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Authors: Jeff Pearce

Tags: #Poverty & Homelessness, #Azizex666, #Social Science

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BOOK: A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams
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Sure enough, right in the middle of our last smoking session, dixie sounded the alarm. A teacher was coming! We all scrambled hastily in the direction of the nearest urinal, unzipping our flies as we went. Jonesy was in the middle of his puff and was left in the cubicle. He panicked, slamming the door shut and locking it just before the teacher burst into the toilets. ‘We’re done for!’ I muttered to myself.

Mr O’Reilly stood blocking the entrance, scrutinizing each boy before walking down the row of doors. He moved quietly, taking one step at a time, pausing outside each door, pushing on it and watching it swing back and hit the tiled wall with a loud bang. To Jonesy, the slams must have sounded like the heavy footsteps of an approaching executioner. Then Mr O’Reilly came to the one door that was locked. We all stood there, a long row of boys facing the urinals, holding our willies and pretending to pee, acting as if nothing was wrong.

‘Come on out,’ O’Reilly called, banging on the cubicle door. ‘I know you’re in there, and I know what you’re up to.’

‘I’m on the toilet, sir,’ Jonesy squeaked.

‘No you’re not. I know what you’re doing. Open up at once!’

Jonesy was stalling for time. ‘Honest, sir, I’m still sitting on the toilet. I’m not finished yet.’

‘Not finished?’ O’Reilly bellowed. ‘By the time I’m finished with
you
, you won’t be able to sit on anything for quite some time! Now open up!’

There were a few moments’ silence, broken by the sound of a toilet being flushed. We all turned to look as the cubicle door opened. A thick cloud of smoke billowed out. It was so dense we couldn’t see a thing, and for a moment it looked as if Jonesy had vanished into thin air! But there was no escape, and when Jonesy emerged, O’Reilly, coughing and waving his hand about to clear the air, took hold of him by the ear. Not letting go, he peered into the cubicle looking for evidence and saw it – a small brown object floating in the toilet bowl. The cigar had refused to cooperate!

Jonesy was frog-marched off to the headmaster’s office while everyone else got on with spreading the news. Smoking at school could mean expulsion. And I knew Jonesy wouldn’t last long under interrogation.

I was right: he cracked. I was summoned to the headmaster’s office and asked where I had got the cigar. He wanted to make sure that it hadn’t been stolen from a shop. Once I admitted that it was my father’s, I was sent home to fetch my mother and told to come back with her as quickly as I could.

The journey from the house back to school was made in near silence. My mother’s face was grim and her footsteps were very determined. I sat outside the office for what seemed an eternity, until she finally came out, the look on her face giving me a clear indication how angry she was.

We returned home, again in silence, but as soon as the door was closed, Mum went ballistic, shouting at me for stealing the cigar and for even looking in the drawers in the first place. She said I should have been expelled and that she was ashamed to have been asked to the school because of my bad behaviour. She was furious that she’d had to plead on my behalf and made to promise that I would never misbehave again if I was allowed to stay on.

Mum didn’t speak to me for days afterwards, or even look at me. It was as if I didn’t exist. And that was the worst punishment by far.

Several days later, she was doing some ironing and I was sitting at the kitchen table drawing, when she turned to me and asked, ‘How much did you charge for a go on that cigar?’

‘A penny a puff, Mum,’ I replied.

‘A penny a puff?’ She almost sounded pleased, and when she looked away I could see the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

5. Money for Old Rope

Money was often short, but Mum was very inventive and came up with all kinds of ways of making some, most of which involved us kids.

In the winter, we’d collect firewood from sites nearby that had been flattened by the Luftwaffe. The four of us would set off with Barry’s steering cart and load it up again and again, and the following day, Mum would oversee a production line in the backyard. She and Barry would chop the wood into chips, Sheila and I would place them in a clamp and tie them into bundles with a thin piece of wire, then Lesley would stack them in the cart. Once it was full, myself and my two sisters would go knocking and sell the bundles door to door for tuppence each. There was just one simple rule: we were not allowed to sell our firewood on our street. Mum didn’t want the neighbours knowing our business.

Another winter money-maker was shifting snow. If it snowed heavily during the night Mum would get us up early the following morning, wrap us up warmly and arm us with shovels and stiff brooms. We’d offer our services to the shops first, letting the shopkeepers set the price. They’d often throw in little extras, like an apple each or a bag of sweets.

All the other kids would be out playing in the snow, but it didn’t bother us – we had a laugh while we were working, and we were helping Mum. At the end of the day we’d give her all the money we’d made and she in turn would reward us with pennies to go and buy ourselves some sweets.

In summer, Mum had us collecting jam jars and old newspapers. We’d tell people we needed them for painting at school, but we sold them to the rag-and-bone yard off Smithdown Road for a penny for four jars. On a good day we’d collect around sixty and make half a crown. The newspapers we gave to the nearest chippie in exchange for portions of chips. Smothered in salt and vinegar, to us, they tasted like the best chips in the whole wide world.

Mum often found work in the large houses in the posher parts of the city. As well as cleaning, she’d iron and make up fires; she could turn her hand to anything. There was one particular lady Mum cleaned for who would hide half-pennies underneath the ornaments. By doing this, she would know if Mum had been thorough dusting and also find out if she was honest or not. Mum was wise to it from the start, though. She’d go from room to room collecting all the coins and stacking them on the grand mantelpiece in the main room so the lady of the house would see them straight away. You couldn’t fault Mum’s honesty, but whether she actually went back and dusted underneath everything is debatable! The woman did appreciate Mum’s work and her honesty, though, and was very generous to her and us kids, giving us all sorts of things to eat.

Mum could make a feast out of nothing. I remember my mouth would water at the smell of Scouse, the famous Liverpool dish, bubbling away on the cooker. Sometimes we’d just have a jam buttie, or a mug of Oxo with a chunk of bread to help it down, but it all tasted great. My favourite was ‘pobs’ – chunks of bread floating in a bowl of hot milk with a sprinkling of sugar on top.

Mum’s greatest gift, however, was that you loved being at home with her: the house always seemed warmer and safer when she was there. Even though she had to do everything – bringing us up, taking care of the house and earning the money to support us – she still managed to give us more love than most other children got from both their parents.

We all learnt from Mum at a very early age that if we wanted something in life we had to work for it. Nothing came for free. As I grew up, I inherited jobs from my older siblings – it was almost a family tradition, passing jobs along like hand-me-down clothing.

My first job was running errands for Mrs Gilbert, who lived at the bottom of our street. Every afternoon after school I’d rush home and change out of my uniform. I had to be quick, as Mrs Gilbert expected me to be at her house no later than quarter to five. Otherwise I’d be too late to get her shopping done before the shops closed.

Mrs Gilbert was large – we kids reckoned she must have weighed about 25 stone – and found it very difficult to move around. As a result, she never left her house. She even left her front door ajar for me so she didn’t have to get up to let me in. I had to take a deep breath before entering, because her house stank. It was the cats. No one knew how many she had, and they never went out. That deep breath was so important: the longer I could hold on to it, the better it was for me. I’d dash down the hallway and into the living room, grab the money and the shopping list and speed out the front door and into the fresh air. It always took me a couple of lungfuls to recover.

And the stink wasn’t the only problem. I’d have to ask Mum or one of my sisters to decipher the shopping list. It could have been written in double Dutch for all I could make out. After a while, however, I got used to her handwriting, and when I realized she always wanted the same things, I found ways to manage it myself.

I did Mrs Gilbert’s shopping Monday to Friday for three years, and was paid two shillings and sixpence a week. Of course, the money helped, but by making us work, Mum was also keeping us out of trouble!

Her own mother was a real character, and another task that had been passed down through us kids was asking Grandma Turner for a loan when money was scarce. She was a known money-lender in the neighbourhood and knew that our visits were predominantly ‘business related’, so I’d go in and call out, ‘Hi, Grandma! Mum has sent me to borrow half a crown.’

She’d always be sitting in a large armchair in front of her fire, her skirts up around her knees, stirring the coals with a long poker. She would listen to my request, pull a disapproving face and ‘tut-tut’ several times. Then, slowly raising herself out of the chair, she would heave a big sigh before starting the most extraordinary ritual.

Once on her feet, she’d lift up her black, ankle-length skirt, revealing several grubby petticoats underneath. She would then slowly raise each petticoat, holding it with one hand, using her free hand to peel back the next one until she reached the final layer. She wore old flat black shoes and a saggy pair of socks, faded to dark grey and wrinkled around her ankles. Her legs, blotched with chilblains from the heat of the fire, came to an abrupt halt as they disappeared up into a long pair of bloomers.

Digging into the pockets of the small ‘pinny’ she wore on top of her bloomers, she would pull out a small book, letting the roll of petticoats drop to the floor. The book had a short length of pencil attached to it by a piece of string. Putting the tip of the pencil into her mouth, she would lick the lead, then turn to the ‘Elsie’ page, where she would make another entry.

‘Tell your mother that she needs to come and see me,’ she would instruct. ‘She hasn’t paid me for a long time. Are you listening to me?’

‘Yes, Grandma,’ I would reply. ‘I’m listening.’

‘This borrowing has got to stop. She has to pay me back the money and all the interest she owes me or she can’t borrow any more. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Grandma,’ I would say, feeling uncomfortable and just wishing she would give me the money so that I could get back home to Mum.

Book-keeping done, the whole process of raising the petticoats would start all over again, until the pinny was found and she could return the book to its safe place. Then she’d pull out a small purse, extract the money and place it firmly in the palm of my hand, closing my fingers over the coin. ‘Take care of this now,’ she would warn. ‘Don’t go losing it, because I won’t be giving your mother any more.’

Clutching the money tightly and with Grandma’s message firmly imprinted on my brain, I would run off as fast I could. I always felt so guilty, as if I was the one personally borrowing the money. Talk about shooting the messenger!

When I was nine, I inherited a new job, taking over from Barry after he’d started his first proper job. I was only small, and I wasn’t really old enough, but my new job was to be a ‘security guard’ at the local wash house. The swimming pool and public baths were in the same place, and the swimming baths were very popular with the children, especially if you could swim four lengths without stopping. If you managed this, you got a free yearly pass. Mum encouraged us all to go to the baths, and Lesley and Barry taught Sheila and me how to swim. I’m sure Lesley was a much gentler teacher with Sheila than Barry was with me. He just pushed me in at the deep end when I was about five, watched as I floundered to the edge and told me to get on with it. And get on with it I did. It wasn’t long before I was swimming as confidently as the others.

The public baths were for anyone and everyone who wanted a hot bath. For a shilling you could soak in a large tub full of steaming hot water – a real luxury, because there was no running hot water in the houses in that area. If you wanted a bath at home you had to boil kettle after kettle until you had enough hot water to fill a large metal hipbath. Every house had one, hanging on the backyard wall. But because bathing at home took so much effort, one bath would often be shared by the whole family.

Friday nights at the public baths were a hive of activity. Shop and factory girls, and men from the building sites and the docks – everyone would congregate there between five and seven o’clock. Although the bathing areas were segregated into male and female, before and after the bath was a great time to meet and chat. Many a marriage started at the baths, and many a friendship.

The wash house, before anyone had washing machines, was the public laundry, a place where women did their weekly wash. As most of the women had large families, with some members of the family doing very dirty jobs, it could take all day. The women came from miles around, with large bundles of washing tied up in a sheet and balanced on top of a pram.

At seven o’clock every Saturday morning, the busiest time of the week, I would be there, come rain or shine. My job was to guard the prams while the women did their laundry. At 7.15, the doors would open, and twenty women would go in. An hour later, another twenty would be allowed in, and so it went until midday.

The women had an hour to do their washing, and then they had to move to the wringers, passing the clothes through large mangles to wring the water out. This could take another hour. The washing was hung out to dry in a room heated by the hot-water pipes running from the boilers to the wash house and the public baths. While everything was drying, the women would escape from the heat and the steam of the drying room to the fresh air outside, smoking a cigarette or two and gossiping. And I would be standing outside too, keeping guard over all the prams.

BOOK: A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams
4.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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