A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams (4 page)

By this time I was the only child left in the whole street. ‘It was you, you little get!’

Neighbours were now appearing at their front doors or peering through their net curtains. Straightening the headscarf around her head, the woman advanced in my direction. She wasn’t going to let me escape! Tight-lipped, she grabbed me by the ear, dragging me towards our house. Banging on our front door, she shouted, ‘Your son has smashed my windows! What are you going to do about it?’

Mum opened the door, listening to what the neighbour had to say, then offered to pay for the damage. Once I was inside, however, she was furious. ‘How am I going to find the money to pay for that?’ she shouted. ‘Why is it always you?’

Mum was right: no matter how hard I tried to be good, I was always the one who caused her the most problems. I was ridiculously accident-prone.

Durden Street was one of a series of narrow streets nestled between Smithdown Road and Earl Road, both being main roads leading in and out of the city, and teeming with traffic and activity. There was every type of shop you could imagine, and a pub on every other street corner. There’d often be some thirty kids playing out on our street, aged from about three to ten, and we all had nicknames. Mine was ‘Red’, because of the colour of my hair.

We played all sorts of games – skipping, ball games, marbles, and conkers. The older boys would make their own carts out of old wooden planks and pram wheels. The ‘driver’ would sit at the front, steering with a long piece of old rope attached to the front wheels, while a second boy pushed the cart from behind, running along until the cart built up speed. Then he’d leap on the back, holding on to the driver’s shoulders for dear life as they rattled along.

There was no grass or trees growing in our streets, so we would make our way to Sefton Park, the nearest public park, which was about an hour’s walk away. Mum encouraged us to go there during school holidays and sunny Sundays so we could play and get some fresh air. She’d make us jam or banana butties and give us a large bottle of tap water to quench our thirst. Being the youngest, I had to wait until last before I could have a swig, and by then there would be bits of bread floating around in the water. It didn’t bother me, though. We were all family and friends, after all.

4. In the Blood

Looking back now, I think I was born to trade. I remember being about six and sitting with my feet in the street gutter watching the other kids play. A horse and cart loaded with old bikes, bits of metal, huge bundles of rags and boxes full of old bones left over from the stockpot came down the street, and I heard the man driving the cart shouting, ‘Any old rags! Any old bones! Any old iron!’

He pulled his horse to a stop, and most of the kids ran off to their houses, coming back within minutes, their hands full of old clothes, clothes which were almost beyond repair, rags in the truest sense of the word. The children formed a queue, passing their bundles up to the man. He inspected the contents carefully before deciding whether or not they were worthy of a balloon tied to a piece of string. He looked so stern and grumpy no one ever argued.

As he was nearing the end of his collection, I noticed Mum standing beside the cart talking to him. They seemed to be coming to some arrangement. Then she got up on the back of the cart and began rummaging through the rags. After a while she got down with an assortment of jumpers and other clothes. Still negotiating, she opened her purse and took out a few coppers, passing them up to the rag-and-bone man.

Heading towards our front door, she called out to me, ‘Come on, Jeff, we have work to do.’ I followed after her, leaving my friends and their balloons behind.

We went through to the small kitchen at the back, and Mum carried two small metal buckets full of boiling water into the backyard and emptied them into a larger tub – the dolly tub. Then she swirled the clothes around with a dolly peg, cleaning them before any fleas or lice could invade the house. Once they were dry, she sat and darned through the night so she could sell them on the market.

Some of my earliest memories are of Great Homer Street – Paddy’s – Market. Its nickname derived from the huge number of Irish immigrants that had settled in the area many years before. Most of the stallholders sold second-hand items and, like Mum, would rent a small space for a few shillings.

Apart from the rag-and-bone man, we also got our stock from ‘going on the knocker’ – knocking on rich people’s front doors asking for any unwanted clothes. Sometimes we even got things Mum could pawn. On one of our better days, Mum and I were out calling on the grand houses overlooking Sefton Park. Mum stood by the gate waiting and watching while I walked up the footpath to the front door, standing on tiptoe and stretching as high as I could to reach the knocker. After a few moments the door opened.

‘Please, missus, any old rags?’ I piped up.

The lady standing in front of me was beautifully dressed, and smelt really nice. She smiled down at me. ‘Wait there,’ she said, and turned back into the house, closing the door behind her.

I stood there for what seemed like ages, then the door reopened and a large bundle, too big for me alone to carry, was placed at my feet. I was almost speechless, but managed to stammer a thank you.

Mum had quite a task carrying the bundle to the bus stop, even with me helping as best I could. At home, she carefully undid all the knots, and gasped.

‘Look, Jeff,’ she exclaimed, pulling out the first item. ‘A fur coat!’ Slipping it over her shoulders, she span around the room as if she was dancing with Fred Astaire.

‘Mum, you look fantastic,’ I laughed, caught up in her excitement.

‘Mink!’ Her voice was brimming with joy. ‘Mink is worth a fortune. And this is a real mink coat!’

The next item was a man’s overcoat, a camel-hair Crombie. Running her hands over the material, she said, ‘Oh, Jeff, this will fit your father. He’ll look so handsome in it!’ By now her voice was almost a whisper. ‘Can you believe our luck? All this wonderful stuff. We can make so much money from it … and it didn’t cost us a single penny!’ She looked at me, gently resting her hands on my shoulders. ‘God has been so good to us today. If you are a good person in life, then He will always look after you.’

Later that afternoon, Mum sent my older sister Lesley to the pawn shop with the mink coat – and she came back with not one but two £10 notes! Mum held the money to her chest, then turned and looked at the two of us standing there. ‘We’re rich! We’re rich! This is what I was telling you about; this is a great day!’ It was also one of those rare moments when I saw Mum happy and laughing.

Mum would prepare for the Saturday markets the night before, and showed me how to sort out the different categories of clothing and tie them into small bundles. Up and dressed in record time, Mum and I would be on our way by six o’clock in the morning, Mum pushing an old-fashioned pram laden with our wares while I almost jogged alongside her, my little legs finding it impossible to keep up at times.

Hiring a table for the day, she would arrange all the items for a shilling on top of it and everything that was a tanner (sixpence) on a tarpaulin on the ground before starting her spiel: ‘Come on, folks! Everything a shilling on the table and a tanner on the floor!’ I also remember her calling out, ‘Here, Johnny, Johnny, lookee, Johnny, Johnny! Here, Johnny, Johnny!’

‘Johnny’ was the name given to the Lascars, Indian seamen from the cargo ships that visited Liverpool docks. Paddy’s Market was very popular with them, and they’d buy umbrellas and hats – lady’s hats and men’s trilbies in any colour and condition, so long as they were cheap. Mum told me they took the hats back to their loved ones, who used them to protect themselves from the heat of the sun.

Johnnies always moved around the market in groups of at least three or four, forming a line, one behind the other, so close that the man behind was almost a part of the man in front, moving as one with a shuffling sort of dance step. They stacked the hats up ten high on their heads, and they’d tower over the crowds around them and tilt in different directions, and their arms would be adorned, too, with umbrellas, eight or nine on each one. Mum said that travelling in groups made them feel safe – the one in the middle always held the money.

I asked Mum why they were called Johnnies. She told me that, over the years, when anybody asked their name, they would always say ‘Johnny’. In response, the market traders would laugh, and joke that ‘They must all be called Johnny in their country,’ and so the nickname stuck.

After a couple of years I had become a regular trader on the market with Mum. I loved it, particularly first thing in the morning when the traders were getting their stalls ready. The atmosphere was great and humming with energy, buzzing with the calls of the traders: ‘All right, Gert? Tess? Dave? Alice?’ ‘The best of luck to you today. Have a good’un – hope you take lots of money.’

One day we had a small hand-operated sewing machine to sell. Mum had to go to the toilet and left me in charge, and a lady came over and asked how much it was. Mum had told me earlier how much she wanted to sell it for, but I couldn’t remember. Not wanting to lose a sale, I quickly came up with a figure.

‘£5 that, missus,’ I replied. ‘Just £5.’ (Mum always said ‘just’ before the price.)

Tousling my hair, the lady smiled. ‘You’re very grown-up for your age, young man,’ she said, and gave me the money, a big, crisp £5 note. I folded it up into a small square and hid it deep in my pocket.

Mum got back and immediately noticed that the machine was gone.

‘Where is it?’ she asked, a note of worry in her voice.

‘Sold and paid for,’ I replied.

‘Did you get the £3 I was asking for it?’

‘No.’ I paused. ‘I got £5.’ Pulling the note out of my pocket, I passed it over to her. Mum was lost for words; she pulled me into a big hug and squeezed me tightly.

‘Well done, Jeff! You’re a real market trader now, and that’s official!’ Then she handed me a shilling and told me to go and buy a big bag of sweets to celebrate.

After that, I felt I could handle anything. Seven years old, selling by myself, and £5 in one go! My confidence soared. I had now found something I was good at!

As I got older, I was always on the lookout for ‘business’ opportunities. One day, I was up in the bedroom I shared with my parents. I was bored, so I decided to investigate my father’s chest of drawers.

Opening the bottom drawer, I found some of his clothes: ties, socks, handkerchiefs – nothing of any great interest. The second drawer was pretty much the same, so I moved on to the top one. When I pulled it open, the runners slightly sticking, the contents were much more promising: tins, a jar of Brylcreem, belts and braces, and a wooden box, full of big cigars. My father bought them from the sailors and sold them on to the nightclub owners.

Taking one out of the box, I stood in front of the mirror posing, the cigar between my lips. The image of an eight-year-old with red curly hair grinned back at me. ‘My mates would love this,’ I thought to myself, and I decided to take it into school the following day.

The next day, sitting behind my desk, I waited until our teacher had his back to the class and pulled the cigar out of my pocket. Giving Raj, who was sitting next to me, a quick nudge, I showed him my ‘surprise’, sticking the cigar in my mouth and pretending to smoke it.

Word spread through the class, and all the boys were quietly sniggering at the sight of me sitting there ‘puffing’ away like a miniature Winston Churchill. The teacher turned around, but before he could catch me, the cigar had disappeared back into the depths of my blazer, and I was all innocence.

Hissed requests of ‘Show it me’ and ‘Let’s see it again’ came from every direction, but I just mouthed, ‘Later,’ gesturing with my finger towards the classroom door. Come playtime, my mates were in for a treat!

When the bell rang, I was one of the first out, followed by an impatient gang of lads. Heading for the block of toilets in the playground, I found myself surrounded by about ten of them, all eager for a look at my cigar. We had all tried smoking a Woodbine at some stage, but a cigar was different. It was big and fat and smelled of rich tobacco. It was so grown-up.

A couple of the lads asked me if I was going to light it, others if they could have a smoke. I said the cigar was for look-see only.

‘I’ll pay yer for a puff,’ said one lad.

‘Me too,’ said another. ‘A penny for a puff – I’ve got the money here.’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a coin. I couldn’t believe it. With the ten boys in the toilets with me, and the guy on dixie (lookout) by the toilet entrance, I could make nearly a shilling!

I arranged the ‘Big Smoke’ for the next day, managing to bring in with me some matches from a box Mum kept in the kitchen. At playtime we all made our way to the toilets, making a dash for it one at a time, trying to avoid the attention of the teacher on playground duty. We all gathered around one of the cubicles and I produced the cigar.

Striking a match on the wall and holding the flame to the end of the cigar, I puffed once or twice, lighting the tobacco as everyone watched in fascination. The end started to glow and a plume of smoke rose in the air. Everyone sniffed. We had all seen adults with cigars, or one of our heroes in the movies, but we’d never been this close to the real thing before. Puffing a few more times to make sure that the cigar was well lit, I held it out for the first lad to have a go.

The cubicle was already filling up with smoke, the taste in my mouth was awful and my eyes were watering. And after everyone had paid their penny and taken their turn, there were ten of us with streaming eyes, all coughing and feeling slightly queasy, but very grown-up.

Everyone agreed it was worth a penny, though I think the thought that, at any moment, a teacher could walk in and catch us was more enjoyable than the actual cigar. And we’d only smoked a small amount of it. I knew I had a money-spinner on my hands, so you can imagine how careful I was when I stubbed it out.

After that I became a bit of a hero to the other boys, and my reputation spread quickly throughout the school. Before long, there were loads of boys queuing up for a puff on my cigar. The money was rolling in, and I was able to give Mum quite a few shillings, telling her it was winnings from a game of marbles. But the cigar was getting smaller and smaller, and so was my business venture. I wasn’t going to chance another one. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I was caught.