Contents

Contents

Author’s Note

Workmates at Manvers Main Colliery

2 Private Parkin No. 14171

3 The Buckle End of the Belt

4 The Worms of the Earth

7 The Knuckleduster and the Wedding Ring

8 Love and Marriage

9 The Boy Who Came Back from the Dead

10 They Only Spend It on Beer

11 The Magic Half-Pint

12 Swinging Down the Lane

13 On the Beach

15 I Always Cry at a Brass Band

16 When God’s Not Looking

17 The Likes of Us

18 Get It Out of My Face

19 The Broken Thumb

20 In Blood and Sand

22 Victorian Underwear and Science-fiction Shoes

23 Roy and Margaret

24 The Man Who Came Second in the Bad Luck Competition

25 The Boy and the Dog

26 By the Light of the Silvery Moon

27 How Do You Get Away? Who Do You Have To Ask?

28 The Accident

29 I Said, ‘Shut it!’

31 The Fugitive

32 Passing Over

33 The Whistler at the Gate

34 Gary and David

35 Ask Your Mam

36 A Little Less Conversation

37 The Two Wives of Roy Fox Hollingworth

38 You’re Never Telling Me You’re Going to Do it on the Street?

39 The Beautiful, Beautiful Glowing Light

40 The Duke of Highgate Lane

41 A Pork Pie and a Pint of Milk

42 Wrong Decisions About Men

43 Long Hair? Take Care!

44 The Darkness and the Light

45 A Walk Around the Houses

46 Too Late Now, Cocker!

47 You Can’t Just Fling a Hook in a River

48 You Were Always on My Mind

49 Husbands and Lovers, Fathers and Mothers

50 My Arms Won’t Go Fast Enough for This Modern Drumming

51 All About a Cabbage

52 The Future is a Foreign Country

53 An Extra Half-Hour in Bed

54 What Are You Doing for Money?

55 What I Did in the War, Daddy

56 Because You Don’t Know My Wife

57 Riddling Ashes for Coal

58 Coming Round the Mountain

59 Loser’s Medals

60 Moonlight Promenade

61 Catch Me If I Fall

62 I Think He’s Trying to Tell Me That He Loves Me

63 I’ve Got Somebody Here Who Wants to See You

64 The Indestructible

65 Modern History

66 Born Wi’t Silver Spoon in Thy Gob

67 All the Places

68 Where is Everybody?

69 From the Flames to the Winds

Acknowledgements

A Note on the Author

By the Same Author