If I Don’t Write It Nobody Else Will

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Eric Sykes. If I Don’t Write It Nobody Else Will

If I Don’t Write It, Nobody Else Will. ERIC SYKES

Table of Contents

UNDER STARTER’S ORDERS

THE WORLD OF FLAT CAPS, OVERALLS AND BOOTS

MY COUNTRY NEEDS ME

THE BEGINNING OF WHAT’S LEFT

NEWSFLASH

ALL DOWN FOR THE GRAND FINALE

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Prasie

Copyright

About the Publisher

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For my mother

Title Page

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Another memory of Northmoor’s is when, after school had ended one day, I dashed out into the pouring rain. It was bucketing down and I was in two minds as to whether to run back into school or swim home. I did neither and, ducking my head, I raced across the street, only to find that the pavement was dry. When I turned round I discovered that the monsoon on the other side of the street was still pelting down. I stared at this phenomenon, a solid wall of rain two yards away. After a short time I rushed off home to relate this extraordinary experience. I expected amazement or at least astonishment, but all I got in reply was a bored, ‘It didn’t rain here.’ That’s all I can remember about Northmoor Council School…funny about the garter, though.

Every Saturday morning Dad sent me up to Grandma Sykes to see if she wanted any errands to be done. This was odd, because he and Mother were reluctant to send me on errands at home. Many years later my father told me that he would never send me out on errands because of my woolly-headedness. I would very likely not remember which shop I was going to, and even if I arrived at the right place I would have forgotten why I was there. Why, then, did Father send me to Grandma Sykes to see if she wanted any errands done? It couldn’t be because he disliked her—after all, she was his mother. Perhaps he just wanted me out of the way for a time. When I arrived at Grandma Sykes I asked her about it, but she just smiled, shook her head and sent me off on an errand, which was no answer at all. It must have been preying on my mind, because I went into the butcher’s and asked for five pounds of King Edwards, and by the time I reached the greengrocer’s I’d forgotten the potatoes and came out with a cabbage. Grandma sighed heavily, took the cabbage from me, donned a shawl over her head and we made our way to the shop together. As we walked, she casually remarked that she and Granddad Sykes together with Aunt Marie, Dad’s younger sister, and Uncle Ernest, Dad’s brother, would soon be moving in with us. This information was of such importance that it banished all the other rubbish from my mind.

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