The Squashed Man Who Married a Dragon (8 page)

I was in Rotary for eighteen years – before I realised that I was too young and immature, plus I wanted to go to Spain and be a playboy, so eventually I resigned. But during my Rotary years I met some interesting members, and made some very good lifetime friendships. One of these is Jeremy and his wife Pamela. Jeremy never lets the truth stand in the way of a good story, and can make a snowflake into a twenty foot avalanche.

If we are not arguing, which is almost as much my fault as his, the truth is he holds firm but incorrect views which clash with mine. Otherwise he is very good company and his knowledge of old cars, especially Austin 7's, has helped and guided me a lot. We even went on holidays together on the Costa, near Marbella and a drive around the southern states of America on another occasion.

During the early years in Rotary I met Bob and Trevor – both very successful businessmen with their own aeroplanes. Vicki and I had been up in Bob's plane – a very modern aircraft with all the latest technical equipment. When Bob was flying up to Scotland on the Saturday with Trevor, they still had two empty seats and asked would I like to go with them. Yes, I thought that would be great. Sometime during that week I met Jeremy who reminded me the Richard Seagram Trophy race at Oulton Park was on that Saturday. I explained that I had just accepted an invitation for a trip to Scotland with Bob. Well, Jeremy suggested that racing vintage cars was more interesting than flying to Scotland, and reminded me what a good time we had had at Oulton Park in the past, he was right of course. So I rang Bob and explained – he was very understanding – no problem – he had a short list of others who would like to go to Scotland.

On the Saturday off we went to the Oulton Park Meeting and had a most enjoyable day, on arriving home in the evening, news was coming through of a light plane crash, later confirmed that Bob's plane had crashed on the Paps of Jura in bad weather, killing all the occupants.

22
^nd
August 1992 – Bob Watts – Trevor Balmforth – Jack Greenwood – Ian Shaw

This was a terrible tragedy and shattering news for the four families, the Rotary Club and the Ribble Valley. It took a long, long time to even start to heal.

Although my change of mind was not at the last minute, I couldn't help thinking how I very nearly went with them, it wouldn't do for me to fall on my knees and thank Jeremy too much for suggesting I change my mind. That would be a bit over the top much as the local newspaper described me as the ‘man who cheated death', and I'd be buying him beer and wine for life! But I must admit in the deep dark depth of my mind, I do rather think grateful thoughts, from time to time………not when we are arguing though!

The same man had witnessed firsthand the cutting edge of cruel comments that the vicious Vicki has inflicted on me at times. When on holiday in Spain together, Jeremy and I found ourselves parked outside a supermarket, whilst the girls nipped in to get just two items, that's all. After a while, a deep and philosophical Jeremy said something, about how lucky we were to have such good looking women. This wasn't sunstroke, although it kept getting hotter and hotter in the car. Ten minutes turned to thirty minutes; at last an exasperated Jeremy got out to see what the hell could take so much time for such a little errand.

In he goes ‘What on earths going on you two – we're cooking outside' or words to that effect, unbeknown to our rash man, the electricity in the Spanish supermarket had gone off, total power loss, no tills functioning, no lights or air conditioning – queues of irate shoppers were about to lynch somebody. Jeremy got both barrels from a very hot and cross Vicki telling him ‘if he could do any better…………

So far there has been a weak sort of story line for you to follow. The next part of this saga is more complicated. It's a kaleidoscope of events that occur as life rolls on.

The all conquering woman triumphs, as I flounder along behind, on a slippery slope. Not really a quiet bed time read, there is not a discernable plot, that is just life, it is as it is, I'm afraid.

But it does give you intervals to, nip out and get fish and chips, open a bottle of good red wine. The true gritty, glimpses of ‘‘martial” love, may ring a bell with you, or you might gain a warm feeling of secure superiority. Either way this is true life in the raw.

When I lie in bed in the morning – not through laziness or sloth – it's the desperate belief that if I lie there a little longer eventually Kylie M will somehow sneak into my life. She hasn't said she would, but neither has she said a definite no. So on the logic of the lotto ‘it could be me!', and if I don't stay in bed how will she know where to find me? maybe not the soundest of logic but……………

At least I'm safer in bed, than a four day crawl around M & S, Next, Mango, Zara, George, etc., searching for something for Friday night. I am on intimate terms with many of the check-in girls at the fitting room entrances.

First we tour the sales floors, me buried under the thousands of dresses I have to carry, while she selects a few more to try on. At the fitting room entrance, I'm supposed to sit quietly and read my paper until summoned to pass comment. Very often there's no chair, stool, nothing, the heating is tropical. I don't like standing up to read my paper it's just not right.

Then a dim, dingy pub or lying in bed waiting for Kylie M would be paradise.

Hiss – what about this…?

If I think it's great – yes, the one to buy………. . she isn't certain

If I say it's awful – wrong colour………………she quite likes it

If I say it's an Aunty Doris dress………………she's got hurt feelings

Would I go and see if they have this one' a size smaller in blue………. , oh and maybe the same size but in grey, or light green………, if they have it?

Oh God – a small price to pay really, I suppose, but I have learnt one thing, if I don't like the dress I say ‘Darling, it doesn't do you justice, too old for you really'.

Sometimes this works, on the other hand – we could end up with Devil's choice, agonising for hours over the red……. no necked………. armless………spotty one……. or the shot blue…………. high-waisted…………, semi-zipped, with its quilted hem.

Rugby is on the TV tonight, I wonder when do they lock up these massive shopping centre car parks? Ultimately I feel the urge to locate the toilets again. With the tie for two deadlocked no choice is possible, she says ‘I'll take them both'. Can you imagine a man doing that?

As it's late we'll collect fish and chips on the way home, the debit cards been abused again, but we are going home! Small mercies.

*

This next chapter ‘not my brightest hour' is a soul cleansing exercise. It is a sort of purging of the inner man, releasing of guilt, so that I can stand up straight again. It's an opportunity for Vicki to tell the coven, just how weak and foolish her man can be, and what she has to put up with.

I have never been a fulltime paid-up golf club member, and my visits to golf clubs have been few and far between – which is just as well as the rules and regulations, together with what is viewed as correct club etiquette is a complicated world.

One year Derek and Gill, long standing friends of ours, invited us to Gill's Lady Captains Dinner, highlight of her year. We happily accepted the kind invitation. I sent her a bouquet of flowers to arrive the morning of the ‘do', and in the evening there we were milling around in the bar before the event started.

Whilst talking to friends, I pulled a piece of paper from deep inside a little-used inner pocket, to my surprise it was a ‘funny' twenty pound note, not currency (which would have been better) why I had it in my pocket I don't know. We joked about not getting many drinks with it, and was I reduced to forgery to pay my way in life.

Sometime in the early stages of dinner, a fund raiser was going round the tables, selling tickets for a draw to win a five pound note, autographed by somebody of renown in the golfing world. So I bought some tickets…on the glib understanding that one of my tickets was an assured winner, this he said was definitely guaranteed. I, in a flippant manner said if I didn't win, I would burn my very last twenty pound note in the world, in protest.

Later in the evening, when the draw was made, of course I hadn't won. I had forgotten about my rash remark, alas he had not, and he announces that a certain man has promised to burn his last twenty pound note if he didn't win, well he hasn't so what about it? Put on the spot by my own doing, I flourished my dodgy twenty pound note. Egged on by some and cries of ‘No' from others, I lit it from a candle on the table and held it up in mock despair.

I assumed that those who were shouting ‘no don't do it', knew of my thrifty and almost miserly nature regarding money, and were joining in the general fun of seeing me burning my own money. Alas this was not the case. The over sensitive, overhead fire alarm smoke detectors went off. Health and Safety procedure swung into force. To the general chaos the disgruntled guests were ushered outside to stand around on a cold, dark, wet winter night in evening dress, bare shoulders – you name it.

To make matters even worse, the smoke alarm system automatically went through to the fire station, and no one was allowed back into a perfectly safe smoke free warm room until the fire engine arrived with firemen, the only authorised people to check and reset the alarm.

Imagine how popular I was, ‘not even a club member' – ‘should be hung, drawn and quartered' ‘never coming back inside' were some of the comments passed, and quite right too. I don't blame them for a moment. The most outstanding thing of all was my wife, the cruel and vicious Vicki – who I expected to despise, disown and divorce me – leapt to my defence, in my moment of need.

Defying anyone to try and stop us going back in to finish dinner, she was fantastic. Dinner resumed and went ahead just fine. There was the odd accusing glance, as I was pointed out as the evil one. Rumour of five hundred pound fines for false call outs were mentioned but ultimately we learned that at least on three or four recent occasions, the smoke alarm had gone off in the same way, and was attributed to the system being too sensitive.

Our friendship with Derek and Gill never wavered and Gill, bless her, didn't castigate me once, all in all not my brightest of days.

Friends came to the rescue suggesting that we should go abroad for a while, maybe in the fullness of time it would be safe to return to the Ribble Valley. Rather like younger sons who had blotted their copybooks sent to the Colonies.

Sunday mornings, we often had coffee with neighbours, David and Christine. The man was forever finding adverts in the Sunday Times, now for a chateaux in France, usually on the lines of ‘eighty acres of vines, working vineyard, forty room chateaux, stream and lake, out buildings, implements, etc.' – eighteen thousand pounds or less. The idea was that we bought it together, did it up over the years, holiday there and maybe a retirement retreat. On the face of it very tempting but most of France is very cold in winter, and repair costs and maintenance plus general living can be expensive and at that time the pound was very weak against the franc.

In the end we went to Southern Spain together to look at country fincas. The tick list was an hour or less from Malaga airport, habitable to a degree but not in a dangerous condition, with all correct legal papers. A country house with some land, water supply, electricity laid on, fruit trees, olives, etc. – outside a small village and above all cheap. We found ours and a year or so later David and Christine bought theirs about a mile away.

Spain was not only a new and exciting chapter in our lives, we viewed a home there as a bolt hole in the sun, a place for holidays for now, with restoration work thrown in and for the future a comfortable, easily managed retirement home escaping the cold grey winter months. This was 1994 prices of houses in Spain were cheap, especially compared to England. The great boom-time of villas and prices hadn't yet really got into its stride. The price of materials and labour was very much in our favour. We could at this time get a very honest, hardworking crew, the constructador and his two peons doing nine hours a day, the three working for less than five hundred pounds for the week. Country rates being a lot less than down on the coast. Diego and his men achieved miracles and twenty years later, not one crack, leak or fault has appeared.

To illustrate why I praise Diego and his team of two Juans; after a very hard day in summer, hand mixing and laying concrete, never working to the clock but till the job was finished. It was after seven when they loaded their tired, dusty bodies into Diego's car to drive back to the village.

On their way home, the builders merchant (who makes deliveries up to and after eight in the evenings) passed them on his way to our house with sand, bricks and twenty five bags of cement, 50kg each. All to be unloaded. Five minutes later our men reappeared, they had turned round, come back to help me with the bricks and cement. There are saints in the world and now I know them!

We embraced Spain wholeheartedly, warts and all, and for us this has paid off time and time again. We are not ex-pats, instead we spend just under half the year there, keeping a small house in the UK as our base. It suits us fine to be Spanish, as much as we can, mix mostly with our Spanish friends and neighbours, adopt the Spanish lifestyle, and then enjoy our traditional English ways when we are back in the UK. So far this has given us the best of both worlds, and we love both worlds.

In preparation, Vicki did a night school course and passed GCSE Spanish, my Spanish was picked up here and there. It is appalling really with almost no grammar – but it does sound like the real thing, and I've found a few expressions I can throw in that give it the touch of authenticity, even if I don't always understand the reply. Early on in our Spanish adventure, we were waiting near a coin operated printing machine – which printed out business or visiting cards. We dreamt up our own card. It came to us fairly quickly and naturally – Victoria as she became is ‘La Perfecta' – the perfect one – and I became Antonio El Martyr – the martyr. This card sometimes opened doors, broke the ice and often brought us new friends.

The Andalucians are by and large a happy go lucky, very friendly, generous, polite people with a great sense of humour. It is a macho world in many ways, and this can sometimes be very funny. Especially when we are out buying odd interesting or more expensive things! We were in a ‘rastro' – an antique, relics and building restoration yard, we were out searching for very large old wooden double doors, to separate the garden from the garage drive. The more battered and old they looked, the better, with old traditional handmade ironwork, complete with plenty of those large round metal headed clouts, the size of fifty pence coins. In the process of examining a stack of old, odd dusty wrecks of all shapes and sizes – which can be altered to fit the clients requirements, and then with staining, oiling and finally polishing the magic takes place and they become the glamorous medieval doors for the castle of your dreams.

Rooting around in amongst hundreds of wonderful oddities was a confessional box, a pulpit with canopy, statues, weird old agricultural tools, Vicki found three large glass carboys, which she thought would be used to effect on a patio. ‘You like those' – our wheeler dealer said. ‘Only if they are cheap' replied the all-knowing one, after a moment or two, the macho dealer said ‘Okay, ten euros each how's that for cheap?' Back fired Vicki with that's not cheap, I mean cheap' in good Spanish too. For a moment he was floored but not going to be outdone by a woman he countered with a flourish and gesture ‘Gratis – nada – how's that for cheap' not only was honour restored we got the bargain of a lifetime, everyone was happy, and we bought some doors too. We still have the doors – they do look frail and very old possibly from the time of Noah. But if we have to open them we do it with extreme care and very slowly, not perhaps our most practical purchase.

Visiting busy ironmongers or trade counters at plumbers merchants it certainly helps if you are with an attractive woman. The rest can wait whilst the man' flashes his best smile, individual attention, there's nothing he doesn't know or won't do for you. The advice may sometimes be totally wrong even impossible, but he tries to tell you what he thinks you want to hear, with the style and flourish of a modern Don Juan. It may be disconcerting – conversing with the man, whilst his attention is elsewhere, still we get good service, best prices, family discounts and often trade presents too.

Renovating, repairing and rebuilding work is an excellent way to integrate with the locals. It also keeps us young, fit and active. The eye opener for me, was how my,' sweetness and light ,' could and did not only muck-in, but turn her hand to almost any building work. Wheeling half ton barrows of cement mix, brick work is no problem she has built walls over six feet high and rendered them. We reroofed a whole section ourselves, not only saving money but giving pleasure and enjoyment to the traditional and compulsory watchers, Spain demands at least three watchers to every worker. Something about a neat bottom in small stripy shorts working away that is a joy to behold.

You would not credit it! For most of our lives together, we have hardly ever argued about money. I earned it, providing for the material side of life. Both of us deciding on the priorities of spending it but all the bills, daily living costs were mine. I paid everything on time, as close to perfect as a husband can be. Over the years all the investments for our future I've sorted out, and in later years of business I often had one or two thousand pounds in my back pocket.

Crunch time, when it came, was when I retired. Overnight I became untrustworthy, and not safe with money. This is particularly true in Spain, I don't have money. I have to beg, almost steal every coin. She deals out five Euro notes, saying ‘make it last', ‘what do you want money for?' My only vices are odd drinks, a little chocolate, and an occasional news paper. I try to explain, I need to have some money in my pocket. I am used to a little squander money for these little treats. Flash cars, gambling and loose women I'll pay for on our joint debit card!

When we are in town, going to have a coffee, she'll slip me a five Euro note, so that I can be the macho man when it comes time to pay. A little while later at some shop, she'll say ‘have you got any change?'…‘I gave you five euros only this morning, where has it all gone?'