me with the word ‘hibernate’, he explained to me that my tortoise had stolen away to a safe place in order to sleep through the winter. Half mollified, I accepted his explanation, although it never occurred to me at the time that it wasn’t yet July. I must have dozed, because when I opened my eyes again Mother had gone and so had John, and I then began to wonder if I’d dreamed about her turning her back on me to cuddle him. I was much too young to understand my silent cry for help, my desperate yearning to belong, to be acknowledged—even a smile would have sufficed.
I must have been about six when I woke up one cold autumn morning feeling different. Somewhere at the back of my mind a hazy thought began to take shape. I had the stub of a pencil somewhere and I could buy a small notebook from the little shop on Ward Street. Then I forgot what these preparations were for, but then suddenly it all clicked into place. It was a brilliant idea: I was going to take down motor-car numbers, and I wouldn’t tell anybody about it because if I did they’d all be at it. I couldn’t wait to get started. Bolting down only half a Shredded Wheat, I dashed upstairs for the stub of pencil, down again, and then out of the door as if the house was on fire, stopping at the corner shop to buy a small notebook, which cost a penny (incidentally my entire fortune), and in less than five minutes I was sitting on the edge of the pavement. No one ever referred to the pavement: they were ‘t’flags’, and the street or thoroughfare was ‘t’cart road’, and so from the shop I ran down to Featherstall Road and sat on ‘t’flags’ with my feet in ‘t’cart road’. Once settled, I opened my little notebook, pencil poised for action—so far so good. My head swivelled from side to side in case I missed a number and I made a mental note that when I’d collected fifty numbers it would be enough.
I wasn’t being over-optimistic: after all, this was the main high-way from Rochdale to Manchester. However, time passed and I reluctantly reduced my original aim of fifty motor-car numbers to twenty. It was coming up to dinnertime and now the cold, gusty wind was beginning to dampen my enthusiasm. I shivered, but sat on, book held stoically in one hand, pencil not quite so poised. I decided to abandon the enterprise if a motor car didn’t appear before the next tram…Three trams later there was one coal cart, wearily pulled by a dozing horse, reins loosely held by a sleeping driver; sometime later a large cart coming the other way, carrying enormous barrels, the heavy load drawn by two off-white, huge beasts, trotting proudly on big hairy feet. Turning my head to the right, I disinterestedly watched yet another tram wrenching itself round the corner from Oldham Road into Featherstall Road to rattle and grind its way down the single track to the loop, where it stopped to allow an ‘up-tram’ to pass in order to join the one track to Royton, and from there made a sharp turn right to Shaw Wrens Nest or to carry on to Rochdale. But alas, there was not a motor car for miles. Pencil, notebook and hands now deep in jacket pockets, feet drumming against the road to coax a bit of warmth back into them, I must have looked a picture of abject misery, and hungry with it, when a voice behind and above me broke into my self-imposed despondency. ‘’Allo, ‘allo, ‘allo,’ and I recognised the brogue of our local bobby or, to give him his full title, Constable Matty Lally. He was an imposing figure of a man, built like a full-grown water buffalo, which gave a great sense of security to the law-abiding and made him a fearful presence in the darker side of the community.
‘What are you doing there, lad?’ he said. ‘I’ve had my eye on you for the last half hour.’
‘I’m collecting motor-car numbers,’ I said, as if I’d been directed to do a survey.
He shook his head sadly. ‘You’ll get piles sitting there,’ he said, and moved himself off.
As I watched him go, the import of his words hit me. When Matty Lally spoke, everybody listened, and hadn’t he just told me I’d get piles? I assumed that he meant that piles of motor cars would be along any minute and my enthusiasm returned. So I renewed my vigilance, having finally decided that one motor car would be enough. How was I, six or seven years old, to know that Matty Lally had been referring to a nasty bottom problem and not piles of motor cars?
However, the enterprise was not a write-off. As I was about to leave, a ramshackle boneshaker turned the corner and trundled towards me. It was moving so slowly that I was able to walk alongside it while taking the number, BU something or other—I forget now, but it’s not important.
We lads who lived in Leslie Street considered ourselves fortunate in having the Mucky Broos right outside our front doors. ‘Broos’ were small hills, and these were ‘Mucky’ because they were just a large expanse of dirt; rare blades of sickly grass struggled to exist and even though the rain was frequent, the soil was worked out—even weeds preferred to take their chances in the cracks on the pavement. Most days the Mucky Broos were just two acres of slippery, glutinous mud, but they had dry periods as well. The area was triangular in shape, bordered at the top end by Ward Street Central School and on the other side by Ward Street itself, with Leslie Street the base of the triangle. Not very inspiring, but the Mucky Broos were our playground. My best mate was Richard Branwood, whose little sister Martha was used when required in a supporting role.
On one occasion we dug a trench and, with poles for rifles, re-enacted the Battle of the Somme. A couple more lads joined us as we leapt out of the trench and then charged towards the imaginary Germans, only to retreat and sprawl on the ground to have our wounds attended to. Martha, the little sister of mercy, knelt by me, stroking my forehead gently, a sad smile on her face. I liked this bit: it left me with a pleasant, warm feeling that I’d never experienced before, and I couldn’t wait to be wounded again when we repeated the whole process. It was exciting, but after a few more sorties we all wanted to be dead, so we all lay spreadeagled in the dirt, exhausted. After a time I raised my head and discovered that it was not only getting dark but Richard and the other lads had gone and, more importantly, so had the nursing staff, so I went as well.
However, that wasn’t the end of the matter. The following morning an irate neighbour called at our house and demanded we fill the trench in, as it was a danger to man and beast. He claimed that on his way home last night he’d fallen in, and he rolled up his trouser leg to show my father a nasty graze. Dad sucked in his breath and sent me off to fill in the trench.
Reluctantly I did as I was told. No more mock battles of the Somme, no more charging over the top—but if the truth were known, what I would miss most of all would be the little nurse with the sad smile stroking my forehead. It was the first time in my young life that anyone had shown me tenderness, awakening emotions in me beyond my understanding but taken for granted by most children.
Fortunately my cup was always half full and never half empty, so in five minutes I had forgotten all about the Somme and I was galloping over the dips and hollows of Texas, pointing my two fingers like six shooters and cleaning up the bad lands. On another day with some of the lads, off-white hankies tucked into the backs of our caps to shield our necks from the pitiless sun, although there wasn’t much of that in Lancashire, we were in the French Foreign Legion and with poles over our shoulders we marched over the burning sands—to us the sands were burning whatever the weather. When we had tired of the desert, we had lots of other pursuits. One of my favourite games was Ducky Funny Whip. How it got this name is a mystery, but we certainly didn’t make it up. A ‘ducky’ is a smooth stone, and there were plenty of them scattered about the Mucky Broos. We each picked one out; the size was immaterial, provided you were strong enough to throw it. Having each found our own ducky, we stood in a queue while whoever was ‘It’ placed half bricks on top of one another to about three feet high, finally putting his own ducky on top. Then the game commenced. One by one we hurled our duckies to try to knock the column of bricks over. When a lucky throw brought the target down, we all picked up our duckies and ran away to hide amongst the dips and slight rises of our Mucky Broos. When ‘It’ had rebuilt his pile of bricks and put his ducky on top, he endeavoured to find someone, and when he did he tapped them and ran back to his column of bricks and cocked his leg over it, and he wasn’t ‘It’ any more. However, if the unfortunate who’d been spotted managed to beat ‘It’ back to the target and knock the column down before ‘It’ could cock his leg over it, everyone ran away to hide again and the process continued. Older people will understand and forgive the dog’s breakfast I’ve made in trying to explain what was, in fact, a very simple pastime, not as mentally challenging as