Chapter One

Life from a Donkey

A Genuine Constable

“You’re nicked!” growled a voice menacingly in my ear as a huge forearm held me from behind with a vice-like grip round the neck.

Then a second voice grunted, “We’ve been after you for months!” as my left arm was forced up my back. Petrified with shock I turned to find myself face-to-face with a copper, his features contorted and spitting venom through clenched teeth like a pantomime villain.

I had just got off the bus from Rainhill to St. Helens town centre one Sunday night, after a night out with my girlfriend, Norma. It was close to midnight and there were a few people around. I had noticed a couple of policemen silhouetted by the street lights, and the next thing I knew was that I was pounced upon and apprehended. Reflected in a shop window, I caught a brief glimpse of several passers-by stopping to witness this dramatic arrest.

“Eh?” I croaked incredulously, “I think you must have made a mistake.”

“Yeah, they all say that,” he sneered.

Then the policeman holding my arm up my back said, “No mistake, you are definitely our man.”

I turned to my left and again was met face-to-face by a determined copper. But this time he was grinning broadly.

“Are you trying to give me a bleedin’ heart attack?” I spluttered as they released me. I patted my chest to emphasize the point.

It was Willy Fryer, or, as he now preferred, Bill. He was a former schoolmate and life-long friend who had recently joined the Police Force; so Little Willy had morphed into ‘Old Bill’. He was out on the beat as part of his training.

The two of them roared with laughter, pleased to have frightened the life out of an innocent member of the public. Once I had stopped shaking, and I felt the colour come back to my face, all I could do was join in the laughter and appreciate the joke, more relieved than amused. The few people who had stopped to watch seemed disappointed as they dispersed into the night. Bill introduced me to his colleague, a constable who was acting as his training mentor. We chatted together as I accompanied them to the police station, which was on my route home. I had known Bill since we were both five years old and had been classmates at both Merton Bank Primary and Cowley Grammar school. A few years later we were to be the best man at each other’s weddings. He was always a larger-than-life character, in more ways than one. Dark haired with bushy eyebrows, he stood 6ft 2in and weighed over 16 stones. A rugby prop forward, he was tailor-made to be a policeman. His colleague was even bigger. I wouldn’t like to bump into those two on a dark night. What am I saying? That’s exactly what I did do!

“So how is your art course at the Gamble?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the imposing Victorian building opposite the police station. The St. Helens School of Art was housed there, together with the public library. Its official title was the Gamble Institute, founded in 1896 by Sir David Gamble, the first mayor of St Helens.

“I’ve heard that they draw and paint nude models, is that true?” they asked, straight to the point without any preamble or foreplay.

“Of course,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“What’s it like?” they asked, sounding more like schoolboys than members of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. They reminded me of the character in ‘Monty Python’s’ ‘nudge, nudge, say no more’ sketch. The one when Eric Idle asks Terry Jones if he has ever seen a naked lady.

“Why is it everyone always asks me straight away about drawing nude models when they find out that I am an art student?” I asked rhetorically. “I am surprised at you two,” I said with haughty, mock indignation.

“All I will say is that nothing goes on in there to merit a police raid.”

“Pity,” they said, laughing.

“How are you enjoying your police training?” I asked, changing the subject.

“It’s great,” replied Bill with a level of enthusiasm that seemed to be aimed as much towards his mentor as to me. “We always walk round in two’s... and that’s inside the police station!”

I finally got home at about quarter to one.

“What time do you call this?” asked my dad.

“I’ve just been grabbed by the police and accompanied them to the station.”

“Why, what have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

“The police don’t just grab people in the street for no reason,” he said dismissively, convinced that I must have been guilty of something or other.

“It was Bill, but thank you for your vote of confidence.”

My mum then chipped in, “I saw Bill in town last Saturday afternoon, and I’ve never been so embarrassed.”

“Why, what happened?” we both asked.

“I was carrying my shopping bags and trying to cross the busy road to catch the Blackbrook bus when Bill came round the corner. He looked great, proud as punch in his brand new uniform, shiny buttons and polished shoes. His face lit up as he saw me. He took my bags off me and stepped into the road and stopped the traffic so that I could cross. The bus was just about to pull away, but trainee constable Fryer had other ideas. He signalled authoritatively for the driver to stop, which he did, and then escorted me to get on the bus at the back before giving the driver a sign to move off. I waved goodbye to Bill. He stood to attention and saluted.”

“That’s Bill all right,” said dad, smiling and shaking his head.

It was 1967, which was a milestone year in many respects. It has become known as ‘the Summer of Love’, the zenith of the swinging sixties when England set the trends in music and modern popular culture. The dedicated followers of fashion turned Carnaby Street into a catwalk to the soundtrack of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’, ‘All You Need Is Love’ and ‘Purple Haze.’ Hippies in Hyde Park displayed their psychedelic body-art dancing to Scott McKenzie’s ‘If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.’ The BBC finally responded to the competition from ‘Radio Caroline’ by launching Radio 1 with ‘Flowers in the Rain’. The year was encapsulated by the seminal album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by the Beatles, and its ‘Pop-Art’ record sleeve, designed by artist Peter Blake, has become an iconic image in its own right.

So what better year to leave the straightjacket of grammar school for the freedom of art college? It was a quantum leap from school cloisters with teachers in academic gowns to action-painting and nude models. It was a great time to be 18. There is a well-worn, tired old cliché, ‘If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t really there’. I must be an exception to that particular rule because, like fine wine, my memories improve with age, and, like oil paintings, they appreciate in value (well, perhaps not my paintings).

That’s Life

I enrolled at Art College with another of our school friends, Jeff, who could not have been more different to Bill. He was ‘Laurel’ to Bill’s ‘Hardy’. We had been friendly rivals in art since competing for the prestigious job of painting the main figures on the Nativity frieze at infants’ school. Perhaps not quite at the same level as Raphael and Michelangelo painting the frescoes at the same time in the Vatican, or Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, but, nevertheless, our rivalry spurred us both on throughout school days. Now we were starting a foundation course for one year: studying many different arts and crafts prior to specialism at degree level.

It is a very lucky person indeed who can genuinely look forward to going to work, and then enjoying every day. It was like that on my art course. I felt as though I had made the best career move since Ringo Starr decided to leave the best pop group in Liverpool, ‘Rory Storm and the Hurricanes’ to join a lesser known, up-and-coming band called ‘The Beatles’. The informality and general ambience was like a breath of fresh air, albeit tinged with turpentine and oil paint, as Jeff and I arrived for our first day with our brand new portfolios and boxes of art materials. I had spent the summer working shifts at United Glass bottle factory (now the site of St. Helen’s Rugby League Club’s Langtree Park Stadium), and, what’s more, we had been awarded grants by St. Helens Council. We felt rich. We were in a mixed class of 16 to 18 year olds, most straight from school. It was quite surprising when the tutors told us to address them by their first names, and definitely not ‘Sir’. The only similarity with school is that we were given a timetable, but one which was made up of drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and life drawing.

“Does that mean nude models?” whispered Jeff hesitantly as he pointed to ‘Life drawing’ on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. As students in a new tutor group, we were only just beginning to get to know each other, but the prospect of drawing a life model for the first time seemed to provide common ground for discussion. Everyone, male and female, seemed a little apprehensive, even daunted, by the prospect.

Our tutor, Gerry, was a gregarious character who enjoyed a joke and a touch of innuendo, and he put everyone at their ease with banter and bonhomie. During coffee break on the first Wednesday morning of term, Jeff was quieter than usual. He confided in me that he was dreading the life-drawing class that afternoon. Even though he had been brought up on a council estate, Jeff had led a very sheltered life. He had always been quite sickly, painfully thin and quite shy. He looked as though he had stepped out of an L. S. Lowry painting. When we were kids, Jeff was never allowed to play in the street with us because we were too rough; we’d play tick rugby, knock-and-run, and throwing stones. Jeff and I were friends solely due to our common interest in art.

“Have you told your mum and dad that we will be looking at a naked woman today?” Jeff whispered to me innocently, as we waited in the corridor for the tutor to arrive and unlock the studio.

“Jeff,” I said, “you make it sound as though we are sneaking off to a strip club!”

“Has Gerry actually specified that the life model is female?” someone in our group speculated.

“What?!!” exclaimed Jeff. “Do you mean it could be a male nude model?”

“Or a transvestite,” said another, to lighten the mood. Some of the girls didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The general atmosphere along the corridor was one of nervous laughter as Gerry came around the corner, accompanied by an attractive blonde lady in her mid-30s.

He greeted us all in his usual manner, with a quip here and a one-liner there, as he made his way to the studio. Then he asked us to wait a couple of minutes. Just as we were all looking to each other and nodding approval, with some relief, a little old man then came around the corner and walked along the corridor towards us. The best way to describe him would be to say that if he entered an Albert Steptoe look-alike contest he would win, even if Wilfred Brambell entered as well. This is not as fanciful as you might think. If you will permit me to digress for a moment: In the1920s during the peak of his fame, Charlie Chaplin was on holiday with his wife in Atlantic City. He noticed a poster advertising a ‘Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest’, so he went to a second-hand shop and bought a bowler hat and cane. He entered the competition for a bit of a lark... He came third.

Anyway, back to ‘Steptoe’. He was carrying a small hold-all and greeted us with a cheery ‘Good afternoon’ as he made his way to the other studio.

“He can’t be the model?” I muttered with a shake of the head.

At that moment a group of senior citizens came round the corner, all chatting and laughing carrying art portfolios. Gerry came out into the corridor and greeted the pensioners with his, now expected, jokes and innuendo, which they loved and laughed at uproariously.

“Ger’em off, you’re on next,” he joked to one octogenarian lady, who smacked him playfully in a Dick Emery ‘Ooh, you are awful’ sort of way.

“They have been coming here for years,” he informed us as we filed hesitantly into the studio opposite the old folks’ art class. It was light and airy, the studio that is, not the model, who was nowhere to be seen.

I glanced across to Jeff. He couldn’t have looked more terrified if he had been locked in a haunted house. About a dozen donkeys were arranged in two concentric semi-circles. ‘What’s that smell?’ I hear you thinking. Let me explain that a donkey is an art easel that you straddle and sit on like, well, a donkey. They have lift-up stands which support a drawing board. We took our places and I had chance to look around while everyone was getting settled. A north-facing skylight occupied most of the sloping roof and one wall was taken up with racks for storing canvases and drawing boards. Just inside the doorway was a partition wall which afforded privacy to the podium area where models posed (just in case any random policemen should happen to wander in from over the road). There was a small changing room next to the podium, which was about two feet in height. As he was ready to speak Gerry stepped up on to the podium.

“Oh no, don’t tell us you are the model,” I couldn’t resist saying.

Gerry laughed and quipped that it will be his turn on Friday. He told us that the model, Rita, would be emerging in a second after he had given us a brief introduction to the art of life drawing. Eventually, he asked Rita to come out of the closet, so to speak, to introduce her to us. Jeff was looking down at his toes. The model stepped onto the podium and we felt something of an anti-climax, as it were. She wasn’t naked, but wearing a pink, quilted dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers. All she was short of was a cup of cocoa and her hair in rollers. But then again, what was I expecting, Miss Whiplash? Jeff looked up from his donkey, and that is not meant as a euphemism. His sheltered existence up to now meant that he had never been out on a stag night with us. Nights that had the occasional stripper booked. Even at school Jeff hadn’t been included in the loop when any lads’ mags were passed surreptitiously around the class. He was so naïve he thought the erogenous zones were somewhere near the equator. He had never had a girlfriend, and even topless sunbathing was still in the distant future. Poor old Jeff, the nearest he had ever been to a bird’s breasts were the blue variety on his dad’s feeder table in the back garden.

Rita simply slipped off her dressing gown and took up her pose as directed by Gerry. What had we been worrying about? Once we were observing and drawing, it quickly became second nature. After a couple of minutes Rita asked Gerry, “Has Mr. Shiels been in yet?”

“No,” chuckled Gerry, “I think he waits for us to get started.”

We were intrigued by this. Gerry told us that they were referring to one of the pensioners in the class across the corridor. There was a knock on the door, and two cheery, blue-rinsed septuagenarian ladies entered. They had come to collect their paintings from the racks; they must have been the class monitors. They looked over towards Rita and gave her a wave of hello which she acknowledged with a smile. Just as the ladies were leaving the room, in walked Mr. Sheils, a.k.a. Albert Steptoe, his eyes firmly fixed straight ahead, not daring to look to his left where the model was posed. Gerry and Rita gave each other a knowing look. Mr. Sheils then reached up to take his canvas down from the racks and turned around to leave. He averted his gaze at all times. He held his canvas at chest height with one hand at either side while tilting his head to the left. In fact, if the canvas had been removed from his hands, he would have been in the perfect stance to dance the ‘Foxtrot’. From where I was sitting I could just see the back of his head over the top of the canvas. He walked towards the door. He was just about to disappear behind the partition, when his head turned sharply to the right just in time for him to catch the briefest of glimpses of the model. For a split second, he looked like ‘Mr. Chad’ peering over his canvas. Gerry and Rita smiled broadly, and, as the door closed, there was a ripple of laughter through the life class.

“He timed that well,” I said to Gerry.

“I’m not surprised; he’s had plenty of practice. He knows exactly how many steps it takes.” That ritual became an on-going event every Wednesday afternoon.

During break or changes of pose the model would put on her dressing gown and she would often walk around the class and look at the drawings. Like the Queen, she would rarely give her opinion about a drawing or painting, but, when she occasionally passed a favourable comment, we all felt flattered because we knew that she had seen literally hundreds over previous years.

Jeff and I lived across the road from each other. When we got home, he seemed to want to keep our conversation going a little longer as we stood in the street. I edged towards the garden gate as we talked, and then opened it, but every time I took a step towards the front door Jeff seemed to follow.

“Jeff,” I asked, “are you locked out?”

“Er, no, could you do me a favour?”

“If I can,” I answered, wondering what was going on.

So Jeff opened his portfolio and took out his life drawings and asked me if I would look after them. He gave me a sheepish look, even by Jeff’s standards.

“I understand,” I said sympathetically.

“Thanks,” he said with some relief, and walked across the road. Just as he was opening his front door I couldn’t resist shouting

“Jeff! When do you want your dirty pictures back?”

His index finger went straight to his lips in an exaggerated ‘shush’ as he disappeared inside quicker than a sideways glance from Mr. Shiels.

My mum and dad had always taken a keen interest in my art work and, as they perused my drawings, they wondered why Jeff’s work was also in my portfolio. They were amused when I told them the reason. All I got from my fourteen-year-old sister Linda was an expression of raised eyebrows, as if I had been caught with some top-shelf titillation magazines.

I am often asked why art students have always studied the naked human form, and not just from a bobby on the beat. The short answer is that there is no hiding place when studying the human body, for the artist that is, not the model. If a drawing or painting of an inanimate object is not totally accurate it might not be immediately apparent to the viewer. However, if you look at a picture of a nude figure, any lack of accuracy is immediately obvious. In other words, when students are studying life drawing there is no margin for error and it is the most disciplined subject to develop drawing skills.

There are examples in art history which would initially seem to contradict this explanation; for example, the rearranged facial features of Picasso’s Cubist portraits or the monumental figures of his Blue Period. But they were totally accurate observations. His models really did look like that. I am joking of course but I’m sure you catch my drift.

Anyway, all of this is what Jeff told his mum and dad as a reason for drawing a lady with no clothes on, the lady that is, not Jeff. I think he got away with it, because after two weeks he stopped asking me if he could keep his drawings in my folder.

Is it a Polar Bear in a Blizzard?

As Christmas approached, all the students started to look forward to the party season; we decided to ask if we could hold a disco in the exhibition hall. Gerry was all for it but he told us that the final decision could only be made by the principal, Mr. Gill. I was ‘volunteered’ as spokesman and went to see him one morning in mid-December. Mr. Gill was not the artiest person imaginable; he wore a tweedish three-piece suit and tie, he was bald with a Bobby Charlton style comb-over and wore glasses which were like the bottom of a beer bottle. My un-flattering description of him notwithstanding, he was a true gentleman of the old school: extremely courteous and very well-spoken. He looked as though he belonged more in the manager’s office in the bank next door. He granted permission for the party without much persuasion but, being a rather pedantic sort, he stipulated that he could only allow us to have Friday afternoon off to decorate the room. He looked at the timetable and said that he would be unable to pay Rita if the life-class was cancelled. The students quite rightly decided that this would be unfair to the model, and, consequently, we agreed a compromise with the principal, whereby Rita would pose as usual and we would take turns to be in the studio. The exhibition hall was duly a hive of activity as it was transformed into a disco for the Christmas do.

Midway through the afternoon, it was my turn to man the donkey in the life studio and go through the motions of drawing. Ostensibly, Rita was posing on a chair on the podium, but in reality she was chatting with each student. It was like shift hand-over in a factory, as I took over the donkey from the previous student.

“Is it a minimalist concept?” I joked as I looked at a blank sheet of white cartridge paper on the drawing board. The previous students had simply sat and chatted with Rita; it was Christmas after all, and this arrangement suited me. So we talked about Christmas, families, and holidays, as if we were two people sitting together on the bus. It seems bizarre, but we were able to small-talk and have a casual conversation while she sat opposite me, stark naked. After studying the same figure twice a week for a full term it seemed perfectly natural. Neither my eyes nor my mind were tempted to wander. I am reminded of the old saying that the only true test of a true intellectual is someone who can listen to the whole of Rossini’s ‘William Tell Overture’ without once thinking of ‘The Lone Ranger’. During our conversation, Rita told me that she was looking forward to coming to the party that night and wearing her brand new Christmas dress for the first time.

“I won’t recognise you with your clothes on,” I quipped, thinking I was being devastatingly witty.

Rita raised her eyebrows and replied with a sardonic smile, “Nobody has ever said that to me before.”

Her demeaning tone made me cringe for being so obvious.

“Sorry,” I groaned as I raised my hands in acknowledgement. Just as we were laughing the studio door started to open slowly. I assumed it was the next student arriving to take over, but then some bloke I had never seen before stood there, ready to walk in. I jumped up and made a sort of traffic-cop halt-sign before he got beyond the privacy partition (known forevermore as Mr. Sheils’ partition).

“Sorry Sir, you cannot come in here. These are private parts,” I blurted out, too late to cover up my Freudian slip.

He was about six feet tall and unshaven, wearing a flat cap, donkey jacket, jeans and steel-toe-capped boots.

“Sorry mate,” he said sharply, “I’m looking for Rita.”

I glanced towards Rita, who looked taken aback. She silently and exaggeratedly mouthed the words “It’s my husband,” as she quickly got up off the chair and put on her dressing gown.

I stood there transfixed as if I was on stage in a West End farce; husband entering via French windows and maids disappearing through the back door: something like ‘Run for Your Wife’ or ‘When Did You Last See Your Trousers?’ You get the picture. Although everything was perfectly innocent and above-board, I felt as though I had been caught with my pants down. Thoughts flashed through my mind: ‘Does he know that his wife is a professional nude model? Has he come to confront her? Where is the rest of the class?’ and, not least, ‘He is a big, rough-looking bugger wearing steel-toe-capped boots’.

It reminded me of the joke about a bloke who had picked up a woman one night and she had taken him back to her bungalow. As they were in bed together, they heard the front door open.

“What was that?” he whispered, startled.

“Oh no,” she blustered, “it’s my husband.”

“Your bloody husband... You never said you were married.”

As he frantically hopped about, dressing on the run, he demanded, “Where’s your back door?”

“We haven’t got a back door.”

So he just looked around and said, “Well, where do you want one?”

Rita nodded to assure me that everything was okay, as I sat down, relieved, at the donkey and beckoned her husband to enter the studio. It was a slightly awkward atmosphere. He told her that he had just got home from work and had lost his house keys. She went into the small changing room to get her keys from her handbag and, while he was waiting, he decided to have a look at my drawing. He sidled over and peeked over the drawing board. He looked nonplussed when he was confronted by a vast sheet of virgin-white cartridge paper. There followed an interminable silence as he eyed me up and down suspiciously, and then looked back at the paper. He leaned forward to within six inches of the surface, narrowed his eyes and looked at the paper contemplatively as if he was scrutinising the texture of paint on a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh. Very slowly, he turned his head towards me, and said condescendingly, “Don’t tell me... It’s a polar bear in a blizzard.”

“How did you guess?” I spluttered, ready to enter into some light-hearted banter. However, I must have momentarily misread the situation, as his facial expression remained frozen and unsmiling. He frowned, obviously wondering why there was no drawing on the paper, then looked at me and shook his head slightly but didn’t say anything. There weren’t even any marks from erasing, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse. I started to ramble incoherently telling him the rest of the class were putting up Christmas decorations, and we were taking turns drawing, but it was one of those situations where it would have been better just to shut up. The more I made excuses, the less convincing I was. I should have followed the old adage: when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Finally, I started to suggest that my pencil had broken as I held it up to his face. But all I managed to whimper was, “I haven’t got any lead in my pencil.”

A Skeleton isn’t just for Christmas; it’s for (After) Life

So the ‘skeleton-crew’ of students ensured that Rita would be paid for the Friday afternoon life-drawing session. Talking of skeletons, that leads me seamlessly - or clumsily - into my Christmas adventures with ‘Myrtle Byrtle’. The large studio at the college had a resident skeleton, which was suspended on a stand by a metal bracket fixed onto the crown of the skull. The only places you are likely to come across a skeleton casually standing in the corner of a room are in chiropractors’ treatment rooms, medical schools, a fairground ghost train, and, perhaps, one still hanging on the phone to a call-centre in India while listening to classical music. You know the ones: you are told that the conversation is ‘being recorded for training porpoises’. Is there no limit to human ingenuity? Perhaps it is the same technique that Taiwanese fishermen use for training cormorants.

Commercial skeletons are usually made of gleaming white plastic or a cut-price version in cardboard. The crucial difference with the one at St. Helens Art College was that it was real. It was the colour of nicotine-stained teeth. It reminded me of the one standing next to a seven-foot stuffed grizzly bear in ‘Steptoe and Son’. Perhaps it was that one, and Mr. Shiels really was Albert Steptoe. Gerry told us that the skeleton was a female, probably of Egyptian origin, and had been called ‘Myrtle Byrtle’ for as long as anyone could remember, for reasons that are lost in time.

We made accurate anatomical studies of the skeleton in order to develop an understanding of underlying bone structures when life-drawing. The best way to appreciate how anything is constructed is to make an analytical drawing. To reduce a subject to its basic geometric form is the secret to accurate drawing. This was the basis of French painter Paul Cezanne’s work in the 19th Century, which led to branches of the 20th Century modern art.

During the term, I had enjoyed studying the skeleton, and I was part-way through a particular collection of drawings as Christmas approached. I asked Gerry if it would be possible to borrow ‘Myrtle’ to take home to do some work during the holiday.

He thought it was a rather macabre request, asking, “Who do you live with, the Addams family?”

He referred me to Mr. Gill, who was surprised by my request. He seemed reluctant, saying that ‘Myrtle’ hadn’t been off the premises since she first arrived about thirty years earlier. I took my sketchbook to my meeting with him, so that I could demonstrate that it was a serious request, and he glanced at my series of skeleton studies. I outlined my ideas for developing these drawings into future paintings and managed to persuade him to give me permission. As I mentioned earlier, when I was asking Mr. Gill to agree to the Christmas party, he can be rather pedantic. He was a belt and braces man. He sat me down and gave me a very serious lecture on my responsibilities when taking out a real skeleton. He stressed this point by suggesting that even if I lost a small part of ‘Myrtle’s’ anatomy, like a little finger, it could spark off a murder inquiry. They were his exact words. Not something which had remotely crossed my mind, but I nodded seriously; anything to obtain permission.

On the Friday afternoon, after we had finished preparing the room for the Christmas party, everyone went home to get ready. Jeff and I usually walked, but, with the inclement weather and it being end of term, the three of us decided to catch the bus. That’s me, Jeff, and Myrtle Byrtle. The last time she will have been on public transport was probably a felucca on the Nile. During the week, I had experimented with different ways of transporting the skeleton. I finally decided that the best way was to tuck her knees up to her chin in a sitting position, with her arms folded across her shins. She was wrapped in a sheet, and I was able to carry her under my left arm while carrying my portfolio and paint box in my right hand. Someone suggested that ‘Myrtle’ could ride on my back, piggy-back style, but I decided against it in view of the fact that my walk to the bus stop took me right past the police station.

At about five o’clock the town centre was packed with Christmas shoppers and groups of workers pub-crawling through flurries of snow. As we walked across Victoria Square, there was a great festive atmosphere with the sound of crisp snow under our feet and the slushy sounds as cars and buses went by. The street decorations and multi-coloured lights on the huge Christmas tree in front of the Town Hall heightened our party mood. I felt like James Stewart as George Bailey, walking through snowy Bedford Falls in the classic Christmas film ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. Then I remembered that I had a human skeleton tucked under my arm; so, make that Norman Bates in ‘Psycho’. As Jeff and I stood in the bus stop queue I checked to see if ‘Myrtle’ was still secure. Not surprisingly, all the buses were heaving with shoppers. Jeff and I were the last passengers allowed on board by the conductor, who directed us upstairs. It was a bit of a struggle getting up the steps, burdened as I was with a portfolio, paint box and, not forgetting, Myrtle. Heaven forbid! Could you imagine leaving a skeleton on the bus? Mr. Gill would have had a heart attack, not to mention the person who happened to find it. It could have been Police Cadet Bill Fryer’s first murder case. The only two vacant seats were separate. Jeff took the first seat, and I made my way along the aisle to a seat further along. The bus was not only full, but seemed excessively crowded. Everyone was wearing bulky winter clothes, and most had Christmas shopping, either on their knees or on the floor at their feet. I sat down next to a lady who was perhaps in her late 40s. She was looking out at the falling snow through a small circle of clear glass, she had wiped with her gloved hand, on the steamy windows. She shuffled in her seat as if to make room for me; not that she could create any more space, but it was the kind of gesture everyone does naturally on buses, or trains or even park benches as a form of territorial concession. It is a human-trait first identified by Dr. Desmond Morris in his book ‘The Naked Ape’. So, there I was, surrounded by a mass of humanity, all clutching bags, gifts, packages, rolls of wrapping paper, even a tied-up Christmas tree, and children going home with their mummies... as was I.

I sat with my left arm firmly clasped around Myrtle and my right hand steadying my portfolio in the aisle, while keeping my paint-box gripped between my feet. The conductor appeared at the top of the stairs and started to make his way along the bus, collecting fares. My money was in the right-hand pocket of my jeans; so I had to contort myself into a few positions as I lifted my overcoat, balanced my portfolio against the seat, straightened my right leg without knocking over my paint-box and got my right hand in my pocket. This caused me to shift about in my seat, but eventually I managed to pull a handful of coins out of my pocket. I thought I would just hold out the money in my palm and let the conductor take the fare since my left arm was somewhat preoccupied.

At that moment, the lady sitting next to me let out an audible gasp and her whole body seemed to stiffen as if frozen. This time I didn’t need Desmond Morris to explain her body language. I quickly glanced to my left and saw that a skeletal arm had worked itself loose and fallen onto the lady’s right leg, with Myrtle’s hand folded around her knee. I gave her an embarrassed, apologetic thin smile as I gently lifted the arm, which caused the hand to flop forward with an eerie rattle. I carefully placed it back under the sheet and secured it as tightly as I could, under the circumstances.

“Blackbrook please,” I said to the conductor as matter-of-factly as I could manage, and held out my hand for him to take the fare. I put the change in my top pocket; I couldn’t risk disturbing Myrtle again.

I said earlier that the lady next to me could not create any more space between us. Well, I was wrong. By now she had moved as near to the window as is possible without actually climbing out. My thought process went something like this: how do I explain to a total stranger on the bus that I just happen to be carrying a human skeleton under my arm? Do I laugh it off? Do I ignore it? What if she screams? No, she wouldn’t risk doing that; after all, she doesn’t want to upset the mass murderer sitting next to her. Just as all these thoughts were going through my head, Jeff turned to catch my attention, blissfully unaware of my predicament. I think he was trying to let me know that our stop was coming up soon. All I did was smile to him. A big mistake! The terrified lady must have interpreted this as the cruel leering grin on the face of the insane serial killer. It was now too late to apologise or explain, so as the bus stopped I made my way carefully, very carefully, along the crowded bus and down the steps. As I got off the bus I felt a pair of eyes boring into me. I looked over my shoulder to see the face of the poor, terrified lady looking at me through the circular porthole of the steamed-up window. It is a vision that has haunted me ever since, so goodness knows how she must have felt with her Myrtle memory.

When I got home, Mum, Dad and Linda were in the house.

“Close your eyes,” I shouted genially into the living room, “I’ve got a surprise for you. A guest is staying with us for Christmas.”

I then removed Myrtle from the sheet and sat her in the armchair, with one foot up on the coffee table.

“Open them,” I said, with a flamboyant, “Ta dah!”

They took their hands from over their eyes expecting to see a friend with me. Linda and Mum gasped in astonishment as Dad yelled.

“What the bloody hell is that?”

“It’s Myrtle Byrtle, our model from college. She’s lost a bit of weight lately so I thought I would invite her for Christmas dinner.” My joke was met with blank faces and a deafening silence.

“Well it’s not staying in here, you can keep it in the garden shed,” ordered my mum. Linda just laughed and shook her head. As I was carrying the skeleton out to the shed, my mum shouted “It isn’t real... is it?”

“Of course not,” I lied, “It’s made of plastic.”

During her stay with us, I did manage to do some drawings of Myrtle. I fully intended to do so of course, but I suspected that Mr. Gill would be likely to look at them in January, just to make sure that I hadn’t wasted my time messing about and having fun. As if.

One evening, just before Christmas, Norma was due at our house, and of course I couldn’t resist the temptation to introduce her to Myrtle Byrtle. I arranged the skeleton in a seated position on the settee, with her feet raised on a stool and an arm draped casually across the back of the sofa. The final touch was a cigarette in her mouth as she watched television.

“You will frighten the poor girl to death,” Mum commented in a concerned tone.

“Norma is just walking up the road now,” announced Linda gleefully, and mischievously, as she looked out of the window. She opened the front door to let her in, so that I could be sitting in the lounge to enjoy the full impact of my prank.

“Merry Chris - Aarrh!” was Norma’s horrified reaction as she entered the room.

Just as I started to laugh, the opening door nudged the settee which caused the skeleton’s skull to turn to the left, and the jaw fell open as if Myrtle was laughing. My laughter quickly changed to a “Woah!”

Linda pointed to Myrtle and whispered in ghostly mock-horror, “John, it’s the curse of Tutankhamun... Woooo.”

My dad was on afternoon shift at Fibreglass. I had been trying to think of ingenious practical jokes to frighten family and friends, and I wondered how Myrtle could welcome him home from work.

“Shall I sit Myrtle on the toilet before dad gets home?” I suggested playfully, but I was categorically out-voted. However, I couldn’t resist taking Myrtle along for a ride in the car when I took Norma home. Stopping at traffic lights was great fun, especially when I turned around and pretended to talk to my back seat passenger. I decided not to stop at the garage for petrol, not after what had happened earlier in the year with a lion skin. But that’s another story...

...Okay, rather than leave you in suspense I will digress for a moment and tell you the story now.

A Whim Away

When I was in the 6th form at Cowley School, a good friend of mine, Jim, who lived on the same housing estate always claimed that he was a descendant of Mungo Park, the 19th Century African explorer. None of us believed him, or, in fact, cared; mainly because nobody had ever even heard of Mungo Park. But it did go some way to explaining why his living room at home was dominated by a full size lion-skin rug, which included the tail, legs and a fierce male head, growling menacingly from beneath a full mane. Jim’s dad, Mr. Park, used the head as a footstool while he watched the telly. And you thought having a skeleton in the lounge was weird.

Cowley was divided into two separate schools; boys at Hard Lane and girls at Cowley Hill Lane. The schools were about one mile apart, and never the twain shall meet, except for the occasional film society. These were organised by teachers who would hire films and show them in the school hall on a reel-to-reel 35mm projector. It was a rare opportunity for the 6th formers to get together.

I was able to borrow my dad’s car for one of these film nights, and, on a whim, we came up with the bright idea of taking the lion with us. The giant head fit neatly onto the parcel shelf of the Austin A40, with its body draped over the seats, as we set off for darkest St. Helens. We stopped for petrol and I crossed the garage forecourt to pay. Just as I was collecting my change, there was an almighty, blood-curdling scream. A lady, who had been filling up her car next to mine, dropped the pump-gun on to the concrete floor, spraying petrol around the forecourt. The headlights of a car pulling into the garage had momentarily picked out the glistening eyes and huge fangs of our lion, who was minding his own business just looking out of the rear window. She ran towards the pay booth screaming, “There’s a lion! There’s a lion!” pointing towards our car. We made our escape quicker than Bonnie and Clyde from a bank job, as I got a fleeting glimpse of her terrified face in the rear mirror. Come to think of it, she looked remarkably like the lady who had been sitting next to me and Myrtle on the bus. No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

We arrived for the film show and waited outside for a few minutes, until the lights dimmed and the projector to start to whirr. The sixth form were sitting on rows of wooden chairs, the ones used for school assemblies, as we crept into the hall from the back. Jim and I sat on the back row, holding the lion between us, hoping to create a bit of a laugh. ‘What a lark,’ we thought. However, we did not envisage the pandemonium that we were about to unleash. A girl in front of us turned around casually to smile, but, instead, found herself face-to-face with a snarling lion. But did she see the joke? Of course not! Her scream made the one by the woman at the petrol station seem like a whisper. Her hysteria moved forward through the audience like a sound wave, a tsunami of sheer terror and blind panic. Wooden chairs clattered onto the parquet floor as everyone stampeded towards the exits. Unfortunately, the projector just happened to be situated in the centre of the audience on a raised stand. Needless to say, it did not survive the tidal wave. The room emptied in record time, leaving a tangle of furniture which looked like the aftermath of a saloon brawl in a John Wayne western. Still sitting in our seats at the back were Jim and I, holding the lion between us. The teachers in charge were first to re-enter the hall.

We looked at each other, realising that things hadn’t quite gone according to plan, and neither of us could think of any excuse to come up with.

“Meadows, Park!” thundered Mr. Holland. “What on earth do you think you are playing at?”

“Sorry Sir,” was all we could mumble as a meek apology.

“Report on Monday morning to the headmaster’s study. Now get out of my sight.”

When I got home, my mum and Linda were in, and my dad was out at the Parr and Hardshaw Labour Club for a Friday night pint.

“How was your night out?” they asked.

“Oh, it was okay,” I replied nonchalantly.

“What film did they show?”

I realised that I didn’t have a clue, so all I replied was, “Tarzan.” I omitted to mention that particular incident to Mr. Gill when I asked him if I could borrow the skeleton for Christmas.

My enthusiasm for skeleton-themed practical jokes was shared, or even exceeded, by my sister.

“What about using a garden rake to hang the skeleton on?” Linda suggested.

Perfect. Who would be our first victim? Mrs. Murphy was top of our list. I hid in the shadows at the side of her backdoor; I held Myrtle high in the air, suspended on the rake. Linda knocked loudly on the door and jumped behind a rhododendron bush. The kitchen light came on and, as the door opened, Myrtle swung into view like they do on a funfair ghost train, dramatically lit by the kitchen light. Mrs. Murphy’s scream pierced the cold night air and frightened me and Linda, probably more than the skeleton frightened her. After she had slammed the door in panic we made our escape over the garden fence and returned Myrtle, and the rake, to Dad’s shed.

“What are you two laughing at?” asked mum suspiciously.

“Oh nothing,” we replied innocently as we looked out of the kitchen window and watched the Murphy family rush out into the garden. Mrs. Murphy was still in an agitated state as she gesticulated skywards, obviously trying to explain that a skeleton had flown towards her out of the night sky. We tried to interpret Mr. Murphy’s body language as he scratched his head incredulously. Our conclusion was that he thought that his wife had made an early start on the Christmas sherry.

One day while drawing Myrtle Byrtle, I had a flash of inspiration - not so much aesthetic or artistic, more mischievous. The metal bracket protruding from the top of her skull was perfect for flying her through the air on a wire or, better still, a clothesline. I started to rub my hands together like a silent movie villain tying someone to the railway track. The houses on our estate had reasonable sized gardens, each with a brick built shed/washhouse and separate coal shed. The garden boundaries were hawthorn hedges that were kept low purposefully, because in the 50s and 60s the favoured means of communication was actually talking to each other face-to-face. Telephones had not yet reached as far as Blackbrook; while mobiles, texts, Facebook, or skype were all in the realms of science fiction, as were Walkman, Mini discs and iPods. I spent many happy summer days sitting in a deck chair in the garden listening to ‘Two-way Family Favourites’, ‘The Billy Cotton Band Show’ and Alan Freeman’s ‘Pick of the Pops’ on my transistor radio; while all around me conversations were taking place over garden fences, sometimes with four or five gardens in between. At the bottom of every garden was a seven-foot concrete post for the clothesline, which stretched the full length of the lawn. Perfect for my dastardly scheme! So, after that brief nostalgic journey down memory lane with its images of neighbourhood harmony and rose-tinted recollections of endless summer days, my only thought now was which neighbour I could frighten the living daylights out of.

In those pre-central heating days, the only source of warmth was a coal fire in the living room, and the worst thing you could be asked to do - or should I say told to do– was to go and get a shovel of coal. If it was raining or snowing, you could not avoid receiving an ice cold drip right down the small of your back as you bent down to shovel up the coal. The light from the back kitchen would light up the garden. It was particularly un-nerving if you were in the middle of a horror film on the telly - opening the latch door, creaking ‘Hammer Film’ style, and stepping into the black hole. A perfect scenario for Myrtle to hurtle through the night sky!

I raised the clothesline from its usual hook and attached it to a pipe higher up, to give a good angle for Myrtle’s maiden flight down to the concrete post. There was a light dusting of snow illuminated by the moonlight. Nice and eerie. I looked through the kitchen window, wondering who would be our next victim. Mrs. Hunter next door would be ideal since we couldn’t risk giving Mrs. Murphy’s heart valves another challenge. We sat in our kitchen, lights out, watching diligently for any of the neighbours’ lights switching on.

After a couple of false alarms a garden lit up as the back door opened. It was our next door neighbour, Mrs. Hunter, who picked up a shovel and opened the coal shed. Timing is everything when trying to frighten someone to death, so I held Myrtle in position as I waited for Mrs. Hunter to turn around.

As Mungo Park must have said, ‘Wait until you see the whites of their eyes’. She closed the shed door with one hand, while balancing a full shovel of coal with her other hand, and turned to step into the light. I launched Myrtle with the precision timing of the ‘Dambusters’ dropping a bouncing bomb. The skeleton flew through the air, silhouetted by the moon, accompanied by another of Linda’s ghostly “Woooo” sound effects, which was quite convincing. When I say quite, what I really mean is extremely convincing, if Mrs. Hunter’s reaction was anything to go by. Her scream seemed to reverberate in the still December night off the pebble-dash walls of the closely-packed houses. Her shovel went high into the air and I was bombarded with a sudden fall of giant black hailstones. I dashed down the garden to remove Myrtle from the clothesline, but as I stood in the middle of the black and white polka-dot lawn every kitchen and bedroom light within ten yards came on. Neighbours appeared in their gardens. My 14-year- old accomplice was nowhere to be seen. As I stood there alone, floodlit and exposed, I knew exactly how Steve McQueen and David Attenborough must have felt in ‘The Great Escape’ when the tunnel came up ten feet short of the edge of the forest. At that moment, I hoped that a tunnel would open up for me: any Tom, Dick or Harry would do! I had an audience of about twenty neighbours peering over their fences to see me standing forlornly in the snow, holding a skeleton.

“Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio. A man of infinite jest...”

I recited theatrically while holding Myrtle’s skull in front of my face. I wasn’t so much playing to the audience as playing for time. I wanted to prolong the soliloquy from ‘Hamlet’, frantically trying to dredge up long-faded memories of O Level English Literature, but I realised that the time had come for me to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The cold weather came to my rescue and all the neighbours turned to go back indoors, muttering to each other contemptuously. At least Mrs. Murphy was vindicated, her reputation was intact. She had not after all been at the Christmas booze. I managed to pick up comments like “Bloody students,” and “Yeah, art students are the worst of the lot.” And that was just from my own parents, with Linda nodding her head in agreement, while ‘tut tutting’ innocently.

Only after my profuse apology did Mrs. Hunter finally laugh and see the funny side. Mrs Murphy required a little more grovelling. After picking up every individual piece of coal from the snow-covered gardens, I decided that Myrtle was to be grounded, as was I. Myrtle’s maiden flight turned out to be her last, but, then again, she probably gained her wings long, long ago, and a bell would have rung in Bedford Falls.

I tried my best to rein in my propensity for practical jokes, but to quote Oscar Wilde, ‘I can resist anything, except temptation’. The day after Boxing Day we had just finished lunch when there was a sharp, loud ‘rat tat, tat, tat’ on the front door.

“That’s a money knock,” Dad would always say.

“Oh, it will be the Club Man,” Mum said, as she went to open the door.

In the 50s and 60s an insurance salesman, or executive, was known simply as the ‘Club Man’, and the same bloke from ‘Royal London’ had been collecting every week on the estate for years. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I grabbed Myrtle Byrtle from the front room where I had been drawing her, and sat her at the dining table, knife and fork in hand. The dining table was a drop-leaf in the lounge. The front room was never used; it was only ‘for show’, a Northern thing.

“Hello Madeline, all the best to you,” the Club Man said as he came into the hall. He always had an A4 size hard-backed exercise book which had an elastic band around it, and his pen was always tucked behind his ear. As he was writing, he looked into the living room.

“Hello Joe, have you had a good Christmas?” he said cheerily to my dad, and then looked around the door to greet the rest of the family. Myrtle didn’t reply as she sat there. The Club Man remained expressionless as he put his pen back behind his ear and closed his book. He just looked at me and tilted his head towards Myrtle and quipped, “At least somebody has managed to lose weight over Christmas.”

He paused for a second, hoping we might enlighten him, but all he got was a sweep of the hand from dad with an exasperated, “Don’t ask.”

On the first day of term in January, I returned Myrtle to her stand in the studio. Jeff and I walked to college; I couldn’t risk another crowded bus with a skeleton under my arm. I bumped into the principal on the corridor, and he asked me if everything had been okay with the skeleton over the holidays.

“Oh, fine,” I answered cheerily, “She’s had a really good Christmas.”

With a dubious smile, he asked me if I had done much work. I assured him that I had. He nodded and, as he went off towards his office, I shouted, “Oh, by the way Mr. Gill,” and as he turned around I said, “I’ve counted every bone, especially the little fingers, so I don’t think you will be reading about any murder investigations.”