A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  I waited until everybody had gone into the church, then walked slowly along the path, pausing to read some of the headstones. There was one that always fascinated me. It stood against the old brick wall that marked the boundary of the churchyard. It said, ‘In a small vault near here are deposited the ashes of the late Charlotte Elizabeth Richardson, died 13th December 1889’. I looked at the bare, dusty ground. The idea that people – actual dead people – were under my feet sort of thrilled me and frightened me in equal measure.

  I approached the main entrance to the church, pushed at the big wooden door and opened it a few inches. They were singing a hymn, one I knew well. ‘Hills of the North Rejoice’. I could see the choir, right at the top end of the church, all dressed in red and looking – well, to tell the truth I’d always thought they looked a right bunch of sissies. But then I thought of the money, and Kevin. And his big brother. He’d been in the choir too, and he was no sissy. Neither was Kev. I remembered the time Kev borrowed his brother’s airgun and shot a wood pigeon. I was about to step inside when an old woman with white hair and liver-spots on the back of her hand appeared noiselessly from the shadows and tried to give me a hymn-book. She smelled of lavender, like Aunt Annie at Staintondale. But, seeing this old lady’s wrinkled neck and hooked nose, all I could think of was Charlotte Elizabeth Richardson. I shrank away from her, let the door swing and ran back across the cemetery as fast as my legs would carry me.

  It didn’t put me off, though. Where money was concerned I was always interested. I’d got to that age when I wanted as much money as I could get. There were toys I wanted to buy, and sweets, and comics and such things, and my pocket money never seemed to last beyond Saturday afternoon. The following Wednesday, after tea, I met up with Kev and walked down the narrow path that cut through to the river Foss, beyond which was the churchyard.

  ‘You sure it’s okay?’ I asked him, as we crossed the bridge.

  ‘Yeah, I told him you’d be coming.’

  ‘What’ll I have to do?’

  ‘Practise. That’s what it’s called. Choir practice.’

  ‘Yeah but … what about me? How will he know I’m good enough.’

  ‘Oh, you know – he’ll get you to sing something for him.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Whatever he says. Might be a hymn, might be a psalm. Might be one o’ them Latin things. From the Prayer Book, like.’

  ‘Latin? I don’t know any Latin.’

  Kev laughed. ‘You don’t have to. I never know what they’re on about. We just sing what’s on the page and everybody’s happy.’ He slapped me in the stomach with the back of his hand. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all written down. And he’ll play it through on the piano, or maybe he’ll fire up the organ – and he always sings through everything himself before we have a go.’ He put his hand in his pocket. ‘Here, have a Fishermen’s Friend. Clear your throat for you.’

  I needn’t have worried. Mister Mitchell, the choirmaster, was a decent sort of fellow. He took me into the vestry, where all the vicar’s clothes were hung up, and the choirboys’ smocks, and got me to sing to him, solo and unaccompanied. It was ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’, and I knew that all right – from school. Then he took me into the church itself – the nave, as he called it – where I sang along with the other lads. An hour later, after we’d gone through three or four hymns and one of those Latin jobs, I was in. Practice every Wednesday night, and you had to be at church twice on a Sunday. Weddings and so on as required.

  Before I left that night, Mister Mitchell gave me my smock and a pair of white ruffs.

  ‘It may not fit,’ he said, ‘but I dare say you’ll grow into it. Or you may prevail upon your mother to alter it for you. It’s up to you to keep it clean, of course. I don’t like my boys looking scruffy, understand?’

  Mum did as requested, but it still felt weird, wearing what looked to me suspiciously like a girl’s dress. To save time I threw it on over my shirt before I pedalled down to church every Wednesday and Sunday (and weddings on a Saturday, as required) but I made sure I tucked it in like a shirt. Apart from hiding my embarrassment, it made sure it didn’t get covered in grease off my chain.

  I’ll never forget my first performance. It was a Sunday, morning service. The first hymn was an old favourite, ‘For Those In Peril On The Sea’, one I was more than familiar with. I’d even heard Phil sing it around the house. Desperate to make an impression, I took a deep breath, threw out my chest and gave it my all. I was halfway through the second verse when I glanced up at Mister Mitchell, hoping he would approve. He didn’t. I got what would become the familiar ‘stare’, meaning ‘cut it out or you’re in trouble’.

  I had several good years as a chorister. I made some great tips at weddings, and once got to sing at a special service in York Minster. They paid us all a pound for that, and as I made my way home from there I couldn’t imagine how life could get any better.

  Gunpowder, Treason & Plot

  ‘Go on, outside with you. I can’t have you cluttering the place up all morning.’

  Mum was spring-cleaning – or so she said. Pointing out to her that this was November and I was on my half-term holiday didn’t cut much ice at all. She was on a mission. The girls were playing at their friends’ house, Phil had gone to York on the bus, and as for me, I was simply in the way.

  ‘But it’s cold out there,’ I whined.

  ‘Outside,’ she repeated, thrusting a dripping mop to within an inch of my face. ‘Unless you want to get a bucket and start scrubbing that floor. I’ve a whole list of jobs. There’s cupboard doors to wash, shelves to clean out, that glory-hole under the stairs, all that rubbish under your bed … you can take your pick.’

  When it came to getting us out of the house, and fast, Mum held all the aces. I grabbed my coat, shoved my York City hat on my head, ran out the back door and made my way onto the street. I looked up and down. There wasn’t a soul to be seen. Why would there be, on a day like this? I trudged off down the Avenue, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. With a whole morning stretching in front of me I tried to cheer myself up whistling a tune I’d heard on the radio. But every time I pursed my lips the wind took my breath away. It was one of those nasty, unruly autumn days with sudden blasts of cold air and spots of icy rain. I plodded on, head down. I was bored. I was cold. I was fed up. And there seemed to be nobody to play with.

  I’d gone about fifty yards when I heard a sort of scraping, rustling noise. Looking up, I saw a tree about fifty yards ahead of me – or half a tree, at any rate. It was a beech, its grey branches covered in golden brown leaves. It seemed to be propelling itself down the middle of the road, along the white line. Wow, I thought, this must be quite a wind blowing. Then I realised that the tree was going against the wind. This was weird. I broke into a run, and caught up with it. As I did so, it came to a standstill.

  ‘Oh hello, Mike. Give us a hand, will you?’

  As his head popped up from amongst the foliage I saw it was my mate Alan, leaning forward with a branch across his chest, his face red and his nose running.

  ‘Where we off?’ I asked, ducking underneath and grabbing a branch of my own.

  He panted a couple of times then said, ‘To t’bonfire, of course. Where else?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  There was never any real organisation behind the annual Avenue bonfire, no planning, no notices outside the post office, no admission fee, no designated adult setting off the fireworks, no food stalls. Everybody just did their own thing, chipped in, and it always seemed to work. Especially the building of it.

  We marched on down the road, in step, dragging the tree behind us.

  ‘Where’d you get this then?’ I asked, as we approached the entrance to the field and paused for a breather.

  Alan looked around as if he was about to share some great secret. He needn’t have bothered. The street was still deserted. Everybody was indoors, it seemed – where any sane person would be on a day like this.


  ‘I found it,’ he said. ‘Well, it was in someone’s garden but it was – you know, sort of hanging over the path. Public property, so I gave it a pull and away it came. Brought half the fence down with it,’ he added, then laughed. ‘They’ll blame the wind, won’t they?’

  A full gale was now sweeping all before it – fallen leaves, one of last night’s fish-and-chip wrappers, a stray hub-cap rattling down the gutter and one forlorn looking crow hopping along trying to maintain its balance. I agreed that the tree’s owner would indeed blame the elements. We trudged on and barged through the entrance to the field, manhandling the branch over the gate, before stopping again to get our breath. I was feeling better now. I had company, I had a purpose, and I’d warmed myself up. Suddenly it felt the way a half-term holiday should.

  Autumn was a great time for us kids. Each year, once we’d got used to being back at school and broken our new teacher in, we enjoyed everything that autumn had to offer.

  First would come those wonderful Saturday mornings when word would get out that someone had found a tree laden with plump, shiny conkers. We’d set off from all corners, a whole gang of us armed with the biggest, stoutest sticks we could find, converging on the designated tree. Once there we’d hurl our cudgels, as we liked to call them, into the branches to dislodge the spiky green fruit. When we’d stripped the tree bare, stuffed our pockets, and dropped any extra conkers down our jumpers, we’d take them home and see whether we could persuade our mothers to pop them in the oven, or put them in vinegar overnight. That toughened them beautifully. We knew it was cheating. But we also knew that everybody was at it. You rarely started a conker game without the ritual sniffing of each other’s weapons, and muttered accusations about ovens and pickling. But only an idiot went into battle with an untreated conker. Replace that and it was lambs to the slaughter.

  Once the conker season passed, of course, we only had one thing on our mind. It was the most exciting time of the year apart from Christmas. Guy Fawkes, November the fifth. Gunpowder, treason and plot – not that we bothered too much with the history side of it. This was just the best excuse anybody ever dreamed up for having a huge fire and a lot of explosions. It was what we boys longed for. I remember sitting in school one day, gazing at the calendar, counting the days and wondering how grown-ups maintained any interest in life without being able to look forward to firework night.

  But then grown-ups were a total mystery to me. It seemed to me that their lives were very, very dull. Nothing but work and worry. I had no desire to be one, ever. Why should I? Anyway, that was all years in the future, so far off in fact that I couldn’t imagine it. I chose to believe that it would never happen. Life was too good as it was. Why wish it different?

  To add to the sense of anticipation as November approached, week by week we watched the waste timber, cast-off furniture and unwanted shrubs pile up in the middle of the field and imagined the great day when it would go up in flames.

  Sometimes there’d be a carpet, or a bale of straw. Once there was an old suitcase full of mildewed books. Another time someone put a couple of car tyres in there, and we all speculated as to how they’d burn. Smokily, was the answer.

  And who could forget the time Phil shoved an old aerosol can in there? Nearly blew the thing to the four corners of the field. There was hell to pay for that, especially for me: I was the one who grassed him up to Mum and Dad. Under pressure, of course.

  Along with the anticipation, however, there was always a nagging worry. What if someone decided to put a match to our precious fire? We’d heard stories at school, and had warnings in assembly. Every so often we’d see smoke from way across the fields as somebody’s bonfire was prematurely ignited. All it took was one bad lad – and there were quite a few of those around – and a single match. I could see the temptation right enough.

  And so we kept watch – we as a community, I mean. We didn’t mount guard, exactly, but the dog-owners in the street amended their late-night walks to take in a circuit of the field, and we kids checked it almost daily. Every time it rained you’d be sure to hear some grown-up say, ‘Oh well, at least the bonfire’ll be safe for another day or two.’

  As we approached the big day, the tension mounted. But before Guy Fawkes actually arrived we had another treat to look forward to. The fourth of November is special in Yorkshire. It’s known as Mischief Night, or Mischievous Night. Traditionally it’s the one time of the year when children can commit minor acts of vandalism, and grown-ups, for once, are supposed to see the funny side of it – just providing that nobody goes too far.

  For us, acceptable misdemeanours could include anything that came under the heading of ‘harmless fun’. What that meant was you could do the kinds of things your parents would admit to having done ‘when we were your age’ – things like tying someone’s door-knocker to their neighbour’s, throwing a water-bomb at their windows; swapping garden gates around or smearing black grease on their door-knobs – but of course, there were always people who would get carried away and do the things that our parents also did, but wouldn’t admit to: setting fire to somebody’s dustbin – metal ones in those days, not plastic – or breaking the odd outhouse window; or, the thing we all dreaded, putting that fateful match to the communal bonfire.

  Alan and I dragged our half tree across the grass, propped it against the stack of rubbish and stood back to admire what was the biggest bonfire we’d yet seen. ‘Blimey,’ Alan said, ‘it’s bigger than our house, that is.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘and there’s still tomorrow. It’s gonna get even bigger.’

  ‘My Dad’s bringing our old wardrobe down.’

  ‘A wardrobe? Wow.’

  ‘It’s got woodworm. It won’t half burn. It’s got all veneer on it. It’s gonna be fantastic,’ he said. ‘Hey, have your mum and dad got your fireworks yet?’

  ‘’Spect so,’ I said. ‘But they always hide them.’

  ‘Same here,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what about tonight? Mischief Night. What we going to do?’

  I picked up an old wooden pallet that had fallen off the fire, and tried to throw it to the top. ‘Dunno. Water-bombs? Ringing doorbells?’ The pallet fell back down.

  ‘Nah, I did that last year.’ He thought for a moment, bent down to give me a hand and between us we got the pallet halfway up the pile, where it rocked gently in the wind. Then he said, ‘Tell you what, let’s get Tim and Martin. Make up a gang.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Here, you got any money?’

  ‘A bit.’ I dipped a hand into my pocket and pulled out a five-pence piece and a few coppers.

  Alan dug deep. ‘I got ten pence here.’ He had another dig. ‘Make it twelve,’ he said. ‘Reckon we got enough to buy some eggs?’

  ‘I dunno. How much do they cost?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Anyway, what do we want eggs for?’

  ‘For tonight, of course.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Alan laughed. ‘Don’t you know anything? We throw ’em at folks’ doors. My Dad said that’s what they did when he was little. Takes ages to clean it off. Right laugh.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Aye, that’d be great.’ I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t want to sound chicken. ‘But what if we can’t afford ’em?’

  Alan kicked at the beech tree. ‘Have to think of something else then.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘we’ve always got loads of eggs in the pantry. Mum brings a tray home every week. There’s thirty. We’ll go to my place and – you know, borrow a few.’

  ‘How d’you mean, borrow?’

  ‘We-ell …’

  ‘You mean nick.’

  He was right. Always called a spade a spade, did Alan. And it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘How about we all bring a few, then they won’t notice.’

  ‘You’re on. You get Tim and I’ll get Martin. We’ll have a ton of eggs.’

  ‘Brilliant.’
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br />   ‘Meet up after tea then. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I’d been on a couple of Mischief Night forays in previous years, both times with Phil and a couple of his mates. The first year we tied toilet rolls to Petra’s tail and sent her haring around the neighbourhood in pursuit of a chocolate-flavoured ball. She decorated the Avenue in grand style, trailing toilet tissue up and down garden paths, round gates and lamp-posts. The following year we went out with a tube of toothpaste, the one with the red stripes in it, and spread dollops of it on all our neighbours’ front door-knobs, then on a couple of car mirrors and a bicycle saddle. We got away with it too – despite the fact that ours was just about the only house that wasn’t hit, a fact that Dad pointed out at teatime next day. I remember there was a long silence after he announced the mysterious outbreak, but somehow Phil and I kept a straight face. This plan, however – going out armed with eggs – seemed much more daring, kind of grown-up.

  That evening I waited until we’d finished our tea, then asked if I could go over to Alan’s house.

  ‘Oh yes, and what are you going to get up to round there?’ Mum asked. I had an answer ready for her.

  ‘He’s got these books,’ I said. ‘On dinosaurs and that.’

  It was a lie, of course, but it was a good lie. Mum and Dad liked the idea of me associating with scholarly boys.

  ‘Dinosaurs, eh? Well, all right then,’ Mum said, ‘but I don’t want you late back, even if it is half-term.’

  Dad looked at me over the top of his Evening Press. ‘And just because it’s November the fourth,’ he said, ‘that doesn’t mean you have a licence to create mayhem around the neighbourhood, you hear? We had enough of that last year.’

  ‘Oh, is it the fourth already?’ I said, and just to add a little lustre to the pretence I rubbed my hands and said, ‘Wow, so that means November the fifth tomorrow. I can’t wait.’ All this time, of course, I was wondering how I was going to get into the pantry unobserved. Then I had a brainwave. It’s remarkable how solutions present themselves to you out of thin air, just when you need them. I waited till everyone had finished eating, cleared my throat and said, ‘Er, shall I wash the pots tonight? Must be my turn by now.’