was one of Dad’s homecomings that led to a big falling out between Mam and Dilys.
‘Tell Arthur your father’s available for work,’ Mam said.
‘No need,’ Dilys said. ‘I expect they’ll be giving it out on the wireless. But Arthur can’t get him work.’
‘Of course he can,’ Mam said. ‘If he’s any kind of son-in-law. If he’s as high up at Aldridge’s as he cracks on.’
Dilys said, ‘If Arthur sullied his hands setting Dad on he soon wouldn’t be anything at Aldridge’s. I’m not asking him.’
Mam said, ‘Then I’ll get him a start. I’ll go to Aldridge’s myself and tell them who I am.’
‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ Dilys was shouting. ‘Don’t you bloody bloody dare.’ I could see her point of view. There were always complications where Dad was involved, complications and recriminations. It was just as well Dilys stood her ground because Arthur was too mild to have done it for himself.
Then Dad went off to the Labour Exchange one morning and didn’t come back. It was the usual pattern.
Mam said, ‘I expect he was offered something. He’d heard there might be an opening in the Potteries. That’s how it is. If an opportunity presents itself you have to jump in quick, before someone else does. You don’t have time for goodbyes.’ But I noticed his spare shirt was gone and so was my Brylcreem.
I went over to Dilys’s to tell her Gypsy was gone. I said, ‘So you and Mam can patch things up now.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s quite a relief not having to see her.’
I said, ‘Sel misses you.’
‘Bring him over on the bus,’ she said. ‘I’d like that. And Mam doesn’t need to know.’
But however much Sel missed Dilys it wasn’t enough for him to go behind Mam’s back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Mam’s the mam and Dilys is the girl, so what Mam says goes. And if you go to Dilys’s again, I’m telling.’
So we were incommunicado until Arthur came round one night and said Dilys had had two lovely baby girls and it was time to let bygones be bygones. And as it was Dad they’d quarrelled over and he himself was a bygone just then, Mam relented and we all went to see the new arrivals. They’d named them Betsan and Gaynor.
I was fifteen and Sel was nine, which seemed young to be uncles, but we were both pretty chuffed about it.
Dilys said, ‘Sit on those kitchen chairs, the pair of you, and each of you hold one of the babies.’
I was up for it, but Sel wouldn’t. ‘Their legs are too thin,’ he said. ‘And they’ve got funny skin.’
There were certain things he never liked to touch and there was no persuading him. He could be very funny that way.
‘Well, Dilys,’ Mam said. ‘Now you’ve got your work cut out.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Dilys said. ‘I’ve got a good man to help me.’
After that peace broke out and we saw Dilys most weeks. If Villa were playing at home she’d bring the girls over to see Mam while me and Arthur went to the match. I always liked Arthur. He was as gentle as a lamb. Then sometimes we’d go over there, to Great Barr, on a Sunday afternoon and we’d have tinned salmon and salad and pears in syrup or fruit cocktail, and then walnut cake, with white icing and glacé cherries. Happy days.
Then, of course, along came the war and I decided to jump before I was pushed. I tried for the Engineers and when they realised I could get a tune out of a cornet they made me a bandsman, which meant being a medical orderly too in case we saw action. I was at home, on embarkation leave, when Dad turned up. His face suddenly appeared at the kitchen window, cigarette behind his ear, silly grin on his face, as if he’d just come home from work, not been missing, whereabouts unknown, for more than twelve months. ‘Put the kettle on,’ he said. ‘Where’s your mam?’
She was at Spooner’s, fetching gammon for my send-off tea.
‘Bloody wars,’ he said. ‘I did my bit in the last lot. And you’ll be all right at Greely’s. Reserved occupation.’
I said, ‘I volunteered.’
‘Oh yes?’ he said. ‘More fool you. And what are you doing, half-pint?’
Sel was snipping holes in a piece of paper, making a doily for the cake stand. ‘Helping my mam,’ he said. ‘And there won’t be enough gammon for you. You weren’t expected.’
But of course Mam gave up her rasher for Gypsy and when Uncle Teilo called in she came over very light-hearted. Whatever Dad said, she laughed, whatever Teilo said, she laughed, although he didn’t seem to be in a very humorous mood. ‘I’ll be seeing you, Annie,’ he said, as he was leaving. ‘You know where to find me.’
‘Home is the hunter, Teilo,’ she said. ‘So I won’t have to trouble you for any more light bulbs.’
We didn’t sleep much that night. I was wondering what war was going to be like and Sel wasn’t happy about the new arrangements. ‘Don’t go in the army, Cled,’ he said. ‘What if you get shot?’
I said, ‘I have to go, our kid. It’s my duty. And it’s your job to look after Mam.’
‘I always look after her,’ he said. ‘But why did he have to come back and upset everything?’
I said, ‘You know Dad. He probably won’t stay long.’
‘Yes he will,’ he said. ‘He told Mam he’s going to build her an air raid shelter.’
But Sel didn’t know Gypsy Boff as well as I did. By the next time I came home on leave he was history. Mam had volunteered him for the Miller Street Home Guard but he only lasted a week or two and then he’d disappeared for the duration.
I said, ‘I suppose he was too brainy for the Home Guard?’
But Mam wouldn’t be drawn on the subject. ‘People lose touch when there’s a war on,’ she said. ‘As you’ll find out.’
I reckon he must have had a woman somewhere. Some lonely widow who was glad to have his ration book. We did see him again after the war, though, so whatever else had transpired, the Luftwaffe hadn’t flattened him.
I didn’t have a bad war, compared with some. I saw some terrible sights but at least I came home. There were quite a few I’d known at Bright Street who didn’t make it, and then there was Mr Grimley from next door. He was believed to have copped it when they bombed the cannon factory in Armoury Road. They never found anything of him. He just never came home again.
I was demobbed early in 1946 and not long after I arrived home Sel got called up to do his National Service. He had to report to a recruitment station in Acocks Green.
Mam said, ‘This government seems determined to rob me of a son.’
I said, ‘They’ll never take Sel. One look at him and they’ll send him home.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘He’s a fine-looking boy.’
He was tall and well-built, but there was that soft girlie side to him too. I couldn’t see him clambering up and over a cargo net. He didn’t have the musculature for it. I couldn’t see him getting stuck in to bayonet practice. And neither could he. ‘I’m not letting them cut my hair,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell them I’m a pacifist.’ So he went off to Acocks Green, whistling and smelling of talc and expecting to be back in five minutes, but he was gone all day and when he did turn up he looked like a bulldog chewing on a wasp. ‘Fat lot you know,’ he said. ‘I’ve only gone and got into the RAF.’
Now, there was a lot of competition for the air force. Nobody just walked, especially not a boy who didn’t have the right attitude.