Fifth series, episode 5
All five series are available here on the HebWeb.
In this episode, George Murphy writes about hot weather, a silver grey Lagonda, Frank Muir, speed limits, China, a garden gang and shares a tale about a Yorkshire Don Juan.
The heat is on
Spring has suddenly sprung. Now the garden is crying out for rain, but if it wilts, we can always borrow the trees on Crow Hill to top up the view.
A silver grey Lagonda
Frank was proud of his silver grey Lagonda convertible, and he wouldn’t let his wife drive it because she had a nice little runaround of her own.
He went for a spin one sunny day on country lanes in Kent, but driving uphill with the roof down he was disturbed to see a jeep bouncing down towards him, driven by the local farmer, a formidable looking woman with a rope tied round her black coat.
With his heart in his mouth, Frank kept tight to the hedge on his side of the lane, but as the jeep bounded past, with just a gnat’s eyelash between the vehicles, the farmer turned and shouted “PIG!”
Frank couldn’t believe it. She was the road hog! But in his mirror he saw her mud splattered jalopy disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust. Frustrated at not being able to shout back at the woman, he drove on uphill, round the corner and crashed into a pig.
Let’s be Frank
I heard this Frank Muir story on My Word, on the Home Service, when I was a schoolboy. Sixty years later Alexei Sayle recalled it on radio 4, pointing out that Muir was a liberal man but disguised it by effecting a pompously misogynistic persona at a time when the term road hog and male chauvinist pig were becoming common currency.
I retold Frank’s tale at the Rat and Ratchet pub, where I’d travelled with Old Town storytellers, Paul Degnan and Ingrid Burney. Frank’s tale probably triggered the Chairman of the Yorkshire dialect society, Rod Dimbleby, to tell a story about his posh car getting smashed up one evening while it was parked on a nearby road. He said he’d had to borrow his wife Pam’s little runaround to get the club. Knowing Rod, we waited for a jokey punchline but he said, “No, it’s a true story.”
Bleeding speeding
Road lobbyists are complaining on local websites about the reduction of the speed limit on Burnley Road where it approaches Hebden Bridge from Mytholmroyd. One complained that he regularly did the ton along Burnley Road back in the 1960s. He thought all the fun was going out of motoring. At which point, I thought of the roadside floral tributes for people who have been killed on the road over the years. A biker died in a gruesome crash on the bend just along from here. A young man, son of a former neighbour of ours, had his life cut short at Luddenden Foot. An elderly building society worker, with whom we’d once arranged a mortgage, was run over as he crossed Burnley Road to catch the 590 bus to work.
And in Hebden a local man was killed trying to cross the road at the junction where the new market is. The young driver had been warned about his driving by police a few minutes earlier. He got a five year sentence.
China on my mind
Watching Race Across the World, I wondered if some people wouldn’t mind living in that ancient country with its spectacular scenery, remarkable antiquities and bullet trains - despite its dictatorship, lack of free speech and ill treatment of minorities. Watching those trains and litter free stations, I thought how poor our country seems after years of austerity, especially in the north, where we can’t even get zoom trains from Hull to Liverpool.
Garden gang
My sister Sue gave me this old photograph of our mum Dot with Dot’s second husband Mike. Looks as if Sue and her husband Pete had taken them to the seaside for a treat. Dot died in 1996. Mike lived on in our post war, sandy brick council house in Ellesmere Port, where he contracted scurvy, having lived on tinned food for a year. After which my nieces did most of his shopping for him, to make sure he had a varied diet.
Ten years later, a gang of scousers with a tip up truck called round and asked Mike if they could tidy his front garden for him. After cutting the grass and trimming a few bushes they asked Mike for £700. Frightened, he went upstairs and got the money from under the mattress in his bedroom. Later the gang came back, broke in, and stole the £10,000 Mike had planned to pass on to his nieces.
My two older nieces, Andrea and Nicola, have sent messages recalling the events. Andrea wrote that Mike did have a bank account, but was reluctant to put the leftover pension money in the account after she’d shopped for him and the amount he kept at home built up.
“He got shingles in his shoulder and kept quiet about it. His arm was never the same again. … They were due to return to do the back garden and we told him not to open the door to them or to say his family were going to fix the back garden.”
They did come back. “They went through the upstairs window while he was watching TV. He could hear them upstairs and was so badly shook up … I really missed them both. We had some lovely times at Nan’s and Mike’s.”
Andrea’s son Tom, a child back then, wrote, “I remember that gardening scam. Scumbags.”
Nicola wrote, “He was so frightened after that. Makes me angry that he didn’t feel safe in his own home.” She remembered that Mike and Dot never had much money and rarely went out.
A Liverpool tale
The Todmorden Wednesday Writers group has changed its name to Gobshite, an old Irish term according to my friend Theresa the organiser and fellow member of The Offcumdens. The new title seemed to work because there was a great turn out. I told The Yorkshire Don Juan, partly because I once performed it in a transgender pub as part of a Rod and George gig in Nottingham.
When I retired, Kath and I went to Liverpool for a short break and stayed at Malmaison on the Pier Head. In the docklands area, I heard a scouse guy say, “I miss me Mrs and me Mrs misses me.’’ So I started on the tale set in the Pool, but only realised half way through writing it how to resolve a tricky situation …
The Yorkshire Don Juan
Introduction:
Here’s a tale regarding fashion a la mode
Bout a salesman who broke the salesman’s code.
Though some customers are kissable, kissing em’s dismissible,
When work and pleasure meet, always be discreet.
I left my Yorkshire home one fateful day,
For a salesman’s job on t’ streets of Liverpool,
But not long out of school, t’ sales team took me for a fool,
And had me selling, day by day, ladies slippers and lingerie.
I met two merchant seamen set to sail,
And asked what they missed most when out at sea.
T’ small un, says, “Dis ale,
But sometimes in a gale,
I miss me Mrs and me Mrs misses me.”
So we had a toast to their fidelity,
An’ tall says, “Dat’s true dat, I agree.
We’ve got girls in every port,
And although we don’t go short,
I miss da kisses dat me Mrs gives to me."
So I told them that I sold from door to door,
Such items as a Mrs might be missing,
Special stuff for t’ bottom drawer,
But sometimes they wanted more.
And I really made them listen
When I started reminiscing
Bout this woman I’d been kissing.
"She’s a reet big lass that lives on Daisy Street.
She wears size 10 slippers
And those slippers are reet full of feet.
In a flannelette nightie, she looks like Aphrodite,
And when that big Mrs kisses,
I really know what bliss is."
But t’ small seaman started to repeat.
"She wears size 10 slippers
And she lives on Daisy Street?
She get flighty in a well upholstered nighty?
Dat’s my Mrs giving kisses in dem slippers.
And dat nighty was a treat!”
A foghorn sounded mournful out on t’ Mersey,
As small ‘un came up close, nose to nose.
My heart wor pounding in my jersey,
I knew I’d get no mercy.
But tall un said, “Before you do him in.
Your Mrs is a twin. It’s complicated dis is.
That win lives near your Mrs.
Perhaps he never kissed her.
Perhaps he kissed her sister!”
So small un says, “Da question is,
Was that flannellated Mrs,
Giving kisses in dem slippers, Rose or Liz?”
Now questioned under oath,
I would have answered, ‘Both!’
But I took a gambler’s chance
And I chose, “Rose!”
Then small un says, “Dat’s grim.
I’m married to Liz, but Rose is married to him.”
Then tall un shook his fist
Saying, “Do you want some of Dis?’
My biggest wish is to feed you to the fishes!”
But small un said, “It’s alright son, we’re joking,
There’s something about a salesman that’s provoking.
Our wives are quite petite,
They’ve not got size 10 feet.
But dose twin sisters,
Giving kisses in dose slippers
Were once Misters!”
I said, “Run that past me again.”
He said, “Rose and Liz from Daisy Street.
Were once called Reg and Len.
You think you’re a Yorkshire Don Ju-in.
But you don’t know what you’re doing!”
And after many more jibes at me,
Those seamen went back to sea.
So, enjoy your kisses while they last.
Here’s a toast both strong and tender.
To every lad and every lass.
And those who swapped their gender.
Cheers!
Readers write
Lesley Jones: I have lived in Hebden Bridge for much of my life but live in France now in Clermont Ferrand. I thought that you might be interested to know that the short film, Rhubarb, Rhubarb, was actually on the programme of the Clermont Ferrand Festival du Court Metrage in February this year as an entry in the International section. I have looked but unfortunately it didn’t win an award. We thought that it was an excellent little film and deserved an award but we were, of course, a little biased!
Best wishes, Lesley Jones
Matters pending and ending
Seeing the weather forecast for the week was Scorchio, we’ve gone to the lakes for a few days, on which I’ll report next time.
Thanks to Lesley and other readers who have sent messages, which I’ll return to in the next episode, including research findings that today’s 70 year olds are, biologically speaking, equivalent to the 50 year olds of the recent past!
And finally
A photo of mine popped up on social media of the short lived reading room in Organic House. Where I read this …
Endpiece
Here lies the body of Patrick
Who served Aphrodite delightedly.
Even when quite geriatric
He still raised a nightie excitedly.
PATRICK O’SHAUGHNESSY
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