by Ian Walker
In the years that followed, Sizzling Steak Shacks made numerous offers to buy me out. Each time it was to make way for one of their latest hair-brained schemes. But where would I go? I had absolutely no intention of moving into an old folks’ home like Bob had done. After all, I’d seen what it did to my grandmother.
The noise from the pub grew louder as the years went by and I became paranoid that it was a deliberate ploy on their behalf to intimidate me. If that was the case it was never going to work, as I was getting more and more deaf as I got older, so all I had to do was to switch my hearing aid off.
I’d always got on well with John and Eleanor, but it was only after Eleanor died in 2005 that I considered John to be a close friend. Our friendship got even stronger when Rebecca died the following year. Suddenly we were both in the same boat. We were both widowers with no relatives living close by. John did have two daughters, but with both of them living more than a hundred miles away he rarely saw them.
We’d go to the pub together, not to the George Stephenson, but to the Nags Head further down the road. We’d chat over the garden fence during the summer, and we’d go for walks in the Derbyshire countryside. It was good to have a friend like John, especially since he only lived next door.
I think I needed him more than he needed me, particularly when I gave up driving. He was ten years younger than me and a lot fitter than I was. That said I’d been pretty lucky with my health over the years, only suffering from arthritis and a degree of hearing loss. Mind you, I think he really enjoyed my company, especially in the years immediately following Eleanor’s death.
As I progressed into my eighties, my arthritis got worse and John offered to do the gardening for me. But my garden was quite large and I didn’t really want to impose on him. So I told him that I would struggle on, adding that the day I stopped gardening was the day I gave up on life.
Chapter 31
“Look, there’s Mum and Dad,” said Emma. “They look so young.”
Nigel, Molly, Emma and Ralph were looking through their uncle’s photograph collection on Friday evening. Most of the photos were destined to be thrown in the bin, but every now and again they decided to keep the odd one.
Emma and Ralph had arrived in Ashbourne two hours earlier and after the four of them had eaten, they all sat down to look through the photographs.
“Here’s one which I presume is Uncle Miles’s class at school,” said Emma. “I wonder why all the faces are crossed out other than those of Uncle Miles and one other boy?”
“God only knows,” replied Nigel.
The four of them were finished looking through the photographs Nigel and Molly had found in the rooms in Miles’s house. Next was the turn of the box retrieved from the attic. It was these photos that posed the most questions. They recognised very few of the people in them, just the occasional ones of their mother and uncle as children. They were often with another older boy, who they presumed was their Uncle Rupert.
Emma didn’t have a clue who the people were in the photo in the silver frame. She agreed with Nigel that they were almost certainly relatives of theirs. But she didn’t have the faintest idea whether they were from their grandfather or grandmother’s side of the family.
In the end they decided that there was no way they were ever going to identify who they were and so they agreed to add the silver photo frame to the list of items destined for the auction. They discussed whether or not to include the actual photograph along with the frame. They all felt that this was a good idea, since having a photo in the frame really showed it off to its full potential.
All together, it took them over an hour and a half to look at all the photos. Some of them brought back memories. Some of them were photos of their mum and dad that they had never seen before. But many of them didn’t mean anything to them at all.
The ‘celebration of life’ cards from their mum and dad’s funerals brought tears to Emma’s eyes. She still had her copies, but hadn’t looked at them in years and the sight of them brought the memories flooding back. In the end, neither Nigel nor Emma wanted to throw them away, so Emma agreed to take them home with her.
The following day there was no need to head off early to their uncle’s house, as there weren’t any big jobs waiting for them there. In fact, the only job was to transfer the items from their uncle’s living room to the auction house. Nigel suggested that they take two cars, as the items would not fit into just one.
At a quarter past ten, the four of them set off for the final time, arriving at just before eleven. The first thing that Nigel noticed was that the council had already collected the furniture. They had told him that it would take up to a week, but had actually picked up the items the day after he had contacted them.
The house looked very forlorn with everything removed from it and after briefly wandering around all the empty rooms, Emma joined the others in the lounge.
“If you want to start looking through the items we are taking to the auction, you can choose something to remember Uncle Miles by,” said Nigel
“Actually, I was thinking of going for his Austin 10,” she announced with a mischievous look in her eye. “Ralph and I are thinking of touring around Europe when we retire and it would be brilliant if we could do it in a vintage car.”
Nigel was speechless for a few seconds, before Emma announced that she was only winding him up.
“I’ve absolutely no desire to own the car and even if I did then I’d still let you have it. You deserve it for clearing out the house. In fact, I’d like Molly to choose something as well, as a thank you for doing half the work. After all it hardly seems fair that she’s only going to get an old car as a reward.”
Molly thanked her and said she would like to take the Charlotte Rhead jug if that was okay.
Emma started to go through all the items in the pile before eventually deciding to take her grandfather’s medals.
Nigel was almost as shocked as he’d been when she’d suggested that she wanted the car. However, he was secretly pleased, as he hadn’t wanted to take the medals to auction. They were a precious piece of family history that really ought to stay with somebody from the family. In fact, he probably would have chosen them for himself if he hadn’t discovered the Austin 10.
“You do surprise me,” he said to her. “I’d never have guessed that you’d choose the medals.”
“Well, they’re small. They are part of our family’s history and granddad must have been extremely brave to be awarded these medals. I’m going to get them framed and I will put them on the wall in our conservatory.”
Once that had been decided, they started to remove the rest of the items from the house and packed them into the two cars. Half an hour later when they had finished, they decided to take one last look around the house, just in case they had missed anything.
“What’s this?” said Ralph as he picked up a piece of card from the mantelpiece and handed it to Nigel.
It was an invitation card that they had missed due to the large pile of items that had been obscuring their view of the fireplace.
“Well, I never,” said a surprised Nigel as he read the invitation. It was addressed to their uncle and said:
The directors of Goodyear’s Brewery would like to invite
Mr Miles Goodyear
To the opening of our new brewery on
Feb 10th 2020 at 11am
At
Unit 27
Storforth Lane Trading Estate
Storforth Lane
Chesterfield
Tel 01246 987643
RSVP
“Well, that’s a surprise,” said Nigel. “It looks as if someone’s decided to open up a new brewery using the Goodyear name. I’ll have to look on the internet and see if I can find out anything more about it.”
And that was it. The four of them set off to the auction house in order to drop off all the items they had collected. There they would be assessed before being catalogued and put into lots.<
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Nigel and Emma never went back to Chesterfield again. They had no cause to do so. Two weeks later boards were erected around their uncle’s house with a notice on it, which read:
Koming soon, Kaptain Kustard’s Krazy Kids Kabin
Opening May 2020
Alliteration had always been a big thing at Sizzling Steak Shacks and their marketing department had come up with the new name after deciding that Barmy Barn wasn’t ‘katchy’ enough for them.
By the end of that week, their uncle’s house and all the memories that went with it had been demolished. It was just as if it had never existed.
*******
I was 92 years and 87 days old on December 21st. Nothing worth celebrating for most people, but for me it marked a milestone as it was the day that I overtook my grandmother to become the longest living member of my family ever. I say ever, but of course I don’t know what age any of my ancestors lived to prior to my great-great-grandmother. That said I doubt if any of them who’d lived in the eighteenth century or earlier would have been able to reach such a grand old age.
Granny always used to say that old age wasn’t for wimps and as I’d got older myself I’d began to realise what she meant.
Not that I could complain about my health, because other than arthritis in my wrists and partial hearing loss I was in rude health. No, it’s the fact that you get to see everyone you hold dear pass away if you live to such a fine old age. All my family and friends had died and yet I stubbornly carried on. It was as if God was determined to punish me for my past misdemeanours.
Barely a week seemed to pass by without people I knew, either from school or from work, appearing in the obituary column of the Derbyshire Times. I still had a photograph of my class from the first year at the Grammar School and would put a cross through the faces of my former classmates as they passed away. When Andrew Gleason died at the end of November, it only left one face, other than my own, without a cross through it.
Of course I’d made a few younger friends over the years, John next door for a start. Also I still occasionally met up with Brian and Colin, but they were no substitute for the friends I’d had since childhood. As a result I was still lonely and I really missed Sprout and Herman.
It was four days before Christmas, not that you would have known it from the inside of my house. I’d given up celebrating Christmas many years ago and there was no tree or decorations in my home. There wasn’t a wreath on my door or any cards on the mantelpiece either.
John next door had gone to spend Christmas with his daughter in Cambridge and wouldn’t be back until Boxing Day. So this year I faced the prospect of having absolutely nobody at all to talk to on Christmas day. Not that it bothered me. I’d decided to spend Christmas day watching TV whilst at the same time waiting for it all to be over. I really didn’t like Christmas anymore.
Shortly after lunch there was a knock on the door, which was something that rarely happened these days. Unless of course it was the postman with a parcel too big to fit through my letterbox. Either that or the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I opened the door and was surprised to see a young man standing there. I say young but, in reality, he was probably in his late thirties, but he was young compared to me. Thinking about it, though, everybody was young compared to me.
“Mr Goodyear,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied really hoping that he wasn’t the Conservative Party candidate for the next council elections.
“My name is Alex Hopkinson. You don’t know me but you taught my father Latin at Chesterfield School.
“You’re Richard Hopkinson’s lad,” I said. “In which case, I knew your grandmother as well. But don’t just stand there in the cold. Come on in.”
I showed Alex through to the kitchen and asked him if he wanted a cup of tea. He said that would be lovely.
“So you didn’t go to the Grammar School yourself then?” I asked as I put the kettle on.
“No, I was only born in 1983,” he replied. “So the school had closed before I could go there. I went to St Mary’s instead.”
“I hear it’s a good school,” I replied. “But tell me, what did your father do when he left school?”
“He became a solicitor just like Granny, as did I.”
“Your grandmother was a fine woman. I nearly went out with her twice you know. I really should have done. It is one of the biggest regrets of my life.”
“Why don’t you go and see her,” said Alex. “She still lives in the same house and is very active for her age. I’m sure she’d really like to see you. After all, most of the people she knew from her youth are dead now.”
“I’d really like to do that,” I replied. “To tell you the truth, I had no idea that she was still alive.”
“Oh, she’s very much still alive,” replied Alex. “But she and my dad aren’t the only members of my family who knew you. My grandfather used to work for you. That’s my mother’s father by the way, not the one who was married to grandma Hopkinson. He was your last head brewer.”
“What, Stuart Datcheler?” I asked incredulously. “What happened to him? I lost touch with him after the brewery was taken over.
“Oh, he never got another job in brewing. He was unemployed for over a year before he eventually got a job with Express Dairies. He retired in 1988 and passed away ten years later.
“When I was young he used to tell me stories about the brewery. He used to absolutely love working there. He’d tell me about how the head brewer, Bill Jones, would get so drunk that he couldn’t start the brew off. So Granddad would have to do it even though he wasn’t fully trained at the time. How it was so hot shovelling out the spent grains from the mash tun that he’d have to do it without wearing a stitch of clothing. They were the happiest days of his life and he always regretted the fact that they didn’t go on for longer.”
Alex looked at me and said. “I haven’t really enjoyed my time as a solicitor, Mr Goodyear, because when you look at it there isn’t much fun or excitement in conveyancing. All my life I’ve wanted to do something that I really enjoy and that doesn’t mean sorting out people’s wills or their divorce settlements. No, I want to be like my grandfather. I want to become a brewer. I’m already a proficient home brewer, but I want to take it one step further. I want to re-establish Goodyear’s Brewery and that’s why I’m here. I want your blessing.”
“Well, I’m absolutely astonished,” I replied. “What makes you think it will be a success? After all, we had problems for years and despite my best efforts I couldn’t stop the company from being taken over in 1967.”
“With the greatest respect that was in the 1960s and everybody wanted keg beer and lager back then. But CAMRA started in 1971 and with it the start of a backlash against bland fizzy beer. Nowadays, there are more breweries in Britain than there have ever been. Most of them are small microbreweries helped by the introduction of progressive beer duty, which enables them to compete with the big boys. Who knows, if only you had been able to hang on for another four years, the original Goodyear’s Brewery might still be thriving today.”
Alex went on to explain that he had bought a 25-barrel plant and had rented premises on Storforth Lane. Several local businessmen, including a local undertaker, were backing him.
“He’s been brought in to add body to the beer,” he joked.
“Well, I’m absolutely delighted,” I said, “and I have no objection to you using the Goodyear name. But it’s not me you need to get permission from, it’s CBL. They own the rights to the Goodyear name these days.”
“Actually that’s why I said blessing rather permission. I’ve already spoken to CBL and they have agreed to sell me the Goodyear Brewery trademark and the rights to all the Goodyear brands for only £1.”
I noted that Alex was displaying his training as a solicitor. He was choosing his words very carefully.
“I guess they just don’t need them anymore,” I replied. “It’s not surprising really being as thoug
h they never wanted them in the first place. They merely inherited them when they took over Wilson and Bush’s brewing interests in the UK. They never had any interest in the Goodyear name or any intention of reintroducing products like Goodyear’s Pride.”
“No, but we do. My grandfather kept the original brewing book so we’ve got the recipe for Goodyear’s Pride. We’ve even been able to obtain the original yeast strain from the National Collection of yeast cultures. We’ve already carried out two trial brews and we think that you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between our version and the original.”
Alex continued enthusiastically and said that they were planning to have a press launch in the new year and that he would be absolutely delighted if I could attend. I told him that nothing would give me more pleasure.
He presented me with an invitation and then added, “Granny will also be there, but if you want to contact her before that I’ll give you her number,” and with that he wrote her telephone number on the back of the invitation.
We continued chatting for a while and once he’d finished his tea he made his excuses and stood up ready to leave.
But as he got to the doorstep I said to him, “You know I am really pleased that you’re bringing back the Goodyear name. I told you earlier that not going out with your grandmother was one of the biggest regrets in my life, but do you know what my biggest single regret is? It is failing to save my family business, seeing it taken over, resulting in many good people, like your grandfather, being thrown onto the dole. I’ve always considered myself to be a failure, but now at least I can die knowing that the Goodyear Brewery name is in safe hands.”