When 1939 began with a death, Billy knew that it was going to be a memorable year. After talking for so long about it, old Grandma McGuinness finally carried out her threat and went to join her stout-drinking cronies in the great snug in the sky.
From the top of the wardrobe, Dad took down his pot hat and brushed the dust from it. Uncle Eddy wept nonstop from the moment he heard the news.
She was laid out in her coffin in front of her living- room window. Just before the funeral, Auntie Cissie and Mam took Billy in to view the corpse.
‘Ooh, she does look well!’ said Auntie Cissie. ‘And what a lovely dress she’s got on.’
‘Aye, we showed her one of them shroud things just before she died,’ said Mam.
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said, “I’m not wearing that bloody thing. I wouldn’t be seen dead in it.” ’
‘But what a lovely smile on ’er face,’ observed Auntie Cissie.
‘I never seen her smile once when she were alive,’ said Billy.
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£ It don’t matter, Billy,’ said Mam. ‘She’s happy now, wherever she’s gone.’
‘Pr’aps she doesn’t realise she’s dead,’ said Billy.
‘Then she’s in for a bit of a surprise when she wakes up tomorrow,’ said Auntie Cissie.
‘Not half,’ said Mam. ‘It’ll be enough to give her a heart attack.’
‘I just hope she never found all that meat in the aspidistra plant-pot,’ said Billy.
‘Did you have any money on her, Cissie?’ asked Mam.
It sounded like a bet, and Billy half-expected to hear something like ‘Aye, a bob each way’, but instead Cissie said:
‘I had a tanner a week with the Royal London club man. What about you, Kate?’
‘I’ve had a bob a week on her for the last thirty years - ever since I was in service.’
‘You must have a tidy sum coming to you then.’
‘Aye, not so bad. Enough to rig out the whole family for the funeral.’
‘Who did you get to do the funeral then, Kate?’ asked Cissie.
‘I got the Co-op. No sense in missing the divvy,’ said Mam. ‘Besides, they do a lovely send-off. You’ve probably seen their advertisement: “A funeral you will really enjoy.” ’
A week after the funeral, Ikey Goldstein, the secondhand furniture dealer, came round to value Grandma’s bits and pieces. As Mam was the eldest child, it fell to her to administer the estate and arrange for the sale of the goods and chattels.
‘There’s no call for all this Victorian and Edwardian furniture any more,’ he said. ‘It’s too old-fashioned.’
‘Aye, I suppose it is,’ sighed Mam.
‘I mean, look at that mahogany dresser and that marble washstand, not to mention the old grandfather clock. All too big and too heavy for the modern home.’
‘How much would you say then altogether?’
‘I like you, Mrs Hopkins. I can see you’re a straightforward woman. So, all right. For you I’ll do a very big favour. I’ll risk ruining myself. Say ten pounds for the lot.’
‘Ten pounds! That’s ridiculous!’
‘So, I should need another dresser - another wash- stand! My shop’s full of ’em. Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make it twelve pounds ten and that’s my very last offer. I must be going mad - giving money away.’
Then he saw the teapot on the mantelpiece.
‘Wait a minute, though,’ he said. ‘Let me have a look at that.’
He turned the boat-shaped pot over with an expert hand and read out loud:
‘ANSTIC, HORTON AND ROSE, 1805. Never heard of them. It’s just an old teapot worth a couple of bob, that’s all.’
‘I’m not selling that,’ Mam said. ‘It’s a family heirloom.’
‘It’s my crazy day. Fifteen pounds for the lot with the teapot thrown in.’
‘I’m very sorry. Just give me the twelve pounds ten. I’m not selling the teapot. It’s been in the family too long.’
Ike had been in business long enough to know when it was pointless arguing. This was one of those times. He paid over the money and arranged for his van to collect the stuff the next day.
Mam worked it out that each one of Grandma’s children would receive two pounds ten. But as it happened, Auntie Cissie had no need of the money. Two weeks after the funeral, her fate, her future and her fortune
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were tragically transformed when Ernie, her husband, was knocked down and killed by a lorry reversing into him at work. The company admitted liability. The record compensation of £4,000 was, by any standard, immense. Billy’s dad, who was earning £3 a week, worked it out at thirty years’ wages.
Cissie bought a ‘little gold-mine’ of a shop which had the monopoly of supplying groceries to three blocks of nearby flats. She also bought a complete range of new furniture, including a Bluthner upright piano which no one knew how to play, and the whole family appeared dressed in the latest Kendal Milne outfits.
Unfortunately, just around the corner was the Golden Lion, and Cissie, along with her new-found friends, spent more time drinking in the pub than tending the shop. It wasn’t long before the drinking sessions extended late into the night, with the result that the shop failed to open until around midday. The residents of the flats were not slow to weigh up the situation and began to help themselves to the free milk and bread which had been delivered to the doorstep of the shop.
‘You see,’ explained Mam to Billy one day as they were returning from a visit to Cissie’s ‘gold-mine’. ‘Money doesn’t always mean happiness.’
Back in Honeypot Street, it was all happening.
One night in February there was the usual silence as Dad listened to the news.
‘Pope Pius XI is dead,’ said the announcer. ‘He died early this morning at his residence in the Vatican. The Pope was noted for his outspoken attack on the evils of Nazism.
‘The Home Office,’ continued the broadcaster, ‘has announced plans today to provide free shelters to thousands of homes in the London districts most likely to
be bombed. The steel-built shelters are made in sections and can be erected by two people without skill or experience.’
‘Does that mean there’s going to be a war. Tommy?’ asked Mam.
‘Most definitely. Never mind what that Chamberpot fella with the umberella says.’
‘Glory be t’God! I hope you’re wrong, Tommy. And all that stuff about shelters. Does that mean we’re gonna get bombed?’
‘Them poor buggers in London will. But not us. The bombers won’t be able to get this far.’
To the Hopkins family, it certainly looked as if war was coming. Flo had given up sewing in the fur-coat factory to begin war work tending a conveyor belt at the Dunlop Rubber Company. Les, who had just left school, was working as a raincoat maker at Louis Epstein’s on Cheetham Hill. Mainly military raincoats, he’d said.
‘With you two working in rubber,’ said Mam, ‘it’s no wonder this house is beginning to smell like a blooming factory. Why can’t you get a decent, clean job like our Sam’s?’
Sam was now sixteen and had been working as a lift attendant for over a year at Dobbin’s, the new super store on Oldham Street. He was required to wear a page-boy’s uniform complete with pill-box hat, and he certainly looked very smart.
The previous Saturday afternoon, the whole family - Mam, Dad, Les, Flo, Jim and Billy - had gone into town to listen to Sam at his work. They had crowded into his lift and had heard him call in a loud, confident voice:
‘Mind the gates, please! Watch the gap!’
‘Any chance of a lift, brother?’ asked Jim.
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They had more or less occupied the whole lift as it rode up and down the floors.
‘Ground floor,’ said Sam in his very poshest voice. ‘ ’Orticulture! ’Ardware! H’ironmongery!’
‘Eeh, don’t ’e sound posh?’ said Mam. ‘Like a real toff.’
‘First floor,’ Sam continued. ‘ ’Aberdashery! Perfumery! Lingerie.’
‘You mean “corsets and suspender-belts”,’ said Billy.
‘Here, where did you get to learn about such things?’ asked Dad. ‘You shouldn’t know about things like that at your age.’
‘Second floor. Men’s wear. Shirts. Underwear.’
‘You could do with a new pair o’ long johns, Tommy,’ said Mam.
‘Oh, Mam, you’re embarrassing us,’ said Flo, red-faced.
‘Don’t you be so stuck-up,’ Mam said. ‘There’s nowt wrong with sayin’ long johns in a lift.’
‘Top floor,’ announced Sam. ‘Beds, bunks and bassinets.’
‘I alius knew he’d get to the top one day,’ said Jim.
‘Go on,’ said Dad. ‘Take us down to the bottom and we’ll hear it all again.’
‘It does my heart good to hear him,’ said Mam. ‘In charge of so many people. And he talks so nicely. No one would ever guess he comes from Collyhurst.’
The family rode up and down five times, encouraging Sam with their comments and their praise. On the sixth ride up, Dad turned to the gentleman who had managed to squeeze into the lift.
‘This is my lad, y’know, what’s doing all this announcing.’
‘Oh, really,’ said the gentleman. ‘And I’m the manager of this store and I’ve been wondering when you are going
to finish riding the lift and let some of our other customers use it!’
Shamefaced, the family left the store. It was already lighting-up time and so they wandered across Oldham Street towards Tib Street Market, which was a hive of activity on a Saturday night.
As they crossed the street, Dad said to Billy:
‘Now that job that Sam has. That’s a really good job, that is. Steady, secure and you don’t have to dirty your hands. Sam gets twenty-five bob a week and he likes the job. Just riding up and down all day and announcing things.’
‘It probably gets a bit boring, though,’ said Jim. ‘Just saying the same things over and over again. I know I wouldn’t fancy it.’
‘Just the same,’ said Dad. ‘He’s bringing money in. And not wasting his time in one o’ them colleges. Take a leaf out of his book.’
‘That’s right,’ said Les, who didn’t usually join in these intellectual discussions. ‘Look at me. Only fourteen and already earning seventeen and a tanner just putting glue on raincoats with me finger.’
‘If you like it,’ said Jim, ‘you just stick it out. But don’t expect our Billy to give up his chance of education for seventeen and six a week. You’ll probably end up with your finger sticking up in the air for good.’
They had reached Tib Street Market, a maze of narrow streets choked by stalls and hawkers’ barrows, crowded with a happy-go-lucky throng of Saturday-night shoppers all pushing, jostling and shouting, intent on having a good time.
A simple-minded-looking youth in a grubby raincoat emerged from the crowd. ‘Wanna buy a pup?’ he asked, holding out a tiny, emaciated, shivering puppy. ‘Only one and a tanner!’
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There was no chance whatsoever of Dad ever buying a dog, especially one so disease-ridden as the one being offered. He had allowed a black cat, named Snowy, as a big concession, but beyond that he was not prepared to go.
They came to the first stall, lit by a bright, hissing naphtha flare, where a red-faced man with long flowing hair was extolling the virtues of his sulphurous ointment and his foul-looking medicine.
‘This ointment and this medicine are the result of a secret recipe stolen by Buffalo Bill from the Apaches. The ointment will cure anything. Boils, pimples, ulcers, blisters, abscesses and carbuncles. It’s so pure you can eat it! Just watch this!’
He took a great dollop of the glutinous yellow ointment in his hand and swallowed it, washing it down with a swig of the medicine.
‘You said it will cure anything, but will it cure piles?’ a lady asked.
‘This will cure piles on your bum and piles on your carpet.’
‘You mean haemorrhoids?’ said a male by-stander, anxious to show off his knowledge of medical terms.
‘This ointment will cure fibroids, haemorrhoids, rheu- motoids, adenoids and asteroids. If you’ve got an “oid” this will fix you up!’
They moved on to the linoleum stall. How fascinated Billy was by the histrionic performance of the salesman as he emphasised each point by striking the lino with the flat of his hand.
‘This lino has been laid in the kitchen of the Duke o’ Devonshire. (SLAP) We’ve got these offcuts (SLAP) at a special price. I’m not asking a pound (SLAP), not even ten bob. (SLAP) Give me seven and six!’
On to the crockery stall, where the salesman performed impossible juggling acts with his Chinese porcelain.
‘These eighteen-piece sets are five pounds in Kendals! I’m not greedy. I’m not asking even a pound. Not fifteen bob. Not ten bob! Who’ll give me five bob? What, nobody? You bloody mean lot. Go on then, I’ll give ’em away. Give me ’arf a crown! One for the lady over there, Bert!’
So, on to the home-made toffee.
‘Only the best stuff goes into this treacle toffee. Try one. Go on, it’s free.’
‘A perfect night’s entertainment,’ said Jim. ‘Who needs the wireless or the pictures when you’ve got this lot for free?’
At the corner of Swan Street, against all Mam’s principles, Dad bought fish and chips for everyone, and they walked down Miller Street eating them straight from the paper.
‘I wonder why fish and chips always taste better from newspaper,’ said Flo.
‘Not every newspaper,’ said Dad. ‘Only out o’ working- class papers like the Daily Mirror. I wouldn’t fancy eating them out o’ the Manchester Guardian .’
They walked on for a little while, munching away happily. Then Jim dropped his bombshell.
‘By the way,’ he said nonchalantly, ‘I’ve joined the Royal Navy. I report to HMS Exmouth training ship next week.’
‘You’ve done what?’ exclaimed Mam incredulously. ‘What made you go and do a thing like that?’
‘You daft bugger,’ said Dad. ‘If there’s a war, you’ll be right in the thick of it.’
‘War or no war, I would have joined anyroad,’ said Jim. ‘I want to see something of the world.’
‘It’ll be the bloody next world, if there’s a war,’ said Dad.
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‘I want to go and visit all those places I’ve seen in the school atlas,’ said Jim. ‘Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Cape Town.’
‘What makes you want to go mixing with a lot of bloody foreigners? What’s wrong with here?’ said Dad.
‘There’s more to life than just working in a warehouse on Salford Docks and living in Cheetham Hill. There’s a great big world out there and I want to see it.’
‘How does that song go?’ asked Mam. ‘ “7 joined the Navy to see the world. I And what did I see? I saw the sea .” ’
‘It’ll be the bloody bottom of the sea if Adolf Hitler has anything to do with it,’ said Dad.
‘I’m gonna miss you, our Jim,’ said Billy. ‘Who’ll show me how to box now?’
‘Don’t worry, old son,’ said Jim. ‘I’ll be back afore you know where you are. I’ll get plenty of leave. And if I do get to see those far-away places, I’ll bring you back some smashing presents, you’ll see. And as for boxing, you don’t need any more lessons now. You can stick up for yourself if you watch out for the head-butters and the dirty fighters.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Billy, not convinced and beginning to feel thoroughly miserable. After all, his brother, his friend, his mentor, and his hero was leaving. Somehow, his fish and chips had lost their flavour, and at the next litter bin, he dumped them.
The following day was the start of the Easter holiday. Billy went to spend a few days with Steve and Pauline, who lived in Prestwich in a small, comfortable semidetached house - a wedding present from the Keenan family. Steve and Pauline now had two small sons, Oliver and Danny, who even at the tender ages of two and one, regarded Billy as the family comedian - the one who was
always good for a laugh. The house, which was on an estate of new, red-bricked residences set in wide, clean avenues, had all the latest amenities, including lawns at front and back, a through lounge, a modern kitchen and, wonder of wonders, a bathroom with an inside lavatory!
On Saturday afternoon Billy found Steve digging a great hole in the back lawn.
‘What’s happening, Steve?’ he asked. ‘Why are you ruining your lovely lawn with that big hole?’
‘This is to build an Anderson air-raid shelter,’ replied Steve. ‘In case there’s a war.’
‘But me dad says that even if there is a war, the German bombers will never reach us here.’
‘Since when is your dad an expert in modern aerial warfare? Take it from me, Billy, if the war starts, the Germans have got the bombers all right.’
‘Which ones could reach here?’
‘There’s the Dornier 217 for a start, and then there’s the Heinkel 111. All part of Goering’s Luftwaffe when it starts a Blitzkrieg.’
‘What’s that, Steve - a blitz-what-you-said?’
‘It means a lightning war - a massive air attack to bring a quick victory.’
‘Do you think there will be a war like that here, Steve?’
‘I’m almost sure there’ll be a war, but we’ll be ready for them. Hitler won’t just walk in here as he did in Czechoslovakia. At Avro’s, we’re working flat out every hour that God sends. Winston Churchill seems to think there’s going to be a war. Neville Chamberlain is doing his level best to avoid one, but I don’t think he’ll succeed in the end.’
‘I notice that everywhere I go men are building shelters and filling sand-bags,’ said Billy.
‘Better to be safe than sorry. There’s no doubt the
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whole country is getting geared up for a big fight. But never mind about war for a minute. What about you and your scholarship? I hope you’re going to try for it - war or no war.’
‘I’d like to, but I don’t think me Dad wants me to go. He says it’s a waste of time and I should get a job at fourteen like the others.’
‘Take my tip. You have a go. It could change your whole life, believe me. Imagine yourself as a teacher, say. Taking the boys for cricket and football. Teaching them to understand things. Taking them out on school trips. Treating them like human beings - unlike some of the teachers we have in schools today. Apart from that, look at the long school holidays. Don’t be daft, Billy. Go for the scholarship if you can.’
‘You’ve convinced me, Steve! I like the idea of being a teacher. Especially after all that talk about holidays. But I’ve got to pass the scholarship first. I’m not even sure me dad’s gonna let me sit for it.’
Pauline was trying to join the middle classes. She was most anxious to be accepted by her neighbours, and spent much of her time cleaning and polishing the steps, the brasswork, the windows, the paintwork, and even the brickwork, as well as trimming the hedges and mowing the front lawn. She had even taken to organising middle- class birthday parties for her children. At these shindigs, Billy was appointed as unpaid entertainer and funny-man.
On Oliver’s second birthday, Billy prepared for his act in Pauline’s bathroom. He put on the Nazi armband Mam had sewn up for him, then made up his Adolf face by combing his hair across his forehead and applying burnt cork to produce the effect of a small, square moustache; finally, using Pauline’s lipstick, he painted small swastikas
all over his face. He checked the final effect in the mirror, and, after satisfying himself that all was in order, strode downstairs to await his cue to begin his performance.
When the moment came, Billy marched into the lounge doing a goose-step, and with his right arm raised in the Nazi salute. Most of the kids at the party were too young to understand the full significance of the political satire and innuendo which was put before them, but that didn’t matter. There was a howl of approval and much applause as Billy entered the room to begin his Adolf routine.
‘ Achtung! Achtung! Mein namen ist Adolf Hitler! Vat ist mein namen?' called Billy.
‘Adolf Hitler!’ all the kids yelled back.
‘Gut. I am ze king of all ze vorld. Vat am I?’
‘King of all ze vorld,’ they shouted.
‘I vant peace! Vat do I vant?’
‘Peace! You vant peace!’ they chorused.
‘Ja! I vant peace. A piece of Poland! A piece of Czechoslovakia! A piece of Belgium! And a piece of. . .’
Grabbing Oliver and holding him up in the sky, he finished:
‘And a piece of zis little boy!’
There were squeals of delight from all the kids.
‘What are those funny things on your face?’ called out Angus Greenhalgh, the precocious little four-year-old who lived next door.
‘ Ja . I am glad you ask about zese funny things on my face. Who knows vat is wrong mit me?’
All the kids shook their heads.
( Kommen. Someone must know vat these svastikas mean.’
No one knew.
Finally Billy delivered the punch line:
‘Zese svastikas mean I am haffing ze German measles!’
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The kids squealed their pleasure even though they didn’t get it. It wasn’t what he said; it was the way he said it. But the middle-class mothers who were there with their children seemed to like that one.
Finally the party was over and the guests all departed, leaving a chaotic aftermath. Pauline and Billy sat down, exhausted from all the effort expended in feeding and entertaining ten toddlers. There had been only one complaint, from Angus Greenhalgh, who had gone home weeping and wailing:
‘I wanna Unca Billy like theirs! I wanna Unca Billy!’
Billy was still a pupil at St Chad’s Elementary School, where little had changed - Mr Thomas saw to that. It was the same class of kids, the same ink-drippers, and the same impudent rascals like Stan White. But now, by simply getting older, they had been elevated to Standard 4 under the tutelage of Miss Susan Eager, a buxom young Irish teacher who went in and out in all the right places. The work - at least for some of the brighter ones - had moved on to a more difficult and challenging level.
Miss Eager was something of a slave-driver. One day she announced to the class:
‘Some of you could go on to do great things if you worked hard. Think about taking the scholarship this May, because if you pass you could become doctors, dentists, solicitors, priests, and the very clever ones amongst you could even become teachers. But that requires very special ability. Those of you who wish to enter for the scholarship should take a form home today and bring it back completed and signed by your parent or guardian.’
In sums, her charges hacked their way through a jungle of long multiplication and division, of fractions both vulgar and improper, of decimals - ‘I can’t see any point in ’em,’
said Henry Sykes - and finally of endless arithmetical problems about baths - something which not one boy in the class possessed - whose careless, stupid owners had left both taps running with the plug pulled out.
In English, they waded through the swamp of punctuation where crocodiles and alligators in the form of commas, apostrophes and semi-colons lurked in the undergrowth, ready to snap up the unwary. In spelling, they learned to tackle the imbecilic, illogical patterns of English words. Miss Eager made everyone learn her favourite rhyming verse:
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through?
Well done! And now you wish perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard , a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed', not bead - For goodness sake don’t call it ‘ deed 7 Watch out for meat and great and threat,
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart - Come, come. I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I’d mastered it when I was five.
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Billy learned the finer points of writing compositions on any given subject, from ‘What I did in my holidays’ to ‘My ambitions in life’.
‘When you write compositions,’ said Miss Eager, ‘remember the interrogative pronouns that I told you about last month. Do you remember what they were?’
‘Yes, miss,’ answered Joey Flewitt. ‘Please, miss, they are what, why, who, how, where and when.’
‘Well done, Joey,’ she said. ‘They are what Rudyard Kipling called his six honest serving men. Now you must always use as many of these as you can in the very first sentence of your composition.’
‘Please, miss,’ said Joey. ‘Can you give us an example?’
‘No,’ said Miss Eager. ‘You can all make one up for me. Now!’
The class got their heads down, and for the next ten minutes there was no sound but the scratching of nibs on school exercise paper, and the sucking of pens. Finally, Miss Eager said:
‘Right, that’s enough. Let’s hear what you’ve written. We’ll begin with you, Henry Sykes.’
‘ “On Saturday afternoon, in our scullery, me dad kindly give me a tanner for cleaning his shoes.” That tells you when, where, who, what, how and why, miss.’
‘That’s not bad, Henry. Next Campbell.’
‘ “At home last week, me dad hit me with his belt very hard because I said bugger off to my brother.” Where, when, who, what, how and why, miss,’ said Carrots Campbell proudly.
‘I suppose you couldn’t help bringing in a bit of swearing. But apart from that, it was correct. Next you, White,’ said Miss Eager.
‘ “Last night at two o’clock in the morning, me mam crept into bed very quietly with uncle number
three because she needed the money.” *
c How many times have I told you not to bring tales about your mother into my classroom?’ said Miss Eager. ‘The English is correct but I want no more of those stories, do you understand?’
‘Yes, miss. But they’re all true, miss, and so I can’t help it.’
‘Very well. We’ll let it go. Now let’s hear yours, William.’
‘ “Many years ago, there lived in the village of Redbank two hunchbacked brothers, Kevin and Desmond, who were both woodcutters, but sadly, they were always down in the dumps because of their humps.” That would be the beginning of a fairy tale, miss.’
‘Excellent, William. I’m not altogether sure about the rhyming couplet, but full marks. Now I shall collect all the others in and mark them at home tonight. Since you have all worked so hard this morning, I shall read you a story.’
How Billy loved those stories she read to them - from books published by some coloured family called Blackie and Sons. Stories from Hans Andersen and the Grimm Brothers with opening sentences like: ‘There was once a man who had five sons. One day, he called them together and said . . .’
But today, Miss Eager’s story was from Greek legend.
‘ “Many many years ago, there was a great king called Dionysius who lived in great magnificence at Syracuse. One of his courtiers named Damocles tried to win his favour by flattery, telling him constantly how marvellous it must be to be king.
‘ “If that’s what you think,” said the monarch. “Come to my banquet and try sitting on the throne. See how you like it.”
‘ “In the midst of the feast, the king told him to look
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up at the ceiling. There Damocles saw, hanging above him by a single hair, a naked sword. Damocles was so terrified that he went on his knees and begged Dionysius to let him move to another place which did not involve such danger.
‘ “Now you see,” said the king, “that I am under constant threat and my power hangs by a single thread.” ’
‘That also warned Damocles not to be such a flatterer/ said Miss Eager. ‘We use the expression “a sword of Damocles” whenever there’s an ever-threatening danger.’
‘Is it a bit like Britain today, miss,’ asked Joey Flewitt, ‘with war and all that hanging over us?’
‘Exactly right,’ said Susan Eager. ‘The sword of Damocles is hanging over all of us at the present time.’
Religious instruction still loomed large in the school curriculum, mainly because teachers’ efficiency and thus their security of tenure depended heavily on the successful outcome of an annual religious inspection. The rotelearning and memorisation of the Penny Catechism continued unabated, and Miss Eager employed every method she knew, from persuasion, bribery and pleading to unbridled use of the strap, in order to cram Catholic doctrine into her pupils’ unwilling heads. What was more, the answers had become harder, deeper and perhaps more philosophical.
‘Which are the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance?’ she asked one day.
‘Wilful murder,’ said Stan White, thinking about his dad.
‘Sin of Sodom,’ said Joey Flewitt. ‘Please, miss, what is the Sin of Sodom?’
‘Never you mind,’ said Miss Eager, blushing. ‘What’s the third, Campbell?’
‘Oppression of the poor,’ replied Campbell, whose family was on the means test.
‘Defrauding labourers of their wages is the fourth,’ said Henry Sykes, thinking about his Mam, who had refused to give him his spends last Saturday when he’d given her old buck.
‘Next week,’ announced Miss Eager, ‘we shall be having our religious inspection, and a priest specially sent by the Bishop of Salford will be coming to test you. We shall have to go over the catechism many times. We will begin by revising the eight Beatitudes. Right, you, Henry Sykes, what’s the third Beatitude?’
‘Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted,’ said Henry in a confident voice.
White farted. The whole class roared with laughter and approval. Miss Eager blew her top.
‘White! Get out here, you filthy creature,’ she screamed.
Thereupon six of the strap followed - all of which, as everyone knew, were totally ineffective on Stan’s elephant- hide hands.
‘Now, get back to your place, you disgusting animal, and keep quiet.’
‘What is the fifth Beatitude?’ she asked softly of the class.
‘Blessed are the merciful,’ answered Billy; ‘for they shall obtain mercy.’
‘Very good, William,’ she said. ‘And the Eighth - anybody?’
‘Blessed are they that suffer persecution,’ said Stan White; ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’
On the day of the religious inspection, Miss Eager was on edge. As she said the early-morning prayers, she appeared unnaturally cheerful and she smiled too much.
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‘I shall want Flewitt, Hopkins and Sykes at the front and White, Campbell and Shacklady at the back,’ she said. ‘And woe betide anyone who lets me down or gives daft answers!’
‘Why do we have to be at the back, miss?’ asked White.
‘In the hope the religious examiner won’t notice you, that’s why.’
A few minutes later, Mr Thomas entered the room with the religious inspector - a tall, fresh-faced young man who exuded enthusiasm from every pore.
‘Let me introduce Father Mulhearn,’ said Mr Thomas, addressing Miss Eager. ‘Father is one of our more, shall we say, progressive thinkers with very modern, up-to-the- minute ideas on methods of inspection.’
‘How do you do, Father,’ said Miss Eager, all coy and simpering.
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ said the great man, offering a limp hand.
The class waited in trepidation for the stranger to make the first move. Miss Eager sat at the side of the room with that peculiar, fixed smile frozen on her face. The priest’s first words struck everyone - including the teacher - rigid.
‘Let us imagine,’ he began, ‘that we are going to have a football match against the devil. Who shall we have on the devil’s team and what position will they play?’
There was a long silence as the class tried to take this in. There was nothing in the catechism about the devil and his angels being allowed to play soccer. The smile on Miss Eager’s face had changed and her expression was beginning to resemble that of Our Lady of Dolours.
Carrots Campbell was the first to respond.
‘Lucifer in goal.’
‘Mussolini and Hitler on the wings,’ shouted Shacklady.
‘Good. Good,’ replied the priest.
‘Dracula and Frankenstein in defence,’ called Henry, joining in the spirit of the team selection.
Miss Eager sat frigidly at the side with a look that reminded the class of the Agony in the Garden.
‘We need half-backs,’ said the oddball cleric.
‘How about Herod, Pontius Pilate and Boris Karloff?’ suggested Billy, getting into the swing of things.
‘Now the Evil Ones just need a good centre-forward,’ said Father Mulhearn.
‘I’ve got it,’ shouted Stan White. ‘Me dad. He’ll play a blinder for the devil.’
‘Right,’ said the priest. ‘That’s the opposition. Now who are we going to have on our side? God’s side. First who shall we put in goal?’
‘Christ,’ said Joey Duckett. ‘ ’Cos he’s a Saviour.’
‘Nah,’ said Billy. ‘Let’s have one o’ the apostles, ’cos as fishermen they’d be better in the nets.’
‘Angels Gabriel and Michael on the wings,’ said Henry.
‘Holy Ghost as centre-forward,’ said Campbell. ‘He’d be much too tricky for ’em. Besides, they wouldn’t see him ’cos he’s invisible.’
‘St Peter in charge of defence, as he’d thump anyone who tried to get past him,’ said Shacklady.
‘St Jude for lost causes and St Veronica as she’d wipe the floor with ’em,’ threw out Billy, feeling that this football-team idea was ridiculous.
Miss Eager had gone into some kind of trance.
‘Joan of Arc with St Peter in defence, and finally the Little Flower of Jesus as inside-right,’ suggested Henry.
‘Why the Little Flower?’ asked the Father.
‘Dunno,’ said Henry. ‘But I’ve alius fancied the Little Flower.’
By this time, the inspector was beginning to feel that his progressive approach had gone far enough.
OUR KID
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Enough of all that. Now let’s see if you know your catechism. What are the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost? And don’t say apples, bananas, oranges and so on.’
The class laughed politely. Miss Eager seemed to be coming back to the land of the living and looked encouragingly towards Billy and Joey Flewitt.
‘Charity, Joy, Peace and Patience,’ recited Joey.
Miss Eager nodded enthusiastically - now smiling brightly.
‘Benignity, Goodness, Longanimity and Mildness,’ said Billy.
Miss Eager positively beamed.
‘Faith and Modesty,’ added Henry.
Miss Eager smiled broadly, but then looked worried, for Stan White had put his hand up.
‘Yes. Finish them off,’ said the priest heartily, pointing to Stan.
‘Please, Father. Incontinence and Ignominy.’
‘That’ll do for today,’ said the visitor abruptly. ‘Thank you so much, Miss Eager, for letting me take your class.’
After the inspection. Miss Eager said:
‘White, see me after school! Flewitt and Hopkins come out here. For answering so well, a bag of toffees each and I hope you’ll share them with your friends.’
She hugged the two boys to her shapely breasts - one each. Billy wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not. Perhaps it was because he was having to share with Joey Flewitt.
A week later, Miss Eager spoke to the class:
‘Only two boys are entering for the scholarship this year. That is not very good. What happened to you, Flewitt?’
‘Please, miss, me mam and dad want me to leave school
at fourteen and help me dad on his second-hand stall on Bradford Road Market.’
‘What a waste of a good brain! At the last test you were second in class, only one or two marks behind William. You could easily pass.’
‘Me dad says there’s good money in buying and selling second-hand things.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘If that’s what your dad thinks. Then we’re left with just William and Henry, both from Honeypot Street.’
Little did Miss Eager suspect the planning, plotting and conniving which had gone into Billy’s application form. At the weekend his dad had set his face completely against the idea.
‘Shall we let our Billy take the scholarship, Tommy?’ Mam had asked.
‘Not bloody likely, Kate,’ he’d said. ‘He can bloody well leave at fourteen like the rest of ’em and start getting a good trade in his hands.’
‘Look, all the others could have gone to college but for you, Tommy. You’ve been too fond of the bevvy. Our Billy’s our youngest. Why don’t we give the last kid a special chance?’
‘I don’t want no kid o’ mine getting above himself. Getting too big for his boots. Our sort have got to stick together, ’cos we alius get the rough end o’ the stick.’
‘But one day he might become a doctor or a teacher - even a priest.’
‘Then he’ll start talking and acting posh. Giving himself airs and graces, being lah-de-dah and all that. Then he won’t be one of us no more. He’ll be a toff.’
‘And what’s wrong with that? You’ll be proud of him, specially if he starts bringing in a bit o’ money when you’re old and grey.’
OUR KID
‘If he becomes a toff he won’t want to know us. Anyroad, he’s not going to no college, and that’s the end of it.’
But that Monday morning, Mam had come to Billy and said:
‘I’ve been talking to ’er-next-door, and their Henry’s going in for it, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t and all. So here’s your form - Steve and Polly helped me to fill it in - all signed, sealed and delivered. You go and do your scholarship and never mind your dad. I’ll see to him when the time comes, but it’s best you say nowt to him for the time being. It’ll be our little secret.’
‘Who says I’ll pass anyroad?’ said Billy.
Once Susan Eager knew that Billy and Henry were entering the lists, she piled on the pressure. Both boys were kept back after school for extra coaching, and as if that weren’t enough, she gave them masses of homework in sums, in punctuation, in composition, in problemsolving, in dealing with trick questions.
‘Noses to the grindstone,’ she insisted. ‘Study Chapters One and Two of Fowler’s The King's English , do all the sums on pages sixty and sixty-one in the London Arithmetic, and write a composition on “Keeping a Pet”. I shall want them all by Monday morning.’
‘But that means we can’t go out to play, miss,’ said Henry.
‘Forget play,’ she said. ‘The honour of St Chad’s is at stake.’
‘But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ said Billy.
‘And an empty sack cannot stand up,’ she said. ‘And the devil finds work for idle hands. So get on with it.’
Billy began working and studying so hard that Dad
began to suspect something was going on.
‘That lad’s brain’s going to explode one day,’ he remarked. ‘Doesn’t he know that you never learn nowt from books?’
‘Come on, our Billy,’ said Mam. ‘Stick at it. I’ll see you get some more fish for your dinner tomorrer.’
Came the morning of the scholarship.
‘Do your best writing, son,’ said Mam. ‘Wear these rosary beads round your neck and don’t forget to use your blotting paper or you’ll have smudges.’
Armed with a new ruler, a pencil, a sharpener, a new Waterman’s fountain-pen - a present from Flo - a small bottle of ink and a large piece of blotting-paper, Billy met Henry and together they took the 62 bus to Heath Street Municipal School. Both lads were highly nervous and uncomfortable in their single desks in the strange surroundings - especially since there were no familiar faces, no holy pictures, no crucifixes and no statues.
The teacher came round with the test papers and soon they were so busy adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing that they forgot where they were. The second paper was Problems, and they quickly became engrossed in calculating areas for wallpapering, volumes for bathfilling and finances for housekeeping. The afternoon was taken up with punctuation, spelling, grammar and finally writing a composition on the proverb ‘All that glisters is not gold’. Billy had read a poem about a cat that fell into a tub of goldfish. He thought he would write about that. He remembered what Miss Eager had said about the tragedy of the cat being a lesson to everybody not to be taken in by false riches. He had a bright idea. He recalled what Mam had said about Auntie Cissie - ‘Money doesn’t alius mean happiness.’ He began writing:
A few years ago, in the town of Salford, there lived an old man and his wife but they were very unhappy because they were always short of money. One day, the old woman found a mangy stray cat and so she took it home, fed it and looked after it. The next day, she found that the kitten was really a fairy princess who was so grateful for all the care the old woman had given her, she granted her one wish.
‘Please give me some more money so that we can be more comfortable,’ the old woman pleaded.
‘Your wish is granted,’ said the fairy.
The next day, her husband - the old man - was knocked down and killed whilst on his way to work and the old woman received thousands of pounds in compensation. She now had so much money she didn’t know what to do with it. So she got drunk every night in the pub with all her friends. But even though she had so much money, she was very miserable and so she learnt the lesson: ‘All that glisters is not gold.’ The End.
Henry and Billy went home with their heads spinning after a full day of writing non-stop. But the big challenge came the following day with the intelligence tests. At top speed, the two boys tackled question after question on opposites, analogies, sentence completion, deciphering codes and reasoning.
It was dinner-time when the tests finished and they returned to St Chad’s, where Miss Eager conducted a thorough post-mortem and inquisition.
‘What did you put for this, and what did you put for that?’ she snapped. ‘That sounds right! And that sounds right! I do believe the both of you may have passed!’ That night the boys got back to Honeypot Street with
their brains in a whirl. There was only one cure! They went to the Rivoli to see Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As they licked their giant cornet ice-creams, they both thanked God it was all over.
But was it?
A month later, both boys were invited to attend with their parents for interview at Damian College, Regina Park. Mrs Sykes and Billy’s mam accompanied them on the bus ride across Manchester.
‘You can only do your best,’ said Mam to the two lads.
Before going into the interview, the youngsters were taken into a small examination room, where a brother in clerical cassock gave them a piece of paper and told them they had fifteen minutes to study the question and then write a short paragraph on the subject given.
‘Bring your effort into the interview with you,’ said the brother.
‘Perhaps me dad was right,’ said Billy to Henry. ‘It’s not worth all this trouble to get into this snooty school.’
He looked at the test paper which said: ‘ Write on what you understand by the sentence u Uneasy lies the head which wears the crown ” 3
For fifteen minutes they wrote furiously.
Henry was called in first. Ten minutes later he emerged and gave Billy a big wink.
‘Nowt to it.’
Billy was next. Heart thumping, he went into the office, where the head - a tall, white-haired brother, was seated at a desk with a lady and another cleric.
‘Now, William,’ boomed the head. ‘Tell us something about yourself. How old are you?’
‘I’ll be eleven on the eighth of July, sir.’
‘Good. And why do you want to come to this school?’
‘Me friend David Priestley comes here, sir, and ’e says it’s very good, sir.’
‘Priestley? Priestley? Ah, yes. In Upper Four. A clever young chap. Nice to know he recommends us, eh! And tell me, William, what do you want to be when you grow up? Apart from being an adult, that is.’
‘A writer, a teacher or a priest, sir.’
This appeared to be the right answer, for they smiled and nodded approvingly.
‘Good. Very good,’ said the white-haired head. ‘Now we should like you to read us your effort on the subject we set you: “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” ’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Billy, and he began to read his composition.
‘ “There was once a man called Dionysius who was made King o’ Syracuse. The royal hatter measured him for a crown and said, “Six and seven-eighths, sire, is your hat size,” and he made him a crown that was a perfick fit. As Dionysius sat on his throne, his subjects flattered him. “O great King, you are the greatest ruler of the world,” they all said. The king became so swelled-headed that the crown began to hurt his head. The hatter came back to inspect and he said, “Your hat size ’as gone up to eight and a half, sire.” And no one could get the crown off his head. He had to go to bed that night still wearing the crown. All his subjects said to each other when they retired, “Poor man! I wouldn’t fancy being king tonight. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” ’
‘Don’t be a teacher or a priest,’ said the white-haired man in a fit of laughter. ‘Be a writer! Tell your parents we’ll let them know the results in July. Now good morning, William. Size eight and a half, eh? That’s a good one.’