A grand little lad was young Albert.
He was dressed in his best, quite a swell,
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworths could sell.
The following week, after hearing this monologue which, I discovered later, was called 'Albert and the Lion', I was listening with the other children to Miss Wilkinson, headmistress of Broom Valley Infant School, telling us in assembly to sit up smartly and rub the sleep out of our eyes.
'You are a lot of sleepyheads this morning,' she told the six-year-olds sitting crossed-legged before her on the hall floor. Then she asked, 'Does anyone know another word for 'sleepy'?' I imagine she was looking for a word like 'tired' but I raised my hand.
'Yes, Gervase?' she asked.
'Somnolent,' I replied, with all the precocious confidence of an infant.
She was quite taken aback. 'Wherever did you hear that word?' she asked.
She had perhaps never heard of the narrative poem 'Albert and the Lion', in which the sleepy old King of Beasts lies 'in a somnolent posture' until mischievous little Albert pokes the stick with the ''orse's 'ead 'andle' into the creature's ear and is promptly eaten up. In the monologue Albert's mother does not appear unduly shocked that the lion has devoured her son, 'and him in his Sunday clothes too', and looks for compensation. She is told by the equally unconcerned zoo keeper not to upset herself and that she can always have other children, to which she responds, 'To feed ruddy lions? Not me!'
I cannot recall ever having said this but I was reminded of it by Miss Wilkinson when I visited her a couple of years ago in the Clifton Meadows Residential Home in Rotherham, where she lived. I shall have more to say about the remarkable Miss Wilkinson later on.
The narrative poems and monologues in my father's repertoire were not always of the amusing variety. He could perform exciting, sad, poignant and sentimental ballads and verses too, like 'Brown Boots', 'The Fireman's Wedding', 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', 'Christmas Day in the Workhouse', 'Dangerous Dan McGrew' and 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck'. A favourite which he performed with great gusto and accompanied by facial expressions and extravagant gestures was 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God':
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu.
There's a little marble cross below the town.
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew
And the little god forever gazes down.
The language, rhythms, rhymes and colloquialisms of speech in this dramatic poem thrilled me; they rolled and vibrated. Words like 'Kathmandu' conjured up wonderfully exotic visions of azure seas and golden sands peopled by great heroes and dark villains. I would escape the gloom of a cold wet winter's day or the dirt and grime of industrial Rotherham and enter the world of Mad Carew, the young subaltern who prises out the jewelled eye from the little yellow god to give to his sweetheart on her birthday, only to be found later draped across his bed with a dagger plunged into his breast.
I enjoyed all the poems my father read, but it was the amusing material that I loved the most. I would crack out laughing when he suddenly read the blackly humorous poems of Harry Graham and R. C. Sherriff, and I would repeat the verses to amuse my friends at school:
Tell me, mother, what is that
That looks like strawberry jam?
Hush, hush, my dear, 'tis only Pa
Run over by a tram.
Sometimes, after a fair bit of persuasion, Dad would recite my favourite poem, 'The Irish Pig', written in 1934 by Bower and Best:
'Twas an evening in November,
As well I can remember,
I was strolling down the road in drunken pride,
And my knees were all a flutter,
As I landed in the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Now I lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts I could not utter,
When a colleen passing by was heard to say:
'Sure you can tell the man who boozes,
By the company he chooses,'
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
This is still my party piece, which I recite at regular intervals, embarrassing my own children, and it is a poem my brother Michael can declaim par excellence.
When I was fifteen I was asked to perform a piece of verse for the Christmas concert at school. My English teacher, Mr Pike, commented several times when I had been reading a poem in class that I had natural timing, good expression and excellent pace. I had clearly learnt this from my father. Several poems were suggested but they were all pretty depressing stuff. I wanted to perform something amusing and make people laugh - a poem like the ones my father would recite. Mr Pike was one of those teachers susceptible to persuasion, and he was finally prevailed upon to let me pick my own piece providing that the word 'ruddy' was substituted by 'flipping'. I readily agreed and was allowed to recite a Yorkshire dialect poem my father used to perform and which I've always assumed he wrote himself. I was dressed in flat cap, muffler and corduroy trousers tied at the knee with string, and performed the verse with a friend, dressed in a tail coat and top hat, who interrupted the narrative at intervals to provide the Standard English translation.
Letter to Mi Dad
I wekkened up in t'mornin' When I woke up one morning
An' I ached in every booan. I had a splitting headache
Mi 'ead felt reight wammy And felt an all-round lethargy
Enuff to weigh a stooane. And an aching in my joints.
'Th'as got t'influenza!' 'I think you may have a touch of flu,'
That's what our Mam, she said, observed my mother,
'An' theers knowt to mek thee berrer 'So I suggest you take to your bed
Than a couple o' days in bed. for two days. I'll send for your Aunt
I'll send for thee Auntie Eva Evaline. She's extremely helpful when
She'll know what's to do, it comes to family illness and will tend to
She's ne'er been round a-lately your needs. I have not seen her for quite
She'll 'elp to pull thee through.' some time.'
She cum just after dinner, My aunt arrived after lunch.
(She could 'ave come afoor) I thought she might have appreciated the
An' she slapped a poultice on mi 'ead need for some urgency and come earlier.
As thick as t'oven dooar. She placed an extremely thick hot moist
She med a pan o' greaasy soup flannel on my face and made a substantial
Enough for fotty men, and reviving broth. When I had eaten
An' when I'd 'ad mi fillin' sufficient she partook herself.
Whay, she etten rest hersen. She filled a hot water bottle
She filled 'ot watter bokkle and placed it in my bed. She felt
An' she bunged it in mi bed, it would bring out the fever.
Full o' boilin' watter,
To mek me sweat, she sed.
Well, she's ant been gone a minit, It can't have been more than a moment
P'raps a tick or two, before the stopper on the bottle worked
When cork flew out on t'bokkle itself loose
An' wet all t'beddin' through. and saturated the sheets, scalding me in the process.
I were reight sharpish I leapt from my bed and, in a state of some distress,
In jumpin' out of t'bed foolishly resorted
An' I gives mi Auntie Eva to violence and assailed my aunt.
Such a crack across 'er 'ead.
Well, she gor 'old of mi noggin She reacted violently by striking me
An' she gives it such a thump. forcibly on the head and buttocks.
She turned mi round and smacked mi face
An' kicked me 'ard up t'rump.
Then red in t'face and spittin' blood I could tell she was extremely angry,
She's up and out o' t'dooer. for she departed forthwith, vowing
''E can cure hissen!' she shouts very volubly that she cou
ld be of no
'I'm stoppin' 'ere na moore!' further assistance.
I shouted out, 'Good riddance!' I felt this to be the best course of
To me Auntie flippin' Eva, action and welcomed her leaving.
'And I'll not be seein' thee ageean,
If I'm down wi' Scarlet Fever!' The strange outcome of this, is that
But the funny thing was when she'd gone after she had departed I felt quite
I felt a whole lot better. recovered.
Well, I hopes I find you in good health I trust you are keeping well,
And wi' that, I'll close this letter. With best wishes, etc. etc.
The performance was very well received and I had an early taste of what it felt like to stand on a stage under the bright lights with all eyes upon me, hearing the sound of laughter. It was exhilarating.
I learnt early on how important laughter is in life. Without doubt it makes you feel good and it does you good: it takes you out of a bad mood, lifts your spirits and offsets the impact of stress. Research has shown again and again that there is a deal of truth in the old axiom that 'laughter is the best medicine' and that 'a chortle a day keeps the doctor away'. Laughter is like a glue that bonds a group of assorted people together. There is something very pleasurable and reassuring about sitting in a theatre or at a film laughing along with everyone else in the audience. Laughter is infectious.
Before he went on the night shift my father would sometimes come up to the back bedroom which I shared with my two brothers, sit on the end of the bed and tell me a story. It might be one he had made up himself, but more often it was a re-telling of one he had heard or read. Sometimes he would read from a novel. I recall sitting propped up by the pillow completely spellbound. My father never claimed to be advanced in learning and yet the vividness of his language, the descriptive detail, the range of voices he employed for the different characters, were something that the more educated would find hard to achieve. My father knew, perhaps intuitively, the importance of suspense in a story. He would reach an exciting part - for example where Rob Roy, concealed in the heather, sees the King's men who are searching for him getting closer and closer, or the part where young Jim Hawkins is hiding from the mutineers in the barrel of apples and spies through a knot-hole the approach of the villainous pirate Long John Silver - and he would pause. 'Go on, Dad,' I would urge. Once, when he was reading from Great Expectations, he arrived at the point where young Pip meets the convict in the cemetery. My father adopted a pathetic, frightened little voice for Pip and a deep growl for Magwitch, the escaped convict.
'Hold your noise!' cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. 'Keep still you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'
A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head. A man who had been soaked in water and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars: who limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
'Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir,' I pleaded in terror. 'Pray don't do it, sir!'
I listened entranced, my eyes 'like chapel hat pegs' as we say in Yorkshire. Then my father stood up, snapped the book closed, said, 'Well, goodnight,' and departed.
'Daaaaad!' I cried after him.
'Tomorrow,' he said.
I fell asleep dreaming of the misty cemetery, the dark fields beyond, the crouching shape of the toothless convict who suddenly emerges from behind a gravestone.
The following year my father took me to the Tivoli Cinema in Rotherham to see David Lean's 1946 adaptation of Great Expectations, with its brilliant use of eerie settings, close-ups and long shadows. Finlay Currie's truly terrifying Magwitch and Martita Hunt's crazy, misery-soaked old crone, Miss Havisham, had me glued to my seat. When he asked, 'Did you enjoy the film?' I guess he must have felt a certain warm pleasure when I replied that I preferred his reading from the book.
13
My father loved his garden. I would spend many a happy hour with him pulling out weeds, digging the borders, pruning, collecting the mown grass, watering the tomatoes in the greenhouse and burning the dry wood. He grew roses, lavender, lilacs, columbines, poppies, pansies, snapdragons, wallflowers, catmint, forget-me-nots, irises and many other flowers, so that in summer the garden was a blaze of colour. He built a trellis for the sweet peas, a rustic wooden archway spanning the path for his climbing roses and made cold frames out of old window frames, where he would grow his marrows. Beyond the garden was the allotment, where he grew potatoes, parsnips, Savoy cabbages, onions, sprouts, beetroots, runner beans, broad beans and carrots, though 'nothing fancy' like his neighbour Mr Hirst, whose wife had a penchant for garlic, asparagus and spinach. At the top of the allotment were blackcurrant, blackberry and gooseberry bushes, which were frequently raided by the local boys.
As we went about our business Dad would be explaining, showing me things and asking questions. He was well ahead of his time when it came to recycling and had two large brick-built compost heaps where the grass cuttings and vegetable waste were religiously heaped to rot down. If he heard the rag and bone man on the street with his horse and cart I would be sent out with a bucket and shovel to collect the horse manure for his roses. I found this deeply embarrassing, but there was no argument, I was instructed to get it before anyone else. Sometimes I would have to follow the cart down the hill waiting for the horse to perform and then shovel the steaming pile into the bucket. On my return, Dad would store the manure and later sprinkle the rich crumbly dung on the soil with his broad fleshy hands. He had the finest roses in the street.
If anyone stopped to pass the time of day, Dad would wink at me and tell one of his tales. One Saturday morning I was helping him in the front garden when a woman stopped to admire his efforts.
'Lovely garden,' she said.
'Thank you,' my father replied.
'What's that plant?' she asked, pointing to a bushy fern.
'Alopecia,' Dad replied with an impassive expression. 'Variegated.'
'Alopecia,' the woman repeated. 'Really?'
'And this one's a hysteria,' he continued, pointing to a healthy-looking shrub.
The woman moved on.
It was some time later that I discovered that 'alopecia' is the absence of hair from the body and 'hysteria' a psychological disorder.
The allotment was a neat patch of dark brown earth bordered by a tangle of briars, raspberry canes and gooseberry and blackberry bushes. There was an old green shed, the paint peeling and the roof sagging, where Dad kept his seeds and plant pots. On the top was a small wooden figure that moved as if digging when the wind blew.
Dad loved to go out on the allotment, digging and pruning and planting in a world far away from the dust, filth and heat of the steelworks where he spent his working day. He was a devotee of the gardening programmes on the wireless and when we got our first television in 1959 he rarely missed programmes like Gardening Club.
I shared my father's appetite for gardening and loved the musty, earthy smell of the shed, the dark corners, the privacy and complete freedom from disturbance. It was a place where I could find complete peace and quiet. I would sometimes creep into the shed to read, stretching out on the bit of dusty old carpet. I read Ivanhoe and The Arthurian Legends, struggling with the words as the light began to fade, forgetting all that was around me and escaping into an adventure where brave knights jousted and fought pitched battles in front of great towering castles. From an early age I always felt there was something magical about books, the way that as soon as you opened the covers you were transported beyond the constrictions of time and place and could escape into an entirely different world.
When I was seven or eight I helped Dad create a small crazy paving patio under the French windows at the back of the house. I was appointed to break the larger slabs with a h
eavy hammer and then like a jigsaw we put the pieces together. Me with my small spade and he with his large shovel, we measured out the mixture of sand and cement, then hollowed out the centre of the mound and poured in the water slowly and carefully before mixing it all up. Then we sat on the grass admiring our handiwork and Mum appeared with two mugs of tea for the workmen.
Years later, after my father's death, I visited Number 19 Richard Road. The owners invited me inside but I declined. I just wanted to sit for a moment on the back step, looking at the crazy paving which Dad had so lovingly created and which had survived all those years. I just wanted a moment to remember my childhood.
Near the River Don in Rotherham were the 'old baths', and some Saturdays, when he wasn't at work, Dad took me swimming. There were none of the health and safety notices seen in swimming baths today - 'No bombing, running, shouting, jumping, ducking, splashing, pushing'. We would spend an hour in the warm, steaming, pale green water, so strong in chlorine that our eyes streamed for a good half hour after we had dried ourselves. In the entrance, where we queued to get in, was a large bronze bust of Captain William Webb, a national hero, the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875. His healthy moustachioed face used to appear on the front of matchboxes. It seems odd, of course, in this day and age, that such an athlete and national hero should be used to advertise safety matches, the smokers' constant companion. On the way into the changing rooms, children would rub Captain Webb's nose for good luck, so the only part of the noble effigy that shone brightly was the aquiline proboscis.
It was not unusual, as we were getting into our trunks (those terribly itchy woollen affairs with canvas belts and metal clasps), to see a rat, a visitor from the nearby canal, running between the cubicles.
'Watch tha feet!' the attendant would bellow from the side of the pool. 'Theere's a rodent on t'premises!' This would be followed by the screams and yelps of terrified children, frantically scrambling up on to the wooden seats in the cubicles.
Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad Page 11