festooned with tinsel and cotton wool, always sprouted in practically every home and certainly where there were children.
One particular Christmas Vernon, John and I had been saving for months to buy a present for Mother. Vernon was now permanently home but much more likeable, so he hadn’t been completely brainwashed and he didn’t argue with Dad as he would have in the past. On Christmas Eve the ‘old ’uns’ had gone out for the evening and with our pooled resources Vernon (ten), John (six) and I (eight) stole out of the house into the darkness of the Mucky Broos. Puffed, we dropped to a stroll by the chapel round by Robin Hill Baths and made an excited final burst up Barker Street to the lights of the shops. It was then that we received our first shock. There was a phalanx of people, almost a solid wall of Christmas Eve shoppers, all in good humour but unfortunately for us impenetrable. The three of us held hands tightly, John in the middle hemmed in by a sea of raincoats, great coats, long jerseys and scarves. To say we were frightened would be an understatement. It was only about seven o’clock and the shops didn’t close till nine. To add to our folly, none of us had any idea what sort of present we were looking for. Panic-stricken, I held tightly on to John’s hand—if I let go I might never see my brothers again. John wasn’t tall enough to see above the midriffs and I wasn’t tall enough to look anyone in the eye. Desperately we tried to retrace our steps—after all, we could always postpone giving a present until Easter—but there was no way out. There was a sudden surge of people behind us and we found ourselves in an ironmonger’s shop. Thankfully it was fairly empty, which was hardly surprising, as nails, baths, hammers and bicycle chains are not at the top of everyone’s Christmas shopping list, but it would do for us: the sooner we got back to the sanctity of the familiar and peaceful Leslie Street the better. Pointing to a saucepan up on a shelf, Vernon asked the price. He seemed to know what he was doing, and John and I watched him, our mouths agape with admiration. Vernon took a knotted hankie out of his pocket and watched the man count out the contents; Mother would have a Christmas present after all.
Our Christmas mornings were predictable yet wonderful. Like most other children on Christmas morning, we woke well before our normal reveilles in eager anticipation of the most exciting day of the year. Our stockings, which had hung over the fireplace the night before, were now at the foot of our bed. Kneeling quickly up in the bed, we took a stocking—it didn’t matter which as they were all the same, each lumpy with an apple, an orange and some nuts. This was only the prelude: there would be more goodies under the tree downstairs. This Christmas morning, when it was light enough, we marched into Mother’s bedroom—she was still in bed but Dad was downstairs lighting the fire—and Vernon and I pushed John forward. He proudly held out the saucepan as we all piped ‘Merry Christmas, Mother.’ After we were dressed, and it didn’t take us long as we all slept in our shirts anyway, as we clattered downstairs we could see the rosy flickering on the kitchen wall reflected from the cheery fire in the grate. Dad hurried upstairs with a cup of tea for Mother and the hurly-burly of another Christmas Day began.
Every year our main present was always a Cadbury’s Selection box, which we joyously received as if it was a surprise, but the real surprise was usually a present we could all share. This year it was a Meccano set, which we pounced upon eagerly because, according to the blurb, with Meccano we could build anything. For the rest of the morning screws and nuts littered the floor as we salivated at the delicious aroma coming from the stove as Mother cooked the dinner. And what a meal it turned out to be: Yorkshire pudding with onion gravy to start with, followed by rabbit, roast potatoes and cabbage. When the table was a ruin of bones, bits of cabbage and dirty plates, we all thanked Mother, who said it was much easier to cook now with a new saucepan. Even to this day I bet that if we were all granted a wish for something to eat our answer would be unanimous: a rabbit.
For the evening party we all went down to Grandma Ashton’s for the traditional fun and games in which we children and the adults took part. When we arrived at 8 Houghton Street, there was already a Christmassy feel about the evening, with laughter, warm spicy smells, holly around the picture of Uncle Stanley, mistletoe in a strategic position over the door, and on the table Mint Imperials, mince pies and, best of all, luscious black Pontefract cakes like the buttons on an undertaker’s overcoat. Cups of tea for the ladies, something stronger for the men; we had sarsaparilla from large stone bottles, which when empty would be filled with boiling water to warm many a cold bed.
The games were the same as last year, but who remembers, and what does it matter? We children were led one at a time into a darkened kitchen; I was the first to go. I was told to kneel, facing a large white cloth, behind which the light of a torch shone through, and was instructed in a sepulchral voice to put my nose against the light and follow its every movement. My nose never left the light, which I followed slowly up the cloth, and as my head cleared the top a cold, wet sponge was slapped into my face, I yelped, everybody in the kitchen laughed and I joined them. John and Vernon both yelped as I did, and I laughed before the grown-ups because I knew what was going to happen. This was turning out to be a really great Christmas.
Gleaming with excitement at the thought of the next romp, the three of us were in the kitchen, which was now lit by candles. Auntie Emmy started to blindfold me, and so I assumed that I was to be first again for whatever was in store. She led me from the kitchen into the front room, where I was helped to step up on to a plank of wood, and again the sepulchral voice informed me what was to happen: ‘You are going on a flight and you must be very brave.’ Already I was trembling, especially when the board I was standing on began to rise up and up and up, until finally I banged my head and the sepulchral voice went on, ‘You have just hit the ceiling, and now you must jump.’ I was petrified: I couldn’t possibly jump down from where I was at the top of the room. But they urged me on, and eventually I took a deep breath and gave an almighty leap. There was a roar of laughter as Auntie Emmy took off the blindfold and the realisation dawned that I had only really been lifted about six inches. Sheepishly I smiled—it was such a simple mind-over-matter diversion. Auntie Emmy had been kneeling in front while I was blindfolded and as the three-foot plank was being slowly lifted by Dad and Joe Waterhouse, an uncle in waiting until he married Auntie Emmy, Auntie Edna had bumped a book on top of my head, which I took to be the ceiling, and the illusion was complete.
Vernon was next. He wasn’t petrified at all and when Auntie Edna banged the book on top of his head, he just smiled and whipped off his blindfold to loud groans of disappointment—he must have remembered last year’s party. John didn’t have a go as he was already fast asleep, and it was time for us to be taken home, leaving the grown-ups to their own Christmas games.
Grandma Ashton’s seemed to be a meeting place for all our relations. I recall evenings when Dad, Uncle Joe and two other men I cannot bring to mind played cribbage for a ha’penny a point. Before the cards were even shuffled, the curtains had to be drawn and the front door locked, as gambling was illegal—such was our respect for the police, which in this present day sounds overcautious, as the players neither lost nor won more than tuppence an evening.
Northmoor Council School, built before the Boer War, was about half an hour’s walk from across the Mucky Broos up Chadderton Road, past a huge black shiny boulder on the left, which was reputed to be a meteorite from outer space, awesome in itself and, even more frighteningly, said to be bewitched and evil. I never walked by it without crossing my fingers, looking straight ahead, although I watched it out of the corner of my eye in case it did something untoward. That was my daily journey to school, my first small step on the road to education, but after that fatuous fanfare I can recall only very little of my early schooldays.
Question: ‘How old were you when you enrolled?’
Answer: ‘Don’t know.’
Question: ‘What was the name of the headmaster?’
Answer: ‘She was a headmistress.’
Question: ‘What was her name?’
Answer: ‘No idea.’
It would be a very dull interview indeed. I remember the headmistress, a motherly, plumpish lady with white hair, for one unforgettable incident. Every morning, first thing, the whole school assembled for prayers, which culminated with a hymn: the headmistress stepped on to a podium, took up her baton and raised it—this was the only