Lost Lad (29 page)

           
"Yown com then!"

Simeon translated -

           
"'You have arrived at last' - I'm being rebuked."
  He addressed Wilfred Hogg directly, in a sharp manner, to head off a further reprimand. 
"Hello, Uncle Wilfred.  How are you?"

           
"Huh!  Our am a?  Are think our am a.  If a were an os
[horse]
they'd av shot me."

           
"Sorry to hear that, Uncle Wilfred.  You look fit enough to me."

           
"Know what day it id?"

           
"It's Sunday."
replied Simeon

           
"Huh.  Arr think Soondy.  It me bothdy.  Am 84 tady."

           
"Congratulations, Uncle Wilfred.  By the way, this is Gary Mackenzie."

           
"Hi!  Happy birthday."

           
"Huh!"

           
"Now if you and Aunty Joyce will excuse us, we really must visit all the other Hoggs before it gets too late."

           
"Thee nedna goo fa may."

Gary looked puzzled.  Simeon translated -     

           
"He said 'You need not go for me' or, 'Please don't leave on my account'.  It's pit talk from his coal-mining days.  I'm not quite sure about 'Huh!'  Some sort of recurring expletive, no doubt a censure expressing dissatisfaction ... "

           
"Yo what?"

           
"I was just telling Gary we'll have to be going, Uncle Wilfred."

           
"Huh!"
   

For a moment the sun went out!  It was the shadow of something large and silent drifting overhead.  All four were distracted and looked up to see a low flying hot air balloon sailing towards Smalley and Heanor on a gentle westerly breeze.

           
"Ooo a should loove ta be in that basket,"
 wished Aunty Joyce. 

           
"Huh.  Ad sooner cape
[keep]
me fate
[feet]
on t' ground!"
demeaned Uncle Wilfred.

Simeon was very fond of Gertie and Fred Hogg.  Over the years Aunty Gertie had very kindly pressed him to stay at their house.  Over the many years Simeon had thanked her and politely declined on the grounds of Aunty Joyce having much more room and possibly, as a lonely soul, being more in need of the company.  Number Two, Bog Hole was rich in company.  Gertie Croake was one of a large and fertile family of Croakes who, like the Hoggs, had inhabited Horsley Woodhouse for generations.  Gertie, one of fourteen children herself, had personally increased the Bog Hole population by eight: three girls and five boys.  As long as Simeon could remember, there had always been little children crawling along Aunty Gertie's spotless floors.  In the sixties and seventies these would be the grandchildren, in the eighties and nineties they were great-grandchildren and now Gertie and Fred were fussing, doting and cooing at a collection of great-great-grandchildren.  Children were accompanied by parents and sometimes grandparents.  The result: Aunty Gertie's living room was often full to overflowing with a humanity of Hoggs.  Simeon recalled hanging his coat on one of the clothes pegs: it fell off!  Like the room, the pegs, already overburdened, could hold no more.  Gertie and Fred were generous to a fault.  The kettle was always on the boil supplying an endless supply of tea for the multitude.

           
"Mash 'em some tea, Arr Fred."
   

Two mugs arrived and Gary tried to look grateful for the tea he did not want but the home-made fruit-cake looked delicious.

           
"Get thee chops round that!"
ordered Aunty Gertie thrusting a tea plate at her grinning nephew. 
"Thas like a bloody Cheshire cat!  As bin ta see t' Dooks yet?"

           
"Perhaps later."

           
"Silly owd boggas!  Tha'll not see a lot a change.  Thee get fatter.  Thee dunna walk, thee roll down t' Ole."
[Bog Hole Row] 

Simeon loved his Aunty Gertie.  Her entertaining banter was an annual treat.  She sounded and looked like the much loved quintessential, all British battle-axe - Ada Larkin.  But the superb actress Peggy Mount was playing a part and Gertie was the real thing.  At 81, with robust health she was still going strong, calling, criticising, bossing, dominating and intimidating.  This was the first house on the row to get a television but also it was the one house on the row which did not need one.  The show went on and on, and it went better when Simeon had an opportunity to direct.  As with his friend Gary, Simeon knew which mischievous buttons to press to get Aunty Gertie going.  He usually started with Aunty Joyce.

           
"We've been talking to Joey.  He put his hat on for us!"

           
"Bloody 'ell!  An t' bod
[bird]
on t' middle at table.  What must ya friend think?"

           
"Oh, it was different,"
said Gary cautiously and slightly intimidated by the crowd in that small room.  Aunty Gertie continued her assault on Aunty Joyce -

           
"Nowt else ta do but talk tat bod all day.  Bloody pathetic.  Silly owd bogga!  Owd fashioned as Methuselah.  What must ya think, Gary?  An you from America where it's all posh.  It must be like goin' in t' bloody Ark.  Noah were more bloody modern than owe is.  Soft owd bogga 'er!"

At this point Simeon was seated, struggling to drink his tea, convulsed with chuckles, when he felt the familiar heavy hand of Aunty Gertie.  It was not unusual to get a smack across the back of his head.  He did not mind and it only made him laugh all the more.

           
"What you bloody laughing at?  Daft bogga."
 

Being a Croake, Aunty Gertie was well disposed and enthusiastic to be critical of the Hoggs because the Hoggs had always been disposed to look down on her family of Croakes who were regarded as a lowly, rough and ignorant tribe.  Simeon had always been amused at this ongoing soap opera of the low looking down on the low.  Both families were from a mining working class background and both spoke in 'pit talk' but the Hoggs enjoyed a reputation as 'chapel folk' and actual swearing was taboo.  In the 21st century, 'strong language' needs to be put in context.  It was doubtful if Aunty Gertie knew the origin of her favourite expletive - 'bogga', from 'bugger' meaning a sodomite, but, no known obscenity would ever pass her lips or be tolerated from another.  She probably assumed that 'bloody' was a reference to blood, when in fact it is a centuries old contraction of the oath - 'By my Lady', a reference to the Virgin Mary. 

Aunty Gertie asked about Wilfred's wife -

           
"Ave ya bin ta see arr Nelly yet?" 
Before Simeon could answer, she pressed on.
  "Rough owd bogga!  Owe asna
[has not]
bin out at t' Ole in twenty year.  Owe asna!  Owe blames 'im.
 

Here Gertie did an excellent impression of the ultra common, decayed, tripping, monotonous and toothless voice of Nelly Hogg -

           
"Owe said - 'A canna gerr 'im ta goo anyweir.'  A thought, yo ignorant owd bogga!  Fa God's sake don't mention Vivienne.  It's arr little Vivienne this and arr little Vivienne that.  Am sick a 'earin' about bloody Vivienne."

           
"I heard all about the much lauded little Vivienne last year - incessantly.  Being childless I suppose she tends to dote on her niece,"
  suggested Simeon.

           
"Great niece.  Nowt else ta do that's 'er trouble.  Owe were tellin' me what furniture t' owd man Broom'ead
[Mr Broomhead]
ad delivered next door ta their Elsie's 'ouse.  A sez, arr da yo know?  Owe sez - 'A peeped through 'ole in t' fence!'  Nosy owd bogga."
                             

After Simeon felt there was no further mileage to be had from Nelly, he made a mischievous reference to Aunty Gertie's other archenemy -

           
"I really must pop in and say 'hello' to Annie Oakes."

           
"Annie bloody Oakes!  The owd rob dog 'er.  Dunna buy any vinegar, its more bloody water than vinegar, an them bloody eggs, thee more than thee should be."
  Gertie turned and addressed the gathering. 
"Owe'd steal Jesus Christ's shoe-laces!"

           
"Owe's bin callin' ya agen, arr Gertie, owe as, owes bin callin' ya black an blue!"
  This from a prominent big woman, Aunty Dorothy who was Gertie's sister.

           
"I'll slap 'er bloody chops if 'er sez oat
[anything]
about me!  Wot yo laughin' at?"
  said Aunty Gertie to Simeon as he received his second 'clout'.  He quickly recovered to ask after Aunty Dorothy's health.  As a child he recalled her massive legs with prominent varicose veins when she did a 'knees up' with Aunty Gertie at the Miners Welfare Club.

           
"Am all right, me dook,"
replied Aunty Dorothy and added 
"Am in t' ladies darts team nar.  Ad never thrown a dart before, but a threw, an it wore 60!  An arr Gertie sat there we a face as long as a bloody fiddle!"

           
"A never did!  Tek na notice of a, Gary.  Owe's a soft owd bogga."

Gary took full advantage of this comment to make one of his own.  He was listened to with quiet respect by the congregation of mainly women who were curious about him personally and quite fascinated by his accent.

           
"It's really great meeting you all at last.  Simeon's told me so much about you."

           
"Wot's 'e said about me?"
  asked Aunty Dorothy abruptly.

           
"Oh, no problem.  Simeon speaks kindly of all his relations and tells everybody - 'I'm a friend of Dorothy's'."

To Simeon's relief, no one in the crowd appeared to catch the significance of Gary's hidden agenda regarding his last remark.  Forty years before, Aunty Gertie and others in that room would tease Simeon about girlfriends.  Thirty years before the questions became more personal and more intrusive.  Marriage was mooted.  It all became more serious and very uncomfortable for the visiting bachelor who had to field hostile questions and deal with working class homophobic innuendoes which cast doubt on his manliness and virile duty to 'do the right thing', to produce new Hoggs, to carry on the clan.  Twenty years before the questions ceased, probably on the instructions of Aunty Gertie who, at long last, had begun to accept, to realise that 'Arr Simeon' was a Hogg of a different colour who had always danced to a different drum.      

On this occasion, as well as assorted children on the floor, Aunty Gertie was holding court in front of aunts, uncles, several first and second cousins with a sprinkling of nephews and nieces.  Referring to Gary, one woman said -

           
"'E looks like 'im as were on t' telly last night."

           
"Ooo arr,"
said Aunty Gertie. 
"Nar oo was it?"

           
"John Inman?"
suggested Simeon.

           
"I'll give thee 'John Inman'!  It were a proper man not arf a bloody man.  Ooo was it, ever so famous, tall and fair?"

Several incorrect names were suggested by the audience.  Simeon chimed in with
'Liberaci'
which annoyed both Aunty Gertie and Gary.  Following further offerings from the gathering, Simeon made his last and final offer -
'Charlie Drake'
.  Aunty Gertie was about to apply a third blow to her nephew's head when, to Gary's delight, Uncle Fred called out -

           
"Paul Newman!!"

           
"That's 'im!"
cried Aunty Gertie triumphantly, immediately giving her irritating nephew a look of scorn. 
"Charlie Drake!  Yo silly daft lookin'
bogga!"