Child from Home

by John Wright

  We often found small white booklets in the house called Old Moore’s Almanack, which Mrs Harris bought at Torville’s shop. There were prophecies in black print on the front cover and they had black and white hieroglyphics and cabalistic sketches on the inside pages. There were things like the phases of the moon, tide tables and rhyming verses predicting catastrophes and disasters yet to come. It all seemed a bit spooky to us but most people were superstitious in those days. Mrs Harris was very superstitious and she told us that we must never pass each other on the stairs, put our shoes on the table, or leave our knives and forks crossed on our plate. If we did so we would always have bad luck and she believed implicitly in the horoscopes printed in the Daily Express that cost one pence (0.4p) at that time. We practised our own magic rituals, one of which involved touching the top of our front gate and walking backwards up to the Fisher’s gatepost. We then had to touch that before we could turn to face the right way, and I repeated this ritual every time I went out.

  Living next door to us was a young childless couple called Len and Sarah Hayes. He was a rat catcher on the local railway and kept long, flat-backed ferrets with beady, pink eyes in cages at the bottom of his back garden. He had one of them peeping out from inside his shirt as he told us that the males were called ‘hobs’, and he didn’t mind us watching as he fed them on mice and old chicken legs that were unfit for human consumption. As they ran about the slinky creatures had a strange habit of suddenly leaping up into the air.

  Mr Maurice Nolan, who lived in the first house in the next pair but one to us, had a son and a daughter from an earlier marriage, and we overheard Mrs Harris say disapprovingly that he was now living tally with his new wife-to-be. She added that there had been a shotgun marriage, but we didn’t understand what she meant and that year a new baby arrived at the house. She told us that it had been found in their rhubarb patch and, for a while after that, whenever Mr Harris took us to his allotment, we looked under the rhubarb leaves to see if one had been left there. We were nowhere near as worldly-wise, knowledgeable or confident as the youngsters of today. Mr Nolan was employed locally as a bookie’s runner and one day, passing the couple on Usher Lane, we asked if we could see the baby, but when we looked into the pram a horrible ‘pong’ assailed our nostrils. From our back garden we could see a long row of Terry towelling nappies flapping and fluttering in the breeze.

  When the summer holiday arrived we were sent out to play; but not until we had done our chores, eaten our breakfast and completed our errands. We all had to run messages but poor Dot always had more jobs to do than the rest of us. We were given orders not to come back until dinnertime, and God help us if we were late for that. Then we were let loose again until teatime; unless Mrs Harris heard on the village grapevine that one of the shops was selling some hard-to-get product, in which case, one of us had to go and stand in the queue to save a place for her. On Sundays and Wednesday afternoons we were safe as all the shops were shut. After tea we were sent out to play again until near dusk.

  When we came back after playing out, our legs were usually scratched and sore from the hay, the brambles and the grass seed-heads (that we called arrows) which got stuck in our woollen socks; and these were usually concerntina’d round our ankles and looked like the blacksmith’s bellows. In the heat of the afternoon, leg-weary after hours of incessant activity, we would flop down on the grass and give way to indolence. We would lie spread-eagled on our backs, half-hidden in the Yorkshire Fog in Widd’s field. I enjoyed the feeling of somnolence as the heat was reflected upwards from the sun-warmed soil. Lying in a tangle of bodies, we used each other as pillows, and I would watch the fluffy, cotton-wool clouds floating serenely by across the azure of the wide summer skies and surrender to the moment. As the sun warmed my face the sunlight that filtered through my closed eyelids turned the insides pink. One moment I lay quiet and relaxed; the next my sleepy, languorous reverie would be brought to an abrupt end as Jimmy or one of the others jumped on me and knocked the stuffing out of me. The still, restful moment then turned into scrimmaging and horseplay that usually ended up in a ‘roughhouse’.

  On those glorious summer days we ran wild and free. We climbed trees and fell over sustaining bruises and cuts that bled, dried and formed scabs. Our knees and elbows were always yellow with iodine. We wandered round the local countryside, getting hotter and sweatier as the day wore on and we came to know every lane, snickleway (i.e. ancient tracks and rights of way), house, farm, barn and field in the area. Day after day the sun beat down, bleaching our hair and turning our faces, forearms and legs a ruddy bronze in colour. Occasionally the sky darkened and the air cooled and when heavy summer showers fell we sought shelter in a barn, taking the opportunity to make dens in the hay and secret passages between the straw bales until it faired up. The parched and dusty earth darkened as it soaked up the life-giving rain and we left the cool shady depths of the barn, blinking like coal miners emerging from the pit. Screwing up our eyes against the dazzling brightness, we enjoyed the warm kiss of the sun on our skin. After the chill of the rain we felt newly invigorated as sweet, freshly released scents emanated from the flowers, the wet leaves and the steaming grass. Sadly, the tassels of corn that had danced in the sun now lay forlornly on the earth following their heavy battering. The smell of the rain-wet soil rose up to mingle with the summer air and we drew its nectar-like freshness deep into our lungs and it was sheer bliss to be young and alive.

  Mrs Harris lacked the gift of loving kindness and didn’t seem bothered whether we got lost, injured or drowned as long as we kept well out of her sight. The open countryside was ours and free for the taking and we revelled in it, spending most of our time outdoors, returning to the house just to eat, sleep and do our chores. ‘Seeing’ German soldiers hiding behind every hedge and tree, we stealthily crept up on them and killed them. As we played in Widd’s field amid scents of rye grass and foxtails, we would sometimes see real soldiers walking along the lane and, one day, we knew it wasn’t right when one of them exposed himself and we edged further away from him. From the field we were able to see whether Mrs Harris had come out into the back garden to wave a tea towel above her head – her way of indicating that it was time to go in. While we waited there were always newts and things to be caught below the coruscating, breeze-ruffled surface of the shallow pond.

  During that glorious late summer the days were long and hot and the nights were short and warm, and life was seldom dull. After expending so much energy in constant activity we slept soundly in our beds at night and I developed a deep and lasting love of nature. On 10 August the clocks were put back again by an hour bringing the double summertime to an end. The evening shadows lengthened, but it was still light until ten o’clock at night. Ecstatic days were followed by humdrum days when nothing much happened and Jimmy and I often argued and fell out, but the bond of blood and friendship was strong and we soon made up and became the best of pals again. We stood together if anyone threatened the other but, more often than not, it was Jimmy who protected me.

  Mr Harris often read out items from the newspapers, which were getting thinner and thinner. Leonard Cheshire, the brave and widely admired bomber pilot, was often mentioned and he had become something of a hero to us. It was said that bomber crew survival rates were now averaging around three weeks and Leonard Cheshire was living on borrowed time. He had either been very lucky, was a brilliant pilot or both to survive this long. Mr Harris lionised him and to him he was the bravest pilot that ever lived. He was to become the most decorated pilot in the RAF.

  When Mam visited again she told me that she had given up her job as a housemaid in the large house on Newport Road owned by Mrs Ethel Gaunt, who was later to become the Lady Mayoress of Middlesbrough. Mam couldn’t bear to be parted from her ‘baby boy’ for long and she was now back at Grove House with our George working as an assistant cook to Mrs Ruonne. She said, ’It makes it much easier for me to visit you now and I missed you both terribly when I was in Middlesbro
ugh. I now go to the little church in the valley with the Artleys every Sunday and they send their best regards.’

  Dad was now attached to a Durham coast light anti-aircraft unit and could not get home very often, and Mam had temporarily rented our house to a female acquaintance called Mrs Miller who was of the Mormon persuasion. Mam had felt sorry for Mrs Miller when she found out her husband had beaten her and kicked her out, as her sister’s bad experiences with her estranged husband were still fresh in her mind.

  Mam could now catch the early train to York from Levisham Station right outside the door and then catch the double-decker bus to Haxby. She would write to Mrs Harris about once a month to tell her when she was coming, and when Jimmy and I found out what time the bus was due we would run excitedly down the road to meet it as it pulled in by the Co-op store. Mam, not being invited to stay for a meal, often took Jimmy and me to our Harry’s billet on York Road. Here the homely Miss Barker and the friendly Miss Law made us feel very welcome and we sometimes played clock golf on their lawn. Afterwards we stayed for a nice tea with lots of cakes and sandwiches sat at the wooden table in the back garden, but I keenly sensed Mam’s pain each time she had to leave.

  When the new school year started at St Mary’s hall that September it was as crowded as ever, but the warm and gentle Miss Francis was still my teacher. She had a quiet, clear voice, which she seldom raised, and she encouraged us to be more sensitive to each other’s feelings in the hope of making us better children. Jimmy had moved up to the main school and, much to his delight, he was now in Miss Rutter’s group in the high-ceilinged classroom adjoining the headmaster’s house. She was his acting, unpaid deputy. Slim, voluptuous and athletic, with graceful wrists and ankles, she was sometimes to be seen hurdling over the low wall at the front of the school giving the sniggering lads a brief glimpse of white underwear. Jimmy had a bit of a crush on his pretty, dark-skinned teacher with her Italian looks.

  She had an oval face, high cheekbones and dark, soft, luxuriantly wavy hair and Jimmy loved the way it swayed as she moved. Her eyebrows were dark and she had big brown eyes with long lashes and to Jimmy she was beautiful. Her vivacity and poise were her greatest assets and he thought she looked like a film star; she could do no wrong in his eyes. The lips of her well-shaped mouth were soft and full and often broke into a glorious smile. I often saw him following her around like a puppy dog being as helpful and polite as could be and making calf’s eyes at her. When I exaggeratedly mocked him he gave me a swift punch in the ribs. Harry was now in the ‘big boys’ form presided over by Mr Fox.

  In mid-September the Ministry of Food compelled the subsidised grocers to sell hard-to-get potatoes at one penny (0.4p) each, as they felt that people needed more complex carbohydrates in their diet to correct the imbalance caused by rationing and shortages. Even off-ration foods, like fish and sausages, were hard to get and Mr Harris said, ‘It’s a darn mystery what’s in them sausages any’ow.’ When they became available long queues formed. We were seldom given real potatoes except when Mr Harris brought a few from his allotment at certain times of the year. More often than not we were given tinned corned beef or Spam with a tasteless dollop of unappetising ‘Pom’ made from potato powder to which hot water had been addded. We now started our day with a splodge of hot porridge made with water, not milk. ‘That’ll put a lining on your bellies and keep you warm,’ contended Mrs Harris.

  Overall our diet was pretty bland and we were always hungry. We ran, walked and skipped wherever we went which kept us lean and fit. We seldom saw any fat kids. For our main midday meal we still had lots of rabbit stews with dandelion leaves, nettles and greasy suet dumplings floating in them. Mr Harris kept a plot at the bottom of the back garden on which he grew dandelions and nettles to supplement our intake of greens but Jimmy always called it rabbit food. Mrs Harris used the leaves for salads and as pot herbs believing they were good for us. This was reinforced by the avuncular Dr Charles Hill, MP, when he spoke of ‘his friend the dandelion’. Known as The Radio Doctor he gave a five-minute talk on health every morning. We called dandelion flowers pee-the-beds; others were not quite so polite. We had to say Grace before and after every meal, which never altered from, ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen’, and ‘For what we have just received …’

  Quite often we were given a plateful of heavy suet pudding with salt on it, which Mrs Harris had steamed in a muslin bag over a big pan of boiling water. It was about the size of a football and it filled us up but it lay like lead in our bellies. We ate what was put in front of us or we went hungry. One day, for a change, she made a Spotted Dick (suet pudding with raisins in it) and I remember getting a clout round the lug for saying something rude about it.

  On our nature walks Miss Francis encouraged us to collect the rosehips that bulged red and shiny on the briars, and she told us that they would be made into rose-hip syrup which was rich in vitamin C. In the past we had used their hairy, close-packed white seeds to put down each other’s shirt collars and we called them itchy-backs. In our spare time we scoured the hedgerows until barely one was left on the bushes for the poor birds to feed on in the winter, and for our efforts we received four pence per pound. I think I made about tuppence profit, but Mrs Harris – to my dismay – made me put a penny of it into the collection plate at church that Sunday.

  So the swallows departed for warmer climes and our days in the village passed uneventfully. We popped the white snowberries that clung to the spindly twigs in the hedgerows. The rosy-cheeked apples reached full ripeness and the sweet smell of cider filled the air beneath the trees as the fallers fermented. We ate many of those that were still in reasonable condition, but it was customary to leave the last apple on each tree for the fairies. Locals called the curved, brownish-green, sweet and succulent Conference pears, ‘banana’ pears. As their weight bent down the boughs in the orchards, it made it easier for us to do a bit of illicit scrumping. We did not see it as wrong when fresh fruit was so scarce and we were so hungry. When some of the kids were seen and recognised, they were reported to the school and, after they had received their just deserts from Mr Fox, they spit on their hands and held them under their oxsters (armpits) as that seemed to ease the stinging pain a little. Mr Harris said, ‘We used ter rub a raw onion on our ’ands to deaden t’pain but they’re ’ard to come by these days.’

  The blackberries in the hedgerows grew fat, turning from red to juicy black and they stained our lips, tongues and fingers. As autumn moved on, the leaves of the horse chestnut and beech trees were tinged with brown making them engaging to the eye. We had watched the spiky, tri-lobed fruits of the horse chestnut trees slowly growing to full size all through the spring and summer. Conkers became the ‘in thing’ again, and as we took the mahogany-brown seeds from their cocoons they had a slight smell of iodine.

  Using an old skewer from Mr Harris’s cluttered shed, we bored a hole through them and suspended the best ones on thick string. We had dried them slowly in the airing cupboard and soaked them in vinegar to harden them, and Jimmy had a few from the previous year that were now dry and really hard. Thinking we were in with a chance, we set forth to conquer the rest but someone always seemed to produce a better one. After many hits and a few wins, the first fatal cracks began to appear in our would-be champions.

  The seven-fingered leaflets on the horse chestnut trees were just starting to turn brown, but they became a sorry sight after the lads had bombarded them with large sticks in an attempt to knock down the spiky seedcases. The ground inside the graveyard gate was thickly littered with fallen twigs and leaves and some of the boys received ‘six of the best’ on their backsides from the headmaster. A number of irate women had complained that the heavy sticks the boys had thrown up just missed them when they were blown down by the strong winds.

  Jimmy sometimes walked up to Mrs Evans’s bungalow to see the various aeroplane models that Terry Waddington’s dad had carved for him, but he would not be getting
any more. While working at Linton-on-Ouse airfield, he had been asked to swing the propeller of a Tiger Moth biplane to start the engine. His foot slipped, and as he staggered forward the spinning propeller almost severed his right hand and he had to undergo major surgery and receive treatment for a long time.

  At potato picking time, the farmers were starting to get extra help. We saw groups of prisoners of war, from the camp that had been set up at Strensall, working in the fields for the first time. The Italians wore dark-brown battle dresses with a large red circle sewn on the back, but the Germans had yellow, diamond-shaped patches on their grey uniforms. They were brought over every morning in army lorries and groups of four or five were dropped off guarded by a soldier armed with a loaded rifle and fixed bayonet; they were then returned in the evening. In July, thousands of them had been brought to Liverpool by ship and were put in barbed wire-encircled enclosures all over the country. The farmers were delighted with their new ‘hands’ and Miss Curry told us that they found the Germans to be the hardest workers. She had said to the whole school, ‘Don’t worry, they are not Nazis. Those have been taken out and put into other special, well-guarded camps.’ Even so, we were very wary of them and never went near them, as we had heard too many horror stories about them.

  Living four doors up from us was Mr Cliff Hartshorn and his wife, Mary. They had no children and he was a harness maker, cobbler and shoe repairer by trade. Partially deaf, he worked in the large wooden shed in his back garden mending shoes for a small fee, and he didn’t seem to mind us standing there watching him. We would stand there for ages – especially if the day was wet – looking on and marvelling at his speed and dexterity. At last, after many long weeks, he got round to repairing our leather case ball, and we were eager to get the precious ‘casie’ back so we could play with it in Widd’s field. I measured my success by how many kicks I got rather than how many goals I scored, which was usually nil. Widd’s field was the centre of our little world when we were out of the house.