The Principality of Wales juts from the west coast of England, separated from West Country England and Cornwall to the south by the Bristol Channel, and The Isle of Man, and eventually, the county of Lancashire and the Lake District to the north. The Snowdonian and Clwydian ranges in the North link to the backbone of Wales, the Cambrian Mountains, which finally connect to the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains in the South of the country, which causes Wales, in effect to be two countries, the North and the South, separated by the largest, highest and most inhospitable mountains south of Scotland. It is from the Clwydian range that I originate, from a small but beautiful village, with good warm weather; a village that nestles quietly in the rain shadow of the great range of Snowdonia.
Some of the most impressive scenery in Britain is to be found in North Wales. Indeed its magnificent mountains, its cascading waterfalls, winding streams, remote lakes and hills, heather clad moors and a wild and glorious coastline encompassing rocky shores and broad sandy beaches are the inspiration for the choral prowess and poetic emotions of many famous men and women who recorded its beauty in hymns and songs which are now sung and listened to globally. Where hard miners kept themselves in touch with each other in the darkest bowels of coal and slate mines by tune and song, as they lamented the deaths of their brethren, and their thanks for their own short lives of toil and hardship.
Wales was always, and will always remain, a country to stir the imagination; a country of myth and folklore, poetry and song; all products of the mystic quality of the marvelously diverse landscape, shaped by God and glaciers, seas and rivers and the hand of primitive man, as an outpost of ancient humanity from time immemorial.
It comes as no surprise therefore, to discover that parts of Wales abound in the verbal telling of its most famous King, Arthur, and that Merlin, his revered seer and concocter of medicines and spells, should be born in the mountains of North Wales.
Wales abounds in the unexpected. Here is the smallest house in Britain, said to have been inhabited by one of the tallest men in Wales, and here too, the longest place name, which to this day I can still write and repeat, it having been the location of my teenage military school for adolescents such as myself, HMS Conway, on Angelsey Island. Portmeirion, a village inspired by the Italian village of Portofino is also here, as the realization of a dream by the wonderful Welsh architect, Clough Williams-Ellis, and made famous in the sixties as the location and setting of “The Prisoner,” with Patrick McGoohan in the starring role.
Here in Wales is the Tal Y Llyn railway, the oldest working steam hauled narrow gauge railway in the world, and so it goes on, always the unexpected, the unusual, and always the mystic, brooding quality of the landscape.
There is a history of extensive coal, iron, copper, silver, lead and even gold mining that once provided so much employment in the hills and valleys, brooding in cloud shrouded myth. The souls who tended the industries with pride and heroism had a language of their own, and talked musically amongst themselves, albeit with its attendant tragedies and heartaches, while they embraced God and life and death. For the people of the valleys and hills of North Wales, much if not all the landscape remains unspoiled, and those areas where industrial activity was as recent as the second half of the last century, the proud Welsh have cleaned and recovered their land to present industrial memories of their efforts, and those of their forefathers, to the benefit of new generations, who can now explore them as museums and trails, and educational trips back into the history of this wonderful land.
The shores of North Wales provide sanctuary for great colonies of sea birds and seals, and inland there are still red squirrels, otters, martens, deer, and wild ponies, all watched over by soaring kites and buzzards and other rare birds of prey.
In the north still roam wild herds of white cattle, said to be descended from those cows and bulls brought here by Roman legions, the first invaders who attempted to create any orderliness from the extremes of the climate and topography.
Wales is the water fountain and energy well for Central England, with huge dams and lakes and hydroelectric plants hidden away in flooded gorges and ancient cave systems. Wales has long been the principal reason the populations of Central England could drink fresh water and turn a light to glow at peak periods.
In times gone by, this caused minor resentment amongst those of us who are pure bred with linguistic integrity, and during the sixties the letters FWA were seen as a representation of The Free Welsh Army, painted on bridges and overpasses used often by the invading settlers from England and their encroachment and attempted assimilation into our villages and culture.
The army was organized into orderly regional cells which were set upon removing English control from the fine estates that were once our own, by burning their homes and crops and by that most hurtful method of all, the cold shoulder, whereupon when an Englander came amongst us, we would converse only in Welsh, and deride their accent and all they stood for, putting them down in front of us while smiling in their face. This has since become a thing of the past, and in fact Wales, with its highly literate and well educated, bilingual populace now enjoys home rule, having finally been recognized by Whitehall as being more capable than they of protecting their wealthy heritage. In reality, no two countries could be as diverse in heritage by settlement and invasion than England and Wales, only it seems, the Irish had any empathy with the Welsh, and from a time immemorial there is still a strong Celtic bond that binds the Welsh and Irish, which is now a global tradition celebrated in music and song, as expatriates of these two clannish nations maintain their caution of all things English.
Up on the wild moors, and hidden in the glades and streams that carve through them, one can often come across rare flora, one would expect only to find in a more Mediterranean setting, such as the strong Tuscan garlic and wild coriander, palmettos and peach trees, associated with palettes far different from the native Welsh.
Whatever the landscape, the monuments, the small picturesque cities and the quiet valleys, the real wealth that Wales offers the world is its people. It is here that Wales is rich indeed. Uniquely talented orators, poets, singers, writers, painters, composers, actors and actresses have been, and continue to be, Wales’ gift to the world. The high regard in which the Welsh hold their arts is exemplified in the numerous eisteddfods which are held each year, many conducted exclusively in the Welsh language and which consist of drama, song, music and verse, with the proud Welsh harp taking pride of place amongst the instruments, as the oldest and most revered instrument of our historical tradition. Adorned with leeks, and daffodils, the national emblems of our proud little nation, to the worshipful thanks of St. David, our patron saint, celebrated every March the first, Wales keeps itself to itself. Our patron saint has yet to be as vulgarly commercialized as that of our Celtic cousins in Ireland, just a few hours’ sail across a shallow gray sea, who have sold the soul of St. Patrick, the hater of snakes, around the world in chintzy parades of green hat drunkenness led by fraudulent leprechauns sporting plastic shamrocks and brews the color of coal water. No, not the careful Welsh, St. David remains in his mountains and valley, and amongst the poets and choral societies of our nation as a private blessing uniquely ours.
Wales is a proud country, proud of its language and traditions, its chapels and choirs, its folklore and legends. Proud of its beauty and countryside, its varied shoreline fed by giant Atlantic tides, and a forgiving gulf stream wind. Above all else, Wales is proud of its identity and determined to cling to its uniqueness.
It is of this land, where I was born and grew for the first sixteen years of my life that I write, this the first of three books. As a monument and reminder to my beautiful son Philip, of who his father was, and from whence his father came. I write about a childhood that was, to say the least, when I reflect, very dysfunctional, but at the time seemed so normal. I was not a normal child, any more than I am a conforming adult, which is why this book has to be. Please enjoy the child within these pages as I did at the time, and forgive me for what I was, and understand the time from which I came and the family that raised me. Above all else, enjoy my journey with me, as I walk you through the wild and wonderful countryside, and the events that occurred, which ultimately result in the resolution of murders, and the shaping of a family.
A Notable Event
Like me, Stephen Foster lived in what was known as the lower village. Dyserth was a village trapped in a time capsule. A village of myths, past industries, Roman and Druid history and the gateway to as many castles and caves, hills and dales, mansions and hovels as any teller of mythical stories could imagine. Stephen was the same age as me, and like me he was the bane of bohemian parents who cared little about the whereabouts of their offspring. Unlike me, he was not cursed with an elder sister, but, at his stone home next to the church yard of St Bridget’s he enjoyed fights with two brothers.
The school was in upper Dyserth, separated as it was from lower Dyserth by 65 steps, which wound around the great waterfall and across the middle part of the village called the Bryn.
Stephen had caught his mother, Fat Meg, as she was known in our house, secretly sneaking a small brown toadstool into the house and chopping it up with her salad. Apparently, within minutes of eating her salad, she would become as Stephen described “Doo-lally”. Wandering about the house clad only in huge voluminous bloomers, boobs bouncing from armpit to armpit, wrapping herself in a bed sheet cape, she would sing and holler and stand in the window flashing passing traffic as it negotiated the very tight double bend between their house and the church. Stephen and I had made up our minds that day, we had to try these mushrooms as well.
School let out at three thirty, with a clatter of wooden desks, a deep inhalation of chalk dust, and after stepping gingerly around Kay Piercey’s dried puddle of pee in the corridor we were out to little boy freedom. I was seven years old. It was a warm Indian summer in September, and life was good. It was Friday, and Saturday promised new expeditions into the lead mines and an early morning combing of the fields around the river by Snellie’s Mill, for horse mushrooms, exploding puff balls and sparkling galena chunks left over from the ancient and now defunct mineral industries that once abounded in the surrounding hills.
We found our toadstools in the school field during dinner break that day, and after careful inspection, we duly picked two specimens, scrutinizing them for maggot infestation, folded them up into a piece of crumpled graph paper, pocketed them and then unceremoniously trod the rest into the damp green grass. While idling beneath the sycamore tree at the end of the field, collecting their seeds for “helicopter” testing, we made plans to test out the mysterious powers that these small thin brown-capped growths provided.
In those days, not only did we believe in Santa Claus, but were equally convinced of the existence of goblins, fairies, and gnomes, who lived in various copses and tunnels, holes and mine shafts, that pitted and scarred our ancient landscape. These denizens of the wild were to be avoided at all cost, and to meet with one could cause many ills. It was rumored that some local people could communicate with them, and Emlyn Roberts, a gibbering and incoherent dropout of unknown age was known to communicate regularly with them, by a series of smoke rings and drum beats on ancient car hoods, from his personal den at the local tip. Since his liaison with the darker forces he had become a wild man, the envy of many and the scorn of others, as he continued to avoid the “do-gooders” from social services. He lived semi-permanently behind an old piano at the base of the tip, where he wailed as he ate from discarded army rations, thrown there after the demise of the Kimnel military base near Rhuddlan.
The ominous booming sound of the skeletal piano harp was often heard drifting across fields at night, as he called his friends of the woods and glens to dance with him around his campfire of old tires in the rat infested clearings on the slopes of the dump, all of this tenuously held in place by the rotting bodies of ancient Singers, Humbers, Austins and Rileys. Cars of previous generations that had fulfilled their owners’ dreams and now lay to die, slowly awaiting the crash of smashing windshields and the encroachment of unforgiving rust. Emlyn was a legend.
Running down the road, we leaped and dived. Arms wide, with our leather satchels bouncing on our backs, our rough woolen shorts chafing our inner thighs to the point of no longer being noticed, with the ragged tails of our curled collar, gray flannel shirts riding the wind behind like knight’s pennants, we weaved and dipped through the upper village. From this vantage point at the top, the lower village spread below us as we hastened on towards our secret destination, green blazers flapping, revealing the gloss of dried snot and breakfasts gobbled quickly on both sleeves. The Steps, as we called them, lay but a minute ahead of us. An ancient route, thousands of years old, that had been the original link between the people of the upper village and the industries of the lower village in medieval times and now served as a short cut past the old school house and mysterious Ivor’s, a strange gentleman and renowned amongst our gang as being a wizard of repute, said to have a bottled baby head, a selection of pickled organs and artifacts from gladiatorial Rome in his weird collection of thieved talisman. We tended to avoid his house, but seldom his garden, within which we feasted, for fear that were we to be called in, we could become the witness of ancient incantations and never emerge the same.
One last obstacle lay between where we were and the agreed site of our own hidden garden, which lay adjacent to the steps at the top of the waterfall, the pavement cracks. As we crossed the road, between the middle village chemist and the old school house there lay several hundred yards of paving slabs on the sidewalk. To slow from a run was considered fatal. This tough obstacle course had to be negotiated at the same speed as the previous run, but to step on a crack was considered an act of certain personal doom. All cracks must be avoided at all cost. It was rumored that stepping on such a crack is what had caused Leslie Dunster’s polio, Lenny Hughes to turn blue with a hole in his heart and Peter Bell’s older brother to have a permanent woody, which he was forced to regularly display to the Roberts girls while he stood on stepping stones beneath the bridge and giant beech trees of the area we called “the Arches,” where our life giving stream meandered around Stephen’s house and the vicarage.
I was traveling too fast, but could not slow. I jerked and jolted as my feet jigged on the pavement. I was OK so far, Stephen squealed as he caught up alongside. His much smaller frame was better adapted to this death-defying feat. My leather bag bounced heavily on my back, forcing me to a crouch. Bopping, hopping, jolting and pounding, I must have looked strange as my legs danced wildly, knees to the chin, all to a hidden tune in my head, and my secret coded incantations repeated time after time to ensure safe passage. My toes pressed hard in the front of my flimsy black canvas basketball boots, the right sole of which was almost separate from the rest of it and held on only by baler twine and a careful lacing each day. I could die here. All kinds of dreadful ailments could befall me. I must not tread on the cracks. The old school house loomed close.
Now a village hall, it was said that the old school house was so old that even grandmother and mother had been educated there, prior to the opening of the “new school” I attended.
Now the gateway to the steps, the only function of the old school as I could recall was to hold tombolas and village whist drives, whereupon the elderly of the village congregated to play cards and leer lasciviously at each other over past sexual conquests and argue over ancient scores still unsettled. My mother’s Uncle Arthur, my Godfather from my unceremonious christening at St. Bridget’s church, attended each function, he was after all a village council officer, but was not welcomed by most, since it was in the air that his regular winning was due to sleight of hand and not good cards. Though he was never caught, at the very ancient age of sixty three he was still a dashing old man, and aunt Ivy, his troubled wife, encouraged the dying of his great Welsh mop from gray to black and the cut of his dark suits exact, in order to tease Miss Evans the old butcher’s sister, since it was said that Ivy won his heart in a battle of matrimony, some forty years earlier, he jilting Evans, and neither he nor Ivy had ever been forgiven for the event. Old scores lasted forever in Dyserth, and family partisanship was considered the norm, forgiveness in a lifetime considered the ultimate weakness.
As we neared our pre agreed rendezvous, a late “crump” and a small shock wave shook the ground. We turned in time to see the cloud of dust and the fall of a part of the limestone cliff from the “new quarry,” which fed the cement works and was the major employer in the Very Upper Village.
The day was still warm. I sweated. The comfortable odor of my damp body percolating up from my tattered underpants, which had been clean on Monday, but were now considerably the worse for wear, and sweat and stale urine mingled with the smell of little boy and of the fennel, as I successfully negotiated the final two paving slabs. The scent of wildflowers pervaded my nostrils as I leaped the last pavement crack and escaped the trap to the freedom of the weed and blossom adorned stone path that lead to our secret spot in the fennel patch.
Foster was there before me. Even now the rituals must be maintained. Throwing ourselves to the ground panting, we rolled to our hands and knees at the agreed point and crept up through the long grass, around the patch of wild rhubarb, stopping briefly to collect wild gooseberries from the prickly protection of their unforgiving hosts, past the yellow blossomed gorse and into the long grass, now well flattened by the daily visits of the bodies of little boys. We rolled to our backs on the stone.
Breath held, we waited unseen for less ambitious school kids to creep by, and stared up at the cold blue sky, broken only by the fast scudding wisps of cumulus blowing in from the gulf stream and across the Irish sea, to water and protect our ancient and mythical land.
Finally we risked an upright position, and giggled quietly to each other. We had successfully avoided our respective brothers, avoided the cracks, beaten the rest and our secret glade lay undetected by the world. Peering over the long and fragrant stems of wild fennel, and pungent wild garlic, we scanned the horizon, like cheetahs of the Serengeti eyeing herds of antelope. Black and purple beetles hummed and hovered, crawled and poked at the fennel flowers. Before any other ritual could take place, we had but one last ceremonial task to perform before we could embark upon our quest. We had to eat three grass stems, one daisy each and catch a bug. The bugs were called devil’s coach horses, and they seemed only to be resident at this particular spot in the entire village. As small grasshoppers chirped and left, we each caught our bug, carefully pocketed them in the upper left pockets of our green snot encrusted blazers, for later repatriation in the church yard on the way home, where upon we hoped to encourage a new colony to develop, closer to our homes, beneath the spreading yew trees that protected my ancestors’ graves from the many demons that manifest themselves there at various times.
With his interim task completed, Stephen carefully withdrew the piece of graph paper from his trousers’ pocket. With even greater care he expelled the rather too well gnawed Bazooka Joe bubble gum from his mouth, squeezing it between his grimy fingers, he then folded it carefully into the grease paper cartoon, that came with it when he purchased it two days previously. It was lined with pocket fluff for flavor, as he secreted it into the hidden recess of yet another pocket of his copious hand me down wool serge trousers, distinguished by a missing fly button and the only pair he owned suitable for school attendance and observance of dress code, it was tucked away for future mastication.
I still struggled to get my breath after the near-death experience of the pavement crack avoidance. By now our small toadstools limped sadly in the paper as we unfolded it and spread it on a worn area of exposed rock hillside between us in the grassy retreat.
Stephen’s wisdom in these matters was without question, it was after all his Mam who had discovered the mysterious powers that these offerings of the wild afforded us mortals. So we lay out our tart gooseberries, plucked dandelion and ‘vinegar’ leaves from around us, for good measure and the addition of some green bulk, a single dock leaf was shared between us, and three soft grass stems were plucked and sucked grudgingly from their silent swaying to accompany our feast.
We looked at each other. Foster was the first to go. He carefully folded the dock leaf around the grass stems and a single large wild gooseberry, made the vinegar leaf into a square and added this to the salad, he then rolled all of this into the dandelion leaf. On this he carefully placed the entire cap of his now forlorn toadstool, and not unlike a lord eating a canapé of caviar and cracker, he opened his mouth and placed the green weeping mass onto his tongue.
His eyes watered, and his throat heaved, he closed his mouth and with just two brief chewing motions followed by a ragged gulp, his feast was consumed.
I watched him carefully for signs of illness. He simply sat there, the same as before, his cross-toothed smile egging me to undertake my part of the ritual.
Not to do it myself would have meant certain problems I knew. The breaking of such a code would wreak demons and dragons into my life. I would be caused to repent in terrible ways, and the recurring dream of being chased wearing only a tattered vest, barely good enough to cover my balls and willy as I ran from Rhiannon Roberts and her gang, would most certainly become a reality if I did not follow Stephen’s lead.
Ritualistically, and so as not to be outdone, I too ceremoniously folded my feast together in the same fashion, but unlike Stephen, and since my eyes told me he lived, even though he was now lying flat on his back panting beside me, I would eat the entire larger of the two toadstools with my salad, and thereby totally avoid bad luck, goblin encounters and even whippings with the studded belt from my Dad for several days to come. Life would be good from now on.
The combination was bitter, and in spite of the strong “mushroom” smell emanating from my toadstool, its taste was decidedly peppery and burned my tongue, and that, with the mouth puckering, eye watering flavor of the vinegar leaf, and the strong smell of wild fennel around our makeshift den, made for a truly gagging, spleen jerking experience. I chewed once on my mouthful, and hastened to swallow as much as I could of it whole.
Upon achieving this, I poked Stephen, he rolled over beside me grinning and then chortling, he poked me back. We had done it. This surely had ensured our future success in all things. We had created the ultimate luck potion and consumed it. We rolled and wrestled and laughed loudly. I rolled to my back. My leg warmed. I had peed my pants. Normally a source of considerable embarrassment, this time it was such a laugh, that I peed even more as I struggled to contain my merriment. I wiped my grimy hand on my wet steaming leg, clutched my groin then smeared my wet hand on Foster’s face. We laughed even more. Foster too wanted to urinate, but his control was greater than mine, and extracting his willy through his button less trouser fly he staggered to his feet and rained the fetid steaming contents of his bladder on several busy bugs that hovered and crawled industriously about their business on the fennel flowers. They reluctantly fell from their perches on the hairy stems, and angrily buzzed their way to more distant blooms. Even the ever present bumblebee was fair game and the bright yellow leg joints, full of pollen were washed clean of their load.
Everything was now so much easier to view. I could actually see the millions of eyes of each insect. The clarity of the chirping grasshopper calls were deafening, I heard the distant rush of the waterfall as though I rode upon it. A car horn on the bend of the hill below us caused me to flinch as though it were about to enter our verdant haven and run us down. A sickly liquid drooling of my upper jaws commenced to engage my senses, and behind my still developing molars, it heralded the onset of a good puke. I swallowed, being no stranger to the experience. My ambition was not to throw up before Foster did. He lay beside me, eyes half closed, his lungs lifting and falling rhythmically to shallow pants, a sickly grin on his flushed face. That’s all I recall up to the moment She came.
From my lifeless and immobile position, flat on my back, blue sky above and wet rock below, I sensed the presence of another. I turned my head to the left. Foster was gone. In his place she simply sat there, looking down at me. Neither approval nor disapproval in her eyes, she blinked, the blue gimlets of her irises flashing from behind long lashes. She smiled at me pleasantly and she was beautiful. She continued to gaze upon me, her blond clean tresses falling to her shoulders and across her gray tunic so perfectly I could separate hair from hair on her head as I gazed curiously upon her. She remained in that position, immobile, watching, blinking at me languidly, communicating, yet not talking, chastising yet not hurting, caring but not intruding. I felt a great warmth over come me, the sky disappeared behind a haze of white static, and ear splitting crackles.
Suddenly I was carried to the depths of the great river Clwyd, I was filled with fear and then elation, I flowed around it and through it, it did the same to me. Then suddenly I was above the river. People scurried along the bank, poking a lifeless body with sticks, a woman was crying. I recognized Bob Mac the gamekeeper, fussing on the bank, as a policeman parked his bike. I could see him, but nobody could see me. I wafted around the branches of an ancient oak tree, laden with acorns and adorned with hidden mistletoes. I tried to call, but nobody heard. Their attention lay upon the body of the child in the stream. By now the voluminous and cold, river soaked, duffel coat of the lifeless floating corpse had been successfully snagged by a brittle branch beneath an overhanging tree trunk. I saw the fussing crowd pulling it to the bank. It rolled over, the face looked vaguely familiar to me.
In a flash it was gone. I felt the stab in my back as my body landed hard on a rock. I opened my eyes, she was still there, I was back, but this time her face was close to mine, scorn on her countenance. In a thrice gunfire sounded and I was caught in a fetid trench, my foot squishing on dead corpses of horses, rats were running around me. Again a crack and a jolt, I was above a trench of desperate dirty men in round hats. They were crying and screaming as they tugged at their tunics caught on barbed wire, A body in pieces lay below me. I screamed, but nothing emerged, I cried and struggled in the air above the hell below. Again, the spine-smashing jolt, and I came to. Her face by now had turned from angelic to a hard cold scowl. She was inches from me, examining me, her hands caressing me, but without personal sensation. Her mouth never opened, yet she spoke. “Not this time my little one, not this time”. A tear welled in her eye, I felt a warm hand on my forehead, a glow surrounded her. I jerked my head convulsively, I cried and screamed, I turned again to her but she was gone.
It was dark, I was cold, my stomach heaved, tears ran down my face, I smelled pee, my inside leg was chafed and sore.
“Over here” I heard, and with it the rustling of the grass, I came to my knees and threw up the contents of my stomach uncontrollably just as Selwyn Roberts, a teenage son of the local bobby came running up through the gorse to our secret hiding place. My diaphragm heaved, my teeth ached, the sour contents of my stomach burned my epiglottis as it rushed from my little body. He grabbed me, backing off as he saw my vomit. My mother ran behind him, teary and tense, she negotiated the slope on all fours. She flew to my side and rushed her arms around me. My elder sister stood below, expressionless and angry. More people came. I was cold. They spoke but I did not hear. As I turned to the small crowd gathered on the steps below, I saw her again, expressionless but seemingly satisfied that I had survived my ordeal. For whatever reason I knew that only I could see her, I turned, bawling, to face my Mam. She embraced me, and I heard sounds of relief sighing from the small crowd below. I turned again and my Angel was gone.
The journey home was one of much confusion. It was past nine o’clock at night. Although we only lived but a mile from the fennel patch, I was ceremoniously collected into the arms of Gittins the farmer, whose countenance screwed as he placed his hands upon my urine soaked buttocks. I was carried to a waiting car. A black Morris Minor, owned by my mother’s uncle, “Tommy One Leg.” He was a village war hero, who resided in one of the new bungalows across from my grandparents. The front passenger seat was tilted forward and Mam climbed in behind, along with Douglas Jones. Mrs. Tweddle placed newspaper on the passenger seat and Mr. Gittins lowered me into it. With a clang of the door, Uncle Tom leaned across and flipped the fly window open and backwards to let in air. I was transported down the hill, and passed a relieved crowd of searchers who trudged eagerly towards the Red Lion to discuss the drama of the missing Price boy. At home, I was able to exit the car by my own means, and wrapped in Mom’s coat went in to face the family. My brother was in front of the fire, a scared look on his face. My younger sister, still a baby, was crying in the arms of my grandmother, my older sister still yet to arrive from the hunt.
I trembled, Mam was talking wildly but I heard her not. I felt ill. There was a clatter of steel on rock, the violent revving of an engine and a squeal of worn brakes. A thud of a car door and pounding steps on the earthen path signaled the arrival of my Dad. He was wild eyed and wary. The whole village had been trying to find him. By all later accounts, wrought from indignant villagers, he had been hiding in a brew house in St. Asaph, drinking, oblivious to the drama unfolding at his home. When he had been discovered and was confronted by a local from our village, and had been told of his missing son, his had ire surfaced, and the well rounded bar maid he had been rubbing against and enticing, had pulled away and told him to get on with it. He had had to come home early from his amorous infidelity and face the family. All because “that bloody kid” as he called me had “done it again.”
By now, and feeling somewhat better, I was naked in front of the fire, Mam was wiping me down with an old wet flannel, which had been soaped and scented. A warm and welcome towel was thrown around my pale little body, and kisses were then rained upon me by Mam.
Upon his entry, my brother’s body visibly stiffened to Dad’s presence. He reeked of stale beer and cigarette smoke. His steel gray eyes flashed wildly, my sister finally arrived back, but seeing Dad as she peered through the window, she had decided only to enter as far as the meager kitchen, where she pretended to busy herself with dirty dishes.
My grandma settled into the front room with my baby sister, pulling the door closed behind her, lowering herself into an old leather chair rescued from the dump, and which had been placed in front of a cold fireless grate. She sat quietly in the dark, rocking and humming, my baby sister upon her lap, wrapped in a thin cotton blanket. My brother rolled from the small and uncomfortable couch, and at age six, he had already developed the good sense to crawl behind Mam and over to the stairs, where he pretended to busy himself with scant parts of an old erector set, he then sidled quietly up the stairs and to our room, where he seemingly melted into his little bed, like warm cheese into damp toast.
The shouting in the middle room was loud, I never recall what was said, only the fear pressing again on my bladder. Mam grabbed me to her bosom, Dad pulled on my arm. He lashed out, striking Mam, and she released me. I heard my big sister whimper from the kitchen. She would surely blame me yet again for this problem, and our relationship would be further soured.
I recall only the ringing in my ears, accompanied by the dazing, as my head struck the wall, hard enough to release pungent odors of arsenic from the ancient green wallpaper. My back hurt, I coiled to the familiar fetal position, the towel falling away around me, my small body naked against the wall as my feet hit my rib cage, amid rabid screaming and the stinging of his open palm rasping my small bare buttocks.
After what seemed like forever the beating stopped and I went to all fours, my back hurt, my eyes stung, my shoulder ached. I was able to crawl to the stairs whimpering, giddy with confusion and fear. I had made it. My bed was disheveled, the sheets and blankets pulled back to allow the previous night’s pee stain to dry. I crawled onto the familiar brown stain and pulled the sheets over me, huddled in fear. I heard my Mam cry below, I heard my Dad bellow, and the final slap of assault as he blamed her for the intrusion to his hard working life that had been caused by her sloppiness as a parent. He could not trust her to even look after the kids. With my grandmother forgotten, and my sister having dodged bullets behind the beating of my Mam, she rescued grandma by taking the little one, and I heard grandma slide quietly out through the seldom used front door for the walk up the village to the sanctuary of her bungalow.
The noise below subsided. I relaxed my body, and to the quiet whimpering of Mam and Dad’s snores I peeked out over the blankets.
My brother sniffled quietly across the room in his small bed, I turned my head, and there she was again. Her blond hair seemingly glowed, her face wrought into a noncommittal smile reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. She emanated warmth. Looking down upon me I saw her hand extend towards me, her gray tunic falling short at the wrist. I did not feel her touch, but my small hurt body filled with her warmth. My aches subsided and I fell into a deep sleep.
The next day was a Saturday. I heard Dad, he was already up, chopping wood by the old shed. He was cutting sticks for kindling our simple grate in the middle room. I snuck downstairs and Mam was frying bacon on the ancient electric stove, which lived on a plywood stand in the kitchen. The over-used and never cleaned greasy frying pan was throwing up a glorious scent, in crackles and pops, as juicy rinds writhed to brown deliciousness. My Dad came in, a picture of good will and male bonhomie; he winked at me and said something. I smiled back. Mam turned to the grate and plucked from its rack, clean underwear, a shirt and socks for me. She turned to pass them my way. The sadness she felt was written hard on her face, with the emotional scars of her beating by her husband of twelve years. Her head was swollen and both eyes wore the purple blue rings of battle, one of them almost closed. Her hair was disheveled. Apparently, or so the story goes, she had slipped very badly on the wet grass of the hill when looking for me and struck her head heavily on exposed rock. I had caused this, of course. Dad fluttered around her, and they hugged, Mam tried hard not to flinch. He went to the middle room and rustled with the fire, placing the kindling over the newspaper and delicately positioning coal ritualistically around it.
He struck a match and flames brought the small grate to life. He cackled and rubbed his blackened hands, reaching out to embrace me, I flinched, but gave in to his hug. He was my Dad after all. Nothing was ever said again, the village kept its secrets, it was not the first time Mam had fallen over, by all accounts it had happened before, and life carried on pretty much as usual. Dad went to work, the village kept on going and I returned to school that following Monday to a hero’s welcome. That is from all but a very sheepish Stephen Foster. By all accounts, my Mam had gone up to Fat Meg’s to find me when I had not come home. She informed Mam that Stephen had come home some time ago. He had developed what could only be interpreted as a very severe stomach bug that had caused him to throw up violently, and he had gone to bed, Meg having pumped him with syrup of figs and milk of magnesia. He denied ever seeing me or even walking home with me. In fact, he did not even travel home via the steps according to his version of his journey home from school. Relationships were cold to begin with, but since our secret was safe, we soon teamed up again, and no more was said. After all, it was a very secretive village, and we had been as close as anyone could come to meeting the creatures of the earth. I decided to say nothing of my Angel. At last I had finally made contact with the other beings of our verdant vale. I was special, and nothing now could change it. I glowed inside, suffered the bullying and scorn of my sister and even became quite used to Mam falling over some nights and bumping her head, Dad was Dad, a former sailor, the son of a butcher, a dreadful ladies’ man. It would take many years to discover who he really was, but that is another book entirely, this book is mine.
Allow me to share with you further incidents. Not always was it quite so dramatic, but it was Wales, my Wales, land of my fathers, forever mine. I was a child, and the world around was about to change forever, but not our valley, our village or our people. I have returned many times since and they are still there, slow to accept me to their bosom until they learn who I am, and old secrets are shared again, brown foaming pints exchanged before glowing pub fires. There is no place on earth as sacred, as mysterious, or as warm or as forgiving as The Village, and I am a part of it, its earth is my body, its mysteries my soul and the demons of its hidden places my story.
Chapter One
How it came to be
From what I have been told, Frank Price got Barbara Hodges pregnant early in 1950 while they were both doing service in the Navy. Frank as a uniformed entrepreneur of lowly rank, and Barbara as a Nurse with the WRNS, I have been told that it all took place in the warm recess of a linen closet at HMS Hasler Hospital in Portsmouth, but knowing Frank as I did, it could have been anywhere with room enough to unbutton the bell bottomed fly of a lowly seaman. They discharged, married and endeavored to make a life in England awaiting the birth of their first child, my elder sister. She was born, and after a hard try to change his ways, Frank had the brainstorm of finally returning to North Wales and the sanctuary of the village, where he planned to make his fortune. He was twenty-one years of age.
Following careful correspondence with his as yet un-met in-laws, and the saving of the rail fare, with a helter skelter changing of trains at Chester, the couple and their new baby disembarked at Prestatyn station. The great black engine rumbled, huffed, shuddered and boomed into action behind them as it moved on with the Irish Mail, and its final destination, Holy Head, leaving the young eager couple standing in swirling steam, scanning the platform for recognition, anticipation and with new desires welling within their naïve bosoms.
My granddad, “Old Huck” as he was then known, Colonel John Henry Hodges, war hero, survivor of Gallipolis and Ypres, disarmer of mines and counsel to lords, loped quietly towards them. Barbara squealed delightedly, thrusting the baby into Frank’s arms she ran to embrace her Dad. His six foot frame quietly folded around her into a warm, leather sewn, tweed and tobacco scented hug, while he warily peered over his daughter’s shoulder to take in his new son-in-law, who stood grinning sheepishly, a baby slung casually in his arms, some twenty feet away, legs trapped by two leather bags and a canvas military duffel. This was the entire worldly wealth of the young couple and their infant girl.
After some moments of embrace and acceptance, the trio and the baby filled the back of an old Austin van with themselves and their baggage and embarked on the four mile journey to the hidden village called Dyserth.
Frank was agog with delight. He verily inhaled the spectacle of the prosperity of Prestatyn High Street, with its theatres, pubs, stores, bookshops, and tearooms. He marveled at the variety of vehicles that lined the pavements, disgorging prosperous families into the Saturday shopping throng. The tart excitement of salt spray air filled his lungs, from the waves of the Irish Sea, that bounced jauntily upon the sands behind him and beyond the station. The old van meandered up the road with a crunch of gears and flaying of arms out of windows at the top of the steep high street, in preparation for the complex right turn towards Meliden and then on to Dyserth.
Looking to the steep thousand foot incline of the huge limestone escarpment before him, Frank gorged on the view of the villas of the wealthy, perched in manicured gardens upon its slope, the rich oak and elm trees that fluffed its lower slopes in uncountable shades of green, and the spectacle of color where flowers and red roof tops merged into a kaleidoscope of excitement for his greedy eyes. This was about as good it gets, he thought.
The small van with its chattering cargo turned right at the base of the hill and paralleled the mountain, Old Huck carefully steering it along the old lower Meliden Road. A wisp of smoke and a distant rumble on hillside copses gave away the position of the steam of the struggling quarry train, delivering its cargo of coal to the new quarry, in exchange for cement, which would be delivered to Mostyn docks for shipping later that week.
Green, green, more green. Blue sky. Gray sea, purple hazed distant mountains, rock fences, slate roof tops, encrusted with ancient yellow lichen, pastures, woods, lakes and heather clad knolls. Paradise. Frank knew right away that coming home to the ancestral seat of his new wife was the right thing. So much so, that in taking in the view, he had all but forgotten her and her father, and had made his mind up, this is where his fortune was, and this was his future.
It was therefore, with some disappointment on Frank’s part, that after trundling through Meliden, with its distinctive six hundred foot coralline limestone cave riddled hill, past the expired lead mine and its huge stone edifice, home of a former steam, beam engine, and towards a very gray farm, that the car turned left at Penisa crossing, and immediately right, and into the driveway of what could only be described as the smallest, saddest little stone hovel Frank had ever seen.
They were home. Old Huck’s wife, Eleanor, bustled from behind an ill fitting front door, her arms akimbo on her ample hips, she was wearing a thin cotton dress that lifted in the breeze to reveal her poorly pulled up stockings, her ample beer fed bosom covered by an apron, smattered with blood. Prior to collecting his precious daughter, Old Huck had grudgingly sacrificed an aging rooster especially to celebrate his daughter’s return, and Eleanor had been preparing it and readying it for roasting while Huck made the journey to and from Prestatyn station.
In spite of his up bringing as the son of a successful butcher, Frank was still disturbed by the sight of blood, and the feathers and the limp neck, plus the head with its beak and wattle attached, that still clung to the oak stump at the top of the meager dirt drive, encircled by a floored halo of white feathers, convinced his stomach that he was not hungry. In fact, thrusting the baby towards his new mother-in-law, and kicking over one of the battered leather bags, he was able to throw up just in time for it to cover the yapping sheep dog that had turned from the chicken debris to inspect Frank’s lower leg for a good humping.
Not a good start. Eleanor muttered something in Welsh, Barbara glowed with embarrassment, but Old Huck just laughed.
The extended family settled down that day, and for many more days to come. The post-war depression was evident everywhere. Frank commenced his new life as a gardener for Old Huck, a cold winter came and went. Frank started work the following summer as a kitchen hand in a prestigious holiday camp in Prestatyn, that catered for the working class, but more wealthy English, holidaying in Wales, where he quickly learned the art of democracy, becoming the village “Robin Hood” freeing trapped tins of ham, releasing incorrectly incarcerated sacks of flour and redistributing these items of swag amongst his village cronies, with the able assistance of his new mother-in-law, for financial gain, all without the knowledge of his young wife or father-in-law. All this while he plied his strong young body and amorous attitude on middle class holiday maker’s wives, who by all accounts paid him for visits to their chalets for relaxing massages, of which he had become not only self taught, but also self possessed. A testosterone driven genetic affliction passed on generation to generation in the strong Welsh DNA, carried and surging though his body.
When the scam finally surfaced, and he was let go, he had sufficient information of receivership, and aiding and abetting by so called respectable people, he was able to gain a new job, with the help of the superintendent of mines, a former client, as a miner in the new Pointe of Aire colliery some thirty miles to the northeast.
The village at first endeavored to embrace their new male. It was not easy, just a few years after the second world war had ended, mothers still grieved for lost sons, widows for lost husbands, and spinsters for lost lovers. Frank concentrated most on the latter. It was after all his duty to provide solace, while servicing his affliction. Consequently young women mysteriously left the village, old women walked the high street with a glow, and Frank was no longer made welcome in the local public bars of the four local inns, all of which were male only, women having to be confined to “The Snug” or lounge bar, and then only on Fridays.
Oblivious to all this Barbara courted, fluttered and embraced her husband, the girl baby grew into a plump brown haired toddler, and Frank learned of and met his in-laws.
There was Muriel. She was Barbara’s elder sister. At that time she managed to survive, with her three boys, Michael, Patrick and Raymond, in the last damp and rotting remnants of the old mill house at the bottom of the waterfall. Her first husband, also a war hero, also called Frank, having succumbed a few years earlier to tuberculosis, leaving Muriel with the boys, poor charity and eventually the marriage to yet another war hero, survivor of the Burmese camps, and the dreadful atrocities committed by the evil Japanese army, and motor mechanic extraordinaire, Sgt. Victor Montgomery. He was affectionately know as ‘Monty the Nails’, since Eleanor decreed he was the original role model of the permanent black fingernails, which were de-facto good toilet for men of the era.
There was then Uncle Leslie, a flight engineer with the 633 squadron, who was shot down with such regularity and repatriated through Holland and the Dutch underground so many times it is said he was born with clogs on his feet, and finally, there was sad Uncle Sidney.
Uncle Sidney was and still is to this day, God bless him, a huge, lean and quiet man. He was the epitome of the true hero in the second world war, being the last man on the gun that held the bridge at Arnhem. He did the one-way glider trip over Kent in the Second World War, with his fiancée waving a sheet from the lawn of her parents’ home in Herne Bay as he flew past. Few returned. Sidney did, eventually. The story goes, that having been a prisoner for so long and being incarcerated, as he was, in Poland or some such remote country, the village eventually gave him up for lost, and The Vestry at St Bridget’s, the fourteenth century church founded by reformed Viking pirates that nestled at the foot of the falls in lower Dyserth village, held a collection for Eleanor for the loss of her hitherto financially providing son. While she wept, and the Reverend Williams expounded upon the virtues of this wonderful young man, Eleanor quietly collected the offerings from the parish as reward for her sacrifice. After all, she had the missing in action letter from Whitehall, and absolutely no knowledge of his whereabouts for over two years, in fact the general from the regiment had delivered the bad news to her in person several weeks before.
As she greedily counted the offerings, including several “white” five-pound notes, on the steps of the church and across the road from the New Inn, it is said that two young men in uniform appeared from a two-door staff car. The first young man introduced himself, and he offered her an unfiltered ‘Woodbine’, which she gratefully accepted and he then followed with the words:
“Mrs. Hodges, my colleague is without identification and has severe memory loss, we found him with a huge chest wound and he was unconscious in a prisoner of war camp, he thinks he comes from here however, and we think he’s Sidney Hodges, can you help?”
A flicker of recognition crossed Eleanor’s face, she turned to the weak young man, examined him, inspected the fortune in her hands, and turned her gaze back to the officer whereupon she stated that she had never seen this person before in her life. Only after passing inspection by several villagers, and of course Old Huck, was the weary and poorly young man accepted as Sidney. Eleanor of course fainted (still clutching the collection, which the subscribing parishioners were never to see again) and Sidney was slowly brought back to civilization. His brother, the Dam Buster, Leslie, for months after, roamed the local hills in tears, never forgetting the deaths of his crew members, but most particularly the rear gunners he befriended, none of whom ever made it passed a third flight before being killed. Leslie flew many flights in Lancaster bombers and lost a lot of rear gunners.
Such was the family warrior heritage Frank had unwittingly married into, and such was the pain of the small village, forgotten by its English overlords by a fork in the road built during the post war years, which left it to suffer the aftermath and consequences of war quietly, painfully and alone, as the nineteen fifties opened their hollow Churchillian and Macmillan promises on the feudal landscapes of North Wales. It was into this confusion of old wounds that I was born on October 27th 1955, at 4.05 AM. Screaming.
It had been just hours since they had found the dead body of a child in the river Clwyd, less than a half a mile behind the HM Stanley Maternity Hospital in neighboring St Asaph, the hospital of my birth. The child had drowned in his duffel coat, and perished in the cold pools, having fallen from the trunk of an over hanging oak tree while fishing for trout. They had brought his limp and lifeless body to the Hospital in the slim hope of his recovery. He never did make it. I was born instead.
Chapter 2
The Midden
Old Huck and Eleanor finally reaped the reward of their village tenure. As new two bedroom bungalows emerged by The Arches and across from the Waterfall, they qualified for residency. These council bungalows offered all the delights of modern convenience, indoor plumbing, water pipes for heating, and to beat it all Marley tile floors.
All of their generation in our family received one. Mam’s Uncle Arthur, a serious village councilor had ensured one each for his brother, ‘Tommy One Leg’ Hughes, and his sister Eleanor and her husband Colonel John Henry Hodges. So they moved out of the hovel and into the most salubrious environment of the ‘real’ lower village, where they could hob-knob it with other veterans of the two wars.
This left Frank, our recent entrepreneur in something of a quandary. The old house, as Eleanor now called it, was never even owned by Old Huck, he had leased it some many years earlier. Since the village had conspired to finally re-house Old Huck and Eleanor, this left Frank, his now THREE children, and the naïve Barbara stuck for a home.
Not to be outdone, Frank weighed his options carefully, and after much negotiation with “The Hall,” he secured not only the house, but by a hidden clause, the entire acre of the corner, which Old Huck had also farmed, adjacent to the house. He did however pay a princely sum for the deeds. Four hundred and eighty five pounds seven shillings and sixpence, which included solicitors’ fees and stamp duty. He now had a mortgage, a wife, three children and a new image as a man of property to maintain.
My recurring memory of this period was the condition of what he had bought. At the tender age of just three, even then I had some severe doubts regarding my father’s concern for his family.
The house had been built, rather shakily it seemed to me, of huge blocks of limestone, double run, with rubble between. This rubble had and always will be, since to this day the house refuses to fall down, the home of countless generations of house mice, lice and wasps’ nests in the summer. Insulation in the roof was an unknown except for the many generations of sparrows nests that lined its interior with straw, at least three inches of bat guano that lined the plaster ceilings from the other side, all accessible via the dozen or so well used holes above the swallow nests that hung from the rotting eves. The stones still bore the white lime coating of the original castle walls they were excavated from. Castles were cheap in Wales, they were everywhere, and prior to tourism, and English stuff such as nostalgia, were the cheapest quarry stones available. This house, now named “Fern Bank” to encourage English people to consider the natives as friendly, was actually constructed from stone from the castle that once sat over the “old quarry.” This ancient castle had been unceremoniously demolished by my great-grandfather, who was known as “Taid the Boom,” at the request of its owner, a reclusive artist, who said it blocked his view of the sky.
Wonderful, no National Trust, no Heritage Society, no one even knew it was there but for the locals. London and Whitehall might just as well have met in Tahiti in those days as far as the village was concerned, we simply did not exist.
Frank regularly reminded his child bearing wife of his generosity. Having to purchase what he had, that for all this time prior, he had considered a dowry. It was a basic two up two down hovel, built of stone, the walls three foot at the base, with a pitch pine timber roof clad in Bangor slate.
The small edifice sported three open fires, one cold water tap (outside the back door), an elm sink (just inside the back door) and a single ring electric stove, run from a single plug, which wound its way through the trees across the road, and into the house via a large white and brown porcelain connector, which was situated outside the front window of the small cold kitchen, it was said this power had its source over fifty miles away in England. Modern marvels to be sure, trust the bloody English to have invented it and sell it to us.
The floor throughout the downstairs was made from well compacted mud, polished to a sheen by generations of darned socks, and upstairs both bedrooms had pine floor boards, cracked and warped with the uncountable spilling of pee pots, the odor of which could never be removed, even with the five yearly paintings of creosote and shellac polish. This was the haven of my early childhood.
Where might you ask was the bathroom. As with all ancient dwellings, there wasn’t one. Bath night was Sunday, in a free-standing zinc bathtub, normally hung on the wall outside the kitchen, but which on Sundays was filled with water warmed on the fire, and the bath was taken by the fire, and I was number four in the pot. The last as it happened, since my younger brother was still too young to be doused in the gray botulism we called bath night, and he was washed separately, with the help of my elder sister. My Dad was first, and always did it with a book, stolen from the library, a pint of Strongbow cider and the biggest towel. Mam used to rub his back as he growled delightedly, then surreptitiously dart her hand down into the gray scum depths surrounding his groin and dart back as the water slopped into the meager hearth. Next was Mam. She enjoyed much the same from Dad, but with less water and more gray scum, then my sister, whose commonsense forced her to screw up her nose, and finally me. I was always delighted, the now lukewarm soup, several inches shallower, was an ocean to me, and both Mam and Dad took turns to bathe me, lifting me dripping from the depths of the ‘Life Boy’ scum and rubbing me vigorously with a damp towel until my whole body glowed. In fact, such was their prowess at this, that I was warm in front of that fire even in winter, when for whatever scientific reasons of poor insulation, frost adorned the crystal breath of the inside of the single paned sash windows of our small family room.
All the real action took place outside. Not fifteen feet from the main hovel, was “Ty Bach” as we called it, or the little house. This was a separate hovel of flatulent delight. Open to the stars in summer (or winter if you left the door open) and home to whole continents, nay planets, of bacteria and virus, outside the back door, the garden privy was to me the source of smelly mystery, and undoubtedly home of the first dark forces of other life forms I would ever encounter. I knew for certain, even at age three, that goblins lived there.
It was, it seemed, many years before I explored it or used it by night, preferring the safety of a big porcelain pot, that often lurked, un-emptied, for days and nights beneath my small bed. This would eventually have to be emptied by those in the family with the weaker nostrils, which was usually Mam. However, daytime was different. Convinced as I was that goblins were night-time creatures, and only garden fairies and mischievous gnomes could stand the gray daylight of windy North Wales, I was able to explore the little house regularly. It was of course always safer to do so with an adult present. My favorite adult for this course of action was my Grandma, Eleanor. When she was not squatting beside one of the many damson or plum trees that lined the back fence to do her pee, she used the privy. Summer was always a good time, since she had the good sense to realize that the garnish of nettles and hog weed around the fruit trees did the inside of her thighs no good whatsoever, so she slunk into the little house.
Within its three walls and warped oak door was a bench, upon which a veritable masterpiece of carpentry rested in the form of a firm oaken seat, placed freely over a hole, under which lay the largest iron pot I have ever seen, even to this day.
The great caldron, it is rumored, was the original cooking pot from the Old Castle, found by Old Huck, and placed into service for the family. Other accounts simply describe it as a battered shit pot passed down from Taid the Boom, my great-grandfather. Regardless of this, its hemispherical volume, resting on bare dirt beneath the throne of delight could hold vast, and I mean vast, amounts of the stuff. In summer its presence was known as far south as the vicarage, but not to me of course, having grown with it, the scent was the embodiment of my home, and a beacon in the fog.
Grandma Eleanor always waited until the last minute. Her speech would become hurried and she would begin to revert back to her native Welsh tongue in the house. She would shift awkwardly in her seat, and then, rapidly placing her glass of milk stout on the windowsill she would excuse herself in odiferous vapors of lavender scent and old lady’s clothes and walk higgledy piggledy to the back door and down the garden.
The secret was to wait. We all knew that she sported not only a tight whale bone corset that pressed heavily upon her ribs, but draw string bloomers incapable of being pulled to the side. Her ablution required the lifting of Welsh tweed skirts, the packing of this and petticoats under her right arm before she could even commence to drop the parachute and release her load. Fifteen seconds was about it, after which her relief was audible, with a series of ooh’s, aah’s and finally a Celtic incantation of base satisfaction.
The bottom of the door gave away to a good ten inch gap from its dirt and moss entrance. Ample enough room for a little boy to get his head, and other taunts, through.
What was so great about this entire escapade was my Mam’s willingness to not only participate, but also to encourage me to undertake the prank. So Grandma became fair game. One such day however, Grandma Eleanor, in no such mood for pranks, sat squirming in the middle room, as we listened to “The Clitheroe Kid” whistle and boom from the glowing valves of our walnut embossed radio. Finally she gave in to nature, and in anticipation of my head under the door she cuffed me hard, tottering off to perform her own miracle of human plumbing. This was war. Seeing the glint in her eye, my mother ceased her rocking of my brother in his huge bassinet perambulator and reached into the cage, on the windowsill, where my sister’s white mouse, Sammy, endlessly rode a corroded treadmill in anticipation of her return from school. I knew, even at that age, what had to be done. With nothing said, I cuddled the cringing, red eyed, pink arsed rodent in my hands, ignoring its nibbles and the tickle of its whiskers.
I darted, unbalanced, into the yard, and to the house of the great iron pot, behind which I could already hear my grandmother’s skirts swishing. Crouching, I placed both hands, which held the creature, under the door gap, and with a deft jerk of the elbows, hurled it up and into the small space, then standing and running as fast as my blotched legs could carry me, giggling uncontrollably as I rapidly tottered back to the house to sit with my mother and await my grandma’s return.
I heard nothing. Grandma was much longer than usual, Mam and I waited, she turned down the radio, its pompous announcer now presenting an episode of “The Archers,” Grandma’s favorite program.
After what seemed like an eternity, Eleanor exited the privy, I ducked my head below the windowsill for fear of being seen giggling. She came though the back door, and into the small middle room. Nothing. She settled down in her chair, lifted the glass containing the remains of her stout and reached across turning up the radio.
Mam and I were confused. Gingerly I slid from my cushion by the fire and snuck into the back. Turning my head for fear of being seen, I checked for Grandma. Again nothing. I saw only the blue gray of her thin curls on the back of her head, her front faced stoically on the big brown radio. Dodging and darting, via the most circuitous route available, which meant passing by the hen shed, I eventually made it to the site of the event in the hope of recovering “Sammy” and repatriating him with his treadmill before my sister returned from school. He wasn’t in there. The big old door creaked, and the smell of Grandma was still strong in the air, mingling as it had with all the other earthy and not so earthy odors the lower village had come to associate with our throne room.
I entered, and holding onto the still warm oak of the great seat, peered into the festering depths of the great pot. And there he was. Amongst the gray and brown curling sheets of The Rhyl Journal, surrounded by cold brimstone, was a very bedraggled Sammy, treading sludge. Heaven forbid, he could actually swim, I didn’t know mice could do that. Now was the big test, should I save him and risk forever a shriveled hand, leprosy and loss of hair, or should I call Mam.
With my knees pounding, and my hands shaking I raced to the back door. Saying little, since I could not say much with any sense any how because in those days I stammered rather badly, I dashed into the room, pushed Grandma to the side and grabbed Mam’s hands, tugging her towards the door. She never let me down. In the same matter of a fact fashion as Grandma had left the house of fame and shame, Mam entered, and thrust her hand into the putrid lava of the bowels and rescued Sammy. With a quick wash of her hands and the mouse under the cold outside tap, and with a brisk rubbing with an old towel, he was restored to his drudgery in the wheel, no worse for his six or seven minutes of excitement in the crater of the cold bubbling excremental volcano. Grandma sat listening to her radio show as though little had happened. Nothing was said, did I throw it in the pot while she stepped aside, or did she catch it and put it the pot herself. No one will ever know. All I do know is that I never teased Grandma ever again, she not only won the day, but she also won her right to a peaceful crap. As for my sister, she knew nothing of it, all I can say is that I grimaced when she came home, and while feeding Sammy, lifted his innocent face to hers and kissed him. “Aah! Sammy” she crooned. Aah shit, I thought.
Eventually the great pot had to be emptied, this was a Sunday morning affair in any weather. It was Dad’s job. He hated it. From the years of living with old Huck, Dad had served a full apprenticeship in the fine science of disposal. It required balance, strength, supple knees, strong arms, and the ability to close off at least three of one’s more base senses.
Likewise, the activity, performed alone by Dad (for fear of him dropping things and lashing out) was never discussed, and as far as anyone knew, if they asked how it was emptied we were to look at them blankly, wondering as to what it was to which they referred, in the hope that they would think the oaken throne was positioned over a vast bottomless pit, and no human interceding was required for optimum performance of family ablution. This, of course, was hardly the case.
What Dad did was basically quite simple. He would first have Mam boil a kettle of hot water and half fill the smaller of two zinc plated bath tubs that hung on the outside walls with this, and some cold water and a good portion of some ‘Jeyes Fluid’ which turned the water gray, and which also stung one’s nostrils with its most distinctive pungency.
Opening wide the creaking door to ‘Hotel Crapafonia’ he would wire it back, since it opened outwards, then ceremoniously take three deep breathes, horseshoeing his arms in the manner he noted from his “Charles Atlas” correspondence magazine and squat with a grunt.
Placing his arms around the caldron it was required that he had to slide it out from beneath the seat by various twisting and pulling motions first clockwise, then counter-clockwise until it emerged.
Now embracing the entire twenty to thirty-gallon pot with both arms around it, he would attempt to stand and walk backwards from the throne.
At this juncture, several opportunities arose that could terminate the event which would cause it to culminate in disaster. He could slip on a wet floor. The swirling motion of the contents could have a momentum of its own and he could slop. He could knock elbows on the doorframe, or he could sneeze. If any of these events occurred (and they did from time to time) then we disappeared and pretended not to have witnessed it. If, however, he overcame these things he was able to turn, move to his left just five steps, and with gusto and a roar, simply toss the caldron and its contents onto a pre-existing heap of the stuff not six feet away from the outside wall of the privy. Daft somehow, I know, crap here, and move it to just a few feet away, and throw it there, but that is what happened. After washing out the pot with bleach and disinfectant, and sprinkling Dettol over the seat and walls of the privy, the pot was returned, and paper squares of cut up ‘Liverpool Daily Post’ (it has less newsprint and photographs than other papers, so did not leave one’s bum so gray after use), onto the stiff wire to the left of the seat. The event was complete.
The large pile of excrement, now draining in the garden was then sparingly sprinkled with earth, enough to hide its original color and keep it an earthy black to view, to confuse visitors so they did not see directly what our toilet arrangements were. The liquid drained leaving a pile of filth with the consistency of runny jelly. This was our Midden.
We all, of course, knew better than to tread on it. However in late spring and early summer, a delight was to sit in the earthy dampness that surrounded it and pluck the very young asparagus shoots that thrust so willingly from its fertile peripheral. On one such day, we had a visitor, not one welcome to Dad, who hid behind the privy when he saw the man strut up the drive. As with most visitors, Dad had conned him of something, and was in arrears on an installment. In this instance I don’t recall what it was, but the event was familiar to me, so I watched Dad, as he peered through the middle room window when he heard a rap on the door, and turned and ran through the back door, ran around the privy in a wide arc and hid crouching in the patch of huge wild rhubarb that grew in what we called ‘The Big Garden’ behind the privy. Not to be outdone, the man had anticipated this and had circled to the back of the house, dodging “Floss” our not so protective border collie, and just caught a glimpse of Dad as he dodged into his hiding spot.
The intruder, being swift of feet, made a beeline across the rough yard and took a short cut towards the rhubarb patch, alas, being unaware of the true geology of the black earthy hill that stood between him and Dad, he launched himself upwards with a flourish, and rather than his foot land firmly on the mound and allow him a further bound, and access to tackle his quarry, my Dad, he quite literally sunk to his upper thigh, teetered for a moment, bleated and then after losing his balance, he reluctantly brought his other leg to join the first. Waving his arms wildly to maintain balance he finally settled to a thigh height upright stance, buried in the outpourings of our families arses. Having disturbed the gelatinous odious mass, the smell was dreadful, but this time Dad, laughing, had bounded over the fence and into the adjacent field and was gone, leaving me hiding in the asparagus patch, plucking stalks and fresh green peas from a string support while the unwelcome debt collector did his best to wade free. Eventually, with a trail of brown slime and gray paper pieces across the back yard, the man made it to the road, where, taking off his shoes and trousers to the delight of the passengers of a passing coach, full of English pensioners come to view the waterfall, he climbed into his small Hillman, and drove away in tears.
The Midden was to feature in all aspects of our forced organic culture during those early years, and as it grew, its peripheral edges spread and these were then carted away by bucket and spade to the ‘big garden’, where it was dug in the potato trenches, placed around fruit trees and lined the furrows where broad beans, string beans, rhubarb, and huge marrows would grow, to feed the growing young family that lived in ‘Fern Bank’.
This was our midden, we were told that many other homes in the lower village had one, but it was never discussed, and when entering another yard up the road, and encountering the familiar scent of one mixed with Jeyes Fluid, it was not protocol to acknowledge that such an aroma had even assailed one’s nostrils, and as sure as God made our apples and asparagus, one never deemed to even consider asking one’s host for a use of the privy if one suspected they had one. These stone and brick sheds were, by an unwritten code, for the most secret family use only. It was not to be until quite a long time later, that we finally had indoor plumbing and a septic tank.
Chapter three
My Brother Gets Ill
Frank had run into trouble. With the various loans he had signed on, his weekly pay check as a coal miner was running thin, made worse by his leaving the colliery bus each night some two miles away in Meliden, the last village it passed through on its way to Dyserth, and his ducking into The Star, with his friend Cyril, or “Lucky Mug” as he was known, a Meliden resident and daft enough to be my Dad’s minder. The Star was also the nearest pub that would accept Frank, he having developed a series of problems in the local village hostelries and inns, ranging from fighting, over extended credit and feeling barmaids’ bums and boobs without permission. This further depleted his pay packet, forcing Barbara to become increasingly creative with her menu for her three children.
There was no such thing as a shopping mall in the late fifties, all food was seasonal, no mushroom farms, no freezers as such and apart from canned food, or dried legumes, all provisions had to be purchased daily from the village stores, or grown in your own yard. This could include, hens. chicken, eggs, pigs, goats and a variety of seasonal vegetables headed by the everyday available - cabbage, which seemed to grow everywhere, welcome or not, and was often eaten raw by our hungry throng.
Several staples formed my mother’s shopping list, and after a great deal of walking, some trial and error, she became extremely adept at gaining bargain prices for a variety of food basics from a number of local of sources. After a breakfast of bread and dripping, the fat from a thin lamb roast left over from the weekend, and left in the pan to smear on bread throughout the week, she would hasten my poor suffering elder sister off to school on the big green double decked bus that would grind its way from the lower village to the upper village, after which she would arm our chariot for the morning journey. I loved that pram. My brother was nestled into its cozy interior, wrapped in an old army blanket cut into suitable size squares. He had bonnet tied tightly upon his head, this thin woolen embarrassment having been knitted by Grandma from the unraveling of old army socks, and tied with colored braid tightly around his neck until his cheeks became rosy and his gurgling sound gave way to the shallow rasping of baby sleep. Next she would clip the rubberized canopy over him, place her recycled brown paper shopping bags in the tray below and finally clip my seat of absolute delight onto the top of the cover. That seat was better than any roman chariot. It allowed me a full two hundred and seventy degree view of the world, and while it faced to the rear and a full view of Mam’s perspiring face framed in a shock of burning red hair, with much tugging on my security straps, I could lean out to each side and examine the road ahead.
With a flourish of warm coats, a headscarf for Mam and a bobble hat for me, we usually left by the back door.
She never bothered to lock any doors, claiming that Floss the dog was the only security we needed. Floss however was seldom there after six o’clock in the morning, having learned that chasing sheep in the back field was much more fun than standing guard, and that a good sniffing of next door’s dog followed by a growl and a fight was more creative. After that, Floss also went off to seek her own breakfast and she seldom returned early. She was a smart dog though, always managing to be around to greet Frank and lick his hand when he came home. Apart from those moments, the bloody dog was running wild getting shagged up every ally and stealing food from the dump some two miles away up the Gover Field. She and Dad had a lot in common. No sense of priority. Fortunately we were never robbed, quite the opposite, we would regularly return home to piles of old clothes on the door step and the occasional tins of army ration mashed potato or bags of dried peas. This was the secret charity of a proud village, bathed upon one of their own daughters.
Eventually we were off, Mam had her head bent to the wind, and she would thrust the green chariot and its cherubic contents into the road and right up into the village. These were awesome moments for me. The wheels always squeaked on our second hand machine and one of the tires was smaller than the rest, causing the vehicle to pull marginally to one side, but it worked fine as far as we were concerned. While passing Mr. Harry’s he would appear on cue in his fussy front yard to try and engage his pert and beautiful young neighbor in conversation. But Mam was a woman on a mission. Her rayon scarf was pulled tightly around her vivid shock of red hair and she surged on up the road and on toward the vicarage, all but ignoring the man my Dad termed a pervert. This part of the journey was invariably scary to me. The narrow road was lined with giant poplar trees that thrust their vertically probing limbs in great gnarls up to the sky. Their leaves rustled in summer and in winter their limbs creaked in the cold North wind, emanating groaning shudders that traveled across the bog of the upper part of Ernie’s field and over to the vicarage for forgiveness. This was where my older sister had convinced me that the ghouls of the night took refuge during the day. The knotted trunks and their damp angry holes were the daylight homes to wicked denizens. She informed me that only the bog sprites and fen fairies in the damp flooded field kept them at bay. These trees and their shaded bowers were the first obstacle, all four hundred yards of it, which separated Penisa from the true part of the lower village.
The next perambulatory obstacle was “The corner.” This perfectly right angled S bend, was the corner of our sad little village’s monopoly board. To round it was to be able to aim for the great yew of St Bridget’s church yard, which was home now and then to my ancestors, which did allow Mam her first call. She would sing-song shout in her wonderful Welsh and Fat Meg, boobs a bouncing and babies clinging, would appear at her front door for the morning discourse. Who had died, who had absconded and who was seeing who and for what reason in the village. These became the first of many snippets of daily gossip Barbara would enjoy those mornings. Fat Meg lived in a bigger house, her husband, was a carpet salesman, and he was the proud owner of a Jaguar. He too though was a ladies’ man, and like Mam, Fat Meg was often left alone to fend for the kids, feed them, play with them and clean house for them. It was simply accepted. There was no women’s liberation then, so she spent a great deal of her best years just fat, barefoot and pregnant. After discussing the latest scandal regarding a student teacher who got her tits out in the waterfall tea rooms after binging on Harvey’s Bristol Cream (rather aptly named), Mam surged on, around the second corner, and up to ‘Conker Tree Bridge’ This few hundred yards was also a quiet, wild eyed ride for me. The great rear gates of the churchyard to Mam’s left we were told was the nighttime exit of still further demonic presences. It is said in Welsh lore that the ghosts of pirates leave here at night to raid nearby farms and mutilate their animals. Since animal mutilation was rife, this was not just an old wive’s tale, but verifiable events recorded by local ghost hunters and published in the parish magazine. This was very scary stuff indeed. These however were the last real obstacles between Penisa cross roads and civilization.
Once we were over the bridge, and had ridden out from under the trees, where the brook babbled alongside the road we made the first crossing of the road to The New Inn car park. This was the lower village. Our first stop would normally have been Doran’s general store, but this day, just like most others at that period, Mam had no credit left, and old man Doran had in fact tried to pay Dad a visit, to collect the debt, and done so only the previous day, but rather than collecting, he found nobody home, so his warm old heart had forced him to leave a small bar of Cadbury’s chocolate on the doorstep. It was after all Frank who owed him money, not his sweet village girl Barbara who he’d watched grow up, or the kids, who always looked so bonny, in spite of the green candle melt of snot each child sported on its upper lip. To gain access to the upper village, Mam turned right, choosing the tight winding path up through Maes y Glas and Maes Hyfred to gain access to upper Dyserth. Fortuitously this allowed a brief stop at the new residence of Old Huck and Eleanor, situated on the corner of the small green area of best welsh weeds, just behind the pub.
With the babbling trout and crayfish teeming stream of the little river to her right, she stopped to watch its darting warblers and bobbing pied gray dippers plucking red bellied stickle backs, minnows and shrimp from the bases of green rocks, Mam struck out through the area known to us as the Arches, which was a copse, lined with ancient beech trees and evergreen oaks, and which led the way towards her mother’s new house.
“Tommy One Leg,” her uncle, zoomed past in his new and carefully adapted Morris Minor. He waved as us from behind the split windshield, he had shopped already, his crazy wife Nancy was at home awaiting the tripe he had picked up from Jones The Meat in the upper village.
Eleanor saw her daughter coming and met her at the gate, they had a quick conversation, and Eleanor ignored the pram with me and my brother aboard, while Mam pocketed three pence from her mother to purchase Grandma’s bread, called for some reason “Procea,” a chalky white fluff made in small expensive loaves and available only at Cunnah’s the Baker in the upper village.
As Mam pressed us on, she was now beginning to strain at the Maes Glas hill, she turned just in time to witness Elwyn Jones, the mobile green grocer pull up on the square in his battered old green Foden panel truck, and she enjoyed listening as her mother cursed him, accusing him of thievery, bad produce and infidelity, all done with much gesturing and apron flapping, all in her native Welsh tongue. No wonder Eleanor and Dad got on so well, they made a point of being dislikeable.
Finally, the upper village was reached. Mam skulked past the bank, for fear of seeing Mr. Cooper, the village’s long-suffering bank manager, and she pushed on up to the butcher’s shop, which was her first call, since the butcher only slaughtered a few animals a day, and would have sold out of most meat after ten o’clock that morning.
The wonderful sight of fresh sausages, lamb chops, legs of lamb, hearts, liver, lights and tripe lay in a gourmet dream before her in the cold glass cabinets. Behind the counter from a steel beam hung the fresh carcasses of several lambs and pigs and a side of a bullock, which had the blue stamp of the inspector still visible on its cold side-fat.
There were other women there, bound in tweed coats and wrapped in head scarves who were exchanging pleasantries, Mam waited patiently, parking the chariot just inside the door, as other housewives bumbled with their black puddings, sausages and chops.
Finally the moment was right and Jones reached below the counter and pulled up the fat laden ribs of a few pigs. These were our bacon bones. Nowadays, strangely enough, this treat is much in demand, and people have made millions from their sale as “Baby Back Ribs,” but in those days, and particularly in such a verdant and active beef and lambing community, they were considered no better than dog food, but this was our staple, and above all else, rather than throw them away, provided that Mam bought a pound of sausages or something similar for sixpence, we could have all we wanted for free, of these raw fatty left overs.
Jones quickly wrapped them in newspaper and handed them across, his assistant discreetly turning away in the process. Finally, as another women entered, flourishing a greeting towards Mam and the butcher, he selected the most prime of the beef sausages and wrapped them in fresh white paper, throwing in two extra sausages for good measure. This would be my father’s supper. Sixpence we could ill afford.
With a feeling of elation that she had yet again been able to provide a meal for her offspring, Mam then went across to Cunnah’s the baker for the Procea bread for Eleanor. She bought a small whole meal loaf for herself and after a quick trip to Willy the Green, the green grocer across the road, she was ready for the journey back down the hill.
The waterfall drummed on the corner of the entrance to the Lower Village, a small cloud of spray swirled over the iron gates to the waterfall gardens. Green moss hung from the cold gray eaves of the Methodist Church across the road, this was lightened only by the beckoning of the swinging red sign of the Red Lion Hotel next door. This hotel was a Victorian remnant of past fortunes that had since deserted the forgotten village, and was now reduced to being only a meeting place for the new-fangled ”beat nicks” who congregated nightly to listen to cheap jazz records and have clandestine discussions on the formation of the Free Welsh Army, which was a renegade group of locals intent on teaching the thieving English invaders to our valleys a lesson.
Mam scudded at speed past Doran’s General Grocery Store, going in the opposite direction from that she had taken this morning, because she was still keen to avoid detection, since it was still early, and with her load of food and two hungry children, the younger of which had already wet his gray terry nappy and drained the entire cold contents of a rubber teat covered glass bottle of milk. Home was a priority destination. She slowed to watch her father Old Huck stoop to open the boot of a Morris Traveler, which was parked in a corner of the New Inn car park. He extracted three dead rabbits, and his sack of wire animal snares, he had been poaching with Edward Hughes again.
She gave the loaf to her Dad, hugged him and raced on. The fine morning had already turned cold, and flat steel clouds had roiled across our valley’s big sky, coming at us from the South West, and they were laden with skin tingling rain and a windy damp that could penetrate the thickest jacket in any season. The pram ran ahead, Mam pushed and released, pushed and released us again, grabbing it as it veered slightly in favor of its smaller wheel, and on back under the dreadful poplars and their crackling, cackling gaggle of twisted little monsters who rode the swaying branches above, shaking sticks and leaves to the road below.
In anticipation of a warm fire, even the two faced Floss was sat on the step waiting, and the door to the back kitchen flew open as Mam barged the chariot inside, in time to save the small glowing fire, by throwing on another pair of damp logs, which immediately hissed to life, and sputtered twisting sparks onto the unclean hearth.
We were back at home finally. Here there was sanctuary, warmth, and with my cheeks glowing from the ride, I was placed on the floor and the ritual of extracting my brother and changing his dress and nappy began.
Following our settling into to the hovel’s middle room, my Mam’s luxury of a cup of tea and the radio was commenced. The valves whistled and the face began to glow, she tuned into The Home Service in time for the pompous English voice to declare the news, which was followed by Russ Conway on his weird sounding piano and finally we got the start of The Arthur Askey Show.
She listened while she cooked, tearing the end off the loaf with a blunt knife and smearing it in butter and Robertson’s Strawberry Jam, She saved the Golly label from behind the ingredient list for my sister to collect and get a badge. She handed me the slice, lunch was served, washed down with milk from the bottle, which she had collected from the step, where it had been left by Parry the Cow as he was known, our milkman. Sparrows, the more permanent residents of the house, had already pecked open the silver foil and helped themselves to the creamy top of the pint bottle, and flecks of foil had settled on the cream inside the neck of the bottle.
A side of bacon bones for supper was cause for rejoice, since it served several meals. The sausages were placed on a windowsill and out of the reach of Floss, after which Mam threw the bones into a large saucepan, with some salt and wild chives, and put them to boil, where they would spend the rest of the day. sending steamy vapors up the back stairs.
Being short of money at this time of the week and also because he lacked in credit at The Star, Dad came had home earlier than usual, Mam giggled delightedly as she peered through the thin gray front window in time to witness Frank leap from the moving colliery bus outside. He bounded the narrow lane in two strides and fell affably into the kitchen. He was in a good mood.
During the rest of the day, and prior to Dad’s arrival home, the house had been swept, a process where Mam used a broom to move the previous day’s dirt from under one corner of a carpet to another, and rearrange the hearth litter by pushing it back into the grate.
My sister had been home some time, and she fussed over her bare feet, her socks and sandals steaming damply from a rack in front of the fire, her coat was still on her back, with an ill fitting gray cardigan dangling lopsidedly from below its hem.
By now, the once cold bones had wept their fat, and pale gray flesh hung soft and desirably from their edges. They were dished out onto a non matching set of crockery, any piece of which would now be worth a fortune, and with fresh boiled potatoes, and crisp cabbage chunks, the feast was placed before each of us. Dad waited while his sausages fried to a crisp brown delight in a cloud of fat spackled smoke, and these were added to his plate.
The bones were soft and chewy, and along with the strings of ragged meat they were all but consumed as well. What was left of them from each plate was thrown down to a much whacked but keenly yapping Floss, who managed somehow to fit beneath the small table where she cowered amongst the waving kelp of children’s legs.
Finally, Dad got the last two sausages from his plate and snapped them in half, proffering the small sweet brown stumps to each of his family for their enjoyment.
Dinner was a wonderful time, and in spite of Dad’s irregularities, it was almost always taken as a family. It heralded bedtime, with the stories and the tales of ancestors that made for the only entertainment of most families in the pious Welsh communities that dotted our forgiving landscape.
The following day was bright. A warm front from the Gulf Stream probed its bright liquid tendrils of sparkling sunlight early onto our small home. I awoke to hear Dad’s bus leave, followed by my sister wailing over a hard boiled egg which she consumed with toast and a coat sleeve on the road outside, in anticipation of the bus ride to school.
Dressed in cotton vests, shirts and shorts, shoeless and carefree, my brother and I were placed outside the back door to vroom wheel-less die cast models of ‘Corgi’ army trucks in the dirt. My brother clutched his security blanket, while I myself dug tiny holes in the soft earth with my fingers. This entertainment, however, was short lived. My brother by now could walk very well and had quite a repertoire of words, so plucking him by the arm I rose and dragged him, his blanket slinking along behind, to the back of the little house of turds.
Hidden from view of the kitchen and middle room window, I began to explain to him the delights of plucking the tiny green shoots of peas and asparagus that grew there and showed him how they should be consumed raw. The sweet wonders of their crunchiness and the fragrance of their sap never ceased to satisfy me. So we settled in for a pillage of the crops. I was already wise to the nightshade, nettles and rhubarb that grew amongst it, and as my rows depleted I bum shuffled further into the patch, ignoring my brother.
After consuming several rows, cooing at an indignant robin and dodging the crap from the blackbird family that lived in the damson tree behind, I turned just in time to witness that my brother had shuffled another route, and was perched at the base of the weeping midden. I eyed him with horror as he gorged on a soft brown handful of something dreadful.
The guilt rose quickly in my young chest, and snatching the cleaner of his paws, I dragged him back to the small mud track and the collection of tin toys arrayed there, pretending that we had never left.
I got back not a moment too soon as it happens, just as Mam whisked from behind the kitchen door to throw a thread bare rug over the clothes line for a good beating. She smiled at us, ruffled our hair, and disappeared into a cloud of choking dust as the mean carpet grudgingly gave up its pound of ash and dirt to the resonant thump of the wide wire wand. Nothing much more was said that day, and that evening like a nest of pond ducklings, we all went as a family for a pram walk up to the old lead mines to enjoy the sun as it set in an iridescent glow over the Irish Sea and the distant gray hump of The Orme, cradling the opulent resorts of Llandudno, and Colwyn Bay.
It was the following morning that the fretting began, Dad had to go to work, my sister had to go to school, this left Mam to cope. My brother had been up all night vomiting, his eyes had rolled to the back of his head and then to the front again, like a pair of small lava lamps. Mother dabbed his forehead, cradling him in her ample bosom, and rocked him to and fro, singing to him. He did not get better. Yellow bile bubbled from his lips and his bowels ran free on her lap.
Her training as a nurse bode well for her, and finally, after very little thought, and leaving me alone in the cold fireless hearth, she whipped up his little body and ran up the road to Edward Hughes’ house, the nearest telephone we knew of in Penisa Crossing. She was gone for what seemed like an eternity. She returned wild eyed and pale faced some time later, me forgotten.
She placed him in the pram, and then she fussed about the middle room, rearranging cushions and collecting dishes to hide in the big sink in the kitchen. A small car pulled up outside and the tallest man I had ever seen in my life unfolded from its front. The family doctor had arrived. He ducked his head to enter the Hovel, then he went straight to the pockets of his warn tweed suit from where he pulled pipes and glass things, wooden sticks and shiny objects. Mam turned to me, and asked me if I had seen my brother eat anything irregular. Denial was my only choice. I squirmed guiltily on the edge of the sofa, as the brave doctor plucked the vomiting piglet that was my brother to his chest.
The next thing I remember was a whirlwind ride in the back of his small car and down to the Alexander Hospital with the patient, my mother and the brave giant. I had never been so far in my life, and quickly forgot about my brother as I selfishly marveled at the new views available to my greedy eyes. Mam was in tears. At the huge hospital with its strong smell of chemicals, and myriads of busy people who strutted the miles of corridors, dressed in white, my brother was whisked from my mother’s arms and taken into the great canopy of the foyer, as she sprinted behind, calling for me to catch up. The soles of shoes squeaked on the shiny floors. I was thrust into a room with other children and to my delight given a coloring book and wax crayons. I forgot about my brother, and settled in to an afternoon of delight, being the focus of attention of several pretty nurses and I was fed a variety of goodies ranging from rice pudding to real orange juice cordial, its weak sweetness watered to the pale yellow color of pee, and it given to me in an enamel tin cup no bigger than Dad’s egg cup.
When Mam finally came to collect me, her eyes were swollen with crying, she clutched a muslin rag as a handkerchief, and she wept into it. An older nurse stood alongside her, her arm over my mother’s shoulder. I suspected the best. I finally had my Mam back to myself, and my brother had been given to gypsies at last.
Struggling down the stairs without my brother we left the hospital and into the weak warmth of the sunshine on the promenade at Rhyl, where the hospital was situated. I said nothing. My penniless Mam put me on her back and began the walk back to Penisa crossing, in Dyserth. She trembled and wept. Sitting down by the big Crossville bus terminus on the high street, she was recognized and stories were exchanged and, after much sympathy, we were hustled into yet another car, and the delight of the journey home. I did not so much feel pity, remorse, confusion or even sorrow, I did however realize that something was terribly wrong, and that life would never be quite the same. My brother was gone, finally handed to the gypsies, which was the fulfillment of the many threats made to us by Mam and Dad when we erred.
Dad had heard about the problems at home while at work, and he had been driven home early, and Old Huck and Eleanor had been summoned and had made the short walk to Fern Bank, as the hovel of my home was named, by dodging across the back fields and over the stiles, bringing them out by the Four Crosses, a now expired inn on the other side of the small river in Penisa.
Pensively, words were exchanged in Welsh, there was dramatic gassy gesturing by Eleanor, accompanied by furtive evil glances in my direction. Finally a breathless Edward Hughes could be heard hollering from the road, and Dad ran out to get the news.
The house emptied of adults, all that this is except for grandma Eleanor, who was cursed with having to look after me, and the entourage folded their emotional trembling bodies into the back of a dusty builder’s van, which had pulled up in a shower of gravel and flint outside on the road. I burst into tears as I enviously watched them ride away. There was still plenty of room in the van for me to fit in, at the very back, on Mam’s knee, I could see it. Feeling cheated yet again I reverted to sobbing, with snot and tears dripping down my chin, as I watched Eleanor begin rifling beneath the stairs for dregs of cider from the big brown bottles with their porcelain tops that resided there until they were repatriated with others in the wooden crates behind the pub up the road.
That night was dreadful, Mam and Dad returned, and Eleanor and Old Huck shuffled out of the front door to stride arm in arm up to the haven of the lower village and their snug new bungalow. No sign or mention of my brother was made.
My big sister, meanwhile, sat moodily in the window and glared at me. She had always had a very special relationship with my little brother, and now it was just myself, she leaned over and unseen by our prickled parents, she pinched me hard. I squealed and struck out at her, just in time to be seen by Dad, whereupon the boom and squeal in my ears told me that he hadn’t seen her do anything to me and had whacked me instead, since in his eyes, I was the cause of the rumpus.
I skulked quietly off to what was now sure to be my own bedroom, and looking at my little brother’s empty bed, I disrobed down to my vest and crawled in between the sheets, to sob myself to sleep. I dreamed of gypsies, and open fields, of dogs and rabbits and colorful caravans. I stopped crying, he would be OK with them I knew, fact was I began to envy him again.
The morning brought early hustle and bustle to the small house. Dad was off work and my sister was under instruction to go to Eleanor and Old Huck after school, and not come home. It was a glorious morning. Edward Hughes had crossed the road earlier, and the same builder’s van appeared on the gravel and mud drive. Mam wore a beautiful swirling green dress of thin cotton, and had her Viking tress of chestnut red hair flowed and had been brushed over her shoulders, her boobs were sticking out, with the outline of her copious bra showing clearly through the fabric. Dad had on his best khaki trousers and loafers, the bulge of his wallet showing in the bum of his pants, and a pack of twenty ‘Players Plain’, showing from his breast pocket.
Mam spat on a handkerchief and scrubbed my face with a finger of warm spit, as Dad squeezed me into a shirt and shorts, wrapping me up in a loose woolen cardigan to finish the process.
With absolute delight, and my brother now totally forgotten, I realized that this time, I too would be traveling with them in the van. God bless the gypsies I thought, I was finally the center of attention in this house. In fact I had already got my eyes on many of my little brother’s toys, and could now return to the knee of Old Huck when we went to visit our grandparents, a position I had lost to my little brother a little too early for my liking, I could play with his ear lobes again, which looked like rashers of cooked bacon on the side of his head.
The van spluttered, chugged and with a grinding of gears and much ado, it reversed back into the road. I squeezed my head out over Dad’s shoulder and clawed his back to the open window, he chuckled and eased me back. My heavens, he was happy. I had done the right thing and now that my little brother was a gypsy, we could be a happy family. I felt pleased with myself. No worries about the poplars this time, I was in a vehicle with real adults. My body flipped from side to side, and I verily gushed delight as the van negotiated the hairpin bend at the church and Fat Megs. Going up the hill the van jolted with a change of gears, and I moved my feet for fear of them going through the hole in the floor below, where the road sped by in rumbling clouds and shards of grit. I yearned to be seen by village cronies, me, I was in a van. Me, I was traveling out of the village.
It was not such a wonderful journey, well it was reasonable to begin with, but after an hour in the van, Dad had made it stop for him to pee against a tree, and I had thrown up twice with travel sickness. I badly wanted it to stop again. Inside the rough interior at the back, on a wooden bench, I was denied a view, and the hard wooden bench upon which Mam was sat had stained her dress and the turns and bends, taken at speed had thrown us to the thin tin walls so many times I had a new acorn growing above my right eye. Still it was an adventure, and one conducted without having to share it with either my brother or sister. I was chosen so I had to be brave. I smiled up at Mam. She tugged me to her chest, her armpits were damp, but her copious bra held all the delights a small boy could want, and I nuzzled into her greedily. God bless the gypsies.
Finally, we slowed and turned into a wooded driveway. The right rear tire mounted the curb in protest, and the van stopped. The aching cargo squeezed out from behind the front seat, while Dad stood on the sidewalk, performing the first calisthenics of his life. I had no idea where we were. Seagulls wheeled noisily above us, and new hills, different to those from the village, loomed green and knobby all around us. Distant car horns hinted of a much larger place than Dyserth.
Sweeping me onto his back, Dad loped, hands held with Mam, over to a huge set of doors, which could be reached up a long flight of stone steps. Figures in white emerged and entered from the copious oaken doors, the fronts of which were fancied in leaden stained glass, engraved with unknown words. The walls sprouted with white signs, blue signs, red signs and green signs. All these signs clung to the pale green walls within, as our smaller family lined up at a huge desk, behind which sat an enormous women, with what seemed to be an even bigger crisp white hat on her plump head.
After some ceremony, another lady came, this one in dark blue and she led us to yet another room, where Dad lit a cigarette and paced. I was scared again. God forbid I knew what was happening. It was my turn to be given to the Gypsies. I screamed in alarm, Dad glared at me, Mam started to cry and I cried more. I was absolutely adamant, I was not going anywhere except home. It was quite all right for my little brother to become a gypsy, but me? I wondered how much money Mam and Dad were going to get for me, and I cried some more.
The tall man appeared again, his presence visibly relieved my parents, and Dad kow-towed and fawned around him, proffering knowledge he did not have and grinning sheepishly when corrected.
We walked briskly down what seemed an endless corridor, so briskly in fact that I stumbled and with a lame foot dragging behind, hung the rest of the journey in my Dad’s big hand, dangling like limp wet washing.
A door opened and we entered. A hushed silence fell over the group. So this was it, this was where it happened, this was the secret room where little boys became gypsies. I gulped and stared at Mam, blurry eyed. I felt sure that I was about to meet my new gypsy parents.
I could not see what lay in the small wooden cot before me, but Mam and Dad leaned over, the big giant whispered something to each of them, and I was lifted to view it myself.
I struggled and kicked. The contents were obviously their booty, to be collected in exchange for me. I hated gypsies. I screwed my eyes for as long as I could, but curiosity as to my value to my parents overcame me, and I opened a single eyelid, to view the contents of the wooden bed.
It was my little brother, lying sadly on his back, a small rubber tube stuffed up his nose, his eyes half open, half closed.
The previous day he had been on the very brink of death, and had been rushed in a bell jangling ambulance from the Royal Alexander Hospital in Rhyl, all the way to a special hospital in Colwyn Bay, over twenty miles away, a massive distance in those days, where he had been revived and was being treated for a variety of infectious diseases. Including chronic dysentery.
He was to live, but that was not the first or the last time Mam and I had to make the perilous journey to my brother’s bedside that summer. The illness put a tremendous strain on the family and its finances, but it was worth it, and later that summer my frail little brother was returned to our midst and a much cleaner, healthier home. From that point on and up to this very day, he became and remains my very, very best friend in the world.
Chapter four
Greengage Pie and Nettle Beer
After several visits by puffy officials and old men in shiny suits, all leaving in a state of mesmerism after cautiously eyeing our fine little house of thunder and guff, Frank was guided by the more generous of them in the art of applying for home improvement grants and by early the next cold spring, builders and fumblers, plumbers and roofers all dallied in our yard to construct a lean to bathroom, lavatory and hallway against the back of the house and redo the interior of the kitchen. With caution and much disinfectant, the little house of hostile smells was condemned and finally razed, and everything was carted away. Old Huck insisted that it was being transported to a secret laboratory to become a key factor in the development of germ warfare. Either way, it was never seen again. The open space of land it left behind in the back garden became rapidly covered with nettles and dock plants.
We soon had electricity, hot water and indoor plumbing. It was no longer a hovel, but as Frank described it as he hung a home made Fern Bank sign on the front stone wall, it was a ‘Classic detached historic stone cottage sitting in its own grounds.’ Even the compacted dirt floor was covered with “Marley tiles” which polished to a sheen and an entire new sport was invented for my brother and myself as we skated the small space with polishing rags tied to our feet.
Fortune was shining in other ways also. After the great mine disaster, where many local men were killed when a giant airlock collapsed at the colliery, allowing the cold Irish Sea to enter the chambers, Frank had been laid off, but was soon accepted as a trainee quality controller at the new optical glass factory at Cefn, which is Welsh for caves, near St. Asaph, auspicious city of my birth, just four miles away. Under the conditions of their business grant, they had to employ local people, to alleviate the chronic unemployment that still to this day hangs like the curse of a grim reaper over the meager industries of North Wales, so Frank was basically the best of a bad lot, but he and Mam were absolutely delighted, and the family began to prosper. He was paid the massive weekly sum of sixteen pounds seven shillings and eleven pence. So much money that after the first few weeks he was able to not only pay all debts in local stores but not being able to help himself, insult the storekeepers in the process, by calling them money-grubbing Shylocks, and then he would pay cash for his purchases, flashing a wad of ten shilling notes in their faces.
However, after just his first week in the new job, another problem arose for Frank. Having always relied on public transport, he was now dependant upon the grace and favor of fellow employees for transport, and until they tired of him and his ways, a succession of black vehicles would toot their horns each morning in the road, to carry him to his new place of work. As always, my enterprising father had an answer. He decided to apply for a car loan. There was now just one impediment left, he couldn’t drive. This mere trifle was hardly a problem to Frank, he bought the car anyway. It was a fabulous Saturday when he drove his gray second hand Volkswagen up the rough drive and jabbed its front fender into the lopsidedly hung doors of the old shed. He scared off dogs, cats, chickens and rats in the process, while his three offspring leaped delightedly, watching him emerge cockily from the small front seat, a damp butted cigarette dangling from his lips. He had even worn his best khaki trousers to get the car, and these already carried the stains of oil, so prevalent of automobile ownership at the time. What a miracle machine this curved German was. We quickly climbed in, and I immediately snagged the ultimate spot, a rear well over the engine, which allowed me a view not only forwards, but also out of the rear of the very small split oval rear view windows in the distinctive sloping back. We had a car. Dad officially announced that we were now middle class, and he went on to list a number of families with whom we were no longer able to associate, because they were without a car, and thus still very much working class. He had discovered snobbery. Our first ride in the car as a family, was up into the lower village, to Old Huck and Eleanor’s, our grandparents.
With my brother and sister bouncing on the back seat, and Mam and Dad in the front, me in the well aching to be seen by village children, the self taught driver aimed it up the narrow lane past the church, and in a flurry of high revving gear crunches and spectacular sweeping and crossing of hands on the wheel, he barely managed to navigate the dreadful bends around the vicarage orchard and Fat Meg’s house. He had even bought new driving gloves to complete his “Juan Fanjo” experience, the small road being his own version of the Brazilian Grand Prix. Now Frank was no dummy, and although he was probably ripped off, since he usually was, he had paid a fairly low price for the old second hand Volkswagen, relative to a British made vehicle of similar vintage. When he parked it up in the lower village, he emerged very slowly in the hope of being seen by as many people as possible. Anticipating envy and admiration, he pulled a cuff over his hand, and busily polished some splattered cow dung from the galvanized steel of the front fender. People did come. They eyed the strangely shaped vehicle and its snotty nosed contents warily, and in the true tradition of the sly Welsh, the comments began. What Frank had not considered was the strong partisanship of the parochial natives. With memories of the second world war still strong in their minds he was variously accused of being a Nazi spy, a member of Hitler’s SS and one old lady even asked him where it was he bought his sour kraut and sausages. Not a good start. Un swayed by the dismal welcome, Frank went on to describe the wonders of an air cooled engine over one with a radiator, and felt underneath the front bonnet to release it, whereupon instead of an engine, he was left to describe a rotting and treadless spare tire, to the guffaws of narrow minded villagers who had never much liked this outsider anyway. After a quick spin for a few converts, Frank loaded us all in, and unable to use the local hostelries for liquid sustenance, due to never forgotten transgressions of moral behavior, he drove us all the way to the beach, a vast distance of three miles, to a pub with a larger parking area and near to the promenade, where he and Mam went in for several hours, emerging only to deliver bags of soggy chips and a bottle of Vimto with three straws for us to gorge on.
That wonderful little car changed our entire life, Frank did eventually pass a legal driving test, and received his small red book, permitting him to drive on Britain’s roads. It took him two attempts, and since by the time he passed his test he had already had nearly a year’s illegal driving experience, he was dismayed at the first failure to the point of writing to the local constabulary describing the incompetence of the first examiner. How to make friends and influence people was never a skill my father really mastered. Tact was not one of Frank’s earliest virtues.
With the remodeled hovel now called a stone house of distinction, at least by Mam and Dad anyway, another phenomenon occurred. The postman started delivering more often. Of course, most of these were bills, debts owed by Frank as he precariously leveraged his weekly pay check on new furniture, the car, garden equipment, and even clothes for us all from the Littlewoods catalogue, the source in those days of most peoples’ extravagances since the nearest shops of distinction were few and even then required a whole day to go to Chester to get to. This unheard of distance of thirty miles, being driven only by the very worldly and very brave, who returned with horror stories. Likewise, Frank was not sufficiently primed for city driving, limiting his excursions to the nearby coast roads.
With the mail, however, there were the occasional parcels, other than the catalogue products arriving at our doorstep. These were the wonder bundles. They were always large, and wrapped in recycled brown paper, so tightly with the tell tale wool, they almost looked like a pair of Siamese twin parcels joined at the waist. Mam opened these carefully, and we three sat around agog with anticipation and desire, our necks straining around each other so as to gain an earlier view of the contents for our greedy eyes as what lay within became exposed. Fabulous delights spilled out. Bags of sweets, usually “Nutall’s Mintoes” and Hall’s cough sweets, were always on top. Beneath this we would find a rust rimmed tin containing a hard cherry fruitcake, and all these resting upon a kaleidoscope of colorful knitted garments. We dug and found woolen balaclava helmets for us boys, and colorful cardigans for my sister, then came the V necked sweaters and a succession of shoplifted underwear for Dad. Seldom was there anything for Mam, but she was pretty magnanimous about this, being used to making sacrifices for her brood. The cardigans were always a source of amazement, and my sister cringed every time one arrived in the big brown parcel. They made Joseph’s colorful coat we learned about in the picture bible at Grandma’s look positively drab. Every known color of the spectrum was represented, since they were hand manufactured from the left over spools of other creations. Different gauges of -wool offered a three dimensional texture to their color, and the mismatch of buttons were always so off set that when worn, it was guaranteed to present its wearer with an uneven hem and lop sided shoulders which would make Quasimodo appear normal if he stood alongside the wearer of one of these things. In fact, so undesirable were these dreadful, knotted-sleeve body sacks, I secretly threatened my brother, that if he didn’t cough up a favorite toy for my destruction he would be forced to wear one of my sister’s cardigans on our next village excursion.
After several of these brown parcels had arrived, and the rapid gorging of the various candies that came with them, almost as a request for forgiveness for the helmets and cardigans, we learned that the mystery provider was of all people our grandma. Now I was confused, but knowing only one grandma, and not being aware at that age that children could have more than one, I developed a sly admiration for, of all people, old Eleanor, thinking that she so secretly hated my sister, she sent these things by mail to torment her. It was only later in that season that I discovered that contrary to the belief shared with my brother, Dad too had a living parent, and was not, as he had told us, found under a cabbage leaf by a farmer. It was this grandparent who we were later to meet.
Letters were exchanged and the big day came. Mam was quiet, but tolerant, and Dad had cleaned the little car, and painted black tar over the cords of the bald spots on the tires. It looked great. That Saturday was a busy one, and it commenced with the hiding of broken toys that littered the back slabs, and the tying up of old Floss, who was sentenced to sit the day out glaring at fussy chickens behind the shed. With great solemnity, Dad announced his departure, and he maneuvered the little car out of the drive and set off in a cloud of blue smoke to Prestatyn railway station to collect his cargo. Meanwhile, back at our improved residence, Mam fussed over a pan full of dried lentils, and peas that were being steeped in the fatty residue and water left from the previous day’s feast of bacon bones, while we stuffed hard boiled eggs from the grudging hens, complete with little red cherries of fertility against their yolks, into our greedy mouths. Mam looked at the sad wall clock with its bent minute hand, and completed her tasks by spitting on a once white tea towel and scrubbing around our mouths with it. Just in time, the tell tale waspish buzz of Dad’s little car heralded the arrival of our houseguest. Grandma Lizzy, Dad’s Mam. At the top of the drive Dad emerged, red faced while my brother and I ran to place the correct stones behind the correct tires to prevent the escape of the vehicle backwards into the lane. What we saw in the other side made us positively shudder. There she sat, waiting for my Dad to assist her escape, the biggest ugly woman I have ever seen. This was our Grandma Lizzy. Even before formerly meeting her, I had made a decision to deny any family affiliation with this woman. Should the neighbors kids come over to play, I would dream up some cock-and-bull tale about her being here to dig the garden for my now middle class parents.
She unfolded her mighty bulk from the front seat in a warm vapor of mothballs and farts. She was hideous. Her cropped gray hair hung loose and unevenly at her shoulders, where it framed a puffy, fleshy face, and two cold gray eyes looming from beneath folds of silver tufted eye lids. Even worse, when she spoke, I had absolutely no idea what she said, so I fled. As recently as the late fifties and early sixties, it was quite possible to distinguish the origin of a person by their accent and vernacular, as near as just five or ten miles distant, since the radio and television had done little to blend language and culture by this time, and Grandma Lizzy’s accent was so different and so strange, I often lifted my head to the planets when in her presence to wonder which one she came from. Poor Dad, no wonder he had kept her such a secret from us. I regularly gawked lovingly at my own beautiful mother, with her stunning mane of chestnut red hair, her bright hazel eyes and those freckles spattered across her fine straight nose, and then back to Dad and realized just how fortunate I was by comparison to him, he had been brought up by a real live yeti as a mother.
However, appearances can be deceptive, and not to be outdone by my brother or sister, I returned to the car, and with eyes scrunched shut, I puckered up my lips and extended a kiss to the hairy cheek of the medusa. I had already worked out that this creature was the source of the Nutall’s Mintoes, it was her, and thus I vainly hoped that my affectionate gesture would have this new grandma rain bags of them down upon me. It worked, and she dipped into the pocket of her gray cardigan and handed me a selection of hardboiled cough candy, complete with fluff. This certainly broke the ice, her eyebrows lifted and the cheek rouge relocated itself on her face as she cracked a smile from behind pale thin lips. After stretching her legs and adjusting her knickers by shoving her hand up her skirts she began the precarious descent to the new back door, as Dad bustled and cursed with several brown paper parcels and an old cardboard suitcase the lid of which was secured with, of all things, more wool thread. It was then that I noticed more regarding this recent addition to our family. Her legs. Beneath the woolen kilt she had on stockings, which were wrinkled and had fallen to just above the knee, they masked huge vein coursed legs, like alpine road maps disappearing up into the no go area of the upper skirt. This woman had absolutely no ankles whatsoever, her legs being the same width from where they left their folds over her flesh hidden sandals and rippled up to only God knows where or what that lay at the top. She was a behemoth, and I fleetingly regretted the crocodile kiss for fear she would favor me over the others and reveal to me the secrets of her dreadful body. She could keep her Mintoes.
We children kept ourselves busy in the garden fighting and breaking each other’s toys. My own personal favorite pastime being throwing my sister’s dolls into the nettles or peeing on her daisy chains if I had sufficient left in my bladder after all the other things I was forced to pee on such as spade handles, steps, and even my sister’s bed. I have never to this day bettered the day when I was able to secret my sister’s teddy bear out of the house and stuff it into the great chamber of the now demolished outside toilet. I was a wonderful loving child apart from these few idiosyncrasies of personality. Inside, the adults caught up with the news from afar, and I watched fearfully as my mother also shut her eyes to embrace her horrible in-law. Grandma Lizzy was given my sister’s bed to sleep in and my sister was put in my brother’s bed, thus forcing my little brother and myself to share a bed, after a night or two he got used to the floor under the bed, and my parents stopped asking what the bang was when he was pushed out, so in fact, apart from my sister’s shallow breathing it was pretty much sleep as usual for me. Grandma Lizzy was a generally good influence, since while she stayed with the family, Dad spent more time at home, at the request of my mother, and never once whacked me in front of his own mother, for which I was eternally grateful.
Settling down to the rural routines of a pleasant summer, with my sister off school and me just weeks from starting, Grandma Lizzy set about reorganizing my proud mother’s little home. Mam for her part, spent a great deal of time out doors away from her mother in-law, mending and cleaning the old shed and emptying the rat traps around the hen coop. She even sorted out the old hives that had been left there from a former era when Old Huck was living off the land playing ‘Dig for Victory’ during the last war.
Wild birds abounded, and their presence was so readily accepted that at a very early age we learned to mimic their calls and identify them in flight and by sound. My Mam sat for hours with us on the back slabs, with the “Observers Book of Birds” in her hands, teaching us. She taught us what could be eaten from the garden and fields and what was poisonous, and she taught us tolerance of rodents and vermin and the correct husbandry of fowl. I was seriously in love with my Mam and her wisdom.
It was on such a day of laptop learning that Grandma Lizzy stepped out from the sizzling kitchen and on to the slabs, whereupon she announced that she was going for a walk up the road and to the waterfall. I secretly cursed, because it was well known that the goblins in the poplars and the ghosts of the graveyards never came out on sunny days such as this and thus her journey offered her no peril. In a cloud of motes she flapped her great skirts, hefted a huge bosom from beneath each armpit and stumped off through the back gate. I physically felt my Mam relax her body, and she cuddled my brother and me, a knee top each, and blew a kiss at my sister who was sitting cross-legged at her feet, she being already able to read and understand the book of birds on her own. She always was very bright and in fact still is.
Later that afternoon big Lizzy returned, hissing and puffing, her face reddened and her enormous feet thumping to the ground as she plodded up the stone and dirt drive from the lane. Her already ample bust was now considerably enlarged by a mystery cargo, hidden above the waistband of her skirt. I for one was curious, and following her equine pants into the back kitchen, I arrived just in time to see her pull two empty cider bottles from her body and hide them under the sink. Now these were no small things. These big brown glass quart bottles were weighty. They had wire wrapped tops, which secured a porcelain stopper, complete with a rubber seal. Since Big Lizzy had arrived by her own steam, I deduced that unlike Dad, who could empty one of these in a sitting, after which he would at first sigh, then grumble and finally slap me, Lizzy had probably not drained the contents of any of the cider. These bottles carried a refundable deposit of sixpence each, so I secretly envied her the possession of them. I asked no questions, but did consider stealing them and repatriating them to Old Huck who I knew would split the deposit refund with me.
The next day was also as equally sunny, and yet again, Big Lizzy did the same thing, returning this time with four of these bottles. After three days she had eight of them; it would amount to two gallons of cider were they all to be full. Now I was really curious. On the Friday of her first week, she failed to make her errand, and Mam and we dolefully accepted her presence in the kitchen, so we left to sit in the shed and learn all about insects from another Observers Book. Down in the house, we could hear all kinds of noises, saucepans banged, cupboards opened and closed, steam escaped through the open door. Big Lizzy emerged, wild eyed and clutching a knife, and with horror we watched from the safety of the shed as she waded knee deep into the worst nettle patch, oblivious to their sting, the only known antidote to which was rubbing with a dock leaf, and with her bare hands she grabbed great clusters of the dreaded weed and sliced their stems with the steel knife. She repeated this time and again, placing the nettles in her apron, held hammock fashion afore her. I craned my neck to look at her clumsy shins for evidence of the nasty, watery white welts that form the after shock of a nettle sting, but nothing, even the plants in our yard were afraid of her. This woman was invincible, made from stone. Big Lizzy then shuffled back into the small kitchen, from where more sounds of activity emanated. I looked at Mam, and she at all of us, and with a shrug of her shoulders she continued with our education on the humble ant.
Teatime came, and Mam was forced to chase her brood into the house. With Big Lizzy in residence, the food had definitely improved, and we looked forward to bread and jam, followed by a banana each, a recent addition to our diet due in part to Dad’s new job and the fact that they were finally available to purchase, if we were lucky we could even have a cup of marmite and a crust of bread to dip into it.
When we entered the kitchen, it had changed somewhat, Lizzy had scrubbed the various pans she had been using and they were stacked on the draining board. Above the window, on a high shelf, all eight of the big bottles were lined up. I still couldn’t understand a word she had said, but after Mam’s translation, I discovered that Big Lizzy had made, of all things, sixteen pints of nettle beer. The woman was determined to kill us. Each of the bottles was labeled in her own hand, and she had stripped them clean of the original sticker, which I so liked, since it had on it a colorful picture of a woodpecker. I said no more, but prayed that Mam or Dad were not duped into tasting Big Lizzy’s poisonous brew.
The weekend came and went, and the big bottles stayed on the shelf, being removed only for Big Lizzy to tend to them in some weird fashion akin to my vision of a witch creating an evil potion. The following Monday was again bright as the August storm moved on to provide a crisp and fresh morning where even the dew on the ground offered sweet scents of nature, and the smell of cow muck from across the road was morning acute, as the Mackintosh clad farmer chided his milking herd down the road and into the barn for attachment to a new fangled machine with a dozen sucking octopuses on each line.
We three sat cross legged on the floor of the middle room, myself busily poking the automatically blinking eyes of yet another of my older sister’s dolls, until it fell into the skull to leave an open pit in its place, and then witness the glorious sound of my sister crying. My brother, now fully recovered, was as ever busy placing beads and pins in his mouth, aided by my spilling the contents of a soap stone monkey ornament in front of him and thereby creating a larger menu from which he could choose. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, or so the saying went. The three monkeys regularly kept their secret. Big Lizzy stooped down to view our activities, for fear of the regular boxing of my ears, for deeds of which I was innocent, I ran out and into the garden. She followed me. I ran onto the big garden to the rear of the house and shinned skillfully up a Victoria plum tree to escape her. She walked right on past me, and plodded her mighty elephantine legs to the end of the garden. She waded fearlessly through nettles, wild rhubarb, hogweed and even the old midden, on down to the greengage tree at the corner, where our garden met the back road, and Ernie’s field. At this time the greengage tree was still on my list of trees to climb. It was much older, and much taller than all the rest of our fruit trees, and its bark was hard and black and left marks on one’s legs whenever climbing was attempted. In my childish logic, I merely figured that I had avoided detection by her and she thought me to be up the wrong tree. The high branches of the greengage tree were in full fruit, but the small green plums that adorned it sticky twigs and insect infested leaves were far from ripe. Standing at the base of the tree, Big Lizzy then firmly planted her feet either side of it, wrapped her arms about its trunk and drew three deep breathes. From my perch in a nearby tree I was totally at a loss as to her motive, until I looked up.
The top of the tree began to sway, the leaves, no longer rustled to the tune of the breeze, but instead took on a rhythmic motion, which grew to a wave. I looked down, and there stood Big Lizzy, still hugging the trunk, but this time beginning to sway also. The swaying grew to a gale in the leaves, and as birds scattered and hens clucked alarmingly in the coop, it began to rain greengages all over my Grandma Lizzy. They came like hailstones, thumping to the ground around her, she spluttered as they hit her head, but still she held fast. This was some woman. Finally, she let go and staggered backwards from the tree, her big apron mottled with bark. Picking up the corners of her apron she proceeded to circle the tree, unafraid of nettles or hemlock and she collected the greengages that had so reluctantly been taken from their ripening on the branch. With this she thumped back to the kitchen and disappeared. I was safe.
I spent the rest of the afternoon behind the old shed, where I had a secret den, made from drums that had once carried lead oxide to my fathers factory, but which he had picked up with the aim of painting them and selling them as water butts to unsuspecting gardeners in the village. Forever the man of enterprise, was Frank. Anyway, I had several of these stacked, with old planks over them and dead branches over the planks to camouflage the entire hideaway. Inside I played the rest of the day with some tools, liberated from the shed and several old rounds of ammunition Old Huck had failed to dispose of after the war and which had simply been dumped in metal containers where my den now stood. Bliss. After some time I heard Mam’s sonorous voice calling me, so feeling that all was forgiven I crept out and back to the kitchen. No jam for tea today, no marmite, no banana. Big Lizzy had cooked. On the table was placed a large chipped plate, upon which sat a hot pie. I was always one for pie, so I was not unhappy when Mam cut into it, and placed the brown crust with its warm oozing contents into a bowl, and smothered it with Bird’s custard, finally placing the steaming glob in front of me with a large spoon sticking out.
Heaven, lifting the spoon to my mouth as Mam dished out the other, the creamy warm delight of Mam’s custard lined my mouth with vanilla, mingling with the comfortable aroma from the dish. Delicious. I dipped my spoon again into the bowl and this time, a piece of the pie came with the sloppy warm custard and slid effortlessly into my greedy mouth, which closed around it. Disaster. HELP. My teeth jarred on something hard, the acidic melee burning around my teeth. I saw stars and tasted blood. I screamed. As the helpless shriek ran from my open and dribbling mouth, tears rolled down my cheeks.
Mam turned, my sister grinned and my brother took the buttons out of his mouth so he too could try it. Big Lizzy glared at me.
With an ear splitting crash, glass exploded on the table, Lizzy ducked, Mam hit the deck, grabbing us children on the way down. We all screamed. I stopped crying (only for a fraction of a second, since crying aloud was one of greatest early developments), and Lizzy turned to her rack of bottles. They now numbered only seven. I spat a tooth and a hard pit of an under ripe greengage plum into my hand. Mam dashed up, ran to the yard and reappeared with a dustbin lid, brandished as a shield.
She held it valiantly in front of her as she entered, she peer over the top of it, like our own Bodicea, while she instructed us children to remain under the table, and with great daring she approached the big brown bottles and their bubbling contents. Very carefully, and one by one, as if trained in bomb disposal, and these were vials of TNT, she removed them from the shelf over the window, and walked gingerly into the yard with them, until they all lined up next to the broken tricycle, which had lived and died on the back path. Having accomplished her mission, she glared at Big Lizzy, and retrieved her fearful brood from beneath the table, hustling us to middle room. Examination by her of the pie, revealed more pits than flesh, and a sad lack of sweetener, Big Lizzy had run out of sugar while making the nettle beer, to which she had also added honey and what was left of a sad tin of Lyle’s Golden Syrup, tiny round saccharin tablets revealed themselves as un-dissolved amongst the gelatinous mass beneath the crust.
Big Lizzy became defensive, but brave Mam would hear nothing of it, and in the first of many confrontations I enjoyed witnessing between Mam and her mother in law she derided and ultimately exposed the great cooking scam Dad called his only living parent.
The nettle beer, now a lively brew from the warmth of the kitchen, still frothed and bubbled as Mam quite literally hurled the bottles from the path and up into the garden. Big Lizzy’s inability to make a decent pie was rewarded by the entire dessert, plate and all, being tossed into the hen house, for them to develop avian colic by attempting to digest its bitter contents. Later examination would even expose that chickens cannot be fooled either, and ignoring the bitter greengages they had consumed only the lard laden pastry.
After all had finally settled down, and Big Lizzy had picked up most of the brown glass shards with her bare hands, and washed the surfaces and floor of Mam’s new kitchen, we reverted to a decent tea of bread and jam, this time with custard poured over it, and little else was said until Dad came home.
Chapter five
The Passing of the Gypsies
As the summer commenced its early wane towards autumn, and just a week or two from school start, late August was always a time when the people of the small land that comprised North Wales did their best to fulfill final ambitions in preparation for leaves falling and damp winds pulling the onset of warm hearths and short nights, and new television programs appearing on the slanted British propaganda machine called the BBC.
In our own home, Frank and Barbara had become accomplished gardeners, and there was the harvesting of huge potatoes from the black earthed furrows of the big garden, marrows, the last of the broad beans, and of course whatever fruit was left in the plum orchard after the flocks of wild birds, red squirrels and other rodents had had their feast.
Apple thieving from local trees was also prevalent, and these stolen apples came in a many varieties according to needs, and as children we were actually dispatched by Mam in late afternoon, early evening to rifle other gardens of their succulent harvest under explicit instruction that should we be caught we would be disowned and also punished for our capture. I, of course, in the true vein of my father’s heritage, was never caught, and became an expert in denial if ever my presence in any neighboring garden was suggested by any of our disgruntled neighbors, all of who regularly tired of ‘The Price’ boy raiding their crops. I was an accomplished sneak, and even at such an early age was well prepared for rural guerilla warfare.
It was always the last week in the Augusts of my early childhood that several other memorable events took place. We had rusted steel railings to the rear of the big garden, which backed onto the crossroads. Diagonally across the road was the huge manor and outbuildings of Dyserth Farm. Dyserth Hall, as it was called. It was a mixed farm, having several dairy herds, mostly Friesians, but some Jerseys, some arable fields, mainly barley and oats, with pigsties and hen coops behind the long barn. Hay by this time had long since been collected as the winter cattle fodder and had been stacked in the great round roofed tin Dutch barns on the back. This was sometimes mixed with molasses, in a great stinking zinc silo, to make a substance called silage, for wintertime cattle feed. These products were but sidelines however for the real business of the farm, that being sheep farming. To this day I sometimes awake at night with the incessant bleating of lambs and the cold dark baaing of ewes in my ears. This was such an omnipresent sound of the entire area, that us locals no longer even registered it as a sound, only when people came to stay, or passing visitors stopped and commented, did the sheep noise re-register in our sound spectrum. My little brother and I would race to the back fence that overlooked old Ernie’s house and the rear of the Penisa smithy every time a herd of cattle passed to the milk sheds or flocks of sheep blocked the tiny lane on their way to the shearing sheds or market trucks.
We would swing on the huge iron fence like trees in a gale, all made much more fun by the visiting of an old man who came to stay with Ernie each summer. Mr. Gillespie was his name. This frail gentleman spent summer as a paying guest of Ernie, and he drove what we considered to be the most desirable car we had ever seen, a green Humber Scepter. When seeing us from his small room across the narrow main road that linked Prestatyn with St. Asaph and ran through the other road at Penisa crossing, he would walk across with a handful of wrapped toffees and offer them to us. Dapper would be a mean description of his turn out. He was always dressed as the immaculate country gentleman, and we liked him very much. The only downfall was his red nose, which forever held a clear bead of mucus on its end, and which we never saw him wipe away. He was nicknamed “dewdrop snoot” by Grandma Eleanor, who teased us by telling us to ensure any toffees we accepted from him must be wrapped for fear of being dripped on. For an hour at a time he would stand there as the cows, hobbling with full swinging udders, would go up to the farm and then return the same way, plodding back through their own patties, still warm and runny on the road, which they had left there from their journey up to the milking shed. He would educate us, and was in fact the source of several of our Observer Books, they being gifts to us via Mam so we could share the rural wonders of our fellow residents of the lower village with one another, and learn to tell a polecat from a weasel, a thrush from a female black bird.
As well as Mr. Gillespie, this time of year also saw the passing of the gypsies. This was a wonder of human kind to us. We could hear them coming from several miles away, by the clopping of hooves. They came from the direction of St. Asaph and Rhuddlan, and we waited in great anticipation as they appeared over the hump in the road beyond the small stone bridge that spanned the river as they made their musical way up towards us.
Dogs ran ahead, leaping and yelping, big horses adorned with brasses and fussily festooned with shiny leather harnesses pulled great colorful wagons. Their heads bobbed rhythmically to the plod of their huge feet as they strained against the polished oak shafts of the wagons. The caravan bases were painted bright colors and their wooded huts built atop the cart bases were also colorfully painted, and had small wooden doors that opened as windows to the carefully laid out interior. There were as many as eight such vehicles, with a string of ponies and dancing children bringing up the rear. Of course, in this day and age, they were not what we would call real gypsies, and in fact, I was to learn years later that they were descendants of Irish tinkers, fulfilling an annual pilgrimage to a horse fair, and most of them did in fact live in modest farmsteads in Cheshire and Lancashire some fifty or so miles away across the English border, and were much better off than we were, feeling sorry for us in our rural prison of estate tied poverty. But to us they were gypsies, wild and carefree, kings of the road. They tended to stop at the crossroads, blocking all hopes of any motorized traffic getting by, where they would replenish their victuals from the farmer at Dyserth Hall. We gazed in abject awe at their huge snuffling horses with braided manes and colored leggings. We marveled at the vans and the great oak spoken wheels that carried them, but most of all we marveled at the children. Believing as we did, that the destiny of every bad little boy was being sold to the gypsies, we became confused as to how these rather well dressed, well shoed little urchins should have such gall and mischief, and such nice clothes.
They taunted us in strange accents, and ran up to the fence, the boundary of our safety and pinched our skin, then running away. I should have felt sorry for them, after all, as far as our knowledge extended, these children had been purchased. These nomads of Britain’s roads were not their real parents, or so we imagined, these dreadful throngs of mismatched brats had been bought into slavery. I watched enviously as older men picked the kids up and placed them on the horses’ backs, and the bravery of little boys no older than myself, as they fed carrots to the horses with their bare hands. I assured myself quietly that I would not become such a child, and determined that I was not going to do anything naughty ever again, I did not fancy all that walking with people who were not my real parents, and would use me for bad things, or even worse, sell me on like they would a horse or goat.
My fear was well founded, since Mam was always so delighted to see these vagrants appear, I suspected a serious collusion between her and them, and thought at the time that she was checking our value for a quick sale. She would run to meet them, with greetings and embraces, and stand around talking with them. The men and women would be allowed into our yard, and huge galvanized pails would be filled from the back tap and placed under the horses for drinking. The women, complete with flowing raven hair, colorful skirts and huge earrings would even be allowed to use our new lavatory. Mam loved them. We shuddered, obviously there was a serious chance of us being traded, so we kept close to old Mr. Gillespie, and should one of these hobo adults stray in our direction, we would cling to his jacket, the poor old man being oblivious to our imagined peril. He would clutch us willingly, we being careful to remain upwind of him and behind him for fear of his dew drop falling and hitting us. Eventually, with farewells acknowledged and much waving of scarves, the entourage would break camp and proceed onwards towards the lead mines and eventually through Meliden and a dozen villages like it over the next few days, to cross the border into England, so very far away.
These to us were the “real” gypsies. There were, however, a number of other visitors to the bottom of the village, all of whom Mam made welcome. I will never forget a passing tramp whose journey made him come by three times a year. His ancient weatherbeaten countenance and bright blue eyes shining from behind a wild beard with even wilder hair flowing from beneath his battered trilby hat, to be tied in a greasy pony tail behind, made him look like a wizard. He would never knock, but when he arrived he would linger in the lane outside the house until Mam saw him.
The hospitality of his first visit was, however, seriously marred by my own mistrust of weirdly clad individuals, and upon seeing him malingering by the gate, I withdrew to the security of a close privet hedge and threw rocks at him, striking him several times upon the head until he howled. I feel that it was this deed, played on him by myself, that caused Mam to have such pity upon him. She would cut his hair as well as furnish him with food and also bread and water for his can, which he carried apart from his rag bundle, rather like a Buddhist monk would carry a bowl. I knew not where he came from or to where he went, only that Mam was and still is the most considerate and kindest individual I have ever known, and her kindness transcended race, creed, age, color or prosperity. She ensured that the old gentleman was cared for and wrote for him while he dictated, then giving him the stamped envelope to post by himself. He would leave, then halt for a moment at the corner of our property, where he carved a cross inside a circle, with a rude line cut beneath, all done on a pine telegraph pole with the use of an old pocket knife he had hidden upon his person. This was his sign of a welcome for fellow travelers. This simple gesture indicating that here was a small home that welcomed strangers, that did not condemn them and that would feed them. A sign that said that my Mam was a friend of the homeless, and that she was special. I of course did not know this at the time, and just for good measure managed to get one more sharp flint to hit his back before he shambled on into the lower village, turning only to scowl, damp eyed, and shake his frail fist in the direction of the privet bushes.
These were by no means the only traveling people who passed through our end of the lower village. By far the most memorable individual was one Mam called Snow White. She was so named because she was undisputedly the grimiest individual known to us at that time. She was even grimier than the tidemarks that ran behind each of my ears, and so filthy were her clothes that the fabric from which they were originally manufactured had long since lost their hue and texture, reduced to a meager brown stain of greasy dirt. She first appeared during a brief summer that was memorable because we enjoyed more than seven full days without rain twice that season and this particular vagrant chose to linger around for several years after that.
As always, my keen eyes had spotted her lurking in the bushes near the sty of the old farm lane across from our house and behind one of our neighbor’s, Ted Wilkinson’s yard, where she stood by a rickety stile. I watched keenly as I witnessed her picking succulent black berries and eating some and pocketing some in what was once a man’s tweed overcoat. For good measure, I scoured the driveway for flinty chips of limestone and quartz and snuck into my hidng place in the privet bush by our front gate in the hope of her coming close enough to pelt.
As I watched, she leaned over the fence of Edward Hughes’ yard, cautiously scanning the horizon for witnesses and plucked several asters and some wallflowers, which she carefully put together as a bouquet and hid beneath her coat. To my scurrilous delight she crept towards our house.
As she neared, she stopped, looked the other way and to my utmost surprise she talked into the bushes in which I was hiding, actually addressing me. A warning, she had seen me from the corner of her eye, and was evidently aware of my intention. Not to be outdone by this two legged bag of rags, I scampered from the dirt beneath the bush and ran to around the house to Mam who was busy in the back yard removing debris from my brother’s self-willed mouth, while she placed a huge chunk of cheese in his hand in the hope he would eat that instead of his usual diet of worms, berries and leaves, which his mouth seemed to crave on a continuous basis. I tugged hard at Mam’s shorts announcing the presence of the stranger by the gate, and for good measure intoned that I had been threatened with abduction, of course an abject lie which my mother saw right through immediately.
Mam of the eternally good heart walked around the big stones of the end wall to the house to meet the new stranger. The gypsy turned. She was so ugly her face would have curdled milk. There was no way to tell her age, and her clothing, tied with string, was layered upon her in such a manner that only her height was measurable with any accuracy as she stood firmly in dirty Wellington boots, one trouser leg tucked in, the other out. She had the brown ruddy tan of a seasoned jack tar, wild brown hair wrapped in not one but two head scarves, and a face so weather beaten, and eye corners so wrinkled she resembled the picture of the Eskimo in my sister’s encyclopedia book. When she smiled, she exposed a mouth of crooked teeth, their colors being so diverse they would do a full snooker set an injustice. Mam stood before her, arms out, shoulders braced and hands on hips. God I loved my Mam. I, for my part, stood behind her, rapidly stuffing the cheese I had surreptitiously stolen from my brother behind Mam's back, into my mouth, encouraging him to return to his more familiar diet, by pushing his face towards the ground.
The creature spoke, and reaching into her great coat, she pulled the posy from a pocket and gestured for Mam to accept it. With the grace of our Queen’s mother, Mam accepted it, placed it on the wall, and stepped up and actually touched and embraced the hideous hag. Escorting her round to the back of the house, while cuffing me hard on the back of my head for my theft of the cheese, and after lifting my brother out of the flower bed and placing him back onto the slabs, Mam sat the woman down and disappeared into the kitchen. I of course followed Mam, leaving my brother seated on the slabs, sucking on a vinegar leaf, in the charge of the hag.
Snow White, as she came to be known, leaned down and stroked my little brother’s head, she must have smelled, because my little brother visibly flinched and wrinkled his nose, cooing the word poop silently in my direction while Mam busied herself with the new electric kettle, which even though only a few weeks old, was already clogged up with lime residue, so that she could make the biggest and strongest cup of tea I had ever seen.
With no less than six spoonfuls of sugar in it she returned to the back slabs and handed this piss pot sized beverage to the gypsy. After several cheese sandwiches, Mam actually leaned and hugged the woman as the grateful vagrant left, careful to watch my presence and distance from the privet bush, as she walked down our drive. Several days later, the process repeated itself, and Mam began what was to become a several seasons’ long liaison with Snow White.
During one such visit, Snow White came and Mam graciously handed her an old pair of Dad’s favorite khakis, some checkered cotton work shirts and several pairs of huge well worn knickers, left over from Mam’s last episode of pre-childbirth, these knickers being the former partial home to my little brother during his turn in Mam’s womb. She and Snow White disappeared into the rickety shed at the top of the drive, along with a kettle of water, soap and towels, and for good measure Mam took her makeup bag and two clean cotton vests.
After a long silence, Snow White emerged, pushing the old bassinet perambulator, now redundant due to our rapid growth, and which had since been replaced by a faster and sleeker pushchair. In the old pram was piled the several layers of coats, and some other unidentifiable items of former clothing. She actually did not look much different, other than she was now dressed in clothes I once saw Mam wear, and she was actually much smaller of stature than I originally imagined. She no longer had on the rubber boots, but beneath the turned up, baggy trousers that Dad once wore to garden, she had on an ill-fitting pair of Mam’s old sandals. The joy in her face was evident, though she was still as ugly as a platypus’ arse and her hair, though still seriously disheveled, was at least now visible since the removal of the layers of headscarves. She disappeared up the narrow lane past the cottages, pushing her old possessions in her new chariot of delight, and Mam, as though nothing had transpired, returned her attention to cuffing me, forcing me to escape up a nearby plum tree in tears.
Mam then stooped to remove an unripe horse chestnut from my brother’s hands, and hooked a finger in his mouth to pull out those he was chewing, after one of my greatest sales efforts to convince him to eat them in the first place.
Several months later, after summer had expended its last glorious rays on the golden boughs of the field trees and the course slates of our small roof with its white spattering of sparrow droppings, Mam became very agitated. Eleanor was in the parlor with her listening to “The Men From The Ministry”, on the huge Bush radio I had struggled so hard to modify by hiding the great Bakelite knobs under the sink. They talked and paced, as the wind outside turned to the North West and carried upon it the smell of salt and fear from the cold and unforgiving Irish Sea, down on Rhyl front, which we knew was breaking with a vengeance on the promenade of the small resort town, while eager bakers, butchers, tradesmen and journey men who voluntarily manned the life boat waited at their work in trepidation of the maroons and flares that signaled boats and ships in peril.
Mam stood up, turned to her mother and switched off the radio. Snow White had missed an appointment. Mam was worried for her welfare. Now such was the nature of these gypsies, and other such country flotsam of the human kind, very few people ever knew or even inquired as to their sleeping arrangements or of other things of a personal nature. Mam, however, had struck up a great deal of trust with Snow White, who I thought had evidently confided in Mam as to where it was she slept each night. Mam dressed us up in the now despised balaclava helmets, boots and cardigans, with a huge coat and headscarf for herself, and arming our chariot with blankets just in case, my brother and myself, Eleanor and Mam headed on up the village. With the damp wind behind us, we pressed on into the bower of the dreaded giant poplars, all of which by now were straining at their roots as their grim limbs swept the gray sky above us, in eerie conspiratorial whispers, their invisible cargo of goblins heaving them harder, forcing struggling rooks to lift and return in search of safer roosts. Around past the vicarage, and over the small stone bridge, Eleanor peeled off and with bracing gait, pushed her bony old frame towards her bungalow, Old Huck was already in the window watching Eleanor’s progress as she crunched away over the beech nuts and old horse chestnut husks that littered the Arches, that ran up to her brother’s house, where she crossed the parking lot to her own modest home.
Mam pushed our lightweight pushchair onwards, with us two kids in tow, my brother’s legs working quickly to keep up with it. Of all things she then crossed the road by the waterfall and proceeded past it and on to the great steps that led to the top village. One by one, she dragged the wheeled device up each step, with us pushing from below, until we came out by the old school and were able to cross the road by the chemist shop and on past Cunnah’s bakery into the main village. We walked for what seemed like forever, onwards and upwards, through upper Dyserth and past the entrance to the huge limestone quarry. Past the small railroad siding and its pyramids of glistening anthracite, around the bend to the Dell road, and higher and higher, until upon turning round and facing the hard wind directly, we could sea the gray foaming sea in the distance, over the top of the two mountains that normally loomed over our house.
At a junction, where the air was heavy with the smell of cow muck and wild garlic, Mam turned off the main road and dived into a dingy lane, arched and hidden by the branches of elder trees and hawthorn, the road now, down to two stone ruts separated by a grass strip down the middle. The wind howled, and the trees verily wheezed their mysterious haunted tunes as their roots clung to the damp roadside earth, like the gnarled hands of the witch wood they had become.
We walked this path for several hundred yards, I for one feigning bravery, while being somewhat scared of this new adventurous journey, regretting having stolen the knobs from the radio, while my brother, oblivious to the perils of our surroundings, dawdled behind, held a pale brown mushroom in his hand, and the first signs of edibility experimentation in his eye. Mam stopped, peered into a recess in the road side and after leaving the chariot at the small dry stone entrance, she snatched the mushroom from my brother and pulled us into the hole in the wall, dodging tired brambles and the avoidable brown stalks of dying summer nettles.
What lay ahead was to fascinate me all my life, and was forever after to be a favorite spot for me as I grew up. There, hidden beyond a thicket was a large and tumbled down water mill, complete with a giant, but much damaged wheel. The mill, a product of the agricultural revolution of the eighteenth century, was built of stout stone and even stouter timbers. Its windows were glassless and its crevices evidenced generations of bird nesting and vandalism. Around the base of the wheel was a huge pool, built of stone, the crystal clear waters of which babbled over a worn lip to become the very source of the stream that fed the waterfall further down, and went on past our house at the bottom of Ernie’s field eventually to link up with the great river Clwyd, further down by Rhuddlan castle. Above the mill was a stone runway down which the icy cold water gushed, to cascade around the wheel and onto the stone of the lower holding pond. We walked carefully around the ruin of the old mill house, the ground was boggy, with moss clinging to rotting branches that lay strewn at the bases of sturdy trees, then on we went towards the bare-fingered limbs of a great oak that had been there since long before even the mill was constructed.
Beneath the oak was the most curious construction I had ever seen outside a National Geographic magazine at Old Huck’s. It was a perfect Indian tepee constructed of willow spars and clad in everything from carpets and clothes to corrugated, rusted zinc plate strips of old shed roofs. At its entrance was a cold hearth built of carefully selected stones. Mam called, a long Celtic singsong note of friendship. Nothing, she did it again, and again nothing. Gingerly she moved towards what she determined to be the entrance to the wigwam and lifted the carpet doorway. It was pitch dark inside, but a small groan emanating from the stench of human occupation indicated life. Mam felt around, and as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she found Snow White, laying prone on a floor of tarpaulin, cardboard and coats, crying and holding her stomach, fear flashing from her eyes, she was pleased to see Mam. She was alone, and she was ill. Ignoring the smell, the surroundings and the damp floor, Mam knelt beside Snow White and carefully pulled the mysterious vagrant to her feet. Snow White was doubled up in pain, and could barely walk. She gave a continuous and fearful wail, which I sincerely hoped would not awaken any of the fairy tale creatures and demons I was sure were hiding all around us, watching and cackling, and who had been the original cause of Snow White’s malaise as they tortured her in this crap encrusted hell.
Mam got Snow White to the gate and through the brambles into the rutted lane. To my great horror, she lowered the two legged bag of filth into my cherished chariot, and while all but ignoring her two little sons, Mam desperately pushed the very poorly Eskimo down the lane and on towards the main road, myself running closely and fearfully alongside, my little brother dawdling behind, staring upwards into the trees obviously searching for signs of gnomes and goblins and with his mouth wide open in the hope that something edible, such as a slug or maggot would drop into it.
Snow White’s head lolled gracelessly, her body folded horribly onto the pushchair, her arms wrapped tightly about her midriff. With her jawbone out, and the head wind tugging at her scarf, Mam made it down to the upper village, and rushed into the fish and chip shop leaving Snow White parked outside and us dancing inside, chilblains forming on our hands and legs from the sudden change in temperature.
After some telephoning on the great black receptacle with its ivory faced dial, and some loud words rasped in rolling Welsh, a van appeared outside and two men, dressed in dark blue uniforms came and helped Snow White into its rear. She cried out for Mam, and removing a hand from her stomach, reached for her. Mam clasped it, and calmed her, and she was gone.
The aftermath was a confusion of stories and dramatic tales, told in hushed voices over firelight in the pubs and taverns of the village for weeks to come. Mam’s intuitiveness, a human, spiritual sense now almost lost in the digital age, had provided her with a foreboding as to the welfare of her friend the gypsy. Mam was not unlike many Welsh princesses of old, Rhiannon, and Bronwen, both witches and sorceresses, curers of ills and casters of spells. Mam had simply sensed the problem her friend was having by some form of remote telepathic signal that had triggered the ancient part of the human brain. A communication had been made, and Mam, having gleaned small bits of information regarding Snow White’s routes and habits had somehow been able to work out where the hag sheltered.
Snow White for her part, was so ill she had mentally reached out to Mam, the only resident of the narrow-minded village she trusted, and communicated her physical distress to Mam. They had bonded, and Mam had found her, suffering the acute pain of appendicitis alone and scared in a home made from debris, in a secret dell known only to the creatures of the dark. Mam had saved her.
As for Snow White, she was taken to hospital and operated upon, after which Mam went to see her once or twice. However, seeing her in a bed in a cold and antiseptic surrounding, her unkempt hair cropped and the nails cleaned, Snow White was no longer the same. She recovered and was so distant as a person she had retracted into herself to the point of being totally inert other than to shuffle to the bathroom and eat small meals with her fingers, discarding the utensils provided. In those days the word rehabilitation had not been coined by the smarts of Harley Street and snobby university hospitals, one was simply called mental, or a lunatic. In the case of Snow White, she was diagnosed as mental, and after recovery she was driven to the dark and dreadful sanatorium known only by its rather sinister name as Denbigh Mental Hospital. Few people emerged from here the same, many never emerged at all, and terrible tales of electric shock treatment, beatings, drug-induced ranting and ravings, scared even the strongest stomach in our village. If a villager ever went in, few ever went to visit, for fear of being accosted themselves and also becoming interned as inmates. No research whatsoever could reveal either the real name of Snow White, any family or even her origins. Amongst village folk considered as having some wisdom, it was even speculated that she actually had been a gypsy kidnapping many years before, snatched as a child, and had escaped into vagrancy to end up at the top of our three part village on its triple hill road, where she had made her shabby home hidden behind the run down mill.
Sometime later, I was to learn that Snow White escaped from the mental hospital, and returned to a life on the road, but it was short lived, and she was found frozen stiff, dead of hypothermia in the desperate freeze and ice age blizzards, her body was uncovered near St. Asaph in the never to be forgotten winter of nineteen sixty three. Few tramps ever came by again, and it was as though, with the passing of Snow White, hobos no longer trod country roads, turning as they did to easier pickings in the towns and cities of the changing landscape and habits of the people of the early sixties.
Chapter six
UFOs on Doll Hill
It was becoming increasingly evident that as the 1950’s gave away to the 1960’s prosperity among the human populace of North Wales was improving. The signals were things such as the increasing number of motor vehicles passing on the road, and great thundering petrol tankers that came by once a day from English refineries to replenish the stations along the coast road, so that the English could then purchase it as they made middle class forays into our secret landscape each weekend in their smart new cars.
Though the English presence tended to be resented by some, it was increasingly tolerated by others with a more commercial mind, as they filled the snug bars of local inns, discoursing in rude and guttural, northern accents; but they did bring variety, as well as much needed money, from their terrible labors in the grimy, steaming factories and mills of Lancashire. As the warm August summer waned languorously towards the promise of a multi-colored autumn and the falling of the nuts and leaves into the damp pastures, other things began to happen that changed our meager and unimportant lives in the lower village.
For some reason, Mam had lessened the daily chariot rides we had tended to take after clearing up from breakfast and she spent more time listening to the news and worlds affairs on the huge knobless radio with its whistles and howls. She had become more of a homebody. She had also developed a huge appetite for tins of cling peaches, which she ate with tins of pink salmon, leaving us to consume our favorite Jam Butties. She also started to do things like tasting lumps of coal and secretly sucking on old chicken bones, she was also getting decidedly heavier around the middle of her girth.
These pushchair rides, when they had occurred that summer, had been a favorite of mine with my little brother tucked below me and me lifted into my seat of mobile authority Mam had walked us many miles while Dad spouted his skills at the local glass factory in St. Asaph, he did this from early morning until late afternoon, and his return was heralded by the buzz of the beetle and a plume of blue smoke from the Rhuddlan Road.
On these walks she left the house by the front gate, with me firmly strapped in, for fear of me performing a suicide dive into the wheels. With Ernie’s house, which was across the road from our house, now behind us, we went up the narrow lane and on up and past the lead mines and Dyserth Hall Farm. Mam would aim for Meliden, and eventually some time that morning, tea with Mrs. Charlesworth. I can so readily recall the weird things that happened on those walks. One such day, and many more days thereafter, we were overtaken by a hooded peril in a flying wicker basket. This contraption was a deep wicker chair on wheels, with two hand cranks. In the chair was a very old woman, who, with arm muscles stronger than she should have had, was pumping the handles to make a crank rotate which in turn drove a chain, which powered the wheels. It afforded this crone, in her high Welsh bonnet and black shawl considerable speed, and she zoomed past us with a cackle and cough, her hands glued to the handles, cranking hard, and she would cry “Bore dda cariad” or “Good morning darling” with a breathy sing song voice and a smile revealing perfect gums but not a tooth in her head. I wanted that chariot, and made up my mind there and then that if I could escape the pushchair, I would push a branch in the wicker speedster’s wheels and steal it. This was a trick I had recently learned the previous Saturday, when I had unceremoniously forced my elder sister to come off her tricycle by pushing a stick in its front wheel. As the fast learner that I have always been, upon hearing her scream and witnessing the grit encrusted grazes on her chin and wrists, and for fear of another beating, I had thrown myself beneath the overturned tricycle and screamed, just in time to persuade Mam, as she came running out, that the evil big sister had run me over. Anyway, this old woman had now also become a mental target. I could think of nothing else than the theft of this beautiful vehicle.
Being very young at the time, it became a distant dream however, but not to say that some eleven to twelve years later I had not mastered the art of vehicle theft, but that is another story for another book about another era.
We proceeded on to stop momentarily at the Roberts house, where Mam would converse in her native tongue with a gruesome woman in a stained apron and cotton bonnet, and every time we were there she would lift me off for a few minutes to play with her curly topped daughter of my age, Sian Roberts. This sickly child I deeply detested in all things except her inability to hold her bladder, and in the pretence of having fun, rolling and tickling with her, I was able to make her urinate herself within minutes of my arrival on the floor of their porch. For years after I was to grow and be educated with this girl, and many like her, and had I known then what a fabulously good looking and intelligently soft-spoken beauty and wonderful musical scholar she would grow into, I might have been kinder, still that was the way it was. I was an idiot, and probably still am, when it comes to the fairer sex.
After the Roberts house we pushed the next mile to Meliden village, and past The Star, a favorite haunt of my Dad and we then crossed the road to an old shack built against the hillside, the shack stood on oak pillars, which gave it a rather precarious look, and beneath it in the stones and dirt of the field it encroached upon, cheerful hens pecked busily at grubs and crumbs that fell through the floor boards from the hut above.
This was the antique shop owned and minded by one of my favorite old ladies, Mrs. Charlesworth. Here Mam rested a while and Mrs. Charlesworth made a strong brew of tea from hot water boiled in a copper kettle on an upright coal stove, and poured into huge fine bone china cups from an enormous steaming tea pot.
Mam took the time to look around at the fabulous curios that lined the floors, shelves, walls and closets of the shack. Everything was old and mysterious and desirable. There were paintings of horses with stuffy men standing behind them dressed in ancient fashion, wearing white leggings and black jerkins, set against a scene of corn fields and oaks, blue sky and clouds, with dogs laying panting at their feet. In another corner was an old upright piano, upon which sat a sailor’s accordion and two glass cases each with a stuffed bird inside, one an owl, the other an eagle. The shelves were strewn with trinkets and unmatched pottery items, while swords and afghan rugs hung from the ceiling. It was a feast for the greedy eyes of a small delinquent child.
My heart’s desire, however, lay in a back room, it was a perfect replica of a Victorian house, with a front façade that opened to reveal miniature handcrafted furniture in oak and yew, rugs and beds, drapes and glass windows and even small figurines carved to scale who, though being inanimate, were very fortunate to live in these plush recesses on a permanent basis. I particularly enjoyed undressing the lady of the house and pulling down her drawstring knickers to reveal wooded legs that ended in a carefully carved crotch.
Even better, beside the ornate model house I found a multitude of colorful agate marbles in a leather satchel, which at once I was able to recognize as easily thieved, made even better when stuffed into my little brother’s mouth, the normal receptacle for anything small and weird and enjoyed so much by him that I genuinely considered myself as doing him a service by loaning them to his mouth prior to extracting them later when we left, so as to claim them as my own. My brother’s mouth was by far one of my greatest life experiments at that time.
After tea, Mam would load us up on the wheeled wonder, usually placing some small trinket, plate or spoon she had purchased for as much as one shilling and six pence, in the pushchair, and beneath my brother’s blanket for safekeeping, and with me strapped in on top, we would press on to our next perambulatory destination, the Frith Beach.
This was another mile through the most beautiful lanes and farmland of my life. A strong memory of the smells and odors of our rustic rural life pervades to this day. I recall the high stonewalls of the lanes, with the smell of damp green moss, earthy odors of small springs that dribbled their way over them from the field and to the lane, all mingled with a fabulous scent of warm tar and limestone gravel dust. As we plodded beneath huge oaks, crunching acorns beneath our feet, a dank aroma of tannic oak leaves drifted from above, changing to the cloying stench of fresh cow muck and sheep droppings as we passed gates to sloping fields, where the bovine and ovine inmates cohabited around the zinc water troughs and the blue salt blocks in harmony with each other and oblivious to their destiny in the shearing sheds and butcher shops of the wild Welsh villages.
Further down the lane, the briny waft of the cold gray Irish Sea melded with the tart peppery pungency of wild mushroom patches and occasionally, sprouting from the base of gooseberry and blackberry bushes, wild garlic, a legacy from the Roman occupation some one thousand six hundred years earlier, and which released their pollen in aromatic clouds that mingled with wild fennel and coarse sage.
Mam knew every plant, insect, tree and rock type, and would tell us about them as we walked, their uses in medicine and their origin. She taught of deciduous and coniferous, annuals and perennials. Flowers abounded along the verges of the lane, and we pressed into them to allow carts and cars, bicycles and pedestrians to pass, all done with a wave and a welcome.
The Frith Beach was a sort of in-between place, a non-resort of the time, that connected the upscale Edwardian elegance of Prestatyn and its prissy tea rooms to the gaudy decadence of Rhyl with its boarding houses and promenades, shops and fair grounds, trampled by English peasants out for a week at the sea side. The Frith Beach was like our private beach. The lane ended at the coast road, which joined the two coastal towns of the Vale of Clwyd together, and ran alongside nearly a mile of huge sand dunes, and the strange grasses that clumped upon them, which whispered all the time, with or without wind, and offered mysterious places to play hide and seek. I was dutifully unchained from my perch and allowed to run, arms out airplane style, amongst the tufts, with the coarse white sand kicking up around me and filling my canvas sneakers, curling my toes and pulling on my socks. I loved it.
Finally, with a cheap paper cup of well diluted orange cordial in my hand, we would turn south and back to the lower village, to end our odyssey down the steep hill past Dyserth Hall, and into our stone house, where we would dismount, disrobe and feed the fire with some coal, and Mam would make our tea in anticipation of my sister’s return from school and Dad’s German buzz bomb to deliver him from his middle class executive status at the glass factory.
These were wonderful times. So much was new each day. Wonders abounded, my eyes feasted on the hills, the mountains, the clouds, the rivers, the new things that changed each day and made going to bed so bad for fear of missing another turn of events. It was on one such night, after the pilgrimage to the old curiosity shop in Meliden and an evening meal of fried duck eggs and mushrooms with home grown mashed potatoes, when Dad called us bleary eyed from our bed. He was agog with red-faced excitement to for us to witness a new village miracle.
I was not asleep, just resting, and at eight o’clock, I still had a great deal more digging to do into the hole in the bedroom wall that I had made against my bed, a hole I could hide things in it later, when Dad came bounding up the stairs, panting and wild eyed. He swept me from my bed, stepped across the landing and called my sister, little Miss Misery herself, to join us. He carried me hurriedly down to the back slabs, where the warm evening was settling in windless air, in a great orange swath to the west, with clouds like bright red slivers of fire, and layered from deep purple above to a fiery red over the small hill we called Doll Hill. This was a series of sandy drumlins left over after the last ice age, with a river meandering through them and rabbit holes punctuating them. At that time it was the home of badgers and foxes, and as many darting sand martins as my small fingers could count.
Screaming wildly and waving, Dad pointed to the sky above Doll Hill, to a weird orb, perfectly spherical in shape with flashing lights at its base. In his hand he held aloft a recent science fiction novel stolen from Rhyl library, and declared that we were witnessing a “Flying Saucer.” We watched in awe, barely daring to breathe as this huge object rested effortlessly and silently above the hill, less than a half a mile away. Dad rushed inside, leaving us on the back slabs, mouths agape, he picked up the handset of the big black bakelite phone, not even waiting to uncoil the normally tangled cotton clad twisted cord, and we heard those ominous words bellowed by him into the mouthpiece. He used his most serious voice into the mouthpiece, and uttered “Men from Outer Space,” “Flying Saucer,” “Martian invasion.”
Such was the excitement, we became aware of other presences in the twilight. Along the road, and down towards the cross road, neighbors had begun to gather, pointing and whispering. Dad went to join them.
A car came down the lane and was unable to proceed due to the gathering of local peasants, so the driver switched off the engine, leaving the vehicle in mid street, and he joined the ignorant and fearful throng. Dad appointed himself their leader, and as the local policeman arrived on his bicycle, Dad thrust out along the Rhuddlan road and across the stream, towards the great sphere that still hung menacingly over the sandy hills of our childhood playground. Old men cursed him and spoke in deep Welsh tones of devil worship and disappearances. The cattle were pressed against the fence of the lower Doll Hill field, shuffling and snuffling. Dad leaped the fence and dived amongst them, Fred Wilkinson, our neighbor from three doors up, was right behind him, he was a snarling veteran of the Palestine war, and feared nothing and nobody except his wife.
The orb remained there, glowing gray, then red, then black and then red again. It appeared to be a perfect sphere. The sun hung lower on the horizon, beginning to kiss the westernmost tips of the mountains of Snowdonia, many miles distant to the west, as my brave Dad raced towards the shallow hills that were pitted with martins’ nests and rabbit burrows. Suddenly, in the last effort of dancing red rays from the passing of the shimmering red sun, the mother ship simply disappeared. The sky became the normal deep velvet blue of the night and stars burst from the great black canopy of God’s Welsh heaven.
The small crowd drifted back to the cross roads, with stories of mystery and myth falling from the thin lips of their narrow imagination. Women pulled small children to their aprons and men made plans for long discourses on the mysteries of the heavens and far off galaxies as they secretly planned meetings in nearby hostelries, all done behind their wives’ backs, with snickering and winking. The cows calmed down, and the sheep continued their night grazing, ewes lifting their heads only to bleat belligerently at their growing lambs, oblivious to the supernatural drama that had embraced their verdant pastures.
The event was heralded in the local Rhyl journal, as second in importance only to the Tel-star satellite recently launched by some people we called Americans, but had never met and probably never would meet.
Dad had ensured himself a column in the interviews, by spouting upon the statistical probability of life on other planets, their evident advance in scientific achievement over us mere earthlings, and Wales as their choice of inspection simply because of its cultural and geological diversity and its rich conglomerate of ore deposits ranging from gold mines, lead mines, copper mines and coal mines as well as it being one of the most lush agriculture regions in Western Europe. He never wavered from his story, or his description of the craft, which by now had become decidedly saucer shaped with lights all over it and a promise of slim and ponderous humanoids gazing from within.
Some many years later, while in my late thirties on a visit to the village, the strange incident was to repeat itself, and was again witnessed by thousands. This time there was no fanfare, no mystery, and no supernatural event. The local television station filmed it, and people, now used to far stranger apparitions appearing on their television screens, largely ignored it. In fact, modern science ruined my childhood illusion by simply announcing the presence of a lenticular cloud base, which at dusk reflected the lights of the coast roads and the telltale reflections of traffic passing some many miles away, bouncing off the base of these very unusual and almost perfectly stationary, spherical aerial phenomena. Not to be swayed however, I did meet up with one or two of my contemporaries of the childhood event, who to this day swear that what we saw was not of this earth. I leave the case open.
Chapter seven
The Glass Factory Christmas Party
That same late summer, we arose one morning to our breakfast feast of bread and lamb dripping and also much more excitement than was normal. Dad had a surprise for us. We pulled at his trousers begging him to reveal it, and secretly hoping it was not another pet, since by now we had a house with two cats, two dogs, a yard with ten hens, fifteen fluffy pink chickens, a hedgehog, my granddad’s ferrets and behind the shed, his pigeon coop, my sister’s three white mice, two rabbits, one with huge floppy ears, two hamsters and three goldfish in a green algae slimed glass bowl on the mantle piece, all of which required feeding and all of which required periodic replacement as they died of either neglect, starvation or teasing in small hands.
No, we were reassured, that this would be like no other surprise. That morning, after consuming her tin of peaches and three pieces of charcoal from the grate, my beautiful chestnut haired mother cleaned house from top to bottom. Between snacks of earwigs and silver fish beetles, my brother would sit atop an old rag while my mother spun him around on the Marley tiled floor, he giggled delightedly, he had black encrustation of beetle carapaces in the corners of his mouth, and green snot resting like a candle drip on his upper lip.
I was charged with beating the rugs as they hung over the clothes line, I did it watching motes fly and dried food particles leap from the weave to rest in my cropped white blond hair and causing my sky blue eyes to smart. This was fun. Mother hurried, then rested, hurried then rested, cradling her round tummy, she had a warm smile on her tanned freckled face. She would tease us, by bending down and pushing her dentures out over her lip, distorting her face into that of a hideous fanged monster, and she would chase us around as we squealed and danced to get away from her.
Artifacts were dusted and the fireplace raked clean and reformed for the evening sit down. Mam was nervous, and with every passing vehicle she shot a rapid glance through the small window of the middle room to see what vehicle it was that had stopped at the cross roads outside the house.
Finally she leaped with delight as a small black Austin van pulled up at the gate. On its roof were all kinds of paraphernalia.
There were, stacked up on the van’s roof and marked at the rear with an old red sock, ladders, poles, huge forms of bent wire and plenty of rope. The side of the van bore words and pictures in a faded pastel yellow, one of them in the lower corner, a picture of a small dog looking into the horn of a gramophone not unlike the one Eleanor and Old Huck had in their new parlor. I recognized the van straight away. It was the television men from Curry’s TV store in Rhyl. We were going to have a television.
Mam rushed out to greet them, and flustered back inside to put the kettle on. A mandatory courtesy in those days was to nourish all tradesmen with copious amounts of hot sweet tea while they worked.
They went to the back of the van, and lifted a two wheeled dolly from the rear, they proceeded to huff and wheeze, finally they completed the first series of chores by lowering a large wooden box, about the size of a small cupboard from the interior, onto the dolly. Together they shuffled and coaxed it up the path and through the front door. Mam had already cleared a space in the far corner by the fire, and as the men carefully lowered the unit to the floor and stood it up, there it was, the miracle glass screen, a big one, fifteen inches across, of dark green glass in a black bakelite surround, and real white plastic knobs in an array below it. The controls showed a carefully designed symmetry on their brass back plate, and the swirling walnut inlay went down to brass wire netting in behind which was a large speaker. We had a television.
The men worked on the big Bush unit with pliers and soldering irons, they put on first a plug, and then fiddled with more wires. The other man got a hand drill from his bag of tools and bored a hole in the base of the window frame and fed length after length of strong brown cable through its back to the outside. They paused, and sipped on their hot brown tea, one man heaped another six spoons of sugar into his before stirring it slowly and purposefully, he finally sipped it with a deep aah, and a lecherous glance at my Mam’s breasts, as she bent to pull pieces of cut cable from my brother’s mouth.
After their break the men went back to the van and lifted the ladders and poles from its roof rack. With much huffing and calling, groaning and complaining, and with one fellow up the ladder outside, one man came back inside and plugged the unit to the wall of our recent modification, internal electricity. The noise from the speaker was deafening, and I leaped back, stumbling over my brother and onto Mam’s feet. The men called and used strange words with one another, until finally the screen glowed, the speaker hissed and the man got behind with a screwdriver and started solemnly adjusting wheels and knobs, until finally there it was.
A single note howled from the speaker, but the miracle was on the screen. We had a test card. This miracle of lines and dots was actually on our screen, we stared at it in awe. There was a real test card on a real television in our house. The men cleaned up, Mam signed some papers, and gave each man a half a crown, an absolute fortune in those days, and with a touch to their flat caps they climbed back in the van and carried on about their day. Mam rushed to the phone, and before long, Eleanor’s profile could be seen coming up the drive and she too sat down in absolute awe to sit with us and watch the test card and listen to the howl of the single note. We were spellbound. Finally, we heard the tell-tale spluttering of my Dad’s return, and his rusty beetle car, he had come home early for a change, very early, and from the passenger seat, my sister emerged in her pee smelling school uniform, he had even picked her up from school. Dad surveyed the rooftop. We ran out to greet him and looked up. There was no mistaking it, anyone passing could see, we had a television set.
On the roof hung an enormous antenna. Some twelve feet or so long and placed on a high pole, so large was this chimney adornment that the local jackdaws could actually run up and down it and not even bother three generations of house sparrows who, like a family of gutter snipes, had already laid claim to the entire length of a lower metal spar. Even two magpies settled on it, as we hurried back inside to enjoy the wonders of watching the test card.
Finally, after much anticipation the test card disappeared, and with a ding and a dong, a man’s voice came across the speaker to announce, “This is the BBC.” And there he was, in the gloom of the screen was the image of a man’s shoulders and head, in a dark suit with a bow tie around his neck and his lips moving in synchrony to the voice from the speaker. We clapped and cheered, Dad settled back with a glass of stout and Eleanor grudgingly gave up a piece of her perch for my sister to sit in. Mam, my brother and I sat cross-legged on the floor by the open fireless grate. First was children’s hour. As a family we thrilled to the music and on the small green screen a string puppet mule danced to a simpering woman’s voice.
After this rather disappointing act, which my father said was illegal, it was called Muffin the Mule, came what was to become my staple viewing for many years to come. This was Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men, and their friend Little Weed. It was too fantastic for words. Little stringed puppets that spoke in weird voices and a giant sunflower with the face of a sissy that lived between the plant pots these strange men occupied.
Finally came Andy Pandy, and his creepy girlfriend, Luby Loo. This was yet another puppet show, but this time, it was about a moon faced kid with red cheeks who lived in a toy box where he slept with, and on top of this simpering girl doll who was always dressed in gingham and always sporting a pair of hair braids that would poke the eyes out of potatoes, they also had a weird dog with a tongue that stuck out who they called “Spotty Dog”. Rather imaginative I thought at the time, since it was spotted.
All these puppets walked strangely, and for some months afterwards I would emulate their walk, lifting my left hand with my left foot and an exaggerated bend of the knee, followed by the same with my right foot, knee and hand, with what appeared to be a small curtsy between, and with the distinct wobble of the head that only string puppets have, I would walk around the house to the laughter and admiration of my family. Such was the miracle of this electric box, even my little brother was interested and for nearly an hour nothing from the floor passed between his lips, a circumstance I was soon to remedy with a small piece of cut cable I had found at the side of the set.
The television changed our daily life even more than the purchase of the car, and yet again Dad declared us now to not only be middle class, but also something he termed distinctly middle class, and encouraged us to let everyone not only know that we had a television set, by discussing programs with them, but also to let them know that watching it was a privilege that only he could decide upon, and we were not to encourage any of the riff raff from up the road in to watch, but they could peer through the window sometimes.
We watched endlessly, well, as endlessly as a family could, with only one channel, the BBC, which was only on from five o’clock in the afternoon to ten o’clock at night. So many wonderful programs, and the men on the screen were dressed so smartly in bow ties and dinner suits. Within days, Dad went up the road and demanded that the newsagent deliver not only the Liverpool Daily Post and the Rhyl Journal every week, but now also The Radio Times. He got up early the next day to inform our mystified milkman that we had a television in the house.
Placing six bottles on the step in preparation for the sparrows to come and swoop to peck off the foil tops, the milkman stared up at the roof, with its vast array of bouncing metal antennas upon it, and declared sarcastically to my Dad that he never would have guessed it if he had not been told. He then went on to discuss various programs with Frank, until the realization came across Dad’s face that our humble milkman had in fact been enjoying the visual broadcasts of the BBC for several months already and was no stranger to the miracle of modern science. Humbled and somewhat disgruntled that our milkman was also middle class, Dad made the rather prophetic prediction that one day we would have two television sets. He then went on to add that the milkman was such a fool he was the kind of delusional person who would go around telling people he was saving up for a color set, when everyone knew that humankind was at the peak of its technological ability and there would never be any such thing as color television, it was a scientific impossibility, the milkman was like those people who would dream of telephones that worked without being connected to a cable in the wall, and they would all be laughed at, because Frank knew best.
It was about this time, with the reduction in our chariot rides and an increasing dependence upon the television to fill our minds with information, instead of Mam and our environment, that Dad and Mam bundled us all into the beetle and we went to Rhyl. To me this was a huge town, and very scary, yet very exciting. They even had some buildings there that were four stories high, as well as a fire station, a lifeboat station, and a police station. Dad went to the library while Mam took me to a special store, in whose windows were arrayed dummies of pale children clad in a variety of clothes. I was outfitted with a blazer and four gray shirts, and three pairs of gray knee length socks. All these in the same insipid colors as what my big sister wore each weekday morning. I was beginning to get very suspicious, and looked upon Mam pleadingly for some kind of explanation, whereupon she simply ruffled my blond hair and smiled, saying how smart I looked, being easily flattered, and having most of her attention myself, as my little brother sat in the window of the store sucking the bottom of the drapes, I kept my mouth shut. After this we walked across the high street with our bags to Marks and Spencer, and I was awarded new underwear, and after a quick trip to Truform and a new pair of shoes, with real rubber soles instead of the slippery leather type, we staggered back to the car, put the bags under the hood and went in to the library to find out which aisle Dad was stealing books from, and what his chosen topic of the day was. We found him in the history section, and after putting a book on sailing ships into my mother’s handbag, we left, Dad signing out a book on yoga and Mam one on diet by some guy called Gaylord Hauser.
As we bundled into the small car it began to rain, and climbing in to a quick Nazi salute provided by a scruffy youth at the entrance to a milk bar, we embarked on the journey home along what we called the Old Rhyl Road. This weaving lane, smeared in years of cow dung and mud was deeply rutted, and we delighted as Dad revved and crunched his way through the gears, throwing the little car in spattering jolts around the hairpin bends. In front of us and beyond the lower village loomed the escarpment that marked the northeastern boundary of the Vale of Clwyd. At the very back, and clad in a thick pine forest was Cwm Mountain. Cwm was then home to people we called the Cwm Cannibals, farmers and forestry workers. My father told lurid stories I never really understood, about men who married their sisters and fathers who married their daughters and he stressed that in the farms on the base of the mountain, men were men and sheep were scared. In front of this massif was the great might of Moel Hiraddug. Dyserth Mountain, as it was known, had its seaward side eaten and scarred by years of limestone quarrying. On the slopes we could see the small outline of pre war bungalows and their red roofs. This was proof of more prosperous times in the upper village. Then came the Bryn and Craig Fach, these two small hills linked Dyserth Mountain to the huge coralline hump of limestone we called Craig Fawr, or in English, Big Rock. Welsh is like that, the names sound great until you translate them and realize that all they are is a very mundane description of the obvious. It was between the bases of the two Craigs that the lower village, and Penisa cross roads, our home nestled. I loved this drive, the view and the escarpment of Prestatyn Mountain with its huge pylons on top of it, marching off towards distant England.
The rain shower stopped as quickly as it started and Dad pulled the car over into the gate of a large fallow field and we all climbed out. What we had to do was by now well known to the whole family, and pulling a brown paper carrier bag from behind her seat, Mam was the first over the stile and into the field. It was a mushroom hunt. After such a brisk warm rain, it was said that one could stand in some fields and actually watch the mushrooms spring up in front of you. Mam had watched this field the previous year when a family of six horses had spent the last autumn and winter playing there, and apparently, where there had been mares, so too would one find mushrooms. It was true, and like finding treasure strewn amongst the blades of grass and clusters of clover, large white button mushroom abounded. So fresh were these delicacies, and so prolific the crop, we ate them raw as we picked them, returning to Mam periodically to fill the big brown bag. With the bag full, there were still even more to collect, and with Eleanor and Huck in mind, Dad pulled his shirt from his khaki trousers, took it off, tied the cuffs and filled the sleeves with mushrooms until no more could be carried. We then stopped again at another field and liberated several heads of cabbage, sliced from their furrow with Dad’s pocket knife, which fortuitously also had a spike on it for taking stones out of horses’ hooves. We rode home a happy family, myself having already forgotten the original reason for our trip to Rhyl. Instead of going home, and since it was a Saturday and the pubs opened at six o’clock instead of seven, we went to the Star, where Dad traded a sleeve of mushrooms for a beer or three, and we enjoyed the usual Dandelion and Burdock pop with a bag of soggy Smith’s Crisps each, then on to Grandma’s and finally home, with our packages, the rest of the mushrooms, our purchases and the stolen library books.
That evening, dining as a family in front of the television, watching “The Billy Cotton Band Show” our feast was glorious. To this day, there is still no kitchen aroma that invokes such nostalgia as that of mushrooms frying in bacon fat. In particular, I have yet to sample shop bought mushrooms that can compare with the wild Welsh ones we picked as children, enriched as they were with the nutritious trace elements of the loamy Welsh fields and the spontaneous freshness of their delightful crisp white caps and pale brown gills. Life did not get much better than this.
The following day was again reasonably pleasant, and we became bored with watching the test card on television, and I was unable to persuade my brother of the merits of a nice fat juicy slug for a snack, I called Floss the dog and retired to my private den in the lead bins behind the old shed. I stopped only to urinate on some chickens, watching them scatter all confused. I ducked down under the planks, pulling a complaining Floss with me, into my hideout and commenced to withdraw my secret stash of stuff from the various hiding places and admire what I had got, some things found and some things stolen. I laid before me several blown birds’ eggs, some agate marbles stolen from Mrs. Charlesworth, a clip of bullets from my Granddad’s war time guns, two knives, a spoon and my jam jar with tadpoles that now numbered only three from the seven of the previous day, but which had grown small legs and fatter bodies, having eaten their brothers and sisters, and a desiccated newt I was saving for my big sister as a surprise for her bed. Along the back of the shed, which formed one wall, I had placed two large flower pots in which I had hidden two of my sister’s dolls, who stood in for Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men, and who had become my new heroes. At the rear of the den, I had the last four remaining bottles, still intact, that contained old Lizzie’s nettle beer. The bottles by now were extremely grubby, but the porcelain tops were intact and the wire that held the stoppers still strained at the neck to release whatever cloudy contents they contained.
I regretted not dragging my brother with me, but as I unfolded a damp page torn from a magazine I had found behind the pub, I realized that a picture of a plump woman showing her bosoms might not be a very applicable topic to share with him, since he would probably eat it. I stared with awe at her massive breasts, and then carefully folded it back up and placed it back in the match box I kept it in, and pushed it back under the shed foundation for safe keeping. I watched several rats come and go, as they busily filled their mouth pouches with corn from the hen run returning to their nest under the shed. Beyond the hedge behind me I could hear smelly Harry, our neighbor, potting plants and cleaning garden tools. I vowed to do something bad to him one day, but I decided to let him off for the time being.
Lifting one of the huge bottles of nettle beer from its resting place, I cleaned the neck with my cuff, and in so doing there was a loud plop, the stopper wire twanged, the rubber banded topper flew off and dangled and chinked on the neck on the bottle to have the green brown contents foam furiously all over my knees. Having overcome this rather startling event, I regretted yet again not having my little brother here to taste test it for me, but running a grubby index finger around the stopper and placing it to my mouth I was delighted to taste something akin to the pop we were served up when we waited for hours in pub car parks. I gingerly lifted the bottle to my head, and peering around guiltily, checking that Harry could not see me, and hoping that Mam and little brother were still watching the test card, I took a sip.
Oh what fizzy foaming bliss. Cream Soda, Ginger, Dandelion and Burdock and Vimto all rolled into one. The sweetness of the brew filled my mouth like sherbet, every gum tingled, and as I swallowed I burped and my eyes watered. Again I put the bottle to my mouth, but this time with more care, and gently sipped at it, letting its tart sweetness linger in my mouth and then dribble down my throat, I coughed and spluttered. This went on for a while, and having consumed at least half the bottle I struggled to finally replace the stopper and press down the wire clip. My peanut sized bladder told me that it was time for a pee. Suddenly I felt rather different, and when trying to stand up I noticed that my legs failed to operate in the manner I desired. In fact I fell over, banging my head on the side of a drum, which forced me to crawl on hands and knees, and let Floss tow me from my hide. I lurched past the henhouse and staggered to the corner of the shed, now in full view of the house, where I could see not one but two television test cards through the back window. A dreadful smell permeated the air, and to my own disgust I realized that I had actually fouled myself, and to begin with, it sat like a giant wet pudding in my trousers, then it smeared as I moved and escaped in a long brown log down my leg and onto my heel. Oh shit, now I was in for it. Suddenly the sickly sensation around my gums and the sudden creation of sweet saliva signaled the onset of a good throwing up. I panicked, I fell to my face and threw up. Floss danced and barked and ran full tilt to the back door, whereupon Mam and her round tummy appeared. She ran up the garden and swept me up into her arms, shit and all, and she carried me to the house. By now I had thrown up several times and was beginning to feel a little better, though my vision was definitely not what it should have been. In no time she had my clothes off and a bath run and was cleaning me down, I for my part, with my head lolling from side to side, didn’t feel all that bad finally. She left me alone and rushed to the kitchen, returning with a fizzing glass of Andrew’s Liver Salts, in warm water, which she forced me to drink. After the scare with my brother and his unusual eating habits, Mam seriously feared a return of some dreadful outbreak. With the inception of the National Health Service, a doctor visitation to the home was free, and as I lay with glazed eyes on the ragged couch, with the test card on the television I noted that this time it spoke and had music. It said it was afternoon theatre. I was confused, but what was actually happening was that Mam had the radio on and the sound turned down on the television set, and as I listened to the lilting scandal of “Under Milk Wood” by Dylan Thomas, the tall doctor arrived. This was great, finally I was ill and the center of attention. He probed my belly, peered in my eyes, looked in my ears, pushed wooden sticks on my tongue and took my temperature. With a mystified look upon his face he then announced to Mam, that if he did not know any better I was showing all the signs of being as he called it “intoxicated by an alcoholic beverage.” Bloody drunk is what I was, and knowing the grief the evil brews already caused in life, having had it drummed into me by the vicar when he secretly came down to see Mam after one of her “falling over sessions” my eyes glowed huge and round and I burst into tears.
Then came the questions, and for fear of the discovery of my secret stash of goodies in my den, I blurted out all about the man next door and what he made me do. Poor Harry, Mam and the doctor went around there with fire in their eyes and actually accused him of trying to poison me. Not knowing what on earth they were talking about, he put down his oil cloth with which he was cleaning his prized lawn mower, one with an engine which I secretly coveted, and gazed worriedly at the pair. In a huff, Mam turned tail and strutted back to the parlor where I now lay in the bliss of fresh clothing, but nursing a severe headache.
I must have dropped off to sleep, and for quite some time, because when I came around, there was my Dad, with a policeman and my Mam in tears. Looking through the back window, out there standing on the back slabs was Old Harry from next door, holding his head. Dad had come home, seen my angelic face as I slept, got the story from Mam and consequently, and without aforethought, walked round to Old Harry’s house, accused him of child molestation, and poisoning, exposing himself and a number of other things too bad to mention. Still totally confused as to what his neighbors were talking about, Harry pled his innocence, only to be whacked on the side of the head by Dad, followed by an upper thrust to the gut for good measure, which not only winded Harry, but caused his heavy tortoise shell spectacles to fall to the floor, only to be stamped on by Dad. Mrs. Harry (I never did learn her name in all those years), the ugly and angry wife of the hen-pecked Mr. Harry, reached into her kitchen drawer for a rolling pin and verily chased the pugilistic Frank from the house whereupon she called the police. Bob Roberts, the local copper lived in the upper village, and with the absolute excitement of his first call out that week, he had put down his crossword puzzle, pulled on his boots and hat and pedaled at breakneck speed through the upper village, free wheeled excitedly down the great waterfall hill, the bell jangling furiously on his police issue Raleigh three speed, on through the lower village and coasted at amazing speeds that at times exceeded twelve miles per hour to Fern Bank and the source of the fracas.
Now Bob was a secret drinking buddy of Frank, and in time gone by a major recipient of Frank’s unlawful trade in tinned ham, liberated from greedy English vacationers at the holiday camp. So placing his notebook back in his pocket, he calmed the blubbering Harry, threatened Mrs. Harry with arrest for attack with a deadly rolling pin, and then came in the house to view and interrogate the victim, me. Even at four, I had mastered the art of denial, and after several don’t knows and can’t remembers I was left alone, while Dad dug beneath the stairs, from where he pulled a half drunk bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label, which he had been hiding from Eleanor, which he then poured into two bone china tea cups, offering one to constable Bob Roberts and the other for himself. The incident faded quite quickly, as did all these minor skirmishes, and eventually Mam made her peace with Old Harry, but not Frank. Harry for his part avoided me like the plague, for fear of more false charges, and Dad took great delight in waiting until Mrs. Harry was out in her immaculate garden on the other side of the straggly hawthorn hedge that lined one side of our drive, and he would discourse loudly about “that bloody fat cow next door” or “that hideous fat bitch with the broom” or “that fat arsed badger with tits” and other unsavory comments, all said loud enough for her to hear.
In those days, violence was seen as the basic and first entry level to settling most minor disputes. Saturday nights would regularly end with a brawl in a pub car park or hurling of bottles and shouting of curses. These altercations would settle the score there and then and after this hands would be shook, backs slapped and life would continue its boring drudgery. Only later in the mid sixties and early seventies would men begin to settle minor scores with solicitor’s letters and magistrate’s courts, up to that period, a good bare knuckle fight in a pub car park was all that was required for two people to reach a decision on an issue upon which they disagreed.
Some days later, having fully recovered, and my den and its contents still intact and secret, I was pulled ungraciously from my warm bed with its hard flock mattress by no other than my older sister, enemy number one in my important little life. Mam then pounded up the stairs, and started to prepare my brother for what I thought was another of our wonderful chariot rides. Downstairs, Eleanor had arrived very early, and as I turned the corner of the bottom of the stairs I saw boiled eggs, jam butties and a hot pot of tea on the table. Grandma Eleanor was ironing. On the ironing board were the unmistakable purchases of the previous Saturday, my new clothes. I had a quick wash in the new bathroom, and dodging naked back to the middle room, Mam then proceeded to dress me in totally new underwear and clothes, still warm from Eleanor’s frantic ironing. My sister glared at me, and darted her fingers across to pinch me, a sneaky grin on her face. I for my part, being naturally vain, ignored her advance and poked her hand with a butter knife. My brother sat in the hearth, quietly placing cold cinders in his mouth before my chubby bellied Mam could snag them for herself. In a whirlwind of food, tepid tea and a wiping around mouths with a spit dampened corner of a table cloth, Mam squeezed my feet into my new shoes and grabbing my sister and myself, whisked us out of the front door, leaving little brother, by now his head up the cold chimney inspecting the flue for edibles, in the charge of Eleanor. I was going to school.
We sprinted across the road to the bus stop which was next to the Gover Lane entrance that led to the tip, Craig Fach (Little Rock Mountain) and the Gover Field, complete with unfilled bomb craters from the last war, but now grown over with nettle patches, and punctuated with neat rabbit holes. We lined up with other children of Penisa, clad in the tell tale green regalia of Hiraddug Primary School, and with some simpering parents, still in dressing gowns and slippers, while others waved from metal gated driveways.
There was a sound of engine and gear crunching down at the cross roads, and from around the corner came the green Crossville double deck bus, that took the children of the lower village and Penisa, up the three big hills to school in the upper village. I was fascinated and when it came to a stop I pulled away from Mam and raced for the stairs so as to gain a position with an elevated view. At the top of the stairs the bus was already partially full with children from Meliden, who all looked upon me as the newcomer and a source of new amusement, until Mam puffed up behind me, my sister, always the independent, choosing to sit in her usual spot downstairs next to a plump girl with freckles and red braids, buck teeth and round spectacles covering eyes that crossed and looked in several directions at once. Possibly a charitable gesture on my sister’s part, but more likely to be the only friend she could make. To make matters worse, the poor child had a serious speech impediment that forced a spray of spit through the gaps in her teeth every time she spoke, and to add insult to injury, she always seemed eternally cheerful and oblivious to her differences, when compared to her peers.
The upstairs front seats were taken by a raucous team of big boys, who were all old hands to the ride, as they swung battered leather satchels at one another and carefully tortured a small girl by performing Chinese burns to her wrists. The conductor tinged the bell twice by the press of a button, which was the driver’s signal to move on. With his mechanical ticket printer, cranked by the turn of a ratchet handle and the coin bag slung around the waist of his smart black uniform, and with his hat, pressed into a duck’s peak shape as favored by U Boat captains of the last war, and worn rakishly askance, he began his rounds of collecting fares from the newcomers. The bus swayed hard from side to side, while the driver negotiated the nasty bends at fat Meg’s house, Glan Aber. The big diesel beast then had to accelerate so as to have enough momentum to at least make the first of the three big hills to the upper village, and Cross Keys junction.
I was enthralled, I sat in admiration at the side of my Mam, preening myself in the reflection from the glass, but still unaware of my mission, I thought I was being rewarded for something, but a careful dragging of my memory could not reveal to me anything good that I had done for some considerable time. I did miss my little brother, and taking the ticket from the conductor, I vowed to keep it safe until the end of my journey and offer it to my brother later as a snack. It was small, yellow and had blue numbers on it, he would really enjoy this new taste I knew.
Finally, the bus reached its destination, a road called Voel Road, and reversed back into a miserable little terminus built of local stone, and which covered three meager wooden benches, carved to within an inch of their useful life, and surrounded by graffiti in two languages, Welsh and English. The engine shuddered to silence, and everybody got off the bus. It was still very early in the morning, and at this time I would normally be just coming downstairs to listen to the radio and cuddle Mam.
We all walked the hundred or so yards to my sister’s school. Now I had been there before, both on foot the previous July and by car with Mam and Dad, to see my sister in school pageants, where one time she played a tree, and had no lines at all, and the other time she played a fat woman in some religious mumbo jumbo and had only one phrase to say, which for the life of me I cannot recall. Anyway, here we were again, but this time I realized was different, I was in the same clothes, but of newer condition, than most of the other children. Mam was excited, and she kissed my sister who ran off to her classroom just in time for a claxon sound followed by a bell, which heralded the start of school.
Mam grabbed my hand and we were ushered into the school hall, which was also the gymnasium, theatre and emergency shelter, where several other wide faced scared kids of my age stood with their own Mams. Some blubbered, some giggled and some simply stared blankly into space, all were of my maturity and seemed like me to have reached that very ancient and wise age that allowed them to do whatsoever they felt like. Mam was delighted, she embraced many of the women and commenced to discuss a number of things from time gone by. My mother was a village native, and she had grown up with some of these ladies, and having given birth to my sister in England, I was born at the local maternity hospital at the same time as many of these equally fortunate urchins, so Mam and they recalled those days of over five years ago nostalgically, while admiring my mother’s swelling belly.
Finally, a round moon faced man with fleshy hands, a perspiring bald head and greasy spectacles entered the hall, he yanked at the knees of his shiny suit trousers and pompously climbed the stage to introduce himself in Welsh as Mr. Jones, the headmaster. In unison, and as though they had been trained as school children themselves, all of the mothers all replied in the same tongue.
After personal introductions, and some paper work, the Mams and their offspring began to disappear through a door in the corner, one by one. Eventually our turn came. I was beginning to smell a rat, things did not seem quite what they seemed. For a start, Mam was being extra nice and the headmaster had a decidedly oily grin on his face when Mam returned the forms she had filled out. Still, in abject ignorance I followed her through the door and into the room. It was an ambush. I had learned all about ambushes from the cowboy films on television, particularly Wagon Train and Boots and Saddles. Within the tiny room was another of those people dressed in white, and she was surrounded by chemicals, weighing scales and wall charts, all of which to me, inspired fear.
The first indignity was that I had to take off ALL my clothes except for my vest. Mam pulled most of them over my head then whipped down my shorts and pants together. The horror of it all was the look on the face of my wrestling friend, Sian Roberts, who was queued behind me and was visible through the open door. I covered my shrunken willy parts with my vest, only to have the horse faced nurse pull it away. God, the shame I felt was enough to make me shrivel. Next I was prodded, probed, weighed and tweaked. With cooing sounds to soothe me, horse face then told me to look at a picture of a robin on the wall. As I looked at the battered poster of a robin red breast pulling a worm from the ground, she attacked me with a giant needle in my arm. I screamed, an unholy scream, I jumped up and down, bawled and in spite of my nakedness fled through the door yelling and I was off, down the corridor, head master, nurse and finally a panting Mam behind me. I was not to be caught, rushing from corridor to corridor, children ran to the glass panes of their classroom doors to witness the naked screaming spectacle. Finally I was swept up into the arms of a dark Welshman, and carried back to the Hall, screaming and kicking, silencing myself only to bite my captor on his hand as hard as I could.
Mam was terribly embarrassed and she quickly dressed me, after which we were ushered out of a second door, this time to be met by a very pretty lady indeed. In fact so pretty was she, that I fell in love right there and then, and stopped crying. Miss Valmay Williams, a real Welsh beauty. I cleared my nose of snot with a rapid wipe on my sleeve and a slide of my face across each shoulder and sat down, along with the other children who had been dumped there before me. When all were present, a terrible thing happened. Mam and the other women got themselves up to their feet, said good bye, I was kissed on the cheek, and Mam left. I had been abandoned. I began to whimper, then to sob, then to bawl as I saw her through the window, walking back along the road to the bus station, actually laughing with the other mothers, not once did she turn to look back. What a terrible thing to happen. Memories of wild chariot rides, radio shows, my brothers diet, the den, Floss the dog, and many other events flooded my mind. They were all now past, I was never to be the same again, life was now a misery and I had been sold out by, of all people, Mam.
Being a rather headstrong individual, even at this age, and having the ability to out-scream, outcry and outrun anybody, I jumped to my feet, grabbed the door and fled to the nearest outside exit I could find. I could see Mam, down the road, she was getting on the bus. I ran screaming and crying, pleading and begging. I had already vowed to myself that I would be good, whatever that was, just as the bus pulled away, and down the hill. My little legs pumped and my new shoes pounded the road, I ran after the bus, watching it stop at a silver pole near the Old School House, only to start up again as I approached. My lungs burned, my voice was hoarse from screaming, I plugged on down the big hill until I could run no more. I collapsed by the Red Lion, tears oozing from my bright purple face, I was alone, I was no longer wanted, my own Mam had abandoned me. Or so I thought, there came a hand on my shoulder, which grabbed me hard and pulled me skywards, I fell into the arms of Old Huck, my Granddad, my hero, he had been out to collect his pension and had seen me running past the post office. He calmed me and carried me the half a mile back past the church, and Glan Aber, around the bends and on to Penisa and delivered me back to Mam, who was standing looking rather frightened at the telephone.
Such was my first day at school. I learned to escape many, many times thereafter, right up into my teen years, but this first day is indelibly etched into my memory. Far from being angry, Mam was relieved and she cuddled me. I was talked to all that day, and most of the next about school, and after doing one hell of a sell job on me we tried again the following Monday, this time however, there was no nurse, no school hall, and Mam, God bless her, stayed with me all that day and half the next day, until I was sufficiently reassured that I would be returning home each night in time for children’s hour on television. Finally, with the event forgotten, and no more reminders from Sian Roberts about my private parts, I settled in to become a local scholar and armed with new knowledge, an even more skilled delinquent. It was then that I became the denizen of one of Wales’ most beautiful villages.
School proved to be all the wonderful things Mam had promised, and I quickly settled in to commence my education. As the autumn term progressed, the class even celebrated my birthday and new friends from distant small villages, including several Cwm Cannibals rapidly numbered amongst my many fresh acquaintances.
At home Dad too seemed to be doing well, and had reduced his nighttime forays to the pub, in favor of looking after Mam and coming up stairs to tell us stories of Vikings and Romans, of castles and kings. Tales and legends about such heroes as Twm Sean Catty, Gellert, Offa, the mighty English king, who was incapable of conquering the powerful Welsh princes and their armies and so dug a ditch around Wales to keep out the hill tribesmen from raiding the flocks and fields of the mamby pamby English wimps, and we commenced to accumulate many collections of minerals, rocks, pressed flowers and dead insects. All these served as additions to our already fascinating classroom talks, and at a very early age I was able to discuss such events as the Roman invasion of Wales, the castles and keeps of Edward the Second, rivers and tides and the annual migration of birds across our green and wind-kissed land to places far away.
This led us up towards Christmas, and I was duly chosen to play the part of a blond haired, blue-eyed, magi in our class’s Christmas pageant, all spoken in our native Welsh tongue. The hall was full that evening, and as the most unlikely aryan Arab, I was swathed in striped towels and old sheets, and propped with an old box, purchased especially for the part from Mrs. Charlesworth’s, which was to be presented to Sian Roberts, who played Mary, and Peter Bell, who with his dark Welsh looks and lop sided beard hung over his ears, was perfect as a rag headed Joseph. In an enthusiastic bout of hamming I entered the stage several times prior to my appointed moment, to much laughter and clapping from the crowd of proud parents seated in the small parquet floored auditorium of our school hall, until eventually I did it at the right time, and stammered a few words and ran off.
As the weather changed, and huge leaves from mighty Welsh oaks scurried in blustery piles around our damp roads, to mingle pungently with their cousins from lime, ash, elm, chestnut and walnut, the school prepared for Christmas. We made paper chains, papier mache masks, tree ornaments and Christmas cards for our parents and grandparents. We caught the bus home, clad in our rather dowdier uniforms, encrusted as they were with canteen food, sparkling dusts and wax crayon marks. Our shoes became scuffed and our collars curled. School was heaven to me in those years. I fell in love with all the lady teachers (all except Mrs. Wallard, who though wonderful and one of the best musicians I have ever known, was too fat to cuddle up to) and especially the student teachers, who came from time to time to practice their trade upon us.
Of course, the biggest conversation of all was about Him. Yes, Father Christmas. We were, each and every one of us, to a child, absolute firm believers in his coming. Eagerly we sat cross legged around Miss Williams in the quiet corner of our chalk dusted classroom, as she told of the biblical miracles of Jesus’ birth, and the heroic willingness of St. Nicholas to provide for poor children, and how he became immortal, and was given a huge factory at the North Pole, staffed with happy elves, where he made toys all year to deliver all at once by magic to all good children all over the world every Christmas Eve.
We sipped our free school milk eagerly through the paper wax straws provided, and licked the tops of the soft sticky buns, delivered from Cunnah’s at a penny each. My imagination ran riot, and I rushed home to speak of these wonders with Mam, who elaborated still further on them by advising me to be a good boy for fear of incurring Santa’s wrath and receiving only a pillow case full of ashes in place of the many toys the good children like Sian Roberts would receive.
As a family we left one Saturday morning before Christmas and drove all the way to Abergele, a small coastal town that separated Rhyl from Rhos on Sea and Colwyn Bay, and returned with our Christmas tree strapped to the roof of the car. After propping it up with rocks and mud in an old bucket and placing it in a corner of the middle room, it was then festooned with baubles and the scraps of tinsel and colored paper saved from previous years and finally, the much desired chocolate ornaments were counted and hung up, including bags of gold coins made from milk chocolate, and all this capped off with thirty six clip on candle holders and small colored twists of candles inserted into each, their white string wicks to await their being lit on Christmas morning. Dad would then stick a fairy on the top, claiming it to be an angel.
Another annual event marked the Christmas festivities, Santa’s lorry. This huge articulated low loader was borrowed from Jones yard in Meliden by the local round table and illuminated with lights and an enormous gaudily decorated spruce tree with a fat angel perched on top, the upper part of tree having been shoved up her skirt and her tattered wings were held on by tinsel. In the middle of the flat bed was Santa’s shack, built of green and red clapboard, with cotton wool snow glued to its glazed panes, from which emanated wonderful carol music. In this sat a big fat Santa Claus with a long beard not unlike matted cotton wool, with food stains on it. As we heard it slowly creep down the road from Meliden to negotiate Penisa corner on its route to the New Inn car park, such wonderful songs as “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen,” “Silent Night” and “Hark The Herald Angels Sing” indicated its crawl towards us as we danced gleefully in the front garden waiting for him to stop and hurl sweets at us, whereafter we would join the growing throng that would follow it up the village in the crisp rawness of a Welsh December night. Children danced, old men sang, mothers and fathers held hands swinging arms, all previous transgressions and arguments put behind them, the financial stresses of the growing commercialism of Christmas forgotten for this one evening of chilly, colorful, traditional bliss.
The New Inn pub loved this event, since most fathers had difficulty leaving, while mothers of the lower village and Penisa wearily walked their offspring home. Santa left the pub as the truck switched off its lights, the tree folded down and the huge engine revved up to commence the crawl up the hill into the upper village. Santa retired to the temporary retreat of his hut with a bottle of Marston’s Pale Ale held in his hand and another in the pocket of his big red coat. This to us was the onset of the real Christmas. Even at an early age, the profusion of Santa Clauses, dressed in a variety of red get ups did confuse me, but like a stubborn mule, I made plausible excuses for his multiple and simultaneous appearances, just glad that I was able to be a part of these seasonal celebrations.
The best part of the pre-Christmas celebrations was yet to come. The eventual establishing and building of the new Pilkington Glass Factory in St. Asaph had been hailed as an economic miracle by the local Chamber of Commerce. This huge and progressive employer, having chosen the area for the purity of the air, the high level of education amongst the local people and their availability to work harder, longer, but, more relevantly, their willingness to work for less money than their English counterparts. My Dad was a senior quality inspector at the plant, which meant he was white collar, and went to work in a jacket and tie. Pilkington also threw the most lavish Christmas party for the children of their staff than any employer in the northwest of Britain, and I, my sister and even my little brother had been invited. Many other children at our school also had parents at the plant, and even at the early age, extreme snobbery amongst classmates began to emerge, as we teased the children of local farmers, quarry workers, miners and Mostyn dock workers that were not invited. We formed our own cliques especially for Christmas. That evening, early, Mam had us all bathed and scrubbed, and I was presented with a new shirt, a yellow bow tie and fresh white ankle socks, while my little brother, now no longer a toddler, but potential fodder for the next term at school, was dressed in my hand me downs, his de-facto clothing for most of his early life, and my simpering big sister was wrapped in some form of tartan kilt with huge knee length socks and patent leather sandals. As a family we climbed into “Blitz Krieg” as Dad had now named the Volkswagen, with a fat bellied Mam squeezed into the front seat besides him. I had never been to the factory before, having only glimpsed it in the far off distance, across the great verdant Vale of Clwyd, from our school playing field, situated as it was on the opposite slopes some eight to ten miles distant. At night it was a blaze of lights and by day a string of gleaming buildings that reflected the sun each morning and paraded car lights from its roads each evening. They had even built a fabulous new road between Rhuddlan and St. Asaph called a dual carriage way, to service the growing prosperity of the Pilkington business park, a road where two cars could go in the same direction side by side at the same time. Yes, it seemed that North Wales was finally making it onto the map of commerce that lined the walls of some faceless English bureaucrat in Whitehall.
Upon our arrival, Dad parked the car in a huge asphalt car park, and expectation and anticipation sizzled in our veins as we walked hand in hand alongside our parents towards the immense glass doors that led to the main canteen, the focal point of our planned festivities. I was duly warned about my behavior with the usual threats from Mam and Dad, but which I had by now heard so many times, were as useful as instructions to build a nuclear bomb were to my hardened ears.
Upon entering, I saw several kids from my school and one from my class. All the girls, with the exception of my big sister, wore frilly party frocks in pinks and blues, a sea of chiffon, darting about like tropical fish in a turquoise sea. They were screaming and giggling, jumping and posing. Proud parents mingled coyly, introducing each other’s wives and husbands, spouses being eyed by other spouses, in flagrant disregard to the biblical commandments, many conscious of the secret trysts of the swinger clubs that had formed in the factory, and going unmentioned for the evening, only occasionally transgressed by lascivious leers from chain smoking fathers gathered as they were at the parents’ beer bar in the corner. The first part of the night was a series of games. A new fangled Dansett record player was wired through an amp and into some speakers and a Buddy Holly record marked the start of musical chairs. I loved this game instantly, and worked out very quickly how to yank the plywood and tubular steel stacking chairs from beneath the bums of willowy ribbon clad girlies and sissy little boys, so eventually I won. My prize was a spinning humming top. A tin treasure that when pressed from the top the cork screw mechanism would rotate the body of the top and it would stand spinning and humming, upright and alone on the gleaming floor. I paraded it proudly to scornful looks from other children’s parents.
The next game was called pass the parcel, not to be outdone, when the music stopped I simply ran and grabbed the parcel from whosoever had it and tore rabidly at the paper. This was tolerated for a few rounds, until irritated by my selfishness the game was halted and I was yanked out, protesting my innocence at the slapping of some wispy fairy child since the parcel had landed in her lap when the music stopped and I had rushed for it, and she being unaware of my role as the receiver of everything had dared to resist. My Dad cuffed me, a dreadful display of public humiliation, so I screamed and kicked him then I ran off behind the stage area. Finally I was captured, and for fear of any further embarrassment I was allowed to partake in the collecting of balloons and blowers as they fell from a large net in the ceiling. The next treat was the food, it was absolutely fabulous. Cakes, chocolates, miniature sausage rolls, jelly, ice cream, stuff the dreams of little boys were made from. I gorged myself, some of it made it to my mouth, the rest of it onto my shirt and pants, while my clip on yellow bow tie floated in a bowl of fruit punch. I left the table, hands and pockets full of food, stopping only to inspect and tread on the toys won by other children, at what I considered to be my personal party. Finally the big moment arrived. A gruff fat man, with beer dripping from his mustache and probably the father to some tap dancing kindergarten bimbo, coughed into a microphone, and announced that Santa’s sleigh had been seen in the night sky and his arrival was imminent. All of us cheered, and clapped, with the selfish knowledge of freebies and gifts that always accompanied the fat guy in red.
With a flurry of fake snow the doors to the canteen burst open and in strode the old boy himself, with a ho-ho-ho, and a wave of his fat red hand, the bearded wonder climbed onto a throne that had been placed on the makeshift stage and we kids were lined up to sit on his knee. The emcee moved the microphone over to where Santa sat and the line edged towards him in anticipation. The girls went first, regretfully, and he talked to them, listened to their Christmas wish list, asked them if they had been good, and summarily dismissed each of them with a badly wrapped gift in red and green crepe paper secured with brown sticky paper tape, those North Pole elves had a lot to learn about marketing and packaging. Each little girl carefully unwrapped her gift and cooed over dolls and tea sets, teddy bears and board games, shyly sidling back to cling to their mother’s skirts.
Next came the boys, and I was third in a line of about thirty, so being placed by simply shoving all but the two strongest kids out of my way. My brother was last from the back. Neato, the first kid got a die cast Corgi car, an American car at that, a Chevrolet Impala, complete with blue paint, real rubber tires, fins on the back and doors that opened. I yearned for such a gift. Even better, the next kid’s topped this, and after selling Santa on how good he had been all year and how he had helped his grandma and sung carols for charity with his church, he dismounted and opened a set of cowboy guns, in a leather gun belt, with two holsters and even some caps to go in the guns so he could really shoot people. I wanted that toy, it was my turn next. I leaped the stage and bounded to his knee. Rather than take up too much of his time, I decided to save him the trouble of rifling through the big red sack and simply dipped in to help myself. Not while he was Santa Claus, he yanked me out and back to his knee, when my hand jerked back, and I knocked the microphone to the floor.
As the emcee ran to upright it, I noticed that behind the beard was a familiar face, I tugged on the loose beard with an inaudible twang of his ears, upon which the beard was hooked, and I revealed none other than “Lucky Mug,” my Dad’s favorite drinking buddy. I turned in time for the microphone to be replaced, right by my mouth and shouted “look Dad, it’s Lucky Mug,” a name my Dad only used to describe his friend behind his back. A quick present was thrust into my hand, Santa grabbed his beard and the Emcee whipped me off the fat guy’s knee and pulled me towards my very embarrassed parents. I opened the present anyhow, with the sure knowledge that I was to receive something even better than a pair of cowboy six shooters, perhaps a real bowie knife, or even an axe, maybe even a machine gun with real bullets, so I could start killing little girls. The red wrapper flew around me as I tore at my gift, oblivious to the next kid, now sitting simpering on the knee of the fraudulent Santa. Finally, with the wrapper off, my gift was revealed. I was not happy, and with a scowl and a tantrum threw it to the floor, where it broke. It was a small paddle bat made of wood, which had a long rubber band stapled to its center, the other end of which had a small rubber ball attached to it. Furious, I tore away from my parents and rushed back to the front, I thrust the cracked paddle in Santa’s alarmed face and demanded he take it back and give me my set of guns. I snatched the gift from the hands of the child on his knee, which was rapidly snatched back and repatriated by the ugly emcee, as the next kid in line, looked on alarmingly.
Well it worked, and in spite of much protesting by other parents, and a near fight between my Dad and the emcee as well as a hard clack around the ears for me, after servicing all the kids, Santa declared that he had one gift left over, it was probably for some kid whose parents didn’t make it for fear of exposure as company swingers, and so the fraud we called Lucky Mug in the red felt suit and rubber boots called me up, but only as close as the emcee, who gripped me hard by the shoulders for fear of Santa losing more than his beard this time, and I received my extra gift. It was the Lone Ranger’s silver six shooter I had so badly wanted. I wrapped the gun belt around myself, and hoisted the heavy gun into the holster, which I laced to my scrawny right leg, and in an act of unbridled generosity gave my broken paddle and ball to my little brother, to go with the weird rubber Noddy doll he had received from Mr. Claus. Very little was said on the journey home, except of course by myself, clad as I now was in ice cream and fruit jelly trousers, the gun pointed to the back of my Dad’s head as we drove more slowly than usual along the new dual carriage way. I never went to another Christmas party at the glass factory, but as far as I was concerned, one was enough, and I treasured that gift all the way up to Christmas Eve, nearly a whole week, in anticipation of the real fat bellied bloke somehow squeezing down our filthy little chimney, and delivering our real Christmas, the first I can recall, and also one of the happiest in my life.
Chapter eight
And Then There Were Four
The new prosperity in our humble stone shack, with its recently added bathroom and toilet, small coal house and scrubby, child pounded garden, would make this Christmas an event of a lifetime for the family. The first and most important issue for Frank was the acquiring of a small chintzy drinks trolley for the front room, for which he then personally purchased a wide variety of bottled grog. This ranged from Harvey’s Bristol Cream, for posh guests, to fortified wine, Gordon’s Gin and finally his favorite, several bottles of whisky. With each bottle polished, he marked the labels in order to pace himself with the fullest intention of having all of it drained by the new year. We shopped for apples, bananas, nuts, including chestnuts all the way from Spain, oranges and tangerines. These were laid out in huge chipped blue willow pattern bowls, purchased over the previous summer from Mrs. Charlesworth’s and for good measure, the pee pots we no longer had to have under the beds, because we now had indoor plumbing, were also polished up and loaded with hazel nuts and walnuts, complete with a steel nut cracker to round off the vision, and these were placed in the window sills.
Dad had also taken to disappearing occasionally some evenings, climbing into Blitz Kreig wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie, patent leather shoes and carrying a small wooden box. Apparently, though he never discussed it, he was being inducted into the local Free Masons, at the invitation of Cecil Groves, an old man and friend of Old Huck, who had taken a shine to Frank.
The Saturday before Christmas, we finally met him as a family, when he drove up from Vale Road in Rhyl, from his rather salubrious residence, in one of the most fabulous cars I had ever seen, an Austin Princess, a huge bouncing spring affair with leather seats, a walnut dash board with so many fancy dials and knobs even I dared not touch anything and it was powered silently by the miracle he called automatic transmission. It enjoyed real indicators on the body of the car instead of the little sticky up ones most cars had, and it was all rounded off with deep plush carpets inside, a great deal different from Blitz Kreig, which Dad now drove with the windows open because the cracked exhaust pipe was filling the car with fumes. Mr. Groves greeted and embraced Mam, kissing her on the cheek, she had grown up with his daughter. From the rear of the car, and wrapped in many weeks of the Rhyl Journal, he delivered our huge fresh eighteen pound turkey, as a gift to his new prodigy in the Masons, and the rag tag family of kids all living under this small roof. Dad plied him with sherry, poured into new glasses purchased especially for this Christmas, and small gifts were exchanged, including a goat skin apron for Frank. It became obvious to me that what Dad actually was for the Masons was their kitchen boy, but he must have been good at it because he also got a medal. Shortly after, the familiar gait of Bob Roberts the policeman was seen rounding the back slabs and following a greeting that involved a rapid exchange of finger fuddled hand shaking, the men proceeded to the front room, where a warm fire burned, to discuss the intricacies of life, leaving Mam to take the turkey, and hang it high enough for Floss not to tear at it, and then she turned to mind us three kids.
Finally, after much giggling and rearranging of our small house, Christmas Eve fell upon us, and we sat down as a family to watch television, but so eager for the imminent arrival of Santa Claus, we were barely able to contain ourselves. Dad of course saw it all through a haze of alcohol, while Mam had since given up her temporary diet of coal and tinned peaches for more substantial fodder. I watched her sit with a bowl of brussel sprouts on her knee, laboriously cleaning them and putting them into a pan, occasionally crunching a raw one in her denture cluttered mouth. The turkey, by now having been stuffed with sausage meat, boiled chestnuts and sage and onion stuffing all made from scratch had been placed to roast slowly in the new fangled electric oven in the kitchen. Finally, Dad came to and awoke from his liquor haze and announced to us all that it was our bed time. Now this was normally a difficult moment in our house. It was around about now each and every evening that I developed all kinds of ailments, from earache, to chest infections, coughing hoarsely, even going as far one night to make a statement that I had developed a hole in my heart and could not go to bed because of the stairs. This night was different. This night was Christmas Eve. Being asked to go to bed had taken forever tonight, and I eagerly danced up the stairs, chased by Dad, so that I could climb in early and prove once and for all to Santa that I did as I was told.
On a previous evening we had all been allowed to write down our wish list to Santa and post it up the chimney for those North Pole elves, responsible for the Welsh territory, to collect and deliver to him. Mam had written them, so I was pretty sure that I would get the Meccano set I so desired, as well as the cowboy outfit, the crayons, the coloring books and the Corgi model truck with a real crane on the back I could use in the dirt inside the back door, my favorite spot in which to play. So I willingly, nay, gleefully, leaped to my bed, to dispel once and for all any rumors Santa might have heard about me being uncontrollable and selfish, rumors I knew had their origin with my big sister.
For good measure, I also tied my brothers leg to the end of his bed, to prevent him getting up before me, and beating me downstairs. My sister slunk off to her room, and I strained my ears at the door of the bedroom, rushing back to my bed and pretending to be asleep when I heard Mam or Dad come up to check on us. I must have finally fallen asleep, because I awoke, in the cold and the dark, to the shallow panting of my well shackled little brother across the room. I had no idea of the time. I carefully opened the bedroom door, and craned my head down the small stairs. Not a sound from below. There was a lamp on however, and aided by its glow, I trod carefully, avoiding the squeaking steps by leaning on the hand rail and edging myself down the wall. I scraped the mildewed wall paper with my pajamas, a recent addition to my bed time wardrobe, and the acrid pungency of arsenic, like bitter almonds, left its indelible green smear on my shoulders. At the bottom I looked around into the middle room, and saw that the fire had been stoked and glowed quietly behind a brass spark guard. The hearth had been swept, and there it was, the evidence of a visitation. The sherry glass was empty, and the mince pies had been reduced to a few crumbs on the china plate. Elated, my eyes dodged about the floor, until there beneath the tree I saw, laying in bumpy full silence, our three pillow cases, once limp and empty, now stuffed and overflowing with all kinds of wonders.
I yelped with delight, and like all the times when I was first to know, dashed up to my parents’ small bedroom above the kitchen and pounded on them to announce that Santa had been. As I listened to my brother whimper as my sister untied him from his bed upstairs, I dashed to the blue pillow case, which was mine by agreement, and also after careful examination earlier, established as the largest, my little brother had the smaller yellow one and my sister the pink one.
I had vainly endeavored to get mine swapped for a bolster off Mam’s bed, a special pillow case that was in my opinion the correct size, but this had been quashed by Dad. I dragged the heavy blue cotton case, distorted with stuff, out onto the rug in front of the fire to find out what I had got. My brother and sister emerged from the bottom of the stairs, my brother rubbing his ankles, and they did the same. Paper started flying in all directions, as our weary parents sat back, and Dad, in one of his more trusting moments poured himself a glass of sherry into the same goblet that Santa had used, and without washing it first, and he then proceeded to swallow it in one single gulp, followed by a burp, which seemed to trigger the need for him to thrust his free hand down into his huge underpants and scratch. He stretched out on the threadbare sofa, with his legs apart, to watch the spectacle of Christmas unfold through his children.
Out they flew, chocolate bars, jelly candies, boxes of jig saws, board games, puzzle books and join the dot books, coloring books and small trinkets, some corgi toy cars, a matchbox car, a complete cowboy outfit, crayons, chalks, and finally, a bloody stupid cloth doll, called Noddy who had tied with him in his box three Enid Blyton books telling all there was about this blue helmeted pervert and why he was such a simpering little pest. All this was made good by the best present of all, a Rupert the Bear, Magic Painting Book, and a set of brushes to go with it. I loved the Rupert book, and for years after I was to become very familiar with him, his pal Algernon the badger, the chinaman and the pixies he hung around with as well as the crazy professor who invented all the gadgets Rupert got to play in. The magic of the book was that just by painting water onto its pages, the colors of the pictures on the pages emerged, and the stories, in picture form were spell binding. To me, at that time, Rupert and his pals became very real, and beat the crap out of Muffin the Mule and sissy little Andy Pandy and his dumb bed mate on television.
Upon turning to inspect my brother’s haul, I noticed it to be very similar to my own, other than he received the Meccano set I had so carefully ordered, but I felt I could make this good at a later stage by simply taking it from him, after all, as my little brother, everything he had was really mine anyhow. As for my sister, she got more dolls for me to break and other girly stuff I did not need, so I left her alone.
For some weird reason I was never to solve, Santa always put a handful of nuts and an apple an orange and a pear each in the bottom of our pillowcases. Still mine was not to reason why, but to just enjoy and ruin.
With Eleanor and Old Huck with us for Christmas dinner, the day dragged on, we all fought over toys. Most got broken and I had already bathed the ugly Noddy doll twice in the lavatory, then thrown him on the fire for good measure. I glared enviously at my brother’s new teddy bear with its articulated limbs and pretty brown eyes. And so the day ended, nut shells under foot, paper and broken toys strewn around the house, and chocolate finger marks everywhere. I don’t know who ate the turkey and stuffing, I know I didn’t, but I do recall digging hard into a whole Christmas pudding with a huge steel spoon, because there was supposed to be a shiny sixpence piece inside it.
That January was a particularly cold one, and school was warm, warmer than the hovel, which was so cold at night the lace curtains froze to the inside of the window, and if one sat in front of the fire, your face glowed red and your eyes burned, but your back ached from the biting drafts that whistled in from the ill fitting window and door frames. So school became something of a favorite time. This was made better by the wonderful school dinners we were provided with for just one shilling and sixpence as well as so much free school milk as you could consume from the small one third of a pint bottles delivered from Cwm dairy, daily.
It was upon arriving home from school one day, under the watchful guardianship of my elder sister that I noticed that the rooms had been changed around somewhat and what we termed the front room, or parlor, and which was seldom used for fear of it being wrecked as the other rooms had been, now had a fire in the grate, a new rug on the floor and a high single bed against one wall. Against the bed were several new items, including a smaller bed with rails around it and to my delight, a fabulous new blue chariot. At last this new pushchair come perambulator with its shiny silver mechanisms, its hood and canopy, and spoke wheels, meant that the older chariot, my vehicle, which rested rusty and grubby in the shed, could be added to my own list of play things. I still was somewhat confused, however, as to why this new machine had been purchased, since my little brother was now not so little, and in fact could almost out run me, and secondly I had never experienced anything having been bought for him brand new. It was simply expected that he was to use my hand-me-downs at all times, which quite frankly, never had seemed to bother him anyway.
And so it came to pass, one dark and cold blustery night, with the wind howling in the trees and our curtains in the bedroom lifting from the bitter drafts that blew in from the North and distant Iceland, that yet again, my brother and I were hustled bleary eyed from our warm bunk beds by Dad, and wrapping us in blankets he escorted us down stairs to the front room.
Through the door it was warm, a strong coal fire glowed in the small hearth, and the heavy velvet curtains fended off the harsh welsh winter that raged outside. A lady in a big coat sat somberly by the bed side, and Dad lifted us one at a time, for us to peer at the serene face of Mam. There she was, possibly one of the most awe inspiring sights of my life, in Mam’s arms and nestled up to one her breasts which had nourished me for three or more years of my early life, the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I had a little sister. So dumbstruck was I by this event, that I even recall the small shiver it sent down my spine. I stroked the damp hair of this miracle child, and cooed, overcome by my new-found emotion, Mam lifted the baby to Dad and he placed her in my arms. I cried. Never before had I experienced such emotion. It was so moving, I almost began to understand the eternal words of my parents, “Be kind,” well almost anyway.
The birth of the final of my three siblings heralded a new stage in my young life. My little brother was still little, and he began to be cared for almost entirely by my big sister, the new baby was now to be cared for exclusively by Mam, and I was free. The bonds and shackles of slavery that confine a small boy to the house or an early bed were lifted. I was in the middle, and with nobody except Dad to report to, who had long since given up on me, my real days of carefree childhood delinquency began.
It didn’t start straight away, but fairly gradually, it took several weeks to unfold. It was almost as though I became invisible around the house. Saturdays was shopping and chores, and in reverence to the hypocrisy that was the village, on Sunday we were all confined to the house and garden except to walk to Eleanor’s and then to St. Bridget’s for the Sunday service, and even these tailed off after my little sister was born.
With less notice being taken of me, and my big sister now firmly guarding my brother against me, and my attempts to continually modify his diet, I was left to hide behind the shed, in my den, wrapped in a huge coat, a balaclava helmet and Wellington boots. I spent not a few minutes there, but hours, unnoticed and left alone. It was after an hour or so one late February Sunday that I realized that yet again nobody had called for me, and I was wasn’t required, so I decided to sneak out of the back and across the ditch that separated the rear of the shed from Ernie’s field, and I was off, I had escaped. I became a delinquent, a truant, a thief and above all else an adventurer and an explorer, in truth a young survivor.
The stream that ran through the field, meandering in gurgling bliss and swirling holes around huge beech trees and copses of sparse willow, was my first destination. It could be crossed by walking onto over hanging tree trunks and jumping to the clay earth at the other bank. Up the field was the largest horse chestnut tree of my childhood, with bows that stooped to the grass, ideal for climbing, and limbs that sprung and bounced when pulled upon. Over a rusted iron fence was the drive to the vicarage, on the other side of which was a huge ten foot stone wall, with a small gate in it, which was the entrance to the vicarage orchards. I spent hours on the banks of the stream, watching a cold water rat collect moss from the base of rocks and return to his snug den under a damp clay bank. The roof of my home had disappeared in the distance, marked now only by the plumes of acrid smoke, belching from the two twisted brick stacks, roiling out of the clay pots, to be snatched by the wind and spread to the low clouds that hurried over head. I found a stile and a pathway, and before too long came out not a few hundred yards from Old Huck and Eleanor’s bungalow. Dodging from tree to tree for fear of being seen, I found the road and headed back to Penisa, past the church gates and Glan Aber. I ran beneath the dreaded poplar tree canopy, home to frenzied goblins and down past the gray stone cottages that opened to the pavement, home to stooping old biddies, and finally and quickly I legged it up the side of the raggedy hedged driveway and back to my den behind the shed. Emerging from the other end of the shed, I walked back across the yard in full view of the back window and into the house. Supper was being laid out, and without so much as a glance from my Mam or my Dad looking up from his Sunday newspaper, I simply sat down by the fire. I was invisible, only my sister looked to glare at me as she rocked the baby’s pram with one hand and held a book for my little brother with the other hand. I had a secret, and I was free.
Chapter nine
Pandy Lane and the Dump
As the year marched on towards Easter, I began to explore much further, and became sufficiently adept in rural guerilla warfare, I never took the bus home from school again, but kept the one and a half pence it cost and ran home ahead of it, having several routes from the high upper village to Penisa to rely upon. I explored every nook and cranny of the village, Upper, Lower and Penisa. I probed the quarries and caves, the railways and tunnels, the copses and farms. I was wild. Easter day however was definitely a stay at home day, since Cadbury’s had invented chocolate Easter eggs, and we were to have an Easter egg hunt in the back garden. I so well remember this event, and the delight on the face of my brother when he finally found one, and the misery on mine, when after counting up, Dad learned that I had found all but one of the hidden eggs, and he made me share out my booty with my siblings. In this instance, I didn’t even cheat by watching him hide them, I had simply developed outdoor skills that were far beyond my young years, I could smell them, sense them and see them long before anybody else could hope to.
It was a warm April day, and the daffodils bloomed in clusters all over the garden, with irises and dew drops peeping from the base of the hedge row where Mr. Harry had planted them, buds burst from the trees and the grass had began to grow. Pale green shoots of stinging nettles had extended their domain from the year before and lined the rough dirt pathways that crisscrossed our poorly tended back yard, strewn with the wreckage of last year’s toys, and tricycles. In the middle of all this, the cover to our new septic tank, and to one side the remnants of the midden, soon to be spread on the potato patch in the big garden beyond the damson trees. I don’t care what any sissy says, it is every little boy’s dream to explore junk yards and rubbish tips, and I was no exception. Not a mile from our hovel, and the string of bungalows and old farm cottages, with centuries of yellow lichen on their slate roof tops, that lined the road up to the church, was Pandy Lane tip. Everybody knew it was there, marked as it was by a permanent plume of brown smoke and in certain weather conditions the wonderful smell of putrefaction, which often masked even the strong smell of cow muck and farm yards that hung around the valley. It was very easy for me to slip out around the house, run across the road and over the stile by Edward Hughes’ house and up the Gover field. This wonderful field was in the form of a dip itself, and up the North side of it, was Lady’s Woods, which was a blanket of blue bells and wild daffodils in spring and to the south side was a tree lined barbed wire fence, excellent for snagging my rough toggled duffle coat on and good for piercing my Wellington boots, after this fence, and around a bend, was the base of the huge dump. Those days of dumping were different than today, and no graders moved debris about and no guard stood over the detritus of life as they do today.
Anything could be dumped there, and big trucks simply hauled ass up Pandy Lane, backed whatsoever their load was to the edge and let fly. We could often hear it from our house, and heaven knows what was sent cascading down in an avalanche of glass and wood. On the other side of Lady’s Woods was the single track rail line, which circumnavigated the base of both Craig Fawr (big rock) and Craig Bach (little rock) with its echoing disused quarry.
With some care, I was able to pull myself up the hill at the side of the tip, and through a well trodden hole in the fence, finally I was inside the perimeter and at last able to see for myself the wonderful cornucopia of other people’s rubbish. The very top of the tip, or dump as some called it, had been flattened by lorries and trucks and I could easily hear the rowdy shouting of several boys of my age on the other side.
Coyly I walked over to examine what they were doing. I recognized some of them from school, and amongst them the Durkin brothers, Keith and Gary, both heroes of mine in the school yard and neither much older than myself. Along with them was Leslie Dunster and two of the Sweatman clan. Lady luck had shone my way, since I had no debt to any of these and in fact the younger of the Durkins, Keith was in my class, and like me had become very adept at dropping his pencil to peek up the skirt of the student teacher to admire her fangled and dangled stockings and the clips and paraphernalia that supported them and her tight little white knickers with the blue butterflies on them. We were kinsmen in classroom crime.
With barely an acknowledgement of my presence, they continued their efforts to push an upright piano to the edge of the dump. Having only three wheels on it, it required that the stronger of the lads support a corner while the others pushed. I joined in the pushing, and with the eerie sound of its bellowing harp, and with felt hammers bouncing, it wiggled and jiggled its tuneless way to the rim of the highest part of the dump under the guidance and propulsion of a gang of small wheezing boys.
With the big veneered piano now standing upright at the rim, in its last defiant stand against gravity, we heaved and shoved until finally, in a graceless slide, and a wave goodbye of its keyboard cover, it teeter tottered over and fell cart wheeling down the slope. Wood panels flew off, felt hammers flew to the four winds in clouds of past parlor dust, and with a twanging and a banging and a groaning and a moaning, the former glorious instrument unceremoniously shed its cover, expelled its ivories and with a great boom and twang came to rest atop the bonnet (hood to our colonial friends) of an old Foden truck. We laughed and danced and finally I felt I had achieved something of value as well as completed my induction into a gang of fellow village delinquents.
The dump was not only used for the domestic refuse of surrounding villages, but had a more sinister role in the valley. It had become the acknowledged resting place of all industrial waste that had nowhere else to go. Consequently as well as the usual boxes, home to thousands of rats, there was strewn about the place cases of tinned paint, empty lead oxide bins, boxes and sacks of unwanted chemicals, discarded blown tins of food, gas masks, clothing and equipment from the military camps, car tires by the million, building material, half used bags of cement and a thousand other wonderful things for little boys to probe into.
Not too far below the rim of the tip laid easily a ton of large glass lenses brought here from the new glass factory. These round delights, each weighing from about two to four ounces (a weight know to us from the paper bags of sweeties we had weighed out for us at the local store) made perfect missiles, and we scurried down to collect them, so we could commence that favorite competition of little boys, where points were awarded amongst us for who could throw the farthest with them, who could break the most with them and would make the most noise with them on impact against some unsuspecting object, our favorite target being the gray sheep in the field below. The greatest award however was given to anyone who could kill one of the rats with the glass flying saucers. Now the Pied Piper of Hamlin, who we were learning all about in school, some bloke who conned rats by playing them a dull tune on a recorder, while he pranced through the streets in stretch panty hose with a weird hat on his head, would have made a fortune had he been called to our tip. There were rats the size of cats, scurrying everywhere, and as our derelict piano cursed down the hill and came to rest with its marriage to the windshield of the old truck, countless numbers of these brown denizens leaped skywards and sideways, to the great joy of us all.
When the glass lenses were thrown at the skeletal remains of the piano, it made a wonderful and melodious boom, which reverberated and sent even more rats scurrying, so while some boys made the noise, the others pelted the rats until to our great delight one was struck and left to limp twitching into a hole where it would die. The next fun was to select a suitable tire from the countless mounds of them that lay everywhere and, resting it on its side, we would light a fire in its middle, since we all to a man carried matches, and some of the older boys even had flint and petrol lighters liberated from the pockets of unsuspecting parents. Thick evil smelling smoke would rise in choking mushroom clouds, and when we were sufficiently convinced that the tire would remain lit, we would quickly upright it using a big stick and kick it and stick it up to the rim letting it roll down the hill bouncing and flaming like a glowing meteorite until it usually had sufficient momentum so that it would bounce to clear the fence at the base of the tip and careen into the fields below, forcing sheep to jolt from their idle grazing and flee in scattered herds up the other side, the brown clinkers of sheep muck dangling like shaken fruit at the base of their tails. The field was pocked with the charred remains of many of these tires and so the sport was not new or recently invented, but dependent more upon the availability of suitable rubber missiles at the top of the tip.
Other favorites were car windshields, television sets, radio valves and anything with wheels. Regarding the latter, on one such foray into the dump, we discovered the engineless remains of a motorcycle, a BSA, painted a drab green and obviously discarded by the local military as a part of their expected wastefulness. The tires were still full of air, and in spite of its lack of brakes, the older boys delighted in pushing it up Pandy Lane, to ride it down again, stopping in a spinning turn and a drop to the ground, at the top of the tip.
I would forgo my opportunity to drive, not because I didn’t wish to, but to hide from my gang that fact that I still had not yet learned to ride a bike, so my favorite seat was the pillion, behind Malcolm Sweatman. Together we wheeled the graceless and heavy machine as high as we could up the hill outside the dump, and standing silent for a moment to make sure no cars or trucks were coming we would sit astride it, lift our feet and we were off. It was a magical ride.
The heavy bike built momentum and very soon, the dial on the handlebars indicated a speed in excess of twenty miles per hour. In a moment of great daring my driver passed the entrance to the tip and continued on down Pandy Lane, with our gang waving and complaining and running behind in hot pursuit. The bends were cruel, and due to excessive speed we missed one completely, and were forced to duck and weave down a muddy footpath, dodging brambles and branches until we emerged back on the lane further down.
The skill of my driver would have done justice to any racer entered into the Isle of Man TT as we entered the last straight before the narrow lane gave up to the main road at the side of Glan Aber, home to the Foster brood. With no brakes and at speeds which made my eyes water, I clung sturdily to the bike with my legs, while my arms were firmly wrapped around Malcolm’s middle. We shot out into the road, and hurtled on up to the bridge over the river by the Arches, over the bridge on the wrong side, and narrowly missing two old biddies with walking sticks we leaped the pavement and rumbled headlong into the stream where we stopped abruptly against a rock in several inches of icy water. The bike fell to its side and us with it. Soaking wet we leaped to our feet and dashed from the stream, just in time for the rest of our gang to round the corner and inspect the damage.
Now I was for it, I was wet, cold and miserable, and we had lost the bike. Undeterred, Malcolm hoofed it ahead of me, calling back, and we all returned up the hill to the tip, leaving the sorry carcass of the once proud motorcycle to rust in the river. Finally, and with the acute realization that going uphill with a wet anorak was much harder than riding down on a majestic wheeled steed, we arrived up at the entrance to the dump, and with the reassurance that no adults were present we proceeded back inside.
A thin pillar of white smoke lifted from the recesses below us, indicating wood smoke as opposed to tires and garbage, and as a gang we climbed single file down over the rusting hulks and screed of litter, to its source. Behind an ancient blue Vauxhall car was seated one of the strangest people I had ever met. A youth, not more than five or six years my senior sat crouched on his haunches, bum resting on his heels, while he stirred a pot of white bubbling mush with the blade of a Bowie knife. He lifted his head to acknowledge our presence. Now although we were ruffians to say the least, bullying was never a part of our agenda, the village was too small for it. So this creature smiled a welcoming smile, revealing brown buckled teeth, under crossed eyes that peered myopically from behind the thick lenses of National Health issue, pink framed spectacles held together by brown sticky paper over the nose bridge. It was the legendary Emlyn Roberts.
This young man was the seventh of thirteen children and a retard. He supposedly attended a special school for retards, and when seen lurking around our own school, dribbling at the lines of little girls as they walked home, was usually collected by Constable Roberts and taken away somewhere. Now we knew where. His den was very complete. In an opening half way down the tip, he had built himself a fine grate from discarded bricks and around it placed several car seats, some even made from leather, and to his rear, for those rainy day occasions was the inviting interior of a partly wrecked MG Magnet, complete with seats, a collection of clothing rescued from other people’s junk and stacked up against the side of the vehicle, dozens of large rusting cans, complete with contents and lids, but label less and with contents unknown. It was in one of these cans that the famous Emlyn was stirring what to me looked just like mashed potatoes.
As well as all the other afflictions the good Lord had blessed him with, Emlyn enjoyed a serious speech impediment from an uncorrected cleft palate so few of our gang could really understand what he was saying. We sat out the remainder of the day with him, my chauffer and myself in our underpants inside the car, wrapped in old clothes while Emlyn kindly dried our wet clothes for us over his fire, which he stoked with shards of piano carcass. Now Emlyn may have been a retard, but he was all male, and delightedly we discovered a huge stack of Parade magazines he had collected and hoarded. We gleefully flicked through the pages of black and white pictures, which revealed young women in simpering poses, with naked boobs and a variety of nipple sizes and shapes. With them were several issues of Health and Efficiency, with naked men and women grinning from the monochrome pages, having had their private parts airbrushed out. I was confused to begin with, they looked rather like the bodies of my sister’s dolls, and as I dug my hand into my pants to scratch my own lice I wondered if my welsh dagger would eventually fall off and I would end up like this guy in the magazine. In one such magazine, a picture of a person not unlike Miss Williams our teacher displayed gloriously huge boobs and wide hips, and Emlyn, in a more artistic moment had generously penciled back in the hair to her groin where the editor had worked so hard to airbrush it out. This interesting and much prized picture was to be admired by us all, as we watched Emlyn eat the hot contents of the can turning around to open another with his Bowie knife. We spent many a day, damp or dry at the tip, and there became an unwritten pecking order amongst us as to which new treasure belonged to who when we found it.
Our gang swelled its ranks, and within my first year of delinquency I was to become a founding member of a small army of village boys, to wreak havoc around the place.
The famous stream that ran from Marion Mills, down past the quarry, and through several gardens and old loom houses with their restored mill wheels and carp ponds, now the remodeled homes of the growing artsy crafty community that was settling in the upper village, was our main artery of activity. Prior to it cascading over the waterfall in the lower village, it passed through the leafy confines of Carreg Killen. This fine chunk of limestone was gouged by the river from the escarpment, and through its oak and ash clad walls the river slowed to pools of trout and fresh water crayfish, all husbanded by a family of moorhens and tended by kingfishers.
One day in the dump we had the amazing good fortune to come across a long and impressive length of rope that had been discarded along with several other delightfully nautical items that were surplus to requirements down at the shipyards in Mostyn, a dirty industrial town along and up the coast some twelve miles away and near where the English came from. This rope was so big and so heavy and long, its value was instantly recognized. We uncoiled it as a gang and laid it out at the top of the tip. It measured the amazing length of forty two paces of small legs. The Durkin brothers immediately recognized its value as a Tarzan swing, and we lined up beside it. Lifting it python fashion off the floor, we proceeded to carry it out of the tip and along Pandy Lane to Carreg Killen, all done to the tune sung by Snow White’s dwarves when they went to work in their mine.
Upon our arrival, we dropped the rope and examined the small natural valley to see which of the trees would offer us the best limb for the greatest swing. Now I was still too small to partake in the hoisting, tying and assembly of this monster, as were most of the other urchins in our gang, so we hid the rope in one of the many caves that lined the side of the valley, and went down to seek to seek the assistance of my own personal hero, a boy my older sister’s age, Ian Jones, who could climb anything, outrun anybody and was basically the strongest, most athletic person I had ever met.
Ian showed no fear in the performance of his many daring feats, so was an ideal choice to assist us in the making of the great swing. The next day he loped along with us to the cave and examined the rope. He inspected it for damage, and upon declaring its hemp to be sound, he scouted out a huge elm tree on the side of the valley, and with a ball of string in his pocket he shinned up the trunk, higher and higher into the recesses of the upper boughs, until standing up and holding onto a limb above him, he determined an ideal branch from which to hang the rope.
Lowering the string, he had us tie it to the rope, whereupon he single handedly pulled its great weight by one end, up to where he sat. He secured it with a round turn and two half hitches and tested its strength simply by wrapping his legs around it and sliding down. It scraped the hillside, so with a huge knot tied at its lower end he elevated its base and provided a more than adequate seat, he then tied a few more knots in it to act as grips.
This swing was to hang there for many years, and was used by children from as far away as Meliden and Cwm. Ian was the first to try it, and pulling its weight with him up the steep slope, he found a suitable crag and leaped at the rope wrapping his legs over the knot. He swung like the ball of a great pendulum, out over the vale and some forty to fifty feet above the stream below. Even my tomboyish big sister and her friends Michelle Morris and Ann McPartland had their turn and to this day that swing and the great tree that supported it are legendary.
The tip also provided us with wheels of another kind. Pram wheels. Again, Ian Jones was the acknowledged expert in this field. Pram wheels and their thin axles were highly prized, and upon finding any recently dumped prams at the tip, we would immediately as a group strip off its top and push the springy wheeled frame down the Gover field and over to Ian’s house. In a shed at the back, made from a converted outdoor toilet, we would watch in awe as he would saw off the axles and wheels. Various planks and pieces of plywood were then cut up and nailed together, and to the back would be a wide seat, and with a hole drilled in the front main frame that ran down the middle, another piece of wood was secured, this time with the ability to rotate, and to this, with bent-over nails was fastened one axle, while the other axle went beneath the seat.
With string to steer, there we had it. In our village it was called a trangaloon. All kids had one at some time. I had several, even my Dad built one for me from the wheels of my retired chariot. These carts would go everywhere with us. And due to the surrounding village having few areas of flat road, since everything was either an up or a down in our hilly little village, we would hold races. These races were very serious affairs, and often attended by parents, out to admire the speed and prowess of their offspring. Ian Jones invariably won, but was modest with it, and always allowed other boys and girls to use his trangaloon when they wanted to. That was the spring of the trangaloon, and as Easter gave away to the early days of summer, the gang developed an excellent black market trade in old prams. We would quite simply break into garden sheds and steal them. By the time anybody missed their pushchair or pram, the wheels and axles were off and for sale or trade to a village kid desperate to partake of the great games we enjoyed in them.
Not to be outdone, and already having a quite decent trangaloon of my own, I desired a faster, sleeker model. In the confines of the Jones shed, we had already crafted a perfect body from a set of drawers I had sneaked out one at a time from our own shed. The next problem was the wheels and axles. I had a small set of pushchair wheels for the front, but the rear set I had were both buckled and the axle bent, having not been able to save the buggy from the tip before a truck had run over it. For several days I agonized over obtaining a pair of wheels, when the obvious hit me. I watched my brother, under the watchful eye of big sister, zoom down the drive on his new tricycle, he would vroom from the shed and squeal delightedly as he turned his big wheeled tricycle onto the back slabs. I would have to have the back axle and wheels. They were perfect. Later that evening, being again forgotten by the family, who were busy inside watching The Arthur Askey show, I snuck out and quietly backed the new tricycle out of its favored parking spot in the nettle patch by the Victoria plum trees, and round the back of the shed to my den.
With a small hack saw, purloined from my Dad’s tool box I labored excitedly at the frame, stopping only when the metal screeched, until finally the axle and bright spokes and wheels, with their wonderful big firm tires, came free of the frame. I carefully lowered the axle and wheels into Ernie’s field for safe hiding, to transport them when I could down to Ian’s shed, six houses up the road.
Problem! The tricycle no longer looked quite the same with just a front wheel. Even if he could ride a unicycle, my little brother would have some trouble with this unless he learned to balance his bum on the handlebars. Then, in a moment of genius, I tied a roll of galvanized chicken mesh that had spent most of the year rusting by the entrance to my den to the back of the tricycle, so that it was now at least even and not pointing up in the air over its front wheel, and carefully backed it deep into its nettle patch, so that the front wheel showed but the chicken mesh, where the rear wheels should have been were hidden by undergrowth. Perfect! Just for good measure, I leaped into the field and picking up the axle and wheels, ran down the side of the field at the back of the houses, climbed Ian’s wall, and placed the wheels still connected to their axle, by his back door. Upon returning home, my family, sat around the hearth, now watching yet another western show from America on the television, were still oblivious to the fact that I had been absent, and didn’t even notice me steal a dark bitter chocolate from the bag of Rowntrees Misshapes open at Dad’s feet.
The next day, for good measure, I slunk around the house for the morning, ensuring I was in full sight of my parents at all times. Finally with a blubbering, and wracked with tears, my little brother strutted into the house to pull at my Mam’s stirrup slacks and announce that he had a problem. She went into the yard with him, while I busied myself rearranging the fire irons in the hearth. I heard Dad bellow, and my sister cry and Mam shout “That Bloody Little Horror wait till I get my hands on him.” In one swift gesture I was tugged skyward by my Dad and whisked out to face the music. There on the back slabs were the remains of my brother’s tricycle, complete with chicken mesh rear wheels. My Dad was livid. I denied everything, again and again and again. Knowing my love of the trangaloon, it was duly pulled from its own parking area by the old midden and the wheels inspected for similarity. Dad bent me over his knee and thrashed me until I screamed, just for good measure the entire garden, shed, house and even Ernie’s field were searched, as ever denial was my sword of protection. Finally, a bamboozled household gave up with the promise to my little brother that he would receive a new tricycle.
It was several days before I plucked up enough courage to sneak out again, but as ever I managed to and set off up the road to Ian Jones house. He was out, so peering within his shed, our workshop, I looked upon my semi-complete mark two trangaloon and saw that no rear wheels had yet been fixed to them.
In the distance and up Pandy Lane I could hear the goings on of a typical trangaloon race, so went to join in. Down the hill came Ian Jones, in what was the best, fastest and meanest looking machine in the village, and there on either side of him, on his brand new cart, custom built with love and care, were my wheels. I never said a thing, but just prayed my parents weren’t interested in watching, or that my big sister turned up. So my trangaloon phase ended, and my once cherished old cart was reduced to hauling firewood.
Chapter ten
Trips in Blitz Krieg
Unaware that mechanical maintenance was required to keep a vehicle useful, Frank developed a love hate relationship with his old German beetle. Having only recently learned of the presence of a battery to turn the engine over, and it wasn’t magic, he had got used to stuffing a cranking handle up the bum of the vehicle while Mam gunned the pedal to created the spark that ignited the fuel that made it go. In other ways too, the car was looking somewhat dowdy, with a hole in the inner sill that let fumes into the interior and a fender tied on by the ever useful yellow baler twine he purchased in huge balls from Bob Snots’ hardware store, and which we were told came from some tropical country where it was handmade by little children.
So he set to and commenced repairs. First he swapped the windshield wipers around, followed by a knowledgeable look at a dip stick in the rear engine oil pan, and the addition of some ‘Castrol GTX’ with another wipe and dip of the stick, some tap water into the twelve battery chambers, losing one bakelite screw lid and replacing it with a cork, a twiddle of the terminals and finally, a resin bandage to the hole in the exhaust. He also tired of the color, and after cleaning it well, he proceeded to paint it blue with some enamel paint he again had bought from Bob Snots, all done with a high quality badger bristle brush he had borrowed from Old Huck and which immediate set to hard uselessness when the job was complete because he didn’t have any spirits with which to clean it.
The car looked fabulous. It looked just like brand new except for the huge dents in the fender and the crumpled door from a skid into a telegraph pole that had leaped out and hit him on the old Rhyl Road.
Restoration complete, Dad and my big Sister disappeared, in the car, behind it myself and my brother ran down the drive screaming (since there was still room for us). They reappeared less than an hour later, having purchased several ordnance survey maps of North Wales from WH Smith’s in Rhyl. So our adventures and travels began. My sister being so much older was already so smart, she was able to fully instruct Frank in the use of these maps, and so impressed was he by her cartographic prowess, he disappeared up to his and Mam’s room and returned with his compass and a set of dividers, a ruler and a note pad, all of them having been secreted somewhere about his bedroom, and all of which had eluded my most exhaustive of searches.
The drop leaf dining table was pulled to the center of the middle room and the two of them laid out a map of our area and began poring over it, pointing, making notes and observations, as usual completely oblivious to my presence under the table, or my own protestations regarding my own ability to do anything my sister could but better.
Finally an announcement was made, and Mam appeared from the kitchen with a huge box in which stood a thermos flask and several sandwiches cut thickly from whole meal bread and buttered and stuffed with sliced Spam in Daddies Sauce. This feast of sandwiches was a particular epicurean delight of my brother and I. He normally ate all my crusts while I removed the Spam from his sandwiches, and I licked off the sauce from the margarine on his, returning the bread carcass to him for consumption.
Mam by now had passed her driving test also, and she too was the proud owner of a little red book that indicated her right to drive. This had become something of a necessity, on those evenings when she had to walk to The Star in Meliden and pick her husband up out of the car park, find Blitz Krieg and drive them both home on a fairly regular basis. So with Mam at the wheel and Frank at the crank in the engine’s bum, we started up, and were out of the drive as a family, with the various pets and creatures of our yard forgotten and unfed as we commenced our explorations. Frank had the map carefully folded to the area he wanted, as he sat in the front passenger seat, with the baby on his knee, my big sister leaned over his shoulder pointing at the various things on the map, while my brother and I commenced one of our favorite games called “I bagsed”.
So serious was this game that fists would fly, yet it consisted of the simplest thing of all. Peering out of the window, and upon seeing some wonderful sight such as a truck or a fancy car, one of us would try to be the first to shout “I bagsed that truck” and its possession would be stored up for reconciliation of who bagsed what at the end of the journey. This required absolute vigilance, and monitoring of all windows simultaneously, for fear of my brother seeing something before me, and he “bagsing” it first. In the event it was a tie, we would simply slug it out until either he backed down, or a big hand would come over the back, whack me on the side of the head and award the bagsing to my little brother, whereupon I would simply declare myself as not playing any more and sulk for the rest of the journey, while my little brother, and his ever present teddy bear would bags everything thereafter, oblivious to the fact that it took two to bags stuff.
Our first stop was Rhuddlan castle, and instead of going over the bridge, and turning left for St. Asaph, we pulled into the castle grounds at the side of the great river Clwyd, and climbed out. Many times we had passed this wonderful castle, but never before stopped, the mystery to me even then is why we needed a map to find it, since it was permanently visible from every vantage point more than one hundred feet above sea level for miles around. I went straight down to the river, gamboling down the well cut field, chasing sheep in all directions until I reached what had once been the high walls of a tidal dock where sailing ships and oared barges had pulled up before the river had silted to its slow, tidal languorousness. To my great delight, two pairs of swans and their cygnets, still in their fluffy brown plumage, paddled majestically just off shore, and made perfect targets for stone throwing and pebble skipping. Before long a very horrible man appeared grunting up a path, in his hand a long whippy fly rod, funny colored feather fishing flies pinned in his flat cap, a battered herringbone tweed blazer on his heaving shoulders and a red face, all transported by his black rubber wader boots all but reaching his waist. He seemed upset about something, and just in case I was the cause of his irritation I cast my last stone towards him and fled back to the castle gates, where my parents were poring over a plan of the castle and grounds, looking for a suitable picnic spot for me to start sliding Spam from my brother’s lunch.
The man caught up with me, and after several clacks around my head, and some severe words shared between Frank and the man, we were summarily ejected from the castle grounds never to return again. I was yet again in disgrace, and after some angry and unrepeatable comments from my parents, we were back in the car, with my growling sister again poring over the map, as Dad had the happy discovery that the battery now worked and he did not have to crank Blitz Kreig’s bum. So he drove.
We crossed the river by means of the old Rhuddlan road bridge, and instead of turning left towards St. Asaph, to my great delight we turned to the right, Blitz Kreig having negotiated the new roundabout rather badly and cuffed the curb on her way to the straightest road I had ever seen at that time.
North Wales was a land whose geography and topography did not lend itself to the building of straight roads. This was further exacerbated by the land acts of the mid eighteenth century that divided farms and fields by roads, forcing the most direct route from one place to another, requiring the circumnavigation of parish, farm, and estate boundaries that caused a journey of only two miles point to point to become a twisted nightmare ride along old bridleways, now roads, that seemed to double back on themselves several times, their course having been established in preference to land disputes in centuries gone by. This road was an exceptional road in our area, being flat and dead straight.
Dad pressed his foot to the floor as we gripped the rear of the front seats in anticipation of our white knuckle ride. The road stretched forever before us, and as Blitz Krieg, now clad in her beautiful new blue regalia complete with paint strokes and the occasional brush hair welded to her enamel, coughed, sputtered and finally buzzed until we were careening along at speeds which often exceeded fifty miles an hour. As we rode, Dad shouted over the noise that this road was originally built by Roman legions who drained the marshes to create arable land for cultivating, and was a part of their main marching route between Chester, in England, which they called Deva, and Holy Head in North Wales, an island over seventy miles away, which was to be their gateway to Ireland, and was also at that time their last and most prosperous agricultural outpost of the Western Roman Empire as they came to conquer the wild and wily tribes that populated the Welsh hills, and raged war savagely upon Romans in guerilla fashion. He explained that the road was built with cobbles and blocks of limestone hewn and cut by hand from the very old quarry on Craig Fach that lay behind our house. I wondered then if it was a Roman castle that my great grandfather Taid the Boom had demolished.
Blitz Krieg held up, and as we sped along as a family at what was to us breakneck speed, we were overtaken by a Ford car, a strange black box on wheels called an Anglia, which went passed us so quickly neither my brother nor myself had time to bags its. Frank was livid, and with a flying of revs he changed from third gear to second and then back to third, and began to catch up on the car in front. The dial on the tin dash board, still the original battleship gray in color, teetered near the sixty mile per hour mark, and along the great racing straight Blitz Krieg buzzed and rumbled, jolting and jarring on the pitted asphalt surface. We lost, and slowing down and cooling his jets Frank went on to ask us if we saw the distant castle nestled on the oak shrouded hillside ahead of us. Awestruck by the thought of the castle but still not able to see it, I bags it anyway for good measure, until finally, towards then end of the huge straight and now at least two miles from Rhuddlan, an enormous and rambling castle appeared, spread all along the escarpment to our left. This was our picnic destination, Grych Castle. Always a favorite place of mine since, it has been home to hippies, film crews, sports events, car races and horse races, fairs and steam rallies, but its size and edification belied the fact that it was a very recent addition to the landscape, having been built in the Victoria era by a Lancashire wool baron in the great days of the Victorian folly. It was, in fact, less than a hundred years old, extremely young in Welsh terms for any building.
The car dragged up the hill, with much stopping and starting, until we eventually entered the castle grounds by a rear gate (for fear of having to pay someone should we enter by the front gate) and we parked. The view was stunning. Out across the bay of Liverpool we could see for miles, to our southwest was the giant outcrop of the Great Orme, and to our north the Dee Estuary, and beyond that in the haze, Birkenhead and Liverpool. The sharp horizon was lined with the smoking stacks of great ships plying their cargos to and from the large and busy ports that made trade with the distant outposts of our great British Empire, that swathe of red on our maps of the world that hung on the classroom wall. We could see England. I was enthralled, and though having been originally forbidden from leaving the family circle for fear of mischief, Dad untied my ankle from the tree he had shackled me to while I ate my Spam butties, and allowed me to go exploring.
Castles will always fascinate little boys, and this one was no exception. Brother and I went everywhere we could in the grounds, but regretfully found all the big doors locked, until Dad called us, and upon running back he introduced us to none other than Ivor Williams, an older man who lived on The Bryn in Dyserth, and whose garden I knew intimately, having been nearly caught by him several times while I ate the strawberries and raspberries he struggled to grow in his stony patch. A flicker of recognition crossed his face, and his huge brown moustache twitched, whereupon he thrust out his hand and shook mine like the good sport he was. Ivor was the grounds man and curator of the castle on behalf of the family trust that owned it, and more to the point he had a key to every great door, and commenced to give us the royal tour. In most parts the great edifice was terribly dilapidated, having had lead torn from its pinnacled roofs and many of its stained glass windows were broken as the result of a combination of decades of harsh Welsh weather and vandalism, the new and growing sport amongst the native youth, one I was to take to in later years like a fish to water.
Still, he had managed to save most of the contents, and in a safe area in the center of the great stone building was a hall, complete with great fireplace, stuffed heads of Welsh boar and stag, flags of many tribes and families, shields and my favorite, lined up in rank and file against the walls were suits of armor which stood guard in front of acres of crossed swords and pikes from the bygone eras of chivalry. It was a great delight to us all. He then took us into smaller back rooms where he had displayed much more sinister collections. We oohed and aahed to all kinds of things that ranged from a fetus pickled in formaldehyde and ranked on shelves in huge bottles, to instruments of torture from around the world, to terrible pictures that depicted all aspects of human misery, from the burning of Joan of Arc to the decapitation of a French nobleman on the great Madam Guillotine.
There were also considerable collections of small stuffed animals and birds in glass cases, all with the vacant stare of eternal misery in their glass beaded eyes. It was fabulous, and I loved it, I touched everything, and I mean everything, but finding the bottled baby too heavy to hold it slipped from my grasp and crashed to the floor, the ugly gray contents sliding to my feet in shards of broken glass and the rich spleen jerking smell of formaldehyde burning my eyes as it oozed amongst the cracks of the scrubbed flagstones. Ivor glared at me, his countenance not unlike that of a great Viking warrior about to behead a victim and so I ran. While he cleaned up, my family slunk away and we were never invited back to examine the rest of this delightful curiosity called Grych Castle.
After several such forays into the immediate locality, it was evident that the safest operational radius of Blitz Kreig was not more than twenty miles. My sister and Dad now owned every ordnance survey map up to a hundred mile radius, which included Snowdonia. This great range of mountains could be seen from every high vantage point in our village. Its peaks and crags glowed above the other side of the Vale of Clwyd, and we had never been there. We heard rumors of the training of the latest Everest expedition on its slopes and cliffs, and we heard mention of great two thousand foot sheer walls that climbers hung from, but we had never seen it ourselves, not one of us. Blitz Kreig could not make such a journey, it would be unfair to stress her Bavarian loyalty to this extent, with three children, two adults and a baby, and all the paraphernalia that this entailed. So for a while we worked the fields and lanes of our surrounding area, learning the various icons on the maps and what they were. Public footpaths, windmills, water mills, roads, lanes, post offices, rivers, streams and many more things as well as the ability to read the contours of the map and how to account for time on our walks. Old Huck got involved and we started to get as far afield as the great Hall of Bodrhyddan, the family seat of Lord Langford, and the largest land owner in the area. Old Huck taught us the Naysmith rule, which even I at that early age could comprehend, and when reading the contours of a map he said allow a speed of four miles per hour downhill and uphill plus an hour for every thousand feet of ascent. My sister was excellent at computing this, and with her guidance we were able to walk the many trails ancient and more recent (less than two hundred years old) that crisscrossed our valley and get home again at the appointed time.
Finally, with Blitz Kreig on her last legs, and with smoke belching from her bum every time she fired up, the family had a pow-wow. She had to be replaced. Dad called in a new found friend of his, met in a distant bar beyond Cwm, Mr. Mike Heinz, a hero, a tanned, muscular mustached man with a garage and a love of fast cars, and with him and Dad squeezed into Blitz Kreig, they left to see what could be done about our family transport. Now I really liked Mike, and though he enjoyed his booze, he was a stabling influence on Frank, and regularly reminded Dad of his family obligations, while still encouraging him to enjoy the company of other men, and slowly, with Mike underwriting my Dad’s behavior, Frank was able to frequent nearer hostelries, and our family was not considered quite so much a liability to mix with, so our circle of friends locally also grew, and people actually came to visit and even brought with them children of our own age to play with.
After what seemed like hours Mike and Dad returned, and behind them a family of these new friends, a work colleague of my Dad, and his family, followed Blitz Kreig up the driveway and climbed out of a fabulous Vauxhall Victor, a car of big bench seats and polished chrome, and they had come to visit. Mam was delighted.
It was when the family emerged that Dad and Mike’s motives became somewhat transparent to Mam. Out from the car climbed Bill Taylor, and three children Mark, Sean and a pretty little girl called Zoe, my baby sister’s age, but more to the point, and unfolding her long tanned legs from the front passenger seat, and with a flick of her blond hair and a finger tap on her extended cigarette holder and its glowing French Guiloise, came Margaret Taylor. She was a stunning tall slim woman. Frank watched every move, while Mike offered his hand, and the weary Bill, never to be in the limelight again since his marriage to this cat-walk filly, greeted Mam. While Bill worked alongside Dad at the glass factory, Margaret ran a public house in Trelawnydd, called the Farmer’s Arms, where obviously the two men had been. Frank swaggered as he offered scotch all round, to the adults, and announced that he, Mike and Bill had been car shopping, and Blitz Kreig was to be replaced the following week, with a new and sleeker version of the same, and the three men pored over the color brochure of the new version of the beetle, and discussed the options and the finance they had been able to secure.
Margaret was no fool, and in fact the brains of the family. She was not only beautiful, but also a very astute businesswoman. Such was the level of exposure she had always enjoyed from ogling men, she was wily of their motive, especially Frank, who had no shame whatsoever in not only discussing her voluptuous breasts with her but actually went to feel them several times, to prove their firmness. She was the only woman who could not only handle such advances, but also cut a man to ribbons with her looks and smart use of words and it wasn’t very long before Frank gave up his efforts and sales job to do a wife swap, but slunk up to the shed with the two men to discuss making room to be able to actually park the new car in the shed, a luxury never extended to the suffering Blitz Kreig, while Mam and Margaret got down to visiting as ladies and friends. This was the most wonderful and enjoyable family we ever knew in our early childhood, and Mam and Margaret became so close as friends as to confide in one another as sisters, and finally Barbara, or Mam as we called her, had a female confidant her own age and could conspire to control her amorous and wayward husband.
Every time Frank lost his temper, he became less likely to strike Mam for fear of her talking of the event to Margaret and he being publicly ridiculed by a woman whose body he desired so badly. Not to say that he never struck her again, but it became less frequent, and often a whole month would go by without Mam “falling over.”
As for the three children, Mark was a year older than me, and Sean was my age, so these became my friends, and while my big sister now had more children to look after when they visited, my little brother was left to fend for himself and reverted to playing on the back slabs with whatever he could find.
We climbed trees, and ran around playing Cowboys and Indians, until I felt confident of their friendship, whereupon I waved them over and placing my finger on my lips, to ensure their silence and secrecy, I led them stealthily to my den, now a little easier to access since Dad had killed and eaten all the hens, and the hen run was now reduced to a dog pound for our two mongrels, Floss and Tidy, to sit out the day in.
The first thing I showed them was my collection of birds eggs, then my knives and tools, and finally, with a snicker, I opened the match box and unfolded not my original picture, but the one I had finally been able to steal from Emlyn, a nude woman with real pubic hair (well penciled in pubic hair, but it was a damn fine job). The two boys were not even phased by it, and announced that if I came to their house on a Sunday afternoon I could see the real thing, since their Dad and Mam had friends and people who modeled and sometimes walked around naked.
Well it was about then that I began to realize how small my world was, and vowed to extend it and become as worldly as these two boys, who not only lived in a pub, and had a wonderful car, but also got to see naked people through the crack in a door every Sunday. It was no wonder then that Mike, Dad and Lucky Mug would drive so far for a beer. Margaret Taylor was a very impressive businesswoman indeed, and her pub, in the middle of nowhere, and miles from anywhere was always full, with people of a more liberated persuasion and a willingness to pay more for a drink for the promise of a peek at Margaret’s models. And so the swinging sixties began for our family and the small but wonderful village we called home.
From inside the house came to sound of the new Dansett record player automatically changing a 45 rpm black vinyl record and after hearing it drop, my favorite tune of the day played, “Roses are Red” by Ray Charles.
The next Saturday, my racing hero Mike Heinz appeared again with Dad in Blitz Kreig, the poor old beetle having struggled its last week of getting Frank to and from work, and they left for Colwyn Bay, a long way away, and as became increasingly common, I was not invited to travel with them, and was left to poke my sister’s tortoise as it shrunk into its shell to avoid me.
Late that afternoon, Dad returned, he was driving just the most wonderful new beetle I had ever seen, a cobalt blue wonder, with chromed exhausts and window surrounds, a large rear window affording a good all round view and over twice the knobs and dials that Blitz Kreig had. It was sleek, fast and quiet, and Mike Heinz tooted as he took the rumbling Blitz Kreig away to his workshop, having done Dad the favor of buying it so as to fix it up for buggy racing.
We were spell bound, and so Frank uttered the invariable cliché, we were now no longer distinctly middle class, but were upper middle class, since we had a television, a record player and above all else a new car and lived in a detached residence of character, with indoor plumbing. I felt very proud. I walked to the rough dirt drive and ran my hand over the wonderful body of our new car, Das Fraumobile as Dad had named her.
Chapter eleven
Snowdonia And The Real Mountains of Wales
The sun was rising earlier as the year rolled on, but nowhere as near as early as we rose that morning, in darkness. Having been totally body searched for chocolate and candies, my brother and I were outfitted in similar clothing, and our feet bound in the red plastic sandals of the era. My now bigger big sister got the baby stuff together, and Dad folded old sheets around the seats of Das Fraumobile to save her new cloth interior from the ravages of the tribal warfare that was sure to ensue on this, our first great journey beyond the vale. A large box of provisions was secreted under the front hood of the car, amongst real tools, and an actual brand new spare cross ply tire, complete with yellow line and still full of air, that was until I could get to it at some later day and fiddle with the wonderful little brass valve mechanism.
Rhuddlan Road ahead glowed to the power of her headlamps as we traveled in comparative silence, the new fangled suspension system making for a smooth ride ahead. By the time we reached the outskirts of Colwyn Bay, and due in most parts to our pathetic whining in the back, Dad pulled over at a Little Chef café and we rushed out to empty our bladders and then eat. It had taken us less than forty minutes to reach here, and while Mam and the family went inside, I found a huge lorry with giant wheels and tires to go on, next to the rear wall of the building in the car park, upon which I formally relieved myself, trying hard to get all four of the rear tires by shuffling sideways with my small spray, then running in to the café behind the family while tugging up my shorts, and wiping my hands on my sister’s back. Dad bought us all baked beans on toast and I enjoyed my first sit down restaurant meal, smothered in HP sauce, squeezed safely between my sister and Mam away from my little brother’s plate, which offered the same delights but which were consumed slower than the brown and orange smear on my own plate. We finished and Mam paid, and as a family we all squeezed back into Das Fraumobile.
The new car hummed in heated comfort, and with our hot breakfasts inside us we meandered speedily through roads of strange new towns and villages, to the strong smell of an incoming tide, until we reached our first destination of the day. Purring up the steepest incline I had ever known, we emerged on top of the Great Orme, having traveled though the Edwardian elegance of Llandudno, with its wheeling gulls and long pier, turreted with arcades and small clap board stores, all gaily painted in a variety of colors.
We felt ourselves to be at the greatest altitude of our lives, and while stopping for a tram, a machine I had never seen before, so bagsed at least five times, my sister pored over her maps and announced that we were passing a Roman copper mine, as well as several wild bird sanctuaries. All I saw was sheep, and they all looked like my mother’s Uncle Leonard without his spectacles.
Finally, after rolling up and down over this great green and gray rock that protruded out into the Irish Sea like an accusing finger of Celt Dom, we reached the apex of our climb and Dad parked the car in such a position as to offer the most stunning view of my early childhood. It was a heart stopping vista that stretched for miles and encompassed all that could be defined as North Wales. A view so spectacular, that even to this day I make a pilgrimage to repeat it, since it has changed so little and is so absolutely beautiful at any time of the year. We had reached the top of the Great Orme.
It was no surprise however that apart from the view, the top also had a tram station, a cable car (I had never seen one before and was somewhat scared to see how the gondolas waved in the wind) and to the delight of Dad a pub, once owned by a famous boxer and childhood hero of his, Randolph Turpin.
Opening the hood of the vehicle, Mam spread out a cloth by the car, and placed the thermos flasks of hot tea, real china plates and the bags of sandwiches down while we explored.
I mentally and spiritually inhaled the wonderful view. Below me was spread the great estuary of the Conway River, complete with yachts and fishing boats, like the tiniest dots on the vast blue sea, blue because it only reflected the pale sky above. Wispy clouds that raced by in the clear blue canopy of the cold sky cast fast shadows on the great gray Irish Sea, which was lined with small rollers that gave it a mottled effect, with the slight gusts that pressed the sailing boats sideways showing as dark patches on its silver surface.
My sister spread the map out on the grass and secured it from the wind and definite escape by placing stones in each corner. She then pulled the compass from the car and commenced to use it and rotated the map accordingly. I was somewhat jealous of her deft ability to do this and even more jealous that Dad would never let me near such fine instruments as his compass, yet my sister was allowed to use it. I was certain that Ian Jones would pay handsomely for such a device if I could just find out where it was hidden in the house and borrow it on a more permanent basis.
We identified the long low hump of Anglesey Island, to our West, and the coastal towns of Penmaen Mawr (Big Headland) and could see tiny dots of cars disappearing through tunnels and moving silently and quietly like colored ants on far distant roads. Behind the high steep mountains that fell to the sea on this coast of North Wales, stood the majestic and enormous beauty of the Welsh alps. This great granite spine is called Snowdonia and its range of sister mountains, peaks, crags and cliffs. They glowed red and purple, black and green, gray and blue, touching passing clouds to hide their heads momentarily in the white cotton balls of Atlantic cumulus. I never bored of the view, but became as equally interested in the sheer steepness of the hill we sat upon on the Orme, and the fact that the very short, hardy, sheep-gnawed grass was also very slippery. I wandered around the area until I found what I was looking for behind the souvenir shop. It was an empty cardboard box. Breaking it up into sections I rushed back to our elevated vantage point and with my shirt tail out and my sandaled feet in the air, I launched myself down the hill, the front of the sheet of brown cardboard, torn from the box, held firmly by both hands between my legs, and wrapped up over my crotch.
To my great delight gravity was kind to me and I enjoyed a gasping, heart pounding run down the side of the hill on my cardboard sled. I traveled back up the hill on foot, panting in anticipation of the next ride, and also the precipitous danger it involved, getting increasingly brave on each launch.
Neither my sister nor my brother joined me, so I was alone, showing off delightedly to a coach load of pensioners. These were the old biddies in blue rinses with their gray haired stooping escorts, who had come here all the way from England to marvel at our Wales. I went faster and faster from greater and higher launch points. Families watched and children admired me, the downhill slider of the Orme, on my cardboard steed. With some trepidation, and with my heart in my mouth, I finally plucked up the courage to go from the greatest vantage point of all, a seaward journey, out in the direction of the Isle of Man, that crouched in a blue haze like a sleeping hog on the distant horizon, way across our precious ocean of salt and spray. Now, there were two problems here, the first was that I could not see what lay beyond the next ridge below me, the next being that I was now entertaining a fairly substantial crowd of ten or more with my antics, the center of attention was a position I relished very much, so I felt I could not back out for fear of accusations of cowardice. So with a deep breath and a toothy grin I lifted my sandals from the slippery grass, where as makeshift brakes they had supported me against gravity, and began my greatest board slide of the day. The hill fell away rapidly, too rapidly, and I scudded along, with bone jarring, bum-bashing jolts down the grass and over the occasional stone. I could not see what lay ahead, all I could see coming up at me at great speed from nearly eight hundred feet below, was the sea. I was heading towards a cliff. I panicked and tried to roll from the board, As I managed to roll off it, it lifted in the wind and disappeared below, I rolled back to my bottom and was gripped with fear as the ridge loomed towards me. I had slowed somewhat, but not enough and so, like the inevitability of Newton’s apple knocking him on the head, gravity triumphed, and over the ridge I went, in a flaying of arms and legs and a scream that would stir the dead. I was jolted rapidly as my shorts and underpants snagged upon a stump of some bonsai heather that struggled to anchor a living out of the crag. My lower clothing tore off and I fell, and fell and fell, or so it seemed, screaming, until I landed bare bummed below, the huge distance of three feet from the top of the crag, in a soft pile of grass, and with sheep flying, I was alive. I scanned the horizon, then for good measure, burst into tears, which was my usual defense if I thought I was about to be whacked or cursed. The hill did fall away, but was not a cliff with a fall straight to the sea. On the contrary, there was even a road here, and more grass hills fit for sliding, and I had landed amongst startled families, picnicking on the seaward side to enjoy the view towards Liverpool and Blackpool. I tried to stand, my bum and back legs having been grazed to red rawness. A family leaped to their feet upon seeing my distress, I myself was unaware that my thin cotton shorts and whiffy Y fronts were tangled and torn, hanging from a branch above me. I staggered towards the family for the instant solace that compassion from an absolute stranger can offer. I burst into tears as their two blond twin daughters, my age giggled, and upon realizing my nakedness from the waist down, I tugged at my shirt and fled back up the hill as fast as I could, leaving them only a view of my red raw bum, like the mating colors of a baboon, for them to remember me by.
Reaching the top, I laid flat on my stomach and slithered upwards, snake like, calling for my Mam. My sister was the first one to find me, and unusually, she was very sympathetic, and gave me the map to wear until she could find Mam. Mam came, and tended to me. I burst into great sobs while she cradled me face down as she sat on the seat of the car, and dabbed my buttocks with one of my baby sister’s terry diapers. She reached into a cloth bag and to my great relief pulled from it a spare pair of my trousers, carried since she was familiar with my fascination with my private parts and my propensity to urinate myself a little too regularly. I was sore, but alive, Mam had saved the day, and in spite of the stinging of my chaffed and sore buttocks and leg backs I was able to get over it, only the dreadful memory of ridicule by two girls was still fresh in my mind. This anguish was later to become one of my worst nightmares, running away from ridicule dressed only in a short vest that did not hide my privates. I wonder if this day on The Orme precipitated this life long nightmare?
With a scrabble for sandwiches and bottles of fizzy pop, we completed our family lunch and packed the grass and sheep muck encrusted remains into the car, hurling our bread crusts at wheeling herring gulls, and crows, each of which vied to catch the margarine smeared morsels in full flight. We climbed into our appointed positions in Dad’s Fraumobile, with me on an extra blanket folded under my bum and my brother and I proceeded to “I bags” ourselves down a different hill and toward the Conway estuary.
Great villas and houses perched above us and below us, as we traveled along the gray stone road, Das Fraumobile hummed along, her windows open, and the family with singing the Lord is My Shepherd in best Welsh.
The drop in altitude made my ears pop, right down until we came through a huge stone gatehouse and out onto a main road lined with perfect dry stone walls, from which peeked pansies and nasturtiums in a parade of late spring color. Across the estuary loomed the purple heather clad hills of the other side of the vale of Conway, and ahead, in the distance, we could see the smoke and steam trail of a speeding train, gobbled up by a tunnel. This was exciting stuff indeed.
Finally we emerged at a great roundabout and took in our first view as a family of Conway, a walled town, and its vast tall castle, served by a narrow chain link bridge from our side of the road to the other side, over the river Conway and its flowing estuary. Boats bobbed and swayed at their moorings in the river, all pointed upstream in their fight to stay put against a raging ebb tide. The dockside was lined with cars, coaches and people, all milling around, admiring the many vessels tied to its length. We turned right and proceeded down the hill to the dockside, where Dad, now rather skillfully parked the car in a place reserved for a coach and we leapt out joyously, for a good look this, our first real fortified town.
The dockside was a delight of small stores, fish and chip shops, whelk stands, a fish mongers and a huge pub called The Liverpool Arms. Along the dock were lined the masts of wooden trawlers and drifters, and busy amongst the nets, pots, ropes and crates, men scurried about, lifting huge smelly wooden boxes of fish, shrimp, lobster, herring and mackerel onto the dockside for transportation in hand carts, out through the narrow door in the harbor wall and up a hill. This image will live with me forever. The bustle, and joy of a port with ancient sea walls and trades as old as time, handed down from family to family, is the stuff of picture postcards, and one of the most endearing aspects of all small coastal towns in northern Europe, this was Conway, and my first experience, which was to become engraved in my conscious forever.
Herring gulls wheeled and squealed overhead, plunging to the water as men gutted fish and discarded the oozing slime of innards over the side of their boats, to be torn away by the current and set upon by birds. Dad lined us up, and with my big sister’s school satchel on her back, she became the carrier of maps, guide books and paraphernalia, Mam had the baby, my brother and I were warned about fighting and running off, and so we went to explore our first real big castle.
The entire town was walled, a huge and thick stoned edifice with a pathway on its top, that circumnavigated this wonderful ancient place. Built into the walls, were shops and tea rooms, galleries and curiosity shops. Cafés lined streets and restaurants and chip shops sent wonderful aromas into the air, to mingle enticingly with bakeries, grocers and candy stores, which offered the delightful Welsh rock stick candy in wax paper wraps, piled outside for purchase and consumption by the many tourists from around the world who had also discovered Conway for the first time.
The tour of the castle was boring. I tired of walking up and down, high, winding, narrow spiral stairways, to be told by Dad and my sister, the swat, that this is where soldiers shot arrows from, this is where they poured boiling oil from and this is the hole the did their business through so it could pile up below. The battlements were OK, and working hard I was able to dislodge a small stone from the ancient mortar in the wall and hurl it towards the harbor, which spread below us, also see our colorful, shiny new car catch the admiring glances of other families, and what appeared to be the chagrin of a frustrated coach driver and his cargo of physically challenged Downs syndrome people. Invariably the rocks missed the water and fell short, somewhere below, until a whack around my ears confirmed that I had been spotted by Dad, and was unceremoniously dragged, sore buttocks and all, along with him to the next poop home in the next tower, with my wrist hurting from the strength of his grip.
The afternoon was wearing on until finally, looking at his watch, Dad declared that the Liverpool Arms would now be open and so we made our way back to the harbor. Conway even to this day is a town that has been perfectly preserved, and remains little different from the great days of Edward I, who built this outpost as a part of his march into Wales to plunder the riches of our well endowed land. The ancient architecture is stunning, and even the railway bridge, built to carry the great steam trains of the nineteenth century from distant England to Holy Head and Ireland, is a wonder of architectural heritage. The surrounding hills embrace the fine town in spectacular swathes of red heather and purple gorse, and the narrow streets echo between their crenellated walls, with busy sightseers wandering above, on the wall top battlement pathway, traversing the narrow roads on single file pavements which were supported by the round arches of Norman design, while they marveled at the skill of the artisanship from an era of knights in armor and an age of cruelty and chivalry never again seen in Wales.
At the harbor, Frank paced until the pub doors opened with the clack of a sliding bolt, and a creak of old brown hinges, and he was the first to enter, ahead of a small line of gnome like people with the hard flat accents of Lancashire, now so des rigueur amongst the eclectic population of modern Britain, everybody wanted to talk with the accent of the Beatles whenever they could, in those days, the Welsh and English accents and regional vernacular were so distinctively different, sign language was often used to augment even simple conversations.
We for our part were given two shillings each and told to line up at the fish and chip shop on the corner to collect our supper, while Mam sat on the dock wall, staring across the river, legs swinging and her body swaying to a rhythm of her own as she cradled my baby sister in her arms, the wind filling and falling her mane of chestnut hair, the warmth of her presence causing men and women alike to turn to her and smile behind her back at the innocence of her beauty as a young mother.
That was another evening that has become indelibly etched into my consciousness to be carried with me to my death. The first of our many travels beyond our own verdant Vale, and into the real Wales of myth and mythology, legend and lore. We sat as a family, without a father, who had not emerged from the pub, lined up on the dockside, either side of Mam and consumed from greasy newspaper, with small grubby fingers, battered skate, and cod, soggy chips cut from local Welsh potatoes and fried in cow lard, with fish bits and a cod’s roe for Mam. The circling herring gulls were more than glad of the odd scrap of fish or chip we hurled skywards, and they fought over every morsel amongst themselves, in fancy diving and fluttering flight, accompanied with yellow billed screaming. Finally, our bellies were full, we had finished our early supper. And feeling fully rested, it became time again to explore.
Having taken in the castle and the town, Mam gave us instructions to stay within eyeshot as she called it. The tide had ebbed quickly, and black ooze, the bottom of the harbor, began to show itself behind the receding gray pools of swirling estuary water, as it left to fill the sea beyond the Orme with whatever detritus it had collected on its journey from the Snowdonia foothills. It smelled superb. It stank of brine and putrefaction, slime and diesel gases, sometimes invoking memories of our demolished thunder box in the back garden. I have always enjoyed the smell of a working harbor. Fascinated, I walked to the edge of the slipway, to examine why it was that, with the water receding, the boats and small ships tied to the dock stayed upright. Having never walked on a concrete slipway before, I was sadly unaware of the fact that the green seaweed that adorned its tidal surfaces was slippery, likewise, plastic Woolworth sandals afforded little grip, and it happened again. Gravity yanked my grip-less feet from beneath me and I was off sliding down the green slimy weed cloaked slipway on my already very sore backside.
I was mortified and trying to scrabble back to my feet before I hit the water, I jiggled and danced, slid and tipped, my arms waved like washing in a wind, not unlike Buster Keaton did, in one of my favorite television shows. Finally I slid to the side of the slipway, and fell face first at the water line and into the smelly black grunge that had so willing accepted my early stones, thrown from the jetty. I tried to right myself, and slipped again, I fell back to my bum, and slid to my back. My squealing attracted the attention of a fisherman off one of the boats. He was a wiry man with a tanned and wrinkled face, and he was of indeterminate age, and wore a blue crew neck sweater and smelly fish scale trousers, tucked inside black rubber boots. He walked sure footedly down the slipway, having obviously practiced it a thousand times, and stepped gingerly into the mud. Leaning over, he plucked me by the shoulders and with a tobacco stained grin plunked me back on the jetty and went back to his lobster traps farther up the quay. I was filthy, I stank, I was wet and sore. Blubbering, I crawled back up the slimy weed adorned slope to terra firma and stood up. People around me laughed delightedly, and looked in my direction. Bravely, I ceased my crying, and took a small bow.
I reckoned that in for a penny, in for a pound, and I walked, in my crusty filth, off the sidewalk and down over the dry gray sand, of the non tidal area and back to the stinking tidal ooze, and splodged about in it happily, slipping and sliding, until when I stood up for the last time to take a final bow, globs of it hung from my shirt and filled my pants. I looked up, and there, with fire in his face was Dad. Now I was in for it.
Having completed several pints he had sought out his family, found them on the dock, and doing a head count noticed that one was missing, me as usual, and so he searched, and had found his wayward and renegade son, clad in the foul clinging clots of estuary mud. I was quite literally, black from head to foot, my hair no longer blond, but brown and vile. He tugged me at arms length back to the family and the car, whereupon my sister sniggered and my brother laughed, he receiving a cuff around his ear for this, the first I had ever witnessed in his direction, it being me who was always the principle recipient of this kind of attention. He turned and maintained his giggle, tweaking my sister in delight at my condition.
After much debate, Dad won the ignominious task of having me follow him to a gentleman’s toilet, and to my horror he made me undress completely. He attacked me with a vengeance and a barrage of my baby sister’s terry diapers, he scrubbed my nakedness, and tugged at my hair, poked towel wrapped fingers in my eyes and around my very sore bum until I squealed. He glared at men who entered, daring them to comment, none did, and forcing me to wrap a thin towel around me, in a cooling late afternoon-early evening, he marched me back to the car, my sodden, stench-ridden clothes held at arms length ahead of him for fear of him catching anything from them. Whipping the towel from around me, he pushed me into the back of the car, where I snatched my blanket to wear, and he wrapped the clothes in the towel and hurled them into the front trunk of Das Fraumobile. It was not such a quiet or warm trip back, since the windows were left open because I stank, my sister insisted on pinching me and pulled continuously at my blanket of cover, and my parents debated as to which side of the family’s shallow gene pool I took after the most.
Sobbing, I fell asleep, the drone of the engine forcing all three of us in the back seat into that hypnotic state that children revert to on long journeys. There were no games, and finally with no noise or squeals, we arrived home, with the first thing on the agenda being my bath, after which the bath water, now a deep gray, had my clothes and everything else I had touched that day thrown into it.
We enjoyed many trips that summer, and began to extend our horizon, beyond our own verdant vale, and beyond the vale of Conway, into the great monoliths of Snowdonia and subsequently beyond even these, with tents and paraffin stoves sleeping bags and provisions, our weekends that summer were mobile and exciting.
One such weekend, we finally made it out across the great Denbigh Moors, their vast rill riddled purple and green expanses stretching as far as the eye could see from the vale of Clwyd into the Vale of Conway, culminating in the fantastic beauty of river vale and cliffs at Betws Y Coed. Here we stopped at the Swallow Falls for refreshment heading on up a steep winding hill to the foothills of Snowdonia. I cannot describe the effect the beauty of this new landscape had upon me, and even at such a young age, the frailness I felt, but with the certainty that I was to gain strength from my mere presence in this awesome landscape. We traveled to the apex of the great Llanberis pass, the top of which looked down thousands of feet onto the final resting place of Gellert. As an aside I will tell you the story Mam told me, as we stared almost vertically down, thousands of feet from this road atop a huge cliff, on a most beautiful village, which nesteled at the side of a great lake and its village, called Berdd Gellert, or Gellert’s Resting Place, when translated.
Gellert was the prized dog and beloved companion of a fine and brave Welsh prince. The prince one day was called to battle in the borders, across the Brecons, to face the English in a boundary war, at the request of a landowner, who was experiencing trouble.
Before leaving, the prince turned to kiss his baby son goodbye in his crib, and charged his most trusted servant, Gellert his dog, with guarding his son until he, the prince, returned from battle.
Eventually the prince returned, and ran to embrace his baby son, but upon reaching the son, he found the child dead, beside the crib, and covered in blood, having been badly mauled, and with teeth marks all over his ravaged body. The prince sought out Gellert, his dog, and was beyond himself with grief to discover that Gellert was covered in blood. Fearing the worst, the prince, angry with Gellert for killing his son, drew his sword and swung to smite Gellert, who died there from the massive sword wound in front of the prince, in fact by all accounts the dog had no chance, since his head came off. The prince, now so badly grieved, wandered about his small castle, wailing in his emptiness by the loss of his son and the treachery of his once beloved dog, when he happened upon the body of a huge wolf, who had died in a fierce battle and was torn apart. Realizing that Gellert had in fact been covered in wolf blood, and had been protecting the baby against this nasty wolf, and that he the prince had acted too hastily in killing Gellert, his grief now knew no bounds and he was riddled with guilt, and so he took it upon himself to bury Gellert with honors, and for his bravery he marked the spot with a huge stone, carved with the dog’s name and the legend from whence this story comes. So to this day, one of Wales’ most beautiful small towns is named Berdd Gellert after the grave of this brave and loyal dog.
As for the prince, it is not sure what happened to him, since history did not record his final years, but it assumed that he knocked up his princess to make another baby and got himself a new dog, which it is hoped he did better with and was more considerate towards than poor old Gellert. Anyway, that’s the story I heard. Now back to the trip.
Snowdonia cannot be described in a book so short and selfish as this one, it must be experienced, in all of body and soul, it must be seen and smelled, to be fully appreciated, and explored in the same fashion as when I was a child, since it has changed very little indeed over the years.
A memorable time was a trip down through the huge winding pass, with its huge crags to the right and its huge boulders and sheer cliffs to the left and into the town of Llanberis. At that time, rock climbing and mountaineering in Snowdonia was still being pioneered. The greatest advocate of this new sport was Joe Brown. He was then and probably is still to this day, Britain’s most famous climber and mountaineer, ranking, in my opinion, alongside Chris Bonnington as an innovator on the rock face. He ran a small shop in the valley. It was here that we were first introduced to hiking, climbing and camping, and Mam and this small, wiry, handsome athlete hit it off, and so Mam became a very skilled mountaineer indeed under his tutelage, and we regularly became mesmerized as we watched these tiny dots that were people, climb some of the sheerest rock faces I have seen in my life.
As for Frank, well he tried also, but prior to even reaching his rock face base on one climb, he slipped and stepped back to the screed slope of tumbling boulders and rocks, and gaining speed, leaped and bounded down until velocity and gravity conspired together to up-end him and he slid several hundred feet over rough stone and gravel piles to land at the ice cold brook, which sung its song, at the valley bottom. He had no trousers seat left, and his underpants hung in red stained shreds behind his knees, below his red raw, bloody, bare buttocks which prevented him from sitting down for several weeks. In fact so hot were these welts from the friction of the rock piles, he spent the rest of the day squatting on a boulder with his bum in the brook, glaring at Mam, who incredibly, was dangling from a crack in a cliff face several thousand feet above the valley, and who was little more than a red dot, content to climb with a friend without her husband’s ire. As for us children we simply ran wild chasing sheep and playing tag behind boulders the size of three story homes, and picked the wild berries that abounded amongst the heather.
Summer wound down, and autumn and school loomed upon us. For myself, I was awarded a complete new outfit, and my little brother, as a new boy at our school, was awarded my old stuff, which had been darned and mended, washed and ironed, and quite frankly, since he had no vanity and still has none to this day, he seemed perfectly content to wander around with a patch on his pants seat and several shirts with worn collars.
The first day back at school had an added delight. Our old headmaster had retired and in his place, rather than recruit from the ranks of the school staff, the county had awarded the position to a new guy called Mr. Roberts, because that was his real name. Mr. Roberts was a true educational innovator, and all of us sufficiently privileged to have traveled through his school at that time did very well academically. But that was not the real bonus he brought me. He had three children, Robin, the eldest and a fine man at that, Rhys the youngest and also a capable and skilled academic, and right in the middle, and my age, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my whole life, Rhiannon, and she was in my class. Now in the true spirit of “I bags”, I wanted the friendship and affection of this stunning beauty more than anything else, and so on my best behavior, and before anybody else could get in, as soon as Mr. Jones our teacher introduced her to the class, my hand shot up and I volunteered to escort her for the day and introduce her to the school. And so this golden blond, long haired beauty with freckles and braids became my instant friend. I even offered to let her help me on my newly volunteered classroom duties, one being ink well monitor, where I had to keep the inkwells full on each desk each day, so that we all could write using the scratchy steel nibs on the ends of sticks that were the only writing instruments allowed in class. Likewise, she also helped me as milk monitor, and I soon taught her how to keep the best for herself and any bottles where the birds had pecked holes in, to be given to any of the Cwm Cannibals or Melidonians we had in class with us.
Since she was the headmaster’s daughter, I was certain that she was obliged to be in every pageant, play, musical event and service in the school, so I offered my services for all of these. This about turn did not go unnoticed by the school staff, and my courting of Rhiannon during school hours became a very serious business. My hand shot up to answer questions, and I became no longer just the class clown, but moved steadily to be the top of the class and rapidly became the class brain.
In actual fact I became a nuisance in every way to most of my teachers, who tired of my calling and leaping up and down with a stretched arm, and so I sometimes believed I must be invisible, because in spite of the leaping and the calling, they never even looked in my direction. It was only in class that I was this way, outside school, my old ways grew even more delinquent, but I now became careful to hide them from Rhiannon, in short, I commenced to leave not a double, but a triple life, my school life, my home life and then the real life out on the prowl, breaking, wrecking and wreaking havoc in my favorite places, with the select few with whom I shared these adventures.
My big sister had finally left our primary school, and had passed her eleven plus to go to the nearest grammar school, in St. Asaph. Her uniform was hideous, and she left each morning dressed in the darkest navy blue gym slip, now well above the knee, black stockings supported with the same gizmos and gadgets used by Miss Williams, and a dark blue blazer covered in cat hair, and chalk dust from the previous days. She caught a bus at the bottom of our garden, and along with a few dozen other rowdy big kids was whisked away and out of my life. This allowed my true expressions to flow freely at school, as well the fact that I could now come home anytime between school out, at four thirty and in my case up to eleven o’clock at night, without her breathing down my neck, chasing me down or criticizing me. My freedom grew.
Thereafter my only contribution to my sister’s education was hiding her biology book in my den and altering her answers in the math homework by erasing out her number in pencil and inserting my own, beyond that and a few mean calls about her character, our sibling war cooled.
After school extracurricular activities were too numerous to document in this short history, but one of my favorites was collecting conkers, also known as horse chestnuts. This was a religion during this period of the year, and everybody, girls and boys alike, had a pocket full of these, each with a hole in the middle and a string drawn through them. The aim of the game was to swing your conker at another conker, which dangled on a string from your opponent’s hand and smash your opponent’s conker to bits. If he had smashed three with his and yours was a virgin, yours instantly became a four-oh. Many a game ended in fists and wrestling, but to me more fun than playing was collecting them from the trees. This involved a trusted friend below the horse chestnut tree to guard the fallen crop from theft, while I would shin and pull myself up the limbs, and like an orangutan swing in the highest branches, shaking the tree until the bountiful harvest of beautiful round conkers would fall from their once prickly green shells, that had split in the tree with late summer ripeness and they would cascade through the leaves, bouncing from the branches and limbs to rain down upon the floor guard, who would collect them. For my efforts, I would then get the pick of the crop and leave him the rest. As a regular floor guard, my brother got some pretty crummy conkers and of course I myself had huge glowing ones that would strike awe into my opponents the next day at school. Such was my prowess at this Rhiannon never had to get one for herself, ever, since I provided amply for my sweetheart, and also included the string. I was such a crawler.
We would also become collectors of other fruit. Apple orchard raiding was always an excellent past-time. We called it “scrumping” and it was in this sport that I honed my skills in guerilla warfare to the point that I became invisible to the enemy, the owner of the orchard.
My favorite target was the vicarage orchard. To gain entry required extreme stealth, and since the wall was ten feet high and in full visibility of the vicarage on my side of Ernie’s field, and the gate always locked by the vicar, the nearest entry point was around by the river, and up the clinging ivy that bushed and climbed its unkempt way over the wall. It was this entry point I used most. Once inside, it was surely a secret garden, overgrown, unkempt, and un-harvested from year to year, but growing from the dozens of trees were at least ten different types of apple. We had huge, sour big green apples, loved by Mam for the baking of pies, small tart hard round red apples, beloved of Eleanor for the making of apple jelly. In fact, the place is no longer there, but such was the profusion of fruit in these trees, I am sure that many of these apple species would now be considered rare.
After school, if the day was a warm day, we would often hide our satchels at the top of the Bryn, behind the Gittins farm, and head out for Bodrhyddan Woods. To us this was the wild wood. In its deep leafy depths were countless rabbits, stoats, weasels, hares and polecats. The territory was bounded by stout wooden fences and surrounded by fields of barley, rye and wheat. My earliest visual synonym being its comparison to John Constables’ “The Cornfield” that I saw in a book Dad had purloined for permanence in our home, to be hidden under his bed, but which came originally from Rhyl library. At this time of year, getting there was as much fun as being there, since it involved crossing fields of stubble, with baled straw piled like castles by farm hands after the passing of the great Massey Furgeson combined harvester, that had replaced the steam threshing machines of my Mam’s era. We would climb these straw monoliths and declare ourselves kings. They had a particular sweet scent and dusty joy to them and prickled our legs and thighs, the tight baler twine held the straining stalks in perfect rectangular blocks, from which we could create huge straw igloos.
Beyond these fields was the Wood. In it we would hunt for the great spreading chestnut trees that offered such an abundance of sweet nuts that had fallen from the wind rustled canopy of green and brown above us. These monsters of the copse were not climbable, succumbing their reluctant bounty only to the throwing of sticks, which we spun and arced towards their spiky green husks, so that when fallen, they could be scrabbled upon by a team of industrious lads, whence we would break them open and carefully remove the pithy bitter fur from around the sweet and gnarled yellow kernels, and munch and munch upon the nuts until our stomachs could hold no more. Beyond the boundary of the woods, we would scatter in a field of mangel-wurzels, which were huge yellow fleshed beets with purple rinds that were grown as winter fodder for cattle, and from these fields we would select the largest for carving with our pocket knives into hideous faces, in preparation for the coming month’s celebration of Halloween. These were the stand-ins for the pumpkins that never grew in our climate, that we were aware of anyway.
The fields were rolling delights of mixed grasses and home to grouse, pheasant, rabbit and hare, all creatures we were familiar with and able to capture with a variety of traps, the designs of which had been handed down from generation to generation, as a part of our apprenticeship of life in a small rural village. Most traps were wire snares or nets and with adults at the weekend, we also hunted with ferrets and with dogs. My granddad, Old Huck, was an accomplished poacher, and he had taught us many ways to gain a meal, since he knew the area blindfolded, and could smell his way around, and sense the presence of game long before it was visible. We were truly blessed, and considered the meadows and dales, hills and brooks our own, traveling freely and without reference to boundaries built by adults, across the entire area. Sometimes we would stumble across old ruins, once a home to an eighteenth century serf, a person who had been little more than a slave to the whims of the great hall.
The Great Hall was Bodrhyddan, a vast red brick palace, which stood amongst the trees and manicured lawns, and delightful topiary in several hundred acres of its own. The lawns were short, clipped by the gnawing teeth of grazing roe deer. The roads up to it were entered through stables and farmyards, which carried the never to be forgotten sounds of lowing cattle, barking dogs and squealing pigs, carried on the wind with the rich aroma of rural agriculture. One such entrance, along the Rhyddlan Road was home to his lordship’s kennels of hunting beagles, and there were days when we would delight by hiding in ditches scented with clover, and watch awe struck as Sir Geoffrey Rowley Conway, Lord Langford himself, lead the fox hunt from the hall.
The dogs yelped and sprinted excitedly in the front of the thundering hooves, the hunt master’s horn sounding its long and eerie note across the fallow fields and dales of Dyserth.
The magnet of the Welsh soul within me draws me back bi-annually to the area, and now, the great Lord, an older man, has given way to his son to continue the great heritage and tradition, and in the snug and friendly parlor of the public bar in the New Inn, I delight in his company, he is a modest and charming man of excellent education and sound business acumen. He is strong in tradition and is as committed to his own family as any good leader could be, and who he will rear in the ways of the village and its wonderful heritage, so that the correct protocols can be passed on, generation to generation.
His father was a whimsical and colorful village character. He threw the great hall open to the village every year to celebrate the bounty of the land, in the form of a huge fete. I recall marveling when I was finally able to get close to his mysterious car, a late nineteen fifty’s Bentley Continental, which to this day can still be seen on an occasional outing through the village, the rest of the time the de-facto Land Rovers and Range Rovers of the landed gentry were preferred transport.
The older gated entrance to the estate still displays above its brick pillars the stone carved heads of two slaves, in recognition that the family made its wealth in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds as West Indian sugar plantation owners, from which they generated the old money to develop what to me is still one of North Wales’ most glorious estates. They were the pioneering adventurers of our village, returning their wealth back to the land of their fathers, in the tradition of the verse in the wonderful Welsh anthem that celebrates our heritage. The house is now open to the public, but fortunately, still in the private hands of this industrious and generous family, who have done so much to preserve the countryside and the great river Clwyd, in their role as constables of the castle and keepers of the river and its bounty of trout and great shoals of spawning seasonal salmon that make their annual pilgrimage from the deep oceans off Greenland and back like true Welshmen to their origins, in the rivers and brooks of a country so beloved by all who emanate from its mystical depths.
Chapter twelve
The Ways and Means Committee
As the autumn wore on toward winter, there came a day in November which was marked the last great annual festivity for a child prior to Christmas. This cold evening in November is known across Britain as Guy Fawke’s Night. I am sure everybody knows the story of the man who tried to blow up the houses of Parliament with barrels of gun powder, and was caught just in time and summarily executed by being burned atop a great pile of wood, which was ceremoniously lit by flaming faggots, which were carried by the yeomen of the guard of the Tower of London, or so the version I learned goes anyway. Well this day was prepared for many weeks beforehand. It involved building a giant bonfire and the letting off of fireworks, all undertaken while special treats, peculiar to the evening, were prepared and eaten. These included toffee apples, treacle toffee brittle, roast spiced sausages and mulled wine.
Our village was no exception in this tradition, and our gang the best in the preparations. Several bonfires were commenced as early as the first week of October, the evening of November the fifth being the day it was to be lit. We of course had unrestricted access to our tip, and its supply of spent lumber, tires and chemicals. Should anybody from the upper village or heavens forbid, Meliden, be brave enough to attempt to raid our supply, we had thoroughly trained Emlyn how to hurl rocks in their direction. This was secured by a series of gang calls, we had a special whistle, followed by a series of hoots, and when hearing this Emlyn would emerge from his hiding place, if however he or any of us saw a member of another clan in our dump, intent on stealing what was rightfully ours, and they failed to return the gang call, we would quite legitimately pelt them with whatever missiles were immediately handy until they fled.
If they were ever brave enough to pelt us back, we would circle them like hyenas and throw jam jars full of spirits at them, each of which had a rag wick tied over it, and when lit and smashing at their feet would cause them to dance. Another way to fend off thieves was to light a penny banger and with the deft use of a sling shot, carved from a V shaped bough and strung with several twisted rubber bands, pelt them with these exploding card board tube devices. The main problems with the latter was that bangers were expensive, and sometimes would explode in the face of the launcher, which caused a ringing in the ears, stars in front of the eyes and more often than not, singed eyebrows.
If, however, we launched these bangers properly from the sling shots, they would often land in the hoods of the anoraks and duffel coats warn by the marauders, and to our great delight they could actually blow a hole in the hood and sear the hair from the back of the child’s head. The trespassing children would flee screaming back to where they came from, leaving us alone, well most of the time, occasionally we did have to flee policemen, brought to investigate our crime, accompanied by a bandaged child and his simpering parent, but catching us was impossible, and we would simply run home memorizing our alibis, ready for the denial.
The bonfires around the village grew and grew, and each gang prepared a guy to light upon its top. The guy was the most important thing of all. It involved the collection of old clothes, particularly trousers, shirts, jackets and boots, and these were stuffed with rolled up newspapers. For a head, we used anything round we could find, such as an old deflated football, or a ladies’ stocking stuffed with rags, and we placed a mask over its face, a bobble hat on its top, and old Wellington boots on its feet. With our guy complete, it was then loaded into a wheelbarrow or placed on a trangaloon and wheeled around the village with us calling “Penny for the guy.” This was performed in the hope that adults, in admiration of our workmanship, would cough up some coins, which would be used to purchase fireworks from the local newsagents, which were only allowed to sell them at certain times of the year.
We did, however, come under attack from rival gangs in the upper village on several occasions. They would quite simply push us out of the way, after a tussle, and pull our guy from his mobile crib, rip it apart and set it on fire, causing us to have to rebuild another one all over again. We, of course, did the same to theirs when we could, but while we were the gang with the smartest members, and the most skilled in trench and field warfare, we were to a man the youngest and smallest in stature, so we had to think smart and not think strong.
Gary Durkin however had an answer to this. He dressed himself in the huge and smelly old clothes we had found on the tip, and put the bobble hat over his head, big old stinky boot on his feet, and the mask over his face. Lying down on the trangaloon outside the New Inn, he held a large stick of peeled willow bough in his right hand, and pulled down the jacket sleeve to hide his hands. And so the rest of us stood there, pestering the patrons of the inn for their pennies, until finally, way up on the Bryn, we could hear the descent of one of the rival gangs charging down the one hundred and sixty five steps to raid our guy. They came and pushed and jostled and poked at the guy, Gary, our perfectly stationery mime, just lay there, until one of them bent down to grab his sleeve, and Gary leaped to his feet and swung the club with such alacrity we cheered delightedly, and he proceeded to beat the living crap out of his assailants. On cue we all reached down into the buggy and pulled our own weapons from within and joined in the fray. This was all well and good until several adults, hearing the rumpus, emerged from the pub, Grandma Eleanor amongst them, and settled the dispute with threats of the police.
On another such occasion, one Saturday afternoon, we created a second guy, and carrying it from the tip, up Pandy Lane, and to the back of the Voel, a considerable distance, we left one of us by a telephone box at the bottom, while the other four of us hauled the Guy up the back of the great mountain and eventually to the top and to the apex of the huge cliff that formed the front face of a great limestone quarry. I was the tallest and had the job of climbing under the barbed wire fence, pulling the dummy behind me. It was dreadfully high, nearly eight or nine hundred feet, and down below the dormant machinery looked smaller than matchbox toy trucks. I bravely stood, while avoiding the view and with some effort, swung the Guy outwards to plummet down the cliff, bouncing off ledges to the bottom as my colleagues screamed for help.
For good measure, and upon hearing the screaming, our abettor down below tugged at passing people so as to ensure their witness to the event, and then ran into a phone box, dialed nine, nine, nine and convinced the operator that he and several others had just witnessed a man commit suicide by leaping off the quarry. Now as it happens, this was not an unfamiliar occurrence in the Village, and annually, several depressed individuals did actually undertake this rapid route to the other side of life.
We fled from the top, and within fifteen minutes were able to congregate at the entrance to the quarry in time to witness the police and ambulance men emerge cursing from behind the chain link gates, with the remains of our surrogate guy in their hands.
The following Monday at school was again a time for denial, whereupon we would state our whereabouts as being somewhere else, after Constable Roberts had addressed the school during morning about the foolishness and illegality of the behavior of the perpetrators of this heinous hoax.
When the big evening of legal pyromania finally came, we would have an adult douse the bonfire in diesel, and then light it. These huge erections would crackle and spit as giant flames would leap skyward, sending clouds of sparks out on the night wind. Smoke would swirl around us and as the heat intensified, we would back away slowly. In our case we would back away more quickly than most, since hidden in the depths of the great pile we had secreted all kinds of additional fuel. Any kind of tank was always good, particularly old welding tanks, tires of course, because they burned well, light bulbs and unbroken television tubes, and our favorite, tightly sealed bottles and jars of petrol, these having been filled by simply siphoning the contents from our family cars.
This wreaked havoc, but also great delight, even to the adults. And finally the evening would end in the passing around of homemade edible delights and the letting off of the fireworks. In those days these were pretty cheap and primitive affairs. We enjoyed roman candles, rockets, mortars, pin wheels, and bangers. Every year there were reports of burned children, adults and pets, but the tradition to this day continues to be a major annual event across Britain, enjoyed by millions, many of whom are ignorant of its origins.
It was not too long after this event that year that a great gale blew in from the Atlantic and churned its way South of Ireland and into the Irish Sea, to attack our shores. It was tremendous, its surprise attack due in most part to the fact that meteorology was not an exact science then and the weather forecast could be as accurately predicted using a piece of seaweed strung up outside the back door as it could listening to “The Shipping” forecast on the radio. No one knew this low pressure system was coming.
The howling tempest rattled slates on the roof and swirled wickedly in our valley, sending the smoke from our sad little coal fire down the chimney instead of up, which filled our tiny house in gusting clouds of acridity. Outside, the great trees tore at their roots and fell into the road. Terra cotta chimney pots crunched from their mortar bases to roll down the slates and collapse in crumpled heaps around the houses. Television antennae zinged past, unfettered in flight, having dislodged themselves from poles and pots around the rooftops. When the great storm hit, we were still one family member short, and as we cowered in the middle room, watching pensively through the back window, my big sister, the missing body, finally clawed her way around the corner, her friend Micky Morris was with her. She was braced forward against the wind, and Dad opened the back door and dragged them both inside, my sister cut, sore and crying.
The storm took almost all day to blow itself down to a high wind, as it passed overhead to shower its gusty curses onward over England, a country we thought was more deserving of its attention than our impoverished Welsh vale. My sister, now cleaned up and somewhat braver, led the way up the lower village road towards the church. We walked past Ian Jones’ house with the wind still howling but less intense. The daylight was an eerie orange against the leaden skies above. Finally, rounding the corner marked by the spinster’s cottage, we were able to witness the aftermath of the devastation ourselves.
The giant poplars, home of gnomes and goblins, were no more. The wind had torn at their limbs, sending massive boughs that once stood vertical and proud, down to the ground to rest in horizontal death across the road, some of these weighed many tons, and the road to the upper village was blocked. My sister had been beneath them when they began to fall, as she had been hurrying home, and she pointed to the place on the road where she had been trapped in branches after the death plunge of a giant arm of bark encrusted poplar, as it gave way to the ravages of the hurricane. She was fortunate to have lived. It took many days to clear the debris and cart it away. Several villagers came to help, and none of the wood was wasted. It was used as fuel on many a small hearth and wood burning oven. Dad campaigned to have the remaining stumps torn up and disposed of for fear of them sprouting yet more huge limbs, and so the poplars went, and our village road was changed forever.
If you went there now, the same road is lined with neat and expensive bungalows, all of which appear is if they have been there forever. That is not the case, this once evil and demonic route has now become just another little asphalt road, and instead of the rough dry stone wall, once climbed by village children, there is now a pleasant pathway offering a brisk walk to the lower village and its hospitality, one of the few changes of the lower village.
It would be something of a cliché to describe this event as the wind of change, but it did have a catalytic effect on our lives and heralded a new era for our family. Frank, the quality assurance technician, had become a legend in his own lunch break at the glass factory, and unhappy with his comparatively exorbitant salary, and disgruntled from having been passed over for promotion, he formed a group of similarly minded individuals who met one evening a week in a snug hostelry in St. Asaph after work. They called themselves “The Ways and Means Committee.” Their purpose was to share ideas of an entrepreneurial nature as to how they could earn more money and also escape what they now considered to be the penal servitude of working for an English company. They would pool resources and form a company of their own.
To a man they acquired a variety of management books and self-help literature, Dad got most of his from the library, actually signing some of them out, because the bespectacled librarian had long been suspicious regarding Frank’s true motives in the reference section.
At this time, fishing had also become something of a major hobby in the family, and in fact not too many weeks before, on a trip up to Denbigh Moors, to Llyn Elyd, I had caught my first fish, a ten ounce perch on a new split cane rod with a “Mitchel” center spool reel. This trip was so enjoyable, as we did it accompanied by Mr. Bob Hodges, son in law to Cecil Groves, my Dad’s mentor in the Free Masons. As an aside here, Bob was a nuclear physicist and had been commissioned by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to oversee the development of the new Trawsfynnydd Nuclear Power Plant, which had been built in the remotest part of North Wales, placed there remotely due to the unknown risks it presented, so it was as far away from the civilization in England as could be practical, but again it was to supply most of its output to England, that is unless the millions of sheep in Wales had electric toasters and television sets, which I doubt.
It was this profusion of development of nuclear power in Wales that so angered so many of the Free Welsh Army contingents at the time. We once used to say that Wales was a place where men were men and the sheep were scared, but the increasing trend was to say that North Wales was a place where men were sterile and sheep glowed in the dark. Anyhow this brave man was a very bright man, and he thought well of Mam and Dad and also he, Dad, Old Huck and Ian Jones had taught me to fish quite well.
I used this as an aside, since Bob Hodges’ concern was that prior to each fresh water fishing trip, he struggled to find worms. In our house and garden worms abounded in great profusion. Indeed the site of the old midden held earth so rich and so black and loamy, simply dragging a handful of it provided enough worms to fish for a day. There were brandlings, long and pink and juicy, huge lob worms with rough flat tails, which would stretch up to eight or nine inches in length and a half a dozen pink and brown breeds of worm between them. The local robin and blackbird, thrush and sparrow families regularly feasted on this plethora of hermaphrodite protein that lived in our garden.
It was after this day that Dad went to his committee and presented his idea. They should form a worm farm. A business model was constructed and Frank began the market research.
The following weekend he carefully drafted an advertisement and posted it off to The Angling Times. This weekly paper was and still is read nationally by fishermen, and even to my small eyes it was a delight of marine extravagances. In its pages there were stories of huge sharks off Southern England, great tope off Blackpool, cod catches, ling, conger and many more sea stories, and also an entire section devoted to freshwater fishing for both lake and river. A week passed and Dad rushed to the news agents in Rhyl for a copy, and there it was. A small classified ad offering worms for sale, one shilling and sixpence for twenty-four or two shillings and sixpence for sixty, or if you were a commercial bait or tackle shop you could buy them by the case.
The telephone rang off the hook, and carefully Mam and Dad took the calls only to announce that they had sold out that week and there was a two week lead time.
When they tallied up the value of the calls, they reckoned from that single ad, could they have serviced it, would have ensured gross revenue for the week in excess of one hundred pounds. Such a sum was an absolute fortune. Decisions had to be made and more research undertaken.
Finally, they formed “The Bigga Fish Bait Company Ltd.” and commenced to operate it at weekends. They had two sizes of wax paper milk cartons for the worms already worked out, and cardboard boxes the correct size to hold these in deliveries of twenty four, forty eight or sixty units for each size.
Following extensive research, the pair determined that sphagnum peat moss was the best at keeping the worms alive for shipping, since its long cellular stems retained water very readily and carton closure could be best accomplished using a single hole through which a brass split pin was inserted and curled. The product research was now also complete.
The site of the old midden provided the first worms for quite some time, and a trip to Denbigh moors each Saturday morning for a couple of bags of moss tugged from the damp rill scarred hillsides provided the moist media for worm life in transit, this moss was collected in crocus sacks and stuffed under the hood of the car.
The money quite literally poured in, and within a few months, Frank was able to shoot the finger at the glass factory and commence his new business unfettered by the work ethics and controls of a large corporation. Several issues now arose. Orders were pouring in faster than he could fulfill them. In his greed, he maintained the ads in the newspaper, and commenced employing people to dig for the worms by hand.
He failed to account for the fact that within a few months of his commencement of the business the once bountiful supply of midden worms would be worked out, and he would have to think of something else. He tried to breed them. To do this, and in realization of what the midden was made of, he quite simply opened the metal hatch to the brick lined cesspit in the garden and ladled out the excrement, like a smelly brown soup and with the paper swirling like thin noodles he poured it onto the garden, in the hope that the worms would be grateful and commence breeding faster. They didn’t, they died, well to begin with, and so more experimentation had to be undertaken.
At about this time, it was now early in spring, a cold and wet season with few warm dry days, and it was evident that Das Fraumobile didn’t much care to be the transport of delight for the fledgling business. To my own personal satisfaction, we drove her to Towyn, a coastal village between Rhyl and Abergele, and exchanged her for a brand new Land Rover. This type of vehicle was much sought after in our rural environment and it boasted a dark green aluminum clad two door body, a canvass rear awning over the back, a diesel engine, over which was secured a huge spare wheel, and a variety of gears including high and low ratio four wheel drive.
At about this time, for some reason our pets began to die off, from a combination of diseases and old age, including finally, the two faced Floss, and our cat Twm. So we acquired a single pet, a black standard poodle called Sue, which I detested from day one, but which to my delight, and with timely poking and kicking I was able to train to be extremely vicious, and so we had a guard dog.
Now the village was and still is a small place, so to avoid prying eyes and with the sure knowledge by most of my school that Dad had quit the glass factory, we were trained to inform inquirers of his welfare that he was unemployed. I of course was able to exaggerate this beyond belief and so the stories in the village began to circulate. In one such story he had broken his back and was no longer able to work. In another story I told, he had been diagnosed with terminal halitosis and was not able to work in the glass factory, this was causing him to turn blind and he had only months live. In another tale, told to Melvyn Griffiths, my Dad had to leave work because a science experiment in origami had gone wrong and caused him to lose his memory. And so it went on. However, the villagers were not as naive as I suspected, and seeing Frank throw money around and now running around in a brand new Land Rover, a vehicle that had hitherto been the privilege of wealthy farmers and land owners, speculation came back that he had won the pools or had been left a huge inheritance or that he had robbed a bank. The latter rumor was more prevalent than the former. Only his Masonic colleagues were able to guard him from an invasion of questioning by other local businessmen. Such was the secrecy of this era, he carefully locked everything he had up at night in the old shed atop the rough dirt drive, and hid the Land Rover around the side of the house.
The stuffing of the cartons with the worms became employment for Old Huck and Eleanor and any of us children who could count, and we would sit at nights after school, our bare hands slimy from the moving of thousands of worms from their collection buckets into the moss lined cartons and then we would the punch holes in the folded carton top, secure it with a brass staple, and finally the cartons would be counted into boxes, which were tied with baler twine for shipping. I always enjoyed the shipping, and the cases were loaded onto the rear of the Land Rover and a small box trailer and we set off, without so much as washing our hands, down to Prestatyn Station. At the station we waited for the giant steam dragon to huff its weary way back from further up the coast, and we hoisted the labeled boxes onto the freight wagon for overnight delivery to their various destinations, to be collected by willing owners of small tackle and bait stores up and down the Northwest of England.
On the return journey, we would stop for fish and chips, which we ate from the newspaper wrapper, and which as a meal was shoveled into our mouths with the same filthy unwashed hands, then we drove back home. After this I never got ill or had a stomach problem again. Such was our immunity to diseases, I could swim in the grayest filth and come out never requiring a stomach pump like weaker people would have had, and I have proved it many times since.
Frank had yet to solve the problem of the dwindling supply of home grown worms, when the answer came to him like a bolt from the blue. Hoisting on his familiar khaki trousers, now much grimier than they used to be, and after pulling a jersey over his head, with his rubber boots on his feet, he struck out down the Rhyddlan Road on foot. Prior to reaching Tommy Felyn’s Old Mill (Felyn is Welsh for mill), there was, hidden in a glade, between there and Doll Hill, the village sewage farm. The name of the man who ran this place was Bob, who was known affectionately throughout the village as Bob Shit. Few people except the postman could recall his real sir name, so even us children, out of politeness and respect for our elders called him Mr. Shit, even to his face, we truly believing this to be his second name.
Dad returned sometime later with a huge grin on his face, went up to the old shed and got a garden fork and a bucket. To my great delight he grabbed my hand and told me to climb in the back of the Land Rover, and not to be outdone by me, my brother also leaped in.
With the mechanical clatter only a four cylinder diesel Land Rover engine has, we backed into the road and at the crossroads turned left, and to my great delight, a few hundred yards further on turned right in Mr. Shit’s paradise, the huge steel gate with its barbed wire frosting now welcoming us in.
I had tried on many occasions to gain access to this establishment. I had a fascination for the many things it had to offer my inquisitive mind. I wished to ride on its two rotating arms that turned horizontally to a tune of their own, with water coming out, and I also wished to partake of the glorious tomatoes that grew there wild each summer, and which nobody ever seemed to bother harvesting. This property however was amongst the most secure places in the village, and our nearest to gaining entry was by crawling up the water pipe that bled gray water into the stream by Doll Hill, only to have been stopped by a strong iron grill, covered in slime and alive with bacteria.
This time I was not only getting in without having to cut the wire or jump the railing, we were being welcomed by none other than its longstanding keeper.
Revving and rumbling through the gate, Dad pulled up near to a small brick hut, while the gate was closed behind us and locked. We climbed out in time to see Dad shaking hands whereupon my brother and I, as the epitome of politeness, said, “Good morning Mr. Shit”, in unison and the fair little fellow in the flat cap, quite used to his pseudonym, patted us on the head and returned with “Bore da bechgyn” or good morning boys, in Welsh.
Dad lifted the garden fork, the chosen weapon of choice for every gatherer of worms, and walked to the end of the sewage site with it to attack a pile of what had once been human excrement, and which to me looked suspiciously like a giant midden. He whooped with delight, thrust his hand into the up turned clod and lifted a great handful of worms into the air. He and Mr. Shit then went into conference and we returned home to Mam to give her the news of the day, we had met Mr. Shit.
Secrecy was the word, and due to the demand in business the small trailer was no longer big enough, and regretfully was open and could reveal to nosy passersby its contents. Frank had another brilliantly contrived idea. He purchased a huge horsebox. This great single axle horsebox, with its drop leaf rear door and green canvass awning would be ideal for towing behind the Land Rover and keeping the contents secret. It was also ideal for pulling up to the remotest areas of Denbigh Moors to steal moss. This we would do as a family, since many hands make light work, and we would fill our damp sacks with as much moss as we could tug from the peat, and stuff it in until it was too heavy to carry and had to be dragged. The work was back breaking, and as a family of wild weirdoes we would work silently, stooped to the wet moss, with our rubber booted feet slipping on ancient peat. The only noise we subconsciously acknowledged was provided by the haunting tunes of the cold winds whooshing in the heather and from afar in the sky the lament of the curlew and the keening of a high soaring kite. The sack would then be carried to the horsebox and emptied into its rear compartment; this repetitive process was undergone several times by all of us until the horsebox was full of moss.
Denbigh Moors is a wild and desolate place, made all the worse for us children, because to get there we were forced to drive past Denbigh Mental Hospital. At that time little was known about mental illness, all we did know was that a doctor could send anybody there and the unwitting patient seldom if ever returned home. To be sent there for the rest of my life was a family threat that was regularly made in my direction, and so I was more scared than most of getting anywhere near this bleak edifice. If these loonies ever did they come home, they returned emaciated, ill and distant, having had electric shocks to the brain and having been forced to drink their own urine, or at least that’s what I heard, and since I was one always one to repeat a good story I kept it and elaborated upon it until to my own embarrassment when telling a friend up the road where I had been and what I had seen, and when I told him of the lurid stories and dreadful events that went on inside the metal asylum he calmly announced, that he knew that already, since his Mam was inside there. I was humbled that day.
Anyhow, we would return undiscovered from Denbigh Moors and reverse the trailer up to the old shed and empty it, in readiness for Eleanor and Huck. She would stuff the moss in each carton and Huck would count in the worms from the buckets brought to them by the worm diggers each afternoon. Dad would drop these men off each morning and collect them each late afternoon from a place he fondly referred to as Bob Shit’s Candle Factory, or to us the sewage farm.
One such fellow Dad recruited as a worm digger was a young Spaniard called Tito. What made him so desirable an employee was his status as an illegal immigrant. He was in his mid teens, had no social security number, he did not possess a National Health Service number and could barely speak English, let alone Welsh. Dad found him wandering around Meliden looking for work and so was quick to snag him, and enslave him as a digger of fish bait. He was put on an apprentice’s pay for his first year, and then given a garden fork, and summarily served his five minutes of apprenticeship, Dad having ensured that he could count and tell a worm from a beetle.
Tito was so pleased with the work he turned up early each morning, rain or shine and delighted in his position as a dirt digger. After a week or two he acquired transportation, a home built bicycle. This was to me a great and much desired mechanical wonder, it had twenty-seven inch wheels, cow horn handlebars and a single rear cable brake. All the other bicycles I had seen up to that day had huge rod brakes that barely worked. Such a heavy rod wonder was Frankie Maracca’s old postal bike, which weighed in at over forty-five pounds and had a tooled leather seat on springs that alone would be heavier than most mountain bikes today.
Tito had built a speed steed. Now I still had never learned to ride a bike, and bikes were things seldom discussed in our house, since Frank, my Dad, I discovered, had never learned to ride one in his life either, and he was ancient. I, however, was a determined young man. I carefully watched Tito with his bike, and after work, he would place me on the cross bar and cycle around the garden with me, jolting to the left and to the right to my childish delight. He showed me (since he could not speak English, and conversed with Dad in sign language and some other gibbering stuff) how to ride a bike, and after several days of trying I eventually mastered it, being too short at the time to sit on the seat, I straddled the cross bar. So a new life began, I could finally transport myself.
Across the road, on the other side of our Penisa crossroads, lived Ernie, owner of the field behind our house. He was a dour little Welshman in his seventies, and was always dressed the same, brown corduroy trousers, a Harris tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a flat cap made of tweed also and shiny brown oxford style shoes on his small feet. He was shunned by much of the village since he had been a conscientious objector during the last two great wars, and during the absence of his peers as they fought battles, and hardship, and often succumbed to death, he had prospered, and so he lived his life quietly from behind piggy eyes which peered and squinted through large pebble glasses. He was the landlord to the seasonal Mr. Gillespie, and apart from raiding his hen house for eggs, or stealing his apples, which ranked amongst the best in the neighborhood I seldom if ever cast him a glance.
Until that is, that summer, when three young boys, who seemed about the same age as my brother and myself, appeared in his yard. Curious as to whom they might be, my brother and I went to investigate, and leaned over the wall to watch them play together. The first notable thing about them was that they spoke very differently. It was evident that these intruders were of English origin, their flat nasally accents indicating Liverpool. We could barely comprehend what they said to one another.
Upon noticing us, they stopped and walked across, stiffening for a good scrap I clenched my fists until my fingernails dug into my palms. To our delight however, the middle of the three reached into his pocket and pulled out a warm packet of Rowntrees fruit gums and offered them to us. The top one was orange, a flavor I personally relished and never would have offered to anybody, not that I ever did offer my sweets to anyone anyhow. I snatched it, and the one below it for good measure and I grunted mean and weak thanks in his direction. My brother, more gracious than myself, simply took one. Then another unheard of event, each boy offered his hand for shaking and introduced himself. I had never experienced charm before, particularly from people my own age, and was somewhat taken aback, so I simply shook each of their hands and introduced myself back.
They were the Graham boys, Allan, Charlie and Ross, and the grandsons of Ernie here for a long vacation with their granddad and grandma. They were to become more than just firm friends, but almost like brothers to us each summer when they came to stay. It was with them and due to them that a hint of culture entered my life, and we explored together far more than I had ever explored before.
There were more than two quarries in the village and the surrounding area. To us though, there was just the new quarry, still operational and the source of daily booms and rumbles, dust and smoke and the old quarry, source of nothing more than the delight of exploration and fun. We started our real explorations of the old quarry with the Graham boys. To gain access required much stealth, and the crossing of fields and woods, and a railway line, still very much operational at that time in my childhood The railway was used to haul coal up from the colliery on the coast near Flint, and deliver it to the upper village quarry works where it was used to stoke the great furnaces that burned the crushed limestone into cement powder. It also dropped off various grades of anthracite for domestic consumption at our village coal merchants, who would have it delivered by huge men on a big truck, who would be clad in leather aprons and jerkins over black dusted overalls, and even blacker faces, and they would drop their load in our yards from one hundred weight sacks.
The old quarry is in Craig Fach, a knob of rock which links The Bryn and Craig Fawr. The quarry face itself was always partly visible from the various high points in the village and was south facing. From its white and pink sheer rock face, often sparkling with veins of quartz and galena, which crisscrossed it like healed scars, we would pry fossils and crystals for our collections.
As with all young boys of our era, our immediate fascination was with the steam train that tirelessly plugged its way from the coast and up the great escarpment the overlooked Prestatyn, around Meliden and finally would wind its way around the base of the old quarry to level out in the upper village. The journey of twelve miles elevated the track from sea level to over six hundred feet. As you can imagine, it ran fairly slowly uphill, and was a demon downhill. We would hear it coming from as far away as Meliden, where the driver would stop the huge engine to raise another head of steam. It was truly a hissing dragon, and though we could not see it, shrouded as it was on its single track railway by embankments of hazel bushes and oak trees, we knew it was there by sound and sight of the large plume of black smoke and white steam that billowed in signals like so many of the Casey Jones stories we had watched on our small television set each Saturday evening. In short it was the cause for great excitement.
We would run across the field and past the ancient and disused lead mine and its gaping pits, and on past The Salford Poor Children Holiday Home, up Brynyar Road and up onto the railway, where we would await it, hidden above its passage, so that it would pass just a few feet below us from where we perched on rock shelves, that formed a wall to one side, carved out of the mountain by the steam navigators of old, to provide a track for the behemoth.
I always ran ahead, since I had a very favorite spot to get to which involved more skillful climbing than other vantage points but rewarded me by allowing me to be totally unseen by the driver. When the machine passed, because I was on a ledge on a bend, I could almost reach out and touch the huge chuffing funnel. The anticipation of its arrival and rumble past my hiding spot always sent tingling shivers down my spine, to say its lure enthralled me was an understatement. If we were ever feeling flush, we would also place a half penny on the track to admire how the sheer weight of engine and trucks would flatten its diameter to that of a copper penny.
Of course, true to my nature, coins were not the only things placed on the track. Other favorite objects for crushing included rocks, nuts, bolts, bottles and the best of all steel ball bearings we got from the tip, which we had pulled from smashed gear boxes. These ball bearings ranged from a quarter inch to as much as an inch in diameter.
When we were ready and knew the train was coming, but was sufficiently distant to allow us time to prepare, a dollop of red clay was used to secure the steel spheres to the track and we would scuttle off to our hiding places. There were only two places to be when a train passed, either above it and to one side, or as I often did, lying down right at the side of the track, with my face so close to the huge sleepers I could actually smell the creosote and resin that oozed from them.
With our coins and ball bearings in place we would become invisible amongst the rocks and nooks and we would await the train. The rough gritty earth shuddered at its approach. It would cough demonically and spin its wheels as it tugged at its freight of twenty or more boxcars full of coal. The rust on the sides of the rails would vibrate and the harmonic would set the rock chip aggregate beneath the sleepers into a frenzy of micro jiggling, which prior to the train passing, directly by us, would sound like the hiss of a snake.
Finally the train would reach us, and the deafening boom, the smooth slide of giant pistons and the ear splitting hiss of steam from the escape valves would frighten us to the point where we were as motionless as statues until we could reconnoiter as a gang and compare notes.
When the train went over the coins we couldn’t hear it, but if we had positioned the ball bearings correctly they would momentarily cause the train to shudder and sometimes would be ejected out at tremendous speed, to either ricochet around the rock cliff or zoom missile like into the trees. On one such occasion we found one buried nearly an inch into a sycamore tree beside the track, it never occurred to any of us at the time that it could have killed an elephant had it impacted one. Luckily, apart from the annual circus, which visited Rhyl, we were not aware of any pachyderms living in Dyserth, so we remained ignorant of the dangers these ball bearings represented as missiles.
Those of us brave enough would toss rocks at the trucks, but had the good sense and caution to be aware of the guard van at the rear of the train, where a sharp eyed man in his dark blue serge clothes peered out from his mobile platform, his hands gripping the brake wheel in case the score began to change on the winding slope, and Sir Isaac Newton’s theory would make it train zero, gravity one.
I cannot describe the surge of adrenalin that showed in our wild eyes as we danced delightedly at its passing, having been there to not only witness it, but to impede it in whatever way we could.
The next thing would be a scrabble up the bank, through the great copses of hazel nut and beech trees and over the rim of the entrance to the old quarry and down into its wondrous bowels.
Our first action on arrival was always to get to the center of the quarry, it had three sides, one very sheer, and with a large slab of limestone dislodged and slid from a hundred feet up, crumpled below in boulders the size of buses. Another, craggy and climbable without aid, but still very sheer and the other rough red and pinnacled, and formed into the mesas and buttes of our own monument valley, and used frequently during our games of Cowboys and Indians or War.
We would then holler and holler and holler. We would let out blood curdling screams and howls, then hold our silence for the wonder of the great echo, as our yells bounced from wall to wall and back again.
In the quarry we created a large hearth, and would set about collecting wood for our fire, and go and collect rocks small enough to lift, to form our den, which upon completion of its three walls, was roofed in twisted rusting zinc sheets we had found, which was held down with huge stones. This makeshift abode would become our shelter in the rain.
On other days we would leave early in the morning, with bottles of water and huge potatoes, dug from fields and gardens, and after getting our fire good and hot, we would roast these delights until the outside was hot, charred, crusty and black and inside was soft and white and fluffy. Surprisingly I had given up eating mashed potatoes at school preferring to use the gray gluey substance more as ammunition than nutrition, and at home I only ate them chipped and fried in cow lard, but up here, in our wild quarry, I could never eat too many of these blackened steaming roots.
Collecting and exploring was always a must on these occasions, and we added countless colored pebbles and minerals to our hoard as well as bird eggs and bugs. From the vantage point of our quarry den we could look out over the tree tops and across the wide dip of the Gover field at the dump, and its spirals of smoke which lift lazily into the cool air, and signaled the busy bustling of Emlyn around its base, like a worker ant, as he poked into boxes and crates of newly discarded treasures.
The day would end when we heard the distant squealing of the brakes on the great train, as it did its best to defy gravity on its return journey, this was our cue to line up on the cow bridge below the quarry to see who could drop a rock down its funnel.
Craig Fawr was the next mountain along, and the last before the vale opened up to green pastures and windy lanes down to the Frith and finally the steel gray sea in the great bay of Liverpool, that separated us from the North of England and the Isle of Man. This mountain was the most unusual of all in the Vale of Clwyd. It sat up humpty backed at the end of the chain, and was very different in texture and color to all the others. It crouched round and warm, its side a tapestry of short grass and craggy coralline rock outcrops, many slit with cave entrances great and small. On its summit stood a plinth, carved from local marble and dedicated to the generous patron that bequeathed this rock as gift to the people of the villages of North Wales, Sir Geoffrey Sommers.
Running along the top of this Craig was to court the wind. The balmy gulf stream having been topping the waves on its way up from the western Atlantic, would be pushed up the slope and whip over its top at accelerated speed, on almost any day. It was possible to stand on the edge of the mountain and lean into the strong breeze, with our hands thrust in pockets and our arms outspread, we would fall and rise in the stiff gusts. Its mountaintop was also the home of sheep. They bleated and baaed and trotted and charged all over the short gorse speckled meadow at the top of the peak. A favorite pastime was to herd as many as we could together and drive them towards the edge to see how many we could get to jump into the wind and land below on some forsaken crag.
This vantage point also offered the best view in the entire area. From the top we could clearly see beyond the Orme and over to Anglesey and in the blue hazed distance south of that, the entire range of the Snowdonia mountain range loomed in spiky ranks of deep purples, and its familiar shades of gray tinged with hues of blue. The menacing bulk of Tryfan, a spectacular crag, ranked in the middle of the range, and was always cloud shrouded. Finally, my favorite view of all, was that of our house, and many a day, when on the top of this wonderful hill, I would look down below to see Mam in the front garden waving at us with a sheet, knowing it was her boys up there.
The wind was always sharp, and our eyes would water and they stung as we surveyed our domain, out over Prestatyn and even farther so that on a clear day we could easily see Blackpool Tower and the Isle of Man north of us, and beyond that the distant hills of Wordsworth’s Lake District, the only place in Britain that compares in geological and topographical beauty to North Wales.
The caves were on the lower slopes, and while there was a giant sink hole on the top, its perimeter encircled with barbed wire to keep sheep from being blown in, the base of the crags had several large splits in them, and these cave entrances on the north face were worn and rounded by millennia of water trickling in and out. It was these that we enjoyed exploring the most.
As a child, a flashlight battery in our house lasted about as long as struck match. If we had a working flashlight, I invariably used it at night by switching it on, placing it at my chin, I would shine it upwards and pull gruesome faces at my little sister to make her cry until either I was caught and punished or the batteries ran out. Consequently to own a flashlight was as useful as owning a car without wheels.
To explore the caves therefore, we had developed other means. We tried tying rags to sticks and dipping them in any flammable liquid, but on the occasion I tried it, the petrol ignited my anorak and left a huge burn hole in it, to match the other burn holes won at the tip. Our best means therefore of illuminating our passage was by the use of a jam jar, with a long string tied around it, and a candle placed within and lit by a taper. These were great, they didn’t throw out much light, but enough to stumble by, and the eerie shadows they cast provided the melodramatic atmosphere so enjoyed by our gang of young lads, as we sang and howled our way into the bowels of the earth, one behind another, from the entrance of the great crack.
Allan Graham had just read Journey to the Center of The Earth, and told stories of the monsters and creatures that could dwell deeper within our mountain. Still unsure as to the real or otherwise existence of goblins, I moved with some trepidation, made more scary by the strong smell of feces and urine by the entrance of the cave, which I speculated was where they came to in the middle of the night to do their business. He told us to look for AS carved on the walls, and said if we found the initials it was proof that a brave explorer did get out. I had no idea what he was talking about, but bravely plodded on behind him until we were at times up to our knees in water.
Finally our candles began to sputter and we turned back, not the first time we did that either, and to this day I still believe that the northern escarpment of the Vale of Clwyd still holds many secrets in its labyrinth of unexplored caves.
Directly across the road from our house, Fred Wilkinson, our neighbor, owned an acre of land which was not used. It was just a bank of brambles and bushes, and he had decided to turn it into a builder’s yard for himself, since that was his trade. He set about with an excavator and his three ton lift back truck to move the top soil and sell it. You can imagine the delight of us all as little boys to see our first backhoe loader close up. We all lined up to squat like garden gnomes on the wall across the road to watch him work. The machine burped and chugged, growled and hissed and several buckets full of rich dark earth were loaded into the truck. Within minutes we were experts in the process, and sat there emulating the motion of the driver with our hands, knees and elbows, while our spit spackled lips flapped and hummed to variegated, unmelodic farting noises as we imitated the sound of the engine, which revved up and down as it strained against the earth banks.
To our ultimate satisfaction, once the truck was full to overflowing, Fred Wilkinson invited us to climb on top of the earth mound in the back of it and ride with him to drop it off. To a grubby lad we scrabbled up the front of the cab, up the tires and wheels, and into the back, and lined up in a row over the cab for the journey. We set out up the village, with Fred at the wheel and us behind in the bed of the truck and knee deep in Welsh loam. The wind blew in our hair and our transport was a great rumbling Bedford truck, our destination was unknown. As we passed through the lower village, we jeered and waved at others in our gang who were less fortunate than ourselves and who were not a part of this great expedition.
The final dare was to cling to the rim of the cab cover as the back tipped to almost vertical and the earth slid out into the yards and gardens it was destined for. These small gardens were those of the wishful, all hoping to cultivate prize leeks, colored roses and giant marrows, in the renovated homes that nestled in the hills and glades of the great valley.
After several journeys we returned to our homes, now clad in the parentally pre-anticipated state of grime and dirt, which made a little boy a little boy, and was our distinguishing uniform from the girls and sissies in our village.
Many memorable adventures were shared with the Grahams, and they became our annual friends, and surrogate Dyserthites, as we were known, and they were welcome members to our roving clan of inquisitive vandals.
There were also times when we had to go to war. Our dens and swings, caves and tree houses became subject to raids from marauding gangs from Meliden and Upper Dyserth. This was totally unacceptable. When such a den was on the boundary of our territory and within fairly equal access of each village center, we would sometimes go to it only to discover the presence of another clan, or worse, its destruction. This was cause for war.
We recruited our older hero, Ian Jones, to become our ambassador and our diplomat as well as our instructor in the art of war, and a great battle was organized between us lower village kids and the Melidonians. This took considerable diplomatic skill and was to occur at noon precisely in the hidden field beyond Ernie’s and adjacent to the old Four Crosses house on the Rhuddlan road.
Preparation was critical. We devised lightweight body armor made from cardboard boxes, spears from bamboo canes, throwing sticks from willow and bows and arrows from the osiers that lined the river. Our headgear ranged from leather motorcycle helmets to blackened saucepans. Our shields were dustbin lids and sheets of metal tied with string handles. Our legions trained in combat, with targets set across the stream on the trunks of the great elms that stood there.
Finally the day of the battle arrived, and we waited in ambush, hidden in the confines of a derelict cowshed at the corner of the field. We numbered about thirty and had a general and two captains. Our archers were each provisioned with the straightest of arrows, the tops split and tied with cardboard flights, the strings crafted from the finest fishing lines we could steal.
From over the hill and past the lead mines, our scout, Charlie Graham came running to announce nearly fifty Melidonians, marching and chanting along the narrow road past the old rock spring across from Dyserth Hall farm. He described their weapons and their leader and his eyes danced wildly in anticipation of the great battle to come.
Finally they arrived, and somehow aware of our presence in the old shack, held rank and lined up on the field some one hundred yards away. Their faces were streaked with red clay and their weapons and armor looked similar to our own. We were fighting for the rights of the dump, and Emlyn as its guardian of our tenure they had raided it and beaten him with sticks. This was less than acceptable. This was worth fighting over in any society.
On cue, we ran from our hide and rushed the field to line up in front of them. We growled and yelled, until the order was given, and we charged.
The battle raged, sticks and lances clacked and zinged. Limp arrows were shot aloft from weak twanging bows to land amongst the enemy. We had to use our shields to defend ourselves. The battle of course was somewhat symbolic, since many of these urchins were also our classmates, however the rights to the tip were at stake, as well as our territorial pride. After an affray that lasted less than ten minutes, the opposition began to flee, and they dodged through holes in the hedge and back to the road, where they plucked sharp flints to hurl at us before finally fleeing on up to Meliden. We gave chase, with stones and arrows, throwing sticks and spears, returning to celebrate our victory. To ensure our tenure of the dump, we ended up marching in ranks to the refuse heap and reclaim possession of its treasures, Emlyn, none the worse for the experience, danced delightedly at the recovery of his home and food source.
Other days would see us at the lead mines. This was by far the most dangerous of our haunts. These mines were the remnants of a past era of industry which commenced with the Romans and ended with the English. The lead mines were a series of deep stone lined shafts that punctured the field next to the Salford Poor Children’s Holiday Home. There were three main shafts and two smaller shafts, as well as tunnels and drains all dug deep and secured in place by well crafted stones built as walls and arches.
At the center of the mine area, and surrounded by what were once spoil heaps but were now just mounds, covered in grass and bushes and rutted with cycle tracks, was the big house. This was a derelict castle like structure some fifty feet or so high and its vast interior, open to the elements, covered some two thousand square feet. Its roof was still clad in slate, which hung in scabrous layers of gray, holed with age, to allow sunlight into the cavernous edifice. From the corners hung clusters of bats like so many blackberries, themselves divided into small evil family tribes, each claiming a dark corner, ready and waiting for the nightly calls of Gog and Magog, to wreak moonlight havoc as the slaves of goblins. They rested by day, but were to be left alone at all times, for fear of waking the demons they would communicate with. The walls were homes to nesting kestrels and fat pigeons cooed from the interior beams, lifting in clapping flight to arc out of the huge open windows when we arrived.
This building once housed the steam beam engine pump that cleared the mines of water, allowing hot, shirtless miners to pick the galena from the veins hundreds of feet below, as they toiled with hand axes and small shovels, to fill baskets that were hoisted to the lip and placed on carts.
So afraid were we of these mines, we would crawl to the lip from many feet away up to the edge of the big shaft, with another boy holding our feet, so that we could peer into each great maw, which was to us the entrance to Hades. Large rocks would be thrown and seconds counted until the echo of its impact returned up the shaft, one second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds, six seconds, clack, it was at the bottom, the sound eerily percolating back up the stone walls of the hole.
On another occasion, at the top of a smaller shaft, we peered down to see what we thought was a bundle of rags snagged on a bush that had set its roots amongst the mortar-less stones ten feet below the rim. As our rock hit it, it jolted and rolled over, it was a baby, dead and discarded, maggots crawling from its eye sockets. Infanticide was not uncommon in the villages of Wales, and more prevalent, it seems, than contraception. We thought little of it at the time, reporting it in a matter of a fact fashion that evening to our parents. The police never did discover the mother, and so another village secret was buried, as some poor young girl pined for her child, born out of sexual indiscretion or the despicable incest, we never discussed.
The lead mines were scary, and many a time, when the evils of the long winter would settle in and daylight was only hours long, the police and mountain rescue teams would plunder the shafts on ropes and pulleys, to pull the corpse of another from their depths, men and women who had succumbed to the depression of their flat and worthless lives of poverty and despair under the cold dark canopy of a Welsh winter.
And so this was our gang, and our domain, our territory and our movements within it. We were to never grow old, our life to always be one of adventure and fun, armed with the knowledge and skills handed down from generation to generation. These were our survival skills, honed with the acceptance and respect of our rural kingdom.
Chapter thirteen
The Voryd
With the end of that summer and the creep into the cold months came the first of our many plagues. Foot and mouth disease was rife amongst the cloven hoofed population of our valleys. Farmers wept at open pits filled with the carcasses of sheep and cows, which burned with a horrible and sickly stench, to be covered over with earth. All gates and roads had piles of straw drenched in disinfectant to clean tires and feet of the potential danger. Cows stumbled down the road to Dyserth Hall farm, swaying, while lowing drunkenly, Roberts the farmer crying behind them, patting the rear of a favorite jersey, its udders filled with venom laced milk. This was their road to their eventual slaughter. It had a terrible effect on the village. All people pitched in to help, we herded cattle to their death, and afterwards we would clean our boots with strong and pungent brown solutions, that left a lingering stench which even washing with soap would not remove.
After this came the weirdest plague of all. This was called Mixamatosis, and we were told that it came to our secret valley all the way from Australia. As we walked the pathways and bridleways of the village, rabbits that would have once run, with their tails bobbing and their feet pounding, now stood in the way, inert and dumb in the path. It was not the occasional one or two Easter bunnies, but thousands of them. They stood begging for a quick death. Their once pretty faces, that had looked to their small world through clear brown eyes were now swollen grotesquely, ears that once pricked to the merest sound lay flat and inert on their small heads, their eyes were so swollen they were blind, their brains so infected they were deaf and dumb. We swung our clubs at their heads, their skulls crunched and their small warm bodies were then tossed to the bushes to decay back to the dank earth from which they were crafted. This was a nightmare in real life, and the impact it had on other wild life forced foxes and polecats to turn to other means by which to supplement their diets that had once been full of best Brer Rabbit, and so these carnivores prowled our yards at night, and raided our chicken runs and our egg coops for sustenance.
The worm farm was still flourishing, but winter had seen a downturn in the order book, so Frank chose to lay off many of his pickers. During the summer, as he had exhausted supplies of the fat red juicy moneymakers from the nearby sewage farms, he had been forced to venture further afield for worms. By now he was having them dug from as far away as England and delivering them back each night in the Land Rover, buckets of the squirming protein stacked in the back for counting and packing. Winter saw a lull in business, so Frank turned to other means, naturally of a recreational nature, with which to keep his mind and body busy.
His favorite haunt was now down at the harbor, since he had become an avid fisherman. He also realized that fishing could provide food and nourishment for his family, so he had us all line up on the pier in Rhyl with our rods, to try to catch our supper, leaving more money for him to go boozing with. The harbor was home to many boats, also a large lumber ship visited from Norway twice a year on the Spring tides to replenish J.S. Jones’ wood yard with Norwegian spruce, which was pre cut into acceptable lengths ready for selling. The ship’s entry was a great cause for celebration, and hundreds of us locals watched as it maneuvered within the confines of the flooded harbor, to be left standing upright on its keel at the ebb, secured with the biggest ropes we have ever seen. Many of the other boats were fishing boats, and many were small, but all of them yielded rich catches of flat fish, mackerel, skate and monkfish, flounders, dabs and sole, conger eels, tope and dogfish, hooked by lines from The Constable Banks and from around the Skerries Lightship in the bay, as well as from the sand bank marked by the converted lightship that now blasted Radio Caroline from its tower, much to the delight of the local teenagers, as they jigged to The Kinks and The Beatles.
Frank frequented The Schooner Inn, a new public house, near to the gaudy fairground with its squealing rides and screeching sirens, it was now dormant and rusting in its winter regalia of faded canvas and rust encrusted railings that waited patiently for spring’s new coat as it lay tired and spread out across the road from the harbor. The harbor was called The Voryd, a throw back to the age of the Vikings, who did so much to invade and pillage this part of Wales and Ireland during the fourth century. It was the outlet of the River Clwyd into the Irish Sea. It had huge tides, and at low tide, its steep walls gave way to mud flats and rivulets, and revealed the skeletal ribs of once proud sailing boats, that had been left to rot with the slabs of gray shale mud as the resting beds of choice, but to which every six hours, according to the endless phases of the moon, the water would return to and cover, very rapidly. The current would change with the turn of the tide, and those boats fortunate enough to be at a wet mooring would swing on their buoys, as the rest would rise from the mud. The sea would enter at great speed, often as fast as twelve knots, as it surged up the valley and on to Rhuddlan castle, after which elevation forbade it from continuing, and the salt water would give way to the fresh water home of the rainbow trout.
We loved the harbor, it had a particular smell to it. I enjoyed the inhalation of salt water and putrefaction mixed with diesel and two-stroke fuel, that churned in rainbow hues from the surface, and I tried as often as I could to be present above the massive sewer pipe outlet with its enormous cast steel flap lid. When the tide reached half way up this outlet, the weight of the filth behind the pipe would be greater than the weight of the iron flap, now more buoyant with the lifting tide, and it would open to discharge the effluent of ten thousand Welshmen into the Voryd, to be swept out to sea on the ebb tide. Swirling clouds of excrement would whirl brown and gray amongst spent papers and wriggling condoms, while huge herring gulls dived amongst it to feast on the floaters.
Naturally, such a wealth of protein and minerals was quickly recycled, and at the end of the groin of perches, huge mussel beds clung to the wooden wave breakers, the black ovoid shells opening after the flood and the turn of the tide to an ebb, to gorge upon the rich combination of bacteria and toxins that were carried out. When the tide was completely out, the cockle men combed the black and brown quick sands for their own harvest, while at sea, clouds of shrimp fed on what was left, themselves to become the early stages in the food chain as shoals of mackerel fed upon them and shark upon the mackerel.
We sat for hours in the Land Rover, waiting for the boats to return, as Dad held court in the pub, expounding his entrepreneurial skill at breeding and selling worms, even though he technically stole them from other peoples’ poop farms, and he regularly discoursed coarsely upon his many sexual conquests, while spending, spending, spending, the money so hard won from the earth over the past year.
We would get somewhat bored with our hard steel seats in the back of our vehicle, so my brother and I decided that we must further explore the surrounding area. With the knowledge that Dad was in for a session, we snuck out of the back of the Land Rover by sliding under the back of the brown hood, onto the tow hitch and down to the ground.
We made a beeline for the nearby bridge, which separated Rhyl from Towyn by simply spanning the Clwyd at its narrowest point. This bridge was made for climbing on and climbing under. It was a huge steel arch which supported a thin two-way road, but beneath it ran large gas pipes from the giant steel gas tanks behind the harbor, which went up and down spirally with demand, and delivered the smelly coal gas to the homes and small industries that lined the coast.
We struck across the bridge in a trot and down to the boat yard, where a man with gray hair was building the largest superstructure I have ever seen onto the deck of an old ship’s lifeboat. We had watched him before, many times, and this time we were determined to get a closer look at what he was up to. Slithering down the rocks and up to the boat, we stood in awe as he cut wood, bent steel and welded tubes. He worked alone, in fevered sullenness. He ignored us, so we took a step closer. On the ground lay three perfect masts, complete with spars laying parallel to them. The rear of the boat rose from the deck like a castle, and the prow boasted a figurehead made of wood, and a small bowsprit, with a marlinspike and chains. To the side, a pair of prettily painted signs bore the name “Mayflower.” He was building a replica of the pilgrims’ vessel. The boat was shored with timbers, and set on railway sleepers above the tide line. Fascination overcame me, and I commenced to kick against one of the wooden chocks to see exactly how firm this vessel was, and how safe it was in an upright position without water to support it. The man whirled in an instant, as the chock flew out the boat creaked and heaved in a miserable groan to list slightly in my direction, just then the old man retrieved the chock and ignoring us, frenziedly hammered it back into place with a maul. Understanding our error, and the effects of gravity once again being burned into our thick skulls, we fled to watch him from a distance as he explained to another boater the problem with children, pointing and waving in our direction. Not to be outdone by gesturing, I shot him a V, bared my arse in his direction and ran off the bridge giggling.
For many weeks we discreetly watched his progress as the ship grew masts and spars and a paint job that would have impressed Michelangelo, until the day finally came, with a big flood tide, that the launch was ready. The Mayflower was secured with ropes, which stretched across the harbor, and men in wader boots and oilskins stood with beer and booze to await the tide. Finally, the word was given and the ropes became taut. They sprung dripping from the water in a twang and a hiss, and with a creak, the hemp stretched until the boat moved and began to slide down its sleepers to reluctantly enter the harbor. Gaining momentum it finally slithered into the water to a loud cheer from an expectant crowd that had lined the harbor railings for the occasion. A lugubrious wake pushed its way across the harbor and it made boats bob and swing on their mooring buoys while these orange, spherical tie up points would stretch against their chains. The huge lifeboat, now complete with a captain on its mock poop deck, and a bold figurehead bouncing at the waves to its bow, wavered, then it began to rock from side to side. This caused the captain to run from one side to the other to try to keep his balance. Finally, with a sad creak and a big splash, the boat keeled over, ditching its skipper, to fold beneath the harbor waves on its side. It was top heavy, and having no keel other than some concrete ballast in its hold, it succumbed to a high center of gravity and died on the bottom of the harbor, where it was to await its sad showing after the tide had ebbed. The harbor was full of broken dreams and un-kept promises. The deep mud of its basin still hides many nautical failures.
All around men were aghast, all that is except Frank, who turning to his friends he muttered the inevitable cliché that was so often to leave his lips, “I told you so.”
On another occasion, we noticed what appeared to be a coat floating below us as we swung on the green railings over the highest part of the Voryd. It rolled with the current to reveal the green and blue bloated face of a corpse. Each of the eye sockets were empty, having been plucked clean by the crabs, and the lips were torn off, to reveal the mouth, agape, with only one set of teeth.
Not to be kept out of this new excitement, I retrieved my own personal hand line of orange nylon fishing gut, from the back of the Land Rover, and heaved the weight and hook over the body until it snagged, and then pulled, very slowly, very slowly indeed, until the floating mass came up alongside my feet. I sent my little brother across the road to The Schooner to get Dad and his cronies.
There must have been some confusion, since my brother stumbled into the cigarette clouded bar full of ruddy-faced drunks to announce that his brother had caught a dead body. Eventually three of them, including an off duty Constable Roberts, came across the road and down the steps.
Far from praising me, they cursed me, and one of the men went down the quay to untie a small rowing boat and rowed it back to where I stood with my prized corpse. Securing a rope around the neck of the corpse, the man rowed it across the harbor, in tow, and dragging the jacket, he unceremoniously pulled the sad soggy mass of fetid rotting flesh up a slipway, left he it there and rowed back.
I was mortified, this was my corpse, not his, I had found it, so I wanted it back. In my head I had already prepared my brave speech to be printed in the Rhyl Journal, about how I rescued a dead dude from the harbor. Now nobody at school would believe that I once, be it only briefly, owned my own dead man.
The river was the division between two counties. We were in County Flintshire, and across the bridge and harbor was County Denbighshire. A corpse was a mass of paper work for a policeman, so the Flintshire policemen had decided to give the corpse to their counterparts across the river in the next county, and let them have the headache. This was all right for the grown up policemen, but as far as I was concerned, it was still my cadaver. I struck off up the steps to the road and across the bridge, to stand guard over my personal find until a small white Ford arrived with two uniformed officers in it. Quite soon, this first police car to arrive was joined by a second police car, this one was a black Austin, and a big fat guy in a suit that smelled of sweat and cigarettes climbed out. He wheezed through the small crowd who were now poking at my lifeless find. Not to be outdone I ceremoniously announced that I had found the body and that any reward was mine. He looked at me as if I was an alien from outer space.
To gain his attention, and prove my point, to get myself in the papers, and to ensure my celebrity status at school, I went on to tell him how I had bravely hooked my catch, brought it up to the steps across the river and how Constable Roberts had made a man row it across here and dump it. Could I have it back please, or at the very least, have my picture taken alongside it.
As the ambulance came, and men in blue and white piled the bag of bloated green flesh that I owned into it, I pleaded with the fat man, telling him it was “finders keepers.” He got into his car, after telling the ambulance men to wait before removing it to any place, and he also told them to ignore the sick kid. I looked around, but I could not see any other kids except me, so I assumed that they had a prior patient somewhere who was young and sick, but not as important as my dead geezer was.
The policeman drove out from the slipway and over the bridge, a journey of two minutes where he stopped at The Schooner Inn. By the time he walked in, I had run across the bridge and I arrived panting, still intent on pleading my case, which was that I owned the thing and needed a story written up about me. Many men emerged from the pub, the fat man pointed at me, and Dad and Constable Roberts glared. Voices were raised, and the man stamped off. The body belonged to County Flintshire, our county, and we could have it back.
Instead of being heralded as the finder of a corpse and a brave little boy, hooking a cadaver and reeling it in, Dad grabbed my arm, whacked me on the side of the head making me cry, and took me to the Land Rover, where he tied me in, sobbing. He informed me that I had really messed up his day, and the day of many others with my big mouth. Confused, I sobbed in self pity and anger at the loss of my dead guy, as Dad returned to the pub and Constable Roberts followed the ambulance to the morgue at the local hospital to start the mountain of paper work that goes with a find like mine.
All this messing around in the river and sea, the rods and reels and tales of daring do had Frank re-think his life. He decided that we needed a boat.
That January, straight after Christmas, we were duly informed that we were going on a road trip. This was a first as a family, and we looked forward to it with much anticipation. Frank had armed himself with various magazines and chronicles, all about boats. Mam packed the Land Rover the night before. Boxes of sandwiches and soda pop, went in first along with a special bed for my little sister. Clothes, rugs and bedding were all laid down in the back, along with pillows and books for us to read. Upon completion of the task, the horrible poodle Sue was locked in the kitchen with enough food and water for a week, while Dad lined the floor with copious sheets of The Sunday Times, for her to crap on without getting a good hiding. Instead of sending us to bed, we were shuffled into the rear of the vehicle like an excited gaggle of geese, and with the now familiar odor of diesel, the lumpy engine hammered into life and we were off in the dark, to drive through the night.
We drove for hours and hours, with nothing to look at in the dark and nothing to listen to other than the drone of the heavy engine and the bickering of our parents on the front seats. My big sister threw up and we had to stop to clean up the vomit. My Dad stopped for a pee, and was caught by the lights of a passing sedan which sped by in comfort, to be followed by a long “F you” and the very familiar V sign from Dad’s right hand was waved in the air. We were going to London. Dad had decided we were to attend the great Earl’s Court Boat Show. It took us a solid twelve hours to get to London, and after much ado, Dad parked, we woke up and cleaned the crumbs and pieces of diced carrot left over from my sister’s vomit off our clothes and climbed creakily out.
London was just fantastic, and the trials and minor tribulations, such as being awakened south of Northampton to admire the Newport Pagnell glass foot bridge over the motorway were soon forgotten. We were here.
I spent the day with my little brother, and we soon learned how to escape from our parents. Never had we seen such huge boats, and such rich people. The color and variety was more than our eyes could take in all at once. They actually had a complete harbor in here, as big as the Voryd but without my favorite smells. The water was so clean you actually see the bottom, and not a single turd floated on the surface, just a few candy wrappers and cigarette butts.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, we decided to find Frank and Barbara because the pangs of hunger were hitting hard, and we had already been chased out of two booths with free food, and twice relieved of some trophies we had purloined. Going up to a booth laced with the most wonderful food we had seen, where beautiful people lingered, I practiced my sob, climbed aboard their speedboat and burst into some of the best tears I could muster. I blubbered how we had been separated from our parents, and how they had come down here all the way from Wales to buy a big yacht for us to sail across the ocean in. How they owned a harbor in Wales, and how my Dad was a huge businessman, and we needed to find him and Mam.
Struggling to understand us behind our mock blubbering and thick accents, a woman with huge pointy boobs, nipples pressing hard from within a thin blouse over an almost transparent bra, gingerly put her arms around us, avoiding the snot stains on the shoulders of our shirts, and escorted us up onto the front of this fabulous giant speed boat, while sending a man to a booth to have an announcement made.
We were offered cola and sandwiches, which we woofed down, returning uninvited back to the buffet to demolish the sausage rolls and shrimp in their entirety, when we heard our moment of fame. Across the loud speaker, and all around the vast indoor arena we heard our names mentioned, twice. I cried some more, or at least tried to, in the hope that big boobs would cuddle me, no such luck. Stamping along the walkway came Frank and Barbara, a sorry looking sight indeed. My big sister scuffed along sullenly behind them, and Dad had my little sister piggy back on his rear. He was in his irremovable khakis with holey socks under his leather sandals and sweat on his shirt. He still had black stubble on his unshaved face from the journey down here, and the Players cigarette, which dangled from his lip, rakishly dropped its ash on his chest.
Gruffly he called us down, clacked us for running off, much to the chagrin of big boobs, who told him that any man who was contemplating sailing across the Atlantic on a fifty foot yacht with his entire family, should learn to tolerate them, because the journey would be long and arduous, and the children would be there all the time. Now usually, Frank would have simply told someone like this to stop meddling and F off. However, seeing the size of her voluptuous and ample bosom, the narrowness of her hips and the expertly applied mascara over the false eyelashes, her bright blue eye shadow and beehive bouffant bleach blond hairdo, had his ego and other parts of his masculinity piqued. He unceremoniously shuffled us out of the way, thrusting us towards his ever suffering spouse, and commenced to take up the yarn from where I left it off. He climbed aboard with a few of the reps present and had a gin and tonic thrust into his hand. I wanted to pee badly, and even my big sister stood crossed legged and squinty eyed in anticipation of the restrooms, so we left Dad there.
Sometime later he found us, at a small milk bar, supping floats and eating crumbs off the table. Mam scowled at him, whereupon he announced that he had met everyone of importance and had been hailed and entertained as an out of town celebrity. He discoursed on the daring do of his new friend Wendy and her colleagues, finally he announced that he had bought a boat.
I was elated, and remembering the great Sunseeker, with its huge engines, cabin and steering wheel, and its sleek long white lines, I was beside myself with glee, wanting desperately to get home to share this wonderful news with my friends.
Mam seemed pleased, if only because Frank seemed pleased, as he announced that this no longer qualified us as distinctly middle class, or even upper middle class, but since we owned our own business, had a detached house, a Land Rover, and Horse Box and now a Boat, we could technically be termed the New Aristocracy. My chest swelled with pride, and with his tasks at the boat show complete, Dad marched his weary throng back to the multi level car-parking garage, to commence the journey home, cuffing me across the head in preparation for the several whacks I could expect on the long and uncomfortable, vomit inducing, ride. All this we completed as a family in a single day.
I drifted in and out of sleep on the return journey, I listlessly rolled around the back of the Land Rover, crushing my brother, all of this to the thought of speeding across the bay in our huge new boat, with a foaming wake behind us, the engines throbbing, envious peasants waving from the shore, Dad and Mam, entertaining wealthy businessmen who would be dining aboard, and Rhiannon Roberts in a swim suit up on the bow.
Chapter fourteen
The Valkyre
During our wait for the great boat to be made and delivered, winter set in with a terrible vengeance. That winter, during March and February, we saw a return to The Ice Age. We woke one frosty morning to a very strange, bleak but strong light through our thin curtains on the bedroom window. Climbing down from my bunk bed, careful to stand on my little brother’s head to awaken him, we chiseled the half inch layer of frost off the inside of our bedroom window and peered out. The entire landscape was encrusted in snow, it was deep and cold. Drifts of the driving snow had packed up against the house and outside there was no traffic or even tire marks on the road. The trees on the corner had layers of thick white frosting on their bare boughs, and the entire lower village was shrouded in an eerie silence.
From downstairs we heard the cough that announced to us that Dad had not gone out in the Land Rover, and the smell of a strong wood fire in the middle room drifted up the narrow stairs. Not bothering to wash, which we seldom did any morning, my little brother and I dressed in layers of tattered vests, long wool pants which we pulled from under the bed, socks, woolly jerseys and for good measure a balaclava helmet each, and we went downstairs.
The snow had piled up against the front of the window downstairs and the wind was still piling it against the glass in arctic drifts. This was the start of the infamous winter of our generation, a killer storm that was to endure and grip our valley in ice for over six weeks. The back door was clear, and Mam had already begun clearing snow for us to get to the shed, so we could get more logs. The coal bunker next to the bathroom was low on fuel, and my big sister toiled within, scraping the last of the dust and small cobbles of anthracite into the brass coal scuttle, with no prospect of the coal men delivering soon. Logs were all we had to heat the home, heat our water boiler and to crouch around. The gale that had carried the snowstorm from the arctic had also dislodged our television antenna, and its spines, crusted in snow and ice, poked from the drift in the front yard.
It was a school day, but already it was late, and we looked forward to getting out to make snowmen, and not going to school. Mam had a breakfast to match the weather, and the grainy aroma of Scott’s Porridge Oats drifted from the kitchen, and she emerged with hot steaming bowls of it for everyone, as we sat cross legged in a curve around the warm hearth, dodging sparks from the crackling logs, while Dad grumbled at his lack of a morning paper, then continued on to tell us about the last ice age, and how its glaciers and snow melt had carved our valleys and hills, depositing mineral rich earth in its wake, and the drumlins of sand, that formed such outcrops as Doll Hill.
Still not a sound came from outside, no traffic noise, no milkman whistling, no postman knocking, no paper boy singing, until my big sister called from upstairs to announce that a lone sole was coming from the direction of Meliden, with his head down against the wind, and with a long green and red college scarf around his neck. As he neared, we recognized our teacher, Mr. Wynn Jones, bravely as he bravely battled the conditions to get to school. We knocked on the window and hollered until he heard us, and he crossed the road, and came around to our back door, where Mam welcomed him in, and he entered, his thin body frosted and cold.
After a cup of tea, he seemed none the worse for his perilous journey, and suggested to Mam and Dad that I could walk to school with him through the snow, and he would deliver me home later. I was thrilled, and Mam dressed me up still further, and with one of my sister’s old duffel coats wrapped over more layers of Lizzy’s sweaters, I dragged on a pair of knitted mittens and my big welly boots, until I resembled a knitted sphere, so as to be able to walk alongside my heroic teacher. I waved to Mam as the house receded behind me in the remains of the blizzard.
Within minutes, I had sunk deep into the snow, so deep it went down my wellies, and formed ice chunks that clung to my socks and chafed my shins and ankles. The journey was miserable, but this, my first real snow, was enthralling, and through the biting wind, Mr. Jones went on to tell me how the frontal systems of our regional meteorology affected us, and how old ladies died of something called hypothermia, which for a long time I thought to be a drink they took in cold weather, the logic of which defeated me, but I asked no questions, simply clinging to his coat as we commenced to climb the great steps.
The waterfall was partly frozen, and giant icicles hung eerily from the top, only a small hole in the deep pool below allowed the remaining water to trickle and get by. Miniature icebergs floated in the stream, and the snow encrusted every living and non-living thing in a white sound muffling blanket, making our voices ring differently from normal. Crystals sparkled in what little ominous light illuminated our chilly day, and the powder crunched beneath our feet.
It took us a long time to get to school, and when we arrived our welcome was that of heroes. Surprisingly many other teachers had also braved the weather as well as most of my pals and gang members and we quickly agreed to the creation of igloos and snowmen, snowball fights and sled rides from the embracing cocoon of the classroom as we perched atop the hot radiator pipes, warm and comforting on our small cold bums. Our trousers steamed to the scent of small boys, sweat and earth, making the windows mist up, so we could draw hideous gargoyles and hearts with arrows through them in the condensation.
The shrill ring of a bell announced that it was dinnertime. I loved school dinners, and this day, due in most part to the lack of pupils, Mr. Roberts entered the canteen to announce that anyone who wanted seconds was welcome to them. I was of course delighted, and went back for several more dishes of hot beef stew with potatoes and my favorite apple dumpling dessert, all consumed while I sat next to Rhiannon, at times actually touching her gray skirt and warm thigh, making my face flush and her demeanor even shier, but she did not pull away, and her Dad, our wonderful and revered headmaster said that we could all go home after dinner. Snow time!
It had finally stopped snowing. The drifts were deep, but the pathways had been manually cleared by the janitor, who had spread spent ashes of coke from the boilers on the surface. We made a beeline for the school field under flat clouds as gray and dull as aged roof lead. The day was turning even colder, our breath plumed before us in misty clouds, and our small hands tingled and stung, our fingertips were aglow with the irritation of chilblains.
A new and desolate landscape lay before us. Where there had once been green and muddy fields, there was now snow, as far as the eye could see. The distant Snowdonia range towered white and blue in the cold sky. Trees that were once bare were now laden with several feet of snow, with the occasional dull thud indicating a fall of several hundred pounds of it from sagging boughs.
We first rolled a snowball. The snow turned to ice on our thin woolen mittens and our skin beneath turned raw and sore, but we didn’t care. This was a new experience to be enjoyed in all its available manifestations. The ball became too big to push, so we made another and then another and lined them up to hide behind so that we could hurl nasty snowballs as hard as cannon fire at the girls who gingerly stepped along the icy pathway to the lower school gate.
Finally we commenced our walk downhill to the lower village. The pathways were sheets of ice, the snow having been cleared by the now emerging population under their frugal endeavors to regain normalcy. Our rubber boots made poor skates, but we ran and slid our way home as best as we could. We arrived in time to see Dad clear a drift that had completely hidden the Land Rover.
He took us to the old shed, and there, to our delight, he had spent the morning making me a sled from some old planks and some two by four pine as runners, on which he had secured steel bands, polished and shiny.
The Gover field already rang to the sounds of children and adults alike skidding down the slopes on their own makeshift sleighs. Ian Jones went one better, and he had purloined a complete car hood from the tip, and this made the fastest and best sled of all.
That weekend, we decided to go in search of the greatest slope of all, rumored to be on the side of Cwm Mountain and estimated to be a mile in length. We had spent the week carefully currying favor with the Cwm Cannibals in our class, so that upon our arrival we would not be set upon. Wrapped in all the coats and socks we could find, my little brother and I dragged our sled the four miles up the village and across the base of Dyserth Mountain and on to Cwm. We were not to be disappointed, and from over a mile distant, we could hear the shrieks and yelps of sliding children, and on the side of the hill we watched the ant like dots of bob sleighing kids careen down hill, leaning back on their machines clutching the ropes on the front of their sleds.
We stayed too long, we didn’t eat, and we became cold. I so readily recall the terrible return journey, we were too tired even to pull our sled most of the time, and begged for a small hill to carry us down on. It took us several hours to get back, and by the time we walked into the house, my little brother had mild frostbite in his fingers, his lips were so badly chapped they bled, and his head so cold he had ice in his forelock. I hastily removed my ice encrusted outer clothes and the damp soggy layer of inner clothes was shed in a cloud of steam. Mam had us bathe near the fire with tepid water, which was so alien to us it burned and our chilblains throbbed.
The great winter, the worst in living memory, was to shroud our valley for over six weeks, so long in fact that after a week or so snow was no longer considered novel, but became a curse. Smoke from the numerous coal and wood home hearth fires hung in layers over the village, trapped by the inversion of the atmosphere. Many people died that winter, or starved or committed suicide. What started as an adventure turned again to sadness as stories emerged of people discovering cars trapped under drifts on the high moors, with their drivers and families dead within. Old ladies seemed to suffer more than anyone, and we were all careful to ensure that Old Huck and Eleanor, Tommy One Leg and others of the older generation in our family were cared for.
Dad, of course, was now in demand, a position he relished, since The Land Rover was one of the few local vehicles with four wheel drive and good traction, he had to keep it in the old shed, and keep a paraffin heater burning near it all night, so as to prevent the diesel in the tanks from turning into a sludgy wax.
As the early part of the year wore on and the snow receded to once again reveal our muddy vale, Dad got a letter, announcing that the boat was to be delivered the following Saturday.
We were delighted, and at school I had already commenced creating tickets and selling them to my classmates. These tickets would ensure that the child would be picked up by Dad, carried to the boat, and would be allowed to steer it for a whole ten minutes. Of course I had yet to consummate this agreement with my Dad, but seeing as how the great boat was so big and fast, I assumed at the very least I could get a few stowaways aboard. I was very equable, and for those who could not immediately afford the two shillings a ride, I was prepared to value favorite toys and take them in exchange, and even allowed Foster to pay by installments over several weeks, the interest being a regular supply of fruit gums.
That Saturday morning I had the pleasure of far many more playmates than normal crowding into our back yard. Mam, of course, was pleased to see that I was so popular, and to encourage me to cultivate longer term relationships she lectured me on how not to tease and that sometimes I would have to play the Indian, and lose at Cowboys and Indians, advice I followed rather reluctantly, but after taking a few scalps and burying my tomahawk in Neil Halliday’s head, I figured that even Indians could win sometimes.
It was about the same as when he rubbed his head that we heard the rumble of a truck coming down the through the village. With a series of diesel plumed revs and a crunching of gears, the low loader came to a stop outside the permanently broken black wooden gate that was the entrance to our dirt drive.
On its back was a black oilcloth tarpaulin, which covered what appeared to be a giant turtle. Dad was ecstatic.
Better than I originally thought, it seems we were receiving other wonders while the boat came. The children gathered around the rough rock fence, and leaned on the rickety gate, while the men climbed down from the cab and busied themselves, untying the cover. As they rolled it back, it revealed a bright yellow small wooden boat, up turned on the truck. Then it occurred to me: this was the boat that would take us out to our speedboat. The boat was sufficiently small, that the men alone could lift it off the back of the truck and carry it up the driveway, and with it came a small two wheel trailer, a mast, a gaff rigged spar, a bag of sails, two oars with galvanized row locks and a heavy crate.
The truck left, but the gathered children didn’t, not until that is Dad shooed them all away and they scuffed on up the ragged road, punching and teasing each other, letting off their catapults at the only street lamp in the lower village.
We commenced to busy ourselves as a family around the coracle. I asked my Dad about the big boat, and he looked at me with his usual face reserved for when he thought I had come from outer space. This was it, there was no big boat. Three hundred and fifty English pound notes had got him this sad little sieve. The surface of the boat was rough, its oars decidedly heavy and its open seating cold. Dad discarded the mast, laying it at the side of the shed and commenced to open the large wooden crate that came with the boat.
The crate contained a wonderful machine, an outboard motor, made of steel and brass, with a small propeller. This was a five horsepower British Seagull outboard motor, complete with a polished brass gallon fuel tank on its top and a tiller for steering. Life wasn’t so bad after all.
This little boat kept my father’s attention for weeks. He began to neglect the worm farm and as business tailed off, he would spend hours fixing and modifying his small craft. He built a plywood canopy on the bow, as ugly as one of my big sister’s helmets, and he equipped the small cockpit it created with a primus stove. He bought anchors and chains, ropes and small buoys and crafted lifejackets for us from orange canvas stuffed with blocks of expanded polystyrene from an old packing crate, and which he tied together with red nylon rope.
The day of the first launch was very memorable, and Dad hitched the hybrid craft up to the back of the dirty Land Rover and we were off as a family. It was a mild day, and he had sanded and re-varnished the hull several times and he had painted the ugly canopy white, hooked the engine to the back and cocked it for the short drive to the beach. The inside was loaded with cheap fishing rods and reels as well as packets of new and colorful mackerel feathers. The anticipation of his first voyage glowed in his face, to match the end of the dangling Capstan cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. He had decided, wisely as it happens, to launch the boat from the RNLI slipway on Rhyl front. He had checked the tides accordingly and announced that he would launch on a turn from flood to ebb and come back in on the next flood.
All the previous night he had been up with a bottle of scotch and several books on mythology. He had been searching for a name for his small craft. After much page turning in his stolen reference books, he had read about the bravery and heroism of the Norsemen, who had pillaged our craggy coastline during earlier centuries. He had noted that his small boat had also been crafted in clinkered pine in Norway, and had decided to name it something Viking.
He told us of Odin, the God of the Vikings, and his son Thor, the God of thunder and war, who would accompany the brave seamen on their outward journeys to rape, pillage and burn as far afield as Iceland and Greenland to the North, and Africa to the South. I really liked the sound of these Viking fellows, they seemed to have got it right and I felt very proud that my hybrid Welsh blood had distant Viking in it, and so I made a promise to myself to get some cow horns to stick on my balaclava helmet as soon as I could.
He explained that our height as Welshmen, as well as Mam’s flaming tresses of chestnut hair, was due to our Viking blood. We learned how when the Vikings returned to their deep cold fjords from their journeys they would be welcomed by flying angels of the North, called the Valkyre. So Dad had determined to always return safely from his brave and death defying fishing forays two hundred yards offshore by the sewer outlet buoy, by naming his sturdy little boat Valkyre, for good luck, and to appease the Norse God Odin, who was apparently still quite influential regarding the state of the sea and its tides.
Now for myself, I still had the myth to perpetuate that this small wooden craft, originally built for sail and now utterly unrecognizable, with its stubby homemade cockpit and buzzing two stroke outboard, was the emergency tender for our big boat, which of course I had also now realized was not coming, and that this was the big boat. So the stories at school flowed. One day I was to announce that pirates had regretfully stolen the largest of our boats, which was normally moored in Conway harbor.
These pirates were Irishmen, who had been busy running guns to the Irish Republican Army. During this incident it had sunk off the Isle of Man. I doubt many of my class mates believed me, but I was at least able to get out of the lie with a decent tale of bravery on the part of myself and Dad who had been, according to my account, cast adrift off the Great Orme, with only a bottle of water and a piece of bread each, and we had to catch fish with our bare hands to survive until a naval minesweeper arrived and took us aboard. For some reason I was called Fire Pants for a while, I considered it a pretty decent nickname, until I learned some days later that behind my back my classmates would taunt me with the cruel chant “Liar, liar pants on fire”. The lie however was to come back and haunt my Dad some time later, when he was arrested and accused of doing exactly that from Rhyl harbor.
Back at the launch of Valkyre, our journey to the sea and the Life Boat Station ramp was reasonably uneventful, other than the trailer dragging badly around corners and collecting great tufts of weeds in its small black fenders, on our rush along the narrow and poorly maintained Old Rhyl Road. Upon arrival Dad reversed it onto the launch ramp and he backed it down towards the crashing waves.
With the trailer also afloat on its tires, he unleashed the bowline from the trailer hitch and pushed Valkyre out into the surf off the trailer, he pulled the boat up the ramp by its bow rope to grind its keel runner on the concrete and crash up and down in the small waves, Mam pulled the vehicle and trailer up and Dad threw me over the bow into the boat.
Mam stared, a worried look on her freckled face, as the family waved goodbye to my Dad and myself, and he was rowing strongly across the surf line and into the small swell. At an undetermined distance, he stowed the oars and fiddled with the engine, the strong pungency of two stroke oil and petrol mingling with the brine of the greenish gray, murky sea. We were now way, way off shore, nearly 30 feet or so. Curses flew from our captain’s mouth as he wound the ripcord on the flywheel and tugged and tugged. After some time, and getting closer to shore, he returned to the oars, telling me to sit up by the bow in the small cabin and keep my mouth shut and to face the other way. A strange request I thought, since I was sat up in the bow cabin, facing the other way with my mouth shut already, I was becoming decidedly fed up with this whole escapade.
Eventually, Dad turned on the gas tap that linked the fuel tank to the engine through a thin copper pipe, and with a press of a rubber bulb, and a tug on the cord, the engine flew into throbbing life and the boat lurched forward towards the shore.
Grabbing the tiller, he heaved it towards him and the boat spun on the crest of a wave, much of which washed over the side and into the boat, soaking us both, until we finally had our small vessel headed out to sea, to fish while tied to the nearest sewage buoy, some three hundred yards off shore.
It was a marvelous moment, catching our own mackerel, also, long lines with weights were dropped to the bottom, it was nearly twenty feet deep, a huge depth, and each of their hooks were baited with lug worm and were lowered heavily into the murk, to encourage stupid flounders, dabs and sole to eat them and be caught.
Our catch was splendid, three mackerel, and a huge flounder that must have weighed in at over five ounces. It was slimy and ugly. A was a drab gray flat fish with ugly beady eyes and sharp little teeth. I decided that if it was eaten, it was to be saved for my big sister.
Encouraged by his catch, Dad unhitched our brave boat from the buoy and we set off for deeper water. The sea rolled gently beneath us, the salt air was crisp on our face, I peered out from behind the canopy and leaned over the side, the small clinker craft listed, and Dad leaned across, bellowed and whacked me to sit in the middle and look ahead.
We crested what seemed like large waves and looked back at the receding shoreline, the tiny lifeboat station became just a distant lump on a hazy horizon. The length of the coast stretched out, and we could see as far as the perches that marked the Voryd harbor and beyond that. Each time we topped a wave, the Great Orme loomed menacingly in the distance. The next stop was over a mile offshore, and this time, Dad cut the engine and scrambled to the ugly cockpit with its seeping glass windows and dropped the anchor. He fed out the chain, and then the rope, securing it to a stanchion on the bow and running it through a fair lead, just as he had during his brief excursion in the navy.
He dug deep in a straw bag, and pulled out a pound of pink best back bacon, its rind was hard and juicy and lined with fat. A loaf of white thick sliced Mother’s Pride bread, still in its greaseproof paper wrapper came next. This was my favorite bread. The primus was pumped and an ancient frying pan, dug out from the shed, was placed upon the tiny hissing stove, and held in place by my hand. We were having bacon butties for lunch. This was an absolute luxury.
With two rods down, Dad fished to his heart’s content, and more huge and ugly flatfish came aboard. Giant herring gulls wheeled overhead, and Dad threw them fish guts, which caused them to dip and dive and fight in mid air over their fishy offal. A much improved diet for them I am sure, from the soft turds and chip wrappers they consumed with equal relish down by the harbor and marina fairground, where the sewers let out.
We ate our make do sandwiches almost raw, with the bacon grease dripping from between the sheets of bread, and the rinds chewy and indigestible. Dad leaned across and wiped his final crust into the old pan, sopping up the sad and sickly fat for consumption. The sea air certainly had given us an appetite.
Finally I plucked up the courage to tell Dad how cold and wet I really was, and the motion of the sea on my grease filled stomach did little to make me comfortable. He glowered at me, swore and reduced me to tears, saying that this was my first and last trip with him on Valkyre, but upon checking his watch he realized that we had been at sea for nearly four hours. Weighing anchor, he started up the engine and turned our wide bellied little boat towards the shore. The engine was small, and the tide strong, he had lost sight of the Life Boat Station, and was now beginning to panic. We buzzed along, as the large swells of a turning tide surfed us up so the propeller sometimes whirred in air, and not in water where it should have been. We cut along almost parallel to the coast, crabbing in towards it. Land neared, but landmarks that we recognized were few. With no radio and only a small safety emergency kit purchased for a few shillings from Bob Snot’s, our chances of getting back from whence we launched looked slim.
With a jolt, the boat stopped, the engine juddered and the bow dug in deep, tossing Dad from the transom to the middle of the boat, where he lay in a cursing heap, tangled in hooks and line, his hand slipping on the back of a dying flounder. We had run aground.
The sea was ebbing fast, and the boat listed sideways, as surf pounded around us, Dad scrabbled to the bow, and dipped into the straw basket for his safety pouch. The primus stove had spilled its load into the mean bilge, and a colorful oil slick formed around the centerboard casing. Seeing this, Dad then had the sense of mind to lift the centerboard, and the boat began to upright itself and it began again to move with the waves.
We drifted, first towards shore and then away, rhythmically following the will of the cold waves. Finally, we grounded, some eight or nine hundred yards from shore on a sand bank, and we just the sat there, until the foul cockle sands emerged and we were left marooned like a small ark on a smelly bank.
The boat rolled to its side, and we sat like two castaways wondering where we were. Daylight was fading fast, but finally Dad announced that we were off Abergele, he had recognized the lights of a pub, always a good beacon for Dad, but to get ashore was to risk life and limb, since there were still deep channels of swirling water as well as quick sands to overcome should we have struck out.
I was cold, wet and miserable. We had no water, food or warmth. Dad was angry and took it out on me, saying that I was supposed to have been looking ahead and keeping watch. I couldn’t explain that my young body was equipped without sonar, radar, or x-ray eyes, and just took his tirade of insults accordingly.
As it got dark the tide was well and truly ebbing at speed, and we could actually see no water at all between our sadly listing hulk, and the great sea wall of Abergele, but we were too scared to venture from the confines of the boat for fear of the sands.
After many hours of myself wailing, and Dad cursing, a fantastic sound befell our cold ears. It was the welcome noise of a farm tractor. We heard an engine rev and chains rattle, finally lights appeared and to our amazement a Massey Furgeson tractor with a scraper behind it came into view. The man stopped and climbed down onto the sand and walked across. He was dumbfounded upon seeing us.
With some care and much pushing, the cockle hunter and his team pulled our sad little craft to the Abergele boat ramp, and left us there. Much to Dad’s amazement they didn’t ask for salvage fees or even a beer, but just went back to their dreadful trade of pulling their cockle harvest from the muddy sands for sale to the pickle factories and bottlers of Lancashire.
Finally on real land, I felt very much braver, and so did Dad. Checking his pockets he was fortunate to discover a ten shilling note, soggy and sad, its red faced queen offering a severe glower from its wide sheet, so, he informed me to stay put, as he loped across the road and into the pub. I stood in the dark. I was cold, I was wet and I was whiny. The fish in the bilge stank and mingled with the smell of two stroke fuel and the paraffin from the primus stove, I smelled the same, but mixed with pee.
After what seemed like an age, Dad returned, and cursed, as he informed that Mam was not at home, but that in Rhyl, according to the lads in the bar, there was an emergency sea rescue going on. In the distance we saw the huge maroons of the Rhyl Life Boat Launch into the air and with the delay of sound over light we watched and then heard them crump to open to their parachuted descent, which lingered over the sea miles away in the distance.
Dad went back to the pub, and returned with another man. Apparently, according to the man, some idiot and a kid had left in a small boat to fish on the buoys and had disappeared. The Life Boat was out and the sands of the Rhyl tidal banks were being combed for evidence of the pair of fools. By all accounts, the idiot had not got a radio and no real flares and wasn’t even wearing a life jacket. Dad and the man conversed regarding how stupid some people could be when the man asked who we were and why we had a sad small boat pulled against the quay. Finally it dawned on them both, and sheepishly Dad crossed to the pub and called Rhyl Life Boat Station.
An hour later, the police and Mam arrived, she towing the trailer. Statements were exchanged and the boat was tugged onto the trailer. I burst into tears, while my big sister smirked, confirming my suspicion that I had caused the entire sorry event to happen. I peed myself again, and cried all the way home in the back of the cold Land Rover.
Dad persevered, and became an expert seaman off North Wales. The little Valkyre took all of his attention, and his fishing became excellent. He even managed to get out to the Constable banks in it on a clear flat day, and he used to return with conger eels, tope and myriads of flat fish. He spent more time amongst his new comrades of the sea and spent what little money remained in the Schooner Inn at the harbor.
Mam, meanwhile, was left to manage what was left of business back at the bait farm. She would get up early, collect the pickers, deliver them to their sewage farms, and pick them up at night. She would organize the moss collection from the moors and have Old Huck and Eleanor work in the counting shed, filling cartons with the worms and then she would dispatch them via Prestatyn railway station to their destinations in England, for people to buy from small time fishing stores and use as bait in muddy ponds and polluted rivers that blotched their landscape.
Valkyre became an integral part of my own young life at that time, and I too became an excellent seaman, spending much time with Dad. We would brave the biggest waves under the largest of moons to get out to the fishing banks. Far from being ridiculed by the larger fishing boats and their passengers who would charter trips from Rhyl, our bravery and fortitude on the sea was much admired, and Dad became an expert in not only the tides, banks and currents off North Wales, but also on fish. He eventually was requested to write for a column in the Angling Times, read nationwide by fishermen, and with his family and his worm farm forgotten he embarked upon an entirely new course as cause for drinking celebration.
One such evening, after Mam had finally got Old Huck home, and the parcels to the station, we four children were left at home while she went to collect our family fisherman from the Schooner Inn in Rhyl. I, of course, wanting nothing of my big sister’s attention snuck out to engage in my usual practice of rural guerilla warfare. I started at Glenys Price’s house, and snuck into their back yard to peer through the crack in their curtains. This I followed up with by stealing the milk money left on one of the spinster’s steps and then I let the tires down on one of Edward Hughes’ cement mixers. My internal clock was always aware of the time, and I commenced my journey home to arrive ahead of Mam and Dad. When I turned the corner to our rickety black gate, and started up the dirt drive, a huge explosion confronted me. At the top of the drive, the old shed was aflame, and a flashing tongue of fire spat up into the air. I ran inside to tell my sister, who immediately started crying.
Knowing the drill, having been told it so many times, I went to the phone and dialed the emergency number I had memorized, nine, nine, nine, and warned the lady that our shed and house were burning down.
We stood as a threesome by the back door, cowering and crying as neighbors rushed up and gathered us into their arms.
The jangling bell of a fire pump machine came up the road from Rhuddlan, and men scrambled out and ran about, the fire was immense, and the heat terrific. Finally, I saw the Land Rover pull up and Mam and Dad emerge. The boat was hooked behind it, it had jumped its trailer somewhat in the rush to get home.
Dad was livid and drunk, Mam was concerned, and rushed to account for the number and well being of her brood.
Questions were asked, and the only person who could not account for his presence in the house was myself, and so my sister threw me to the lions. I was blamed as starting the blaze. I had no defense, I was not with her, and I was not about to tell anyone what I was doing that night. So I was beaten.
The fire actually commenced with the paraffin stove, left on by Old Huck to warm the place as he worked. It had ignited the boxes of waxed cartons used for dispatching worms, and the entire building had burned to the ground.
Dad had no insurance of any kind on anything, and so our worm business now was gone, at least for the time being, financially we were technically destitute, and the family’s ability to earn an income had quite literally gone up in smoke.
I never learned how, but the aftermath of the event was that Dad was able to beg, steal and borrow the funds to not only rebuild the shed with a huge new one made from cedar and clad in expensive sheets of asbestos, but to also build and pour a complete new driveway out of concrete. It was done during warm summer days and evenings, and he had the help of many men from the village, proof indeed that there was some compassion amongst the dour tribes of our forgotten valley.
To this day both drive and shed stand as testimony to the day the old shed burned down, and as recently as six years ago I was able to repaint and recoat my beloved new shed, still called the new shed, as well as sweep out its concrete floor to the strong and recurrent memories of its building, of Dad’s toil, and the men who helped him as well as the good times I had enjoyed inside it, coupled with the memory of the misery I had endured the night the old shed burned down.
Chapter fifteen
Prestatyn Lido and The Golden Seeds
The summer of the new shed was as memorable as any that I can recall. Mam and Dad had run into severe financial difficulty, made all the worse because Dad had never bothered to keep accounts, other than his continuously overdrawn checkbook, and the men from the Revenue had begun to take an interest in his worm farm. He begged and pleaded with banks and men in suits until the family commenced a treadmill of hard work to keep the money flowing in. Many of the small shops he had originally supplied worms for on the basis of postal orders or checks, had gone over to credit, and increased their orders to him, but had not paid. Cash flow was tough. I became an indentured slave to the business, and following the seeding of the old midden site with new excrement a year previously, a fresh crop of worms was available in the back garden. To supplement the diggers, who now worked as far away as Chester for their pink fleshy crop, I was charged with supplying a further thousand worms a day from the garden. For some obscure reason I really enjoyed doing this. The ground was always rich and moist, and it allowed me the time to sit alone in the dirt, with my fork and bucket, turn the earth and chant as I counted the worms directly into cartons.
One such day, while Dad was out begging Roger Cooper the bank manager for an overdraft, and Mam was delivering the diggers to their sewage farms, I received a call from a small inn way up in the mountains of Snowdonia. He wanted three cases of medium sized cartons for sale to tourists, who wished to trot for trout in the rivers and lakes above Trefriw. Trefriw is one of North Wales’ most picturesque villages, nestling as it does on the side of a mountain, adjacent to the clean and clear flowing river Conway. It was undoubtedly one of my favorite places. The man was calling from Llyn Crafnant, and I took the call.
Without further ado, I went to the new shed, stuffed forty eight cartons with wet moss and lined them up by the midden with my fork. I dug and collected, sorted and counted. I did this laboriously, until Mam came home rumbling up the driveway in the battered Land Rover. By this time the cartons were counted and I had the paperwork ready with the name and address of the recipient as well as the hand written invoice pad for Mam.
Mam looked down at me and I actually saw tears come to her eyes. You see, delinquent though I was most of the time, I did actually have a good heart, and was sufficiently intuitive to realize that our family was in big trouble.
This was continually evidenced by such things as the fights my Dad would have in pub car parks and mysterious fields, the pile of unopened windowed envelopes as well as the regular visits by local merchants, including the man who sold Dad the new shed. By now Dad had also been requested to no longer be a Free Mason, a very rare occurrence indeed, and to this day I do not know what he did to make this happen.
Mam was delighted though to see my dedication to saving the family finances, and throwing the box in the back of the Land Rover, she asked me to climb in the back, and my little brother do the same and we were off. Old Sue, our horrible and ignorant, smelly black standard poodle ran behind as we reversed down the new concrete drive and into the road.
It was a warm day, and my brother and I climbed over the back to share the front seat next to Mam. The ride was a long one but a wonderful one, and without Dad around Mam was relaxed and at ease, in spite of looming financial difficulties. We commenced along the familiar Rhuddlan Road and past the castle, over the bridge and along the great straight to Abergele.
At Llandudno Junction we turned southerly and commenced our journey to Llanrwst. This is one of the most scenic journeys in North Wales, made more famous by the presence of the great Bodnant Gardens, which are set in arboreal splendor along the eastern hillside of the vale of Conway. We crossed the River Conway at Llanrwst. The river here is fast running and shallow. The giant pebbles on its bed are polished by the millennia of flowing waters and in the small pools entire families of trout lazily surface to consume the midges and flies of summer. They can be clearly seen from the niches cut in the old stone bridge that allowed pedestrians to shelter in as the four horse stagecoaches burned through to the stabling and coaching inns of Llanrwst, with their cargo of mail and passengers bound for Conway and eventually to Ireland, by sailing ship from Conway harbor.
Wales is steeped in history. Trefriw, across the river and a few miles north of Llanrwst is no exception. The commanding centerpiece to the village, even to this day, is the water powered woolen mill. It is here that men and women of the village alike work the noisy looms that create the distinctive Welsh tweeds that, when made into jackets and skirts, trousers and shirts, will last a person a lifetime. It is here that the road up the hill is recognized as one of the steepest ascents in North Wales, the top of which affords views that will bring any man to his knees in humility. It is here that one could say the hand of God has been most creative in his painting of beauty.
Above the village, giant granite cliffs loom perilously steep. Narrow lanes weave and wind through bowers and glades of strong Welsh oak, and the end of the road is the lake. Llyn Crafnant, a natural corrie or cwm as they are know in Wales, where a glacial moraine had dammed a valley, to form a clear and fish rich lake, surrounded by steep, cliff pocked hillsides of bleating sheep, above which whirl kites and buzzards.
Upon arrival, not only did the kind gentleman pay cash for the worms, but allowed us the use of a boat and provided us with the staple Welsh afternoon repast of tea and scones, which were smothered in clotted Welsh cream from the local dairy and topped with thick homemade strawberry jam. Nothing has changed to this day, and this delight can be purchased all year round, served by friendly and buxom young ladies clad in the well knitted woolen pullovers the mills in the hills are also famous for.
My boatmanship shone, and I sculled energetically around the lake in the small boat. Mam was finally able to relax, as she watched from the shore, as her eldest son showed off on the lake.
The journey home was as equally interesting. That year had seen a plethora of death by snake bites in Wales. Unsuspecting tourists had come across the local Welsh adders by surprise, and they had been bitten. The delay in getting them to a hospital for anti-venom had in many cases resulted in death, so imagine my delight when I sat next to Mam in the front of the Land Rover, when we came across just such an evil creature, basking on a rock at the side of the road. It was a big specimen, at least three feet long, with the tell tale yellow diamond markings across its back. I forced Mam to stop, and I leaped out. Before she could say anything I had the beast by its tail and was slinging it into the back of the Land Rover. I had every intention of taking it home as a plaything for old Sue, our belligerent bellicose poodle.
It slithered into a ball on the floor of the rear of the vehicle and with admiration of my catch and strong warnings from Mam, I leaned over and dreamed of all the fun I could have with my own poisonous snake.
By the time we got to the bottom of the hill however, I was having second thoughts. Every time I poked it, it reared and at one stage it even attempted to come over into the front seat. Mam had enough, and my little brother was decidedly scared. She said it had to go. At Trefriw we pulled into a car park, and much to my delight, right next to a huge coach from England, from which the last of the aging passengers was disembarking to go and view the famous woolen mill.
This was my chance of renewed infamy. I opened the back of the Land Rover and plucked the evil slithering beast by its tail from the rear, and pretending to Mam that I was going to set it free I hurled it through the open door of the empty coach. The driver of the coach was to eventually emerge from the rest stone rest room further down the car park, whereupon I casually commented that I had seen a snake climb aboard without a ticket. The man laughed and noted that half the passengers he had brought from Wordsley that day were pretty snaky, but it was still rude to refer to old people as snakes. Mam was beside herself now. Her embarrassment at my deed made her face glow, and my brother clung to her side as if to reassure her he had no part in it either, and that I was some demonic presence totally unrelated to them.
The driver climbed aboard to eat his sandwiches and reached beneath his seat for a lunch bag. Imagine my delight when he screamed, and came running out. Now in England, especially in the industrial heartland of the midlands, snakes were rare, but having grown up in rural Wales, we were quite familiar with them.
The driver was now in the car park, screaming and hollering, so I offered to retrieve the snake for him for a small sum. He agreed gladly, but warned me that they were the devil’s creatures. Undeterred, and with a small forked stick I had pulled from a nearby bush, I entered the coach, pinned down my poor suffering partner and pulled it from beneath his seat.
With the snake now freed, and making a fast exit to the nearest hedgerow, the man regarded me rather suspiciously, but offered me a two shilling piece for my efforts. Mam would have none of it, and ushered us quickly into the Land Rover to make the return journey home, lambasting me with talk of the dangers I continually put myself and other people in.
Having also grown up in Wales and endured a childhood in rural places, Mam too was as quite familiar with the handling of wildlife as we were, and in fact it was her and her dad Old Huck who had taught us these animal handling tricks. There was little that we feared, from snakes and lizards, slow worms to hedge hogs, pigs to pole cats, and all could be handled by most of us.
I was, however, warned of the dangers in which I placed others with my pranks, and promised not to do it again and she wouldn’t tell Dad what I did. How I loved my Mam, she was always one of us, and always the country girl inside her strained to get out. She was a woman of simple things, easy to please, a devoted wife to a rascal of a man and well liked by all who met her. To me she was the ultimate princess and my first love.
Amid my efforts to get to school, where I was now called other not so nice names, and my efforts to pick cartons of worms for Mam, I had decided, with the help of our gang of now slightly older boys, to learn to swim. This was a delightful time indeed, and was arranged by our school as an extra-curricular event.
We took our woolen knitted trunks wrapped in a towel with us to school each Friday, and after school we would get the one shilling and sixpence return ticket to Rhyl. Rhyl was a big town to us, and the bus would stop in the huge green Crossville garage where it terminated in preparation for a return journey, and we would swagger as a group down the high street to the local baths. These were an outdoor affair. The baths were created from seawater simply poured into a huge tiled hole, with lines drawn on the bottom of the blue painted pool. The pool was one hundred yards long, with a deep end and a shallow end, and the men’s changing rooms were at the shallow end.
There is always a very distinctive smell at a swimming pool. It was the smell of chlorine mixed seawater and paint and of clothes, sweat, socks and feet. Rhyl baths was no exception and I loved that smell. My trunks were loose, and the drawstring worn, but I paraded in them proudly, already having assured my classmates that this swimming stuff was a breeze and that I not only could swim, but that I could dive and do somersaults off the boards.
Of course, these were yet more lies from my tirelessly lying mouth. Men paraded about naked in the showers and I was disturbed by their huge furry genitalia, which they so willingly exposed, stopping only to rub themselves vigorously with their towels. Outside the men’s locker room, youthful young ladies simpered in huge nylon creations of ruffles and boob holders, the tops of their breasts exposing pale pink cleavage, their heads adorned with the newest styles of rubber helmets, encrusted with rubber shells and leaves, making them look like giant wingless garden fairies. Fat women, thin women, all of them simpering, while they waited to be noticed by the rough and ready adults and teenagers that tumbled from the men’s locker room.
Men who had never done a second of exercise in their life suddenly felt the need to do push ups on the side of the pool, and the braver of them stepped arrogantly to the deep end and simply slid head first into the water to emerge up against the pool side by the wishy washy women, splashing them until they giggled and skipped out of range. It is strange what humans do at a swimming pool.
For my part, somewhat worried about being asked to perform any of the many feats I claimed I could perform, I was heartened by the whistle of a huge fat lady, who told us all to line up by the pool side, and then slide in.
Boy was it cold. We gingerly sat on the side, our feet dangling in the water, until one by one we either entered it on our own or were unceremoniously pushed in by the fat broad. The water came up to my chest, I gasped for air, my lungs wracked and the water was freezing cold. What little I had below my trunks I felt shrivel into nothing, like a snail retreating into its shell when salt is thrown on it. My slug was dead.
Cork floats were given to us and so our lesson commenced. Week after week we attended, until finally I could actually swim, well after a fashion. I had learned to doggy paddle with every fifth stroke of my left leg, touching bottom for reassurance.
The trip home from the baths was as important as the trip down. We would swagger into the showers, dodging the Willy waving adults, and get dressed, after which we would make it en masse, singing songs, towards the bus terminal. On the way was a fish and chip shop. Our appetites had been piqued by our marine efforts and to a man we were hungry. Our favorite feast was three pence worth of chips and a penny’s worth of fish bits, which when eaten from the newspaper in which it was served formed a delight to our grumbling stomachs. At the bus station were two vending machines and each took a sixpence before they would dispense their contents. We delighted in Gary Durkin’s ability with a particular sixpence he always carried, one with the head of King George the Fifth on it, to get us as many chocolate bars and chilled cartons of strawberry flavored milk as we could consume.
He did it very skillfully. He first deposited his sixpence in the slot, and then he carefully pulled the draw of the chosen chocolate bar out slowly while also pulling the refund toggle, as he heard the clicks in the correct order, he would jerk both simultaneously and the sixpence would jingle in the cup below at the same time as the draw opened to reveal the bar. He could do this with almost any sixpence vending machine of the time, provided he used this thin and almost pure silver sixpence. He was our hero, and while he performed his miracle of theft, we had our pre-assigned stations to watch for spying adults.
After six weeks’ training, we were lined up to be tested for our twenty five yard breast stroke certificate, and of course, as the determined young man I was, I succeeded in not only gaining it, but I did it without cheating, probably the only certificate I have gained from the many awarded over the years, that I actually did get without skullduggery or some form of illicit effort. I could swim, and I had the fact before me in writing. This simple act changed my life yet again and opened still new doors to my young and active life.
The stream that flowed through our entire village was indeed a life source. We spent many hours as a gang, wading in it. We could tickle trout, some of them large and very edible, we would watch kingfishers dart in their pools, catching stickle backs and we would witness even stranger occurrences, such as the migration of millions of tiny young eels, upstream and across ferns and marshes to grow huge in deep pools up by the waterfalls. Another favorite at the stream was to swing across it, or to leap across it on bamboo pole vault rods. These rods came from the cores of carpets and were available in bulk on our own personal tip. Ian Jones was master at this and actually became a Welsh champion at pole vaulting. Our favorite summertime past time however was to dam up the stream and swim in it, and paddle in it in the old tin bath tub that once hung outside our back door as our family heirloom, but had been superceded by our new indoor plumbing.
To dam the river we chose a spot where the flood tunnel from the old lead mines had caved in down by Doll Hill, and rendered the old meander dry. The stream poured into the hole in the tunnel’s roof, to emerge about a hundred feet farther down by the sewer outlet to Mr. Shit’s farm. It was at this exit that we, as a team of strong little boys, piled rock upon rock and filled gaps with sods of earth torn from the banks, until the stream rose some three feet deeper than normal. With the bath tub floating, one person would canoe ahead while the rest of us swam up and down the echoing tunnel, playing journey to the center of the earth.
The water was brown and earthy, it was mingled with mud from the bottom, churned by the sneaker clad feet of a gang of delinquents, but it was a cold water heaven to us on hot summer days. We could all swim, and delighted in who could get the furthest up the darkest recess of the tunnel by swimming underwater.
We would chase rabbits and dig holes in the hill, we were filthy in red earth and black muddy water, but we were safe, happy and this was our country, our village, and our way of life.
The great finale would be when we broke the dam, and took turns to ride the rapids down to Snelson’s Farm, in the old tin tub, a piece of wood as our small paddle.
Along the way we would stop at our favorite banks and push our hands under the trunks of overhanging trees, and into rock holes for that telltale feel of the soft bellied trout, we would grab it by the gills and hurl it to the bank where it would flip until pressed to the grass. A fast click of its neck would dispatch it, and it would be threaded through its gills onto a forked twig with its cousins, rainbow, brown trout and the odd sea trout to be consumed later, cooked on twigs over camp fires in the quarry, or even better, awarded to a grateful mother for her to feed her family.
As another summer wore on, Mam finally began to get the business back on its feet and the new shed became an active production line again. This time Old Huck and Eleanor were finally retired from geriatric slavery and new staff was brought in to count worms into containers. I still had my own worm patch, but Mam would save the money we made from that and use it to reward the four children, including my little sister, who was no longer a baby, and who I was delighted to see was exhibiting all the same traits of recklessness as myself. She worshipped me and rather than my little brother hanging with me, she now became a sort of shadow, and when we went out as a gang, she would just turn up, and stand and watch, until finally she too became one of our gang on certain occasions. To this day I dearly love this beautiful and talented woman, who like me has endured the personal mental plague of a brain that was wired differently from so called normal people.
The rewards for my efforts on my worm patch were announced to me at the end of that summer recess. I was to be allowed to hold my birthday party in the new shed. I could invite whosoever I wanted and it was to be a spectacular affair. God bless you Mam.
The build up to my birthday was equally as spectacular. Mam had saved enough money for me to have a new bicycle, and I was able to go with her and Dad and choose it ahead of my birthday. It was a momentous Saturday, and for the first time in weeks I actually took a bath in the morning, and cleaned behind my ears, washed my hair and even cleaned my teeth. The event was even special to Mam and Dad, and he wore his best khaki pants and check shirt, complete with a tweed jacket, and Mam had on her favorite elastic slacks, much favored as the style of the time as being super chic, but in my opinion had been designed by perverted men to make women look as though they had fat arses. My big sister was left as usual to manage the house, which she now did almost single handedly and certainly without my help, and we left in the Land Rover to go to a special cycle shop all the way in Prestatyn High Street.
We were expected, and the man behind the counter came around and greeted us, carefully examining me for size. He asked my age, my favorite color, what I enjoyed doing most and I basked in the attention. Several Raleigh cycles were pulled from the racks and put up against me. I however had a wish list, and determined that I needed a good boys’ bike, with a strong cross bar, a leather saddle, white wall tires, single speed (having had gears slip on me on my sister’s three speed and mangle my nuts), and it must, simply must, have cable pull brakes, that were now the style for big boys’ bicycles.
He went to the back, and retrieved the most awesome two-wheeled chariot a kid could have. Here it was, an Elswick Hopper Tahiti, the bike of my dreams. It was purple and chrome, with white trim, and exactly matched my specifications. Such had been my contribution over the summer, Mam gladly parted with the huge sum of twelve pounds ten shillings and sixpence for it, and it was carefully loaded into the back of the Land Rover, where I sat with it, rubbing my hands over it in delight, the anticipation of a spin on it causing my head to go giddy. Hurry home Dad, hurry home.
At home the wonder wheels were carefully extricated from the Land Rover and placed upright in my hands. My little brother was delighted for me, as were my sisters. It seemed that I was the only child in the family that harbored jealousy and mean spiritedness. My siblings shared my joy, and my little brother, still parading in my tattered hand-me-downs, gave me a hug and wished me happy birthday, and my big sister offered to ride with me through the village.
Not so fast, Dad had made a telephone call, and as I rode around the garden some half an hour later, who should appear through the rickety gate but none other than our brave Constable Roberts, sober, in uniform and on his bicycle. I was all adread, as I have been all my life when confronted with a uniform, and thinking that finally the game was up, searched my brain for one of the many alibis I had crafted for the many misdemeanors I had performed and not been caught. I felt for sure that this was for my latest transgression where I had moved some yellow oil lamps that guarded a hole in the road up the village. I was mortified.
He loped over to me and placed his arms upon my shoulders. I began to practice my best innocent smile, at the same time as searching for my latest and refined version of crocodile tears. He admired my bike, and to my utmost horror, gently pulled it from my grasp and wheeled it to the top of the new concrete driveway, just as Dad emerged from within, holding two open bottles of Mackeson stout and two small glasses, offering one set to our local constabulary.
It was my cycling instruction and proficiency test, I tried not to exhibit the great feeling of relief that I had not been found out yet again. He showed me where the security number was hidden on the frame under the saddle, and how to apply the brakes carefully. He had me ride around the garden as he sat and finished his beer, talking to Dad. They walked around the boat, which was up on the garden on its now rather rusty trailer, and he had me cycle round it after them, conversing sagely upon my suitability to ride the open road.
Finally Constable Roberts mounted his own heavy police issue bicycle, with its old fashioned rod brakes, and asked me to follow him and do exactly as he did. With delight, I finally emerged from our driveway and onto the open road behind him.
I don’t know if you have cycled behind a policeman, but it was such a weird experience, watching his legs pump, knees stick out with bow legged effort and look at his stooped back, I could almost hear him creak. When he dismounted at the bottom of the great waterfall hill, it was with such ceremony, he would first look over his shoulder, brake, and stand on his pedals, then with the dignity only afforded to men in uniform he lifted his right leg high in the air behind him and slowly swung it in arc, dropped it to the floor and then hopped the left foot off to chase his bike. I tried my best to do the same, caught my groin on the high saddle, and fell backwards, with Elswick Hopper Tahiti on top. He solemnly wheeled back and slowly placed his bicycle on its stand and lifted mine off me. We marched our mounts up the hill, he behind me to protect me from oncoming traffic or so he said, and his stiff walk, hands outstretched on both handlebars looked very official. He perspired in his black tunic, and small rivulets of perspiration ran down his face from under his rather inappropriate helmet, which looked like a badge emblazoned black bucket on his head.
As we rounded the first bend, by the great wall which once collapsed on Leslie Dunster, a small Austin with an old man came lumbering down the hill, its brakes wailing in complaint as they strained against gravity. Suddenly with a roar and a pop, and the loud sounds of Radio Caroline on its radio, a pale green Ford Anglia revved up and passed the old Austin, on the bend and blind from oncoming traffic, it almost clipped me on the wrong side of the road.
At last, Constable Roberts felt he had some real crime to pursue. With his fist shaking and his mouth cursing he was not to be outdone by a gang of hooligans on a joy ride. Instructing me to wait, he wheeled his bicycle around and like Roy Rogers mounting Trigger in a hurry, whipped both legs off the ground, pushed the bike ahead and landed hard upon his seat to set off in hot pursuit. In seconds he had passed the old Austin.
In our village, speeding with pop music on the radio was considered a major crime, and one of the constable’s few opportunities to enter things into his little black book other than his wife’s grocery list. He bent over the handle bars, head almost touching the new fangled battery light on the front of his bike. His legs pumped like the pistons of the Great Irish Mail.
I, of course, fully considered myself his deputy, and disregarding his instructions, I set off on my own steed, but a little more cautiously than he. As I rounded the bottom of the hill by the waterfall, I was just in time to see the speeding fuzz disappear close on the tail of the Anglia around the corner of The Arches, I whipped past the smaller older Austin, waving at the dumbfounded man within, as I claimed to be a police deputy. The policeman’s shrill whistle blowing had brought the lower street to a standstill, and his fist waved at the Anglia in anger. His thighs pumped to a policeman’s polka.
They were gone, the green machine with a turbo charged policeman hot on its tail. He took the bends like a Norton rider at the Isle of Man Grand Prix, leaning hard into them with his pedals up and his knees out, so that they almost, but not quite, scraped in the road.
There was no way I could keep up, so I free wheeled in the front the Austin Seven, past Foster’s house and on down the road. When I came to our cross roads, low and behold. The Anglia had been forced to stop, and there was a red complexioned Constable Roberts, waving wildly at the car. I turned into our dirt drive, propped EHT up, and went to the corner to witness the drama, just as the old Austin Seven finally caught up and stopped behind, the old man at the wheel of that blue and black jalopy none the worse for his escapade.
Dad and Mam also came out, while the policeman had the occupants of the green Ford Anglia climb out. The passenger in the rear seat unfolded himself, after the passenger in the front seat and the driver of the car had already done so, and the policeman made the two of them from the front stand sheepishly against the front of the car.
Then a strange thing happened, the driver and front seat passenger got back into the car and drove away, leaving the former rear seated passenger facing the policeman.
It was at this point I witnessed my first dose of police brutality. Constable Roberts took his black grocery list book, sorry, crime reporting book, and whacked the young man around the head with it. The young man squealed and commenced to back away, as Constable Roberts dropped his bike where it was and ran after the young man, giving him a huge boot up the arse, and believe me, he had big black polished boots on with studs in the heels that made a clicking noise on stone, the young man staggered, burst into tears and in the direction of the policeman’s finger, he fled up the road, turning around some fifty yards up to hurl insults at the policeman, and shoot him a V, also threatening to tell his own Mam what had happened.
Strangely, Mam and Dad went discreetly inside, not saying a thing until the door was shut, when they burst out laughing. Constable Roberts meanwhile, dusted himself off, picked up his white and red bicycle and wheeled it to our gate and up the path. Mam nudged Dad, and he stopped laughing, and got two more bottles of stout out.
Constable Roberts had been denied his only chance to issue a ticket that month. The rear passenger was his son, and he was bitterly disappointed to be denied a good fair collar by his only son, who was also a hooligan himself, it was a disgrace, and he determined to get his son Selwyn into the army or navy, anywhere the hell away from the village. Apparently it was not the first time the policeman had been called out to an affray to find his son amidst it. Bad comments were exchanged about the youth of the day, and after cooling off, and with me forgotten, the sad old policeman pedaled off into his own obscurity. So I never did complete my cycling proficiency test, or get my certificate for it, which may have something to do with the terrible driving habits I have been cursed with for the rest of my life.
As the great day of my new shed birthday party approached, I had discovered the new freedom transportation affords a person. The cycle was my escape. I rode it to school, and was finally able to partake in the great two wheeled escapades on the New Inn car park formerly reserved for older boys.
With my small weekly allowance I purchased and fitted a front wheel driven dynamo light that made a magical hum as it rubbed against the tire when I rode. I purchased a battery operated horn to add to the flick bell already mounted on the handle bars, and eventually, within just weeks of ownership, a wing mirror to watch my pursuers, other kids my age, also lucky enough to have bikes.
Some rules still applied, however. One such rule was that when I was to become stationery on the pavement my feet must still not touch the cracks and my wheels had to be exactly aligned, parallel to the cracks and curb. I had to discard the big saddle bag as being sissy, and it was replaced with a small go faster version in leather which hung beneath the saddle and contained a repair outfit and a universal double ended spanner. The pump was carried at all times and the handlebars were taped to protect the chrome and the rubber grips, which were notorious for slipping off.
At school I was allowed to park it in the bike sheds and made a point of not only parking next to Rhiannon Roberts’ bike, but I would lurk in anticipation of her arrival and departure, ensuring that I was sliding my mount into an adjacent slot when she turned up, or sliding it out as the case may be. She liked my bike, and I determined to get closer to her, so I invited her elder brother Robin as well as herself to my fabled party.
On the weekend prior to the party, Mam came to see me with a weird look on her face. She informed me that one of her old school friends had died in her sleep. Well people were always dying in Dyserth, so I thought little of it until she said it was my best friend’s Mam. Neil and Kevin Halliday had lost their Mam. They at the time were Cwm Cannibals, but great guys. Neil was for the most of my childhood a very good friend. I actually wept, knowing the kindness of the lovely lady, and the thought of the same terrible fate befalling my own beautiful mother frightened me. Neither Neil nor Kevin came to school for a few days, and I was worried that they would miss my party.
The guest list was a long one, and under tremendous pressure from my Mam I even invited my own brother and sisters, on explicit instructions that they were to spend more than ten shillings each on my presents, and that they were to be mystery presents, but must comprise at least one box of chocolates, the latest Topper Annual, The Beano Annual, and The Dandy Annual. I also wanted a balsa airplane with an elastic motor as well as Airfix models of a spitfire and a hurricane for assembly on a rainy day for destruction on a fine day.
The day came, and almost peeing my pants in anticipation I cycled at speed to school, lingering only to wait for Rhiannon by the bike racks. In the assembly hall, and after prayers, a lecture on hygiene, details on the next visit of the nit nurse and a quick listen to a piece from Frantz Schubert’s unfinished symphony, our headmaster’s endeavor to drum some culture into our rustic skulls, my birthday was announced to claps, to be followed at break time by the bumps in the playground.
It was like arriving as a movie star. That afternoon, prior to leaving school, I was careful to ensure that all those invited were coming, and I counted that I would be due at least twenty three presents.
At six o’clock, on a beautiful and warm late October afternoon, I cycled home to my Mam, getting there long before the bus or my siblings, and I rode straight up the concrete drive and into the shed.
God bless Mam, she had totally transformed it. From the beams hung colored crepe paper festoons and balloons. The floor had been swept back to the dry and dusty fresh concrete and the big space smelled aromatically of creosote and pine. Makeshift benches had been placed against the tables, and the Dansette record player had been brought in for music. On one table and under a crisp white cloth I peeked to find all the delights of a child’s party. Here there were sausage rolls, a big trifle, jelly, cocktail sausages, salmon sandwiches on fresh white Mother’s Pride, quartered into crust-less triangles. On another, I discovered cakes and pies, bottles of orange squash, bottles of Vimto, Dandelion and Burdock, cream soda and ginger ale. All the guest had a name tag placed on the makeshift tables and there were new hula hoops made of plastic instead of the bamboo ones at school, tennis balls and rackets and on the drive Mam had drawn a giant hop scotch crucifix with numbers and letters in the squares. A big skipping rope had been set up on the lawn, and the melee of broken toys and old dog bones that normally littered our yard had been cleared up, and the Land Rover parked to one side beneath a tree and out of the way.
Soon my guests began to arrive, and I ceremoniously greeted them. To a person they had on their best party outfits, and each walked coyly up the drive, waving to their leaving parents and presented me with my card and present accordingly.
Finally, the best party gift of all arrived. Neil Halliday and his brother Kevin had come all the way from Cwm. I was so pleased to see them, but felt so uncomfortable, and did not know what to say about the loss of their Mam, my Mam’s friend.
Neil was brave and had not been crying; he was as warm and friendly as ever, and soon took up playing hopscotch with Foster and Bell. Before he did so, he presented me with my birthday gift, which I was surprised to receive, so proceeded to open at once in front of him. In it was a card to his best friend, and the present was a book. The book was called The Golden Seeds. I treasured this book forever. Because of my travels through my life, some years ago I entrusted its safekeeping to my brother, and he still has it for me. It was a wonderful book, and a parable of life and death and love and kindness with glowing pictures in Egyptian style.
This small but important book is now a much treasured family heirloom, and a constant reminder of how wonderful a man Halliday was and still is.
Some thirty six years later, when going back to visit Mam, I heard that Halliday had returned to the valley, so I went to visit. He now lived in a huge mansion in St. Asaph that was formerly a home for retired postal workers, which he was fixing up. The imposing edifice offered all the dreams we had enjoyed in our youth, from deep cellars to carved oak wall paneling and giant fireplaces, and true to the tasteful man he has always been it was contrived into a snug and welcoming home, be it all on something of a grand scale. Like me, he had enjoyed a wonderful career of traveling and business, and like me he had ended up in the West Indies, in his case Bermuda, where he had been a very successful banker, and was now back in Britain and practicing law. We admired each other’s premature gray hair, and shared stories of our past and our travels. He had a beautiful wife and shared all my weaknesses of fast cars and a faster life around the planet. He told me of his brother’s drowning in the River Clwyd, and the sadness and poignancy of the telling of Kevin’s death brought me to tears. I still consider this wonderful man a lifelong friend, and one day our paths will cross again I am sure. The Golden Seeds is all I have left from that era, but will be passed to my son for safekeeping one day along with the story behind it.
We had a great party, and contrary to my usual behavior, Mam said that I had been a gracious host, and all the children that were invited all turned up and recalled it for months afterwards.
The centerpiece of the party was quite naturally Elswick Hopper Tahiti. And we took turns to ride it up and down the drive and around the garden. I got my balsa aircraft, and in a heady moment I eloped to Doll Hill with Rhiannon Roberts to fly it. That day, of all the days of my brief childhood, stands out as a particular lucid and happy memory. Even Old Huck and Eleanor joined in that night and I did not even have to clean up afterwards. Thank you, Mam.
Chapter sixteen
A Life with Wheels
Having been awarded my wheels, my life took on an entirely different perspective. I recall having the immediate ability of being able to extend my range of terror in the village, with the added advantage of a sleek get away vehicle.
The ride up the great hill was still something of a trial, and I determined to at first conquer it while standing on the pedals, and eventually see if I could get up enough speed to do it sitting on the seat. The hill was assisted by gravity and gradient, and was not to be beaten. I found other ways of circumnavigating it and started going to the upper village through Maes Y Glas, the estate of council houses where many of my gang resided, and out onto Maes Hyfred, where, in the distant past my Auntie Muriel had once lived. This brought me out onto Four Crosses, and from here, rather than go on up to the upper village, I would proceed along the Cwm Road, and ultimately to the terrace of Victorian villas where Rhiannon lived.
In my usual cunning I would wait outside their gate until I heard their piano plink and plonk, and then knock on the door. I would ask to see if Robin was coming out to play, but of course my motives were different, and having been asked in I would stealthily look around to see if Rhiannon was anywhere to be seen. One time I actually got there to see her at the top of their stairs wearing only a vest and knickers, and such was my distraction that evening I could hardly look at her the next day in class for fear of my little slug turning to wood.
On other days I would go and seek out Frankie Maraca and our machines would become Triumph’s, Ariel Square Fours, BSA’s and Nortons and we would tear around the village making revving and farting noises, with screeching and scrunching sounds, while applying our back brakes sharply on the New Inn car park to throw up shards of gravel.
The best times, though, were when apple season was in, and I was able to go much further afield to raid orchards, having definitely overstayed my expectation in the neighboring arbors.
I even developed a special bag for the purpose, and kept Mam in several different varieties of apples and plums. I ventured as far as Rhyl and Prestatyn, and would cycle down to my favorite harbor, The Voryd, to watch the fishing boats and mud meddlers, while straddling my wonderful ride with strong Welsh pride. I was seldom home. I lived in my own world of expanding horizons, neither was I really missed much, my poor elder sister bearing the brunt of the rearing of my brother and little sister, while Mam toiled with what remained of the far too seasonal business and Dad played his role as Captain Pugwash the pirate in his small but agile boat, disappearing for a day at a time to pull mud flavored dabs from around the sand bars that revealed themselves at low tide off our shallow coast line.
As still another Christmas loomed, I was given a worthy, early set of presents. Mam came down stairs one day and handed me a brand new air force bomber jacket look alike. It was made of the best black vinyl, with a zip and studs to close it to its waist length and had warm nylon fur on its collar. With it came a pair of leather gauntlet gloves, just like my hero motor bikers wore.
Upon receiving these gifts, they seldom left my body, and were worn at all times when outside. I was now a human powered Hell’s Angel, and secretly drew ball point tattoos on my arms, the first being a heart, with an arrow through it, and the initials RR on one side and mine on the other.
Early one December evening, as Mam and Dad were down at Albert Gubay’s new store, Kwik Save, I decided to ride to the source of the great Christmas tree truck in Meliden to see if I could follow it through the villages on my bicycle. It was a bitterly cold night, with ice on the roads, and it was well past six in the evening when I wheeled EHT out of the new shed. Saying nothing to my siblings I simply left, the same as I has done many nights before. The cold wind burned my eyes and stung my cheeks, my hair ruffled and the wind crackled in my ears. With pumping knees and burning thighs I accelerated up past Dyserth Hall farm and onto the straight that lead past the lead mines and into Meliden. I heard nothing, I saw less, my mind was a prickly flickering cornucopia of unfulfilled dreams. To my left, the cold black dry stone wall of the road whipped by, with just darkness beyond, all the way down to the distant lights of the coast road, now just a blurred strip of mist shrouded opalescence. I sped, faster and faster along the road, oblivious to cars or trucks. I saw and felt nothing, my adrenalin driven body and mind became one with EHT, and the bike became a conqueror of the asphalt. EHT hummed beneath me, as my front wheel dynamo light cast its pale veil on the mottled ice flecked road surface.
In an instant all things changed. I was on the ground, sounds and booms became so deafening my ears finally shut out. From above a man towered over me. His eyes were like those of a scared rabbit. He had on a filthy uniform of pale brown and green, upon his head he wore a round helmet, and had paraphernalia slung about his body. The sky glowed orange behind him. Lights flashed, shrill screams pierced my deafness, I was immobile, I was in a cold trench, I smelled fear in the faces of the men, as they lowered their gnarled countenances down to the ground, to inspect me and prod me. I felt different, my clothes were damp, my chest heaved, a sickly wetness cursed around me. More men came, I felt my body being tugged, I saw everything and yet nothing, had I died?
I came around. My hearing returned, machinery throbbed and growled, men scuttled across from dark recesses to peer at me. I looked up again, and there she was, stood there, staring, calling to me secretly, she was not happy. My angel looked upon me. With a jolt, my body convulsed, and the men stood back. A dark gray garbage truck was slewed across the road, cars were stopped on the roadside and people milled about all of them looking at me. My dearest Elswick Hopper Tahiti lay in a mangled heap with my legs entwined in the spokes of the front wheel. I had been hit by the garbage truck.
I struggled to my feet, aches and pains racked my body, I collapsed and cried, not for me, but for my ride, my prince of the road, and our damaged pride.
I do not know how long I lay there, but through the throng I recognized Mam, and behind her Dad, they had returned from the grocery supermarket to witness this, me again, in trouble.
Dad pulled me to my feet, and dragged me to the Land Rover. I was pushed into the front seat, while he retrieved my dying stallion from the clutches of the truck’s front wheels, to toss its warm misshapen skeleton over the bags of groceries at the back, where it lay crying, twisted and dying.
Words were exchanged on the paving, men and women returned to their cars. Mam asked questions I could not answer, Dad said nothing. Less than two minutes later we turned up the concrete drive of our converted stone hovel and came to a dash kissing halt as my father stamped on the brakes of the Land Rover
The driver’s door clanged, and the back of the canvas rear flap of the vehicle went up, a twisted EHT was dragged from its berth atop the brown grocery sacks, and I saw it spin through the air before it landed silently on the back garden, to one side, begging for a second chance. As I climbed out I looked to the gate just in time to see her again, pass up the road, stopping briefly to look at me, her face blank and expressionless, and then she was gone, blond hair flowing in the night wind, her cape pulled around her, my angel, satisfied that her charge would survive.
I had quite a tumble, and I was badly bruised. I sat inside, a lump the size of a goose egg had grown on my badly grazed forehead, my wrists were swollen and my legs were badly grazed, with gravel encrusted in serum and blood, visible through my torn pants legs. The bomber jacket was badly torn and scuffed, my gloves likewise. My thin trousers were torn and bloody. I sadly examined myself to the soporific sound of my own sobbing as my siblings ran out to watch Santa go by on his big truck, hurling goodies at snot nosed kids, all of them oblivious to my suffering within.
The following morning was again bitterly cold as I woke in my narrow bunk bed. The rest of my family was already up. I ached and hurt so badly I winced and then cried. The day without was bright, and bustling and murmurings from downstairs indicated a family at breakfast. I called Mam, and she came running up stairs. She embraced me and loved me, she had cleaned me and washed me the night before, and the scent of soap still lingered in my nose to mingle with the warm pungency of her aromatic breasts as she pulled me into them. I cried, and she calmed me. It was already late. She told me to stay in bed. She carried up toast smeared with Marmite and a hard boiled egg, with four bread soldiers, smeared in the best Anchor brand butter lay like guards around the egg cup. Finally she came back, this time bearing my vinyl bomber jacket and gloves. She handed it to me and asked me to dress and wear it. Upon examination, she had carefully sealed every cut in its sleeves and bodice; she had cleaned it and polished it to a small-scarred newness. My gloves smelled of boot polish and were dry, warm and stiff with cleansing and an airing on the scissors rack that lived by the fire in the middle room and was the only drier in the house.
I was led down stairs, but I stopped at the top of the landing, to try to see onto the back yard, where I knew EHT had died the night before. My brave transport was not there. My lowered lip trembled in preparation for a blubbering, when Dad poked his head from around the front room.
Instinctively I shrank back in preparation of the usual forehand slap that had become his trademark welcome to me, but not this time. His eyes looked hurt, and he pulled me to him in a bear scented embrace of tobacco and Dad smell, a smell I loved and cherished but had been so many times denied me.
Instead of the middle room, he led me to the front room, or parlor, usually reserved for Eleanor and guests to sip quiet drams of whisky and beer in, and there, to my greatest delight, was EHT. It was upright, with new wheels and fresh white wall tires, the saddle had been polished and the mudguards replaced. A new dynamo clung to the front forks to await moonlight trials. The handlebars gleamed their mirrored chrome finish and the rims shone like quicksilver.
Dad had gotten up early, and with the dying remains of EHT, he had rushed it to the cycle hospital in Prestatyn and he had it repaired especially for me, all done that morning. I was elated, I cried for joy, and Mam and Dad begged me to get right back on it and test ride it, not just around the yard, but they encouraged me to take it to the vicarage and back, to see if everything was OK. We wheeled out of the front door and onto the road. It pedaled the same, and hummed the same, the spokes twitched as they had always done and the brakes gave the same wail when applied, I was back in business with EHT.
I learned many years later that I had come so close to being under the wheels of the garbage truck, Dad had been speechless and angry not at me, but at himself, and the neglect he had afforded me that I had been so able to run wild and carefree, unnoticed and alone. He had feared the worse when he met up with the collision and saw me on the road and almost beneath of the truck wheel, and he was glad to have me back. He was temporarily reformed and for many days, he watched me, he hugged me and he cared. I suddenly existed in his life as a son and a cherished one at that, I was now yet again welcomed back as a part of the family. I had learned a lesson, and so had he, all done by the magic of EHT.
The worm farm business, Bigga Fish Bait Company Ltd., was failing, the seasonal downturn had created a cash crisis, and many of the small stores in Lancashire, who had ordered on credit terms, had not paid their bills. The receivables were a mess, the business payables were even worse.
Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, Frank ignored the crisis, leaving mounds of unopened letters for Mam to deal with. About this time Dad was spending more time with the real fishermen of the harbor, and he enjoyed their company at the Schooner Inn a little too often for Mam’s liking. Finally he discovered the outline of their business practice. While all the charter rod-fishing boats effectively competed with one another for fee paying passengers, they had formed themselves into a cooperative within the harbor, and breaking into their ranks was very tough. The team was comprised of seven skipper-owners and was headed by a fine and wiry man, skilled in seamanship and who was the owner of by far the biggest and best boat, called Welsh Lady. His name was John Povah, a fiery red haired bearded man with a great sense of humor. His de-facto garb was a canvas crew neck top of dark blue, over fish scaled blue jeans under large wader boots, with a small round blue bob hat on his head. Frank befriended him and learned how the men in the boats made their living and coordinated one another.
Frank was introduced to their controller, Mrs. Joan Spiller. Joan was a queen of a woman, and a skilled and thorough business lady. Though she came from aristocratic stock, she was the owner of the local Marina Service Station at the harbor, where all the boatmen got their fuel and also their bait, their provisions and their water. She got to work as early as four in the morning to catch the tides and service the needs of her boat teams. I will never forget the fabulous Rover Mark Eight she drove, with its royal blue finish over a tan and chrome paint job, with a tan leather interior that smelled of expensive cigars.
Frank learned that the Marina had a dispatch and control office for the charter fishing fleet, where ads were placed in the various fishing magazines and periodicals for trips out to the banks, buoys and wrecks off the North Wales coast for all of the boats. The Marina also took care of their licensing and insurance, and each boat, provided it was over thirty feet in length, was allowed to carry twelve paying passengers, and three crew including the skipper. Joan organized each boat accordingly and worked to maintain that they were full, and the boat owner-skippers would pay her for the service, thus having been relieved of having to do the paperwork and endure the worry of maintaining a full crew.
Dad really liked it, and as with most fair weather sailors, he determined that these rough and ready men were what he wanted to become. When he multiplied the number of workable tides against the number of days in a year and allowed for a percentage for bad weather, and contingencies for a sometimes half full boat, and with allowance for fuel and maintenance and crew and bait pay, the split paper bar mat he had computed his business model on informed him that he could be on the threshold of a new financial renaissance if only he had a suitable boat.
He courted his fishing friends, and they respectfully humored him, since they had become aware of his expert seamanship.
Frank regularly followed the fleet to the Constable banks, in all types of weather and forces of wind, and while the larger boats with fee paying passengers bobbed and spun on the spume topped waves, over wrecks and banks, Frank’s little sixteen foot Valkyre held its own nearby. He was also recognized as an expert navigator, and could do things with a maritime chart and a compass and wristwatch the other men marveled at, returning to an offshore wreck site with remarkable accuracy using only dead reckoning.
Dad would take me on some of these trips, where I became an expert at frying bacon and brewing hot tea in seas that ranged from flat calm to six foot swells. My hands stank of rag worm and lug worm guts and my fingers became rough and scarred with the number of hooks and fish spines that had punctured them. Though I was still but a young lad, I was already far more seasoned than most grown men were along our coast in the art of fishing. We caught flat fish and many skate and dogfish. Occasionally a huge ugly monkfish or conger eel would give us a run for our money on the cheap rods and reels we purchased from Joan’s store at the service station.
The skate were always extremely slimy, and we would rope their tails and tow them to the harbor backwards to remove the dreadful and very odious slime that covered their bodies. This would strain the small British Seagull outboard motor, and slow us to just a few miles per hour, forcing Dad to stop it regularly to refill its tiny brass tank from a red gas tank that dwelt at his feet in the stern of Valkyre, but we would triumph, and return to harbor and moor up alongside the large boats to clean our catch with pride.
Meanwhile back in Dyserth, the woes of the business were left to Mam to handle, and things were not getting any better. That school term we were encouraged as pupils to enter into the school and ultimately inter school regional finals of an arts contest as a part of the St. David’s day festivities that were occurring nationwide in Wales.
I had become fascinated by mud, and the banks of our village stream oozed with thick red clay not unlike that which terra cotta bricks were made from, and since this was the cheapest media and required no capital outlay, I dug myself great globules of this wonderful gooey dirt and brought it home in a bucket of water to commence my modeling.
After cutting a piece of ply as a stand, made from the bits left over from the manufacture of the ugly cabin on the foredeck of the boat, I commenced to slap and bash my lump of clay around. The first thing I fashioned was a moon. It was fairly simple. I simply rolled the clay around and then got various round objects, which I then pressed into it to make craters. It was not at all convincing, and sadly sank to an ovoid blob. The next thing I commenced to make was a horse, but as its legs bent and its ungainly head fell off, I gave that up. I then fashioned a young lady on her back, and got quite excited making her breasts and sticking them on, as well as being able to open and close her naked legs until eventually they fell off. I despaired. This clay stuff was nothing at all like the colored plasticine I was used to. So after a strenuous two hours I threw the stuff back in the bucket and decided that the following day I would do something else.
Upon returning from school the next day, how surprised I was to discover that my ball of wet smelly red clay had miraculously formed itself into the perfect bust of Sir Winston Churchill. I stared at it with extreme admiration. Mam came along and I realized that Mam had great talent, and from a single newspaper clipping of the great man she had created an exact likeness. It was damp, and still needed refining, the marks of the knife with which she had daubed it were still on the old boy’s face, giving him a rugged look, and he lacked the distinctive cigar clenched in his teeth that had become his personal emblem. The entire family marveled at it, and Mam, while keeping it moist, gave it pride of place on the mantlepiece above the fire until she could work on it some more.
In school, pupils compared projects. Many of my contemporaries had brought their work to school to curry favor with the teachers. There were painted plates, paper flower arrangements, crooked vases made from mysterious substances, cardboard rockets and many other things. Some girls brought embroidery in the form of ragged cotton cloths with sissy Welsh sayings on them and some brought knitted items of dolls’ clothes, that if placed upon any doll would shroud it in coarse wool and curse it to become unlovable in the very least.
I was asked what I was making, and since I was also lazy, with the attention span of an un-wormed puppy, I simply told everybody that I had made a bust of our greatest war hero and it was currently being fired in the oven in preparation for its displaying at the school gala day.
Of course, due in most part for my reputation as an imaginative lad, I doubt anybody believed me.
Unbeknownst to me, while I had been pontificating at school regarding the skills required to become the next Henry Moore, Mam had been putting the finishing touches to her bust of the cigar smoking politician.
While she was doing this, she was caught by surprise by Mr. Cooper, the bank manager, who had taken it upon himself to try and talk to Dad about his overdraft, and to also wrestle the family checkbook from Mam and Dad before he had to service more of the bouncing notes from for his other patrons to whom Dad had so unkindly issued them. He was in a pickle, and was very embarrassed in his pious Welsh way, but business was business. When he arrived at the front door, his visit caught Mam unawares, and since it was after midday, Dad was already out fishing and drinking, but Mr. Cooper was gracious enough to compliment Mam’s bust making skills (as well as I think he also complimented her own bust secretly to himself) as he admired the emerging features of Winston Churchill, while still pleading for Mam to relinquish the only check book we had as a family to live off. He never got it, Dad had it down at the Schooner Inn.
Back at school during the rest of the week, my classmates had turned in their projects and they all stood arrayed on benches at the front of the hall ready for adjudication on St. David’s day. My space was vacant, and the pressure was mounting for me to turn in a project, to the now familiar taunt of “Fire Pants.”
The next morning I got up early and went to the new shed and got a box, and with the stealth of a cat burglar, and the guile of a court jester, I lowered the now almost complete bust from the mantle piece and left for school early on foot. Upon arriving before all the others, I was able to get into the hall early, by following the janitor as he unlocked various rooms, and I placed the wonderful statue on a small plinth in the space reserved for it, shuffling the names around so that my space came between Rhiannon’s knitted rabbit and Keith Durkin’s model bicycle made from old coat hangers.
I then left for class as if nothing had happened, and dropped off my school bag, to return via the play ground back to the hall for morning assembly.
Imagine my delight when lining up with my classmates, to see my teacher and other staff members poring over the model. Admiring glances came from around me, and my chest swelled with pride. I was exonerated in the eyes of my peers, and at last for possibly the first time, my tales would be more believable.
That evening I told Mam what I had done. She was surprisingly sympathetic, and allowed me to get away with it, not having told me about the visit from the bank manager. When Dad finally returned he failed to even notice the absence of the bust from the mantlepiece, so all was well in my mind.
Come the wonderful day of the Eisteddfod, we cleaned up quite well as a class, and stood against our projects, I naturally got to stand next to Rhiannon, and admired her golden blond pig tails and the small curves of her crisp blouse, the outline of a tight cotton vest beneath.
I was awarded first prize. The school clapped and cheered me, and the many parents present each turned to one another to express their surprise at the troubled Price boy having such hidden talent. All, that is, except the father of one of my classmates. Charles Cooper, our bank manager’s son was in our class. He was a dull fair-haired kid, who had enjoyed recent fame on the Great Orme, where he had been rescued from a cliff face by the coast guard and mountain rescue helicopter. His father was in the audience, and upon recognizing the bust from his visit to Mam, he immediately told the headmaster of my fraudulent activity.
I was called to talk privately with Mr. Roberts in his office, choosing denial as my favored scapegoat. I told him how I had left it at home and Mam had dropped it, and that she was repairing it when Mr. Cooper came to visit my Mam. I was even able to show him a thin crack in the base to support my lies. I do not know whether my story held fast, but even though I was photographed with the bust, I was not entered into the regional finals, and the incident was forgotten. I threw the bust into the stream from where its material came, and the topic never came up again. Thereafter, however, all projects I did for school were done at school under the watchful eye of my teachers, for fear of me yet again cheating.
Chapter seventeen
The Sultan
The weather in North Wales can often become quite inclement. The Gulf Stream along with harsh cold fronts will change the climate in a matter of just a few hours, therefore the shallow sea off the coast could turn quickly from the calm of a village mill pond to the frothing, foaming tempest akin to Cape Horn, very quickly and unexpectedly. This required increased vigilance by our local fleets and their crews, and all kinds of methods of forecasting were used, the most frequent being strips of bladder-wrack seaweed outside the back doors of their homes, the most accurate of the time being the shipping forecast called in from participating stations from around the island we called “Great Britain” to the meteorological office, which was then broadcast on the BBC on long wave radio station.
Such was the fishing bug that I enjoyed, that when I could not get out on Valkyre, for whatever reason, I strapped my split cane fishing rod and my Intrepid spinning reel to the cross bar of my cycle, put my fishing bag over my shoulder, and with a tin of maggots from Bob Snots’, my friends and I cycled down the Old Rhyl Road to some of the many carp and dace ponds that ringed Aber Kinsy woods.
This was always a delight, and it involved one of my favorite pastimes, as a rural guerrilla, trespassing without being caught.
These ponds had to have been stocked by someone at some time, and held many fish of many species. At the lower end of the food chain, and living off midge larvae, were the minnows and stickle backs, which we caught in small nets. Above these came the dace and rudd, small fish, barely a few ounces each and above these came the pond perch, the bottom feeding carp and our favorite sport, the big green pike, which to us were as dangerous as any animal ever got in our lives.
The most favored pond was in the middle of a field that was variably used for oats one year, fallow the next and kale the year after. This particular year it was fallow, and on one side, the pond side, the grasses were high. The field had been divided in two by a new fangled electric fence, and dairy cattle had been allowed to graze one half down to a bowling green lawn length, while the other side of the fence had grasses deep enough to hide in and not be seen from either the farm track or the road.
Fishing that day was poor, and so we proceeded to pay less attention to our water borne quarry, and more to the electric fence. Now the cows had the good sense to avoid the electric wire, which crossed the field at a height of about three foot above the ground. We did, however, witness them pushing their necks underneath it without touching it, since even they were smart enough to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side. A contrary saying I have enjoyed all my life, since unlike most people, for me it always has been so.
It became inevitable that at some stage during the day, one of us would have to test out the theory that the wire was live. I declared that it could not be energized since I could not see power lines to it from the road, and it was there just to fool the cows. Thus, through the usual problem with my big mouth, the gang elected me to test it. I was obviously scared, but had been told by Old Huck that if I wore rubber boots, electricity could not pass though me, so whether it was a charged wire or not, I was partly convinced of my own immunity to electric shocks.
I stood upright by the wire, while several cows ceased their tugging of the grass and chewing of the cud, and stood to gaze at me in wet nosed, glassy eyed wonder. Finally I reached out and grabbed the wire with one hand.
Oh my gosh, did I dance a jig or what? The shock jolted throughout my body and I felt it like a steel spear go through my chest and into my boots. So much for Old Huck’s rubber boot theory I thought. My eyes grew to the size of saucers and in what seemed like an eternity, I was eventually flung several feet from the wire towards the cows, where I came to rest in a pat of soft and wretchedly smelling dung. The cows simply continued to eye me as the idiot I was, while my pals rolled about the bank of the pond laughing at me.
After a second or two I realized that I was fine, and the experience had in no way damaged anything except my pride. I became determined, therefore, that all of my gang should experience it, after all why should it be me again that has to test things out?
To do this, I became even more stupid, and told them that it was the most wonderful sensation I had enjoyed in quite sometime, and with the most idiotic lack of logic, I grabbed the wire again with the same result as the first time.
Now this became a dare and the others, realizing that I was developing serious bragging rights about my bravery, also decided to have a go, and so there we stood, as a line of young boys, doing the St. Vitas dance next to a pond in a field, clutching an electric cow wire, while the cows gazed upon us as the fools we had become.
The next inevitable thought then crossed our minds, if the fish wouldn’t jump on our hooks, why don’t we simply run a wire from the electrified cow wire to the pond and electrocute all of the fish.
We packed our stuff and cycled the two miles home, where we disposed of our rods. After turning the shed contents upside down, I eventually found a length of insulated electrical cable, that we thought would be long enough to reach from the wire to the pond and we cycled back with it tied to EHT’s cross bar.
At the field, we turned into the lane and after dismounting, we hid our cycles in the bushes amongst the rabbit and fox paths that crisscrossed them, and we snuck into the pond field. As we neared the pond, we heard a car reverse up the lane and stop, thinking it to be amorous lovers, we established stations whereby we could be hidden but still see the windows of the vehicle steam up and listen to the suspension creak, but this time it was none other than Mr. Harry from next door with his ugly wife in the passenger seat next to him.
She was cursing him and shouting at him from within, and finally, he turned the engine of his car off, and emerged from the driver’s seat, to open the boot of the car.
From the passenger seat we could hear his dreadful wife calling him names, including pervert, molester, masturbator and many more unrepeatable things. From the trunk of the car, he pulled several bundles of magazines, and tossed then into the hedge, where they landed right beside us, where after he climbed back into the car, took a broadside slap across his head from the hideous crone he had married, and after starting the car and carefully poking its nose out into the road, they disappeared back in the direction of Penisa cross roads.
We turned to examine the pile of magazines that he had chosen to dispose of in this very secretive manner. Imagine our delight to find that Mr. Harry had a secret vice, pornography. It was also our own, and we worked hard to untie the string on the bundles, and the glossy magazines slid around us, for us to feast our eyes upon. We had Parade magazines, Health and Efficiency magazines and a new one called Knave that we had not read before (reading being boy talk for looking at the pictures). The latter had pictures where the pubes had not even been air brushed out, and we marveled at the copious breasts of buxom wenches with entire forests growing from their navels to their knees, at young simpering girls with pert little breasts and barely enough fluff between their young thighs to make a caterpillar with. After some time, like all things, it became boring. So we turned our thoughts back to the electric fence. We had decided to run a line from the fence to the pond and electrocute the fish. Carefully we stripped each end of the wire and straightened it out. We placed one end in the pond water and the other stripped end we dangled above the charged wire and dropped it onto it. From way down the other end of the field there was a bang and a small plume of smoke arose from the grasses. We looked to the pond, nothing, no fish had surfaced on their side like they did in the movies when dynamite was thrown into a river, but a strong smell of burnt something came drifting up the field from where we heard the bang, so we went to investigate. At the end of the wire, and tucked into a hedge was a large car battery. Above it was a small box from which the final trails of acrid smoke were curling into the air. We had broken it.
Not to be dissuaded from our mission of havoc, we then turned to the wire and I grabbed it. It was dead, we had shorted out the system. Realizing this, and seeing the dumb cows still stretching their necks beneath it for the better and longer, more luscious grass on the other side of it, we disconnected the wire from the box and let it fall, chasing all the cows across it into the newer pastures. At least we had achieved something to perpetuate our purpose as village delinquents.
Realizing that the farmer might turn up and chase us, we dodged the happy bovines and retrieved our magazines. Now we had the problem of carrying them. I put them into my jacket, and tied the sleeves to the crossbar of EHT, and careful not to be seen by my family, we went back to the warmth and comfort of our shed to explore the pages in more detail.
The magazines again became something of a bore, the most fascinating of them being the Health and Efficiency magazines where for some reason naked men had no willies and they and the totally naked women in the pictures always seemed to be photographed while playing volleyball. I was glad they didn’t play volleyball at my school, because I would hate to have to take my kit completely off to do it, though I did fantasize about Rhiannon doing at, as well as the new girl in our class, Alondra Gittins. I was, however, suspicious for many years after about people who told me they enjoyed playing volleyball, I always envisioned them naked, and when my big sister came from school one day and told me she had been playing volleyball, I almost threw up in disgust, and dreaded my own transition to grammar school.
I came up with a brain wave, these magazines were obviously Mr. Harry’s secret stash that his hideous wife had found and therefore we would return some of them to him.
We put them all back into piles, and assuring ourselves that he was not around we crept into his yard and placed some of them back on his step. We then went on through his garden, and into Glenys Price’s yard, and we put a few under her doormat. After that we pushed on into Fred Wilkinson’s yard and placed a few in his car, the door of which was not locked. So most of our neighbors now had the delight of their own pornography collection, courtesy of our gang.
I waited days for an outcome, I lingered by walls and hedges, I stared at the men each time I saw them, nothing, and so the realization came to pass, that to these people, and in their pious, and hypocritical Welsh lives, pornography was acceptable, and I understood that far from maligning their morals, I had in fact done them a favor, and I had no magazines left for myself. As for Mr. Harry, I can only assume that he found them before his wife did and hid them again. Strangely he did start going to church again after that, so obviously he came to believing that there was a God after all.
Back in our house, the stack of old Sunday Times, newspapers and magazines besides Dad’s favorite chair had a new regular addition to assist its growth, the Exchange and Mart. Each of these was open to the boats for sale section, and many of the entries had rings around them. Dad meanwhile had taken something of an interest in finance of the extended borrowing kind, and told us that he also had Valkyre up for sale, with a sign in the window of the Marina Service Station being his favored media, since it was free. It sold fairly quickly and what was left of it and of the mast and rotten canvas sails were also exchanged for an unknown sum, the outboard motor he kept, allowing me to suspect the best, that being that there was a replacement boat in the offing.
One day, after some phone calls and excited chatter, Dad announced that he was finally returning to Portsmouth, where he had briefly been stationed as a low ranking naval con man, to see about getting a new boat, and so Mam took him to the train and he left.
Hoping he was gone for good, I spent the next few days proving to Mam that I could step into his boots, by tidying the shed, clearing the back of derelict toys and equipment, and sweeping out the Land Rover, but by Friday of that week he was back.
He announced that he had acquired a naval cutter, at auction, from one of the many destroyers that the navy was now decommissioning. He went on to announce that he was very familiar with it and its operation since he had been responsible for just such a vessel during his period as an able seamen, when he wasn’t in the brig.
In my immaturity, I had no idea where the money had come from, all I recall is Mam’s continuous worry about her ability to feed her family, and our needs. By this time, the bait farm business had all but folded, and anything that was left of it was so worthless that in the end even the tax man capitulated and gave up the chase, we were back to having almost nothing again as a family, other than a beat up house and an even more beat up Land Rover. This did not quell the excitement and anticipation in my young breast, and though I struggled to envision the boat, I realized that it was unlikely to be like the one I thought we were getting at the boat show.
We all enjoyed our trips to the Marina Service Station, and Dad spent more time there and at the harbor than he did at home. The bait farm business was now well and truly dead, and Mam and Dad worked to sort out the financial mess left over to try and rescue any money they could from its demise. This was mainly undertaken by Dad visiting the debtors who owed him across Northwest England and Wales, and rather than pay the debts for the company, the family lived off the money recovered until other forms of income could be generated. Mam had been a nurse in the navy, and so she returned to nursing at nights, working at the Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl on the maternity ward, to augment the family coffers, while during her days off she worked as a bar maid at the Morville Hotel on the Rhyl sea front. At home, my elder sister would return from the grammar school, disembarking from the big blue bus outside Ernie’s house across the road, and would set to and prepare our supper and make sure the washing was done. The latter had become very much easier since Dad had replaced the ancient Bendix upright washing machine with its electric clothes mangle, with a new front loading Hoovermatic, which also had a spin dryer built in, so though money was scarce, there was still a trickle coming into the home that allowed us to have the basics of sustenance.
Not long after, Dad took my little brother and myself to the harbor for a day’s hard work, telling us to wear the oldest clothes we could find, and a pair of rubber boots each.
From the Mostyn ship yards and the quarry and the tip, Dad had a truck deliver several hundred feet of various chains, four anchors and great steel shackles to the harbor wall side, and he purchased a giant orange buoy from the Marina boat store.
We spent a full Saturday and Sunday laying these as moorings for our new and much anticipated boat. It was done with the help of the other fishing boat teams, and much thought went into the ebb and flood drift of the buoy, the length of the boat to be moored and the location of the other boats so that our new boat could swing on its moorings without colliding with the others. We actually dug down several feet into the mud to locate and bury the huge anchors, each of which took three men to lift and maneuver into position. All this had to be done on the lowest spring ebb tide, and we would scuttle from the mud and return to the steps at the wall when the tide began to flood. It came in with a vengeance, and literally within minutes, we would see the tell tale eddies and whirlpools in the stream of the emptying Clwyd river, and the sand bars and mud bars in the harbor disappear in front of our eyes, indicating it was our time to run for fear of being stranded. Mucking about in boats and harbors is a boy’s delight. I enjoyed these times there so much, but the greatest pull on my memory cells is smell. There are times when the smell of diesel and mud mixed with the brine of a cold sea evokes such recollection, for a moment I am lost back in the harbor as a boy, with the memories of its men and boats, and cruel tides which climbed and fell up to thirty feet, clear in front of my eyes, every six hours or so. Dad purchased a small clinker built, flat nosed coracle, as a tender for the anticipated new boat. We painted it dark blue and had a bracket fitted to its rear for the outboard motor, as well as a rear rowlock for single oar sculling. This practice was much harder than sitting and rowing, and required that the person sculling had to stand and pump a single blade to the rear to propel the boat. It was the method all the local boatmen used in their tenders, and it sort of put them apart from the fair weather sailors and mud meddlers in their glass fiber weekend boats, setting professional charter fishermen as the elite of the harbor. I was determined to learn how to do this properly myself.
Within a week of securing the mooring, we went down to the harbor as a family, early in the morning, leaving only my big sister at home, where she had to take care of the house, clean the bathroom and kitchen and do laundry. I abused her dreadfully, but she became as much a mother as a sister and when I think how badly she was put upon, I still blanch with shame at the things I did to her.
At the harbor, the tide was full, and the morning cool and windless. The wonderful day was just breaking, and the deep blue sky revealed orange cirrus from the glow of the rising sun, which climbed from behind Dyserth mountain to our east, like the spattering of color from a hard flicked brush on a Van Gogh painting.
Men stood around waiting for Dad to arrive, and Mam set to, to brew a huge urn of hot tea in the back of the Land Rover, which she dispensed to the teams in large white enamel tin cups with chipped blue rims. The hot delight was thickened with Carnation condensed milk and was so strong its pungency drifted on the dewy morning air. Across the brimming harbor, men were turning up for work at the big wood yard. The boats of the harbor all pointed together, their noses, like hunting dogs, were turned to the sea on the last of the flood, and a few yachts dipped and bobbed as sails were threaded onto spars and masts, to be hoisted for an early sojourn out as far as the Great Orme and back, by those maritime purists who labeled our type as “Stink Boat People,” because we preferred engines over wind.
Finally a large low loader articulated truck rumbled over the arched steel bridge from Towyn, and pulled up next to the harbor wall, complete with a police escort and flags and signs on its rear.
The back of the truck’s flatbed held our new boat. It was a delight. On the rear bed, chocked upright and chained for the long journey it had endured from Southern England, was a huge ex-naval clinker built wooden cutter of thirty six feet. Dad and the men climbed over it excitedly, peering into the small forecastle and standing on the transom platform checking the lines of the boat.
Finally, some half an hour later, a giant mobile crane appeared, which maneuvered itself into and amongst the small crowd that had gathered, and the job of lifting the boat from its cradle and depositing it into the harbor began.
I love cranes, everybody who is sane loves cranes, these great metal beasts that defy gravity and hoist and swing under the guidance of an expert are always a crowd puller, this morning was no exception, and it took several hours of careful pulling of ropes as the great boat lay suspended in the air, to get its positioning correct for dropping into the water on the other side of the railings.
In the harbor, some of the boats that had not taken their fares out fishing on the flood were ready to tow our hull to its new mooring. I was allowed in the boat when this happened.
That one gesture by my Dad cemented my love affair not only with our big boat, but also with the sea and I was to spend much of the rest of my life in boats and at sea simply because of this early introduction and the respect I had garnered of the ocean built upon these early experiences.
This boat had many unique features. In board, and housed under a little wooden coffin like structure, was a four cylinder Dorman Diesel engine in tip top condition. The application of a battery made the engine start first time, confirming Dad’s good decision, which was that being that anything ex -admiralty had to be in good shape. The steering gear or rudder mechanism was also unusual, it comprised of two hemispheres which rotated around the propeller, which only spun clockwise and could not be reversed by the engine, and with the rapid turning of a spindle on the brass tiller and rudder gear at the transom, the hemispheres would move to make the boat go ahead or astern, or speed the boat up or slow it down, or idle in the water, while the engine revs did not vary, all by wrapping around the propeller in different positions. This made the control of the boat while under way very easy for one man.
At the bow, ropes and chains and anchors and buoys were established beneath the small foredeck. And the bow rope was threaded though the fairlead from its cleat, and finally, with the help of Welsh Lady, we were at our mooring and getting close to being in business as a charter fishing boat. We spent all weekend there, meddling about, establishing places for mooring hooks, fishing rods, gaffs and starting and stopping the engine and going ashore in the small tender, which I was perfectly capable of handling on my own, with or without its small motor, to get fish and chips and bottles of Tizer to keep us going.
Frank then had the problem of fitting the boat out to comply with the local regulations. Amongst many issues, this would involve a safety pulpit and rail around the bow, the creation of a spray deck and small cabin, and the purchase of fifteen sets of regulation life jackets, flares and emergency equipment and a radio.
To me the boat had beautiful lines, the only down side was its color, it was a battle ship gray, probably the dullest color man has every created, so we pulled the boat up onto the slip at a high tide, and hoisted it free of the water, and with it secured on trussed planks, we painted it and sanded it and painted it and sanded it again until it gleamed a deep royal blue, with white trim lines and black lines to pick it out.
We still had not named the boat, and this was very important so that Joan Spiller and the Marina could commence advertising trips on it. It took Dad several days to come up with a name. I offered several myself, including such perfect names as Rhiannon, The Argot, Titanic, HMS Metaphone, Mrs. Harry, and others I did not even share with Dad, but no, even though I thought all boats should have a girl’s name or a historic name, after much flicking through the National Geographic Magazine and some perusals of his stolen library books, Frank names his craft SULTAN. His art work was without fault, and at home in the shed, he made expert templates of the name, three of them, one for each side of the bow and one for the transom, and set to and painted the name on his new partner in his latest financial venture. So the Sultan came to be.
Then my worst fears were confirmed, Dad had decided to design and build his own cabin and fore deck to save money. Acres of marine plywood were purchased and lengths of steel pipe. All were brought to our shed, where for many days, and with the loan of a massive arc-welding rig from Mike Heintz, Dad commenced to build the bow safety rails. From a pattern of his own making he cut the pieces of ply into pre-arranged sizes, and after scouring the local dump, my second favorite place after the harbor, he found two matching car side windows which he decided would be the spray deflectors and light points of the cabin he proposed to build. It was pre painted and then taken to the boat for assembly. It took him several weeks to complete, and when I next went down to the harbor with him on that weekend, I was dismayed to see that the perfect and sleek lines of the beautiful boat were now marred by a home made cabin that made the once proud boat now look more like a giant Dutch clog with eyes. Inside the cabin, he had secured the primus stove and built a box to finally keep our bacon and bread dry of seawater. I looked around at the huge kettle come teapot and was under no illusion that I was to become the galley slave and ship’s cook.
One morning, while waiting for word from Mrs. Spiller that we were legal and ready to take our first charter, we sat in the boat, cleaning and pumping the bilges, since it leaked rather badly between the wood caulking around the keel, when a cheeky youth rowed up in the saddest tub I had ever seen.
He had the cheek to not even introduce himself to us, but simply climbed aboard, scuttled over to Frank and duly informed my Dad that this boat needed his services. He told Dad that he had decided to work on the Sultan as bowman and crewman, and he would do it for a percentage of the earnings. Dad was amazed, it had never occurred to him that he needed crew, since he had purposefully purchased a boat with kitchen rudder steering to enable a skipper to handle it single handedly, so he was much taken aback.
The feisty youth then went on to describe how at night some boats were slipped from their moorings, to go out to sea on the ebb and get dashed up on the perches and groins of the sea barrier that lined the harbor channel to dirty gray ocean. He described how boats could be sabotaged and how it was vital that every working boat had a local youth to protect it. Dad got the message pretty quick, and called across to Welsh Lady to discuss the predicament with Povah.
There was no way around it, even Povah had succumbed to the pressures of the local riff raff and he too had now permanently employed just such a person from just such a threatening position some years before, but concluded that far from regretting it he had been pleased with his decision and the youth he had as a crewman had become very valuable and an expert seaman. So Dad returned to the scarecrow of a lad who was sat rolling a cigarette from a pouch of Golden Virginia, and agreed to hire him under the same terms as Povah did with his lad on Welsh Lady. That is how Taff De Gaff as we called him came to be a part of our family, a decision Frank was never to regret. This thin wiry young man was to become a trusted confidant of Frank’s, a hard worker and an expert seaman, as well as a dear friend to the family. At the time he was homeless, and so made his home in the cheap wooden cabin of the boat, which he guarded with his life.
Back at our up-scale hovel in the lower village, we had sold just about everything there was to sell in order to survive and get the new boat fitted out ready to earn money. Gone was the horsebox, most of the contents of the new shed, as well as the entire half acre of big garden next to our house, which Frank had all but given away to a local builder to get some fast cash. Mechanical devices had never been Frank’s forte either, and though it is well know in layman circles that all a diesel engine requires to operate it is clean oil, clean air and clean fuel, these facts eluded our dreamer of a Dad, and so one sad morning, the Land Rover finally gave out, having enjoyed nearly eighty thousand miles on the same air filter and oil change, it just died. This was devastating, and he got very little for the battered remains of the green and mud spattered canvas covered beast.
It was Mrs. Joan Spiller who came to the rescue, and for fifty pounds Frank was able to purchase a small van, the number of which I will always remember, UDM 98. This green Austin of England van became his work truck to and from the harbor, and to me, because it was not open and drafty like the Land Rover and because it had a four stroke gasoline engine instead of a rattling and rumbling diesel engine, it became a delight to ride in, it even had a heater, and my younger brother and I spent many nights in it outside the Morville Hotel while we waited for Dad who had gone there several hours earlier to collect Mam from work there. This was about the only time he was ever timely in collecting Mam, when she worked in a bar.
Now this is how bad we were as boys. We were driven down as early as nine o’clock at night, and simply left there in the car, which was parked outside the Morville Hotel on the shallow hill. We would commit dreadful things while we waited. One was to creep behind the hotel and steal the big glass soda water fountains, each of which carried a bounty of a half a crown, so that we could take them to another pub to collect the refund.
We snuck into the kitchens and stealthily moved around them unseen, to steal food from the cabinets and refrigerators, but our favorite pastime undoubtedly became the insulting of old ladies, at which we had become expert. We would secret ourselves, totally unseen at various points, and wait for pensioners, on their way from the old people’s home to the fish and chip shop on the front, to walk by our hiding place, and we would say the dirtiest and most filthy things to them. They of course could not see us, yet such was the dreadfulness of our comments we would have them in fits of shouting and replying, whereupon we would keep quiet, and someone would come out of the bar to see what the commotion was with the old biddies. They would explain how they had heard voices say disgusting things, and how they had to retaliate. Of course most people thought that these old girls were delusional and merely talking out loud to themselves.
It finally came to a stop, when hidden beneath the small van, waiting for an old dear to struggle by, we had a most unusual experience, we actually did get a real weirdo old girl as a target. Throwing out our usual filth at her, first me, hidden beneath the van, and as she came towards me, then my brother, atop a high wall behind her, so that we would have her jerking first one way then the other, because our voices at that time and still to this day were pretty much identical. This night the old girl we picked on was an actual loony herself, and she commenced to leap up and down, swinging her bag, and getting her spectacles squinty on her face. She responded by shouting back even more vile words and in the loudest voice she could muster. Now this was becoming fun. She had evidently had a history of hearing voices, and she quite literally went berserk on the sidewalk, we were in fits of laughter and hurled even more disgusting insults at her which forced her to rave even more, until finally, she ran into the road and stopped traffic, and as the drivers wound down their window, she said the most vile things to them, considering them the cause of all her woes. Ultimately, the police came, and my brother and I slunk back into to the van unseen. After this incident, however, we refrained from picking on old ladies and busied ourselves more with breaking and entering the local establishments that had closed for the night while we waited for our parents.
Chapter eighteen
The Voyages Commence
For lovers of the sea, there are few experiences quite as stimulating as rising early to ready a boat for a voyage. Having established his license to carry twelve passengers and three members as crewmen on the Sultan, the bookings began to pour in, and Frank was in business. The early morning harbor was a delight to be in. Before the rumble of five gallon diesel cans, and calls of a nautical nature broke the calm of the morning, the harbor and its surrounding beaches and marshes sung only to the haunting call of the curlews who waded busily at the tide line, plucking tiny fauna for their early breakfast. The slick black water swirled to the swish and dip of the oars of various tender boats, while silent men, their first cigarette of the day drawn deeply in to their chests, pulled their bodies over to the big boats that hung from their moorings. The sleeping boats turned only to accommodate the changes in the tide which came and went, as it had done from time immemorial, to the phases of the cold small Welsh moon that still glowed in a battle of visibility with the ice white sun that would rise and feed the sea with nourishment for photo and phytoplankton, that started the chain of devouring that silently boiled beneath the waves that ultimately fed our cause. We were fishermen.
Finally, as the sun crept over the horizon and the first of the cold rays penetrated the wisps of mist and marsh gas that lurked on the river in the early hours, an engine would rumble into life, and rev and throb to the familiar instructions of a skipper to his bowman to cast off. One by one the boats would boom to life and shed their moorings to turn to the sea and line up on the concrete wall by the big sewer outlet, where the lucky fare paying few would clamber aboard hurriedly to get to sea in time for the feeding frenzy of the shoals of cod, whiting, mackerel and ling that dodged and darted beneath the oily black waves, unknowing of their status as quarry in man’s incessant quest to prove his hunter gatherer skills.
The loading was always done on the turn of the ebb, and the boats would speed downstream from the safety of the harbor, and when abeam of the famous fishing wall, the skippers would spin them around dramatically, and head up into the quickening ebb, using the force of it to push them alongside the wall, which they would approach in dramatic revs of great diesel motors and swift tugs on tight tillers, to pull up and kiss the wall gently, allowing the bowman to step off to the wall with his rope and secure the boat for the passengers to board. One by one, each behind the other, the boats lined up, each in its place, and this day the Sultan had a berth for the first of many great trips.
Frank had Taff De Gaff on the bow, me in the galley and on his head, purchased especially for him by Mam, he wore the white topped black peaked cap of a naval commander, turned and bent over his head by pressure on its cane so that it assumed the rakishness and shape of those worn by the infamous u-boat captains of the last war. He looked and dressed the part.
With our men aboard, and with a fast screwing of the rudder mechanism, and a final thrust from Taff’s leg as he leaped aboard with the bow rope, the bow spun out in to the current and turned in haste to the sea, where by dead reckoning in the mists of the morning, we were bound for the Constable banks to fish for anything that was daft enough to leap on a hook.
At this time I would duly prepare mackerel feathers for the team of twelve dull farts we had managed to con aboard, as well as bait rigs with lug worms for bottom fishing and would also stir the great bucket of what we called rubby dubby, which was a gelatinous mass of cows blood, pig’s blood and dead chicken parts, prepared to scent up the sharks and skate we hoped to lure into death that day. This I would do with great alacrity since I had by now become impervious to wave action and the stench of fish guts and diesel in the bilges, and I was never seasick. Our gray faced charges however were usually cursed with constitutions that lacked my resilience, and so I would gesture the palest of them over and ask them to take a look in my bucket of disgusting blood and innards, and ask them if they thought is was smelly enough or should I wait to chop and gut more fish to season it up before ladling it over the side. This was always fun, and the poor malcontent would jerk away to retch over the side.
When the boat came to its mark, we would overpass it in the current, Taff would drop the anchor and we would drift back on the anchor rope until we were convinced of our positioning over the bank. It was always interesting see the response of men, who could travel without vomiting on a boat provided the engine was running and the boat was moving, but as soon as we went on a drift, or took the waves on the beam, they would dash for the side. I would then commence to ladle out my blood and guts’ soup upwind of them to help their stomachs make a decision about ejection of breakfast.
In the end, Dad would clamber over bags and buckets, rods and legs, and clip me around the ear, so then I used my next weapon of mass expulsion, bacon grease.
I would pump the primus to within a mili-bar of exploding and ignite its hissing vapor through the methyl spirit primer, then placing the huge black and unclean pan we still had in use, on its top. In this I would fry sizzling bacon, complete with rind and grease, the smell of the bacon cooking would waft around the boat, curling out of the cabin in oozing clouds as evil as trench mustard gas as far as most men’s stomachs were concerned, and after passing a big ripe bacon sandwich up to Dad and one to Taff, I would offer them around to the passengers. So much for our seasoned fishermen, most of them couldn’t even tie a hook let alone bait it, and most of them did a great deal of leaning over the side calling some bloke called Hughie, but their cash was in my Dad’s pocket, and that was all that counted.
I was available for these trips from Friday through Sunday during school weeks and every day I could during a recess. At last, our family income stream came back on line and we were able to commence paying off bills and getting back on our feet to the point whereby Mam no longer worked nights at the hospital, and was able to split her day between home, the Marina, and her bar maid duties at the Morville Hotel.
She and Joan got on like a house on fire, they became excellent friends. Joan lived in a large rambling manor house in Gwaenysgor, a village at the top of Prestatyn Mountain, the access to which was up a steep hill from any direction. One day, while down at the Marina Service Station, with Dad at sea with a boat full of suckers, Mam and I went up to her house. It was so beautiful and the grand lady herself was so very gracious. She had a daughter called Pooch and a son called John, but both were away at school. After tea and scones served up by the most wizened old lady servant I have ever seen, Mrs. Spiller gave us the grand tour of her estate. She had huge grounds, set to roses and climbing shrubs, though which a small trout stream bubbled its clear path. To the rear of the house was a herb garden and cottage garden of fresh vegetables which she kindly grew to feed the local badger, who left his trademark spoor there each evening, and to the side of the house she had stables, in which she kept several horses.
This day, and to my greatest delight, she took us inside the stables to visit a beagle cross bitch who had recently birthed a litter of the most beautiful puppies I had ever seen. Naturally I wanted one. Mam at first insisted that we already had old Sue as a pet, our standard poodle, upon which I duly informed her that old Sue was nearly dead and was not a pet so much as a filthy and smelly dinosaur that bred lice and bit children.
After using my best face and even better behavior, I was allowed to go and pick out a puppy. Of the five that nestled by the old bitch, one stood out as having character. He had symmetrical brown and white markings over a sleek white coat, with short fur and floppy ears. I lifted him to me to inhale that wonderful musky puppy smell small dogs have, and he licked and nipped me joyfully.
He was mine, and after the great Hollywood clown himself, I named him Charlie, as respect for Mr. Chaplin, and the happiness his screen antics on the television had brought to me during cold evenings in front of the set. This dog changed my life, and I took my parenting responsibilities very seriously thereafter, right up until Charlie parented me some years later. The elation a child feels on being given his first puppy cannot easily be described, but it is one of wonder at the greatness of God’s creations, awe at the beauty and innocence of the creature and expectation of the adventures we would have together. Charlie and I bonded instantly, and I became the envy of my siblings when they discovered that they were stuck with the stinkpot poodle and I had the GT go faster, sleeker model. Charlie was to be forever mine. Even Rhiannon Roberts took a back seat in my thought process to what great things I could train Charlie to do, and I committed to myself that he too would learn all that I knew, including rat catching on the dump.
Such was my enthusiasm to be a good owner, I decided to learn Dog. I could already speak English and Welsh, and since I had a minor speech impediment, I already sounded as though I was talking Dog most of the time, so if I learned Dog, I could then tell old Sue, the stink pot poodle, what I really thought of her black gums and bad breathe, and could train Charlie to do stuff other dogs would only dream of.
That year, working the boat, teaching Charlie new tricks and keeping EHT in working order took up most of my precious time. Charlie grew quickly and his loyalty to me was spectacular, and he displayed it regularly. He was not stupid though, and in spite of my continued efforts to train him to attack my big sister on call, he would simply sidle up to any family member and lick their hand. He seemed to like Old Huck the best, apart from me that is, and would regularly greet Granddad when he came around by committing a bear hug to his trouser leg and jerking his pelvis rapidly, with his tongue dangling to one side and a pleading look on his face. So keen was Charlie on Granddad’s shin that Old Huck would even walk around the yard with Charlie glued to his trouser bottom, the dog’s bum scraping on the concrete as it went about its affectionate hello, its long tail laid out stiffly behind in a mechanical wag from side to side.
Charlie even became an excellent boat dog, and was a regular on Sultan, he would ride the bow like a professional, with his tongue out, and with his front legs stiffly apart, his tongue spraying dog spit and his ears out horizontally in the cool breeze, so Charlie learned some English and some Welsh, and I learned some Dog, and with our own version of canine patois we communicated our needs to one another very well indeed.
How I loved that wonderful dog. His company became my entire life. He would accompany me to school as I rode and he ran ahead, and when he was satisfied that I had arrived in one piece, he would run home. He was never mean to old Sue, and always loving to the family. Everybody loved Charlie.
As the boat business improved, during the periods when there were no passengers, for whatever reason, be it poor tides, bad weather or just poor planning, we built a large trawl net, and would take the boat out to our favorite sewer buoys and drag for flat fish and shrimp. All kinds of wonderful creatures came up in the net, including dogfish and skate, as well as flounders and bucket upon bucket of small shrimp that were so tasty when boiled, I used to eat them without even peeling them, crunching shell and tail, roe and legs, just as would an aboriginal tribesman of the Australian outback consume a mealy bug. If our fortunes were unpredictable, our diet was excellent.
One time, we hit upon a school of large mackerel, that was so large and their appetites so prolific, my little brother and I, as well as Dad, ran three rods apiece over the side, jigging the six, colored, feathered hooks on each line in just a few feet of water below the drifting boat. We caught over a thousand fish in just a few hours. And I spent the entire return journey gutting and cleaning them. I recall throwing the entrails into the air, to be caught and eaten in mid flight by the huge herring gulls, which we had already established as being the garbage collectors of our cold shallow sea.
It was always a good sight to see a boat return, fussed over by a flock of gulls, it indicated a good catch, and when we arrived and moored up, while Dad went across to the Schooner Inn to sell the skate and dogfish we had caught, I set the back door of the small van open and sold the fish from a huge wicker basket on the roadside at a half a crown a dozen. We made a fortune, and for our efforts, Dad let us keep some of the money.
What a rag tag family we must have looked like, hawking fish from a van. I made a sign and hung it up, cars stopped and people thronged to see the enormity of the great catch that day.
The Marina Service Station became a second home, and not to be outdone, my big sister even got herself a part time job pumping gas. As a teenager with bumps in all the right places she became something of a celebrity with local perverts, and much to the joy of Mrs. Spiller, trade at the pumps increased. The Marina Service Station in those days was right behind the fair ground. The Rhyl Fun Fair was a gaudy and eclectic mess of rides and sideshows. It had everything from a horror train to a mad mouse ride, from which people sometimes fell and died, a big wheel, which at its apex offered an excellent view of the gas works, since rather than face out to sea, for some reason the seating faced inland. The favorite for us younger people was the dodgems. I always envied the scrawny tattooed men in greasy jeans and sleeveless denim jackets, who were allowed to leap from car to car as they sparked around the steel floor, their poles fizzing on the metal cage above. It occurred to me that every time we went on one of these rides, I would part with my shilling for the two minute rush of smashing into other kids, and he would pocket the money. Not a bad way to earn a living or so I thought at the time.
In the side shows there were the usual two headed calves, Siamese twins, a fish lady and several fortune tellers and charlatans with everything from hoops too small to fit over bottles to air rifles with bent barrels.
Secretly though, I most of all enjoyed the penny arcade, and my favorite machine was the one called, “What the butler saw.” For one penny, I could turn a handle and cards would flick, showing a plump lady taking off all kinds of weird stuff until just before the end on the turn, there would be but a microsecond glimpse of her ample bosom. Great stuff. What I failed to realize was that a half a crown, thirty pennies in one large silver coin also worked, and one warm day while walking from the service station to the fish and chip shop with two pennies of my own and a half a crown from Mrs. Spiller for two courses of fish and chips, I couldn’t resist it, and sidling up to one of the machines I deposited one of the coins from my hand and turned the crank. The sepia cards were old and faded, but still allowed me the excitement of voyeurism at an early age. The next one was even better, I pressed my eye to the fake key hole, put in my coin, and turned the handle to discover that the cards were in better condition and the babe in the bedroom not quite so fat as the other one, I looked around to ensure that I had not been seen and then sidled off to the fish shop. After lining up behind ragged families from Lancashire and Cheshire, I ordered the two meals, and watched delightedly as the fat serving girl ladled on extra pieces of battered cod, dripping in lard, and more mounds of soggy pale fried potatoes. She wrapped them in newspaper and rang the till, two shillings and four pence. I would have two pennies to return with. Pulling the last coin from my smelly trousers pocket, how embarrassed I was to find only a single King George penny left. I had inadvertently used the half a crown to peer into the lewd machine. Retribution from God above had finally caught up with my voyeurism. Thinking quickly, I snatched the parcel of food, threw the coin on the counter and ran for my life. What an uproar I caused, as I slipped through the hands of an obese do-gooder and dodged the cuff of a youth. With at least three people chasing me, I had no chance, so turning quickly, I hurled the package back at them and leaped for a chain link fence, which I scaled with the agility of a monkey in heat.
I was done for now, I slipped and dived amongst the grubby crowd, not knowing what to do next. I had to revert to my other plan. Tearing my sleeve, I finally staggered into the Marina Service Station, fell to my knees at my Mam’s feet, and told them my truth. I had been going up to the fish and chip shop, when a gang of unruly youths had tried to beat me up. I had run into the chip shop and as I went to get the fish and chips, they stole my money and took the fish and chips from me and then chased me back. I wept and cried, and moaned and groaned, but to no avail, from around the corner came the fat kid from the chip shop, and she grabbed me and shook me in front of my Mam. Mistaking this booger eyed behemoth as my original assailant, Mam would have nothing of this and cuffed the girl hard around the ears, and so they began to fight. Mrs. Spiller however saved the day. Her intuition regarding my real character was as sound as ever, and giving the fat kid five shillings for her troubles, she walked me back up to the shop, put a ten shilling note in my hand and told me to repay my debt and get her lunch, while she stood outside careful to watch how I did it. I never ever lied ever again that day.
There were more memorable times in the Sultan than I can write about here in this short text, but two major ones stand out. Any harbor anywhere in the world breeds its own people and characters, carries its own set of rules and has its own peculiar traditions, determined by tide and time and generations of tough and rough people who work in them. The Voryd was no exception.
It was a microcosm of society dominated by a few local families who passed down their right to work there and made up its rules from generation to generation. Dad was fully aware of his outsider status, but was tolerated because he played and worked by their rules, returning some of the meager bounty of his boat back to the men who worked the system. One such man was Gordy. He was of indeterminate age and his academic education, if he had ever actually had one, was such that he could neither read nor write. He always wore the same clothes, and had soft brown eyes, a straggly beard and a completely toothless mouth, but his smile made up for all his faults and he was very well liked in the harbor. He was also an expert poacher and duck hunter, and during salmon season he made a fortune seining the mouth of the estuary, never to be caught, and he could scull a boat so silently he could almost creep up on the flocks of geese that migrated across North Wales, stopping in the estuary marshes for rest, and capture them by hand. He was the seventh son of a huge family of eleven boys, all of whom at some time when not in prison would seek employment fixing boats and working as crew on the small fleet.
It was an unwritten rule that, when the Sultan came in, Taff would sort the fish for cleaning and apportion a pile for Gordy to have. Taff and Dad would then retire to the pub for an hour while Gordy cleaned fish and prepared the boat for the next trip, by topping up the battery, cleaning the bilges and scrubbing the fish scales off the thwarts. One such day, when Taff returned with the ten shillings that Gordy would earn over and above his fish portion, Gordy was gone. The boat was clean, and the bilges were empty of the rainbow slime that formed when the diesel mixed with the rubby dubby and the fish guts along with the water that was increasingly entering through the aging caulking on the warped keel.
Taff and Dad left the boat tied to the wall of Jones’ wood yard for the rest of the night, and went home to return for the top of the flood, assuming Gordy had got tired of waiting. The next day, there was still no sign of Gordy. For whatever reason, the boat stayed there another day, when Gordy’s mother sent out the youngest of her sons to search for Gordy, who had not been seen. At the harbor, the worst was suspected, and the lifeboat was turned out to search the coastline for a corpse. Even the great clattering Westland helicopter joined the search, and at low tide the harbor was dredged. Another day went by and still there was no sign of a body.
Later the following afternoon, Taff prepared to move the boat to its mooring, when an unusual thing happened. Since I was at school, Mam had taken Charlie with her to the harbor, so this incident is recalled from the verbalization of my dysfunctional parents. The boat was lower than the stone dock wall by eight to nine feet on an ebb tide. Divers and fisherman were still scouring the estuary and out to sea for the suspected dead body of Gordy, when Charlie pulled at Mam and brought her attention to the Sultan, our boat, by barking over it from the dock and looking down. He then scaled down the wall, by gingerly inching his fore paws down then leaping into the boat, whereupon he collected himself and jumped to the transom, first looking down and barking, then looking up and barking at Mam, and now Dad and Taff who were up there above the boat. The dog was trying to tell them something of importance. Regretfully, and unlike myself, my parents could not speak Dog, so they had trouble comprehending at first.
Dad hailed one of the many small boats, which buzzed and scoured the harbor for evidence of its lost child, and had it maneuver to the transom as he climbed down. From the boat, he leaped fully clothed into the water, to the excited barking of dear Charlie, and low and behold, on the kitchen rudder gear, fouled in the complex mechanism, he felt cloth. With breath held, he dove beneath the boat into the cold rapid brown current and after some pulling and tugging, and with two more breaths, out from behind the boat drifted the dead corpse that had once been the gentle life filled body of Gordy. Charlie had known, by smell and the magic senses that only dogs possessed, that this was the place of the poor mans death, and he had fallen from the boat the night before and become ensnared in the hull and steering gear.
It was a sad day at the harbor. One of many such sad days, as the cold river Clwyd claimed another to its callous bosom and vile bed.
The boat was a great deal of fun, with it we were able to purchase a new car and the van was retired. This time we had a new Ford Consul Cortina estate car. This was a great vehicle, and with Frank’s usual lies on the credit application, the handsome long green vehicle with its mock oak wood side panels graced our drive. We recommenced trips to the mountains in it, but only when the weather was bad, since in good weather the boat was out earning our dinner, and on such days, in the new car we had trips as far away as Anglesey and South Stack Lighthouse, where we would sit and watch the Dublin ferry come across the sea, through appalling rain squalls. The many steps down the cliff to the lighthouse bridge, would be run down and climbed up, and Mam would get her binoculars out to marvel at the millions of gannets, puffins, cormorants and terns that had made the cliffs into lime spattered cities of wheeling birds. So high was our vantage point that we would watch them dive into schools of sand eels and whiting to the incessant sound of the cruel sea breaking in spume laden humps onto the cliff face around the island upon which the famous and crisp white lighthouse stood.
Things were fine for quite some time, but Sultan the boat was already old when we purchased it. Years of it having sat on the deck of a destroyer had made its keel warp sufficiently that it leaked, and it required continuous pumping of the bilges, both prior to mobilization and during its voyage. The water from these leaks mingled with the diesel that leaked from its tanks and the unclean morsels of fish innards that were impossible to clean from beneath its deck planks. So it gave off an odor which personally I enjoyed, as a part of the scene, but which made others retch as the boat crested each wave or bobbed, yawing on its anchor when on the banks so few if any of our trippers became repeat users.
At first the trips were short, six hour daylight affairs for flatfish, skate and whiting. They eventually became deep water day and night twelve hour trips for large tope, a spectacular shark predator and member of the blue shark family. These we murdered on two hundred pound test lines, with steel traces and big hooks baited with herring and mackerel.
When the boats returned, the dock would be lined with carcasses of these sleek and harmless fish, for the greedy capturers to be photographed next to. They were then slung into the harbor in such quantity that those not washed out to sea began to reveal themselves at low tide, crawling with scavenging crabs, and then dived upon by both gulls and crows, each fighting for its piece of rotting marine carrion.
One day, I came home to see Dad stood up by the end of our house against a huge tope he had caught himself, it had a tight rope around its stomach. It weighed seventy two pounds, and he intended to feature it in the Angling Times, along with a full and unabridged recollection of his own heroic struggle to get it into the boat. At the end of the photo session, done expertly by Mam with a Kodak camera, he pulled on the rope around the fish’s girth, and nine small dead pups of the magnificent fish fell into the weeds below its slime and blood dripping tail.
Mam was appalled, and she shared her worries with Joan Spiller at the Marina Service Station. Already the boats were having to go out farther and farther beyond the Constable banks and almost as far as the Skerries’ Light Ship, that marked the rocks between Wales, The Isle of Man and Dublin, to get catch large fish. The boat skippers held a conference, and after sharing their fears with the department of Marine Biology at Bangor University, one of the world’s premier schools for marine studies, the fishermen decided on a tag and release system. Dad was the first to tag a tope, and with a special tool and a plastic tag, the small harmless shark slid back into the waves to live again, and so tope tagging was pioneered, and the species eventually saved off the North Wales coast.
As described earlier, Dad was no mechanic, and failing to fully realize the simple mechanism that was a diesel engine, he never serviced the throbbing heart of Sultan. For a long time, he was convinced that WD40 was a universal cure all for engines, and if the old boat would not kick into action, he would simply lift the cover and spray an entire can of the stuff over the electrics until it kicked into life. I personally enjoyed this very much, and would ensure my face was as close as possible to the spray to inhale the vapors, which left me heady and dazed but fairly happy for an hour or two.
One evil day, however, I was cycling down the great hill on EHT on my way home from school, when a distant flash in the sky caught my attention. I stopped the bike, careful to not step on any paving cracks, and just as careful to correctly align the wheels in parallel with the cracks and road, then looked up and out towards the sea.
It was a cold gray day with high winds gusting up to force eight. The trees above me shivered and hissed, their branches occasionally crackling, fledgling magpies clung tenaciously to the wooden fingers that were branches, while riding out the wind with their heads down and legs tucked beneath them.
In the distance, the gray-brown sea was covered in huge rolling white caps, and even the horizon rolled irregularly as the giant waves lifted and curled from the channel to pound our desperate beaches. Again, I saw the flash, and this time watched as a flare fell under the parachute, to be caught by the ill wind, and was whipped away towards Mostyn.
A massive bright maroon, with a bang that could be heard for miles, followed this. A boat was in distress, and the Rhyl Life Boat Station was fully mobilized. I knew that that day, Dad had taken the boat out, having neglected the shipping forecast on the BBC and against the advice of his companions in the harbor. On board were Old Huck, Mam, Taff and Charlie.
I feared the worse, and belted home as fast as I could, to phone Mrs. Spiller up at the Marina Service Station. She was very matter of a fact, and told me the truth: Sultan was broadside to the great rollers, engineless and about to be pounded up against the breakwaters that ran the length of our coastline, and Charlie was aboard.
At sea, the weather had turned very much for the worse, and had risen from a force four that morning to gale force eight by mid afternoon. I leaped aboard EHT, and coatless and panting, I pedaled for my life to the harbor. Dreadful dreams went through my head as I pleaded with God to give my dog and my parents a second chance, and if he had to be selective, he could have Dad, but please spare Charlie, bring my Mam back safe, and Old Huck safe. Fear of losing a parent when you are a child is a nightmare beyond comparison with any other. I, of course, considered myself immortal and would never age, Charlie should have been also, yet they had endangered him, Mam was vulnerable and needed, please deliver her and Charlie home to me.
Upon arriving at the green railings that overlooked the staging area of the fishing boats, John Collins had the radio in his van tuned to the Life Boat frequency, and through the crackling, he described the rescue. Sultan was beginning to be pounded against the groins that formed our break waters along the coast, she had no engine and was adrift in the worst sea for months, there were four aboard, but there was no mention of my Charlie, and the Life Boat could not get any closer. Next we heard that a rocket with a line attached had been successfully fired over the beam of Sultan, and the crew that were in Sultan were pulling the tow line in to secure it to the bow. Then we heard that a giant wave had broadsided Sultan, the excitement rose, and upon realizing my presence there, and the white-faced fear in my cold steel blue eyes, I was comforted by John Povah. Eventually, we heard that Sultan was in tow behind the lifeboat and on its way back, but had taken on a great deal of water, and its crew were wet and possibly suffering from hypothermia.
We waited and waited as the squall blew and gulls whisked by at speed on the wind. Huge gray clouds rolled over us, and the jangle of shrouds and halyards against masts from the yachts in the harbor was almost deafening, their mast top vanes frayed and ragged as the wind twisted them and pulled at their poles.
In the distance, the red barrel shape of the lifeboat’s upper decks came around the end perch, its blue hull visible then invisible as it rode up and over, into and out of the huge sea. Behind it by several hundred feet we could just make out the top of the ugly white cabin Dad had built that was the trademark shape of Sultan, its already low hull, not visible at this distance, as it wallowed in the troughs and struggled through the cresting foam.
It seemed to take forever to get into the Voryd harbor, but finally, the lifeboat boomed up to the wall, and with cheers of elation that the cruel sea had not been able to claim more victims to its awful depths, Dad and Mam waved from the stern and Old Huck from the cabin as Sultan was secured alongside. I scanned the boat rapidly with wide eyes for signs of Charlie. There he was, nestled on the floor of the cabin next to Old Huck, he heard my call, and barked back his own somber greeting in his best Dog. He was safe.
I scrambled down to the boat, and hugged Mam, as Charlie leaped at me, grabbing my thighs with his fore paws, his tongue out and his eyes glassy with adrenalin. I stooped to kiss him while he licked my face, his coat was damp and cold from sea water, the boat was brimming with the wet evil that was its share of the Irish Sea, and all along its side were the tell tale marks of its fight against the break waters, planks were splintered, and paint rubbed off to reveal the cold gray tones of its earlier profession. Taff still pumped at the hand bilge pump as if his life depended on it, which earlier it had, while Dad climbed off to thank the brave crew of the Life Boat Station who had risked their lives in a boiling sea to save his.
Povah climbed down and lifted the housing off Sultan’s engine. He fiddled with a lead, and pressed the starter button, and the old Dorman engine throbbed into life, and the electric pumps took over from Taff. Dad’s lack of mechanical savvy had finally caught up with him, and he was embarrassed to say the least. The Lifeboat men shook their heads in dismay as they turned their huge craft back out to brave the wild sea and get it back on the ramp and in its shed for the next emergency.
This was to become a turning point in our nautical careers, Sultan was never quite the same again, and Dad’s alacrity as a boat captain waned. The trips got less and less, and at home this again had the effects of money becoming even scarcer. I had Charlie, EHT but not much else, and so again, to avoid the domestic squabbles, and the violence a man such as my father creates when he becomes trapped in poor circumstances, while waging a psychological and physically violent war upon the ones he loves, I returned to a life outside the home, and with Charlie, we together sought out new experiences, returning only to crawl into bed at nights, telling nobody of our adventures during the day.
I was not even asked about school or grades, yet I struggled and maintained excellent grades, and apart from Charlie, and my wreaking of havoc in the village, school became all I had by which to measure myself as a citizen of the world, so I strove to excel academically, and I did. I was soon forgotten and ignored by the family, and my ability to communicate with my parents and siblings lessened to mere grunts of acknowledgement at their presence.
Sultan was finally sold for a song, and our life as a family of the sea ended forever. Dad had payments to make on numerous things, so he gained a commission only job, selling tape recorders to doctors and dentists across North Wales for the Robophone Company. I remember a sly and unkind teacher, Mr. Howell Jones, once asking me in class what my father did for a living these days. He asked it with that quiet guile and sneer that epitomized the narrow mindedness of the people indigenous to our hills and valleys. I had been briefed by Dad to say that he was now a “Telecommunications Sales Consultant.” The teacher winked to other members of the class, and I heard the Cooper kid turn to his desk mate and whisper “Fire Pants,” while giggling and looking in my direction.
Dad’s heart was not in the job, and though he tried, and did make sales, he too became wistful and as I looked into his soul, when I viewed it through his eyes, it had changed, and become hard and bitter, his resentment of his lost youth, and the responsibility of providing for a wife and four children written on his wrinkles and rapidly balding head, evidenced in his spiteful words and cold mean comments on the world around him and the people in it.
It had always occurred to me that many of my school friends’ parents had always had the same job, and the children seemed happy, and the houses clean and well kept. They had tidy gardens and enjoyed holidays together as a family. I knew our family was different, with our scruffy yard and unkempt home, and oddball parents, and I yearned for stability, but did not know what it was. Dad cursed the others as boring and gutless, and made fun of them and derided them to us children, but I wanted so much to be like them, I began to disown my own family and so the rift is now so huge I hardly know who they are, and the rift began to grow, and I became a sad young man.
Chapter twenty
The Final Days in Dyserth
As the hours had run to days, the days to months and the months to years, and although I was not yet in my teens, I surged helter-skelter to an early adolescence. At school, it had obviously become evident to my headmaster that I was changed.
My speech impediment that had once been but an occasional irritation had now worsened, it was now almost permanent and was further encumbered with a stammer. So though I worked harder, and engrossed myself in my studies, I also spoke less frequently, a rarity for me, and became obsessive about scholastic success.
Rhiannon became less of a feature of my dreams and more of a day-to-day friend and confidant. She was no longer a girl goddess, but became my sister in class, and she and her family took care to ensure that I ate my school dinners, and I was invited back for tea with them quite frequently. Mr. Roberts, her father who was also my headmaster, talked with me and was kind to me, and arranged for a lady to come to school to provide speech therapy and counseling. I had to start talking again, and it began with a terrible struggle to recite such things as: “The centipede was happy quite until the toad in fun said, pray which leg goes after which, which churned his mind to such a pitch he lay distracted in a ditch considering how to run.” I had books of these to learn, and recite day after day, after a half an hour of teacher counseling and a special breathing session, that occurred three times a week. This did not stop me from living with terrible inner fears over nothing, and did not quell my obsessive behavior, but helped me I suppose for later life.
I did, however, learn to live two lives. I parted company from my gang and family, and like Emlyn I became a loner. It was so much easier to not have to explain things to other people, I traveled alone from human company, but with the ever-present Charlie as my companion, and my ability to talk Dog was excellent, we were firm friends.
My favorite weekend escape became a cycle ride to the Prestatyn Lido. This was a new type of swimming pool and the vogue place to go, both after school and on Saturdays. While my family did whatever it was they did, I would cycle down and mingle in blissful anonymity with people and youths I did not know and who did not know me. I developed a like of the smell of the chlorine, and the sound of springboards and splashing, caused by people who were nothing to do with my life. Occasionally, as a regular, with a season ticket, others would recognize me from a previous visit and acknowledge me in conversation. I would shy away and avoid them, I may have been there in body, but my soul and spirit were not. I created my dream world as the child of a perfect family, dreading the return in the evening to the reality of my home life. Peter Bell would sometimes accompany me, however, and I would make an effort to be a friend, but it had become hollow, and within me a small quiet voice talked always, guarding me from hurt whenever it could. We would speculate about the goings on of young men and women embracing in the water, and we would strain in the changing rooms to see under the corridor partition to the girls’ changing area in the hope of a glimpse of a pair of shins, as one of them dropped her pants, and stepped out of them, to pull on a brightly colored swimming costume.
At the pool side, young men, having buzzed up on Lambretta and Vespa scooters, that flashed and flicked with many jazzy mirrors and lights, had shed their clothes to lie with teenage girls displaying small pert breasts in thin bikinis, drinking iced orange jubilees, all done to music played through tinny loudspeakers, and I lay on my towel, watching them as Frank Sinatra crooned “Strangers in the Night” and the Beatles sang “She Loves You, Yeh! Yeh! Yeh!”
The journey home was always one of hunger, and along the road from the Lido and up past the railway station, over the dog leg bridge, many small stores plied their bric-a-brac and junk which was always associated with the seedier resorts. This ranged from kiss me quick hats to sordid cartoon post cards.
I favored one shop more than most, this store was so small, the owner had extended his footage to the pavement under a cheap green canvass awning to protect it from showers. refrigerators and newsstands stood with shelving and brackets out into the street. It sold just about all the things the caravan dwellers from England needed to take back to their small mobile dwellings, which ranked in thousands on flat muddy fields right along the coast.
I was an extremely skilled thief and shoplifter, and it was from here that I started my collection of Marvel comics. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Tales from the Crypt, and many others, all carefully stuffed sneakily down the back of my trousers, to be read secretly at a later date in one of my many dens. In my hunger I developed a liking for pre-packed sausages, which I would pull from the fridge or freezer of the local supermarket, and consume them raw on the way home, saving one for Charlie.
I learned to get fish scraps and potato chip left overs from the chip shop for a three pence piece, and would look pleadingly at the fryer man so that he would empty his cabinet of these small crumbs to make way for more easily sold and infinitely more desirable produce as it came from the fryers.
When I arrived home it was always late, but having done my homework at school, I had little to do, so I would hide my cycle behind the house for fear of it being locked in the shed, and leave my towel and swimwear on the handlebars, tucked in behind the light, where it stayed, damp and smelly, to be used another day. I then scouted to see who was about, and if Dad and Mam weren’t there, I would dash in avoiding eye contact and conversation with any of my siblings and thrust the comics under my mattress, along with a Parade and a Health and Efficiency magazine that were already hidden there, for later visual consumption.
I do not know why, nor have I ever learned, why at that time, loneliness should suddenly consume me, and stay with me for the rest of my life, but it did. Things had changed, and it became that I accepted the inevitable without so much as an aforethought.
I have no idea what Dad did during this period, he and the rest of them had for the time being, become someone else’s family, but one evening, while I sat watching ‘The Frost’ report on television, and with Mam teary eyed, he told us that we were moving.
At first it didn’t sink in, and I carried on as normal, conversing with Charlie in Dog, while teaching him tricks and having him stand guard outside stores while I went in to steal food.
When it finally hit home was when the house and yard began to change, and become tidier, and other families came around to peer sniffily at our humble dwelling, while we were told to make ourselves scarce as children. The house was for sale, and as the price fell in a desperate attempt against the time and tide of looming bills and expenses, more people came around. The contents of the shed were largely given away, and a great sadness loomed over us.
Mam had also become distant, and spent more time up the road with her parents, when one day, she came back to announce that Old Huck was dying of terminal lung cancer. At school, I had to make a teary announcement of my moving to my teacher, my headmaster and my class. I had by this time learned that we were moving to another part of North Wales, a place called Rhosymedre, near Wrexham.
One teacher, a pock marked survivor of childhood small pox was kind to me during school dinner, and reassured me that it wasn’t that far away, and that he had grown up there and it too had a river, the River Dee, running through it, and mountains and vales, and his childhood had been fun. It did little to reassure me, and sadly, with the house sold, and what few possessions we had crammed into a removal van, I climbed into the Cortina, with Charlie over the back, and licking my face, and that morning, in convoy with the huge removal van driven by two big men in dusty overalls, we left the driveway of the house, the converted hovel, the only home I had ever known, for the last time.
I had tried my best the day before to say my good byes to my school and my classmates and my friends and my grandparents. It had been hard, especially seeing Old Huck lying there knowing he was soon to die, and Eleanor, teary eyed at the loss of a daughter she had taken for granted as always being at the end of the lane.
With the weak motor struggling in the overladen car, we worked our way from the bottom village, up to Four Crosses, struggling behind the slow and cumbersome removal van. At Four Crosses we turned left, into the upper village, and on past the bank, the location of so many of Dad’s harrowing meetings, and past the Boddinig Arms, the place of much of his bragging and conquests during more profitable times. As we passed the quarry entrance, I took one last look back at where I grew up, at the distant horizon of the Snowdonia Mountains, and then before that, laid out like a beckoning lawn of delight, the green and verdant vale, with its special copses and places of wonderful memories. I breathed one last breath of Dyserth, and then it was gone, and my childhood slipped behind me, like the foam in the wake of a boat, never to be repeated or returned to.
BOOK 2
The Memoirs of a Welsh Hooligan
John Price
Crossing the Great Divide
The huge green removal van lumbered on ahead of us by a mile or so. It dipped and reappeared between the hedgerows on the sunken lane that lead into and out of Trelawnyd, a gray and forbidding village on the top of the great Clwydian escarpment.
The Gop Hill, that crowned the village, now grew larger as we approached, it was a monument to stone age man’s burial achievements.
Charlie leaped from behind the back seat, where he had been cluttered in with various boxes of bed linen and clothes, and he spread himself across my lap. The rat bag, flea infested poodle that was my big sister’s dog also tried it, since the two of them had shared the tiny space, but a sharp jab to her chest ensured her misery behind me for the remainder of the journey, so she just lay there panting, her fetid breathe floating like rotten cabbage vapor into the bed linen she was guarding. Charlie looked at me wistfully as if to reassure me that things were going to be fine, but I still choked back a tear as Dyserth, the village of my upbringing for the first eleven years of my life, finally vanished to our rear.
We were moving to a new home. It had all finally caught up with my parents, the debt and the dreadful insecurity of running their own businesses badly, the drinking, the fights and the arguments. In our temporary homeless state, we were bound for a new life in a place called Rhosymedre, near the town of Wrexham, many miles to the East and close to the English border. In spite of the danger of his love of all things alcoholic, including liqueur chocolates, Dad had managed to scrape together enough funds to pay for the ingoing tenancy of a public house. They were to become publicans, and we were to become the children of publicans.
I daydreamed of my old school, and what my old classmates would be up to right at that moment. I thought of my Granddad, and all of his wisdom and the wonderful rustic country tricks he had taught me. I thought of our times fishing together but now he was dying of cancer, laying in his small bed in his bungalow, sad and unable to wish us farewell. I thought of the dump, and my friend Emlyn, the self appointed guardian of its treasures and of my dens and poaching trails, around the stream and in the great woods of Bodrhyddan.
Charlie, the wonder dog, the worlds most famous beagle cross (well as far as I was concerned anyhow), sat up and thrust his head to the crack in the partially wound down rear passenger window, his bony back legs and spread paws, pressed into my groin as he nuzzled the passing air, his tongue dangled and made saliva tracks on the glass, while his beagle ears lifted and fell in the cool breeze, I loved Charlie, he at least was a constant companion.
My Dad was riding up ahead in the furniture van, while Mam was driving our family car, a Ford Cortina station wagon, with my big sister in the front seat, poring over her maps, leaving my younger brother and myself, to sit each side of my beautiful little sister. We sat in silence, my brother gulped, and looked at me, and looked away. He too had been crying, it had never even occurred to me until then that he also was losing friends and familiar surroundings. He was noted as the least complaining child of us all, he was so quiet most of the time he had been nick named “Mousey” by Mam.
The ride however was more interesting than I had at first imagined it to be, and our cortège made good progress on this mid week morning. Over the top of the escarpment above Holywell, we had the best view ever of the wide and bountiful Dee estuary to the North. We viewed its breeze crazed grayness as it spread below. It was large and distant, across fine fair fields of green, over a thousand feet down, beyond narrow lanes and small woods, which were dotted with the red, clay-brick, roofs, of row houses. The day was clear and the tide was out, revealing miles of dangerous sand banks, separated from deep green marsh lined shores, that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. Across on the peninsular, that separated the two largest rivers to drain into the Irish Sea from England, we could see the smoke stacks and towers of Birkenhead, which gave way to the distant River Mersey, and beyond that, Liverpool, visible as a tiny, brown, spiky smudge of docks and towers on a hazy horizon. There was no doubt in my mind, North Wales was the most beautiful place on earth to me, and I was determined right then to ensure that my heritage as a child of these hills was to remain intact.
We traveled for over two hours, until finally, while passing through Ruabon, Mam announced that we were nearly there, wherever there was. We had driven by the crumbling relics of the past industrial glories of the area. There were great red brick chimney stacks that belched acrid brown smoke at Ruabon brick works, spoil heaps of slag from disused and now defunct iron works, mountains of slack heaps that marked both derelict and operational collieries as well as the great winding wheels that sent men in cages deep into the bowels of the unforgiving earth.
In most parts however Ruabon seemed to be a rather pleasant and decadent little Welsh village. Its brown stone buildings had tree-lined, walled avenues, which led ultimately to the great mansion of Wynstay Hall, former seat of Sir Watkins William Wynn, a local aristocrat. This great home was visible atop a distant green hill, as an imposing gray palace, its lush and well tended miles of landscaped rolling gardens dotted with follies and monuments, all giving down to a hidden valley, where the mighty river Dee thundered over rapids and curled through dangerous pools, which were, then and still are now, alive with trout and salmon par. The entire vista of the estate, with its carefully selected trees and hidden glades, would have done credit to Capability Brown.
Beyond Ruabon, our convoy of two followed the big wall that marked the estate boundary, we lurched around wicked bends and alongside wide rail tracks until we pulled into the parking area of a huge inn. The Eagles Inn, we had finally arrived, and this was to be our new home.
Charlie yapped, and he told me in his best Dog that we had reached our destination. No sooner had Mam stopped the car than he was out over the front seat and across her lap as she opened the door. I had never seen him be quite so rude, and I considered chastising him, until I saw him bound for a telegraph pole in the corner of the car park, sniff it eagerly and then cock his leg for the longest pee I have ever witnessed. Behind me, Sue the poodle had simply emptied her bladder onto the bed linen. I fumbled with my car door handle and fell to the car park in a heap. Dad was already out of the van and beginning to organize the moving men as they lowered the dolly ramp and commenced to pull traveling rugs and securing ropes off our cheap furniture.
After briefly surveying my new home from the outside, I was pleasantly surprised. It was huge. Architecturally it was of a fairly recent design, that is, it was post war. This was evidenced by the bombed out shells of partly roofed terraced houses that lined the small property to one side of the boundary fence with trees growing out through their foundations. The Eagles Inn was entered from the rear up two sets of railing enclosed steps, to a rear door to the residence, and an off license shop, and the rear door to the men’s public bar.
I ran around the car park, kicking a semi-inflated ball, while I waited for my cycle to be removed from the van. The moving men grunted with chests and boxes, scratched veneer wardrobes and stained, warn out couches and arm chairs, as they carried them up the steep steps and into to the residential quarters of our new home.
As I ran about, kicking the ball at makeshift goal posts that supported a sagging wire fence, my eyes began to tear, and sting so badly I thought I was going blind. This was followed by the worst stench imaginable in my nostrils, and all this was accompanied by a coughing fit. I fell to the ground, and looked around. Dad and Mam were similarly engaged in coughing and spluttering and Mam’s eyes were already red rimmed. At the boundary of the car park, a small crowd of nosy neighbors had gathered to examine our flimsy treasures, somehow, they were oblivious to the condition, and eyed us as though we were of Martian origin and unaccustomed to earth’s atmosphere. Finally a man stepped forward, and told Dad, within earshot of us all, that the smell was from a giant Monsanto chemical plant, which sprawled for hundreds of acres on the other side of a high and ugly hill, in a village called Cefn Mawr. He then went on to say how fortunate we were, since it was considered excellent for the chest and a remedy for colds and flu, men from the company had expounded this during meetings in church halls, so it must be true. As I looked to the hill, a thin wisp of bright yellow smoke plumed and curled into the sky, to spread its filthy obnoxiousness over the village of Rhosymedre.
I looked again at the bedraggled gathering of pallid and emaciated beings that were to become our neighbors, and wondered if their thin wrinkled ugliness was in any way due to a lifetime of inhaling these vile chemical concoctions. What was evident was that these people were different from those residents of our previous village. Gone were the ruddy countenances of a healthy rural existence, these faces bore the scars of slavery in hard mines and mills, and dark holes in the earth. They were Morlocks, and we were in a time capsule that still embraced Victorian industrial values.
The noise of the men and furniture, and the coughing and spluttering of my family, was abruptly smothered by a great ground shaking thundering. To my delight, not one hundred yards from the pub, a big green steam train roared past in a deep cutting, its vapors and smoke billowing from the funnel in impatient clouds, each breathe of the pistons marked by a round swirling cumulus that carried the wonderful aroma of hot burning anthracite. The proud engine and its many carriages were just visible to me as they raced under a nearby bridge. It was a real railway, with real trains, traveling really fast. I was thrilled, and there and then considered that I might don an anorak and become a train spotter from the bridge, I had a mental vision myself, wearing spectacles, held together with a sticking plaster while I perched on the bridge, my face raw with acne, with pencils and pens sticking from a pocket protector in my cardigan, this was not the vision I wanted of myself, so I abruptly changed my mind. Instead I would simply try to lay things on the tracks and lie alongside them to see if I could actually touch the machinery as it passed me by. A much more daring game we called “Chicken” back in my previous home village.
I gamboled from the car park and up to the stone bridge, still spluttering from the chemical poisons carried in the air from the nearby Monsanto factory. Charlie ran and bounced alongside me, delighted that I had decided so early in my move to commence exploring. The bridge was against an old and somewhat derelict building I recognized as a school from yesteryear. Across the street from the school, a low row of stone terraced houses, with dust bedraggled curtains and doors that opened to the street, indicated the abodes of primitive life forms, and the lower working class people who populated the village. I crossed over the bridge and went further up the road on foot. It ended at a junction, with more dreadful terraces to my left, and a muddy trail to my right, ahead of me were the spoil heaps I recognized as quarry debris. Shazzam! I had found another quarry. Charlie and I raced up the heaps, and over the top. We ran along rutted tracks that showed evidence of dirt bikes and we ran through bushes and weeds, until we gained a vantage point from where we could survey this new quarry. I was not disappointed either, it was enormous. The sheer cliff face of the sandstone quarry was marred with huge sprayed on graffiti of a filthy kind, but delightedly, the bed of the deep quarry was being used as a rubbish dump, and I gazed gleefully down upon thousands of wrecked cars, piled up to rust, and stack upon stack of old tires, car seats and bodiless chassis. I had entered a naughty boy’s own heaven. I felt as though I was the first to discover the delights of this dump, and I couldn’t wait to begin my escapades down below, amongst the mangled wreckage of these former transports of delight, upon which I could still wreak untold carnage, armed with little more than my bowie knife and matches.
Charlie was as equally excited, he could already sense the presence of rats and rabbits, and he held his pretty head high, as his sleek wet nose sampled the stench of decay that marked our new neighborhood.
Looking around, and down on the distant pub car park, I could see Mam waving me to return, so I skidded down the embankment, crossed over the railway bridge and slunk back to what was to be our new home.
It was time for the grand tour, as a family, the representative from the brewery walked us through the two large bar areas, and the integral liquor store that came with the pub, he even showed us the insides of the toilets, for what reason I could never fathom, but here they were. After this we descended into a glorious cellar, which was accessed from the outside by the vehicles reversing into a deep asphalt hole from the car park, and the cellar doors opened onto it to allow the big oak barrels to be rolled in. Within the confines of the cellar were several small ante chambers, accessed via locked doors, but the main cellar was lined with fine oak casks along one wall, wooden crates with full bottles on another and empty crates and barrels stacked along the rear wall. Some of the barrels had spigots and pipes attached to them, and the entire subterranean space smelled of vinegar and beer, yeast and hops. The concrete floor was in parts awash with the drippings from several propped barrels, as they drained their last dregs into the pipes to be pulled aloft by the pumps and served to greedy beer swillers in the public bar. There was a mild beer, a bitter beer and a best beer, and steel lager canisters, with gas bottles attached.
After the cellar, we traipsed up two flights of stairs to examine our new living quarters. The family living areas were far plusher than our former abode, a converted hovel on a busy cross roads, and this time I was to have my own bedroom. I had become so accustomed to sharing space with my brother, it had never occurred to me that boys of my age could have their own room, and the first thing I placed in it was Charlie’s bed. This was a token gesture, just to let the family know which room he would occupy, when really he would sleep on my bed, or on cold nights, actually in it with me.
The pub was the domain of adults, and since our parents spent all their time the first evening getting to know their new roles in this new village, and meet and greet their patrons, there was no school for the rest of the week, and no chores, since they had not been allocated. I was free to explore, which was fine as far as I was concerned. The glory of it was that we were still in Wales, and I was as partisan as ever regarding my heritage.
Our first full day saw me and the dog out of the back door at sparrow fart, both of us running to find out what lay beyond the great stone wall to the estate across the road, and do it and disappear before we were missed. I had already seen pheasant and quail wandering about, showing evidence of human breeding, since they acted dumb as they scratched about behind the wall, impervious to the proximity of human kind, so we crossed the road, and I was quickly able to scale the fine wall with its heavy cap stones, while Charlie simply bounded at it, scrabbled with his rear legs and hoisted himself up the seven foot pitch with his front legs to land beside me smiling over his conquest. His tongue dangled sideways from his mouth, dripping Dog juice and his big brown eyes sparkled at the thought of commencing our new adventure. I reached over and kissed him, and he kissed me back, a big wet sloppy lick on my cheek.
Together we walked along a thin path beside a fence, with cropped wheat stalks to one side and the deep dark woods to the other. Eventually the field gave out to more woods, and as Charlie rushed and darted amongst the ash saplings and stopped to sniff great elms, the terrain began to drop away and the woods became darker and more forbidding. This was exciting stuff indeed, and I tried vainly to recall the direction from whence we came, so as to be able to reconnoiter a return journey.
Above the canopy of leaves a gray welsh sky proffered gloomy cumulus, which gusted across the sun in periodic flits of billowing floss, casting the wood first into darkness and then into a dappled brightness. Around me, small trails on the ground indicated rabbits and foxes, and lower down the heavily wooded hill, a leaf shrouded mud bank had the tell tale signs of a big badger hole. This was a real wild wood, and was so much more of an adventure than any previous wood I had explored.
After walking carefully down a sloping hill beneath the great green canopy for nearly an hour, the sound of the wind in the leaves changed its note, and what was at first a mere hiss, turned to a rumble, and then to a roar, finally, the woods cleared and the source of the noise confronted our passage. The great and threatening River Dee lay before me, brown and dappled, rapid and turgid, wide and narrow, exhibiting all the manifestations my own White Nile, in less than a few hundred yards of its length. Before me was the largest and most dangerous looking set of rapids and pools I had ever witnessed, which would slyly give in to fast flowing shallow expanses of water, which in turn would enter inviting pools, which swirled like black oil under struggling trunks of great trees. I recalled the hospital of my birth, the H.M. Stanley hospital in St.Asaph, named after the great explorer and daring journalist, who went in search of Dr. Livingston, and I considered his emotions as he first viewed the Victoria Falls, I was sure that I felt just the same, as I first espied this dramatic cataract.
The place had its own sound and smell, and demanded its own sense of respect, it was alive, yet evil, turgid and inviting, fast snatching and sly, all at the same time, so I glanced around to ensure that Charlie was still present, he was, he had his nose to the ground up stream, sniffing at the foot prints of previous intruders to this secret and scary place.
Way up river, where it curved from God only knew where, I saw a distant figure, standing on the river bank, it was a man partially hidden by trees. In my truest colors as the personally appointed founder of welsh guerilla warfare, I decide to investigate, without being detected.
Using my recent acquired Dog language, I instructed Charlie to be quiet at all times and remain at my side. Together we clambered over rocks and up and down slippery banks, in and out of clusters of trees and around patches of bramble and fern until we neared the other human kind. The passage was fraught with danger, as we traversed muddy banks that dropped to deep pools, by scrabbling over overhanging tree trunks.
I watched spell bound as the man on the bank cast his rod, and he let the float carry the hook with the current so that it flowed down over boulders and to the edge of another deep pool, where if bobbed for a second and then jabbed down into the depths, a fish was on the line. He struck his rod, to ensure the hook was deep, and wound in his reel, with the rod bent double, a large trout surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove then leapt to the air upon realization of its fate. The man played it skillfully, allowing the fish to tire; he fed out line, and then reeled it in, repeating the action several times. Finally, he lowered a large landing net and slid his quarry into its snare, then he pulled the fabulous fish from the hook and dispatched it with a knock to the head, after which he tossed it into a green poachers bag, where it joined several others of its species.
Now I realized very early, these were seriously large fish compared to the small stuff I had been used to catching from the brook that ran through our old village, so while I was still unnoticed, I carefully looked around for landmarks, so ensure that I too could come here and poach. After I found a suitable tree, I carved my initials on it using my bowie knife, and this would be my guide for returning; when I found this spot I would find the trout pool, and I too would catch seriously large fish. This river was the embodiment of life itself, and I wanted to plunder it badly.
After secretly spying on the lone fisherman for nearly an hour and watch him catch three more trout, Charlie was getting restless, and had begun to whimper quietly as he tugged at his collar, which I had in a tight grip; so we left. The dog bounded ahead of me up the bank and back into the thickets and saplings that struggled for light beneath greater trees. I estimated that any direction uphill was a good direction, but also realized very quickly that we were quite lost. It took us several hours in the wood, until we finally found the great stonewall that marked its boundary with civilization, and we climbed onto the top of its cold cap stones. The other side offered us no clue as to our whereabouts, and we dropped to a pavement of brown stone flags, and surveyed our surroundings. We were on a road, but far away from the pub. Across the road was another pub, a church and a small store, should we walk one way or the other.
A dapper gent stood alone by a bus stop, marked by a thin green pole, visible ahead of us in the distance, so we made our way towards him, and in my best welsh, I asked him the way to the Eagles Inn. I might as well have spoken to him in Bantu or Swahili. He looked me up and down, peered at the dog, and looked away, so I tried again in English. His reply was in the strangest Welsh accent that I had heard to date, a kind of sing song lilt, he whined his reply as though every word was a curse, and he pointed in a direction to the west, and so we followed his finger.
Such was the parochial nature of the various welsh towns and villages of my youth, each place had its own peculiar accent and vernacular, and although English was the common language, the variations in pronunciation from place to place were so pronounced as to render a visitor from one part of Wales, incoherent in another part, and so it was with this old, man, I was a stranger, and he was cautious of strangers.
As we walked along the road, we were careful to keep the big wall to our right, and Charlie would periodically stop, to sniff a post or splash a carefully measured egg cup full of urine onto the sidewalk, hobbling momentarily on three legs in order to keep up with me, but determined to make his mark nevertheless.
Finally the Eagles Inn loomed in the distance, and gratefully we crossed the road to go around the back. School had turned out, and on the back parking lot, several children my age and older circled like vultures on rickety cycles, while others had found what was left of my partly inflated Slazenger ball, and were kicking it at the fence, at a makeshift goal that was set between pullovers, which lay in heaps at two posts. In goal was the most emaciated and poorly looking child that I have ever seen.
I gingerly walked across to them, while Charlie recovered the ball, biting it in his teeth, this being the cause of its premature deflation anyhow. The children stopped cycling, and crowded around me. One of them spoke, in the same weird accent as the old man, and so we introduced one another. Seeing me from an upstairs window, my brother decided to join us, and he leaped from the railings behind, safe now in the knowledge that these natives were not hostile.
Amongst the ragtag band, was an unusual creature, which at first glance seemed to be neither a male, nor a female, of our invasive human species? I felt sure that it was a boy, about my own age, yet he had the nicest features of them all, long eyelashes, and big blue eyes. His carefully tended hair fell about his forehead like a film star’s would, yet he wore a girls dress over his trousers and had on high heeled shoes, with which he pedaled a big boys bike with cow horn handlebars. Seeing me eye the person curiously, a handsome young teenager stood forward and laughed, he said that the creature was his brother, and he was known at home and school as “Girl Face”. He explained that he was different and was going to be a hairdresser one day, and that he liked to wear his older sisters clothes. All this was explained in such a matter of a fact manner, that to me, knowing no different, I merely considered it as being quite normal from thereon after, and in fact Girl Face was to become one of my best friends, and spying on his big sister one of my best hobbies.
The small crowd of younger kids had obtained a corner piece of old sheet rock, and with it they drew a hopscotch crucifix on the lower yard, outside the cellar doors, and we whiled away the next half an hour or so, kicking the ball and playing hopscotch. It was about then that another of the boys, handed me three silver sixpences, and instructed me to go to the gum machine in the men’s toilet of our pub and get him a pack of Durex. I had never heard of Durex gum, but merely considered it as being a local thing, and hitherto unavailable in my previous village, so off I went.
I had never heard the brewer’s representative ever discuss the machine during our tour of the previous day, and in fact did not even recall seeing it myself, but so as to curry favor with my new friends I accepted the money, amongst sniggers and winks, and went off to the toilet accordingly. This involved sneaking through the bar, so as not to attract the wrong kind of attention, I made a feeble excuse to my now rather drunk Dad and the men that he was talking to, that I needed to buy a pack of gum and that I was also desperate for a pee. He eyed me suspiciously, but I ignored him and sidled around the bar to the door of the men’s room. I peered in, but could not see the machine. I experienced a great fear of failure amongst my peers, who waited outside the window giggling, I became concerned until the door swung shut on its pneumatic hinge, and it latched with a clunk. I turned around, and low and behold, there they were, two gum machines, one marked Durex, the other one marked French Fancies, high on the back of the door to the gentleman’s toilet. As per the instructions given to me, I slid the three shiny coins into the slot and turned the handle. With a thud and a chink of money falling, out into the slot dropped a small green box. I snatched it up, stuffed it in my pocket and fled out through the bar, ignoring the grunts of the hideous men playing darts in a fug of cigarette smoke and in seconds I was back on the rear steps to the pub, where my new gang awaited.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the box, which was summarily snatched from my hand by Girl Face’s big brother, who giggled delightedly and stuffed it into his own pocket. I was a little hurt, I thought he would at least have offered me a piece, since I went to the trouble to get it in the first place, and had never sampled Durex flavored gum before, so I bravely asked him what it tasted like, whereupon the entire crowd laughed, and Girl Face batted his eyelashes at me lasciviously.
After telling my younger brother and a few kids his age to stay where they were, I was asked if I had a bike, and then I remembered my delightful and recently remodeled Elswick Hopper Tahiti, which was parked indoors at the bottom of the stairs to the living quarters of the pub, so the older boys asked me to meet them at the top of the road by the quarry.
I of course was delighted in this immediate acceptance into what appeared to be a very friendly gang, and so I ran in and retrieved my bike. Charlie was also pleased to see the machine again, since he always enjoyed trotting alongside. We made our way up the road, and there on top of the quarry spoil heaps, amongst the brambles and tufts of stunted grass, the big boys waited for me. I pushed my bike up to them, climbed onto it and joined them in the free wheeling drop into the flat bed of the quarry bottom. They knew every trail and dip, every turn and fall as we pedaled down into the quarry, one behind the other, with me right behind the flapping dress of Girl Face. As though sensing something was wrong, Charlie ceased his lop sided loping beside my cycle, and turned back to the pub, to play with the younger children, leaving me alone amongst these new children, who seemed far wilder than I could have ever imagined in my previous school, and non of whom ever made reference to parents or other kinds of responsibility.
They dropped their bikes and the eldest made a call:
“Tally Ally Oh Boys” he shouted. It reverberated off the quarry walls, and he did it again. Finally, there was a very muffled response from deep within the huge pile of broken vehicles. It was the same call returned by a different, and older sounding voice. The gang had a gang call, and I was about to be inducted into their midst.
I followed carefully, holding Girl Face’s hand, as we climbed high aloft on to the top of the heap of broken vehicles. After reaching the summit, we then descended through a windshield of a rusting Humber, through its open trunk, and down through several more cars until we bottomed on dirt. We were in a cave made from cars, an open space. Deep below the top car, hidden in these layers of tangled steel, light barely filtered in from above, and it occurred to me that these guys knew every nook and cranny of their territory as I had in my last home area.
A lanky, buck toothed youth appeared from the shell of a vehicle and he unfolded his masculine body in front of us and stood erect. I was introduced as the new kid from the pub, he was then introduced to me by Girl Face as Ken Bunny. To my horror, he had his pants unzipped and held in his hand a huge and stiff hairy penis, which he pulled at in front of us as if we were not there and which was ignored by all of the gang except Girl Face, who blushed and made a pretense of being coy.
I was in out of my depth already. Thankfully, Girl Face’s brother pulled the pack of Durex gum from his pocket, and on the expectation of being able to do something with my mouth other than gasp like a frightened dog, I awaited its opening. Instead, he handed it to Ken Bunny, who snatched it delightedly and tore at the wrapper. Inside was the most peculiar shaped gum I had ever seen. In some form of foil, lay a circular flat disc of gum, and there were only two in the entire pack. He ripped the foil, and pulled out a curled up balloon. Durex was not gum after all, but some form of toy. I watched transfixed, as the Bunny man placed it on the end of his dick and uncurled it. All the gang stood about sagely, and watched this exhibition as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I was confused. In my heart and soul I believed that what I was witnessing was very wrong, and yet my curiosity won the day, and in the pretence that I knew exactly what was happening, I simply sat down on an old car seat and leaned back, saying nothing, as Ken Bunny waggled his tool, now enveloped in a greasy balloon with a small bobble on the end. Finally he gasped, and the small crowd cheered. As we sat there, with Ken now back in his hide away, and with still one more of the weird Durex devices left, we heard a girl call the signal from outside, and one of the older boys responded with the same. After a minute or two, we heard metallic clunking and scrabbling sound, and two teenage girls dropped into the den.
The older boys were delighted, and in the voice of their strange accent, that was so new to my ears, the elder of the girls complimented Girl Face on his dress and high heels, and turned to the other boys in our gang and leered at them. They were shown the Durex balloon, and giggled delightedly; words were exchanged, while I sat quietly on my car seat watching them interact. One of the girls, called Ursula, scrambled off into another vehicle, which was hidden behind a broken Ford. From beyond the vehicle she finally called for her first visit. I still did not know what was happening, but one by one, and each for a period of about five minutes, the boys snuck off through the Ford, to return with their faces flushed, wringing their hands together and whispering secretly. Only Girl Face and Ken Bunny remained with the other girl and myself, until finally, one of the boys turned to me and told me it was my turn.
I was now becoming worried, since it dawned on me that to refuse might mean that I would forever be shunned as a crybaby, but to accept was to enter the unknown.
Already I realized that compared to the rustic upbringing I had enjoyed in my former home, these people were very different, and much tougher in so many more ways. The decision to disappear into the other vehicle however wasn’t mine, Girl Face leaned down and whispered that if I didn’t go, I had to face Ken Bunny, and play with his willy for him. Now he was much bigger, and having seen his huge member already and realizing that he had neither shame nor decorum, I got up and wound my way through the Ford.
Ursula lay on her back, on the rear seat of an old Zephyr, she beckoned me to move closer. She was about thirteen years of age, and a little plump. Her teeth in the front had a buckle to them, and her lips were bright pink, and large and fleshy. She had the type of mouth that could suck the chrome off a tailpipe. Her hair was cropped short at the sides but with a lopsided bang over her large brow, she wore tight pants, which for some absurd reason were referred to as slacks, and an even tighter shirt, stretched over huge breasts, both of which were buttressed up in a big bra, which showed though the shirt. She leaned closer to me, and then she said it.
It was sixpence for a look, a shilling for a touch and one shilling and sixpence for a taste. I did not know it at the time, but I had finally met my first prostitute. I had no money on me, but apparently that did not matter, because none of the others did either, but I could owe it to her and was allowed a week to pay. I found myself both scared and confused. Within me something ancient stirred, a baser signal reminding me of the animal background we had as humans, and my small and almost hairless member, began to stiffen in my pants. She was ugly from the neck up, but neither my thoughts nor my eyes strayed above her breasts, so that did not matter. Finally, she unzipped her slacks at the side, and with one movement, she slipped them and the panties they contained down below her knees and hoisted her feet and legs back until they almost touched her ears.
There it was, laid before me like an open mussel shell, her thingy. Springy black hairs adorned the strangest body part that I had ever seen. Deep primordial stirrings gave away in my loins, and I felt an urge to show her my stuff also, and so I did, and on my knees, staring at the slimy gates of hell, I unzipped my trousers and dropped them and my tattered and stained underpants as I held my man hood in my right hand and smiled at her. She reached out and touched it, and pulled my hand off it, and held it herself. I ached and ached in all areas between my navel and my knees. I flushed with embarrassment. I felt deep within me that this was so morally wrong, and yet my baser side told me just how right a thing it was that I did. I felt shame and courage all at the same time. She took my hand, in her free hand, which she had pushed between her legs and pants, and while gently grabbing my index finger, she slid it inside herself and groaned. I was mortified. All that I had learned earlier from previous friends had informed me that girls smelled of kippers, and that if you touched them you could never get the smell off. I gently withdrew my finger, and sniffed it, sure enough, it was different, but kippers, well possibly.
As if I was on the clock, she suddenly let go of my welsh dagger, pulled her pants up urging me to do the same, and we clambered out to join the clan as if nothing had happened. I had passed the test. I was now fully indoctrinated into the gang, and our secrets must stay where they were. I was to learn later, that Ken Bunny as he was called, was a homosexual, and the girl who we called Ursula was not in fact born with that name, but so called after a famous actress of the time named Ursula Undress, because this teenager could seldom keep her clothes on. Girl Face however was a greater mystery, because although he wore girls clothes, and hung around with them, at that time and to the best of my knowledge, he actually just enjoyed dressing as a girl, but in most other ways he was as male as any of us. The rest called him a transvestite, which at first I thought he was called because he came from a town in Transylvania near where Dracula lived, but it seems that all he had to do to get this title was continue wearing his sisters clothes, and the women’s panties other gang members snatched from clothes lines at night.
This was my first full day in my new home. I had experienced, but not necessarily enjoyed, my induction into a rebellious gang of local hooligans and gained my first real close up and examination of a young girl’s private parts. I never paid Ursula the money, and she never asked for it but I was to get to see her thing many more times during my life there, though seldom was love, sex, or punishment ever discussed, it was just what we did, like comparing homework after school. This new home would be different in many ways, and the experiences would mark me for life. In just one day I had graduated from a delinquent to a hooligan, and grown up into the next stage of my life, from boyhood to a forced adolescence, just by moving sixty miles from the original village of my early childhood, Dyserth, where I had developed my ways, to here, Rhosymedre, still in Wales, but a planet apart in most other ways.
I was now a stranger, in a strange and unusual part of Wales’ border country, and I had a great deal to learn about my new surroundings and the dark, surly families who inhabited the region. Little did I know it, that first day, but I was about to graduate to the dark side, and in the spirit of my personal hero, Sir Winston Churchill, I was to develop my own “Black Dog” of depression, which was to surface and grow throughout my early teen years, and haunt me for the rest of my life, to change me from the innocence of a young boy into a tormented and often villainous adolescent. This book will chronicle the second stage of a not so illustrious human being. Me. I was changed forever, and for the worse.
In the following pages, I realize that it is now too late to repent and offer apologies for my miscreant deeds, to the people upon whom I inflicted my vandalism and thoughtlessness. It was a strange time, in a strange place and I was and still am a strange person. Each chapter tells a story, and each story is a hard sewn element of a rich tapestry that when complete, serves to describe the great battle, that was my war against my own ‘Black Dog’, as well as of course, the fun I was having with my new found status as the village hooligan.
About Me
- Mervyn Price
- Originally from North Wales, I was educated at HMS Conway in Angelesey, and went on to study in London, first Electrical Engineering, and then Economics and Finance. I have traveled around the world, mostly on business, including the West Indies,but settled in Dallas Texas in 2000, from where I travel extensively as an business analyst and turn around expert for banks and large corporations.
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