The Squashed Man Who Married a Dragon (2 page)

Three or four years before I married the bewitching one, when I was footloose and fancy free, I wanted almost more than anything else a suede jacket. There weren't many casual clothes in those days, – only sweaters, formal blazers or cardigans, zipped or buttoned, something like Val Doonican wore on his TV shows – but a suede jacket was different. Earning four pounds and ten shillings per week, minus deductions, National Insurance, tax and some contribution to my mum didn't leave a lot. The train fares, two shillings and four pence return ticket to Manchester, a packet of five Domino cigarettes, and a newspaper, about one shilling or less, with a lunchtime sandwich five days a week wiped me out.

I'd checked out suede jackets, feeling the quality, trying the odd one on – but the price was prohibitive. One day in the Market Hall at the bargain stall. The one my grandmother would have called the cheap and nasty shop, I saw hanging up high on the outside of the stall ‘my jacket'. The woman hooked it down with a long pole – ‘its best suedette' she said ‘one pound ten shillings – last one left, love'. On it felt like a second skin, very light and in a handsome warm brown colour. I coppered up all I had, every penny – and the jacket was mine. My own special thirty bob jacket – it didn't quite cover my bum, and the sleeves were a little short, but with my quiff and in this I was a watered down James Dean. During the next few years we saw a lot of action together, a strong bond of affection grew between us.

During work, which occupied most of the time dressed in a somber dark grey suit and black shoes, plain white shirt with a stiff cutaway collar, a dull tie and I was a clone like thousands of aspiring young men. I started work for the largest privately owned Danish Bacon importing house, in the UK, as a book clerk – soon moved to the sales side as a Junior Salesman, and not long after I was entrusted to drive new cars from Manchester to senior salesmen in different parts of the country.

On a Friday night I might collect a Triumph Herald or Wolsey 1.5, maybe a Hillman Minx for delivery on Monday. The boss, Derek Lewin, who had been an Olympic footballer with an impressive and lifetime footballing career – purchased, organised and ran the fleet of cars. Instead of buying twenty dark blue Fords, our sales force enjoyed many different makes of cars – matched I imagine to how the boss appraised his men, what a great way. I once had custody of a pale blue Vauxhall Victor for a week – Paul Newman may have had a powder blue ‘T Bird in California – but in Lancs the American styled Victor with its wrapped round windscreen and strange cut out front doors was the bees knees.

A little later I was dispatched to Newcastle on Tyne for six months, the great Geordie world. I walked about every inch of this corner of England from the villages of Pityme to Wideopen, or from the big lamp on Westgate Road to south of Felling. I must have earned my spurs, because at last on return to Lancashire, the modern and far-thinking boss, provided me with one of the first Mini's in Lancashire, duck egg blue, reg. TVF something – a Blackpool registration, press start button on the floor with a wonderful crisp exhaust note, wire loops to pull down to open the doors and sliding windows. What a great car! – nippy, performance and cornering, out of this world. I drove this car with the pride and joy it deserved.

The by-pass round Preston, which was the UK's first motor way – like the Salt Lake flats of Utah – no speed limit – flat out, I'd pass some ‘old bod' in a Morris Isis or Austin Hereford – they'd wake up in rage to be passed by a young tearaway in that funny little car – with their feet flat to the floor they'd try to catch or re-pass me, with no chance at all, their cars would glow red with rage. I'd let them get near then forge ahead leaving them in the dust! Sometimes in the rear view mirror I saw them dive into the emergency lane, blown up, clouds of steam coming from their bonnet.

Sometime later, Mr Lewin tells me the car needs some new tyres and that normally this happens at around twenty thousand miles or more, but this car had only done a little over five thousand miles. I'm dumbfounded – until in a hopeful way – I suggest that the front wheel drive Mini which has very small 12” wheels and in the course of a mile its wheels rotate far more times than normal wheels, wearing the tyres out a lot faster. As an understanding and open-minded man he seemed to accept this, but said to try to make the new tyres last a little longer this time.

Off I go to the garage at the top end of Cheatham Hill Road which the firm used for tyres and other work. There I'm parked outside, new tyres to be fitted all round. As I wait a small scruffy old scrap metal lorry in front of me, starts up and reverses straight back on to my ‘Mini'. It's back end gouging deep into the car's bonnet. I shouted out in shock and demented horror, the lorry stops and down jumps a tough looking Irish scrap metal man and his mate. Immediately his feet hit the ground he says ‘Have you just run into the back of me, pal?' in a challenging way. ‘Just look at this' I croaked, when they stepped back far enough to see, there was the Mini – no wheels on at all, up in the air on four stands, awaiting its new tyres. ‘Game, set and match!' I wrote down his registration number, the name and address from the side of his lorry and asked for his driving licence and insurance document details. Only the Irish have the presence of mind and the gift of words to attempt to turn an absolute rout into an almost guilt free Act of God, but the garage staff rescued me and witnessed the situation, excuses melted and the necessary details were eventually forthcoming. My accident report absolved me from all blame, and any lack of care of the company car.

The more enjoyable escapades with this wonderful little car were in the evenings and at weekends – out and about winning and wooing girls. The freedom and boundless opportunity to seek out and live life to the full was paradise. Happy times shared with my thirty bob jacket. I remember once out with a lovely bouncy, bubbly, blond girl – doing nothing in particular, except enjoying each other's company, possibly a drink in a country pub somewhere and then thanks to an open field gate, we drove through and into a field – to study the moon and stars.

We played a game like noughts and crosses, but instead of using pencil and paper, I had to put my hand on places while she had to stop me getting three in succession. First hand base…was easy, second a little more cunning but still in play. Third touch was lined out, start a new sequence, we played this fast and furious, time flowed by suddenly it was late enough to be in trouble time. I started the car and attempted to do a semi-circle to drive out of the field, when we entered we hadn't realised it was covered in ploughed furrows, halfway through the manoeuvre we ground to a halt. The bottom of the car stuck across the tops of the furrows and the wheels below in the dips. I tried in desperation to free the car, not a chance. The game girl offered to help taking off her shoes, she got out to push. I started the car again, bouncing up and down in a frantic effort to get some traction – she pushed for all she was worth – getting muddied as well. Back in the car she giggled – ‘What now, Superman'. One last round, an all or nothing attempt, hands trying an any and everywhere attack – thwarted again and back to reality. A little rain was now falling and I had to go and find a farmer to help us out.

I just couldn't believe my luck, from the depth of despair – I had found the farmer, still up, not cross or angry as he would have every right to be – he gets out his tractor. In two minutes he had hooked up to the Mini and dragged us out of the gate. I go over to thank him and give or owe him whatever he wanted for the rescue. ‘No, lad' he said! ‘I were young once' with a sort of knowing way. Turning back to the car I noticed the spotlight at the back of his cab – was illuminating the Mini. Inside this lovely girl was rearranging her muddied clothes, fixing her hair and make-up a sort of impromptu country cabaret.

Three or so years later when I was happily bound from head to toe to the girl of my dreams, the only other survivor of those carefree feckless days was my thirty bob jacket. When we set up home, I had a couple of suits, some shirts, socks, the usual clobber. The minimum really, taking up little space in my side of the wardrobe, plus the jacket.

This jacket thoughtfully pushed to the back – neglected in the darkened corner, was almost forgotten. One day I needed to see it, touch it again, link up with my old friend – I searched in vain; three times I went back to the wardrobe – thinking I hadn't looked properly.

It wasn't there, nor under the bed, we had no garage or loft to hide it – this was serious – where could it be? I asked the ‘all knowing one'. ‘Have you seen my thirty bob jacket? I can't find it anywhere'. ‘Oh, I threw it out…ages ago, you didn't wear it'. Threw it out…my sacred jacket…. a bosom friend….. never asked me…….didn't get a chance to say goodbye. In one savage, cruel, unthinking action, she had cut the umbilical cord to my youth – the last link to those heady moonlight adventures.

My father was great at dishing out good advice, two of his gems were ‘get stuck in now, work hard, be a Millionaire and retire at fifty'. Very helpful, but no actual step by step instructions how to achieve this goal. The other pearl was ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em but don't marry before you're thirty'. This is the sort of useful tip you only appreciate……lying on your back under the kitchen sink, trying to fix a leak. While some one small is bouncing a tennis ball on your unguarded delicate parts…demanding ‘you promised me a night night story!'

OK, I failed to take my Dad's advice because somebody played cupid…when I wasn't ready………

I blame Barbara, for this, one hundred per cent, without doubt it was her fault . One day in Wigan town centre I was walking up the Little Arcade, passing a card shop, this was the time when the first card shops were really good businesses – and Barbara, a quick thinking and very good business woman saw these opportunities. In some ways – she was what the Americans called a ‘tough cookie'. She had to be, as later on in life she owned a nightclub and dealt with the hard late night side of life, giving as good as she got and taking no nonsense from anyone.

Barbara was a little older than me, but much wiser and clued up, after a short while she said ‘Do you know Vicki Fearn?' ‘No' I said ‘should I?' Well she continued you are a bit like brother and sister, both good-looking much like each other. Now I can stand any amount of flattery, true or false, but this was heaven sent. After a further brief description of this beauty I was desperate to know where I could find her. Playing her cupid role to perfection she told me to go to The White Crow, on Tuesday night, quite a few very young people will be there, amongst them….will be……and something about a glass slipper…that was it.

My first lesson in the irrationality of women came very early on in our life together. We lived and loved in an upstairs flat with three outside walls, lino on the floor, high ceilings, no central heating or double glazing; yet a beginner's paradise.

The very cold winter of 1963 found us in the Spartan kitchen, round a small cast iron bedroom style fireplace. There we spent the evening sitting on kitchen chairs in front of a small coal fire. The poker thrust deep into the fire to release a little heat, we were happy, content, young and very much in love, counting our blessings and contemplating our future together.

When my gorgeous young wife, slowly withdrew the poker from the fire and, in an idle way, gently pressed the red hot iron to my forehead. A smell of singed hair and a lightning reaction saved disfigurement or worse….before I had time to recover she said brightly ‘I don't know why I did that' and in a wonderful seventeen year old way she said ‘I wasn't really thinking'. I shrugged it off the way V.C. heroes might do and very soon off we went to bed to sooth each other again and again.

The first three years of married life passed quickly, events I can remember include – being called to the telephone in a meeting at work, and hearing a tearful ‘love of my life' wanting help, because water had somehow escaped either the sink or the washing machine and had thoughtlessly poured its way down through the floor and ceiling into the flat below. We didn't like the unfortunate woman, who lived downstairs, and I think she must have said a few hurtful and forceful words to my cherished one – who normally can more than defend herself, but perhaps on this occasion she felt almost a flash of guilt?

Other interruptions to our blissful existence seemed to occur just as we had got into bed. Happy time when the dreams I'd cherished all day were, I hoped, about to be realised. Then my younger brother Martin with a couple of friends in tow, would arrive, ostensibly to enquire about the state of our married life, but really the novelty of having an older brother in his own home, was a new port of call at the end of a night out. They would congregate at the foot of our bed and demand ‘chips'……the bloody thoughtless swines.

One evening, when I had a ‘freedom pass' to go out drinking, I found myself having my ears bashed by some young accountant – a chap I didn't particularly like at all, but who sensibly said ‘renting is a mug's game and a waste of money'. This stung me so much so that within weeks we had decided to do something about it. First checking out new housing estates, with smaller cheaper houses but built in better areas, and then larger, more desirable houses on cheaper locations. The thought of a twenty five year mortgage seemed to me like a life sentence and a terrifying prospect. We then started to search for small, low cost cottages in the countryside, just north of Wigan, not an easy task even then.