A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  Mostly we thought of assembly as the boring bit before we got to the even more boring bit: lessons, which in those days always seemed to start off with arithmetic. This day, however, I was all ears. When the big moment came, when we were asked to put up our hands and tell the guest from the BBC about our unusual hobby, I was on my feet, jumping up and down.

  ‘Yes,’ said the headmistress. ‘Is that Michael Pannett over there with his hand in the air?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘And tell us, what is your hobby, Michael?’

  I took a deep breath, paused and looked around me. I wanted to make quite sure that everybody was listening. This was going to be a big moment. ‘My hobby …’ I began. It seemed that everybody in the hall was staring at me – including Tim, who was going to play a vital role in this scheme. ‘My hobby,’ I continued, ‘is … is …’

  ‘Well, carry on, Michael, do tell us.’

  ‘Making weathervanes!’ I blurted it out and sat down.

  There was a moment’s silence, followed by a scattering of laughter.

  Then the headmistress said, ‘Well. What an extraordinary thing to do, Michael. And you’ve kept it secret from us all this time. Why is that?’

  Talk about thinking on your feet. There was our headmistress giving me the hard stare, and there was my friend Tim, whose collection of home-made weathervanes I’d been looking at that very morning, his eyes all but popping out of his head. Everybody else seemed to be stifling giggles.

  ‘Well,’ I began, ‘it’s an unusual sort of hobby and I just – I just thought people would laugh at me. That’s why I never said anything.’

  The headmistress was trying to speak, but nobody could hear a word she was saying. The place was in uproar. When she finally got everybody calmed down I heard her say, ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll all look forward to hearing more about these weathervanes. Maybe you can tell everybody a bit about them. Do stand up, Michael and address us all.’

  I gulped, rose to my feet once more and said, ‘Well, weathervanes are really interesting. They have cockerels and things, and they go around.’ Everybody had turned around to stare at me, blank looks in their eyes. They seemed to want more. I coughed and carried on. ‘Yes, they go round and round and tell you where the wind’s coming from, and that way you know when it’s going to rain.’ Still they stared. ‘And you get ’em on church steeples and that.’ I glanced down and saw Tim looking up at me. He was either awestruck or speechless with anger because I was stealing his hobby. I wasn’t sure. ‘And some people,’ I said, ‘some people keep them in their garden to scare cats away. But I keep mine in – in my bedroom.’

  I dried up then. I wasn’t bad at making stuff up in those days, and I generally had something to say for myself, but I was running out of ideas. I looked at the headmistress who smiled and said,

  ‘Very good, Michael. You may sit down now.’

  Lots of other kids now put up their hands and told the headmistress about their hobbies – and most of them were telling the truth, as far as I could tell. It was an uncomfortable feeling, realising what I might have got myself into. Tim, of course, was the first to grab me as we trooped out of the hall and into our classroom.

  ‘Who are you trying to kid?’ he said. ‘You don’t make weathervanes. I do. Well, me Dad does.’

  ‘So why didn’t you put your hand up?’ I said. ‘Listen, you want to be on telly, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, yeah. I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Right, so we’ll do it together. We might get discovered and – you know, be famous, both of us.’

  ‘Yes but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But they’re not my weathervanes to play about with. They’re me Dad’s. Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘We only need to borrow them – for a day or two. How long do you think they’ll be around, the BBC?’

  ‘Search me.’

  This was all very exciting, but for a little while I managed to forget about the BBC. Conker season was coming to an end, but that meant we were into autumn, and autumn meant one thing: fireworks.

  The Fifth of November was still several weeks away, but down at the end of the Avenue, on a patch of waste ground, we’d already started to gather the materials for our neighbourhood bonfire.

  When I say neighbourhood, I mean our street. Park Avenue was a cul de sac. There was no through traffic; there were fields to either side and there was Joseph Rowntree secondary school at the top end; Rowan Avenue, home of our arch-enemies, was across the field. We were isolated, protected, safe. And the waste ground, the rough grassy area we played on, and built our annual bonfire on, was our own little wilderness.

  As September gave way to October and the leaves started to turn yellow and fall to the ground in the gales that blew in from the west, we started looking for fallen branches to drag down to the middle of the field. We salvaged any waste timber that we found. If somebody was throwing out any old furniture, we grabbed that too, and by the time October turned into November, we had a fine big mound of combustible material awaiting a guy to sit on the top.

  ‘It’s gonna be the size of Mount Everest,’ we told ourselves.

  But the bonfire, and the rising excitement as Guy Fawkes drew nearer, couldn’t entirely dispel the nagging worry at the back of my mind, the fact that I’d dug myself a great big hole with this weathervane caper. A week or two after I’d made my bid for stardom two BBC researchers visited the school – or so we were told in assembly.

  ‘What you going to do?’ Tim asked me one damp, foggy morning as we dragged an old wooden pallet down to the bonfire site. ‘Have you told your Mum and Dad yet?’

  ‘I don’t dare.’

  Tim could see it from my point of view. And now that he’d had time to think about it he desperately wanted to be on TV too. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘why don’t I tell my Dad that we’re doing it together?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Tim thought for a moment, then said, ‘Well, I’ll tell him it was your idea.’

  ‘What, and I asked you if I could –?’

  ‘Yeah, borrow them.’

  Well, that was the plan, but before we had a chance to put it into action, fate intervened – or so it seemed.

  I was at home. I can’t remember what I was doing, but I took little notice when the phone rang. Why would I? The only time I picked up the phone was when nobody was around to see me – and that wasn’t to make a call. Very few of my friends had phones back then, and even if we’d bothered to write down each other’s numbers, what would we say? Ours was a party line. It was cheaper that way. One of our favourite pastimes was picking it up to see whether we could eavesdrop on our neighbours’ conversations – and then cough or groan, or breathe heavily. Well, we were young …

  ‘It’s for you.’ Mum was standing over me, holding the phone.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You mean pardon.’ She thrust the receiver towards me. ‘It’s the BBC. They want to talk to you.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘If you’ve been up to something you’ll have me and your father to answer to.’

  People speak of going hot and cold all over. Trust me, it happens. It was indeed the BBC. They had decided that mine was the most interesting hobby of all the ones they’d heard about at school, and they wanted to come and visit me and have a look at the weathervanes.

  I now had some explaining to do. I started with Mum but she folded her arms and stopped me. It was a classic case of ‘Wait till your father gets home’.

  Dad arrived home at a quarter to six, as usual, and Mum was at the front window waiting for him to ride up on his moped. She had the back door open as he came in from the garage. Phil, Gillian and Christine were all clustered around the kitchen door. They knew trouble was brewing and they wanted a ringside seat.

  ‘Hello, Jeff dear.’ Mum gave him the usual kiss on the cheek, then said, ‘You may as well find out now as later. I’ve just discovered that ou
r youngest son here has a secret talent.’ She turned to me. ‘Now, are you going to tell him, or shall I?’ I didn’t answer. I managed a strangled sort of gulp, but couldn’t force any words out. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it seems that Michael is an expert in weathervane construction.’

  She told the tale, and I enlarged upon it. Then she added a bit more. Dad took it all in, told me I’d done a very stupid thing, and said, ‘Right. The first nothing is for you to go around to your friend’s house and explain to his mother and father what you’ve done.’ He looked at Mum. ‘I think we should do that now, before tea, don’t you?’

  She agreed. We went and knocked on Tim’s door. His dad answered.

  ‘Ah, Mister Rigg,’ Dad said. ‘Sorry to bother you at this time but Michael here has something to tell you.’

  Who’d be a grown-up? After I’d confessed to Mister Rigg, and listened as he told me that I’d been a very silly boy, a very naughty boy, and that this was going to cause him a lot of bother, he calmed down. Just for a moment. Then he got all wound up again and said, ‘Apart from anything, your thoughtless actions are going to make me look very silly. I only have five or six weathervanes out there. They’ll be expecting dozens.’ He put his hand to his head and said, ‘Look, why don’t you come inside and we’ll think this through.’

  We sat down with Tim, his mum and dad, and the grown-ups talked over the best way to handle the thing.

  ‘We can’t stall the BBC,’ Mister Rigg said.

  Dad agreed. ‘No, we can’t do that. It’d hardly be fair on them, would it?’

  They both thought for a minute, then Tim’s mum said, ‘How about joining forces – and putting on a real show for them?’

  Tim’s dad brightened. ‘You mean – what, make a few more?’

  ‘Why not? They didn’t take you long, and with three of us’ – she looked enquiringly at Dad, who nodded – ‘well, surely we could manage.’

  Mister Rigg was brightening by the minute. ‘All right,’ he said, and turned to Dad. ‘How about if we move the existing vanes into your garden, then put in a solid weekend’s work? Pull out all the stops.’

  ‘All hands to the pump,’ Dad added.

  And so it was agreed. We would pull the wool over the BBC’s eyes, we would muck in – and I would be off the hook. As to producing the extra vanes, that was for Dad and Mister Rigg. Tim and I were given the job of ferrying cups of tea to them as they hammered and sawed – the occasional Elastoplast too – and were then given the paints and brushes and left to get on with it. While we did that, the two dads assembled a fresh set of parts and gave us careful instructions so that we could assemble one for the cameras – and the millions of viewers.

  Two weeks later the BBC crew showed up: cameraman, sound man, long-haired director, a woman with a clipboard and one or two other people. Impressed? We were awestruck. As were our neighbours, who crowded around the front gate ooh-ing and aah-ing. We did as instructed, answered a few questions about our amazing hobby and then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, the crew were on their way.

  But that wasn’t the end of the excitement. Far from it. A few weeks later we got word that we were to be featured on the Saturday morning programme. We all gathered round the TV to watch – me and Phil, Mum and Dad, the girls, Petra, and of course our Aunt June who was paying us her fortnightly visit.

  That was the only downside of the whole weekend. Aunt June, delightful as she was, had somehow persuaded Mum and Dad that she could cut hair. And so she attacked me with her scissors, leaving me with very little hair – and what there was sticking up at all angles.

  After the excitement of the TV show, Tim and I couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday. We knew what to expect, and even spent Sunday afternoon practising our autographs. We weren’t disappointed. This was my first taste of celebrity, and I couldn’t get enough. We were mobbed. We were indeed asked to sign exercise books, autograph books, one or two plaster casts and several forearms. So now I had my sights on a new career. Never mind being a train driver, a caterpillar driver, a demolition man. I now decided I would be a TV star.

  Butter Wouldn’t Melt

  Some of the biggest rogues you’ll ever meet in life started out as choirboys. It’s a well known fact. To be fair, the same goes for vicars’ sons – and a few of their daughters, I would later discover; but this is about choirboys. Those sweet little choristers learn at an early age that they’re special, a breed apart. They know when they appear, with their white ruffs around their necks and their hymnbooks in their hands, that all eyes are on them. And they soon learn that in the view of the congregation they’re second cousins to the angels they sing about. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. What the congregation tend to forget is, they’re boys. And we all know what boys are. The fact is, choirboys get away with murder – and they expect to carry on getting away with it for the rest of their lives. I know. I was one of those angelic little fellows. Once upon a time.

  It’s all about appearances. It’s all a pretence. It starts in the vestry when those fresh-faced, freshly scrubbed boys spit out their chewing-gum – peppermint flavoured in some cases, to hide the smell of the cigarettes – put on their most pious expressions, shove their comics down the back of their trousers, straighten their ruffs and smocks, and troop into the church. The congregation watch as they take their seats in the ornately carved choir-stalls and wait for the signal from the choirmaster, or the organist. They listen, enraptured, as a chorus of angelic voices soars into the timbered roof, and, in the case of the women, their hearts melt. Oh, look at the little darlings. Aren’t they sweet?

  Sweet? When I followed my mate Kev into the choir at the Parish Church of All Saints and Saint Andrew, there was only one thing on my mind.

  ‘Money,’ said Kev. ‘It’s all about the money.’

  We were standing by the lych-gate on a Sunday morning, kicking at the drifts of pink and white confetti that had gathered under the arched entrance after a wedding that had taken place the previous day. Kev was on his way to morning service. I was at a loose end. I couldn’t go home or they’d rope me in to help with the housework, so that was why I’d walked down to the church with him. Kev’s remark puzzled me. We didn’t go a lot. My parents weren’t very religious. We went about once a month, and of course Christmas, Easter and Mothering Sunday. So I was quite familiar with the order of service, as I was with the collection plate – in our case a big, inlaid brass platter which I’d watched, fascinated, as it was passed from hand to hand, all laden with copper and silver coins. Was that what Kev meant when he said it was all about money?

  ‘Do you mean you get paid?’ I asked him.

  ‘Paid? I should say so.’ He dug into his trousers and pulled out a handful of coins, mostly silver. ‘Got this yesterday. Five bob,’ he said. ‘Twenty-five pence in new money. That’s for a wedding. We get loads of them, this time of year. And christenings.’ He shrugged and dropped the coins back in his pocket. ‘Funerals too. And then some folk, if you give ’em a smile, you’ll get a tip. Not at funerals, like, but weddings … aye, I got a ten-bob note one time.’

  ‘Wow. But what about normal Sundays?’ I asked. ‘Like today.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Normal Sundays you don’t get paid. But, it’s like the vicar said in his sermon the other week, you take the rough with the smooth.’ He paused, hooked his thumbs over his new leather belt and leaned back on his heels. ‘Course, Sundays – if you’re lucky … See, today’s Communion – so you might get … well, you know.’ He made a sort of twisting motion with his hand to his mouth, and winked.

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Right.’ I hadn’t a clue what he was on about, but I nodded my head all the same. Kev was always a step ahead of the rest of us. He had a big brother, Steve, a real tough guy, and he got to know all sorts of things he shouldn’t have known at his age. Steve had a girlfriend. He had been in pubs. There was a rumour that he’d been on probation too. No wonder we all looked up to him.

  ‘Yeah, if you’re real
ly crafty,’ Kev said, smacking his lips and winking at me, ‘you can get a drink of the holy wine.’ He jingled the coins in his pocket. ‘So long as the vicar doesn’t cop you, of course. But the money’s the thing.’ He looked at his watch, a shiny thing with a dark blue face and a black plastic wristband. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘I saved up for that in six weeks. It glows in the dark.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘And the belt. Good, isn’t it?’

  I had to admit it was a very fine belt, the sort of thing a cowboy might wear.

  Just then a car came up the lane. ‘I’d better get going,’ Kev said. ‘That’s old Mitchell, the choirmaster.’ Before I could respond he added, ‘Can’t be late or there’s big trouble.’ Then, as he turned to go he said, ‘You ought to come and watch us. Maybe see if you can get an audition. They’re always looking for new choirboys. It’s the big lads, see. Their voices break and …’ He drew a finger theatrically across his throat. ‘That’s them done for. Here one day, gone the next. They have to go and get a paper-round. Have to work for their money.’ He laughed, and said, ‘Okay, see you, Mike.’

  Kev was off at a gallop. I stood and watched him dash through the cemetery. Pretty soon the congregation started to arrive and I got out from under the lych-gate. I went and stood by the war memorial. There were still a couple of poppy wreaths laid at the base of it. It made me think about Grandpa, who was in the First World War but never spoke about it. I wondered whether he knew any of the names carved on the stone. Maybe I’d ask him some time.

  I watched the congregation walking by. I thought about what Kev had said. Then I remembered the carol concert we’d had at school the previous Christmas and how I’d been told to stand at the front and sing as loud as I could, because I was one of the best singers in class. ‘He can certainly hold a tune, that boy of yours,’ my teacher told Mum one day when she bumped into her in town. And Mum told the whole family at tea that night. Yes, I enjoyed a good sing-song. Didn’t mind some of the hymns we did in assembly either. But joining the choir? No thankyou. But of course, I hadn’t had the conversation with Kev yet. That changed everything.