Arms and the Man

In the 1970's I tried a few things in order to supplement my pocket money


Coming from a large family of 5 money absorbing children and with a Bank Manager father we operated on a strictly within means basis which was a sound grounding for later years.I have not, however, really applied the theory from my early years lessons in frugality and economy. My parents were fair in their distribution of pocket money and for every year of our age we children got 1p decimal a week. At the age of 15 I found that this allowance never went very far especially as my Speed and Power Magazine cost 10p per month and I never had the sense to save over the four weeks between issues. In addition I liked fizz bomb sweets and my absolute and still current favourite of sherbert fountains. It is little wonder that my interest in smoking was short lived and I stopped that pastime at the age of 12 fearing bankruptcy or withdrawal of finance from the IMF- Income for my Fags.


I did the usual paper delivery round for the newsagent shop opposite the Grammar School. In summer this was a delight with fresh air and a lot of cycling. My technique of scooting along on my bike between house gates on one pedal laden down with a sack of weighty morning tabloids soon cause chronic metal fatigue to the cranks of the pedals and their replacement devastated any profit from that job.


Potato picking sounded good in theory and with the promise of a kingly sum of £15 for a weeks work I promptly signed up. My mercenary attitude backfired big style as I had a round trip of 6 miles to reach the spud field and I had to buy packed lunch and liquids to offset premature death from such arduous work. I had not really thought through the physical demands of harvesting a potato, let alone how many of them could actually be found in a 5 acre field .The tractor had a rear mounted arm attachment that spun out the despised vegetable and a group of us schoolkids had to follow and quickly hand pick and fill up wire mesh baskets before tipping the contents into a nearby trailer. The field was wedge shaped and the first two days were totally demoralising and back breaking in that we were working on the longest rows and had no actual sense of real progress. By days three, four and five we were up and down the shorter furrow lengths at rapid speed and soon completed that form of employment. On the same agricultural theme I also spent a week picking out the wild oats and weeds as part of a crop yield study. Perhaps you could say I was outstanding in that particular field.


I also participated regularly as a bush beater for a large corporate shooting business. This involved wearing thick waterproof clothing all day whilst walking through dripping wet fields of Kale and Sugar Beet a-whooping and a-hollering and smacking the ground and available ground cover with a stout stick in order to startle pheasants, partridge, woodcock and pigeon to almost certain death under a barrage of lead shot from a front line of posh people out for the day in order to claim the highest body count of small animals. There was no more an example of the social divide than between a shooting party and the minions of the bush beaters. I often thought ,with head down against stray lead shot fragments in a head on beat towards the guns,that  if one of us beaters actually died from inflicted wounds in these circumstances we would still be retrieved by the trained dogs and hung up for a few days to mature before families were informed.


The afternoon sessions were the most nerve wracking as the shooters had just partaken of a generous, mostly liquid lunch and could not be relied upon to fire straight or even differentiate between man and beast at an alcohol induced squinting range. The larger animals of the fields and forests were wise to the approach of humans and were rarely ever seen in a perilous position between beaters and guns. I did enjoy the revenge of a huge Hare which, having been shot and then disrespectfully thrown over the proud shoulders of a waxed jacketed businessman for a photo opportunity, promptly evacuated its bowels all over the hapless individual. The stench over the course of the day was warning enough of the position of the guns. The shooting season was mostly in the damp and misty early mornings of the spring before any real damage could be done to the crops by waves of beater infantry. My income from this hazardous work was £6 for a full day.


I now acknowledge that I participated in some barbarous, cruel and, frankly, painful  activities in my attempts to supplement my pocket money but this has made me appreciate to this day the value of a strong work ethic in life. If there was a surplus of kill from the shooting party then this was distributed like and in the manner of charity to the scruffy and cold air induced ruddy faced beater brigade. We bowed and grovelled in thanks which the executive ladder climbers lapped up before alighting in their Range Rovers and Jags.


 Any pheasant that I presented at home was hung up in the shed for a few days and always ended up being buried in the garden as no-one had the desire to pluck, gut and dress the fabulously flashy male of the species. I did reserve one or two of the fancy tail feathers to adorn my rather faded and sweat stained bush hat to give my beating activities some credibility. I made a point of taking off the hat for the post-lunchtime shooting drives mindful that, to the half cut owner of a double barrelled shot-gun , I could appear like a giant freakish game bird and fair game for that.

Late Apology

I was a terrible child in embarrassing my poor, late father in many public situations. This was not done out of malice and may well have been normal behaviour for offspring but will have really made it difficult for my father who was, at heart, a very reserved and private person. His long career in banking, from the age of 15 as a school leaver to taking early retirement some 40 years later, placed a lot of importance on his interaction with the public. He was also seconded into various roles as Treasurer and Chairman for organisations which, I recall, included the Junior Chamber of Commerce  and the Exchange Club in the different towns to which his job took him, invariably every four years, and incidentally, in alphabetical progression. My parents had a busy social life and myself and my two brothers and two sisters would, in true Von Trapp style, sit on the stairs and watch the handsome couple leave, in dinner suit and flowing print frock, through the spindles. Meanwhile, the babysitter would be standing around looking a bit nervous in full knowledge that her £3.75 for 5 hours work would be hard earned. I can imagine my father, momentarily freed from the grubby grasp of his children, at ease and confident amongst friends and colleagues ably assisted and complimented by my mother. It was only with his recent passing that I have been able to fully appreciate the high regard in which he was held in the community.
Three main events persist in my memory as a consequence of my shameful behaviour. My father had a very good mind and aptitude for mechanical things and always maintained his own cars. He had a good ear to detect loose wheel bearings, mistiming valves or when brake discs needed renewal. I liked to tag along on trips to the local scrapyard to source parts for the Morris Minor in particular. A 1957 convertible which is still in the family after more than 50 years. Busy with dismantling some or other engine part my father was not aware that I had assembled a very nice collection of car badges by prising them out of bonnet lids or off tailgates. Unfortunately my best endeavours had been noticed by the owner of the yard and my father was horrified when presented with a bill for the small engine part plus the pilfered items secreted in his toolbag. I think that he paid for one of the emblems from a Morris. I was aggrieved in my subsequent telling off because I had done all the hard work for the proprietor who no doubt would immediately sell on the car badges at full labour cost.
Us children were sometimes invited to social do' s if they were for charitable purposes. If my father was in deep, polite conversation with guests I would hover around and then whilst my father spoke in his knowledgable and enthusiastic way on all manner of subjects I would butt in and say ' You're being silly again'. My blushing father would playfully dismiss such juvenile intrusions but deep down I now realise that my actions will have deeply upset him and shattered his actual fragile confidence. A bit like an assassination attempt on someone trying to make a go in public office.
The pinnacle of my bad behaviour was amongst family members and a large number of guests at the wedding of my fathers cousin in Somerset. I fidgeted through the church ceremony much to the annoyance of my parents. The boredom was compounded by the waiting around for official photographs in the church grounds. There was some relief during the short drive to the reception at a hotel as there was lots to see. Then more waiting and the unnecessary attentions of distant relatives. I have seen some now faded photos of the event and I must say my attire of sparklingly clean shorts, short sleeved shirt and elasticated tie was most fetching. The happy couple arrived for the meet and greet and then upon the announcement that the buffet was open I shot across the room like a small well dressed whippet, grabbed a plate and got on with the task of filling it and my face. I was oblivious to the hilarity and amusement of the massed reception guests at my explosion from the starting blocks, even ahead of the newly married couple and in complete ignorance of the etiquette and decorum of the event. My obvious cuteness contributed to the fairly short period of probation for this social faux-pas but even now in my forties I am reminded at family gatherings of this sorry episode. My brothers and sisters do tend to hang back from any buffet table to see if my behaviour has improved to any extent. Now that I am a parent of three I am grateful that my own children have not put me through the torments that I subjected my own father to. I too have some reluctance to step forward into public situations but I am encouraged by the spirit and committent that I have inherited and when requested to speak in public I see the room as through the eyes and perception of my father for which I am thankful.

Sicherheitsgurtbefestigenbitte

A good story is even better if it can be authenticated above and beyond what can often and disappointingly be just an urban myth. I had come across a book of the experiences of children during the second world war and blitz and amongst the first hand stories of evacuation, rationing, air raid shelters and wartime education was a great tale from the North Sea coast town of Withernsea from about 1941. An enemy aircraft returning from a bombing raid on Hull or the further west industrial areas of South Yorkshire had crash landed in fields just south of Withernsea. No mention was made of the fate of the crew. The wreck remained reasonably intact and in order to protect the landing site for intelligence gathering a small guard party were assembled amongst RAF personnel stationed in the local area. A cordon was erected to keep sightseers and the morbidly fascinated away. The combination of a remote field and chilly coastal weather soon persuaded the guardians to take refuge in a farmers barn out of clear view of the fallen aircraft. This lapse in discipline allowed a large group of local children, who had never been more than a few yards beyond the cordon, to swarm over the plane. Initially the attraction was in play-mode each taking turns to be pilot, navigator, nose and tail gunners and , as a matter of improvisation, cafe owner for the serving of enemy refreshments overhead from the adults in such mysterious and guttural terms as 'Ersatz Coffee' and 'Bratwurst' and all sorts of turnip based snacks. Boredom, even with such a lifesize plaything ,soon prevailed and the attention of the children turned to the next project of securing souvenirs. The prized items went to the larger, stronger members of the group. The control column from the pilots position, a portion of the mangled tail with pockmarked spider-like emblem and pieces of the clear canopy from over the cockpit. Smaller items filled pockets to bursting. A large but well motivated gang of the younger children managed to wrestle clear of its mounting a very heavy and cumbersome machine gun complete with live magazine and lots of loose ammunition. Someone had the idea to test the weapon and with a squeeze of the trigger a stream of tracer bullets streaked out towards the cliff top. This startled the group but there was no reaction at all from the direction of the sheltering guards. Children in wartime can feel a bit sidelined and belittled by the participating adults. The plan with the machine gun was to smuggle it up the Church tower in the town centre and prepare to fire it in anger against the regular waves of aircraft crossing the North Sea coast. The downed bomber was left in situ now considerably lightened and depleted of its equipment and ordnance. The investigation by the embarrassed authorities upon discovery of the stripping out of the plane was swift and merciless. The Vicar's son, a key participant in the project was first to crack but only after his father found the live ammunition in the Vestry storage cupboards behind the hymn books. The children were hauled in front of the convening Magistrate and persuaded to relinquish their treasure trove. The adults in the Court House spoke in very formal terms but the children sensed some restrained amusement in their eyes. The poor guard contingent however faired less well and the lessons learned from their lackadaisical actions were enforced through the Service from that day.

I recalled my enthusiasm for this story during a work appointment at a house in Withernsea only a couple of years ago. The occupiers were born and bred in the town over at least three generations. They remembered the story very well because their late father had been one of the co-conspirators and it was all completely true.

UFO

He later described the colour of the object ,to the local press reporter, as 'ice-blue'. This was based on the strong memory of this particular shade in metallic sheen of his first ever brand new car, an Austin Allegro saloon which the sales manager at the local showroom had driven around to the forecourt to present to the proud owner. Within a few years of harsh rural winters and attack by rock-salt the ice blue had dulled to just an indiscriminate blue, speckled with the first perforations of serious corrosion. The actual colour of the object was perhaps a deeper blue, artificial rather than natural in its appearance. He tried to recall other features, oh, apart from the undeniable fact that the object was frozen solid. It had appeared unannounced overnight as he was sure that as a light sleeper he would have surely heard the great noise of its impact with his small homemade cold frame.That morning on his usual first dawn patrol of the vegetable patch there was not much to report. No signs of rabbit prints amongst the fresh shoots of the carrots , a few silvery trails of slugs across the path, a wrapper from Danish Bacon held in suspension ,by a light breeze,against the chicken wire of the polythene tunnel sheltering his lettuce crop.Next doors cat had been in the loose bin bags again. Then he saw the imploded timber and glass of the cold frame and nestled in the debris, like a Faberge Egg, was the solid blue ice-cube. With a long and slightly warped bamboo garden cane he prodded the blue block. He had overestimated the strength of the thinnest end of the cane and had made no allowances for any strength from the sheer density of the block. The outcome was a sharp snap, a splinter of natural fibres and a very limp and ineffective instrument for probing. He resorted to a tried and tested kick with his hobnail gardening boots. No movement, no give and no sign of weakness or splinter factor there. Sensing no immediate threat he moved closer and tentatively sniffed the immediate air for any clues as to composition of the object. There was a specific lowering of temperature at this distance, even above the, what only three to four degrees of the chilly morning. No odour however. He stared into the deep blueness and could just make out a reflection of his ruddy face and the brightening sky behind. A long crowbar and shovel could not shift the object. The lip of the sturdy former builders wheelbarrow, used like a sand iron golf club could not get any purchase to attempt a flip and roll of the object. Within the hour his brother in law arrived. His job at the former Austin Motors showroom, now a car repair workshop, gave him access to a recovery vehicle based on a Leyland Daf cab and chassis. Digging by hand around the still frozen cube the two of them managed to fashion a lifting hoist and under hydraulic power the object was raised and swung out and around onto the flatbed of the truck. Small fragments of the cold frame were not so much embedded in as cold-welded on. After a couple of phone calls , one to the local Police House and the other to the Council, the transportation was directed to the nearest Local Authority Facility which was a depot for the winter rocksalt and gritting machines which kept the remote rural area as free as possible from complete whiteout conditions. Ironically, the same process involving rocksalt that destroyed his ice blue Allegro gradually dissolved the blue ice block. In the following weeks of warmer weather there was some vaguely recognisable odour from the crater of cobalt tinted rocksalt which marked the final resting position of the object.
The event made it to the small filler paragraphs of the local paper under the heading of 'Unidentified Frozen Object-UFO crushes spring onions'. There was some general hilarity at the village pub culminating in the depositing of some blue urinal disinfectant cubes in his pint of best ale. Shortly after no one could remember the exact circumstances of the short lived celebrity status of the individuals, village and newspaper report.

Some months later a memo was circulated to the Pilots and aircrew of commercial airline flights between Dusseldorf and Ontario. It read ' After crossing the Dutch coast but before crossing the East Yorkshire Coast at the Patrington Spire vector please ensure that  purging the tanks of your chemical lavatories is fully completed.'

Dear Customer Services......

                                                                      The Beeches
                                                                        Foldyard Court
                                                                          Elsingworth
                                                                             Surrey
                                                                              
By electronic mail only;

Boots The Chemists
Customer Services;

Dear Sir or Madam,

I do hope this finds its way to the appropriate Department as with my failing eyesight I had some difficulty in reading the print from the packaging with regard to Customer Comments.

I find it necessary to put pen to paper but in an electronic mail form to congratulate your tremendous British Company on trailblazing in all things Green and Environmental  in respect of a product that my wife recently purchased whilst visiting your large store outlet at the retail park in our area.

The product in question has caused my wife and myself to re-evaluate or own lifestyle and we
are now determined to introduce new practices and disciplines into our daily life to benefit the
planet now and for the benefit of our wonderful grandchildren, Toby, Piers and Jocasta, their partners  and our  great-grandchildren Troy, Bobbie Jo and Strawberry Dew.

Truth be told we had not at all considered your product, not anyway at our time of life or with our
more recent medical history including my hernia and my wife's dodgy hip.

The concept of your product is so simple yet sensible. We believe that we have saved at least half our hot water costs in following the operational instructions of the product. To borrow and adapt a phrase from the world of 'Do It Yourself' your product does exactly as it says but on the squeezable tube.

At first my wife and I were reluctant to follow the recommendation of your product but found that by standing back to back we could undertake our daily routine without undue embarassment and with suitable modesty for a married couple of some 65 years this coming June. We can also economise in the heating and lighting costs of the bathroom and benefit from the sharing of one towel and alternating with a towelling robe.

Congratulations to you all at Boots for the foresight and obviously lengthy and costly research behind this excellent product.

My wife and I will certainly be recommending the product  to our closest friends and purchasing much more of your 'Two in One Shower'  gel.

Yours sincerely,

Hubert and Marion Falsworthy

Going Underground

On the hottest 1st October in weather recorded history, 29.9 degrees centigrade,what would be the usual thing to do? Chill out in the garden with a long cool drink, loiter around the deep freeze section in the local supermarket, drive out to the coast with the air conditioning on full before getting the benefit of a refreshing off shore breeze. A fourth alternative was the one I went for. A descent through artificially lit corridors and stairwells to the base level of the Cold War underground bunker at Holmpton. The facility was built in 1951 as a strategic control centre for the RAF, at that time with a full radar array aboveground. Built in a large hole and then buried under a farmers field the now largely mothballed structure covers the area equivalent to a four storey football pitch and in its peak operational mode was the workplace for 120 per shift. Encased in 10 feet thick tungsten reinforced concrete and at a depth of 80 feet the bunker was intended to run the countries response to a Nuclear attack although how much management would be required for a post apocalyptic Britain with a predicted (1951 figures)  43 million dead and with the remains probably condensing into a shoe-box? The tour starts at the guardhouse, cunningly disguised as a chalet bungalow to fool the most sensitive spy in the sky although with a full car park in it's heyday the site will have resembled a very well attended bake sale or coffee morning amongst the local population. The long shallow gradient of the access tunnel leads to the main blast doors of the complex and beyond to a stairwell to the main floors. A tour guide ushered our small group through the dormitory, kitchens, communications rooms and sick bay all retro-fitted for our benefit. The computer room had long since been emptied mainly because the original equipment taking up the space of an Olympic sized swimming pool had an output now inferior to even a basic home PC. Telex and printers including ticker-tape type transcribers looked so cumbersome and dated but will have represented the pinnacle of equipment at that time. There were some strange sights in the bunker. The main officers sleeping quarters had a small table lamp on a bedside table amongst wall mounted white boards for listing megatons of strikes, fatalities and fallout levels. Daily ration packs included packets of dehydrated beef stew, chocolate pudding and chewing gum. Given the fact that the 'lucky shift' on duty at the time of the apocalypse would be entombed for a minimum of one month there was a very good selection of paperback novels but also a number of car maintenance manuals which suggests that the old British Leyland Mini, although stricken with corrosion, would be able to survive a nuclear strike. The main plant room could have doubled up as the engine room on the Starship Enterprise apart from the liberal use of cream gloss paint on the bank of control units and the meticulously labelled and referenced parts of the air conditioning machinery. A small child in our tour group was about to flick the main 'ON' switch when spotted by the guide, ex Observer Corps, of course. This will have stolen his thunder for the actual demonstration of how from a standing start the whole subterranean web was replenished with fresh and filtered air within 10 seconds. The disorientating course through the many rooms and compartments included two short seated sessions in front of TV screens on which black and white government information films were shown. These ,never actually broadcast ,were the usual posh voiced, firm but scary type of production, a bit like your headmaster telling you that your parents had died in a horrible way but your elderly and senile relatives would now be looking after you. Apparently, the best way to survive the initial nuclear flash and subsequent shockwave was to throw yourself dramatically behind the sofa, if indoors, or in a ditch if out on your pushbike or visiting friends. The films were a bit vague about what fallout would do to your metabolism in the following nuclear winter.
The visit concluded with a very gung-ho and propagandist review of 'them Cold War days' , a startling all clear siren and a remotely controlled RAF ensign lowering on a pole in the briefing room. On ascending the tunnel there was half a thought that if solar flares had hit the earth in the duration of the tour  I would have responsibility for marshalling the mixed tour group into a credible survivalist group for the New World Order. The exit through the gift shop was the ideal time to purchase essentials of a couple of bars of fudge, fluorescent orange coloured pencil and a small notebook. I would be prepared for when the balloon went up.

Wave

Family, close friends, work colleagues, neighbours. The top four categories of relationships.

I would like to add a further layer under the label of  'people who we do not actually know but we wave to regularly'.

There are some set-in-stone members of this club established from childhood and these include Policemen, bus drivers, Automobile Association mechanics, juggernaut drivers (although more of a gesticulation to honk the air horns than a definitive wave), irrationally the pilots and crew of aircraft at 30,000 plus feet altitude and train drivers just at the point of going under a pedestrian bridge.

As a child passenger in my Parent's VW's there was great glee in waving at other VW's on the road. In the 1960's and 1970's the marque was probably quite rare and, pre-single european economic market, regarded as a foreign luxury. A bit like the place now held by Marmite (First blog history mention) in the ethnic food section of Stateside hypermarkets.

Under the current market domination of the VW brand any attempt to emulate the childhood wave would resemble juvenile dementia or look like a panic stricken attempt to alert the authorities to abduction or mistreatment.
The attitude of motorists and their passengers has also changed dramatically and any hint of a hand signal, even an innocent wave, from a passing vehicle can be misconstrued as an invitation to road rage. I grew up, I now acknowledge in much more innocent times. A wave was then a wave and not a declaration of war.
I am on waving terms with a Lollipop Lady on my short drive to the office. She has been a regular for many years at the school crossing in front of the main entrance to All Saints Juniors and I was on speaking terms when passing the time of day at dropping off and picking up times for my own children now some 15 years ago. My youngest went to Secondary level some 6 years ago. Our waving is probably a continuation of our last conversation at that time, a semaphore based communication around the merits and rivalry of our respective footie teams, mine Hull City and hers the mighty Leeds United. Her team have yo-yo'd through peaks and troughs over the last 15 years from Champions League semi's to rapid insolvency and a series of relegations to the lower leagues. I have waved sympathetically and with due respect on the mornings after a particularly bad result for her team. Hull City's brief two seasons in the Premier League and a series of humiliations did lead me to consider taking a more roundabout route to the office on many monday mornings after the regular weekend defeats. Now that our respective teams are in the same league and play each other quite regularly there is a definite edge and oneupmanship in our gestures. I am grateful that her duites involve holding onto a fluorescent lollipop stick in her right hand and stopping traffic with the raised palm of her left hand as if I time my drive at well below 20mph over the successive speed bumps outside the school I can avoid her celebratory wave when her team thump 3 or more goals past The Tigers. The Lollipop wave takes a mere 3 seconds but is a nice constant in a changing world. The other crossing point at the eastern gate of the playground has had a massive turnover of quite grumpy and officious jobs-worths with no intention of fraternising with the enemy.
It is a bad thing to admit to but I would probably not recognise the Lollipop Lady out of context of the school gates or the jauntily worn peaked high viz cap, dazzlingly bright and reflective banded all weather knee length coat and her Doctor Martin bovver boots.