Parish Church.
It is poignant to bring to mind Armistice Day, the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Each year when the church clock struck the eleventh hour all traffic stopped, trams ground to a halt, horses pulling carts were reined to a standstill, and cyclists dismounted and stood to attention by their bikes. Every pedestrian remained where he or she was; men removed their hats and women bowed their heads. The silence was almost tangible. Then after two minutes a soldier on the roof over the church doors, head and shoulders visible above the black stone battlement, put a bugle to his lips and the melancholy, evocative strains of the ‘Last Post’ pierced the veil of silence. Not until the last note had faded away did the town re-activate itself.
Alongside the church was the commercial heart of Oldham: dress shops, chemists, solicitors, Burton’s fifty-shilling tailors, Woolworth’s, Whitehead’s Café and, squeezed in the middle of all this affluence, a brave little greengrocer’s shop. It really was tiny, just one room crowded with a counter, a tap without a basin and no space for a lavatory, the nearest being the public toilets at the top of West Street—quite a distance for a weak bladder.
The over-worked proprietor was Sam Hellingoe, a round, darkvisaged man, not tall but compact. Alone he collected fruit and vegetables from the market in Manchester, laid out his daily purchases on a bench in front of the shop, and then hurried inside round the counter to serve his customers. If there weren’t any he swept the floor, polished the apples or wiped the counter as if it made any difference. He was always busy, but sadly his age was beginning to slow him down and reluctantly he decided to take on the expense of an assistant. This was a momentous decision because money was tight, so his assistant would have to be willing, able and above all thick enough to toil every day except Sunday for a pittance—and that is how I came to work there.
Mr Hellingoe, was forever in a flat cap and brown dustcoat—as a matter of fact in all my time in his establishment I never saw him take his cap off, not even to scratch his head—and like a dutiful assistant I followed suit in a flat cap, brown dustcoat and, hallelujah, my first pair of long trousers. Beneath my overalls at Emmanuel Whittaker’s I had still been in the short pants from my schooldays, but now I wore a pair of Vernon’s cast-offs, a bit long in the leg with a shiny backside, but I didn’t care: they were the bridge into manhood.
Each morning I met Mr Hellingoe on the Croft, where his small van was parked. We never exchanged ‘Good mornings’, we just nodded, and he squeezed himself into the driving seat, putting the gear shift into neutral before letting off the brake. Then I moved round the back of the van and when he gave me the thumbs up I began to push. It was hard work, but I’d only about a hundred yards to go to the top of West Street, where I gave him an extra running shove to set him off and the van slowly trundled down the hill. I watched it disappear like a very old tortoise on ice. It was all downhill to Manchester and that was his destination. Eight miles is a heck of a long way to freewheel, but I did say money was tight; after all, he had to pay me fifteen shillings a week—I had Tuesday afternoons off but worked until nine in the evenings on Saturdays—and petrol wasn’t cheap.
As time went on, I grew accustomed to the work. Mr Hellingoe was away for longer periods and I became self-assured, looking after the shop on my own, weighing out potatoes, carrots and Brussels sprouts with fallible dexterity on the old scales, popping the goods in a paper bag, and then ‘ting ting’ on the till, ‘There you are, missus, three pence change,’ or whatever. One day, however, I overstepped myself. An old lady clutching a shiny purse was feeling the fruit, squeezing the bananas, smelling the cabbages. I watched her covertly as she turned her attention to a box of apples and suspiciously I wandered casually from behind the counter. If anybody was going to walk off with a Cox’s pippin without paying it would be me, and why not? My wages weren’t princely and to make up the deficit I ate more of the stock than my Friday night’s wages were worth. Underneath the counter was a huge rubbish box. Overripe or beginning-to-smell fruit and vegetables found a quick exit into it, but amongst all this detritus there was quite a hefty amount of healthy apple cores, pears, some with only one bite out of them and banana skins, because while in charge of the shop I ate fruit by the sackful, but if a customer came in, wallop, the half-eaten fruit would find its way under the counter. But that’s between you and me.
Getting back to the old lady, who was now outside the shop, eyeing the rabbits hanging there: having selected one, she brought it in and dumped it on the counter.
‘How much?’ she said, and I told her, and here’s where I overstepped the mark.
Having watched Mr Hellingoe deftly skinning them, I blurted out, ‘Would you like it skinned?’
She looked at me doubtfully and said, ‘Can you manage?’
I winked at her and began the process. It was just like undressing a baby and she watched, probably marvelling at my dexterity—that is, until I came to the last bit. The rabbit was now stark naked and all I had to do was pull the last of the fur over its head.
‘There you are, madam,’ I said triumphantly, but when I jerked the fur over the rabbit’s head I was horrified to see that the fur must have torn because there was still some left on his head like a crew cut.
‘I’m not having that,’ she said and stormed out in high dudgeon.
What was I to do with the naked rabbit? I couldn’t chuck the whole thing in the rubbish box: Mr Hellingoe would know how many rabbits had been hanging outside. Then a smart wheeze crossed my mind. I still had the fur and all I had to do was to dress the rabbit again. The back legs were easy and I’d just got one of the forepaws clothed when Mr Hellingoe returned and I was caught literally red-handed. But instead of hitting the roof, he just smiled and said, ‘Take that home to your mother. You can have it for your Sunday dinner.’
I was overjoyed and at the same time ashamed of the amount of fruit I’d got through illegally, and I made up my mind that anything I took from the stock I’d replace with money in the till. At that moment I would willingly have pushed Mr Hellingoe all the way to Manchester and, if it would have saved him petrol money, all the way uphill back to Oldham.
When I went home that night I was awash with good thoughts—and wide open for the sucker punch. It wasn’t long in coming. I arrived home and casually tossed my wage packet on the table; then while Mother checked the contents, I pulled the rabbit from behind my back like Houdini at his best and said, ‘Voilà’.
She didn’t smile. ‘Why did you buy a rabbit?’ she said, still holding my wages, and my heart plummeted. Mr Hellingoe had stopped it out of my wages—the crafty old devil. Mother didn’t help matters when she said, ‘And he’s overcharged you as well.’
During the time I was helping to keep Mr Hellingoe’s body and soul together something momentous was happening in an old building just in front of Tommyfield: a new Oldham Scout troop was being formed. As I passed it on the way home I decided to drop in. There were about twenty or so urchins in a circle round the edges of a fairly large room. Half of the boys were still at school but quite a few of us were working for a living. A tall figure in a black cassock down to his ankles stood in the middle and made a short speech, welcoming us all to the formation of the 113th Oldham Scout troop and I relaxed. I noticed three of the older ones holding kettle drums, and as there was one not being used on the floor by them I casually picked it up and stood with the other three. They handed me a drumstick and in no time at all we were marching round the room in single file to the beat of our four drumsticks. By the end of the evening we were all members of the 113th Oldham Scout troop and speaking for myself it was the best evening’s work I’d ever done.
Scouting was to make me fitter and healthier, and give me selfassurance and the comradeship that had been so lacking in my past; but the most important part of this initiation was that I met Bobby Hall, a butcher’s boy. He was also one of the drummers and there was an instant rapport between us. Neither of us could drum. We both showed promise, though; and in a matter of months a banner led the troop on church parade, with four drummers with white ropes hanging beneath our drums and a big drum, and to cap it all looking pretty smart in our new Scout uniforms. The troop was divided into four patrols and I had already been appointed patrol leader of the Peewits. Bobby was troop leader,