At Nanny Farley’s

Yes, yes, yes, the time had arrived once more, just like the burning anticipation of Christmas, but with much less of an agonising wait, as the week looped back round again to another God-sent Saturday. The day kids are invincible. Twas Saturday tea-time to be precise and it may have been 1974 or possibly 1975, I’m not sure, perhaps both, it didn’t matter, but I remember Daleks and Bohemian Raspberry were always on the TV, the very, very impressive colour TV set that was, which an unforgiving coin operated electricity meter strictly powered with no compromise whatsoever. Said TV stood tall on thin War-of-the-World legs in the corner of Nan’s council end terrace living room. My brother may have existed, but he may have not, but Rickie did, yes Rickie Farley definitely did. Anyway what was important was the biscuit tin. This red and silver treasure trove with a lavish colour picture lid, which made a kind of metallic ‘wop’, when I did eventually manage to prize it from the rim of the box. And when it finally flipped open, my oh my, the glorious dazzling array of sugary brown geometric shapes, all architecturally assembled in their respective tessellated compartments. It was like peering down over a magical metropolis from the heavens above. As a boy, one could not dunk enough. Right in front of the blazing gas fire, with its awesomely glowing orange bars of nationalised heat, the same gas fire which was on all year round, no matter what, even during the drought of ’76, but not during the miner’s strike though, no, everything went off then, whether you liked it or not, and candles were whipped out like your life depended on it. That was our equivalent of life during wartime, but without the sirens or the Germans or the anxiety or the rations or the…. how on earth did folk manage back then? I could have dunked for Staffordshire y’know, and even for England too, and against the Germans, just think of it!, If only I’d been allowed to stay up late that is. May be when you’re older bab, or perhaps down the bowling club with all the grown ups, impressing all them tanked-up tank tops and piped-up press creased gentlemen, from the trenches of the immaculately rolled crown green, illuminated by the socialised sun set, by collecting the over zealous jack like a hero, then a ripple of suburban applause and back into the over perfumed and under cleaned creaky member’s club for pop and crisps and patronising pats on the head regarding my blonde afro hair, which I vehemently disapproved of, the comments that is, (the challenging boucles were a most different matter I can assure you), but I said absolutely nothing in return. However, I made important mental notes of each and every comment from each and every offending contributor and would wait until I was a teenager so to restore parity, which never happened of course, because I either simply forgot or had other, more immediate ‘issues’ to contend with, like broken National Health spectacles and Kerry Watkins, or perhaps, more possibly, said offenders had actually died and rolled on to the great bowling green in the sky. It were a working class club, made from working class stuff, like putty, planks, pork scratchings and musty walls, with domino toppling banter and ‘well-she-never-did,-did-she?’ yatter, nothing better than a good yatter don’t you think, or indeed a good ol’ yak, with a drink and a fag or a fag and a drink, put the world to rights you can, good and proper, ‘Jus tek the weight of yam feet luv’, but it was always just the one yakking for England, whilst the other just went ‘hmm…hmm…’, and all this splendid social networking connected so authentically in a hazy ash mist of curdling noise and clicking snooker balls, where you could easily lose your parents if you were lucky. Quick! Scarper! as we giggled out the back door chasing the only girl in club that night, oh and she was for it and wearing a fluttery dress and black shoes too! These folk lived the moment rather than brooded over investments, the pint-and-fag-factory-man with matching pinny wife, but one in ten had posh accents and their wives resembled decorated Christmas trees, and all year round too! It had more community warmth glowing from its asbestos roof than you could find anywhere nowadays, thanks of course to Mrs Thatcher, who put a stop to all that I have been told. It were the home for laughing locals, a snooker table the size of a swimming pool, and frothy ale in humongous pint glasses with thick handles, which you couldn’t hold in one hand for fear of dislocation, together with triangle sarnies and dainty cakes, all made from the humble hands of possibly the final generation of the mothers-at-home parish, who would trade methodist whispers and hair roller chit-chat in the aisles of Fine Fare. Yes, Fine Fare, (pronounced ‘Fi-Yun Fare’ for reasons only the West Midlands could ever properly explain), the real church of the people; where they piled up all their empty cardboard boxes in the big shopfront window for the ever obliging, ever grateful mother with prudent purse and sobbing toddler, to help themselves and carry their daily shop home in sensible Christian fashion, which was all very handy thank you very much, you might think, as this was BC, Before Carrier bag, but you couldn’t actually see inside the shop for this mountainous cardboard assemblage, stacked around a very sedated 2p horse ride, which all inadvertently portrayed an impression of a miserable scrappage yard, containing one unemployed horse, if there was ever such a scene to impersonate. However, just turn your head left for a moment and gorp down the sloping shopping strip at the exotic, alfresco display of fruit and veg at Charlie’s, the bluest grocer in the whole of the village no less, and even though no one was sure what Charlie actually looked like, rumour had it, he was a fat balding man in a Hawaiian shirt, who never got out of his car and was married to at least two of his shop assistants. Really? Said ‘girls’ would meticulously assemble said items on to special astro turf, decadently draped over decorating tables or similar, which we all wanted to try out our footie boots on, and Andy Holding even claimed he had a piece for his legendary indoor footie matches, where only the very privileged were invited to. Those classic days at his flat, above the Stars newsagents opposite, where we dropped marbles from his bedroom window onto the groggy pensioners below, who then stared up in horror and saw our howling faces, so we panicked, changed our clothes, including underpants, so we wouldn’t be recognised, but it didn’t work and the door bell rang. He would turn the sound down on all sporting events and do the commentary himself, whilst perched on the back of the sofa, presumably his high elevated position providing the necessary superiority and vantage point, whilst delivering his virtuoso vocal dexterity in front of a packed and amused lounge of VIP classmates. He was a natural, but alas he never made it. No one would, except the golfer, that was a given, even back then. There are three diseases a fledgling lad would almost inevitably expect to contract during his youth, namely; smoking, girls and indolence, and any one of three would almost guarantee obliteration of a prosperous career opportunity, with the obligatory tutting cold shoulder from a once encouraging school teacher, who would subsequently experience quietly seething betrayal, but not for the first or the last time I suspect. Reputations stuck and teacher’s knew it. Life is never forgiving, and school even less so, which we would all discover to our detriment. There was this old woman with hooked nose and dull beige rain coat, who rode a bicycle with basket at pace, but who resembled a witch on a broomstick. You only ever saw her pass by, and never where she’d come from or where she was going to, almost like an apparition, or perhaps the village ghost rider, wearing just a faint evil grimace of a smile cracking across her white boney face. She never looked at you and know one ever heard her speak. No one knew her name either, even though Wayne Yewbury claimed he did. All very odd. Everyone were clad in shades of industrial greys and browns in them days, except the posh, who on occasion sauntered in parakeet greens and reds, which complimented their insipid operatic tans, and no doubt this was a ploy to deliberately distinguish themselves from the making-ends-meet and gravy hoi polloi. Social class appeared to be defined by the quality of a man’s wife or was it their lawn? I could never quite fathom this one, but there was definitely competitive lawn mowing each weekend in this very white cling film suburbia, and a disparity in demeanor too down at them incestuous shops, with the head scarf gritty hunter-shopper versus the aloof equestrian lady of …well may be later, honey. Who would win? More importantly, who would complete their sticker book the first? Andy Holding was always miles ahead, which was to be expected considering he lived above Stars – the purveyor of all school boy addictions. How many more packets would it be before I finally got Kevin Keegan? Nan would always have two packets waiting for me. This made her the bestest. Got, got, got, got…NEED! A boy’s first business lesson is conducted where every other lesson of life is first conducted, in the school playground. The concrete forum of trade and duels, comradeship and war, all performed in a ferociously giddy colosseum of cacophony and snot, where the stakes are reputation, reputation and reputation, so most of us discovered to our loss. And the spoils were either the ball, the footie sticker or the fit girl who wore a bra. The latter was always a jaw dropper and inevitably out of reach. Perhaps I should have planned to be a grocer when I grew up? Rickie? I mentioned him earlier? yes, of course, my bestest best friend at the time. He came over to play one afternoon with Nanny Farley in tow, we played until tea time, on the splitting sofa with the toy cars and trucks, me orange juice and biscuits, him water and bickies, together with some possible dunking I expect. Then, steering said toy vehicles, with necessary sound effects, around the carpet patterns, the patchy carpet that was, where Mom endeavoured to compensate for our lack of financial resources by colouring in all the exposed stitching and bare patches with felt pen, by crawling meticulously around the lounge, scribble, scribble, scribble, brown pen, scribble, scribble, scribble, red pen. Ingenious! Our lawn, thankfully did not require such remedial treatment. Rickie Farley eventually went home with Nan, but later our cream telephone rang like an alarm bell in the hall, and it was Nan again, but this time there was a problem, but I couldn’t hear Nan properly as her voice was all crackly and all worried, just the ‘No, when? Oh I never!, how strange…’ type responses coming from Mom holding the receiver. Then Mother’s intuition kicked in and she opened the front door adjacent to the telephone table, and there stood Rickie Farley no less! He had walked all by himself, over a mile across the village, tracing his little steps all the way back to his bestest best friend. Incredible! Mom couldn’t believe it and announced her surprise and relief into the receiver so Nan could hear. Joy for all! Rickie Farley was indeed a very clever little chap, I can tell you that much, even if he had landed himself in a lot of trouble, and bowls of it too. Still, now we know who a dog’s bestest best friend is, don’t we.