him feeling sick and debased. All that remained in my mind was what is an abattoir?
One Wakes Week Dad had an exciting surprise for us. He told us that we were going to Blackpool for four days. To say we were delighted would be putting it mildly. For us Blackpool was our Shangri-La, our fairyland wherein it was Wakes all the year round.
John and I had never been on a train before, so having a compartment to ourselves on the Blackpool train didn’t register until Dad said he thought it would have been crowded during Wakes Week. Mother and Dad sat opposite each other by the window but we didn’t sit anywhere as we were too excited to be still. There were so many things to see: hedgerows whizzing past, meadows dotted with cows intent on cropping the grass, some raising their heads to glance curiously at the train, a black horse in the next field; and in the split second it took to vanish behind us we searched frantically for a white one, which was worth a toffee in one of our competitions that made the journey more exciting, as if we needed more excitement.
Then my father bent towards us and pointed to the horizon, and together we screamed, ‘Blackpool Tower.’ This was the highlight of our journey and we staggered and lurched on to the seats as we began to slow down and soon the train huffed importantly into Blackpool Central station. We were overawed by the sheer immensity of this austere Victorian building, with arches high above the concourse and hurrying passengers alighting from the train. It had never entered my head that there were others besides us making their way to Blackpool, so wrapped up were we in wonder in our own private compartment. As we passed the engine driver, Dad said, ‘Thank you’, and the engine driver, leaning out of his cab and wiping his hands on an oily rag, nodded and winked at John and me, while behind the engine driver a huge sweating man in a singlet, shovelled coal to feed the insatiable appetite of the boiler, his face lit by the glow. I backed out of the station, my eyes never leaving the old train driver enjoying his pipe, and I decided there and then that one day I would drive the Blackpool train.
Dad determined to take us along the promenade so that we could get a closer look at the fabulous tower, but unfortunately as we turned into the Golden Mile we were targeted by the screaming wind, which made progress almost impossible as we made our way to the boarding house. The waves were hurling themselves at the sea walls, flinging white spray into the air that was gleefully accepted by the wind and helped across the road to drench anybody stupid enough to be out on a day like this.
Without hesitation, Dad lifted John into his arms and Mother grasped my hand, and we all staggered into the shelter of the nearest side street. The calm and peace not ten yards from the frantic onslaught of the wind and sea were unnerving. As Dad wiped John’s face with his hankie, a policeman strolled across to us.
‘Been swimming?’ he enquired sarcastically.
Dad puffed out his cheeks and replied, ‘It’s a force-ten gale out there.’
The policeman shook his head. ‘Bit of a blow, that’s all. It’ll be all right tomorrow.’
Well, he was certainly correct in his weather forecast. On the morrow there was no wind to speak of, just the odd gust; but it was quite cold—‘bracing’, the landlady said. So John and I paddled in the pools by the sea wall left by the receding tide. Mother kept a watchful eye on us while Dad took a tram to a place called Uncle Tom’s Cabin to see if any of his mates were there. This was a favourite watering hole and he may well have met someone he knew: after all, it was Oldham’s Wakes Week and visitors to Blackpool would most likely be Oldhamers.
The next day Mother took us down to the Pleasure Ground on the south shore. This was ten times bigger and more awesome than the travelling fairground that toured the Lancashire cotton towns. John and I rolled a penny each down the slots but won nothing, and Mother yanked us away before we got the bug. We had a ride on the prancing horses in between eating candy floss—we didn’t eat any supper when we got home and in fact during that visit we ate enough candy floss between us to stuff a medium-sized mattress. Dad spent the day at Uncle Tom’s Cabin and so we only saw him long enough to say, ‘Bye, Dad.’
On the Wednesday Mother took us by tram to Bispham and I had the feeling that if it hadn’t been too expensive we would have gone as far as Fleetwood, where Dad said you could get the best kippers in the world. Incidentally he wasn’t with us, as he spent the day at Uncle Tom’s Cabin again. On the last day it absolutely threw it down—the rain was unbelievable—and against the rules of the boarding house we were allowed to stay indoors and play draughts and snakes and ladders. We would have played ludo, only we needed four players and Dad wasn’t present as he was at Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By and large we had a marvellous holiday. Even Dad was over the moon, as he’d won a shilling at darts in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. And so our wonderful few days by the sea came to an end, and now my ambition was to be a train driver on the promenade at Blackpool.
One Sunday Mother got John and me ready and told us that we were going to Grandma Stacey’s for tea. It was the first I’d heard of Grandma Stacey, but in those days little boys didn’t ask silly questions like ‘Who’s Grandma Stacey?’ We took the tram to a much posher part of Oldham, a world we’d never seen, and I remember thinking that the further we travelled the more austere our surroundings were. When we finally arrived at our destination, I was overawed by the quiet, aloof elegance of the Victorian terraces. We were aliens in a land of privilege as we walked furtively uphill to the address of Grandma Stacey.
The front door was opened by an old lady whose bottom jaw trembled as if she was cold, with a long black dress ornamented only by a cameo brooch at her throat and hair swept up at the back and held tightly in place by a large comb. This turned out to be Great-grandma Wilson. She didn’t speak, even after Mother’s ‘Good afternoon’; she just opened the door wider, turned and floated along the passage, to disappear in a room, and after a moment she reappeared and looked at us, whereupon Mother ushered us forward and we went into a more cheerful atmosphere.
A fire was burning brightly in the grate and an old man in a pillbox hat with a tassel was seesawing slowly back and forward in a rocking chair, busily puffing on a white clay pipe, which had a lid on it, his eyes never leaving the burning coals. We three stood around, hardly breathing in case he turned to look in our direction. In front of us there was a table covered by a startlingly white cloth and on it a small plateful of sandwiches and three bowls of prunes. Then the little old lady with the quivering jaw entered with a jug full of hot custard and poured it over the prunes, after which she made a silent exit and we never saw her again on that visit; nor did the old man in the rocking chair interrupt his quiet vigil over the fire. When we’d finished we stood around in silence, which was oppressive and broken only by the hissing and spluttering of the fire and, more dominating, the sonorous ticking of an old polished grandfather clock sneering down at us. Mother said, ‘Well, er…we’ll be off then,’ and glared at us until in unison we said, ‘Thank you for my tea,’ and that was the end of the ordeal.
On the tram going home Mother told us that the old lady was not Grandma Stacey: she was not at home today, and neither was my brother Vernon. The old couple we’d met were Grandma Stacey’s parents, Great-grandpa and Great-grandma Wilson. She also explained why they didn’t speak: it was simply because they were both in their nineties. I must confess that this remark had me puzzled for days. If you were over ninety, were you not allowed to speak? Or, more worryingly, perhaps at that impossible age they’d forgotten how it was done.
Subsequently we went to tea for three more Sundays. On the last visit I think Mother must have taken John to the lavatory for I was left alone with Great-grandpa Wilson, still rocking, still puffing and glaring at the fire. I just stood and watched him. I was good at standing and watching—I’d had enough practice at home. Then Great-grandpa Wilson took the pipe out of his mouth and the old man I’d previously thought incapable of speech broke his silence, but it was as if I wasn’t there—I’d had enough practice at that as well. Taking the pipe out of his mouth, he said, ‘Last night she didn’t come home till after nine o’clock.’ He put his pipe back in his mouth, puffed for a while, took it out again and said, ‘I reckon she’s got a fancy man somewhere,’ and that was the end of what could scarcely be described as a conversation—in fact I wouldn’t have dared open my mouth. I just stood and watched, and his stare never left the fire. Many,