CHAPTER 1
Old Baldie, sometimes known as The Grim Reaper, The Banshee or The Angel of Death, has been my constant companion as I wander the globe. Through the years he almost, but not quite, has the aspect of a friend. The joker in the pack, he turns up unexpectedly and, at present, he's always returned alone. I'm almost convinced that he's a figment of an overactive imagination, but there are times when I'm not so sure. In any case, who am I to deprive him of what is rightfully his.
I'm sixty odd and maybe it's time I put some things down on paper. So many memories, from severely good to diabolically bad, pass through what's left of my brain. On the more physical side I was a soldier, explorer, pilot, coal miner, steel-man and potential cosmonaut, and my artistic abilities led me to author, filmmaker, songwriter, singer, poet, musician, cartoonist and teacher. In some of these I reached the peaks but in others succumbed to the troughs of life. But I did my best, which is all that can be asked of anyone.
This is the way it was.
I stood beneath the kitchen table, on the oilcloth, gazing up at the drawer and trying to figure out how it worked. The puzzle was due for some pondering, so I sat down and pondered. Maybe if I tugged the handle, as I'd seen others do, that would get some results? Crawling to the coconut matting, in full view, I stood up, grasped the handle, and pulled. My world was filled with falling knives, forks, spoons and concerned relatives. Nanan was concerned with my welfare as she gathered me up, Mam and Aunty Betty were concerned with the cutlery and Granddad was concerned with the loss of sleep as he looked around his chair. The cat was concerned with safety and cowered under the dresser.
We lived in a one down, two up, terraced house. Granddad paid rent to the Co-op next door, who in a fit of expansion had annexed our front room. We weren't poor, provided the adults were in work, but we weren't rich either. Granddad was a railway porter, Mam and Aunty Betty were on munitions and Nanan looked after the house. World War 2 had just started so I signed on as a domestic baby to give my father, who I rarely saw, something to fight for.
My early memories are peppered with air-raid sirens at the sound of which I was drilled to crouch in a cupboard, or, as I grew in stature, under the great, solid and drawered kitchen table, proof against all the Luftwaffe could throw against a defiant Castle Hill Road. Nanan, meanwhile, would go down the yard for a bucket of coal, determined that the might of the Fatherland should not impinge on her life one iota more than was absolutely essential.
When I got too big for a pram I was bought a Tan sad which was an early version of a stroller. I wouldn't ride in it, preferring to push the thing wherever we went. This was a good indicator of my future career.
In summer I made tar babies with tar borrowed from the sparse travelled road, and learned that manure straight from the horse was hot; and I made aeroplanes out of cloths pegs
My Auntie Doris and Uncle Tommy lived in Marton, near Blackpool. They had no children and we visited them often for an extended stay. Sometimes I was left to give Mam a break. Uncle Tommy made real aeroplanes and Aunty Doris supervised my crab collecting from the North Shore.
One day, when I was two, Mam and Aunty Doris took me to see Mrs. Hall, a medium of great renown. The stairs were bare of carpet and the meeting was held in a room with rickety cane-backed chairs facing the sage. Mrs. Hall was holding forth when we entered. She stopped and looked at me in an imperious manner.
"I must go to the little boy," she said. The assembly swung round, staring at me. She closed her eyes and uttered in sepulchral tones, "He will surprise the world." That was all I can remember of this gathering. Speculation was rife. Would it be a pleasant surprise, or not? Would I win the Nobel Prize or become a mass murder. Mrs. Hall had said it, so it was true. I filed it away for future reference.
About this time we were in New Brighton on a cold and rainy day. We dodged into a full café and, after the meal was finished, (and I don't know why,) I stood up on a chair and gave a faultless falsetto rendition of "Don't Fence Me In," in a voice that carried to every corner of the café. People stopped speaking and eating, and after I'd finished my performance the applause was deafening. Someone produced a cap. The pennies, halfpennies and farthings filled it. I made seven shillings and six pence, which was a good morning's pay for a labourer. My pockets bulging I filed that away too.
Marton was about three miles from the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool, by a route I knew well from several bus trips. On a tar-bursting morning when I was four I inveigled a young lady of barely three to accompany me there. My first expedition, without the approval of anyone, started well. We gathered some discarded cinema tickets to hand to the guardians of the rides. I knew that was the procedure, and tickets were tickets.
We managed a few rides while they were looking for our guardians, and then made our way in the direction of the tower where I promised lions. At some stage she started blubbing, which brought several sympathetic ladies and a policewoman who ascertained that we were lost. I took exception to this. I knew exactly where we were. My protestations about lions fell on deaf ears as we were abducted and taken to the police station where, several hours later, we were collected. This experience had far reaching effects. Henceforth I tended to travel alone.
I was taken to see the great sage known as The Teacher, who, I'd been led to believe, was the repository of all knowledge. I was not impressed. She didn't know my name, my address or who my mother was. If she lacked this basic information, what chance was there that she would open for me the great portals of wisdom? Ever after I would take the word of adults, and particularly educators, with varying quantities of salt.
Teachers spoke a different language known as English, which was somewhat different to my own. I'd heard it on the wireless and grew up bilingual, but now I had to concentrate to find out what they were on about.
At school I discovered prayers, which were a way of talking to an old man called God, who was like Father Christmas in reverse. He it was who frowned upon any kind of fun, especially on Sundays. I hated Sundays.
The day of victory in Europe was a day of parties, and of a bonfire. We six-year-olds had never seen a bonfire because of the blackout restrictions, and were thoroughly entranced as backyard gate after backyard gate was sacrificed to the pyre. Flags flew from clothes-props sticking out of bedroom windows. Now we all prepared to settle down to something called Peace, which seemed to me something of an anti-climax after a lifetime of war and hate.
Victory over Japan came and out stuck the clothes-props again. Owing to a shortage of backyard gates several outside toilet doors were utilised, which caused considerable embarrassment. The celebrations were subdued. They lacked the spontaneity of the ending of the German war, and there was much talk amongst adults of a bomb.
Some days after VJ Day Mam took me to the cinema. I've no recollection of any of the feature films, but the newsreel is indelibly printed on my mind. The camera was in a bomber and far below was a harbour with several warships anchored in the still waters a couple of miles offshore. There was a great flash of light momentarily blotting out all vision. When it cleared the harbour was a mass of smoke. A shock wave was very slowly creeping out across the water towards the ships, a distinct line of death inexorably and quietly approaching the sailors. I knew they were Japanese, but in that moment they became people. I willed those ships to turn away, to run from the death line, to live – to live!
The line, impersonally, crossed the ships and continued out to sea as a mushroom cloud rose above Hiroshima.
The newsreel ended and the lights came on. Where normally there would be the hum of conversation there were now whispers, as in a church. I'll never forget those fearful whispers the day the Atomic Age cane to Hindley. That day was to colour my relationship with all other races and cultures for the rest of my life. I went into that cinema a child of nationalism, but I came out a dedicated internationalist.
At this time my mind was taken up with speculation about the Bogy-Sam. When in the dark, after you'd finished your business in the outside toilet and wiped your nether regions on squares of the Daily Mirror, when you flushed the cistern you had to race to the back door and slam it shut before it filled up again, otherwise the Bogy-Sam would get you! All the adults said it was true, but they'd said that Father Christmas was true, and they'd lied about that! They didn't seem bothered about the Bogy-Sam, but they universally said that it only happened to children, which made me suspicious.
On a cold evening, having flushed, I ran to the back door and opened it, but didn't go inside. I waited for the advent of the Bogy-Sam, speculating on what form it would take. My hand holding the latch was sweating as I waited, and waited. Nothing happened, except Granddad called for me to, "Put wood i'th 'ole." So the grown-ups had lied to me again. I made it a point, weather permitting, to stroll casually from the Throne Room to the back door, not revealing my discovery of another falsehood.
My first recollection of actually challenging Old Baldie was in about my eighth year. It was the first night of the summer holidays so I was shipped of to Marton. At bedtime I was shown a broken electrical socket in my room. If I touched those bare contacts, it was announced with gravity, I would instantly die.
Seconds after being left alone I was out of bed and staring with great interest at this death-dealing device. Here was a colossal dilemma. Adults usually lied, but not always. There was only one way to find out. Maybe if I just touched the metal quickly I would be all right. Excitement tingled as the adrenaline surged and my mouth dried. Slowly my fingers came closer to the yellow gleam, and then a quick jab. Instantly I was shocked, but I lay on the carpet grinning. I was alive and the adults had lied again.
It was about a year later I met Old Baldie face to face.
THE PIT
Nanan died and thanks to some hiatus Mam and I moved out to live in rooms with Albert Bowery, a coal-miner, and his family. Amongst my contemporaries I was the runt, always stuck at the end of school photographs, and I had glasses so naturally I came in for more than my share of bullying. To combat this I became a comedian, with silly walks that would put Monty Python to shame. When this failed I made myself scarce. I had a good turn of speed, and when I was a hairs breadth of being caught I would roll myself into a ball so that my antagonist went sprawling in the dirt, enabling me to escape. Sometimes I didn't, and the ensuing calamity I leave to your imagination.
One day three or four Neanderthals were chasing me as I neared the safety of the front door. I fumbled with the keys and just made it, slamming it shut. Albert was there as I panted.
"What's up lad," said Albert.
"T' big lads er chasing me," I replied, thinking that was sufficient explanation.
"Oh," he said. A man of few words was Albert. Then he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, opened the door and dumped me outside, shutting it after me. The big lads thought it was their birthday as they advanced. I knew I was in for a licking, but a transformation was taking place in my soul worthy of a Captain Marvel shazam.
I fought like a ferret, a dog, a tiger. Neither size nor number of my opponents fazed me as I got stuck in. Of course I was beaten to a pulp, but no one left the field without a black eye, a barked shin or a bloody mouth. It was years later when I appreciated the wisdom of Albert. No more running from a fight. I stood up to my foe. No matter what the outcome, a certain amount of respect was earned and I never fought that adversary again. In fact, some of them became friends.
Almost all my life seemed to be taken up by school at this time. My opinion that adults habitually lied inevitably showed itself in my schoolwork. It was the cause of great consternation to all therefore when, at the end of the list of names of those having passed the eleven-plus exam, my headmaster orated, "... and, strange though it may seem, Edwards!" I entered the portals of Hindley and Abram Grammar School. This was not a happy association, made somewhat unhappier by the constant application of the cane. My ideas and those of my tormentors differed at a basic level over what constituted education. Mathematics was to me an arcane subject, and why teachers insisted that I, in the company of others, should chase over a freezing field in order to get a ball between two poles, was beyond my ken.
Two things saved me from cultural oblivion, the first of which was the ability to play a harmonica. Some years sooner I'd acquired a mouth organ and managed to knock a tune out of it. I cajoled my dad into buying me a Hohner harmonica, the one that Larry Adler, Ronald Chesney et al used to play, which cost him a weeks wages. It was fully chromatic, with a button for sharps and flats. Very soon I mastered it. People said it was a gift. If it were so, how come I had to practice day and night? People asked me to play in school concerts, parish fetes and at cinema Saturday afternoon shows. As far as I was concerned there was Larry Adler, and there was me! But recognition is far from obscure Wiganers. After all, George Formby, who lived half a mile from me, had a famous father.
The other thing was an ability to draw cartoons. Not little doodles on pieces of scrap, but works of art done on expensive cartridge paper. I'd learned my trade by collecting cartoons from the papers and seeing how the professionals did it. My mentor, both in art and humour, was Giles. Each year Aunty Doris bought me a Giles book and I studied it academically; how he drew children and adults, and the subtle differences between, like size of head, or when to indicate movement, and how. Many pots of midnight oil were expended and many a time Mam got up at five for the morning shift at the mill to see me still at it.
It was at the age of twelve or so that I met the first adult, who, I felt, actually knew what he was talking about, and what was more, spoke about things that interested me. Ron Brown was a scoutmaster and ex-commando who had fought the hordes of Nippon and, as a result, saw the futility of war. He was a hero. He knew about the woods, wild life, camping, tracking, climbing, survival, first aid, hiking and living.
Life took on a new meaning. I threw myself body and soul into Scout Movement. Every evening saw me at some scouty task. Weekends were for taking to the hills. My first rucksack was an old naval kitbag with mackintosh belts for straps. The majority of Fridays I would turn up at school with this stuffed with blankets, hitch to Wales all night, share somebody's rope all Saturday and Sunday, hitch back all night and sleep through every class on Monday. This was the cause of much worry to my maternal parent.
CHAPTER 2
Army Manoeuvres
23597468 was my number and Gunner was my rank. There was a barrack room in Oswestry full of people. Soon there were enclaves of Jocks, Scousers, Brummies, Geordies, Cockneys and Wiganers each sending bilingual emissaries to the others. Our education began with the Queens English; after all, it was her army. We were there for a fortnight to be kitted out, assess our potential and be introduced to army life. It was much like scout life, except that every action took place strictly in unison and at the double. There we were taught to march, arms shoulder high at the front and waist high at the rear, and drill, and drill, and drill with hobnail stampings on the parade ground and no cow kicking. We learned to bottle up our feelings when being verbally beleaguered, nose-to-nose, by our inferiors and not to complain when boots that we could see our face in were described as filthy. There are legends about whitewashing coal; Sergeants Major wiping lockers with white-gloved hands searching for lately deposited dust and polishing refuse bins with needles so that they shone. They're all true!
