I was born in a little colliery village, three miles west of Durham called Brandon. There was Mam and Dad, four brothers and one sister. We lived in the middle of the street, Number 66. Our source of heat was a huge fire, surrounded by blackened, shiny steel. There was a boiler on the left of the fire and an oven on the right. When my deaf grandma was baby-sitting one night, our black and white cat went to sleep in the warm oven. Grandma thought it was getting a bit parky so she heaped coals on the fire and clashed the oven door shut. People heard the unholy screams for two hours till it went quiet. The mantelpiece was high and had two sitting dogs on either end, staring at each other with glazed brown eyes. In between, was a collection of framed photos and bills, paid and pending. The double-belled alarm clock had the honour to be in the centre under a sepia-coloured picture of my dad in uniform, taken when he was in the Great War.
Netties ran down the middle of the street serving those in need. I won’t bore you with stories about how we would wait till someone, preferably a woman, sat on the wooden throne and force a cat through the let-hole, then wait for the scream from a safe distance. Or about urinating in a pop bottle and telling some daft young’n it was lemonade. While I am on about netties, I would like to pay tribute to those who cleaned them out. They should at least have been knighted and received a gold-plated gas mask for meritorious service. You can only imagine where they hung their clothes when they finished work; probably clagged them on a wall, somewhere far away from the house.
My first memories, when I was two, consisted of pain and confusion when I contracted that pleasant little disease called meningitis. I can remember screaming in my cot under the yellow glow of an electric light bulb, which was pock marked with fly droppings. As I clutched the wooden bars of the cot I saw Mam’s face appear, Dad’s grizzled features came a close second.
“Eeh, it’s not like him to scream like that George,” Mam said.
“Nowt wrang with he’s bloody lungs,” Dad answered.
They took me to the local fever hospital. I was away for weeks, apparently near to death, when - as a last ditch effort to save me - they gave me a lumbar puncture. My sister told me years later that I was one of the first ones in the country to receive one. Anyway, it seemed to work but I always smile when I think of what Mam used to say, “Thee always say that when you’ve had meningitis, you’re either turn out to be a genius or an idiot.”
When I lifted my chubby little cheeks and asked how I turned out, she would pat my head and say, “Never mind, little lad.”
I started school in the spring of 1944 and I must dismiss that good old saying, ‘Corporal Punishment never hurt anybody.’
Well, I must inform those who never experienced it: It bloody well hurt me! The first time that I received it was because I had put dog shit in my little mate’s shoe. The teacher would never have found out, had he not noticed that little Bobby had suddenly grown about 2” in height, although leaning a little to starboard. So, out came Mr Strap from the cupboard and with the other kids watching I was struck across the fingers. I was only five and I think she expected me to burst into tears. When I didn’t, it seemed to make her more annoyed, shoving me to one side as she replaced the strap behind the coloured building blocks in the confines of the cupboard. That little show of bravado ensured me being in her bad books for the rest of the term. She only came round when I grassed my little mate up for pinching the coloured chalks. (It was me, anyway).
Winter 1947. I was eight years old. We stood on top of the wind-blown, snow clad pit heap. There were four of us and we looked like a miniature version of the Scott expedition (on the return journey). Our heads were buried in our Balaclavas of assorted colours, revealing only eyes and snotty noses. We wore thick woollen socks to fill out our dads’ wellies and long scarves, which crossed our skinny little chests and were tied behind our backs and handed-down top-coats, with the customary slime mark on one of the sleeves, depending on which arm you used. (You could always tell when someone was ambidextrous) Our upper bodies were covered with pullovers, circa 1930s and had more hole than wool. I can hear Mam now, “Best to get clothes which are too big because thee bound to grow into them.” She never understood that, by the time my emaciated body had grown into my clothes they were only fit for clippie mats.
The howling wind threatened to blow us off as we stood on the summit. The slope was about 80-100 yards or so and was covered with hard packed, virgin snow. Each of us was waiting to see which maniac would go first. Three of us looked round to our usual ‘volunteer’ but only discovered frenzied skid marks, which led to the colliery rows. We had forgotten that only a few months before, we had persuaded him to go down the same heap in a tractor tyre and he had walked the village like a zombie for three weeks afterwards. (He’s still peculiar).
I tried my little friend Snots, standing there with his brother’s top coat on, minus the buttons. (We had used them to play Tiddly Winks when it was raining one day) He had a snake belt tied around his waist. The belt did three jobs: first, when he made a little ‘mistake’ it kept the contents in the confines of his underpants, secondly it kept what was left of his trousers up and thirdly it kept his lice and their families safe and warm.
In those days a snake belt was kind of a fashion statement. I tried to bribe him for months by offering all sorts of items so I could have that belt. I was even tempted to part with my set of pram wheels with the ball bearing axles. I nearly had him convinced that, if fitted on a bogie (pull cart) it would reach speeds of one hundred and fifty miles per hour. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t believe me. I mean, he swallowed the one about Flash Gordon’s rocket ship landing near the pit pond and asking me if I knew where the nearest nettie was.
Snots’ one and only talent was to be able to produce from that little purple nose enough candle wax to illuminate the Vatican for six months. If we’d only had the brains we would have made a fortune if we had patented Snots’ right sleeve because he had unwittingly invented a product which would have outlasted fibreglass.
Our sledges were made by the colliery joiners for a couple of pints. Sturdy and solid, like anything made at the pithead, they lasted us years. But that particular winter was long and severe and the sledges were used a lot more than usual. Mine, for instance, had a loose runner, and was liable to veer to the right. That’s why our youngn’s left wellie was nearly worn through, trying to keep the sledge in a straight line.
We stared at the slope again, and discussed how to tackle it. I had already decided that the only way they would get me to go down that heap was if someone had promised to give me a nude photo of our art teacher.
We were about to abort the attempt when there was a shout from behind. It was Jeff. He was easily recognized as he had his dad’s cap on. The cap looked like it had been modelled around a dustbin lid with a peak on. It would have fallen over his face if it hadn’t been for his juge lugs. Hands in pockets, he drew nearer, “What’s on here then.”
We explained. His answer was typical, “Bloody set of soft shits! Ah’ve been look’n for you buggers. Ya haven’t been avoid’n me, have ya?”
We lied, shaking our heads, then we pointed out that the snow was hard packed, also that there was a frozen pool at the bottom of the heap. Beyond the frozen pool, there was a six foot high brick wall. We were just about to whimper that our mams would be wondering where we were when Jeff commanded, “Give’s thee sledge, Gray!”
As I gave him the pull rope I tried to explain about the loose runner, but Jeff never tried to understand or listen about the technicalities of anything, so with the finesse of a bull-in-a-china-shop method of approach, and despite the fact that Jeff had more bumps on his head than a golf ball, due to previous encounters with solid objects, he dived belly-down on the sledge and flung himself off the summit.
He shouted back, “Ah’ll try and head for the pub gates.”
He skittered down the steep incline, the polished steel runners hardly left a mark on the ice-hardened snow. Only his wellies made two shallow troughs as he frantically tried to stop himself from being killed. I tried to shout over the noise of the wind which screamed past his balaclava, to warn him about the loose runner, but I guessed that any rational thought he may have had, was now replaced by the sensation of utter terror. About halfway down the G force flattened his sticky-out lugs to the side of his head, crushing the twenty-seven nits to death as they tried to run for cover. It’s a good job the other threehundred or so were safe under that cap.
By now, the sledge had reached - and indeed had passed - the makers recommended speed and was now highly unstable. It started to move to the right. I know it was wrong, but I felt a little smug, “There, see! Ah told the daft get what would happen.”
Snots spoilt it by reminding me that, “Your young’n will kill ya if owt happens to the sledge. Ya should have asked ‘im first instead of just takk’n it.”
The voice of doom.
Jeff and our young’ns sledge reached the foot of the heap. As soon as they made contact with the iced-over pond it seemed to increase speed. The runners hummed over the ice.
It was bad timing on Jeff’s part as he tried to take a quick peek from under his dad’s cap, to see where he was going.
The last thing he saw was a brick with some writing on it. If he had been able to read, it would have said: ‘Made in....’ before the lights went out.
For a moment, we stood, rooted to the spot. I had the overwhelming desire to laugh but I quickly suppressed the idea, because there was a distinct possibility that he might survive and one of the others, under torture, would confess, and I would have ended up with a scudding.
I heard Snots as he drew a deep breath through his nose. Yellow mucus defied gravity as it was sucked back up his nostrils as he shouted, “Christ, he’s joined the bloody wall!”
We ran, half leapt, through the deep snow, leaving gouges as we went. When we arrived at the scene we found Jeff lying face down, still clinging on to the sledge. It was the first time I had seen a dead body. His wellies, especially the left one, was burned through at the toes and was still smoking.
As I stared down at him I wondered what the funeral would be like. It would be a quiet affair. There wouldn’t be a great lot there because he was badly liked.
I remembered when Mam came back from one and said that they had ham and peas pudding, and that the vicar said nice things about the deceased which was not true. I naturally thought that if it was Jeff’s wake there would be jelly and custard. I would have lied through my back teeth and all day for jelly and custard. I began to look forward to it.
He went and spoiled it all when his left leg started to twitch. I suggested we turn him over. We pulled at his shoulder but he would not let go of the sledge and ended up with it on his chest. He was as stiff as a board. I examined the wall. It hadn’t moved an inch. Only a splash of blood indicated the point of impact and four badly decayed teeth, which lay near the bottom course of bricks.
“Ah’m gonna rip your bloody wings off Gray,” Jeff croaked.
He threw the sledge away from him and staggered to his feet. He was going to die, like John Wayne did in the film The Sands of Iwa Jima.
I had to force myself not to ask him if I could have his bike. The one with one wheel bigger than the other, but I would have had to have brakes fitted - so I forced myself not to. Where would I get two bob from?
We heard a coal wagon screech to a halt and a man run towards us. He bent down and gave Jeff first aid. The man turned his attention to the sledge, “The right runner’s loose.”
I wished he hadn’t mentioned the bloody runner.
Eventually Jeff was able to walk and we all trekked back to the colliery rows. Being an imaginative soul I thought, ‘What if the knock on Jeff’s head had turned him into a genius like you see on the pictures? What if he suddenly acquired the ability to string more than five words together or even better, to stop slavvering while doing it? Or washing every month like ordinary people? I mean, if the impact had made him change his knickers, instead of wearing the same, yellow-stained ones he’d had on since their young’n had grown out of them’.
But as we got to the bottom of the rows, he turned with an exaggerated grin, showing us the result of the confrontation with the wall through the bloodied gap where his front teeth had been, and said with the intelligence of a pebble,
“Bloody great that. Anybody fancy another go tomorrow?”
Trying our best not to look astonished we silently nodded in mock agreement. As Jeff and his surviving nits disappeared into his back yard I looked at Snots and we both shrugged our shoulders in disbelief.
So it wasn’t like the pictures.
Mind, Jeff was still rapid-farting champion of Newcastle Street and surrounding districts. (Thirteen times off the belt).
© Ron Gray, 2007
Read Part 2 of Colliery Playground
