by Ian Walker
“I’ve decided to retire,” he told me.
“Give over,” I replied. “I thought you and Georgina would go on forever.”
“No Miles, I mean it. We are both going to retire. There’s a new millennium about to start and it’s time to give the next generation a chance. Richard and Gordon are both in their late forties and have been waiting in the wings for ages. It’s their turn now. Don’t forget that my father passed the running of the company over to me when he was in his fifties. I was only in my 20s at the time. No, I’ve delayed long enough. I don’t understand things like computers and I’m too old to learn new tricks. I’ve taken the company as far as I can. We are currently the number four supermarket chain in the UK. If we are ever going to make it to that number one position, it will be Richard and Gordon who will take us there, not Georgina and I.”
“Well, I never thought I’d see the day when you decided to give up work. What do you and Georgina intend to do with the rest of your lives?”
“For a start, I’ll have more time to spend with you and Herman having a few beers down the pub. But in addition to that, both of us are still healthy so we’ve decided to see the world. After all, we’ve got the money and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. The two of us have never taken that many holidays so we have a lot of catching up to do. In fact, we’re planning on making a start by going to Antigua in February to renew our vows on Valentine’s Day.”
“Really,” I said before taking another gulp of my beer. “Personally I’ve never seen the point of this modern trend to renew vows.”
“Don’t knock it. I love Georgina just as much as the day I first went out with her and I want the world to know. This is the best way I can think of showing it.”
He then added in a hushed voice, “You know we’ve still got an active sex life.”
“I don’t believe it, you’re both in your seventies,” I said, quite aghast at what he’d just told me.
Sprout winked at me and whispered, “You know the rhyme about sex in old age, don’t you?”
I didn’t but I suspected I was about to find out.
“When I was young and in my prime
I used to do it all the time.
But now that I am old and grey
I only manage twice a day.”
He then gave a little chuckle before adding, “Well, twice a month at any rate.”
“You always were a lucky bugger, Sprout,” I added.
“Anyway,” he went on, “both of us want you, Herman and Rebecca to come with us. We’ll pay of course. The three of you have been really good friends to us over the past sixty years, even though we’ve usually been too busy to spend any quality time with you. Well, we’ve got the time now so we want you to come with us.”
“That’s very kind of you, Sprout. Excuse me whilst I just check my diary.”
He knew I wasn’t being serious of course.
“No”, I said. “You’re in luck. I’ve got nothing planned for the rest of my life.”
I looked at him and said,
“Seriously though, I’d be honoured to go with you and Georgina.”
We had another couple of pints and shared many memories of our schooldays and our time together in the RAF. It was the happiest I’d been in a long time and I could tell that Sprout was happy as well. I’d never been outside of Europe before and I was really looking forward to going to Antigua with my friends. But even more than that, I was looking forward to many more evenings just like this one, evenings spent chatting and reminiscing in the pub with Sprout, my best friend.
Just before we left Sprout reached into the bag he’d brought with him.
“Before you go I just wanted to return this to you.”
To my complete surprise I saw that he was holding Edward.
“You took him? But why?” I asked.
“It was to protect you,” he replied. “Your life would have been absolute hell if you’d kept him. Both Sergeant Dyke and the other lads in the squadron would never have let go of the fact that you had a teddy bear. They would have teased and tormented you mercilessly and I couldn’t let it happen.”
“But why didn’t you give him back to me when we left?” I pleaded.
“It seems silly, I know, but I was worried that you’d stop being friends with me if I told you that I’d taken him.So I just put him in a drawer and forgot about him. I found him the other day when I was clearing out some of my things. I thought it was about time I returned him to his rightful owner.”
“I don’t think anything would ever stop me from being your friend, Sprout. That’s especially true nowadays, as I’m far too old to make any new ones. Thanks for telling me what happened,” and then turning to Edward, I added, “And welcome home to you, Edward, I’ve really missed you, old pal.”
That night I put Edward on my bedside cabinet and just before I switched the light off, I said to him, “I’m keeping an eye on you old boy. So don’t think that you can disappear again.”
We never went to Antigua. Sprout never saw the new millennium as two months later he suffered a massive stroke and died. His luck had finally run out. So, just like my father, my best friend was never able to fulfil his dream of travelling the world.
Sprout’s death was major news both locally and also in the wider business community. It was even covered on Look North, a fitting tribute for Chesterfield’s most prominent businessman. His funeral was a massive affair and was my last chance to say goodbye to my friend of sixty years.
Carrot sat in front of me at the crematorium. She looked to have aged considerably since Sprout’s death. Grey roots were starting to show through her ginger hair. She had probably been dying it for years, but with Sprout’s death she’d lost the will to continue making an effort.
If her hair was no longer red, then that couldn’t be said of her eyes, which were all puffy from sobbing. She looked a shadow of her former self and it came as no surprise to me when she too passed away three months later.
A year after that Richard and Gordon decided to sell up. They never had the same drive as their parents and lacked the desire to push R and G into the number one spot. They accepted an offer for the company from Sainsbury’s and both of them went to live in the Cayman Islands as tax exiles.
No sooner had Carrot passed away than I received some bad news from my sister. It seemed that Herman had gone into town the previous week, but couldn’t find his way back home again.
With hindsight the signs had been there for some time, but everyone had turned a blind eye to them. However, they couldn’t be ignored anymore and so Herman went to see the doctor who diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s.
Sprout’s death had been a shock to everybody as it was so sudden. But Herman’s demise was a long slow slide downhill as dementia took hold of him. Herman had never been a violent person, but as his symptoms got worse, his temper got shorter and shorter. Eventually my sister decided that she couldn’t cope by herself anymore. Herman had threatened to hit two policemen who’d brought him home. They discovered him walking the streets dressed only in his dressing gown and slippers. Shortly afterwards Herman was put into a home where he passed away six months later.
I visited him there once, but he didn’t recognise me. It was one of the saddest days of my life, as I knew I’d never see him again. In reality, he’d already left this world. My old friend was now just an empty husk with all the important bits removed. It made me wonder if Sprout’s luck really had run out in 1999, for at that moment it seemed as if he had been the lucky one. He’d gone whilst he was still at his peak and never had to suffer the ignominy of having somebody wipe his arse for him.
Herman died in the summer of 2002 and, as a result, I found myself at the crematorium for the third time in less than two years. I watched Herman’s coffin arrive draped with both the Union Jack and the Swiss flag. It represented the dual heritage of the boy who’d told us on his first day at school that his grandfather was not a Nazi storm trooper, bu
t was a watch repairer who came from Grindelwald in Switzerland.
I got a lot closer to my sister after that. The two of us had something that bound us together, she was a widow and I a widower. I’d go round for lunch on a Sunday and we’d listen to the radio just like we used to do in the old days.
When she died in 2006 it hit me badly. She was three years younger than me. I never doubted for one moment that she would outlive me. After all, women always outlive men, don’t they? How wrong I was and her death left me more alone than ever. I was 78 years old, all my siblings and my long-term friends were dead. I’d no children and my only living relatives were all very distant, both in terms of where they lived and in terms of my relationship with them.
Chapter 30
After clearing out the sideboard Nigel and Molly only had to add the record player, old TV, the pre-war radio and the standard lamp to the auction pile. They then decided they were finished for another day.
Of course they did have to go to the recycling centre a few more times and had one more load to take to the hospice shop. But pretty soon they were heading back to Ashbourne with their uncle’s modern television in the back of their car, which they had decided to put in their spare bedroom.
Nigel and Molly had to be back at nine o’clock the following morning as that was when the furniture removal people from the hospice shop were due to arrive.
As it turned out they needn’t have worried as the men from the hospice shop were half an hour late. So whilst they were waiting they loaded the Austin 10 onto the trailer they had brought with them.
When the van finally arrived, the outcome was a little disappointing. Nigel knew that the hospice shop wasn’t prepared to take all the furniture, but he thought that they would take more than they did.
They wouldn’t take either the double bed in the main bedroom or the single bed in the second bedroom because they said they were stained. Not that anybody could see where these marks were, unless you used an ultraviolet lamp.
They wouldn’t take the cot because it didn’t meet modern safety standards, or the wardrobe because it had been personalised. That was despite Nigel’s suggestion that it was just the thing a couple with the names Mick and Sharon would be looking for.
The only items of furniture they took from upstairs were a bedside cabinet and three chests of drawers.
Downstairs the story was much the same. Nigel and Molly had agreed that the hospice shop could take the dining room table and chairs and they were more than happy to take them, since they were antique and of high quality. But they wouldn’t take the set from the kitchen as they said they were too tatty. They also wouldn’t take the three-piece suite, as it didn’t have fire retardant labels. So that left them only taking two sideboards, the desk and chair from the study, and a coffee table, standard lamp and magazine rack from the lounge.
It was less than the two of them had hoped for but at least it was a start. So whilst Molly made a cup of tea, Nigel phoned the council to see if they would pick up the rest of the furniture. In total, they had ten items to be collected including the washing machine, tumble drier, fridge and cooker. Nigel was surprised that it was only going to cost them £30 plus an extra £15 to dispose of the fridge.
The person from the council told him to leave everything in the driveway, explaining that it would be collected sometime during the next week.
Nigel was glad that he’d phoned the council now rather than later, as Molly wouldn’t be able to come back on Friday and he needed her help to remove all the bulky items from the house. If the truth be told, he hoped that he wouldn’t have to come back on Friday either, but that depended on what they discovered in the attic, garage and shed. It was the attic that worried him the most as he’d already had a look in the shed and garage and had seen that there wasn’t too much there that needed to be removed.
Nigel and Molly spent the rest of the morning moving the remainder of the furniture and putting it in the driveway, which left them with the afternoon to tackle the stuff in the garage, shed and the attic.
The house was now empty apart from the fitted furniture and the huge pile of items in the living room waiting to be taken to auction. It felt like a different place, no longer a home, more like a condemned man awaiting execution.
“Well, there’s no point in putting it off any more,” said Nigel. “It’s time to tackle the attic.”
The attic was accessed by a set of dropdown steps and Nigel’s biggest fear as he climbed them was that it would contain as much junk as the rest of the house.
As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. It was actually surprisingly spartan with only two boxes stored there. One of these was a large wooden crate full of old toys and the other was a smaller box full of photographs. Nigel had been expecting to find Christmas decorations and bits of old carpet up there, but was pleased to see that there were none of these things.
The toys were placed on the auction pile and the photos were added to those downstairs waiting to be examined by Nigel and Emma. Most of the photos were loose although a few of them were in albums. However, one was in a silver frame. It was in sepia and depicted a family, a proud father seated with his wife, mother and children. It was very old, probably taken sometime during the nineteenth century.
“Do you know who the people are in this photo?” asked Molly.
“They are almost certainly relatives of mine,” Nigel replied. “But I haven’t got a clue who they are. Perhaps Emma will know.”
After getting off lightly, the next job was to tackle the garage. Most of the contents were really old, ancient motor oil, an old canister containing Redex, a grease gun, old cans of WD40 and a set of jump leads. One by one they were put into a large cardboard box ready to be taken to the recycling centre. Nigel discovered a few spare parts for the Austin 10, which he kept, placing them in the Austin’s boot. But overall, the garage contained mainly junk.
So did the shed. It contained several opened paint pots, an old set of steps, a rusty old saw, a trowel, a hedge-trimmer, several jars containing screws and nails, and a large toolbox. Both the box and the tools it contained were absolutely exquisite. In fact, it was more of a fitted case than a box and each of the tools had its own custom made slot inside. Surprisingly, none of the tools were missing. They were obviously of a far higher quality than the rest of the junk in the shed and Nigel initially thought about taking them to auction. But then he had another idea.
“I’m going to ask John next door if he wants these,” said Nigel. “We don’t need them and I think he deserves more than just an old lawnmower from us. After all, he was my uncle’s executor and he organised his funeral.”
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Molly. So Nigel put the toolbox to one side and the two of them started putting everything else into another cardboard box ready to take to the recycling centre.
By three o’clock they were finished. This time they didn’t have anything to take to the hospice shop, but they did have a car full of things destined for the recycling centre. They had to come back again in order to collect the trailer with the Austin 10 on it and to see if John wanted the toolbox. But apart from that they had finished. There was no need for Nigel to come back on Friday. The only thing left to do was to return on Saturday with Emma and Ralph in order for them to choose the item they wanted to keep. After that their final job would be to take everything else to Bamford’s Auctioneers in Rowsley.
When they returned, John told them he was happy to accept the tools and once Nigel and Molly had left he looked through the contents of the box. The tools contained inside were beautifully made out of solid hardwood and steel. All of them were inlaid in brass with the initials BG. The tools had obviously been made at the same time as the box since they all had their own place and all fitted perfectly.
“I wonder who BG was,” John thought to himself. “It was probably one of Miles’s relatives, so I guess I will never know now that he’s passed away.”
**
*****
Later that year Bob, my next-door neighbour, moved into a retirement home even though he was only 77. My new neighbours were John and Eleanor Blenkin. He was a retired civil servant and she used to be a nurse. They had downsized from a house in Ashgate, which had become too large for them once their two daughters had left home. So they’d sold up and bought the two-bedroomed end of terrace cottage next door to me, putting the balance of the money from their sale into the bank for their old age.
They were the ideal neighbours, thoughtful, caring and above all quiet. Which was more than could be said for the pub on the other side of me.
The brewing industry had changed out of all recognition since I’d left it. I’d kept abreast of the changes primarily because my landlord kept on changing, but also because I wanted to know who owned the rights to my family name.
Sheffield Brewery had been taken over by United Breweries of Burton-upon-Trent in 1973. Two years after that United had become part of Imperial Brands, a conglomerate based in London. They, in turn, fell victim to Wilson and Bush, an American multinational corporation in 1979.
Things then remained pretty stable for the next ten years until new legislation known as the Beer Orders was introduced. This had the effect of limiting the number of tied pubs that breweries in the UK were allowed to own. As a result, Wilson and Bush sold off all their breweries to CBL of Canada in order to get around the new law.
It was at this point that my two interests went in separate directions, since Wilson and Bush was my landlord, whereas CBL now owned all the rights to the name ‘Goodyear’s Brewery’.
Eventually, Wilson and Bush decided to sell off all their pubs and the chain was split up amongst various pub groups. After passing through the hands of numerous owners, Sizzling Steak Shacks acquired the George Stephenson in 2001 and became my landlord at the same time.
Sizzling Steak Shacks initially planned to rename the pub the Rodeo Ranch and wanted to demolish my house in order to build an extension incorporating a Mexican restaurant. Mexican restaurants were very big at the time and Sizzling Steak Shacks owned several of them. They were all branded under the truly awful name of Hacienda That. Fortunately though, my lease was watertight and they had absolutely no chance of evicting me, so eventually they dropped the idea. They also dropped the proposed name change after a mass protest by the local residents, which I was pleased to be part of.