Suddenly a mud-splattered Land Rover pulled up and the driver wound down his window. ‘Are y’open yet, Pratt?’ It was Stan Coe, local landowner, boorish bully and the most unpopular man in the village. ‘Ah need a roll o’ chicken wire.’
Timothy winced slightly but continued to polish the window. ‘Ah open shortly, Mr Coe.’
‘That’s no bloody good,’ shouted Stan and he lumbered over to Timothy. ‘Gerra move on, ’cause ah want it now!’ At sixteen stones the burly figure of the aggressive farmer was a formidable sight next to the frail shopkeeper.
‘’Ow much did y’want?’ asked Timothy.
‘’Bout chest ’igh an’ twenty paces,’ said Stan.
‘Ah get a delivery o’ that size last thing this afternoon,’ said Timothy. ‘Ah’ll put it on one side f’you t’collect.’
‘Ah’ll be back later then,’ growled Stan. He glanced at the sign in the next-door window. It read ‘JOIN NORA FOR A FREE COFFEE FROM 4.00 P.M. TODAY TO CELEBRATE 25 YEARS IN THE COFFEE SHOP’. ‘An’ ah’ll ’ave a free ’ot drink while ah’m abart it.’
Timothy watched him drive away and shook his head. ‘Some folk just ’ave no manners,’ he muttered and went off to wash his hands.
It was a freezing cold morning and I sat at my desk in the school office reading a copious document from County Hall about ‘Value for Money’ in relation to village schools. It didn’t make happy reading, and I sighed as our ancient school boiler chugged into life and the hot-water pipes creaked and groaned. The season had moved on and once again it was the time of the burning of leaves, and smoke from the gardens of Ragley village drifted into a slate-grey sky. The cold days of late autumn were here again and Ragley School flexed its ancient bones to face yet another hard winter.
At a quarter past ten the children were in good voice in morning assembly. Anne played the first few bars of ‘All things bright and beautiful’ and we all joined in.
‘All creatures great and small,’ sang eighty-six lusty voices.
‘All things bright and beautiful … All teachers’ graves are small,’ sang Heathcliffe Earnshaw. I gave him a stern look from over my hymn book while trying to suppress a grin. Heathcliffe returned his innocent, glassy-eyed stare, perfected over many years of fruitless accusations.
This was followed by Jo’s husband, Acting Sergeant Dan Hunter, who gave a talk on the Firework Code. Dan was our six-foot-four-inch local policeman and a popular figure at Ragley School. At the end the children repeated all the safety rules out loud before they went out to play, full of excitement as Bonfire Night drew near.
During morning break Anne was on playground duty and I was sitting with Jo near the gas fire, checking the results of the Schonell Word Recognition Test for the children in her class. Vera was shaking her head in dismay at the headline in The Times: ‘Sunday shopping has official blessing with 58% of women working’.
‘It will be a sad day when Sunday is no longer a day of rest,’ she announced.
‘Yes, Vera,’ I murmured without conviction. Sally and Jo said nothing. Secretly they were pleased to have an extra opportunity to do their shopping, but they were wise enough not to stop Vera in full flow. Fortunately, there was even worse news.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Vera. ‘I blame that young man, Cliff Richard. He’s clearly a distraction.’
‘Cliff Richard?’ said Jo, who was a big fan. Lately she’d been playing Wired for Sound while she did the ironing on Saturday mornings.
‘Yes,’ said Vera. ‘Sue Barker’s form has slumped since she met him.’ It appeared Britain’s number-one lady tennis player was about to lose her top ranking to Jo Durie.
‘Well, I’ve heard he’s a very religious man,’ said Sally, immersed in her Art & Craft magazine and an article on papier maché Easter Island face-masks.
Vera looked up. ‘Oh well, perhaps he’s not so bad after all … and his singing can’t last for ever. Perhaps he’ll find something better to do with his time. But in the meantime, he’s definitely a distraction.’ Fortunately she cheered up after seeing the photograph of the Queen and the Princess of Wales together after the State Opening of Parliament, and everyone settled to enjoy a welcome cup of coffee on this cold morning.
‘And are you calling into Nora’s Coffee Shop after school, Vera?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Vera, ‘wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
In the High Street Big Dave and Little Malcolm parked their bin wagon and walked into the Coffee Shop. To celebrate the event, Nora was featuring 1957 hit records on the juke-box and Little Richard was singing ‘Lucille’ when Little Malcolm arrived at the counter.
Big Dave went to sit at their usual table while Little Malcolm stared up at the love of his life. ‘Y’look lovely today, Dorothy,’ he said.
Dorothy Humpleby, the five-foot-eleven-inch assistant with the peroxide blonde hair, smiled down at her heartthrob. ‘Ah’ve gone to a lot o’ trouble wi’ it being Nora’s big day,’ she said. Dorothy was wearing Dallas shoulder pads under her white frilly blouse, pink-leather hotpants, her favourite Wonder Woman boots and clip-on hula-hoop earrings. ‘For me creamy-smooth skin ah put on me Clinique Porcelain Beige Base, then ah dab me Ivory Glow foundation under me eyes and, to finish off, ah set it wi’ Transparency Loose Powder,’ said Dorothy. ‘It teks ages.’
‘Yes, Dorothy, it’s reight classy,’ said Little Malcolm.
‘Then ah put on me Mary Quant waterproof mascara,’ continued Dorothy, barely pausing for breath.
‘’Urry up, lover boy,’ shouted Big Dave.
‘So it’s two teas please, Dorothy, an’—’ muttered Little Malcolm.
‘An’ then me Frosty Pink Blusher, o’ course.’
‘An’ two pork pies—’ said Little Malcolm.
‘An’ then ah use me Boots Number Seven Lip Liner,’ said Dorothy.
‘So it’s jus’ the teas an’ pies, Dorothy,’ said Little Malcolm, looking across to Big Dave who was becoming agitated with the long wait.
‘An’ then f’me peas de insistence, ah jus’ add me Miss Selfridge Peachy Head.’
‘Y’what?’ said Little Malcolm, looking confused. ‘Ah think Eugene Scrimshaw went there for ’is ’olidays once.’
‘Where?’ said Dorothy.
‘Beachy ’Ead,’ said Little Malcolm.
Dorothy gave him a peculiar look as she put two pork pies on a chipped plate.
Meanwhile, a new record landed on the juke-box turntable, ‘Oooh, me ’eart-thwob,’ said Nora from behind her Breville sandwich toaster. ‘Elvis Pwesley an’ “Jailhouse Wock”.’
An hour later Nora hurried into Diane’s Hair Salon.
‘What’s it t’be, Nora?’ asked the phlegmatic Diane.
‘Ah want t’look like Cagney,’ said Nora, holding up a photograph of the new television crime-fighters.
‘But she’s blonde, Nora,’ said Diane. ‘’Ow about Lacey? She’s a brunette.’ Nora frowned. ‘An’ she’s t’intelligent one,’ added Diane with a knowing look.
Nora pondered this for a moment. ‘Mek it Lacey then, Diane.’
Diane smiled. Sometimes psychology and hairdressing went hand in hand.
Gradually, as the afternoon progressed, darkness descended on Ragley village. It was nearly 3.45 p.m. and, in my classroom, the children had put their chairs on their desks and we were saying our end-of-school prayer. After a hurried ‘Amen’ Heathcliffe Earnshaw looked at Jimmy Poole and winked. Jimmy understood. Tonight was ‘Penny for the Guy’ night and, for the first hour, it was his turn to be the guy.
* * *
Across the road, a diminutive figure stopped outside the bright lights of Pratt’s Hardware Emporium. Lofthouse ‘Lofty’ Pratt looked at the sign above the door and smiled.
On this cold November afternoon, as darkness fell, Lofty didn’t feel the bitter wind that swept down Ragley High Street. As the ex-Featherweight Boxing Champion of Yorkshire, he was made of sterner stuff. As they said in his hometown of Castleford, ‘’E eats
nails an’ spits rust, does Lofty.’ At five foot two inches tall he cut an insignificant figure in a baggy, outdated shellsuit but, as the landlord of his local Miners’ Arms once said, ‘Don’t start owt, ’cause our Lofty’ll finish it.’
Lofty had been named after Nat Lofthouse, the Bolton Wanderers and England centre forward. His father, an England fan, had always admired the tough footballer, nicknamed ‘the Lion of Vienna’. Mr Pratt, one of five brothers, wanted Lofthouse to grow up to be like his famous, clean-living, honest-as-the-day-is-long namesake. However, he had to make do with a vertically challenged psychopath who could put his fist through a coalhouse door. So it was with the innate confidence of an ageing prizefighter that he walked into his cousin’s shop and, appropriately, the bell above the door rang loudly as he stepped inside.
Timothy was standing behind the counter with three different-coloured pens in the top pocket of his overall.
‘Nah then, our Timothy,’ said Lofty.
‘’Ello Lofthouse,’ said Timothy. ‘Nora said you were coming.’
‘Aye, ah wouldn’t miss our Nora’s special day. She’s allus been a good lass.’
‘An’ ’ow are you getting’ on?’ asked Timothy.
‘Ah’m fit as a flea,’ he said and proceeded to give an impromptu exhibition of shadow boxing in the middle of the shop. Timothy looked alarmed. Lofty’s dancing feet were dangerously near to the perfectly aligned display of his new range of Snow White garden gnomes and Happy was very close to being seriously disconcerted.
‘Any road, our Nora said t’come ’ere fust t’get settled in like,’ said Lofthouse.
‘Er, yes,’ said Timothy without enthusiasm. Lofthouse had never been the tidiest of guests. ‘Ah’ve put yer in t’second bedroom wi’ m’Meccano set.’
Just before five o’clock Vera and I buttoned up our coats and walked out of school to Nora’s Coffee Shop. A steady stream of villagers and distant members of the Pratt family were ahead of us and Heathcliffe Earnshaw, outside the brightly lit shop window of Pratt’s Hardware Emporium, was not one to miss an opportunity.
‘Penny for t’guy please, Miss Evans, Mr Sheffield?’ said Heathcliffe politely. A very realistic-looking guy in a baggy blue boiler suit, cardboard mask, Wellington boots and an incongruous pair of worn-out oven gloves was slumped in a wheelbarrow next to him. However, the guy lacked a hat, which would have hidden Jimmy Poole’s distinctive head of curly ginger hair.
Vera opened her purse and put a five-pence piece in the tin offered by little Terry Earnshaw. ‘Well done, boys,’ she said. ‘That’s a wonderful guy … very realistic.’
I rummaged in my pocket and added a ten-pence piece. ‘I thought Jimmy might be helping you,’ I said.
There was a movement of black-button eyes behind the mask. ‘’E’s busy, Mr Sheffield,’ said Heathcliffe quickly … and, of course, truthfully.
Nora Pratt was daydreaming when Vera and I approached the counter. She was secretly in love with the television sports presenter Des Lynam, even though she had no interest in football and thought Aston Villa was a stately home. With his white jacket and a black shirt unbuttoned to reveal his hairy chest, he looked the perfect man. His moustache was the final pièce de résistance and Nora wondered if it tickled when you kissed him.
This was going through her mind as I approached the counter. ‘Two coffees please, Nora,’ I said. ‘And congratulations.’
‘That’s weally appweciated, Mr Sheffield,’ said Nora.
‘You look lovely,’ said Vera. ‘A beautiful dress.’
‘Thank you, Miss Evans,’ said Nora.
A copy of Woman magazine was open on the counter and I glanced down at an old photograph of the elegant and beautiful film star, Grace Kelly.
‘Ah feel so sowwy for ’im,’ said Nora sadly.
‘Who’s that, Nora?’ I asked.
‘Pwince Wainier of Monaco,’ said Nora, ‘after Pwincess Gwace died. Ah saw ’er in that ’Itchcock film, Wear Window.’ She passed over two cups of steaming froth. ‘An’ enjoy y’fwothy coffee … on the ’ouse.’
We took our drinks to a corner table and sat down. Vera attempted one cautious sip and then pushed the cup to one side. ‘Oh dear,’ she said and we settled back to enjoy a half hour of people-watching.
* * *
Nora’s distant upmarket cousin from Harrogate, Veronica Pratt, had approached the counter with her usual haughty disposition.
‘’Ello Vewonica,’ said Nora.
‘Good evening, Nora,’ said Veronica, known as ‘Veggie-Ve’ in the family.
‘Ah y’still a vegetawian?’ asked Nora.
‘I’ve become a vegan,’ said Veronica rather primly.
It crossed Nora’s mind that it sounded like a planet in Star Trek. ‘Well ’ave a bit o’ salmon.’
‘I don’t eat anything with a face,’ said Veronica.
Dorothy stopped rearranging the display of rock buns. ‘Do fish ’ave faces?’ she asked.
‘Yes, they do, young lady,’ said Veronica.
‘Well, ’ow about some nice ’am if ah slice it reight thin?’ asked Dorothy, trying to be helpful. Veggie-Ve was unimpressed and ignored the offer.
After much deliberation, she selected a mushroom omelette sprinkled with grated Wensleydale cheese and Nora went off to put it under the grill.
Milburn and Gwendolin Pratt, who ran a bed-and breakfast in Bridlington, were sitting next to the juke-box. Both had removed their hearing aids and so were oblivious to Jerry Lee Lewis singing yet another 1957 hit, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’, which, in Gwendolin’s case, was entirely appropriate. A compulsive knitter, but sadly with little skill, she dropped stitches with reckless abandon as her shaking knitting needles clacked out an off-beat rhythm.
Timothy Pratt often recalled his first pair of knitted swimming trunks. They were multi-coloured and created from miscellaneous balls of spare wool by Gwendolin in her tiny front room. Inevitably, when they got wet they stretched horribly and hung in sodden folds around his knees. He could still remember the laughter when he emerged from the rolling waves on Bridlington beach. He had never recovered his self-esteem, and the pain of those early days remained vivid in his mind.
Meanwhile, Lofty had introduced himself to Big Dave and Little Malcolm and, along with Shane and Clint Ramsbottom, the conversation had inevitably turned to football.
‘Loft’ouse, did y’say?’ said Big Dave, ‘Nah that were a proper footballer. Thirty goals in thirty-three internationals.’
‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ said Little Malcolm.
‘Short back an’ sides were Nat,’ added Shane Ramsbottom, the skinhead with the letters H-A-R-D tattooed on the knuckles of his right fist. He frowned at his younger brother Clint. ‘’E allus tucked ’is shirt in ’is shorts … no long-’aired nancy boys in them days.’
‘A proper old-fashioned centre forward,’ said Big Dave. ‘’E’d be worth over a million poun’ today.’
‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ said Little Malcolm. ‘If that Trevor Francis is worth a million, then Nat Loft’ouse is worth more.’
Lofty looked at his watch. ‘Ah think ah’ll go an’ c’llect our Timothy from next door,’ he said.
‘’E’s waiting f’Stan Coe … summat abart chicken wire,’ said Clint.
Dorothy overheard. ‘’E were in earlier, that Stan Coe,’ she said.
‘Ah’ve no time for ’im,’ muttered Little Malcolm.
‘’E stirs ’is tea wi’ a pencil,’ said Dorothy, ‘an’ Nora says she doesn’t want ’is sort in ’ere.’
‘’E’s weally wude,’ shouted Nora, who rarely missed snippets of conversation even from behind a cloud of hissing steam next to the coffee machine.
‘Ah hope ’e gets lead poisoning,’ added Dorothy darkly. ‘An’ ’e were givin’ your Timothy a reight ’ard time by all accounts, so ah ’eard.’
Lofty looked thoughtful. ‘Ah’ll be back,’ he said.
After he had left, Big Dave nodded in approval.
‘What did y’mek o’ Lofty?’
‘’E ’ad a wad o’ money big enough t’choke a donkey,’ said Shane.
‘An’ ah wouldn’t want t’cross ’im,’ added Clint.
‘Y’reight there,’ said Little Malcolm. ‘Y’don’t need t’be tall t’be tough,’ he added with feeling.
Stan Coe had parked his Land Rover by the village green outside The Royal Oak and walked back to Pratt’s Hardware Emporium. The bell over the door rang shrilly as he burst in. Timothy was pulling down the blinds ready to close up for the day.
‘Ah’m ’ere for m’wire, Pratt,’ he said gruffly.
‘It’s be’ind counter,’ said Timothy.
‘Well gerrit, y’dozey ha’porth,’ shouted Stan.
Timothy passed over the roll of chicken wire and Stan looked at the price tag. He slapped a few coins on the counter. ‘That’ll cover it,’ he said and opened the door. The bell rang again. ‘Pratt by name an’ pratt by nature,’ shouted Stan and he barged out into the darkness, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.
In the doorway of the Coffee Shop, still as a statue, Lofthouse Pratt, the Castleford prizefighter, controlled his anger. His eyes glittered in the moonlight.
‘Penny for t’guy, Mr Coe?’ said Heathcliffe. Jimmy Poole rattled the tin, as it was now Terry’s turn to be the guy.
‘Gerrowt o’ t’way,’ shouted Stan. ‘It’s nowt but beggin’.’ With that he kicked out at the wheelbarrow, which overturned with a clatter. Terry fell out on to the pavement and grazed his knee. Stan strode off towards the village green.
06 Educating Jack Page 7