by C S Kenny
In my case I wouldn’t argue but in the majority of cases it was nonsense. Oh for the wisdom then to have been able to shout out, “She’s wrong sweetheart, this is where you end up when Mummy and Daddy are not good.” Those whispers could have been about your children Val, and for what?
I think I should stop my rant now, well maybe in a minute, for someone who professes not to be too greatly affected by his childhood I seem to be having a right pop and to be honest I’m enjoying it.
Bear with me a second whilst I tell you about the old fella over the road, he’s a 97 year old little Welsh chap, he can’t help being little and he can’t help being Welsh so I don’t hold either against him. As he’s housebound and he lives alone, his wife died 15 years ago, I do his shopping twice a week and I call in and see him every day, just for a short chat and make sure he’s OK.
The other day he was telling me he had found a box in his spare room which he hadn’t seen for years.
Inside the box were letters he had sent to his wife during the war along with photographs and post cards. Upon finding these objects he told me how memories and emotions had come flooding back, how people and places he had forgotten all about suddenly came to mind as though it had all happened just a few weeks ago. I know exactly what he was talking about. The more I write about the 1970’s and the more I read the bollocks, and not so bollocks, written about me, the more I realise that somewhere in my head I too have a spare room with a box in.
Since I began writing this I have been tempted to slam the lid shut a few times, though up to now I have resisted that temptation. I was under the impression I no longer held all those fears and emotions which as a child I worked so hard and most of the time successfully so, to disguise. Now I believe I must have at some point in my life, hidden them away and managed over the years to forget where the bloody hell I’d put them.
If there is a vein of anger coming through regarding the Aunty Val episode, I hope you can see where it’s coming from. Whatever the outcome had been, a child was going to be dumped on. Luckily for Val’s kids it was bugger lugs here who took the shit. Though when you are up to your neck in the stuff, or at least think you are, then a couple more inches doesn’t really matter.
Rant over.
As I struggled to get some sleep I already knew what my next step was going to be, stay in character and leg it. There was no way I was going to be believed and let’s face it, I had more labels than Alan Wicker’s suit case so it would be hardly surprising when they took Val’s word over mine.
Chapter 14
I came downstairs for breakfast the next morning feeling a little self-conscious. As my attendance at the home had been a last minute thing and I guess pretty urgent as far as the social services were concerned, I had been given a fold up bed in an empty room way up at the very top of the home. I believe the Home was technically full. This meant none of the children were yet aware there was a new kid in the place.
It was always a strange time when you first appear as the new kid in the home, I suppose it’s the equivalent of your first day at a new school though you would usually start a new school with others from your old school. That’s not the case in Children’s homes and a new face is a novelty for a few days. I had by now though got the hang of it. It’s amazing how your eyesight improves and hearing becomes keener when your mouth isn’t working, so that’s how I normally played it, well for a short while at least. I received a few funny looks as I entered the lounge to wait whilst breakfast was being prepared, then to my relief and pleasure I saw a lad I recognised. I don’t recall his surname but I think his Christian name was Dave. I do vividly remember his hair, it was jet black. I have never seen hair the colour of his since. If the sun shone on it, it looked an amazing shiny dark blue.
Dave had been in Springfield at the same time I was there. He was roughly the same age as me and one of those decent kids who never seemed to cause any trouble. Though we were not what you would call friends we got on well with each other however he wasn’t dumb enough to be dragged into any of my nonsense.
Dave asked what I was doing there and I just told him it was long story. Then I asked him how I could get out of the place. He told me everywhere would be locked up apart from the door in the corridor which led down to the basement garage. Apparently the caretaker left this door unlocked and though there was a good chance the caretaker was in the garage, according to Dave he was too old and too slow to catch me even if he saw me. That was good enough for me.
There was no sign of the caretaker as I ran down the stairs, dashed through the open garage doors and out onto Cavendish Road.
For someone who was supposed to be half way intelligent I more often than not behaved like a complete imbecile. I didn’t know then why I behaved in such a way and still to this day I do not know. Without wanting it to sound like a cop out I think there is a distinct possibility that, as much as the professionals liked to skirt around it and come up with alternative names for it, I really did have a screw loose. Perhaps all the bangs to the head I’ve had over the years have just tightened up the screw, maybe it’s a self-tapper.
As I ran out of the grounds of the Children’s home I turned right and headed as fast as I could toward Idle Thorpe Way. The reason I headed in that direction was because it was a sprawling area made up of high rise buildings and blocks of three and four storey flats. There were roads around the perimeter of these buildings but very few in between which meant if the police turned up it would be much easier for me to lose them.
Strangely enough I found myself at one point propped against a wall trying to catch my breath while staring at the very flat where nine years earlier I had watched Philip perform a sterling rendition of River Dance. For a fleeting moment I toyed with the idea of going back to the Children’s Home. For some reason seeing our old home made me think about how far I had come in nine years and the truth was, I had not come very far at all, if anything I had gone backwards.
My back slid down the wall I was leaning against and my arse slumped down on the grass, I was sick of my life. Not suicidal sick of it, that never even occurred to me, just sick and tired of Children’s Homes, of Aunties and Uncles, of Social Workers, Psychiatrist’s, I was even sick of running away. The best way I can think of to describe it is, I felt empty and though I knew exactly where I was, I felt lost. As I stared at our old flat I began to try and imagine what my life up to then would have been like if my real dad had not left us. What if I had been able to get on with Philip? What if the Bastard had never shown up and what if I had not been such an arsehole? Then I remembered a saying that my Uncle Tom was fond of using.
“You can wish in one hand and shit in t’other, see which fills first.”
Just thinking about my Uncle Tom cheered me up, I knew if he had been sat with me he would have told me to get off my arse and do something. It would not matter if it was the wrong thing or the right thing so long as I stopped moping and did something.
I got to my feet and started running once more. The more I ran the less empty I began to feel, I knew without a shadow of doubt I was going to do the wrong thing yet I didn’t care. The emptiness had now completely gone and had been replaced by an energy which appeared to be trying to burst from my lungs. I sprinted as fast as I could then took a flying leap. I punched the air and shouted at the top of my voice.
“FUCK EM ALL.”
No longer feeling sorry for myself I tried to figure out what I was going to do next. I knew I would have been missed by now and the police would have been informed. Though I very much doubted they would be actively looking for me, they would have been given my description and asked to keep an eye out for me. I figured the best thing for now was to get off the streets so I made my way down to the Leeds and Liverpool canal.
One of the advantages of walking alongside a canal, or a river come to that, is you can walk as slow as you like, nobody will think it strange. You can stop, look around you, sit down and take in the surroundings, again, perfectly a
cceptable. Try that in a Town or City and before long someone will think you either don’t know where you are, you’re ‘up to summat’ or you have managed to lose your carer.
Walking along the tow path I began to feel more at ease which in turn meant I could think more clearly. I began to have a conversation with myself. Not one of those you have quietly in your head, no, this one was out loud as though I was talking to a friend.
“Right Steve, we need to get a few things sorted out here. Are we sure we don’t want to just walk back into Cavendish and face up to all this bollocks with Aunty Val?”
“We’re positive; if they want to put us back in that place they are going to have to catch us.”
“That’s what I thought. Well we need to face some facts. One, we have no money?”
“Nope, not a fucking penny and we’ve only got the clothes we’re standing in.”
“Not looking good is it?”
“Oh it gets worse. We’ve got no food, no fags and nowhere to sleep tonight.”
“Right, so who do we know that can help us out?”
“Well there’s only one person I can think of.”
“Who’s that?”
“You’re talking to him.”
“Marvellous, that’s really filled me with confidence.”
“Drop the sarcasm, drop the defeatism and start thinking, you doylum.”
After chuckling to myself for a few seconds I had pretty much figured out what I was going to do. I knew of a shop on Leeds Road where I could pick up just about everything I could need to help me spend some time by myself in the countryside. When I say pick up, I mean steal. It was a second hand shop which bought and sold mainly leisure and sporting equipment, though I knew from experience the owner wasn’t averse to paying a few quid for a knocked off bit of jewellery or even a colour television.
One of the habits you get into as a thief is looking for opportunities and possibilities wherever you go.
“Is that door secure?”
“Could I get through that window?”
“Is this place worth breaking into?”
I had eyed up this second hand shop every time I had passed it and on every occasion I had been in there. Though it looked pretty secure from the outside, grills on the windows and doors held on with huge padlocks, I had spotted a weakness, the adjoining property, this shop had no such security measures. Not surprising really when you saw the quality of the rugs he was selling. There were piles of them, all made of some sort of artificial material and all in such bright garish colours that, if you scanned the shop too quickly, I’m fairly sure it would have been possible to bring on an epileptic fit. I had long since decided the rug shop was the best way in, today was the day I would find out if I was right or wrong.
Happy I had come up with a solution to my predicament I was content to spend the rest of the day without food or fags; strolling up and down the canal waiting until nightfall with Willy Nelson’s ‘On the road again’ bouncing around my head.
Chapter 15
I was right about the rug shop, getting in was a doddle. It was early in the morning, around one thirty/ two o’clock. It was reassuringly dark but it was bloody nippy, even the hour or so walking from the canal had done little to warm me up. I had made a mental note to myself earlier in the day. ‘The next time you run away from somewhere, and you will, make sure you have got a friggin coat.’
Having crept into the rear yard of the rug shop I found a window at eye level. The catch I could see quite plainly, it was the type which looks like a flute that has been sliced in half lengthways, maybe a foot long with a half a dozen or so holes in it. Over who knows how many years it had been painted without stripping it back to metal, paint on top of paint on top of paint. Not only did this make it difficult to close from the inside, it made it easy to open from the outside. The layers of paint had made it virtually spring loaded, one swift bang on the bottom of the window frame with the edge of my fist and the catch simply popped up.
After climbing in I took a look at the back door, there was a bolt at the bottom, a bolt at the top and in the middle a Yale lock, security conscious this shop owner was not, the bolts and lock were flimsy to say the least. I found myself trying to recall the layout of the second hand shop next door.
The only wall I could remember which didn’t have any shelves or some sort of cabinet against it was behind the counter. I judged where that empty space was, stacked up a pile of the shitty rugs so as not to be seen through the shop window and put my foot through the plasterboard. I did expect some resistance, either brickwork or timber, but no, just for once in my sorry little criminal life, everything went like a dream.
There was no brickwork and the hole I kicked through was bang in the middle of any supporting woodwork. It took less than a minute of kicking and shoving before I was crouched down in the second hand shop trying to stay out of the sight of any possible passers-by. I must have looked like an inept Cossack Dancer.
I knew I had at least a couple more hours of darkness so I took my time selecting the gear I needed. I helped myself to a rucksack, one man tent, sleeping bag, in fact just about everything one person could need for a camping holiday. Things just seemed to go from good to bloody brilliant. I found a Parka coat, a pair of hiking boots in my size, twelve Woodbines in a twenty packet. I even got lucky when I went round the back to use the shop toilet for a pee. In the corner of this pokey little loo was one of those large Whisky bottles which hold about a gallon. There was no Whisky in it but it was two thirds full of change. I guess the owner must have dropped a coin or two into the bottle every time he sat on the khazi, I didn’t linger long on that thought, I just took the bottle back into the main shop, lit up a Woody, sat down and sorted out the coins, pocketing the silver and discarding the copper. Once finished, I immediately washed my hands.
With my newly acquired rucksack neatly packed, my new boots on and a couple of pockets full of cash I was ready to go. After pushing the rucksack through the hole in the wall I took a last look around the shop in case I had missed something I could use. That’s when I spotted an air rifle.
I suddenly had this notion that if I was out in the countryside and ended up short of food, there were always rabbits and pigeons to fall back on. I checked out the air rifle, it was a 177 paratrooper repeater. I eventually found a tin of the correct pellets and pushed the air rifle through the hole before following it. Back in the rug shop I put the rucksack on my back and picked up the air rifle.
“What the fucking hell are you doing?” Once again I was talking to myself.
“A rucksack and hiking boots, good, a rucksack, hiking boots and a gun . . .? Bad.”
Even if I went back and found a bag for it, I wouldn’t get very far with it slung over my shoulder. I was reluctant to give up the air rifle so I opened up my Parka.
“Excellent.”
There was an inside pocket about hip height. Off came the rucksack, off came the Parka. I took hold of the air rifle and broke the barrel thereby loading the spring. Keeping a tight grip on the barrel I pulled the trigger and released the spring before placing the butt into the inside pocket and the barrel down the left sleeve of the Parka. I then placed both sleeves through the straps on the rucksack. I sat down, put my arms in the sleeves and hey presto, in one swift movement rucksack and Parka are on my back and the air rifle is out of sight.
Feeling pretty pleased with myself I went to the back door. I bent down and undid the bottom bolt then took hold of the Yale lock whilst at the same time reaching up for the top bolt. That’s when I heard the click. I had reached for the top bolt with my left hand and the barrel of the air rifle had locked. Now I couldn’t bend my arm and I began cursing at myself whilst looking as though I was giving a Nazi salute to a pile of shitty rugs.
“Fuck.”
“Fucking.”
“Bastard. “
“Aargh.”
I pulled the air rifle from inside the Parka and threw it on the floor.
; “A stupid idea anyway you Div.”
The tin of pellets went in the same direction as the air rifle and I walked out of the back door. No I didn’t, I stormed out like a petulant child who has just had his favourite toy confiscated.
I found a place to stay out of sight for the next couple of hours, waiting for daylight to arrive and for the city to come to life. Once I felt comfortable being seen I headed off for something to eat, I was famished.
The North Yorkshire Moors had been a place I had enjoyed visiting immensely over the previous three or four years. I decided I would head in that direction and see what turned up though I had no real idea of which part I wanted to head for. That was until I was sat on a train studying a map which I had bought at Harrogate train station.
I had never been to this place, never even heard of it, but the second I saw it on the map I could not resist choosing it as my destination, it was called Fryup. I found out later there were two Dales, Great Fryup and Little Fryup, that just served to make the place seem even more attractive to me.
I did manage to arrive at Fryup yet as much as I loved the scenery, as much as I enjoyed camping out and as much as I enjoyed my own company, I only stayed there for three nights and two days. It was North Yorkshire, it was March and it was fucking freezing.
Once more I ended up back in Bradford. My nights spent under canvas up and down the Leeds to Liverpool canal, my days spent hanging out with mates and getting into all sorts of illegal activity, which culminated in me being arrested on April 4th 1974. A social worker came to see me in the police cells. He only wanted to talk about one thing, Aunty Val.
I now fully understand all the implications of the allegation I had made. Back then, as mature as I tried to act, I wasn’t. I had no real concept of the consequences she was facing, now I do. The social worker made it perfectly clear he thought I was the biggest liar on God’s earth. He asked me what I thought an attractive woman like her would see in somebody like me. It was beginning to dawn on me that this shit was serious. This is why I didn’t laugh and say exactly what I was thinking, which was, ‘you’re fucking jealous.’ That’s what I was thinking back then; I’ve grown up a bit since.