Читать книгу RED & WHITE PHOENIX - KEITH POLLARD - Страница 7

My Uncle Scrat walked in through the back door.

“Is Eddie in, Lou?” he said.

“In the living room,” replied my mam, pointing to the door.

“He’s looking after the young un.” Calling it the ‘living room’ made it seem grander than it was but that was typical of my mother. It was a ‘two up, two down’ terrace house, with no hot running water, no bathroom (there was a tin bath hung outside on a nail) and an outside toilet.

“Nah then Ed, how’s things?” Scrat said to my old man. “And how long you ‘ad the pup?” he added when he saw me laid naked on the rug in front of the fireplace. Dad laughed and said, “Cheeky bastard – meet my son Keith.”

“Oh, I thought he was a bull terrier,” Scrat replied, ”No matter, I’d still enter him for Crufts. But by the look of those legs, he’ll play for the black and whites one day.” How disappointed he was to be.

Then in walked my Uncle Tom, “Ready then?” he said.

“Seen the new pup?” asked Scrat.

“Bloody hell, he’s a beauty,” said Tom. I was about a month old at this time and they were seeing me for the first time. Tom, a trawler skipper, was home from sea – two days at home then 19 days at sea. My dad was a fish-filleter all his life – ‘the best on the dock,’ he always said, modestly. The three of them were getting together to go to Rayners for ‘an afternoon session’.

I was born on June 27th in Clarence Avenue, Rosamond Street, off Hessle Road, to proud parents Cyril and Louisa. I must have been a bit of a surprise, as they had been married about seven years and they were not really trying for a baby. My old man had lost his first wife and baby in childbirth. But I just turned up unannounced as I have continued to do for seventy years now – all three and a half pounds of bouncing baby, six weeks premature. I was born by caesarean section, and I was told that it was a difficult birth for both my mother and I. The doctor said that it could have been very traumatic for me and could have left me with some mental scars. But apart from the occasional urge to get out of a car through the sun roof, rather than the door, I haven’t noticed any ill effects.

My memories are of a great childhood down Clarence Avenue, which had only eight houses in the terrace but had a great set of people and a real community spirit. Sadly, Clarence Avenue is no longer there, it was pulled down to be replaced by some slums under the guise of redevelopment.

My Dad working on Fish DockMy Mother aged 30Granddad PollardMe and my friend ‘Basher Bell’

At one of the houses were Mr and Mrs Johnson, who had a son that everyone called Bimy. I have no idea how he got that name or what his real name was. He was a lot older than me but he used to invite me in to his bedroom when I was about 10 to show me the toy soldiers he used to paint, and he gave me little presents. Thinking back, he was a bit odd, but quite harmless and was always alright with me. Nowadays, he would have been given some label or other, but these had not been thought of then – not on Hessle Road anyway. Bimy’s dad was my old man’s best mate. They used to go to the Albert club in Somerset Street together – until they started allowing women in, and my old man never went again.

“Women shouldn’t be allowed in clubs,” my old man said, and he stuck by it. He was very stubborn and self-centred at times.

Denise and Gloria Day lived at number 3, opposite, and the Carrigans at number 4 had a daughter Rita, who was my childhood sweetheart. Ted and Joyce Newton moved in next door when I was about 14 or 15 and I vividly remember having a schoolboy crush on Joyce, whom I thought the sexiest woman in the world – albeit in my then limited experience. Mr and Mrs Hardy lived at number 7, but I do not remember who lived at number 8, presumably they must not have made a big impression on a young lad.

Rosamond Street itself was about a quarter of a mile long, in the heart of ‘black and white’ country, with Hull FC’s Boulevard rugby ground at the end. In those days you only seemed to know the people around your ‘end’ of the street – perhaps reflecting the smaller world that it seemed to be then. At the corner of the next street, Redbourne Street, there was a police station, with a great bakers’ shop, Ray’s Bakery (my stop-off point for breakfast on my way to school every morning), on the opposite side. There was also the Red Lion pub, where I enjoyed many a fine night in later years.

Nearly opposite our terrace was Conway Street, where the Shakesby family lived. Kenny was one of my best mates and he had three older sisters, Pat, Val and Cynthia, as well as a younger brother. Sadly, Sylvia passed away a few years back. Not long ago, I met Val and her husband one Sunday dinner time in Rayners on Hessle Road – the only time I have seen her in over 50 years. Pat lost her husband in a tragic accident when he was drowned in the river Humber whilst out fishing. At the time, they were landlord and landlady of the Albion near the City Centre.

The Sach family lived further down the street – if the Shakesby family would be thought large today, the Sachs dwarfed them. They seemed to come in twos – Barry and Brian, Mike and Malcolm, Denise and a sister whose name I cannot remember, and at least another brother and sister. As I was an only child, it used to mesmerise me whenever I went in their house. There were bodies everywhere and it was not a big house either. I think the younger boys all slept in the same bed, ‘topped and tailed.’ When I asked Mally which end of the bed he slept at, he said ‘the shallow end.’ They moved across the city to the Longhill council estate when that was built in the late ‘fifties – it was only about five and half miles away but it might as well have been in Australia in those days, and I never saw them again.

Louise, my Dad’s first wifeMe with John and Elaine BrobergMam, front row second from right, on a bus trip to Wembley

Nearby was Sefton Street, where the Cutsforths lived. The old man had a haulage company that served the fishing industry, and his stinking lorries were always down the street. His son, Leslie, was a bit younger than we were but he knocked about with us anyway, along with Allan ‘Smiler’ Baldwin and Robert Mawer, who lived in the terrace at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. Robert Mawer was the speedster of our gang, and could he run! He was the fastest kid on the block and always won all the races we had –especially ‘fagging out’ races.

My cousins lived at the corner of the next terrace, Sefton Terrace; Uncle Jim Shepherd, Aunt Mary, Jimmy junior, Carol and Susan. Uncle Jim was a skipper with Kingston Line. On the opposite corner of the terrace lived the Dyble family, who they owned the Dee Street club and a bookmaker’s shop. They were the affluent residents of Rosamond Street, and I can remember taxis pulling up outside their house, as even they did not own a car. They always used nearby Subway Cars who had an Austin Princess, which was like a Rolls Royce to us. Opposite our terrace lived June Gibbs. We were all in love with June, who was a stunner, and we drooled over her from 11 onwards. She eventually married a lad from the other side of Hessle Road, Eton Street, called Keith Sanderson, whose dad had a beer off-licence – so we had no chance! After that she moved to another part of the city and is another one who might as well have gone to the moon.

Now, of course, the internet has made the world smaller and I have joined Facebook. Since I started writing these memoirs I have been in touch with a few of the people I have mentioned. Facebook attracts more than its’ share of bad press, but for me it is wonderful, particularly for contacting old friends you have lost touch with. I do not want to tell the world about what I had for dinner or that my piles are playing up but being able to chat to people 12,000 miles away at the click of a button is great for me.

In those days, with no phones at all, we seemed to have extra sensory perception about when we were going to meet up to have a game of ‘touch’. I would wander round the corner towards the Lion pub and sure enough the teams were gathering as I walked up.

“Fancy a game, Pol” someone would call out, and I would always reply, “Yeah, count me in.” We played ‘touch rugby’ down the street with a rolled up newspaper held together with pieces of Elastoplast off discarded roll ends from Smith and Nephew that were dumped at Hessle tip. Our pitch was invariably down Newton Street between Redbourne Street and Boulevard. In those days you did not need to worry about cars, because no one had one. There we learned to play rugby the ‘right way,’ letting the ball do the work of beating a man with a pass, not like so much modern rugby – all brawn and no brain. We had one lad who had one leg longer than the other – his left leg was longer so he always played on the right wing. He was quite fast but could only run in the gutter. Once we tried him on the left wing but he kept falling over.

Me with my first bus, I’ve been collecting them ever sinceMy first cowboy outfitMy Mam’s father, seated on left

I remember that I went to Constable Street Junior School from the age of five up to eleven, although my memories of those days are very hazy. But I do know that I had a great upbringing. I had a few good hidings along the way – my old man was very serious and a disciplinarian – he gave me a few ‘back-handers’ over the years, but it certainly did me no harm.

One clear memory from my younger days was when we went to a party at my Uncle Tom’s house. As a trawler skipper, he was pretty rich and had a television long before we did. He lived on the north side of the railway line at 1, Arthur Street, and to get there we had to walk down Division Road and cross over the footbridge. This was a real adventure, because if you timed it right and were lucky enough to be on the bridge when a steam train passed underneath, you got engulfed in clouds of smoke – which really appealed to me as a young boy. Sadly, kids do not get this simple pleasure now unless they are lucky enough to go to a preserved steam railway. Anyway, I think it was my cousin Lawrence’s birthday and all we kids were there, but the one thing that sticks in my memory is a guy called Donald Peers on the television singing, ‘In a Shady Nook by a Babbling Brook’ – amazing what strange things get etched in your brain!

Another memory is that of the train set. My old man bought me a lot of toys, in fact you could say I was spoiled rotten; nearly every Saturday lunchtime he took me and bought me a Dinky toys car, truck or bus – I blame him for my passion for cars. When I was about four, he bought me a train set for Christmas. It was a Hornby OO set, and the engine was Sir Nigel Gresley, the same type as the world famous Mallard, with the blue livery and streamlining. I had it going round and round on a circular track and until I decided that this was not exciting enough. To a four-year old a rail crash is a bit of fun, and the catastrophe duly happened. Sir Nigel Gresley was derailed, I think by a police car, the black type used by the flying squad in London, or perhaps a fire engine, I am not sure – but what I do know is that my dad went berserk when he saw that the pistons on the engine were broken.

“You little bastard,” was the last thing I heard as I disappeared through the back kitchen and up the stairs. I was always rather quick but when someone is trying to rip your head off, it is surprising how quickly you can go. Looking back this helped me a lot in my rugby career. I heard my mother calling from upstairs, “What the fuck is going on?” People on Hessle Road did not pull punches and their language was often quite colourful to say the least. Anyway the old man eventually calmed down and after a while all was rosy, but it cost him a fortune to send the engine back to Hornby for repair.

Mam and Dad’s wedding-1939Withernsea donkey ridesMy first car rideMe, Mam and Dad at Withernsea

I knocked about with my cousins, the Brobergs, quite a bit in those early days and I was often round at their house. There was John, Elaine, Thomas, and Victor, John and Elaine both being older than me. They had my grandmother living with them, along with my mother’s sister Frances, so it was quite a house full. My uncle’s real name was John, but he was usually known as Jack, or ‘Scrat’ to us kids. He was a real character to say the least. He had a bad accident working on the docks as a ‘bobber’, whose job was to unload the fish from the trawlers, ready for the early morning market. He was working in the hold, filling the baskets that were lowered down on a winch, when his glove got caught in the hook and he was winched up to about twenty feet in the air. The winches used were steam driven and did not react that quickly to the controls, so by the time the operator realised what had happened, Scrat was hanging above the deck of the ship. Unfortunately, at that point his glove ripped, he fell on to the dockside fracturing his skull, pelvis and arm. The arm was never the same again and he used to call his other arm his ‘one wing’ after that.

My mother’s sister Olive was the matriarch of the family – the one who held it all together. We had some great parties at their house – it was a big house, which it had to be for that lot. One thing that always sticks in my memory is that they did not have carpets – either just lino or bare boards, but not like the polished wood floors of today, just bare wooden ones. But Scrat was given about three thousand pounds in compensation for his accident – a fortune in those days – and a guaranteed job for life. With some of the money they decorated and carpeted every room in the house – as well as buying a new three-piece suite.

When looking back, as most of us do, I associate specific things with particular people. In Scrat’s case, of all the mad things he used to do, the party piece I recall (and he had a few) is the old poem by J. Milton Hayes which I believe was written in the early 1900’s – ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.’

I remember the first lines:

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu,

There’s a little marble cross below the town;

There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,

And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

On the dodgems at Hull FairMe and my cousin, Carol ShepherdClimbing the cliffs at WithernseaDad - he loved that bike

Apparently, the poem was written specially for an actor called Bransby Williams, christened Bransby William Pharez, who was born in 1870 and died in 1961 – not a bad innings in anyone’s language. Anyway, Scrat used to put on an act like he was on the music hall stage; it was an age when people only had the radio or music halls for entertainment, so they often provided their own at parties. My father used to quote poems from Rudyard Kipling but I will stop there before I put you to sleep.

Uncle Jim, the trawler skipper, was big mates with Scrat, much to the displeasure of his wife, Aunt Mary. Mary detested Scrat due to his outspoken nature and very colourful language – in addition to which, whenever Jim was home from sea and he went ‘on the pop’ with Scrat, he always finished up legless, which was not well received when he was only home for two or three days and spent most of it either asleep or the worse for wear. Mary always had a go at Scrat about getting Jim drunk, which was like a red rag to a bull with Scrat, and it was great entertainment when they ‘went off at each other’ – invariably in the street, as Mary would not let Scrat in the house.

My cousin Carol reminded me a while back about how we used to play with my Bayco Building Set – which would now be a collector’s item. In 1960, the company was bought by Meccano, who tried to improve the Bayco set, but by then Lego was on the market. Lego was much easier for kids to use, and manufacture of the Bayco sets ended in the 1967. I also had an early Meccano set, which I handed down to my son Jason in a wooden box that his grandad, George, made. Whilst in Liverpool for few days recently, I saw that a museum there had a Meccano set on display, as apparently they were manufactured in that city.

My old man had a good job but often he did a ‘bit on the side,’ not all of which was quite above board. No-one ever asked questions, and I will not elaborate. I will just say that we had a TV before anyone else in the street, and my Mam was never short of money. My dad was also very strong-willed, to say the least. He smoked about 60 woodbines a day until an x-ray showed a shadow on his lung – he stopped that same day and never smoked again.

He came from a very strict upbringing. His father, who was born in 1867, was an engineer on trawlers and merchant ships. The old man told me that he was a bit of an oddball; he was apparently psychic and was known as ‘Mad Pollard’. On one voyage around the world, he was shipwrecked and subsequently taken into hospital in India, from where he wrote a letter back home. It took the letter two weeks to arrive in Hull from India, and of course when it arrived it was quite a big event. The family sat around my grandma, whilst she read it to them – there was no TV then, of course! According to my dad, part of the letter said that, ‘whilst you are reading this letter, Laurie will come into the house and tell you that your cousin Annie has died’. Dad said that, very spookily, this is exactly what happened.

A pensive MamMe and Mam at CleethorpesMam, Me, John Broberg and Aunt Frances

are reading this letter, Laurie will come into the house and tell you that your cousin Annie has died’. Dad said that, very spookily, this is exactly what happened.

The old man also told me that once, during the school holidays and when his father was home from sea, dad was going to go to Madeley Street swimming baths as usual, but his father told him not to go as there was going to be an accident and someone would die. There were no arguments or trantrums in those days, and dad just did not go. He later learned that one of his friends had dived in to the pool from the top platform that day and had not come up. Although no one actually witnessed the accident, it seems he hit his head on the bottom of the pool, and his body was found floating in the water.

Whilst in the Indian hospital, in the next bed to my grandfather was a South African. Grandfather apparently spoke in detailed terms about Pretoria, but subsequently admitting, to this man’s amazement, that he had, ‘never been to South Africa, but have seen it in my visions.’ He then went on to tell the South African that he knew where the ‘Kruger Millions’ were hidden. In 1900, the then South African President, Paul Kruger, fled from the British army with a huge amount of gold bullion at the end of the Boer War. The gold was alleged to have been buried, but has never been found. Grandfather later told dad that he knew where it was and would return after his death to tell him. Unfortunately, though, this never happened! Dad also said that his father’s visions had foretold that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren ‘will all own their own homes, drive cars, and will never want for anything.’ Some statement for the early 1900s, but it turned out to be pretty much true.

My dad turned out to be a keen gardener and had an allotment near to the old railway sidings at Dairycoates. Tom, a docks policeman who was a good mate of his, had a few pigs there and I used to go and help look after them when I was about ten years old. I can still remember their stink and the way that they literally ate anything you gave them. A lot of the men with allotments gave all their rubbish to Tom, and it all went to the pigs, along with anything else Tom could get his hands on. When those allotments were closed, dad got one in Gypsyville, about a mile and a half away. He got it when I was about eleven, and I never seemed to see him again until I was eighteen. He worked from about four o’clock in the morning, when he went down to St Andrews dock to buy fish then fillet it, then get it packed into boxes and transferred to lorries. He was finished by lunchtime, after which he came home on his bike and was away to the allotment. In the summer I was always out playing, and by the time I got in he was in bed, as he had to be up so early.

Dad, Mam and Me at WithernseaJacky’s Mam and Dad’s wedding

My mother hardly ever went out with him to the pub or club, witness the Albert Club incident I mentioned earlier, but went out on her own a few nights a week playing bingo, or darts for the Rosamond Club. The last time they went out together might have been my wedding day, but even then they did not travel together. My mother went in a wedding car and the old man went on the bus halfway and walked the rest – he hated cars.

They used to argue a lot, and then did not talk to each other for ages after. I remember once they had not spoken for quite literally nearly three months and I ended up being their ‘go between.’ Mam would say ‘tell your dad this’ and he would say ‘tell her to fuck off.’ The worst incident I can remember and there were quite a few (no wonder I like my own company – particularly as I was an only child), was when my mother had ordered a picture of her lovely baby – yes, me! It was based on a photo, which had been painted to look like an oil painting, and I think it cost about £15 – which in those days was a fortune. When my old man found out he went berserk. They actually got to blows and he had her by the throat on the floor. I stood there, like the referee at an all-in wresting session, shouting at them to stop it. Eventually they did, but after that, they did not speak for about four months. It all ended when one night I had finally had enough of passing on messages and not trying to side with one or the other. Dad had given me a message to pass to Mam and I exploded.

“For fuck’s sake will you two stupid bastards give it up,” I said. In unison, they both said, “Don’t you swear in this house!!” You two are great to talk, I thought, but all of a sudden they were talking again as if nothing had happened. Looking back, it was a long while before the arguments started again. Deep down they loved each other and the marriage lasted until the old man passed away.

Mam and I used to go on trips run by a Mrs Armstrong who ran the ‘open all hours’ shop on the corner of Conway Street. 15 to 20 Grey De Luxe coaches used to take residents from all the surrounding streets on these eagerly awaited trips to Bridlington or Scarborough. The old man never went – just me and Mam – but it was a real highlight of the year for us. We would gather down the street on the appointed Sunday morning, all packed up with egg sandwiches, buckets and spades, and crates of beer for the grown-ups (especially Guinness for the women). I remember all the kids running down the street with the buses as they took positions to take on borders, shouting and yelling with excitement. Off we would go with the passengers split between the coaches depending on what part of the street they lived in. Mrs Armstrong was always on our bus, the front one; she was a real character who would always start the singsongs on the bus with, “I want to go a wandering along the mountain track, val deree valderah!” Oh, such simple joy!

We might as well have just gone round the corner for when we got to wherever the destination was, the script was always the same – on the beach for an hour, the egg sandwiches ending up with sand sprinkled on them and ending up thrown away as they were inedible, then into the beer garden of some pub or other, for the adults an afternoon ‘on the sauce,’ a cafe for a fish and chip tea, and then catching the bus home again. The end of perfect day for working class families in those days. They were more friendly days, there was more of a community spirit, and you could go out and leave your house unlocked.

It was a totally different childhood from that of today. No earphones or mobile phones; simple entertainment like sing-songs and buckets and spades; hardly any cars or traffic. There were just some great times that I will never forget.