coloured banners made by gluing a packet of paper strips together into interlocking hoops.
On Christmas Eve, we’d be ready for bed early and Dad would get in late after having had a few celebratory drinks after work. He’d always dash in in a fake panic and tell us that he’d just seen Father Christmas on a roof on Vernon Street and we’d freak out and hurriedly put out a mince pie and a glass of sherry for the big man and a carrot for Rudolph. One year, I wanted to leave carrots for all the other reindeers, but we had a count-up and we only had three.
Of course, we couldn’t sleep for the excitement – and then started to panic when he didn’t show up within the hour because Vernon Street was only about ten streets away so maybe he’d missed us! Eventually, we’d sleep and then wake up at three o’clock in the morning and almost burst with happiness when we saw our pillowcases full of Christmas presents. Mum and Dad would wake up and insist that we could only open one present and then had to go back to sleep.
In the morning, we opened our gifts. There were various techniques, ranging from opening the smallest first, slowly and deliberately, to make the whole joyous process last longer – or tearing into them in a mad frenzy starting with the biggest!
We got selection boxes, comic annuals, games compendiums, footballs, Dinky and Corgi cars, train sets or accessories, I Spy books … These last were pocket-sized books in which you earned points for the objects you ‘spied’, so for instance you might have I Spy Cars, where an Austin A40 or Morris Minor would earn you 5 points and an E-type Jaguar 25 points. For one Christmas, I got I Spy Birds, which was for the most part a waste of time where we lived, among the mills in Bolton. I got Sparrow (5 pts), Starling (5 pts) and Pigeon (5 pts), but the chances of spotting an Osprey (25 pts) were as remote as seeing a Bentley (35 pts) pull into Grafton Street garage. At the bottom of the pillowcase were tangerines and nuts … and when, in the history of man (well, let’s say after the Neanderthal period), have children ever liked fruit and nuts in any setting, on any occasion, least of all as a present?
Possibly the worst presents you can get as a kid for Christmas are items of clothing. When you’re eight, clothing is definitely not on your Christmas list; toys are on the list, where does it say ‘balaclava’? I once got a pair of red plastic moulded sandals for Christmas! Fair enough, this was in the days before Nike, Adidas and Puma and when the only other alternative leisure footwear was a pair of pumps – but red plastic sandals! They didn’t only look a bit shit, but they would often smell of it, as inevitably you would run through a dog turd and it would get squashed into the moulding on the base of the sandal and you’d spend hours sitting on the kerb trying to flick it out with a lolly stick.
Mentioning ‘Puma’ actually stirred a distant memory about a great pair of shoes I once received: a pair of shoes that not only had animal prints embedded on the sole, but also a compass in the heel. I think they were called ‘Pathfinders’ and they were of course invaluable if you grew up in Lancashire and stumbled across a wild animal print when you came out of Bridgeman Street baths. No need to panic: all you had to do was take your shoe off (and pray that the animal wasn’t waiting nearby, ready to pounce as soon as you’d incapacitated yourself by doing so) and compare the animal prints on the sole … It’s an Arctic wolf! Or possibly a biggish dog. Anyway, best not chance it, head for home – but now it’s going dark and you’re a bit disorientated with fear and trepidation! What to do? Try not to freak out, just check the compass in the shoe heel because you know your house is north-northeast from here. It’s either head in that direction or catch this bus that’s coming.
Just as Nike, Adidas and Puma were brands of future footwear, beachwear by Billabong, Ripcurl and O’Neill were waves on a distant ocean. When I was thirteen, I got a pair of knitted swimming trunks for Christmas. Yes, I said ‘knitted’. These had to be held up with a striped ‘snake’ belt. Not only did they look rubbish, but also, when you were paddling in the sea at Blackpool, your swimming trunks were two feet behind you, full of shrimp.
When you’re on holiday at thirteen and developing an interest in girls, the knitted swimming trunk is not a good look. Dewek Rigby told me that I should put a carrot down my trunks and that would help and so I tried it – but the reaction was exactly the opposite I was hoping for; girls would pull their faces in disgust and point at me in a bad way. I found out later from Dewek that I should have put the carrot down the front of my trunks!
If you were very lucky, you might get that extra special game that you dreamed of unwrapping on Christmas morning. The game that all great footballers were privileged enough to receive from good old Saint Nick at one time or another. The game that bred in them not only skill, dexterity and concentration, but also honesty, fairness, truth and a love of the beautiful game. I’m talking two magic words (not ‘Open Sesame’) – Blow Football.
Two opponents armed only with a straw would try skilfully to manoeuvre the ball and power it past the opposing goalkeeper. No outfield players required.
Tucked away in the three corners of the world, from a council flat in Salford via the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the industrial landscape of the Ruhr valley, future stars of the beautiful game would blow till they could barely breathe … then they’d blow some more. Fortified by a simple glass of pineapple juice, dandelion and burdock or Umbongo,2 they’d blow the extra mile.
This great game slowly disappeared over the years, replaced by miniature players to flick! Flicking – where’s the skill in that? Other players pierced by long silver poles were destined to spin forever. Is it any wonder that greed and cynicism crept into the game?
Presents opened, half a selection box eaten and at least one toy broken, we’d sit down for the traditional Christmas meal. Sometimes our grandparents would come over, but most Christmas Days we’d go round and visit them before the Christmas dinner.
We mostly had chicken instead of turkey, but with all the trimmings. We pulled Christmas crackers, laughed at the plastic toy gifts, wore the paper hats and told each other the jokes. I collected my favourites over
the years and I present them here for your delight:
How does Santa Claus like his pizza?
Deep pan, crisp and even.
Two snowmen in a field and one says to the other, ‘Can you smell carrots?’
Man: Doctor, doctor, I’ve got a cricket ball stuck up my bum.
Doctor: How’s that?
Man: Don’t you start.
How do you make a door laugh?
Tickle its knob.
Two cannibals eating a clown and one says to the other, ‘Is it me or does this taste funny?’
Patient: Doctor, I’ve got some lettuce sticking out of my bum.
Doctor: I don’t like the look of that. That could just be the tip of the Iceberg.
What happened to the hyena that swallowed an Oxo cube?
He made a laughing stock of himself.
Holidays
TRADITIONALLY, EACH MILL town had its own ‘wakes’ week, when the mills closed down and the workers had a well-earned – although unpaid – break, and the local population migrated to the seaside. The ‘wakes’ evolved from village festivals, which were quite often staged to celebrate the anniversary of a church or chapel, into mass industrial holidays. When Bolton Holidays came round, we would go to the Fylde coast most years – so Thornton Cleveleys, Lytham St Anne’s or, of course, Blackpool.
We always went on the train, because we didn’t have a car until I was about nine or ten. This was always a great thrill for me because I loved steam trains; still do. If I hear a steam train’s whistle or the characteristic sound of the steam chugging from the funnel, I have to try to locate the source and find a vantage point from which to see the engine power past.
I know steam-engine enthusiasts are considered anoraks – but this is a very unfair tag. Steam engines in any shape or form are awesome creations and a tribute to man’s skill and invention. From the massive single-cylinder fixed steam engines that drove the hundreds of spinning, weaving and carding machines in the cotton mills of Lancashire to the steam locomotives that hurtled from one end of the country to the other, pulling freight or passenger coaches at speeds of up to a hundred miles an hour, they are all impressive feats of engineering. Consider that they achieved all of this using steam. Just steam power. Plenty of coal to get the fire burning hot to heat the water, which in turn created vast amounts of steam, which was then channelled in the right way to produce this awesome power.
I spent many, many days at weekends and in the long summer holidays train-spotting with my mates. We’d walk down through Queen’s Park and across Spa Road to the main Bolton–Blackpool line, or down to the vantage point of the big iron bridge at Trinity Street Station so we could also take in the Bolton–Blackburn line. The problem with these locations was that neither line was what you’d call a ‘main’ line, and so the engines we spotted were mainly the ‘workhorses’ of the steam train world. These included ‘Jubs’ (Jubilee Class), Pats (Patriot Class), Standards (Standard Class) and any number of the ubiquitous ‘Tank’ engine (Thomas Class). We’d only very occasionally see one of the big, pedigree express engines capable of hauling a huge number of coaches at high speed, which would include ‘Brits’ (Britannia Class), Scots (Royal Scots Class) and Semis (Coronation Class). We usually had to travel further afield in our region to see these – unless odd trains were rerouted due to engineering works, or they were pulling the main 4.30 p.m. Blackpool Express, which we dashed down after school to see most days.
I vividly remember the excitement of standing on Trinity Street bridge and watching the appropriate signal go up. ‘Pegs up!’ was the shout and we’d squat down low to try to see the front of the engine, which was largely hidden at the platform. The excitement built if someone shouted that it had shields (those massive metal plates fitted on the front sides of some engines) because on the whole, in our region and ‘Pats’ apart, only the big powerhouses had shields.
Then we’d hear the whistle and the engine would start loudly, very loudly – chug chug chug – building and building … then occasionally: chgchugchugchg! Wheel spin! The power would cause the big wheels to spin on the track, frantically trying to gain friction, which often meant it was a big engine (sadly not always the case).
Then the train itself would start to emerge from the station under the road bridge and the excitement was amazing – ‘It’s a Brit!’ ‘No, a Scot!’ – and now it’s clearer and yes, it has got shields, but it’s still shrouded in steam and we can’t make it out … until it suddenly clears and we see the shape and beautiful green livery … it’s a Brit! What’s its name and number? Could it be the holy grail ‘70000’ – ‘Britannia’ itself ? Please, God. No, it’s 70008 ‘Black Prince’! Ohmigod! Black Prince: and the bridge packed with 30–40 schoolboys is cheering and shouting and jumping for joy. It’s just like that feeling you get when your team scores the winner against Man Utd in the last minute.
But hang on! There’s another engine behind it! A double-header, hardly ever heard of in Bolton, two engines hauling a train in tandem – but what’s the second engine? Groans all round; it’s a Black 5 … but hang on! It’s got a name plate and there are only a handful of named ones; it’s 45156 ‘Ayrshire Yeomanry’. Oh no, that rings a bell. Get my Ian Allen LNWR book out, which lists all the engines working in our region, look it up, here we are: 45156 ‘Ayrshire Yeomanry’ – and it’s underlined. That means I’ve got it. I’ve seen it before; what a bummer. Why couldn’t it be 45154 ‘Lanarkshire Yeomanry’ or 45158 ‘Glasgow Yeomanry’; I’ve not got those. But there are still wild double celebrations going on for those who haven’t seen it before.
A big treat was scrounging the fare from our mums and dads to get a return ticket to Wigan. Oh yes – because Wigan had two lines, the local line from Bolton to Southport through Wigan Wallgate station, plus the main west coast line from London and the south to Glasgow and Edinburgh via Wigan North Western station. We’d make a couple of big doorstop cheese sandwiches, put them in our duffel bags and off we’d go, early on a Saturday morning in summer when all the special holiday trains had been added to the timetable.
We’d get off at Wallgate and walk down a small, cobbled, dead-end street at the side of the station, which gave a good view of the embankment north of North Western and, believe me, when you saw those express engines hammering past on that raised embankment it was awe-inspiring. One of the highlights of my youth was seeing 70000 ‘Britannia’ twice in the same day at Wigan.
Another highlight occurred at Manchester Exchange station (it’s gone now – Victoria station which it adjoined is still there). It was a bitter, biting cold February late morning and all but two of our gang had called it a day and caught the train back to Bolton. We were going to have our cheese butties and make our way home when we saw, half hidden up against the far buffers, a ‘Brit’. Suddenly, the world was a brighter place, no warmer but brighter as we hurried over to get the name and number. We approached from the buffers and saw its number first, 70033, didn’t recognize that, excitement building as we looked on the shield for the name, ‘Charles Dickens’, stunned for a second, then ecstasy, unbridled joy, two ten-year-olds hugging each other, punching the air and dancing around in circles. ‘Charles Dickens’ was a rare sight round here: none of our friends had seen it and it was celebration time.
As our mad victory dance subsided, we stood with big stupid grins on our faces breathing heavily, our short breaths exhaled as ‘steam’, quite appropriately. The driver had observed all this and then did something I will always remember; he invited us into the cab to warm ourselves and eat our sandwiches in front of the open roaring furnace. How great was that? Very great – double great. The only other time that I stood on the footplate as a child was when the driver of ‘Glasgow Yeomanry’, observing the delirium prompted by my having spotted it at last, invited me up into the cab and drove the train the length of platform number 1 at Bolton station.
As an adult, I was lucky enough to be invited up into the cab of the restored ‘Sir Nigel Gresley�
�, flagship (!) of the Nigel Gresley A4 Pacific Class, possibly the most beautifully designed class of engine in the world. It had a stunning blue livery and was the first class of real streamlined steam engines. We train-spotters called this class of engine the ‘Streaks’, due to their shape and speed, but sadly they belonged to the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway), so we never ever saw them in Lancashire.
The only exception was probably the most famous ‘Streak’ ever, which was ‘Mallard’: the fastest steam engine the world has ever seen, reaching a top speed of almost 126 mph. 126mph! Driven by steam. Can you imagine that? Please take a moment to try. ‘Mallard’ came through Preston station on its farewell tour before the steam era sadly ended, and soulless, homogenous diesels and electric trains replaced them. All our gang made a pilgrimage to see it. Unfortunately, our train from Bolton was delayed and as we approached Preston station, the great Mallard was pulling out, towards us. We clamoured for room at the windows to get a last view of the legend, and I decided I was going to touch it. I don’t know what the combined speed of the two trains was as we passed and I don’t know the outside temperature of ‘Mallard’ generated by the furnace – but I do still bear the scar.
So where was I? Wakes week, right. Yes, we’d arrive in Blackpool on one of the specially organized Wakes Excursion trains (usually pulled by Black 5s or Tanks) and make our way to the boarding house. I remember several lovely home-from-home boarding houses in Blackpool – and one horrible one that was run by a sour-faced old cow.