It was a nice feeling last week when we went top off the league’s second division but can you imagine what it wpould be like to win the Football League’s Itop divion for the frst time? I can because I was there!
2019 marks fifty years since Leeds United were crowned Champions of the Football League for the first time. It happened on a wonderful night at Anfield, Home of Liverpool Football Club in 1969 and I was there.
Coming into final stages of the season we had only seen defeat twice: once at Manchester City two nil and a surprising five one defeat at Burnley which we avenged six one at home. Liverpool led the league all through the season but we had matches in hand – dare we say it – it looked as though we might make the coveted championship at last! One mighty barrier had to be breached first and that was Liverpool themselves at Anfield. This was to be the big one, the match that I shall remember when all others fade. I want to take you with me on that trip to Anfield on that wonderful April night.
We left work early that April night and slogged it across the Pennines, and it was a slog in the days before the M62 Motorway was constructed. There was going to be a capacity crowd in Anfield that night, a draw would do for us to lift the Champions crown but if we lost then Liverpool themselves would likely keep the trophy they already held.
We called at a shop for the traditional meat pie on the road that leads past Stanley Park; when the lad behind the counter heard our accents he wished us good luck, ‘Can’t have that lot up there getting too cocky’, he said. Obviously he was a staunch Evertonian. We were already in the ground by five thirty, it was like a great empty cathedral, in fact there was so much space and so long to wait before the kick-off that the four of us who made the trip drifted apart and were not united until the end of the game. One of our number, was a girl called Irene, she was the most fervent supporter of us all, she had been in Hungary for the Ferenvaros match the year before. So keen was Irene that she had written into her contract of employment that she could have time off to watch Leeds United and to have her office painted blue white and gold. She later got into trouble at Elland Road for allowing her banner to cover the advertising boards
To return to Anfield: it was smaller than I had imagined it would be; the field seemed toy like and even the Kop directly across from us did not seem as immense as I had been led to believe. It was a spring evening which allowed the sun to shine directly into our eyes; it was so brilliant we could hardly see a thing. Perhaps we would be so blinded we would not be able to see the game. Anfield at that time was modern on three sides; the fourth side looked strangely quaint with its rounded timber fascia painted in red with the white letters: Liverpool FC. What an aura of tradition abounded the place. Leeds players came out to inspect the pitch in their lounge suits. In the streaming sunlight on that small elevated pitch even Billy Bremner looked tall; how giant size would the Liverpool players look when they appeared?
Leeds had a good following that night, with the chance of history being made and Leeds lifting their first major trophy what Leeds fan would want to miss out on a night like that? Almost all our end belonged to the Leeds support but somehow I had managed to become surrounded by Liverpool fans and what a great lot they turned out to be! They were a little shocked to hear our lot chanting the songs, they themselves, had made famous but with an added sprinkling of our own obscenities.
The match progressed as I had expected – Leeds had come for a point and played seventy five percent defensively. It was about quarter time before I announced my presence in the midst of a little pocket of Liverpool regulars; they seemed a little surprised to find a Leeds fan amongst their ranks, especially as I was shouting for the removal of a certain Liverpool player who had fouled. ‘Gerr ‘im off!’ but as I stated before, they were a great bunch; as they saw me sweating for the one point we needed for the championship they consoled me by comforting: ‘Only forty minutes to go lad’ – then, ‘Only thirty minutes now.’ It takes greatness to bestow such comfort, especially as our success would mean their failure but then Liverpool were well versed in success, and this was only our ‘maiden voyage’. As the time became shorter our fans shouted madly, ’Liverpool – Liverpool – runners up!’ It was so unnecessary, so pretentious a single Liverpool score even at that late stage and the dream would be over. I remember little of those final few minutes the tension was making it all a blur. But I do recall Eddie Gray dribbling the ball off our very goal-line, I would have been happy if he had put the ball into row ‘Z’. Then Alun Evens was through with only Sprake to beat, the goal seemed as wide as a field he couldn’t miss but miss he did. I daren’t look at my watch I knew if I did that would surely put the mockers on it. But for once the gods were with us – they didn’t pass that night. When the whistle did sound it was a little unexpected and a little unbelievable: our little team from Elland Road that I had supported from a lad, all those ordinary years in the second division were champions of the Football League!
The Leeds players congratulated each other and were congratulated by the Liverpool team, and then they ran to our end to be treated to hysterical applause. That done they started back to the tunnel; Mr Revie was on his feet and waved them away to the Liverpool Kop; the lads made their way, almost shyly to the famous Kop, hallway across they stopped and waved at the massed ranks of Liverpool fans. That which happened next was the highlight of the whole season and as it seems to have turned out, the highlight of my whole lifetime of watching Leeds United. The Kop arose in a mighty salute of red and white with the thunderous acclaim: ‘Leeds – Leeds – Leeds’. The Kop, which had seemed smaller than expected when entering the stadium, was now a colossal cathedral filling the whole panorama; the crescendo was a magnificent sight, enough to take the breath away. Any Leeds fan who remained dry eyed that night had to be a hard hearted beggar! We left Anfield treading air, the pubs and fish and chip shops all the way from Liverpool; to Leeds (remember there was no motorway) were filled with delirious Leeds fans.
Many of the travellers had their banners already made. I always thought it was tempting providence a bit but what a great sight to see them flying from cars, vans, buses ‘Champions’ when I arrived home it was late but Brenda was still awake and I couldn’t wait to speak those coveted words. ‘This was our night. We are the champions!’ I watched the lads for over sixty years but there was never another night like that night at Anfield
Date April 28th 1969.
Venue Anfield
Att: 53,750.Score Liverpool nil – Leeds United nil.
Liverpool: Lawrence, Lawler, Strong, Smith, Yeats, Hughes, Callighan, Graham, Evens, St John, Thompson. We had the championship with sixty-five points and there was still one match to play. The record points total at that time (and remembering it was only two points for a win) stood at sixty six points, we needed a win to beat it. The last match was to be against Nottingham forest at home. Even though they occupied a lowly position in the league they were not going to make it easy for us that night, although their goal was under perpetual siege they fought for every ball. ‘We want the record’, chanted the crowd but it was beginning to look as though Forest would hold out. It was beginning to be that sort of a night when there had been so many near misses you begin to think that fate has it we would not score but 1969 was our year we squeezed one in near the end; Giles I believe was the scorer. We had the championship and we had the record
It started as a germ of an ides between three friends and turned into the minor miracle that was the East Leeds Reunions. Three old friends who were all East Leeds Lads would regularly walk the Yorkshire acres during the week and usually have a weekly night in a pub. Because we all came from East Leeds the conversation was invariably about the East Leeds area and the folk we remembered who lived therein.
Old map of our area
Let me define the Leeds 9 area we counted as ‘Our East Leeds’: it was the three Leeds suburbs of: Cross Green, East End Park and Richmond Hill. So the boundaries were, York Road to the West, Osmondthorpe Lane to the North Knostrop to the East and the river to the South. This area was made up of hundreds of terrace houses (mainly back to backs) seven primary schools: Ellerby Lane, St Hilda’s, All Saints, St Charles’s, Victoria, Mt St. Mary’s, East End Park Special School and near enough on the periphery South Accommodation Road School and Saville Green School, ‘Ossy’ and ‘Corpus’ were great East Leeds Schools but a bit outside our catchment area. Twelve pubs: Cross Green, Bridgefield, Fishermen’s Hut, Black Dog, Hampton, Spring Close, Prospect, Hope Inn, Cavalier, Accommodation Inn, New Regent (Slip) and The White Horse: seven Cinemas: The Picture House Easy Road, Princess, Star, Regent, Shaftsbury and Premier, the churches: St. Hilda’s, St. Saviours, All Saints. Mount St. Mary’s, St. Patricks, The surviving chapels: Bourne Chapel, Richmond Hill Chapel, and Zion Chapel.
In addition there were a couple of Coops, Post Offices, Doctors playing fields and hundreds of corner shops, so as you can appreciate the area was self-contained there was hardly a need to leave the area apart from football matches or fashion shopping in the city centre, so you lived cheek by jowl with the 7,000/8,000 folk who inhabited it.
So to get back to the old friends out walking and reminiscing we talked a lot about The market District Boys Club which we had all three attended in in the 1950s and someone suggested; how about having a reunion of the market District Boys club: Here are Just a few notes about the Market District Boys Club: The Market District Boys Club was opened in 1885 by the Rev Mackay of Leeds Parish Church as a club in Brussels Street to take lads from a tough area and to keep off the streets and onto the straight and narrow. In the 1950s when we attended the club it was still under the auspices of the Parish Church (now Leeds Minster) but now a widely popular youth club open to both sexes and an attraction for successful lads football and rugby teams until its demise in the late 1960s here is a picture of the five story building before its demise and a lovely earlier picture of urchins in the big bath which was still in operation during our time at the club, what a great advert for LUX The market District Boys Club opened 1885
so we made this a reality and held it in The Palace Pub the nearest pub to the site of the club in Brussels Street. We contacted as many old members as we could and advertised it in the press and elsewhere we had a good turn out and folks brought photos augmented by those from the Parish Church archives going back as far as the second world war a great night was had by all, lads who hadn’t met for 50 years were reunited old nick names were trawled groups tended to form from the years guys had attended the club and you could hear voices still complaining, ‘We should never have lost that match ‘ etc.
An Early picture of lads in the big bath at the market District Club in the 1920s what an advert for LUX and amazingly that is a hundred year old picture!
We had another couple of Market District reunions at the British legion Club on the sexton Gardens Estate where we invited girls to come along too as in our years at the club although it was still called a boys club it was thrown open to both sexes. It was either at that second reunion or perhaps when we were on one of our walking expeditions that someone came out with the statement, ‘Those market District reunions were alright but why just the Market District why don’t we open it up to all the folk who lived in our area in the 40s/50s/ and 60s?’
‘Would they come?’
‘Let’s try and see, wouldn’t it be great to see all those old faces.’
We contacted an old mate was landlord of The Spring Close pub which was actually in our area and he was delighted he said it would be great to see the old pub full again, so we put out feelers and advertised it in the Yorkshire Post Newspaper and we filled the place out. After a couple of reunions in the Spring Close pub we out grew it and moved to The Edmund House Club where we flooded all the downstairs room and folk in different rooms were missing each other so they opened the upstairs concert room for us and we filled that too, like ‘Topsy’ it grew and grew until we were attracting 300/400 regularly for the remainder of the next twenty years it was difficult to count the total number in attendance at any one time as folk were constantly coming and going all the time, although we had hoped to attract mainly old folk who had attended the seven schools it was open to all, no admission no membership we had no fees and no committee just a list of names that continued to grow with each meeting. People we had never anticipated would come came. They came out of the woodwork. Folk were reunited with old mates they never thought they would see in life again and because old and young came you generally found yourself in the middle of three generations : your generation, the older than your generation filled with the folk who had chased you around the streets for being cheeky, shopkeepers, teachers and the clergy, then your own generation followed by generations of folk younger than yourself who had been cheeky little kids who you would give a clip around the ear, now old wars were forgotten everybody was on even footing.
Like magic folk arrived some coming all the way down from Orkney and even arranging trips from Australia to coincide with the reunions. Few of us actually still lived in the area which although still well-loved was quite run down now and didn’t now have a large indigenous population anymore but many took the chance to have a look around the old area, one was amazed to see how steep and dangerous was the ‘Navvy’ that he had descended as a lad. There was at least one occasion where two young lovers who had drifted apart and married others had now lost their spouses and were reunited for a few bonus years together again Old rivalries were still remembered but without rancour. I recall the School’s Cup Final between our two heavyweight schools in 1951: Ellerby Lane and Victoria were due to play out the Schools Cup Final which was the highlight of the Leeds Schools football year it was to be played at East End Park’s Skelton Road ground, Ellerby Lane School were firm favourites to win but the Skelton Road Football ground had traditionally a lucky dressing room and an unlucky dressing room, Ellerby Lane sent a lad up to secure the lucky dressing room before the match but the Victoria team arriving later turfed him out and took over the lucky dressing room themselves, true to tradition Victoria, the underdogs but playing out of the ‘lucky dressing room’ won the match and it has been a bone of contention ever since that because Ellerby Lane had ‘bagged’ the lucky dressing room they should have been able to play out of there and would have won the match and this had been steaming for over fifty years. Well both teams were at the reunion and mischievously I managed to get the old captain of the Victoria School team from that match fifty years ago and the captain of the Ellerby Lane School team for that match together talking about this and that and then I threw in the bombshell when I said ‘About that lucky dressing room final in 1951’ then I backed off and watched them go.
Then there was Masie and Kathleen best mates at school who had fallen out over some triviality and never mended it, we got them back to being best friends again after sixty years. Old school teachers turned up to the reunions, the clergy turned up we treated them with respect but we were mates now not subordinates. Of course now you had two pictures of folk, as you used to know them and how they looked now, which picture did you want to keep? I heard a group of guys from an older year than ours saying ‘so and so’ is still the prom queen isn’t she.’ Every class in every school had a potential ‘prom queen’ most of them were here.
All those people each had their array of tales to tell we talked about the great characters: Rocking Horse, a famous policeman from a time before ours, Big Ernie the commissionaire at the princess everyone went to the Princess cinema and knew Big Ernie, Harry Bendon, singer round the pubs, Abbe White patron of the Easy Road picture House always standing at the door in his dress suite, Cleggy, demon woodwork teacher at Victoria, Willie Knott the school boy king also from Victoria, Bob Bates who ran St Mary’s football teams seemingly for ever and many more. We also spoke of the places, East End Park itself, Paddy’s Park, The Navvy, The Quarry, Black Road, Red Road and Nozzy all portals to adventure.
Joan’s tale: ‘The Pantomime’ where the kids put on the pantomime ‘Cinderella’ in a street opening to raise money for Leeds to help buy the aircraft carrier Ark Royal fund is a good example of what a tight knit community and spirit we had (see Joan’s tale ‘the pantomime’ on this East Leeds Memories site)
The reunions were so popular some folk wanted us to have two a year and we started doing that the only problem was, that some folk who only wanted to come once a year were missing out on ever catching those they wanted to see but attended the other reunion so we reverted to one a year usually the first week in November, we wanted to keep the whole thing informal so we didn’t have any signing in or one of us sitting on the door that would have stopped the three of us mingling and catching up with all our own old buddies but we did have some sticky labels made out and left on the table where you came in in the different colours for each of the old schools: green for Mount St. Mary’s, yellow for Ellerby Lane, red for Victory, blue for St Hilda’s etc. so people coming in could stick them on their tops and if they wished join those who had attended their own old schools.
Because we were ‘oldies at the start of the reunions mainly in our sixties and the older ones in their eighties after 20 years the grim reaper had been merciless in his reaping we sixty year olds were now in our eighties and the eighty year olds, well you can guess what had happened to them. But thankfully we had collected all the stories we could and had them printed up into a couple of books which we published all proceeds going to the ‘Help the Heroes.’ Fund, sadly I believe they are out of print now but most of the tales appear here on the East Leeds Memories site. In 2020 the coved epidemic put paid to all assemblies so we were unable to have any reunions and by the time the ban was lifted I was the only one of the three original founders left and we were generally too old and dispersed so the reunions drifted away but while it lasted I think it was one of the best ideas we ever had.
You don’t see so many Old English Sheepdogs around these days but in the 1960s through to the 1980s they were very popular what with the Dulux advert and Boot in the Daily Mirror cartoon this was at a time when their tales were allowed to be docked which the vets decided was not good for their health but it made them look chunky and attractive. In our midlife family period we had five – not all at the same time of course – we called them: Mumps, Measles, Bunkles, Pimples and Bumps. (We also had a cat called: Shingles) They somewhat restrained our life style though as we didn’t like putting them in kennels and so chose cottage holidays where we could take them with us so missing out somewhat on foreign travel but they were worth it.
I’ll feature on our third dog ‘Bunkles’ he was the biggest of the five.
The first time that we saw him he was standing in the middle of a Carlisle farmhouse – a tiny figure with bright blue eyes. ‘He’s the first out of the basket,’ said Mrs McCollum, his breeder. Behind him could be seen his less adventurous siblings heaving about in the basket. We called him ‘Bunkles’ but invariable it was shortened to ‘Bunks’: he was a dog and a half. As he grew we tried to keep him in the back of the estate car but as Paul, our son’ once remarked: ‘If he decides to climb over the seat – he’s unstoppable.’ When we were forced into an even smaller car: Volkswagen Polo, the four of us plus Bunkles and our other sheepdog bitch: Measles, the availability of space became acute. I recall the incredulous look on the faces of a couple on a seat when we all squeezed out of the Polo at a picnic spot.
They liked to sit on your knee but they were a bit too large for that
Bunkles spanned the life of two of our ‘girl dogs’ Measles was here when he came and pimples when went. Dogs tend to have an effect on each other for good or bad. All three were great dogs, If you have a well-behaved dog and you bring along a pup half way along its life, chances are you’ll get another good well behaved dog. That’s the way we found it anyway. Measles took her cue from Mumps, Bunkles from Measles and Pimples from Bunkles. Last of all we had Bumps – he was a lovely dog too but he always had hip problems that curtailed his walking capabilities.
It is one of the sadder facts of life that man outlives many dogs in a lifetime, but you don’t replace a dog, you bring another into your life along with its own unique character and most like they will give you great pleasure: you’re never in the ‘doghouse’ with your dog. Measles was a sheepdog in the truest sense, if we were walking in crowds she didn’t like the party to become dispersed into dribs and drabs. If this happened, she would run around barking and trying to round you up into a tight group again as if you were sheep. Mumps loved to play with the football, when we were kicking in before a match he would run onto the field and steal the ball; he could get a full sized football into his mouth and carry it about with us chasing after him. He loved walks but hated thunder and the smell of alcohol. He invariable had diarrhoea the smell of which we tried to mask with perfume; I recall it was Esther Lauder perfume so that the conflicting smells of diarrhoea and Esther Lauder have become ever associated together in the household. One day when we visited a cousin in Bingley she has baked us a dinner plate size apple pie on the way home someone said Mumps is quiet and we looked Mumps wasa licking his lips having devoured the full pie. Measles was relatively timid, Bunks boisterous and Pimples mischievous; she would run after other dogs barking away, if they turned and chased her she would run and hide behind Bunkles and let him sort the matter out.
at the sea side
The occasion I remember best on this score, however, concerned Measles and Bunks who was about a year old at the time and on top of his form. We had been walking in heavy brush on Becket’s Park – Measles and I emerged from the cover on top of a hill with Bunkles lagging some way behind. Upon seeing Measles a pack of four retrievers charged up the hill in line, apparently baying for her blood. Poor old Measles was petrified; she just stood there trembling to await her fate. The lead dog was almost upon her when Bunks burst out of the brush a huge figure in his elevated position and looking for all the world like Superman, stripped of to the ‘S’. The lead dog immediately applied the brakes and just like a Disney film the other three slammed into his backside – piling up all over each other before turning tail and baying and yelping back down the hill at an even faster pace than they had arrived. Bunks didn’t even turn a hair. On another occasion he happened to be sniffing an electric fence and it gave him a jolt and he looked at us with a hurt expression as if it were something we had done to him that the thought he didn’t deserve.
There is evidently something about Old English sheepdogs, which, seems to make horses nervous. One particular time when this happened and nearly had disastrous results occurred when we having a footpath walk on the outskirts of Bradford. When horses were around we always made sure the dogs were kept on a lead – not that the dogs themselves would attack the horse but rather that the horse itself read more into the sight of them than was really there and it seemed to spook them. On the particular day in question I heard a horse approaching from behind and put Bunks on a lead, the rider touched his cap in thanks and rode past at a walk. All seemed well, although I could see the horse was eyeing Bunks up sideways, he was obviously quite nervous. Anyway we walked on and as the path was clear ahead we let the dog off the lead again and he wandered about twenty of thirty yards ahead. Without warning the rider came thundering back from the other direction, galloping to an extent that Roy Rogers would have been proud, unfortunately, it left us with no chance to grab the dog before the horse got to him. The horse met the dog, which stood his ground in the middle of the path and the horse didn’t like it. In fact he didn’t like it so much he bucked and dispatched his rider in two somersaults over his head and into the wood before setting off at a lick on his own, not to be seen again.
‘Are you alright?’ I asked the rider who was trying to extract himself from the brambles.
‘I am but I’m not well pleased,’ he said limping off in the direction that the horse had disappeared.
I got the impression that he thought the dog was to blame, which was hardly the case but we beat a hasty retreat anyway in case litigation came up.
Bunks was a gentle giant who’s back stood as high as the table: he feared naught and could walk a good twelve miles in his prime, yet was gentle enough for the cat to come and lay between his giant paws or soft enough to fall asleep playing with the ruche from the cushion making.
One last memory: the three of us: Bunks, Pimples and I once attempted to climb a dust covered mound, which eventually proved far too steep for me to climb. I began to slip back down and Bunks who had been further up than I came steaming back down on his belly with his legs spread-eagled and nose ploughing up the dust. Pimples who had hardly dared make a start on the hill became so excited by it all she bit his nose as he as he flashed by – to add to the spectacle.
Those are just a few choice memories out of years with true friends. We couldn’t manage them now – wouldn’t be able to lift them over stiles they’re in the garden now, close to where you would sit on a nice summer’s day, but I’ll not dwell on the sadness of their parting but rather them in their prime when as Paul quite rightly said of Bunkles ‘He was unstoppable.’
Letter to a dear friend who died in 2019 aged 80 years. ‘Well old mate it’s 2024 now and you’ve been gone for nearly five years and your sadly missed but I still remember the good times we had together.’ What, how have we been faring since you went? Well we had a Covid epidemic that killed off a couple of million worldwide and we’ve had a war in the Ukraine and a war in Gaza, the nation is a couple of trillion quid in debt, not to mention congestion charges and global warming, Iran’s after building a nuclear bomb, strikes everywhere and folk can’t pay their rent, feed themselves or heat their homes a few more old mates have gone and Leeds United got relegated again.’ ‘How am I? Well, naturally I’m more geriatric now, and a bit of a waterworks problem, can’t walk too well, slowing down on the uptake of things.’ ‘What’s that you say, sounds that life’s not worth living and would I like to swop places with you? ‘Nah, you’re all right mate I think sun’s just coming out.’
An Aussie kind of Christmas By Audrey Sanderson: East Leeds Lass now living in OZ A long time since I’ve inflicted one of my yarns about my crazy relatives on you and such a lot has happened since 2018. Not only my family has skeletons in the cupboard. A few of the well heeled in society London are writing about their rellies too. It costs a lot more to read about their antics than it does to read and have a laugh about my bunch of crackpots. So, who would like to read about the time yet another of my rellies wanted to get away from the freezing weather in Leeds one December a good few years back? Same as the rest of them this one said he’d been to Spain, Italy and rode the waves surfing at Devon or Cornwall. I’ve seen documentarys on T.V. of surfing in other countries so I suggetsted he found a film about surfing in the Pacific Ocean before playing in the surf on this side of the world. At the time he visited my son and daughter were in their last year of college and as livley as all 16-17 years old boys and girls are. Only the fashions and hairstyles change, They all think it’s only them who has found true romance and have their lives planned out so everything will be perfect once they leave school and walk into a dream job with plenty of money. Ah Well! We all have dreams, most of us grow up quick when we learn to manage a weekly wage. All but my rellies. Why on earth did they think Aussie T.V. soap operas were true to life and we all flew up and down to Sydney, Melbourne whenever we felt like having a weekend away from home. My lot thought they’d be able to see the Great Barrier Reef one day, Ayers rock as Uluru was known back then the next day and have a trip under the Sydney Harbour Bridge the day after that. They’d see all over Australia in two weeks and then they could nip down to Surfers Paradise on an afternoon to sunbake and surf the rest of the time they were free loading on me. ‘ They had it planned ‘ of course that’s what was going to happen while they were here. You know what folks? We were not on holiday, I had to go to work. Sure there is lots of sunshine but the bills still need paying and the supermarkets don’t give food away. He arrived about 5 days before Christmas. The temperature was around 37-40 degs.C and the airport was full of passengers coming and going and all small kids as excitable as if Santa was flying in that day. He arrived in a beige Safari Suit with the palest skin ever. Lot’s of comment near us from otheres picking up people from the same aircraft about the big time safari hunter. Strict instrucions from me to both my kids not to laugh. ” Everybody else is having a good giggle ” said my son. ” I don’t care what everyody else is doing. Think of something else instead ” Inside my head I’m thinking Uggghhh, isn’t this going to be a fun packed 6 weeks? As soon as we were outside the building into the airport car park the heat hit all of us like a steam train on full throttle. He just stood there looking like ( an Aussie phrase ) a stunned mullet. In other words, WHAT have I stepped into? Welcome to a Brisbane summer. The drive from the airport was through the suburbs and HE wanted to know how come there was so many houses, Is HE for real!!! Where does he think we live? My son had a very dry sense of humour and under his breath I heard him say ” We gave up living in tents when we stopped wearing kangaroo skins ” OOOO This going to be fun and he hasn’t been here an hour yet. Anyone who has been on a long haul flight knows the feeling or lack off for a few days until your own time clock adjusts to the time difference and of course as I tell visitors over and over again IT IS Not England With SUNSHINE. My visitors never have any problem accepting America, Eygpt, Sweden, France and every other place outside of Britain has different ways of doing things, different names, speak different languages in most places WHY do they think here should be like Halifax, Wakefield or anywhere else they come from. The business day started at 8:30 a.m. back then and closed at 5:30 p.m. Shops, stores, offices, banks etc. Pubs opened at 10 a.m. closed at 10 p.m. Kids started school at 8:30 a.m. closed at 3 p.m. All the time he asked Why does everything open so early in the morning, we don’t get up until 8 a.m. ” If you want breakfast while you are here you’d better be ready at 7 a.m. Stay out of the way, especially the bathroom the kids have to be out of here at 8 as I drop them off at their friends place before I start work. The kids will be back about 4 p.m. I will be back at 4:30 and I leave again at 5:30. I had a cleaning business and cleaned offices at night, houses during the day. All this had been explained to him long before he set off to come here. Needless to say he soon got used to getting out of bed before 7 a.m. or just have toast for his breakfast. He didn’t like the idea of having to find his way around in the city. It’s not as heartless as it sounds. I live near a train line that goes direct into the city centre. We use the trains like other countries use buses, all very modern I might add, comfortable and airconditioned. The city centre streets are in a grid. Impossible to get lost. All the streets with men’s names run one way and all those with female names run across the mens named streets. You can’t wander off and get lost as the river runs along one end and is well guarded. Being Christmas and New Year, party. party.party, He expected to be going to some beach or other. He was eager to get a suntan. I kept telling him not to sunbake as the sun is too fierce and with his lily white sking he’d fry. He was 30 years old for goodness sake I didn’t have time to molly coddle him 24/7 Christmas day arrived and as always we were invited to my friend Joan’s place as we had been for the last 15 years. Joan was married to an aboriginal man and between them they had lots of rellies and their surname was Smith. I was an honary Smith they told everyone because Joan was the first real friend I had when we first moved into the house I still live in. Years had gone by and of course Joan and Merv’s sisters and brother’s children had grown and so everyone took what they would have normally ate at home for lunch round to Joan’s place. Merv had hired tables and chairs, they had a massive mango tree in their back yard so everything got set up there. We arrived about 11 a.m. as did most of the others and we all stayed until around 7 p.m. Then we did it all again the following week on New Years day. THE visitor was just going to rock up empty handed. The day before I told him he had to take a carton of beer. All Merv’s rellies were beer drinkers. He did not like that one little bit. The alternative was he would stay in my house on his own with no turkey, prawns, crabs, oysters dozens of salads, Christmas pudding and cake and the giant fruit trifle I always made on Christmas eve to make sure it had set for the next day. I kept checking where he was all the time we were at Joan and Merv’s. He seemed to be behaving himself as Merv’s crowd are very male concious all the guys were chatting together. Well into the afternoon Bob, Merv’s brother-in-law came up to me and said I’d better have a little chat to my cousin. Not wanting to cause a drama I asked quietly what he’d done. Bob said just as quiet ” He’s explaining to Merv how he should sunbake and not get burnt ” I burst out laughing ” You crazy old bugger, leave the juice alone, you’ve had enough. Val will be on you like a ton of bricks if you tell her the same joke.” Val was Bob’s wife and Merve’s sister. Merv, his brother and two sisters were full blood aborigines and as soon as the summer sun dared to touch them their skin went 10 times darker. Bob wasn’t laughing, he said Merv too had had a fair bit to drink and he was sure he hadn’t really listened to what my cousin was saying. I jumped up from the chair, pushed Bob onto it and told him to play with the kids or something while I stopped a full scale brawl before it got started. Bob got all the little kids to sing jingle bells or something christmassy and I went over to the idiot and told him we needed a strong man to carry something upstairs. Macho man he wasn’t but hint that he was thankfully got him on his feet but not without him telling Merv He’d be back to finish telling him how to avoid getting sunburnt. While we were upstairs Merv nodded off so thankfully the sunbaking lesson didn’t resume. Also in the summer months it is cyclone season. Warning my rellies of what to do if a cyclone is pending has as much interest to them as telling them not to swim in areas with warning sign of sharks being present in certain areas. They laugh at signs with snakes, crocodiles, kangaroos and want to stop in the middle of a highway to take photo’s of them. They are estatic if the see a mob of kangaroos in the wild and immediately want to rush up to them to take photos. The Skippy T.V. show is still being shown in all parts of the world. It was entertaining for young children and lots of Australian actors made their debut having roles in the shows. For one thing Skippy was a wallabie, not a kangaroo and he had 3 standin wallabies fully trained when Skip got tired. Also he couldn’t play the drums, drive a car, fly a plane and no idea how to work the two way radio. Skippy and his various rellies are wild animals You DO NOT treat them like domestic pets. Even in wild life parks with heaps of staff close by I would never let my children hand feed them. If a child has nothing left for them to eat those o so lovely cuddly furry freinds can get very mean with a small child AND they are protected by law. Believe me if any thing or any one attacked my child I would fight like any animal attacking her cubs. My rellies knew how to handle any animal or reptile. Did you ever see that old stage play Billy Liar? Albert Finney played the role of Billy to a T. My rellies lived in the same dream world. ” I’d soon sort a kangaroo out ” said by some one who had never seen a real one. A grown male kangeroo is about 8 ft. tall. If he’s in any danger or his mob of females are he rocks back on that giant tail, lifts his hind legs at you and pounces full pelt with those long feet crashing into whatever is about to attack him. So, I gave him the quick version of what to do if any violent storm blew up and he had that patronizing look that made my blood boil. Of course the enivitable happened while he was here. It had been 35 Deg. C all day and 80% humidity and everyones temper was on a short fuse. The storm clouds had been gathering for a couple of days and just before the sun went down a terrific crash of thunder almost deafened us. Me and the two kid straight away into action closing windows, doors making sure they were locked. The smart one jumped up with eyes as big as saucers standing in the middle of the lounge while the newspaper he’d left on the floor beside the chair he’d been sittinging was flying all round the room. He was almost screaming What is happening? Make it stop. What am I supposed to be doing ? My son grabbed hold of him by the shoulders and yelled ” SIT down you stupid bugger and stay out of the way ” All the windows in all the bedrooms had to be closed and fastened down nobody had time to bother about the cousin. Of course inside the house was like an oven and I slid open the verandah door a few inches to try letting the pressure out. In those conditions you open a window or door on the opposite side of the house to where the wind is blowing. The suddeness of the storm brought hail as well. By then nothing we could do but stay together in one room and wait until the storm eased off a little. What does super brain do? Goes to get his camera and stand close to the big glass verandah sliding doors taking photos of the cricket ball size chunks of solid ice we call hail. Again my son grabbed him and threatend to punch him if he moved out of the chair again. Everyone’s nerves were on edge as you can’t predict what these storms are going to do next. My daughter has always been scared of violent storms and told her brother to open the verandah door and shove him out onto the verandah and let him feel what a real storm is all about and we would all get some peace. It was all said in he heat of the moment but I knew how she felt. After January 1st. daily life resumed except for all school kids who were on holiday until the end of January. My next door neighbour took her annual holidays in January to be with her two children and asked me if my cousin would like to go to the beach with them for the day. As well as having a large opinion of himself he also thought he was A WOW with the ladies. I’m sure he never behaved at his home the same way as he was doing here. None of my rellies would have put up with his attitude. He wouldn’t have lasted 2 minutes at parties if he hadn’t have been with me and my friends. They are all very polite and tolerated him but after he’d gone home they didn’t hesitate in saying ” He won’t be coming back for a long time eh?” Some others said when he grew up he might survive if he came back for another holiday. I said I’d send him their addresses and phone numbers. I survived having a heap of scrunched up serviettes thrown at me. Surfing the waves on Bribie Island was something he wouldn’t be able to brag about. Lot’s of small islands around various coast lines of Australia, some have bridges from the main land you can drive to, others are reached by small aluminian boats commonly called a tinnie which holds about 4 people and mostly used for fishing….or boozy trips by young fellas who drink all day and sleep iunder the stars and come back home the day after when they have sobered up. Bribie Island was one with a bridge and very popular in Summer. I packed picnic food and drinks enough for a small army as he was a big guy with hollow legs as my Dad called greedy people. A beach towel was all I provided after checking he had bathers of some kind and an extra T-shirt just incase something happened to the one he was wearing. Also reminded him to use plenty of sun screen cream but stay under the large beach umbrella I’d given him. My neighbour called out they were ready to leave and he, the eager beaver gave a triumphant smile saying he would make sure his companion would have the best time of her life. No need to warn her at all, she’d seen through him the second day he was here as he made eyes at her from my front verandah. She was a very attractive lady, divorced but had a long time boyfriend who didn’t live with her. I’d told romeo she wasn’t interested in him. I didn’t want to tell him he wasn’t her type of guy. I don’t like putting anyone down but no amount of hints or plain talking queld his arroganz of self importance. My two kids had spent the day at their friends houses and I spent a very peaceful day on my own. About 5 p.m. the happy day trippers returned home. I heared their car pull into their drive and movements of unloading the car but strangly it was very quiet. Normally with kids of 10 or under like her kids were there’s lots of yelling and laughing or yelling and name calling if they were arguing. I kept in my lounge and heard the opening of the door that leads into my garage under my house. Slowly heavy footfalls of some one climbing the staircase. There is a solid bannister alongside the staircase which leads into the lounge at the top of the steps. I was sat on the couch on the opposite side of the room and slowly saw first his head with towsled hair and a very red face appear over the bannister then his hunched shoulders as he dragged his feet up the stairs. The wet beach towel was wrapped round his waist and I thought with the look on his face he was on the point of tears. No need to be Einstein to know he was sunburnt. Before he opend his mouth I told him I wasn’t interested in how or why he’d got burnt. I had told him as did everyone else he came in contact with him NOT to sunbake dozens of times. I told him to have a shower and get all the sand off himself before he got into one of my beds. While he was in the bathroom my neighbour came in through the back door. ” I’m sorry but he wouldn’t stay undet any off the umbrellas. Did you give him a bottle of oil so he could bake himself? ” Of course I didn’t I quickly replied, ” I’ve been telling him since day one NOT to go in the sun. Don’t even think of taking any blame for anything he says or does. He’s a know all just like my youngest brother, you can’t tell them anything so let ’em get on with it “ She’d taken him to a chemist shop on the way home and the chemist had sprayed him with a mild aneasthetic lotion. I said he’s just washing it all off ‘cos he’s covered in sand and I wouldn’t let him use one of our beds until he’d had had a shower. ” Why didn’t he go into the mens room on the beach and have a shower before coming home” She was about to expload ” By then after a very, very long day and been totally embarrassed by him almost as soon as we arrived I had had more than my share of him. I told him where the showers were and he said he didn’t want to use a communal bath house. ” Didn’t you tell him he wasn’t supposed to strip off everything to get the sand off? and could hardly stop laughing. She snapped back ” by then I couldn’t care less what he did and if he hadn’t been your cousin I would have left him there. He completely ruined the entire day ” I apologized for him and said he looks as though he should be in hospital by what I’ve seen of his skin. Good job he hasn’t got a hairy chest or he’d be in more trouble. She was intent in telling me what else he’d done. I felt it was the least I could do to let her get it off her chest. I went over to her house to bring the picnic esky, beach umbrella and the rest of his clothes he’d left in her car. She could rant all she wanted in her own house without getting interupted. O.K. sometimes the beach umbrella’s are a bit awkward to fit firmly in the sand but he was supposed to keep one hand on the it until it was well and trully in place, not lean on it a little and let go. The breeze caught it and it flew across the beach scattering women and kids in all directions. Young kids can be forgiven but not adult men who just stand there watching the umbrella bowling across the beach and doing nothing about it. The beach chairs were planted, rug spread on the sand and picnic boxes set close together under the shade. When you go to the beach and intend to swim or even paddle with the tiny tots you put your bathers, swim suit, bikini or swim shorts on at home under the T-shirt, top and shorts or jeans whater you are wearing to drive in to the beach.. Get to the destination, take off the top layer and you’re ready for the water. Not our man of the world. My neighbours face was turning red as she did the actions of him changing his shorts from the modesty of the beach towel to putting on his swim shorts. I couldn’t stop laughing. She punched my arm ” bloody alright for you sat on the couch all day reading a book while me and my kids had the entire beach move a football field length away from us while he was doing a strip under a towel ” I remember my mother doing that to me and my younger brother when we were about 5 and 2 years old. A little bit different at 30 years old I’ll admit but funny as hell when you’re not involved. He’d bragged all the way on the drive to Bribie Island how good a surfer he was and she asked which coast Devon and Cornwall was in England. Geography is not one of my best subjects and told her I wasn’t sure if it was the english channel or close to the Irish sea. ” So it’s not near an ocean?” No, it’s a nice place I know heaps who have been there but it has other things going for it besides surfing. ” You don’t rekon on the surfing then?” ” O No. What did he do?” ” Well …..first thing he asked after I’d parked the car was …..where he could hire a surf board ?’ Really, that’s a good start I said trying not to laugh. ” I’d be surprised if he knows what a proper surf board looks like ” She said he’d bragged so much during the drive he couldn’t back out of not going into the water especialy when her two charged off as soon as everything was set up and a bright red balloon was tied to one of the umbrellas so the kids could find them when they’d had enough of the water. You can’t take your eyes off the kids in the water or anyone who is not a strong swimmer. It is nothing like playing in a sea. The ocean drags you where it wants and you are soon out of your depth in a matter of seconds. She said he was only in the water about 15 minutes and got dumped 3 times because he has no idea how ro approach an incoming wave and he’d never manage get up on a board and bring it to shore. I didn’t tell her the documentary about surfing in Cornwall and Devon I’d watched on T.V. had the surfers in black wet suits and surf about 12 inches high. The best surf beaches near us are on the Gold Coast and have those kind of waves like they have in Miami and all those American movies of the 60s, definately NOT for the faint hearted. He was house bound for nearly a week and only wore shorts when he did come out of the bedroom. My son’s school mates all had the same sense of humour as my son and before the crackpot played basted chicken I’d told him nobody would have sympathey for anyone who deliberatly sat in the sun for hours. All the mates were over 6 ft. tall so you can imagine how an ordinary lounge room by no means a small one looked with 7 16-17 year old fellas and 4 of my daughters friends were gathered as they always did on Saturday afternoons at my place. All the actions of glaring light coming off the sunburnt one, the putting on and taking off of their sunglasses because of the glare, making out they were going to slap him on the back with a cheery G’day mate and stop before the hand reached his back. He was damn lucky he wore sunglasses while he baked as the only bits that didn’t get burnt was the bit from his waist to where his swim shorts ended and his eyelids. Evern his ears got a dose of sun. Obviously not listened to the advice he was dishing out to Merv but I’ll bet he’s never sunbaked again.
On Chrstmas Eve 1952, I was six years old and everyone had gone to bed. It must have been nearing midnight as I crept downstairs in my new slippers with red fur across the front, which I couldn’t help stroking. Turning on the ‘big light’, I just wanted to see our living room, which that very day had had a new carpet fitted. My mum loved colour, so the room looked like a demented painter had mixed up every colour known to man and used it everywhere: on the wallpaper, the cushions, the carpet obviously, the table cloth and curtains. I thought it was beautiful.
The annual ritual of stuffing the chicken – couldn’t afford a turkey in those days – was completed. Sprouts, swede, carrots and potatoes were all prepped and standing to attention in a variety of patterned bowls by the hob. The stuffing was properly seasoned and Yorkshire pudding mix left to stand overnight. Goose fat was down in the cellar to keep cool as was the Boxing Day trifle, the obligatory Cheddar cheese to enhance Grandma’s Christmas cake and the cream for the plum pudding had been poured into mum’s best jug, which had belonged to Aunt Sarah. The table was laid with a pristine white cloth, thanks to my polishing, the cutlery sparkled, and fancy paper napkins and crackers adorned the ‘big plates’. Everything was ready, just waiting for Christmas Day to dawn.
Two days earlier our Christmas tree, decorated with clip-on candles had gone up in flames, thanks to my brother’s arsonist instinct. It had ended up in the street, so now we had two hula-hoops tastefully covered in green crepe paper hanging from the ceiling with Christmas balls, which mum had been able to salvage from the earlier debacle, lametta and chocolate treats from Woolies hanging down. From the ceiling in our small back-to-back terraced house hung enormous, intricately cut-out tissue paper decorations, in every colour of the rainbow. Like concertinas they stretched from the central light fitting to the four corners of the room. Christmas cards from friends and neighbours were attached to red ribbon and strung across the walls, with the special ones, made in school by my brother and me, having pride of place on the wooden mantelpiece above the cast-iron cooking range, which gleamed, all ready for action in the morning.
Two days earlier our Christmas tree, decorated with clip-on candles had gone up in flames, thanks to my brother’s arsonist instinct. It had ended up in the street, so now we had two hula-hoops tastefully covered in green crepe paper hanging from the ceiling with Christmas balls, which mum had been able to salvage from the earlier debacle, lametta and chocolate treats from Woolies hanging down. From the ceiling in our small back-to-back terraced house hung enormous, intricately cut-out tissue paper decorations, in every colour of the rainbow. Like concertinas they stretched from the central light fitting to the four corners of the room. Christmas cards from friends and neighbours were attached to red ribbon and strung across the walls, with the special ones, made in school by my brother and me, having pride of place on the wooden mantelpiece above the cast-iron cooking range, which gleamed, all ready for action in the morning.
This is the nearest image of a coal fired cooking range I could find resembling the one from my childhood. We also had a fireguard for protection and to warm your clothes before school on the cold winter mornings – bliss.
After a wander around the living room and kitchen I laid down on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling, doing ‘snow angels’ on the carpet, catching a glimpse every now and then of my new furry slippers and feeling so full of wonder and expectation for the morrow.
As I write this, I realise it was one of the most special and happiest experiences of my childhood memories. I can still recall that feeling of utter contentment in that quiet, safe and vibrant space.
Sleep must have overcome me because I found myself being very gently picked up and cuddled to someone’s chest. With eyes half closed and heavy with sleep, I knew who it was from the smell of cigarettes and Brylcream. Dad held me tight and took me upstairs. ‘’Come on Lindy Loo, Christmas Day will be here very soon. It’s bed for you little cock egg’’ he murmured in my ear. In the morning amidst all the torn wrapping paper, Thornton’s toffees, coloured pencils, books, chocolate money and a tangerine, there was no mention of my wanderings the night before. Dad just gave me a smile and a wink when mum asked if I had slept well.
Until the day my dad died it remained a precious moment just between us. I share it now with you in the hope that it will evoke a similar feeling of utter contentment and a memory of being loved.
It was late on a dreary November afternoon when we reached our cheerless destination, there was the threat of autumn fog in the air and a film of dampness clung about us. More dismal conditions would have been hard to imagine. Upon sight of the Hall the stomach souring nausea began to rise within me, as I feared it would. How long had it been since last I had stood in this miserable gateway – thirty-five, forty years? Oldthorpe Hall was a spacious Georgian pile whose days of splendor were long gone even when as a child I played with my friends around its decaying grounds.
I needed to bite on my lip to suppress a tear of despair: that it had come to this. Those many years ago my view had been very different, for then we had been young with a bright future stretching before us, whereas Oldthorpe Hall was the shabby home for the flotsam and jetsam of an industrial city, a refuge for the forsaken young woman with her hungry child; an early stepping stone for the Irish immigrant on the road to better times: ‘ships that pass in the night’; they came and they went, one knew not where. The hard core of the Hall’s dwellers were more permanent and less fortunate: the old, the worn and the down and outs. For them this was the end of the road, the reward for a life of failure, or perhaps just bad luck. Here they ended up to become figures of fun for our pitiless youth.
It was from this very gateway we would taunt them, I could see them still: Harry Chalmers, a heavy old man with sprawling feet and rocking gate, not adverse to taking a tipple too many and rolling home in his dirty raincoat and shabby bowler hat with voice in full flow.
‘Hey up, old Harry’s drunk again,’ we would say. But nobody would get too close to him when the alcohol was upon him and he full of fight, he’d give you a whack with his stick if you got too near. In the cold light of day he was a shy man eager to seek the comforting cloak of the shadow on his walk. Then there was Herbert Talbot, the poor chap had lost half his face in some dreadful accident, evidently, and there had been no plastic surgery for him but we were never mature enough to ponder on the plight of these poor folk, or to be compassionate towards them; we saw their present state and looked no further. Herbert must have got behind with his rent or otherwise upset ‘Granny Gray’, as we called the caretaker, a tiny shriveled old woman who kept a ‘tight ship’ at the Hall. She had Herbert throw out, literally, into the street – chattels and all. He didn’t attempt to find alternative accommodation and no one seemed inclined to help him. He just set up home in the fresh air on a grass verge at the side of the road and slept there in a fully made up feather bed complete with iron bed frame and brass knobs; he had his tables and chairs by him, the lot. Folk came to gaze at him and said how comfortable he looked – until it rained that is, then it was all became a sorry sight to see.
Then there was George Telford; he was immune from our ridicule. George was an ex rugby league player and had been a boxer, but had lost his sight from the continual battering he had received in the ring. George was thoughtful enough to sing in a low tuneless rumble when he returned on an evening to the Hall so that he would not frighten females who might be abroad of an evening in the ill lit lanes. There was an old tale that a young woman had been brutally murdered in Oldthorpe Lane back in Victorian times. But then there was a tale that a phantom coach which drove down Oldthorpe Lane every Christmas Eve but no one ever believed that tale was true so it was more or less taken for granted that the murder was in the same category. It’s a fact that once an event falls beyond living memory it might as well be ancient history. Yes, George was thoughtful alright, but it did not stop his three little guide dogs from adding to the distasteful aroma of the place. One last character flashed through my mind as I picked up the dog-eared suitcase and coaxed Elizabeth through the gate: Naked Jack, he was a nasty little man who had lived on the ground floor with a big fat woman – twice his size. The reason he had inherited that distasteful tag was after he had come to the door stark naked one day when I had come to collect the paper money – yes I used to deliver papers here in another lifetime – perhaps he had been in the act of some devil may care sex orgy when I arrived. Anyway I had been daft enough to tell my mates of the encounter and they had thereafter taken every opportunity to shout, ‘naked Jack,’ after him when he was seen about and poor me still had to go collect his paper money every week!
We were half way along the crescent shaped drive now, the massive weeping willow still stood, dominating the front of the house, its great weeping festoons black and bedraggled from the industrial fall out. The stench was still there too as we pushed in through the crumbling outer door, it clung to the cracked emulsion a mixture of musty dinner smells and stale urine. I used to think it was the result of George Telford’s dogs but it still persisted even now. The Hall had always been the worst part of that paper round. Winter was the worst time, it had not been on the electric mains in those days only dreary gaslight that flickered eerie shadows everywhere. Sometimes the gas mantle had gone in the passageways and Granny Gray had not got round to its replacement or perhaps she just resented having to pay for the gas outside her own room. When the gas was out I’d have feel my way towards the doors of the individual rooms which were set off in even darker recesses than the main passageway. I always had an irrational fear that should a tenant suddenly open their door and find me thrashing around in the darkness trying to find their letter box they would think I was up to no good.
There was one particularly dark doorway, which had belonged to a Miss Bierce – she’d be dead of course by now but at the time she was considered to be weird even through the eyes of Granny Gray’s other unconventional lodgers. She didn’t take a paper, nor was there ever a comforting light showing beneath her door. I’d never even seen her come to think about it but I had heard her moving about, apparently in complete darkness. I once heard Harry Chalmers say: ‘That one’s too long out of the cemetery!’ What a strange thing to say, what a very strange statement, so strange in fact I have remembered it all these years; what on earth was he implying? At least the lack of electricity seemed to have been rectified for I could see a dim light burning in one of the downstairs rooms.
I managed but partially to suppress another shudder for Elizabeth’s benefit; I didn’t want to convey to her any more of my distaste for the place than absolutely necessary, she was ailing and the dampness of this place was going to be of no help to her health at all. The State provided hardly a tolerable lifestyle and for those of us who had once known better times the come down was all the harder to stomach but we had made the decision that whatever the circumstances we would refuse to be parted; that would really have been the end. So, without a job and no immediate prospects since the collapse of our business two years previously the choice seemed to be: together here in this moldering edifice or separated in the hostels and that was no contest.
We were at the main door now, the brown paint had cracked into a million tiny fragments and the surrounded brickwork oozed white salt encrustations, I could well believe the place hadn’t seen a lick of paint since I had been here all those years before. Although the Hall was in a terribly dilapidated condition, that it survived at all was surprising, somehow it seemed to possess an amazing capacity for survival; as I recalled it there had been several neighbouring buildings that had been in far better condition than the Hall but were now completely obliterated or lay in ruins allowing the Hall itself to endure massively alone in sinister solitude; almost an uncanny enchantment seemed to be keeping bricks and mortar together.
Granny Gray used to have a room half way along the main passageway on the right; I remembered how her windows overlooked the great weeping willow. It had been no use knocking on her door she always had been deaf. The procedure had been to open her private door and shout through, ‘Hello Mrs. Gray, are you there?’ …… Of course, I corrected my thoughts the Mrs Gray who had replied to my application for a room must be the daughter, daughter-in-law or even granddaughter of the original Mrs Gay, who would have been well over a hundred years old if she were alive today.
The stench of the place was really depressing me by now, I staggered and my wife took my arm, ‘Are you alright, love,’ she enquired, although she must have been repulsed by the place herself. ‘I’m sorry it should come to this love; let’s hope it won’t be for too long.’ I finally managed to croak, but she could hardly have failed to note the tone of utter despair in my voice.
Taking stock of the conditions of the accommodation my despair began to give way to anger, ‘The whole building should be condemned, I’ve seen places that were palaces compared with this dump shut down by the Health and Safety people!’ I had groused, but my anger was irrational, nobody had asked us to come here and beggars can’t be choosers as the old saying goes.
By now we had arrived at the room previously occupied by old Granny Gray; there was a tatty piece of paper pinned to it on which was written: Mrs. Gray, caretaker. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again and yet a third time much harder. Finally I caught the sound of shuffling carpet slippers from within and after an age the sound of bolts shifting on the inside of the door, which eventually opened a fraction and allowed the light from a low powered bulb into the hallway.
‘Hello, who is it?’ the voice carried the shrill tone of a deaf person who has difficulty hearing herself.
We had to look down to see the speaker. My God, if this was Granny Gray’s daughter she was a carbon copy of her mother – she was a tiny woman and even more shriveled than her mother – if that were possible, with great folds of warty skin hung beneath her watery eyes.
‘What do you want?’ she shrilled again.
I pushed the letter of acceptance towards her, and she snatched at it with her bony old claw. It was quite apparent her eyes were too dim to make sense of it though I could see she was having a good try.
‘Can’t find my glasses,’ she said at length. ‘Have you got business with me?’
‘We’re Mr And Mrs Johnston, Mrs. Gray. We wrote to you and you replied offering us tenancy of one of your vacant rooms.’
She wrinkled her eyes, looking us up and down before backing off into the light.. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said leading us off into a spacious room full of Victorian clutter.
I remembered the room well, it seemed to have changed little in thirty-odd years, since I’d been here before. The marble topped dresser still carried the pink washing bowl and jug – although by the look of her she hadn’t made use of them for some time, there was still her unkempt bed beneath the window that she attempted to hide with an old Chinese screen. Could it be the same old ‘black out’ curtains from World War Two that still hung from the windows? If the answer to that was in the affirmative then her dress was as ancient too for it was fashioned from the same material. Finally my eye lit upon the picture above the mantle piece, among all the shambling mass here was a treasure of true beauty, a Grimshaw painting of a young lady with a Grecian hair style residing in front of the classical frieze that had been a feature of the Hall in its hey day. I had been shown that painting before and told how valuable it was then – so if was in fact an original it would certainly be worth a pretty penny today. It struck me as strange as to how such a beautiful and valuable piece had resisted theft by one of the ‘dodgy’ tenants or being sold off to raise cash for maintenance,
In the light, dim as it was, our landlady to be looked even worse – little more than four feet tall in her wrinkled stockings and floppy carpet slipper and in general shape that of a pear. Surely it was a human instinct to ensure one’s appearance was less than hideous at the very least. I looked around the room for sight of a mirror that she might have used to ameliorate her appearance but there was none. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the sight of herself?
The woman continued to mumble to herself the saliva oozing from between her three remaining yellow teeth at regular intervals. At first it seemed as though we must have passed her rigorous inspection for she took down a huge ring of keys from a hook on the wall and began to fiddle with them.
‘I have a nice room for you on the first floor,’ she said finally finding the key she sought. ‘The young woman who had it…’ she paused for a moment as if thinking on that person and then went on, ‘had to leave, yes, she had to leave. You’re lucky to have such a nice big room today for that money. ’
then I wasn’t so sure she was satisfied with our suitability for she decided to have another close look at me, uncomfortably too close, bearing in mind her fetid breath. She then side-stepped a pace and scrutinized Elizabeth again You would have thought she was putting us up at the Ritz,
‘Don’t want any riff raff you understand.’
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on my arm and it dawned upon me that we were standing in her presence like a couple of frightened children in the headmaster’s study.
‘Pay you rent every Friday or your out,’ she continued still peering at us. To say that we found the situation uncomfortable was an understatement.
At last she lowered her gaze and extracted a large mortise key from the ring, and turning her back on us she made slow progress in lighting a candle with her shaking hand.
‘I’m afraid the electrics are all out in the hall and on the stairs at the moment, I’ll get it fixed as soon as I can,’ she added leading the way out of her room and shuffling her way to the back stairs. It was all so familiar, so sickeningly familiar from my days delivering the papers. But there was a surprise was in store for me, for as we passed the recessed door of the room previously occupied by the sinister Miss Bierce and where the shadows danced grotesquely from the candlelight Mrs Gray stopped and putting her finger to her lips whispered for us to be quiet and on our tip toes every time we passed this particular room.
‘The lady who has this room is very sick,’ she mumbled on, I just caught her finish her mumble with ‘I don’t want you disturbing Miss Bierce.’
Her revelation surprised me to such extent that I was unable to stop myself letting out a little whistle and exclaiming: ‘What? Miss Bierce is still alive!’
The dwarf figure in front of us halted immediately and turned to face us with an urgency of movement previously concealed.
‘What was that?’ she squeaked, ‘What did you say about Miss Bierce?’
Her verbal attack had a fierceness that I had not expected and her sharp eye was a little frightening in the flickering candle light forcing me immediately onto the defensive. My reply was weak and it entered my head that it was not seemingly for me to cower in the face of this little old woman in front of Elizabeth. Nevertheless I apologized for my outburst, pointing out that I had known of Miss Bierce when I had delivered the papers so long ago and had understood that Miss Bierce was said to be an elderly lady even then.
The hag moved even closer to me permeating my nostrils with her fusty aroma. It was a riveting experience. Elizabeth told me later, happily with a hint of humour in her voice that I had visibly wilted in the face of the old woman’s onslaught. However, I gleaned from that minor altercation that Mrs. Gray possessed an iron which was not apparent in her appearance.
Finally she spoke without any fuss, ‘Miss Bierce was a very young woman thirty years ago – did you ever see her?’
I was forced into a timorous, ‘No’. At which she nodded as if to say, ‘Well then!’
She paused for a moment as if daring me to force the issue further, which I was happy to decline. But my mind went back to the strange exposition that I had heard Harry Chalmers make all those years ago, ’That one is too long out of the cemetery.’ Surely indicating she was old even then! Abruptly the old woman turned and continued to lead her crotchety way up the back staircase
The room she was to let to us was not one I recognized from the old days but it was not out of context with the rest of the Hall. The fusty smell of dampness prevailed across the sparse furnishings. As our own possessions had been taken by the bailiffs these would have to suffice – I ardently prayed that the duration of need for these few sticks would be short lived.
Our landlady made a cursory circumnavigation of the room, probably taking a mental inventory of its meager contents, she had almost reached the doorway in preparation for her exit when a rumbling sounded from deep below; I felt the floor shake and Elizabeth clung to the iron bed-foot in alarm while I steadied myself with arms outstretched in the middle of the room. Our host seemed unperturbed merely regarding our alarm with a shrug of her hunched shoulders.
‘Its an old building,’ she said, ‘Its been doing that for as long a I can remember – no doubt it’ll do it for a few more years yet!’
I wasn’t so sure the foundations seemed to be crumbling beneath us. God knows what condition they must be in. The old woman lit another candle for us as our room light was missing a bulb too which she promised would be rectified in the morning. We found the candle a poor substitute for a proper light as it flickering light hardly reached the confines of the room. The gas fire was happily functional though upon the insertion of a coin. Finally she shuffled out of the room and into the corridor muttering to herself again and I just thought I caught her mumble something about, ‘That being a bad one and that Eleanor, I believe she said, needing sustenance to keep the bricks and mortar of the building together. I had no idea to what she referred. I wouldn’t have heard her at all had she not been talking louder than a normal person due to her deafness. What a strange woman she was! What a very strange woman!
Her departure left us alone with the flickering candle, the hissing of the gas fire and the perpetual creaking of the decrepit building. As quickly as possible we retired to the unwholesome dampness of the feather bed, at least it offered the comfort that only a feather mattress, can. Once in the bed I tried to force from my mind the harm the dampness must be causing to Elizabeth’s delicate condition and just as hard I tried not to contemplate on how many flea ridden bodies had been its occupants before us.
Our fitful sleep on that fist night was interrupted by several minor tremors and rumblings from the deep accompanied by scuffling and bumps which appeared to come from the room directly below ours and worst of all a scratching sound which appeared to issue from the wardrobe in the far corner of the room which I took to be mice or at worst, rats. My investigations found the wardrobe door to be locked and the keyhole empty. I resolved to ask for the key from the caretaker the following morning.
In the bright light of day our room was far less sinister, one could have imagined it to have been, opulent, in Georgian days. It was of ample proportions, the ceiling high with a delicate frieze all way round its perimeter. The three large windows traversed from floor to ceiling and faced east, allowing bright sunlight to flood the room and afford pleasant views across the walled garden to a grassy meadow complete with pond and on to woodland in the distance. Across from the windows stood a period dressing table with a fine backboard sporting cascading bunches of carved grapes; curiously for a dressing table the mirror which should have been the center point was missing. There was no doubt that at its conception the Hall must have been a splendid residence. Within the memory of my own late grandparents, which would have taken them back to a time shortly after the painter, Grimshaw had been the occupant, the Hall had been the residence of a fashionable doctor, Eddington, who could be recalled galloping through the gates in liveried trap to service his practice. If Grimshaw and Eddington could only see the place today they would surely turn in their graves.
In the days that followed I scoured the immediate area in vain for work, I would have contemplated anything as long as it did not keep me away from Elizabeth for too long, she hated the place especially when she was left alone. The toll on her appearance was terrible to behold, she complained of the loneliness by day – for it seemed for the moment we were the only residents of the Hall apart from the caretaker, who was no company at all, and the sinister unseen, Miss Bierce. Worst of all was her trepidation of the nights, as soon as the shadow from the windows reached the edge of the tattered carpet she would become nervous, and begin pacing the room, brushing down her forearms and repeating her few trivial tasks over and over again. It seemed she was hiding something from me. On her frequent visits to the doctor it was confirmed that her bronchial condition was accelerating and in addition she had developed anemia, which puzzled the doctor. He prescribed drier conditions and a warmer climate but of course the prescription and the attainment of these goals were two entirely different things.
We had endured about three weeks of the Hall’s somber fair when my luck changed somewhat in that I landed a bar tendering job at the Green Gate Hotel which was located at the top of Oldthorpe Lane, barely a mile from the Hall. It wasn’t much but it was a start – the first step back onto the road of respectability and the hope that this opportunity might lead to something better enabling us to shake the smell of Oldthorpe Hall from our nostrils, for it is much easier to secure more lucrative employment if one is already working than if one is unemployed. In some respects though the position was far from satisfactory; the hours did not suit Elizabeth’s delicate mental state at all. My duties at The Green commenced at eleven a.m. and finished at three p.m. which was fine but the evening shift was less opportune, I was on duty from eight until eleven, then the cellar work took up another thirty or forty minutes so it was past midnight by the time I returned to the Hall. I could tell Elizabeth hated it; sometimes she would spend an hour in the bar so that we could return home together. Occasionally she would visit friends on the other side of the city but at the cost of returning and entering the Hall alone which she found repugnant Much as she hated the loneliness of sitting alone in our room she found this eminently preferable to walking the dark passages of the Hall on her own. It was only her pride and level headedness that prevented her from asking me to give up the job altogether.
I was far from immune to the eeriness of the Hall myself, often I would wake in the night myself covered in a cold sweat the result of some bizarre nightmare filled with the screams of the old inhabitants of the Hall crying out in agony. Then I would lay awake wondering what happened to them all: Harry Chalmers, George Telford, Herbert Talbot and all those young women with their babies. The old timers would obviously be dead by now but no one could actually remember them dying, they just stopped being seen around. Yet no cortege was ever observed to exit gates of Oldthorpe Hall; nor could folk remember them leaving, except for poor Herbert of course who finished up on the grass verge. Anyway where could they go from here, tired and those worn out by life as they were? No, this was the end of the road for them; apart from the possibility of a shop doorway and a cold lingering death there was nowhere lower for them to sink and nobody, my young self included ever cared a jolt! So called ‘nice people’ did not concern themselves with the unsavory lives of Granny Gray’s down at heel lodgers. The comprehension that we too were now counted among their number alarmed me to the core.
I had to shake myself out of these meanderings or my mind would race to dastardly deeds being done and rotting bones in the Hall cellar. It was ridiculous of course, who would prosper by doing away with such penniless wretches and yet at that juncture wild horses would not have dragged me below the ground floor of that dreadful place.
It would have been about our fourth of fifth week at the Hall that Elizabeth saw the woman. I remember the night well I had arrived home later than usual; I found Elizabeth in a real state of agitation. She said she had been laid in bed reading and becoming drowsy she had fallen asleep, when she awoke the light that had been burning was out and she could not place where she was for the moment but felt a terrible chill in the air, gradually as her eyes came into focus she saw a woman was bending over her, her face very close to her own, she said she thought she was still dreaming and made to rub her eyes – when she opened them again the woman had gone but a rustling noise in the corner near the wardrobe confirmed in her mind that the visitation had been a reality. Elizabeth was really distressed and I saw a little trickle of blood issuing from her neck where I imagined she had scratched herself while threshing around in some horrible nightmare but nevertheless I attempted to humour her.
‘The woman you saw, what did she look like?’ I asked. Elizabeth thought for a while before she described a woman with assertion.
She was dressed in black, young and slender with a white face, black hair and huge eyes. I suppose her face could be described as beautiful, but evil, so very evil for one so young.
‘There you are then dear, it must have been a dream there’s certainly no young woman here to fit that description, its far from fitting for Granny Gray (I’d taken to calling the caretaker, ‘Granny Gray’ just as I had christened her mother) and the only other woman living in the Hall is Miss Bierce, God she must be a hundred and twenty by now!’
She laughed a little nervously and asked me to try the wardrobe door again. It was still locked and I chided myself for failing to acquire that damned key but each time I broached the subject the caretaker found some excuse to fob me off; first she said she’d lost it but when I offered to force it she nearly jumped down my throat, telling me it was a valuable antique, which it never was, then she said for me to forget about it and she would let me move in another wardrobe from one of the empty rooms, which was hard to argue against. That did not stop me from finding the whole episode curious and while I brought another wardrobe in from another room myself the existing one had to stay because it was a fixture. In my mind there were sinister overtones to it all.
All in all I remained far from happy with the situation, the scratching, which I conceived to be rats continued from the old wardrobe and I wanted an end to it. It so happened that a couple of days later the rent was due so as we were on our way out I resolved to pay the rent and tackle the caretaker in her lair. There was no answer to our knock, which wasn’t unusual she never could hear us so I pushed open the door and shouted into the room for her, still no answer but I could see out through her window into the garden. Mrs. Gray had a vegetable patch out there where she grew lettuce and radishes, some for her own consumption and some she sold to the locals for a few coppers, I could recall being sent to purchase some myself by my mother when I was a boy. I could she was out there now servicing her vegetables, so feeling like a naughty schoolboy I said to Elizabeth, ‘Quick the coast is clear come and look at this paining.’ We moved across to see the painting over the mantle piece; it was an exquisite production of oil on canvas signed on the front ‘Atkinson Grimshaw’. The subject was that of a very beautiful young girl. It looked like an original to me but then I was no expert.
Is she still out there,’ I said, daring to lift the picture from the wall and look on the back. There was a handwritten note on the brown paper backing: Eleanor Bierce in the Hall age 18 (1872)
I turned to show Elizabeth the inscription but she was riveted as though in a trance.
‘Whatever is the mater now,’ I said as I replaced the painting.
‘That woman, it’s the same woman I saw in our room!’ was her incredulous reply.
My concern for Elizabeth was of course in no way eased by her pronouncement for now I feared she was losing her marbles as well, but my main worry obviously centered on her deteriorating physical condition that was plain for all to see. Particularly in the mornings she seemed drained of energy and very pale, the scratch she had inflicted upon herself the night of her nightmare had not healed and continued to look inflamed and angry. I tried to persuade her to visit the doctor again but she declined, excusing herself on account of not feeling up to climbing the steep hill on the approach to the doctor’s surgery. I even considered spending some of our hard earned cash on a taxi but she wouldn’t hear of it. So I threatened to bring the doctor to her but she became even more agitated – insisting the doctor was far too busy attending to really sick patients to waste his time on her. I think in actuality she was ashamed for him to see the squalor in which we lived. I tried to reason with her that contrary to her fears in this respect the doctor could prove a valuable ally in our quest for more hygienic accommodation. But she was adamant and concerned only that we press on quickly to acquire the means to shake the dust of this places from our shoes forever.
As Elizabeth grew weaker the Hall for some inexplicable reason seemed to grow inversely stronger. We seldom heard the ominous rumble of the foundation now and even the walls were drying out. Granny Gray seemed almost pleasant towards us, displaying a kind of sinister gayety. She even enquired if we had any other young friends seeking accommodation. Occasionally she brought warm food for Elizabeth and showed an uncharacteristic concern for her frailty: although I could not get over an uncomfortable feeling that reminded me of the old witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel with view to feasting upon them. When I tried to enlist her support in Elizabeth’s presence to call in the doctor it was Elizabeth who gained an ally instead for the woman took every conceivable excuse to debunk the idea, which wasn’t surprising when one considered the unsanitary conditions of her domain.
My own dreams and night sweats continued, when the heavy dreams were upon me I would get out of bed and pace the room to dispel them from my head. On one such occasion there was a silvery moon shining and I stood for a while taking in the walled garden bathed in moonlight it was an uplifting scene in comparison to the somber interior of the Hall. My eye suddenly picked up a movement in the far corner of the garden at a point where the wall turned ninety degrees. It was a good fifty yards away but I could discern at least it was the movement of a lithe young female. Who could possibly be coveting in so remote a place in the middle of the night? I resolved to have a look in that corner of the garden next morning and went back to bed. Awaiting my opportunity when Granny Gray was engaged elsewhere I made my exploration of the corner of the garden where I had seen the strange visitor. To my surprise I found a gravestone and before it fresh flowers. Three names were inscribed upon the stone:
Eleanor Bierce our darling daughter wickedly slain and taken from us in the midst of lifeaged nineteen years 12th December 1873
Edward Bierce father of the above
Died 15th Jan 1874 aged 45 years
A broken heart never mended
Lillian Bierce
Mother and wife of the above
Died 14th March 1874
It was not all that unusual to find a grave in a garden dating from the mid 19th century, it was quite a regular occurrence for Quakers to bury their dead close to the living and I knew similar graves existed in other grand houses of the district. It was of course reference to the Bierce family that had me riveted. Everything pointed to the Eleanor Bierce on the stone being the same girl as portrayed in the Grimshaw painting. It seemed the poor girl had met her demise but a year later than she had been painted. I made a scribbled note of the details and it did not escape my notice that the previous evening had been the 15th of January; the anniversary of the father’s death. The father who it seemed had never recovered from the death of his dear daughter. ‘Slain’, I wondered what lay behind that strange inscription.
Armed with the data from the grave stone I resolved to pay a visit to the public library and research their newspaper archives. After a few false starts, I located the Daily News for the 12th Dec 1873. There was no mention of any dark deeds being committed on that date but the following day, the 13th, there was a heading:
Murder Most Foul in Oldthorpe Lane
There followed an account of how the beat policeman had come across the body of 19 year old Eleanor Brice brutally murdered in Oldthorpe Lane. I searched the papers for the following days; it was a nine day wonder with all manner of theories and supplication. One heading read.
Bloodless Corpse: Police Ridicule Vampire Theory
There followed eye witness accounts of a tall dark stranger being seen in the vicinity of the murder spot previous to the event. I continued my search through several weeks of the paper but gradually the sensation ran its course and petered out as all sensations invariable do. I never came across anyone being arrested for the crime but it confirmed the handed down tale we had all heard but were reticent to believe of a young woman being murdered in Oldthorpe Lane in Victorian Times. It had actually happened and the victim was the beautiful Eleanor Bierce aged 19. It was on my way home from the library that the ‘vampire theory’ began to nag at me. I had read a bit on vampire lore myself and understood that in the myth, one killed by a vampire becomes a vampire in death too. I chided myself for even contemplating such a ridiculous idea. But little niggles kept sneaking into my head: the lack of mirrors, people living inordinately long lives and Elizabeth’s anemia – by the time I had reached the Hall I had myself really spooked.
I should have packed our bags and left the place for heaven knows where but that was the rub ‘where’? Things seemed to become more normal for a while, Elizabeth had no more apparitions and although she was little better she seemed no worse and our little nest egg was growing as I took every opportunity for extra work quieter down. Then one dreadful night I saw the woman for myself. Well into the night my I was awakened by a great chill which had invaded the room. The moon was out again and shining brightly through the three great windows giving the whole room a silvery bloom. I was laid on my side facing away from Elizabeth but I could feel a powerful malign presence nearby it made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. Momentarily I felt petrified and quite unable to turn my head, finally when I succeeded it was in one quick movement. A dark shadowy form hung across my wife, at first I could not fathom the nature of that I was seeing but as if sensing my gaze whatever manner of creature it was detached itself from my wife’s neck and momentarily faced me full on. It was a beautiful woman, white faced with profuse hair and dressed in black just as Elizabeth had described in her account; she was right it was the woman in the picture! For a moment our eyes locked, such eyes, such a look, I will remember it to my dying day. Abruptly she turned and flitted with amazing speed to the far side of the room where she was three times silhouetted as she passed the moonlit windows. I wish I could say that I got up straight away and followed her to the far side of the room but alas my nerve was completely shot, instead of positive action I snuggled up closer to Elizabeth who had not even awakened. I stayed rooted in that position until sleep finally arrived with the first rays of the sun.
In the morning I put my experience down to having another wretched dream; the door to the room was still bolted from the inside so how could anyone have entered and not be still in here? After careful consideration I decided against relating my dream to Elizabeth and upsetting her again but I could not help noticing with a shudder that there was fresh blood on her neck and night attire again.
There was no way I could bring Granny Gray into my confidence regarding my ‘visitations’, findings in the garden or at the library for I was convinced that if there were dark deeds a foot she must be party to them. So coward that I was I let life meander along without taking it by the throat, curse me for not being a man of action; that was probable the reason our business had floundered in the first place and we found ourselves in our present predicament. Meanwhile I was no nearing securing more lucrative employment and depression was beginning to dominate my conscious hours. I found it a relief to escape to the robust atmosphere of the pub. I tried to comfort myself by reasoning that I was only working here in order that we should escape the Hall but each time I left Elizabeth alone with strict instructions to bolt her door and let no one in but me, I still felt that I was deserting her. When I emerged through those decrepit gates it was like being freed from prison, unfortunately there was always the thought that I had to return there at the back of my mind and I had taken to having a tipple too many in order to fortify myself for the return. Even while I was in the process of drinking I knew I had to kick the habit, this was not the answer, for a start it was draining the our funds that were to be our precious lifeline to our final exit from the Hall. And it had not escaped me either that it was through the solace of drink that those pathetic creatures that I had mocked so badly in the past had cut off their own lifelines to escape.
There was an old regular who frequented ‘The Green’ Sam Leslie, was his name he usually sat with his old mates in the taproom. I liked Sam he was a salt of the earth character, he had been the local milkman and a character of the community, he must have been about 85 years old by now but he always up for a bit of banter with me as I went about my duties. One particular night as I was clearing his table he took a look at my downcast appearance and said, ‘You look a bit down tonight mate, what’s up?’ I had to tell him that Oldthorpe was getting to me a bit.
‘Course your living there now aren’t you, no wonder your looking down, I used to deliver the milk there a long time ago, that’s one weird place alright.’
‘Your right there Sam,’ I had to agreed. ‘You’ll Remember old Mrs Gray, well her daughter runs the place now,’ I added, ‘she’s all as bad as her mother used to be.’
Sam looked at me with a quizzical smile, ‘I remember her alright but your putting me on mate, Mrs Gray never had a daughter – in fact she was never married, just chose to call herself missus – well can you imagine anybody wanting to marry that miserable old sod and she was no oil painting either was she.’
I took a big gulp of my own drink and then replied, ‘Then my present caretaker must be the original Granny Gray! No wonder I’m turning to drink, how old must she be by now?’
‘Dunno,’ said Sam, ‘but she was old when I was a lad! he thought for a moment and then continued, ‘But there was one who lived there even older than her when I delivered the milk, she was called her Miss Bierce, if I recall, supposed to be a sick old lady but for some reason or other old Granny Gray never let me near her to see if I could get her to take a bottle of milk.’
I looked the old guy full in the eye and said,.’ You’ll not believe this Sam, she’s still alive!’
‘You’re codding me,’ said Sam. ‘Have you seen her yourself?
I thought for a long moment contemplating the strange apparitions at the Hall and then replied in confusion, ‘Do you know Sam I don’t know if I have or not.’
He turned back to his mates with a worrying nod of his head, ‘You want to get yourself out of that place mate there’s something very weird going on there. Remember old Harry Chalmers and old George Telford, they used to come in here when you’d be nowt but a lad. They ‘ad some queer tales to tell about that place – I wonder what happened to them in the end, they just stopped coming in? You get yourself out o’ there double quick mate if you don’t wasn’t to finish up like them!’
I didn’t have anything more to drink that night and with Sam’s words still going around in my head I set off for home resolved to kick the drink habit and get a firm grip on myself; there was a few questions to be answered and a few things to be sorted out. So it was in a stone cold sober state that I reached the Hall gates. I decided to have one circumnavigation of the grounds to assemble my thought as to the course of action I should take. It was a cold winter’s night and I had to turn up my caller to keep out the drafty wind. As I walked around the building inside that great wall, kicking at the fallen leaves my mind, wandering far from my surroundings. When I brought myself back to the present and took stock of my position I saw that I had circled the building and was now facing the rear aspect of the Hall. A light burning in a first floor window caught my attention; it was the only light to be seen on this side of the building. It took a moment of pondering to realize that the lighted window was ours. There was nothing strange in that of course for I had not bothered to familiarize myself with the architectural delights of the Hall. As I continued my gaze, however, I did perceive a phenomenon, which was decidedly strange by any standards: the room immediately below ours, on the ground floor, was in complete darkness but the night being quite bright I could see across the interior of the room to the far wall where my eye caught movement; a dark object was levitating from the floor to the ceiling, truly a most remarkable and unnatural manifestation. What is more the object appeared to disappear through the ceiling of the room, which was our floor. Immediately the light in our room went out, Even as I made a headlong dash to be by my wife’s side it dawned upon me that the room below ours belonged to the unseen Miss Bierce. I knew our door would be bolted on the inside but I burst it asunder without ceremony. Immediately I recognized the now familiar chill had invaded the room. I could not see well in the darkness but I could hear Elizabeth moaning on the bed and a flurry of movement as a dark shape detached itself from her side and passed desperately close to me as it made for the corner of the room. There followed a sound which seemed like the wardrobe door closing and then a definite ‘click’ from the inside of the cabinet as if a bolt had been activated. Straight away the light came back on The room was now quite empty apart from Elizabeth threshing about in the disarrayed bed clothes, I saw with dismay her neck was bleeding yet again and on her bedside table her vanity mirror lay in shatters. This time at least I summoned enough courage to rush straight away to the wardrobe and try the door, as expected it was locked but even now an audible sound reached my ears from within and below – far below. For the remainder of the night I remained dressed and sat at the side of the bed mopping Elizabeth’s brow to try to sooth her delirium.
Dawn found me still alert through trembling a little, partly through the cold but predominantly with apprehension for the fearful task that I was now resolved to perform. Luckily I had armed myself for such a task with a miniature brandy; having dispatched this with a single swig my nerves were somewhat calmed for my journey into the unknown. With the firm conviction that Elizabeth would be safe with the coming of the daylight, I armed myself with a stout poker from the fireside, matches and a candlestick loaded with the stub of a candle – the only one that would come to hand at the time and as yet unlit I made a stealthy descent of the stairs. A dirty skylight allowed the miserable dawn light to filter into the main hallway, leaving the recessed doorways in there usual murky darkness. Tip toeing up to Granny Gray’s door I listened for any signs of movement but discerned only the guttural runts that served as her snores. Satisfied I crossed the hallway and confronted myself with the door to Miss Bierce’s room. My stomach began to churn in spite of the brandy as I reached for the door knob and twisted it. Thankfully it was locked – had it been otherwise I would have had to revise my plans for it was through neither of these doors that I sought entry – my passage was to be through a third door – The door that I feared so much, that to the cellar and it was imperative that for the present that my real intentions should remain unknown.
I cursed quietly to myself when I discovered that the knob to the cellar door was missing and again when the finger nail that I was using as a substitute twisting mechanism came away broken from the square hole. Such trivialities were not to put me off at this stage, with the helpful leverage of the trust poker and a beefy push from my shoulder the door burst inward. The resultant noise seemed colossal in the quiet of the hallway I held my breath for anyone stirring but I could still hear Granny Gray’s guttural snoring continuing unimpeded and was glad for once she was deaf. With the aid of a cigarette packet I partially closed the cellar door behind me, taking great care to make sure I would be able to open it again from the inside. With the cellar door closed I found myself in complete blackness and there was a moment of panic when match after match failed to ignite the candle. Persistent endeavor however, eventually brought success the resultant light revealed the cellar steps to be every bit as eerie as I had expected. Inside the door powdering whitewash littered the worn steps or hung in flakes suspended by spidery strings from the ceiling while ahead the candle found only sinister darkness ahead. Here was a world emphatically more remote than the everyday isolation of the Hall and I felt far from the safety of civilization. Yet it was far from silent, apart from the echoing sound of my own footfall there was a continuing drip, drip, drip of falling water and most disturbing of all the continuous grating and groaning of masonry. Along the passageways great fissures rent the fabric of the foundations allowing the roof and walls to belly inward alarmingly; the whole building seemed to be teetering on the point of collapse. It was purely on my reasoning logic: that if the building had remained standing these hundreds of years it would hardly be likely to disintegrate in the next five minutes that gave me the courage to proceed.
I was not sure where to look, nor for the matter exactly what I was looking for yet I had the overwhelming feeling that it was down here that I would find the terrible secret of the Hall, it was a dead certainty, whatever I did find it would not be pleasant. The whole cellar was a labyrinth of passageways and small rooms. Eventually I started to come across sodden and rotting items of clothing: shoes, night attire and the like. I wandered so far from the cellar steps and there were so many twists and turns it became a growing concern to me that I would ever be able to find my way back to my original point of entry. Other sets of steps seemed to lead upward too to add to the confusion. Eventually my journey brought me to another set of steep steps that led menacingly deeper, a stench of evil corruption wafted up them from below. Instinctively I knew that what I sought would be found in these depths. Proceeding with great caution due to the steps being so steep and narrow I descended into the depths. It was then that I noted with great alarm that the candle, only an end to start with, was now more than half burned out, I cursed my luck that a full one had not been available, what on earth would I do if the candle went out while I was down here? I would never find my way out – the thought chilled me to the bone.
My new descent brought me to even more discarded clothing and personal effects: a shawl, a child’s doll, one dirty pink slipper. The stench nauseated me so much now that I needed to hold a pocket handkerchief across my nose before I could continue. By the time I reached the bottom step my feet were squelching up to the ankles in unmentionable filth. My progress became blocked at this point by a timber door which was neither open nor shut but rather wedged ajar by sodden rags and miscellaneous debris. Set high in this door, however, there was a grill from where I could view the interior of this final dreadful room. Holding the candle up to light through the grill a sight was revealed to me of such horror that my stomach that had threatened upheaval on many occasions that day finally had sway and I added my vomit to the morass already at my feet.
Several moments elapsed before I could compose myself enough to take another look and ensure my eyes were not deceiving me, unfortunately this delay meant several more precious millimeters burnt off the alarmingly diminishing candle. When I plucked up courage to look again through the grill I could see that I had not been mistaken, the candlelight exposed the arched brick roof the salt encrusted walls and on the floor – that which I had feared was true, a debased pile of decaying humanity; generations of the Hall’s lost souls, were littered ‘Belson’ like in an untidy stack of putrification. Those at the bottom had obviously been there longer than the ones at the top, their remaining rags told their own story: the old down and outs the young women and their babies, this is where they all ended up. The topmost body had pathetically retained a shoe of modern design proving this degradation was still on going. The top most body was probably the young woman who had lodged in our room before us. The precious lifeblood of these unfortunate creatures had provided the sustenance for the ‘thing’ upstairs, no doubt it was her evil enchantment that was maintaining the very fabric of the building and it was obvious that Elizabeth and I had been lined up as her next victims. Naturally I was shocked and horrified but out of the whole sad mess my eye found something to put an edge on my anger: from the depths of the pile protruded a white stick! Poor George was here too, the gentle giant who wouldn’t have hurt a fly.
I retraced my journey back through the labyrinth of passages, trying to assimilate the enormity of what I had just seen; the candle was flickering alarmingly now, should I not reach the correct set of steps to take me out of this dreadful place before the candle died on me: I just daren’t think of the dire consequences. I discounted several sets of steps as being the wrong ones and had just reached another set when the candle flickered and finally died: I was in total darkness. ‘God let this be the correct set,’ I said to myself as I creped blindly upwards. My prayers were thankfully answered I reached a door and felt my trusty cigarette packet still wedging it open. Once clear of the cellar I virtually galloped through the hallway and up the stairs to our room, caring no more to be discrete or quiet. My rapid entrance to our room startled Elizabeth out of her delirium. No doubt I must have cut an alarming figure standing there dirty, out of breath and disheveled with a poker held rampant in one hand and the still smoking candle in the other.
‘Quick out of bed get dressed and packed,’ I gave here no chance to argue I was on the rampage and eager to complete the remainder of my dreadful task before I ran out of steam. My tone must have carried sufficient authority to galvanize her into action for she didn’t need me telling her a second time.
My next port of call was the wardrobe in the corner, this time it was to be opened, key or no key. My trusty poker came to my aid again. It helped me lever open the door, making an awful mess of the carpentry and beading around the lock in the process. Then the door was open revealing its secrets. It was no surprise to me at all to find that the door was not secured by the mortise lock at all but rather bolted from the inside. Under normal circumstance a wardrobe door bolted from within would have seemed strange indeed but I had half expected something of the sort. There was a point of entry to that she devil’s room here somewhere and I intended to find it. When the poker detected a hollow note in the baseboard I knew I had succeeded. A determined lever with my poker and away it came revealing the darkness of the room below: this was the port of entry for the accursed creature!
Rushing back into the centre of the room I seized Elizabeth by the arm caring little that the case was only half packed – what did it matter our possessions were paltry anyway. Elizabeth was still in the process of recovering from my eccentric behavior but allowed herself to be led down the stairs along the hallway.
Granny Gray came to her door squawking at all the noise; I pushed Elizabeth passed her and straight out onto the lawn, warning her on pain of death not to move. She was still standing there – sort of petrified as I reentered the Hall. Granny Gray hadn’t moved either, she was still standing in the middle of the hallway squawking and wearing a bemused expression; as yet she had not guessed my true intentions. When she saw the poker in my hand and the fire in my ace she began to back off. I believe she thought the attack was meant for her, but not so, I was after bigger fish, and I merely brushed her defensive arm aside intent on achieving my real objective. My next obstacle came in the form of another door, this time it was to be the door to Miss Bierce’s room. Granny Gray squawked all the more when she realized my true intentions, grasping at my legs and blasting me with obscenities. The door was strong but I was adamant. Once again with the aid of my trusty poker and a beefy shoulder I was into the mysterious room for the very first time. Surprisingly the room was unlike any other in the Hall. The furnishings were sparse yet opulent and everywhere the woodwork was well polished. I hadn’t come here to admire the décor but I did notice the same Grimshaw painting adorning the wall and would have wagered that this was the real original and the one in Granny Gray’s room just a copy used to foil would be thief who had heard of the Grimshaw. Alternatively, could it be that through the picture Eleanor could keep an eye on her feeble retainer. I could well imagine that in her vanity Eleanor would not want to be parted from the original, after all if she could not see herself in mirrors it was probably her only reminder of how beautiful she had been. These were all my later deductions, now I had a job to finish. Purple curtains shut off one of the alcoves; I was certain that behind these drapes lay the dark creature I sought. Ripping them aside without ceremony gave me confirmation I was right, I took but a brief moment to savour my triumph. The coffin was of black polished oak and stood proudly on purple decked trestles a small night light burned at the head and the foot of the casket.
The old hag of a caretaker was beside herself now; she was in the room with me, ripping at me with her feeble claws and squawking; ‘No! No! You’ll kill us all!’
‘This is where you keep your mistress is it? This is where you keep your foul protector.’ I spat out at her. ‘Your poor old lodgers always said she should be in the cemetery. Well I’m going to make sure she doesn’t get the privilege of even the cemetery now!’
I was still looking in triumph at Granny Gray as I lifted the coffin lid but the smile froze on my lips when I at last set eyes on the perpetual Eleanor Bierce; she was indeed a creation of beauty. I was convinced the whole Building survived due to her enchantment but she had saved the best for her immediate surroundings and in particular for herself. She was lovely beyond compare, youthful slim with pale skin and finely sculpture aquiline features, her hair was bountiful and luxurious – surely such evil could not be housed in such an exquisite body. I reasoned later that she had carried her teenage body as it was in death and filled it with a hundred and forty years of evil wisdom. As I gazed upon her, her enchantment threatened to engulf me, I felt myself begin to sway entranced by her beauty. Had Granny Gray been aware of this and stood back I believe she would have been the one left to tell the tale and not I for I was almost lost to her enchantment but her ill timed attack on my head with a shovel served only to jolt me back into my senses and remind me of the job to be completed.
The poker, excellent friend that it had been was a little blunt ended for the job in hand yet still a fearful weapon when brought down point first double handed from above my head. It was messy when the blood spurted. It was noisy when she screamed, such a scream! And it was especially nasty when she open her huge violet eyes. She knew she gazed upon earth for the last time. Oh those eyes! Such beautiful orbs and again I was in danger of falling under her enchantment and the thought that I should not be destroying something so incomparably exquisite threatened to engulf me. Luckily my weight still hung on the trusty poker and though my own power was failing the poker continued to sink slowly into that lovely body until with a quick slide it cleared the rib cage and pierced her black heart. With that her beautiful eyes glazed and she sighed – a great sigh of defeat and within moments had corrupted into the decay she had defied for so long.
With her passing my enchanted state was lifted and replaced with a great wave of exultation. Momentarily it was as if I were being lifted to a higher plane along with the mortal souls of those who had suffered and been held captive by her wicked spell, now freed and finally released to go wherever souls go. Thankfully the feeling quickly passed and I regained my senses to find the room shaking as in the grip of an earthquake: no longer sustained by enchantment the Hall began its own disintegration that had been artificially contained for so long.
Thankfully I still had the presence of mind to snatch the Grimshaw original off Eleanor’s wall be before dashing out. After all it had no legal owner now and it would do no good to leave it under a pile of rubble. I passed Granny Gray on the way out; evidently she too had been artificially sustained to serve as her mistress’s protector. Now she was ‘yellowing’ and settling into the floor like a cone of smoldering newspapers – she collapsed completely into herself even as I watched. So it was confirmed: this was the original Granny Gray. It was touch and go if I would escape before the whole rotting edifice disintegrated completely. That I am here to tell the tale is confirmation that I just managed it
Immediately after the event we related out tale to officialdom but no-one chose to believe us – it was a bit of a tall story and the powdered remains of Oldthorpe Hall revealed no sinister secrets, all had returned to dust and true to form nobody wanted to dirty their hands with the unsavory folk and goings on of Oldthorpe Hall. .
As for Elizabeth and I, we claimed ownership for the Grimshaw original, there were no other contestants and with the revenue received from its sale we were able to enjoy life to the full once more and still had plenty left to sponsor a shelter for the homeless and dedicate it to the memory those old Hall residents who had no friends in life. Thankfully with the help of God and my trusty poker at least in death they are revenged.
My one concern is that wherever that valuable painting finds a home, Eleanor’s exquisitely evil face still gazes out into an unsuspecting world.
Walking Down From Cross Green to Hunslet Taking in the Gardeners Pub
So set off down South Accommodation Road. ‘There used to be tram lines down here and the road was split in two with a high wall in between,’ said Bri.’
‘When you went down Hunslet,’ said Malcolm , ‘you either walked, rode a bike or caught the number 63 bus, the trams ran until 1959 but they had stopped running down South Accommodation Road long before that.’
‘Good old trams,’ I said, ‘I worked in Hunslet and used to go to work on my bike I had to be there by 7.30 a.m. but thought nowt of it, it kills me to get up at that time now a – days. But If my bike was out of order I used to catch the 62 bus from Cross Green Lane down to Duke Street near the bus station and then catch a tram to Dewsbury Road, sometimes the bus would be running late and I would see my tram pulling away down York Street passed the bus station but I could jump off the bus and run passed the Parish Church and through the Calls and the trams ran so slowly, especially through traffic so that I was able to catch the same tram in Swinegate and not be late for work.’
We were now coming to the river Aire. ‘This is just an ordinary boring old bridge here now,’ said Bri, ‘it used to be that great big bowed suspension bridge, built for adventure.’ We could still see the river looking over the parapet of the new bridge and that they were making a good job of turning the old blanket and those adjacent old mills into flats. Full marks to the council for persevering with those old Victorian mills it would have been a shame if they had demolished them altogether. When I used to look out of my window on Cross Green Lane that old blanket mill was always in sight and it was derelict as long as I can remember and that’s over seventy years and yet the Victorians built things so good that they can even be rescued and brought back into life after all that time. If you looked up through the windows of the mill from the river bank you could see even the floors of the upper stories were made out of arched brickwork can you imagine the weight of all that and yet it has remained standing
‘Do you remember Jimmy Thrush riding across the bowed parapet of the bridge on his bespoke bogy?’ said Brian.
‘Yes, Jimmy was a daredevil,’ said Malcolm, ‘but we all got up to doing duffs and dares, didn’t we, things we wouldn’t think of doing today. You know that big green pipe that ran across the bridge outside the railings I was dared to walk over there myself, they had put a great round spikey thing across the pipe
To stop you doing that but they dared me to do it and I even negotiated the spikes at each end.’
‘Oh you fool,’ said Madge, ‘If you’d fallen in that would have been the end of you the river always looked black and sinister you couldn’t see an inch below the surface and how would you have climbed out the banks were concrete and rose about five feet above the water.’
.’
Malcolm said, ‘When you passed over South Accom Bridge you passed from Leeds 9 into Leeds 10 the housing stock became even worse than our shabby housing stock, one dinner hour while I was sitting in the car having my dinner I did a sketch of the street in front of me I think it was Norwich place.
I Think that was typical of the housing stock but even in the sketch amidst all the squalor a stoic lady is still hanging out the washing. The Hunslet lads always seemed tougher than us, when they crossed over the bridge in numbers we usually stayed out of their way and if we tried to cross over the locks at Stourton they would likely shower us with half bricks from the high point of the old railway bridge.
and remember the old Stourton School tiny by modern standards and yet one year in the 30s they were the champion football school of all England.
When you talked to folk who were old when we were young they would talk about Hunslet with pride they would say on Friday nights Waterloo Road was as busy as Briggate they would mention all the pawn shops and the tripe shops etc., I use to have a poem on my wall at work that an old lady gave me it went like this:
We were approaching Atkinson Street now. ‘Do you remember when we used to walk down here from School to Joseph Street Baths?’ said Brian, ‘we didn’t set off until after playtime it must have been approaching 11 o’clock by then and we had to walk all the way to the baths in Joseph Street and be in and out by twelve.’
‘The St Hilda’s girls didn’t go to Joseph Street baths we went to a swimming bath they had in Hunslet Lane School.’ said Bette.
‘Anyway to continue,’ said Malcolm, ‘we’d walk down here in a crocodile, with our trunks rolled up in our towels, you were a geek if you had a bag in those days – we got changed two to a tiny cubicle it was a tight squeeze you were lucky if you found your own socks when you came out of the water then it was through the slipper baths and line up on the side of the pool.
Those who were practicing for the first class certificate were first to be allowed into the pool candidates had to execute life-saving procedures, diving for the brick and a neat dive in addition to the actual swimming. Then it was the turn of those taking the second-class certificate – three lengths breaststroke and one length back stroke. Finally, the last of the certificate takers had their chance – those who were going for the third class certificate, which was just the one length of the bath. There was also the advanced ‘bronze medallion’ but I cannot remember any of our lot attempting that one although Pat Brown who lived next-door to us and attended Mount St Mary’s was successful in achieving such a medallion.
‘Anyway, I said ‘by the time we ‘gash hands’ were allowed to have our thrash about in the pool it was time to come out and make the long crocodile trip back to school.’
‘Did you ever go to Hunslet feast?’ somebody asked.
‘Feasts were very popular with the generation before us,’ Bette said.
‘Yes, they were the “‘Greatest Generation” they lived through two world wars and a depression but they didn’t have the home entertainment that we have today so the feasts when they came round were a time to let their hair down and Hunslet feast was one of the biggest, folk who had lived in Hunslet when they were young and had moved out still came back for Hunslet feast.’
‘It was held on what was then the car park at the Hunslet Rugby League ground at Parkside.’ said Bri.
‘Oh I remember the steam shamrock,’ said Brian, ‘what a beast that was, it was as big as a single decker bus and it was driven by steam it swung from horizontal to vertical if it had hit anyone on its swing it would have knocked them into next week.’
‘There were the dodgems and the carousels but in particular it was the noise and the smells, brandy snap and candyfloss and fish and chips.’
‘Oh fish and chips.’ said Madge, ‘the talk of it is making me hungry.’
‘Well it looks like being a pub lunch for us today I don’t think there are any fish and chips open in Hunslet at this time.’ said Malcolm.
‘And alas there’s not so many pubs left in Hunslet now there used to be dozens. Look this used to be The Wellington that was a great pub now it’s a dental centre,’ I moaned.
‘What would that greatest generation think now that there are hardly any pubs left and they had an amazing amount.’
‘Yer that’s a beautiful Victorian pub it’s got a blue plaque around the other side and it has been saved because it’s a ‘heritage’ pub.’
‘Oh are we going in there for our pub lunch now,’ said Madge.
‘No please bear with me,’ I said, ‘there is another pub just passed Hunslet Parish Church, it doesn’t look much but it is even older than the garden gate and the beer is great,’ I pleaded, so we walked on passed the church with its beautiful steeple, and approached The Gardeners Arms.
‘The gardener’s Arms doesn’t look as old as the Garden gate but I’m told it pre dates the Victorian era and we used to come in here after football training the ale is like wine,’ I claimed.
‘I was looking for something to eat I don’t drink beer,’ said Madge.
‘Oh, come in you can just have a glass and they do a great pork pie.’
So we came in sat down and had a glass of the landlord’s best and a pie.
‘Oh I enjoyed that pie,’ said Madge, ‘I think I could manager another, I’ll go on a diet tomorrow.’
‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Malcolm.
So we all had another pie and the peas were ready by this time so he had pie and peas and another glass of beer and another then we just continued with the beer alone we all got a round and then we started to sing we went through our complete repertoire and there was another group of four old lads about our age and they joined in with us and we got on talking and they were a similar group of old mates like us and had all been together at the school just around the corner, Hunslet National School it was called, we told them some of our tales and they regaled us with some of their tales from Hunslet and the beer was flowing like water Madge had taken to singing at the top of her voice she was really letting her voice go and getting into the spirit of the occasion .
‘Oh I think I’m, getting a bit tipsy,’ she said.
‘Never mind,’ said Brian, ’we’ll carry you home.’
‘Oh don’t commit yourself;’ said Malcolm, ‘she’s one big heavy unit’,
He received his usual slap from Madge.
The Hunslet lads entered into the spirit of the occasion and after we had told some of our tales they responded with some great tales of their own.
The lads were called Brian, Gerry, Barrie and Eddy here are their tales.
Barrie remembers: Maria, she lived in Varley Square just off Church Street. Her job was to go round Hunslet’s Anchor Street, Carris Street, the Askerns’s and Gordon Road knocking people up for work from 4 a.m. onwards. She used a clothes prop with a couple of socks on the end so she wouldn’t break the windows, all for six/nine pence a week. She was a right character not to be crossed. A case of déjà vu Maria also looked after a lad who fell off the same Beeza Street Bridge as Pete’s dad. It must have been a favourite bridge for tippling off but this lad, Alec, was quite seriously injured but happily, he recovered and years later became my next door neighbour.
Gills (milk man): he had a house at the top of Anchor Road. He only had a small round but he was very reliable. He delivered milk from a milk churn on a special barrow. He poured milk from a ladle into a jug or similar. He delivered to my gran If she went out she would leave a jug on the window sill – large for two gills small for one gill. She covered the top of the jug with a lace cover with coloured beads round the edge to stop flies getting in. The jugs were safe from theft in those days.
Eddy Remembers: When we worked at Richmond Machine Tool Co on Hillage Place we didn’t have much time to get home for dinner and back, so Curly Lonsdale and I we were off on our bikes down Hillage Road, and down Anchor Street. A lady had been hanging her washing out – she had taken the washing in but left the line across the street; Curley ducked underneath it, but it caught me around the neck and pulled me off the bike buckling my wheel.
Brian, who attended Hunslet Nash, remembers a school teacher throwing the heavy board rubber at a lad; it hit his head and bounced out of the three story window. The teacher then blamed the lad for the loss of the rubber and made him go look for it. It took him three hours searching before it was found.
Gerry Remembers: the School Dentist in Bewerley Street. You went on your own; mams didn’t take kids to the dentist in those days. The waiting room was a place of purgatory. You slid along wooden benches listening to the screams from the inner sanctum moving to the front when it would be your turn. Often kids lost their nerve when it was there turn next and went to the back of the queue again. When you got into the surgery they put a horrible green mask over you face and a metal clip into your mouth to keep it open, if you needed the drill it was a foot treadle affair. When they had finished with you, you passed into another room with a line of sinks where kids were spitting blood. Everyone moved up a sink to accommodate the new arrival
On my way home from school Gerry said I had to pass a little yard where a guy kept ducks and chickens. One day I spotted two duck eggs could be reached under the wire. I pinched them and took them home. Mam gave me a right telling of for stealing – but we still ate the eggs.
Barrie Remembers: A foot coming through the ceiling at Hunslet Nash belonging to a lad who was foraging in the loft for bird’s eggs or something. Of course he shouldn’t have been up there in the first place but he was caught bang to rights because everyone recognised the shoe. Another time in Hunslet Church when they were ringing the bells one lad didn’t let go of the rope and it took him up and he hit his head on the ceiling where the rope passed through a hole.
General Banter: A guy walked into the Omnibus pub looking down in the mouth. His mates asked him what was the matter and he said his father had died that morning. They said he shouldn’t really be in here but he said he was trying to drown his sorrows. So the guys bought him his beer all night but just before closing time his dad walked into the pub. Then there was the guy in the Friendly pub in Holbeck he had a ‘Bobby Charlton’ type comb over which he used to keep in place with black boot polish. An old rugby league player had the Spotted Ox pub. He wouldn’t stand any nonsense from miscreants. On one occasion a guy continued to misbehave and the land lord had no option but to throw him out. He caught hold of his collar and the base of his jacket and ran him into the door, they bounced back so he ran him into the door again after the third time one of the regulars said, ‘Alf the door opens inwards.’
By the time we had had another pint the landlord called TIME. So we shook hands with the Hunslet lads and said we’d enjoyed their tales and we would have to do it again sometime.
‘Right we’ve a long walk home better all go to the toilet with our now walnut size bladders,’ said Brian.
‘Better not walk along the river side in this state,’ said Brian, ‘or we’ll finish up being food for the fishes.’
So we took to the streets: Waterloo Road, Goodman Street, Donisthorpe Street and South Acomm singing and pointing out things we remembered as we passed, the steep Hill up to Cross green lane that we used to call ‘The Mucky Hill’ because of the pig sties tested us a bit but we managed to stagger up by helping each other.
‘Better make for my place, it’s the nearest,’ said Madge, acting strangely benevolent.
We managed to climb Madge’s steep steps and just flopped down anywhere. ‘I’ll put the kettle on for you, Madge,’ said Bette, but by the time the tea was made three of us were asleep, and the rest were ruminating on what a great night we had hard.
The Passing of Graham Hawkridge We are saddened to have to announce the passing of Graham Hawkridge in Octobers. Graham was a stalwart in the collection of old East Leeds tales and pictures, and along with his partner, Pam, was part of the team that that founded the Old East Leeds Codgers Reunion Meetings that lasted the best part of twenty years and had many venues ending up as an annual event at the Edmund House Club on Pontefract lane. These meets turned out to be some of life’s most joyful occasions, they were open to all without any cost but were particularly appealing to old lads and lasses who attended schools in: wartime, 1940s, 50s and sixties, from the areas of: Cross Green, Richmond Hill and East End Park. Covid and really old age put an end to our revelries but anyone who attended these reunions where old friendships were rekindled and old rivalries forgotten would surly think back on them as golden ages. Here is one of Graham’s stories for you to enjoy. The Navvy (Graham Hawkridge) The Navvy is a railway cutting that runs from Neville Hill along the back of the Bridgefield Hotel across the top of the Cautley’s and above the St Hilda’s, finishing up in Hunslet. This line is still in operation In the forties and fifties the line was a double track which ran on the same route the only difference being: it ran underneath the iron bridge that carried the ‘Paddy’ train over it. This bridge is no longer there. The route finished up in the Hunslet Goods Yard, which is now occupied by industrial units, where in the past it was a very busy rail goods yard. Many an adventure was carried out along this track and many a duff was offered (‘duff’ being another word for ‘dare’.) On one occasion I witnessed some girls, older than myself but still at school, walk along the outside of the rail with their backs to the bridge. They took sideways steps going the full length of the bridge. They must have been either very brave or foolhardy for there was a forty foot drop onto the railway line
The bridge leading from the Copperfields to the Glencoe’s had an even greater drop, but this did not deter adventurous boys from walking across the wall, which was about three foot wide with a drop of about sixty-foot to the railway line.
There were various routes to get down to the railway line from the top, bearing in mind we must have been trespassing at the time, but we tended to ignore rules and the safety aspects. Some of the ways down had their own names, one was called ‘Ginger Rock’ for obvious reasons, and another was called ‘The Town Hall Steps’. There were other routes with varying degrees of danger. There were occasional miss-haps along the Navvy, on one occasion during one of our games one boy was being chased, to escape his captors he ran down one side of the Navvy, across the line and was halfway up the other side when a piece of rock came away in his hand resulting in him sliding down the shale and hurting his back. Fortunately there was no serious injury. Getting up the other side of the Navvy was a different story, this was a lot steeper and consisted of loos shale in parts which made it difficult and dangerous, not many attempted this climb.
On another occasion a boy slipped while trying to climb down, resulting in him breaking his arm. He was at the bottom licking his wounds when his mother came looking for him and while all of us at the top kept quiet as to his whereabouts. He dare not reply to his mother’s shouts for fear of punishment as we were always being warned as to the dangers of playing along the navvy bank.
The Paddy Trains & Snake Lane
We spent the best part of our out-of schooldays on the Snake Lane playing fields. These consisted of two football pitches, a putting green, bowling green and tennis courts. Adjacent to the area was the ‘Paddy line’, which came to play a part in many of our games of football, which I will explain in another chapter.
The railway line ran from Waterloo Pit at Temple Newsam to the coal staith at the junction where Easy Road, Cross Green Lane and South Accommodation Road met. This area of land has now been developed into a housing estate. The line followed a route from the pit, in-between Black Road (Pontefract Lane), Taylor’s Farm, Pawson’s Farm, Snake Lane and the allotments, running parallel to the top of Black Road. It crossed over Cross Green Lane, in between the Bridgefield Hotel, Copperfield Grove and Copperfield Then over an iron bridge which spanned the Navvy. It then went alongside the Glencoes over a ginnel, which was a small tunnel that connected: the Copperfields, Glencoes and St Hildas to Easy Road. The Paddy train unloaded its cargo at the staith where it was put into sacks then collected by coal merchants, for delivery to local households. The Paddy train for most colliers was the only form of transport to and from work as a car was a rare commodity at the time.
On early mornings you could hear the echo of collier’s footsteps walking on the cobbled streets as they went to catch the train that would take them to the pit to do their shift. On return the train would stop adjacent to the top of Snake Lane where the colliers would jump off covered in coal dust and looking like the Black and White Minstrel Show.
There would not have been pithead baths At Waterloo Main Colliery at the time There were four engines operating the line each engine was named independently they were: Jubilee, Kitchener, Dora and Antwerp. These were small tank engines Built by
A favourite trick of ours, disregarding any form of safety measure, was to place an old penny on the railway line, when the engine and carriages had passed over the penny it was flattened to a much larger size. Why we did this I’m unsure because the penny was probably no longer legal tender and a penny went a long way in those days. Temple Newsam Colliery / Waterloo Main closed 1963.There were no baths until the early fifties, the colliers had to go home covered in coal dust before being able to wash. Most houses in the area had baths in the scullery (kitchen) which when not in use were covered by a large board. When the bath was not in use most people kept various items on the top, which all had to be cleared away and stacked on the floor. This ritual must have been repeated every day.
The Paddy train left Cross Green Lane at 5.05 a.m. taking the daily shift to the pit, returning at 6.50 a.m. with the night shift. It left again at 1.30 p.m. taking the afternoon shift returning at 3.45 p.m. with the morning shift. It left again at 9.30 p.m. Taking the night shift down and returned at 10.10 p.m. bringing home the afternoon shift. Most of the miners would then have to walk the rest of the way home for they would not be allowed to use the bus covered in coal dust, bearing in mind some of the colliers might live as far away as York Road which would mean another two miles to walk home. A ‘knocker-upper’ would probably have been used to wake up the early morning shift workers. This would normally be someone who lived in the area. He would carry a pole, perhaps a clothes prop, with this he would tap on the bedroom window until the light came on and the occupant drew back the curtains and showed his face.
Paddy Train drivers: Leading up to the war four of the train drivers were brothers: Walter and George Riley. Charlie and Walter Wilcox. Shunters also accompanied the drivers: Percy Mathers, Tommy Hirst, and Bill Butterworth. The latter later moved to Skelton Grange Power Station. Teddy Horton and Herbert Whitaker were drivers before and after the war. Apart from taking the colliers to and from work the trains also carried coal to the staith in Easy Road. It had to cross Cross Green Lane near the Bridgefield Hotel. Alongside the last house in Cross green Lane there was a wooden hut where the level crossing flagman was based. On the arrival of the train he would stop the traffic to allow the train to cross over the road, bearing in mind there were no traffic lights or gates across and he only had a red flag to warn oncoming traffic only but traffic was infrequent in those days, mainly buses and the odd horse and cart. Bus No 61 and 62. The flagman’s name was Sam Bowden who was a well know character in East Leeds. He was a very likable man and would pass the time of day with the locals. Sometimes he would invite them into his cosy shed in the winter, which would by warmed with a constantly fuelled stove. There was always the chance of a pot of tea to be had whilst having a chat.
Graham Hawkridge (aided by an old colliery employee)
Army Camps and Air Raids. These camps were situated down Pontefract Road, alongside Tillotson’s farm and Knostrop Wood. The army camp was manned by an Ack-Ack Division. Although Leeds did not suffer many air raids during the war this Division was ready for action when needed. As children we passed by the camp regularly on the way to play or go bird nesting in Knostrop Woods. To my recollection the camp never seemed to be heavily guarded. There was only one solitary barrage balloon to my knowledge, which always seemed to be a source of amusement while waiting for it to rise into the air. I seem to recollect it being struck by lightening on one occasion. The Ack-Ack guns were put into operation on one memorable night. This was the night of the heaviest raid on Leeds. When the sirens sounded people retreated into their air raid shelters. In the Copperfield’s and the St. Hilda’s, coal cellars were converted into re-enforced shelters by placing iron girders just under the ceiling and covering them with sheets of corrugated iron. The wall along the cellar steps would be knocked through and lightly mortared back so that in the event of anyone being trapped in the cellar it would be easy to knock out the brickwork and crawl through to the house that backed on. When the sirens sounded my mother and I would race down the street to my grandmother’s house, which was twenty yards down the street and take shelter with them. My granddad had knocked a number of bricks out of the adjoining wall to the next-door neighbour’s house, giving enough room to pass cups of tea and cakes through and to converse with the neighbours. My granddad would call in now and again from the ARP (Air Raid Precaution Duty) to let us know what was happening outside and maybe grab a quick cup of tea before continuing to patrol the streets Some Houses were issued with foot- pumps and sandbags. The night of the big raid was probably more hair rising for adults than I. Being only seven years old at the time I do not remember being frightened. You could hear the bombs dropping and the drone of the aircraft engines flying over and the Ack Ack guns firing whilst we all huddled together in our shelters. Those without shelters, or those who chose to stay in the house would probably hide beneath the dining table. The alterative was to run to the nearest purpose built shelter. There were three or four of such shelters on the spare land at the side of the Navvy, just off Cautley Road. They were brick built with re-enforced concrete roofs. Inside would be bunk beds, no mattresses of course and no lighting, the only lighting would be by torch or paraffin lamp. These shelters were usually locked by day but this did not deter us from entering. The entrance was just a wooden gate and there was just enough room to either crawl under or climb over the top if you were small enough. We spent many an hour using these shelters as dens. Some of the older boys probably had their first smoke in there.
The Opening The opening was a piece of spare land between 39 and 41 Copperfield Grove and Copperfield. This piece of land was used for both cricket and football games, marbles (tors) and all types of ball games we invented ourselves. This area was all soil with no grass on it at all; we used the whole area plus the cobbled road of Copperfield? with our goals up against the gable end wall of Copperfield Fortunately Peter and Eric Wolliter lived there with Jack Render living at number Copperfield and myself at 41 Copperfield Grove. We rarely had problems with neighbours. We could even play after dark because there was a gas lamp right in the middle adjoining Copperfield???? and the ‘opening’ We only ever played with a tennis ball, this lent to some becoming quite skilled at controlling the ball considering that the ball would bobble all over the cobbled street and causeway (causer edge). We had some ding-dong battles recreating football league games, there were no holds barred you could be sent crashing into the wall with a shoulder charge giving you a nasty jolt. Goalkeepers were fearless diving on the soil area in one goalmouth and the stone pavement in the other. There was always a steady stream of players from other streets wanting to join in. We even used to play on a dinnertime, rushing home from school, gulping down our dinner and then out to play for half an hour. Frank Shires who started work before some of us had left school, would dash home from work and grab a quick snack – this giving him time to join in one of our lunchtime games. It was even known for us to clear snow out of the opening so we could play. Cricket season was very popular too we could play until late at night because of the double British Summertime when the clocks went forward for two hours.
Ellerby Lane School My school days were spent mainly at Ellerby Lane School except for a brief spell at St Saviour’s – a spell I can only vaguely remember. For some reason a few selected pupils were allocated to attend there after the war finished. My recollections are: that some of us ran home at lunchtime and never returned to the school. From this time on I attended Ellerby Lane School. Schooldays were certainly different in many ways in those times than there are today. The main differences are probably concerning discipline and punishment. Some of the teachers were real characters in themselves. Mr Holmes; Chuck Holmes to the pupils was disabled but this didn’t stop him handing out his own brand of punishment. His right arm had a constant shake, when he gave you the cane he would raise his hand before bring it down across your fingers. It would shake for a while keeping you in limbo before the actual strike. Each teacher had his own brand of cane ‘Chuck’ had a bamboo cane, which had started to fray at the end, this caused further anguish with each ‘whack’. Another trait he had was that he would walk around the class looking at your schoolwork, if he saw anything wrong he would sit down besides you at your desk, and bearing in mind that we sat two to a desk, he would then nudge you with his shoulder like the old soccer shoulder charge but with so much force that after two or three of these nudges your innocent friend at the other side would end up on the floor. Mr Holmes father was landlord of the Black Dog pub.
We used to have a school fund where we would give a half penny? a week. On Fridays it was my job, whilst Mr Holmes was in the class, to take all the halfpennies to the Black Dog pub. I had to knock on the back door and wait for Mr Holmes’s father to change it into notes so that I could take it to the post office in Ellerby Lane. The post office was directly opposite the Spring Close pub but is no longer there. The post office was run by two sisters. Mr Holmes took us for cricket, and even though he was disabled he would join us in our cricket games in the school playground – which he seemed to enjoy just as much as we did. Mr Consterdine was another feared teacher. When it was your year to go into his class you went there with trepidation. He never thought twice about throwing the chalk or the board duster at you, which was made out of a solid piece of wood much like a scrubbing brush with a piece of felt in place of the bristles. He must have been a good shot for I never remember anyone getting a serious injury, anyone being hit would have been dealt a nasty blow. He also took us for P.T. One of his favourites was, when we were all lined up in team formation, He would on command have you touching all four walls and the unfortunate to be last back to his place really suffered. We only wore shorts and plimsolls and your mates were instructed to slap the last one back on his bare back, he would finish up with red wheals all over hisbody. In another game two or three boys would be in a circle and the rest would try and hit them bellow the knees by kicking or throwing a football. Mr Consterdine took great delight in joining in and would kick the ball with great force, if you were unlucky enough to be hit by the ball you certainly knew about it. Mr Consterdine was a very strict disciplinarian he possessed a collection of canes made mainly of cut down billiard cues cut. When handing out punishment, you usually got caned three times with a ‘whack’ across the open palm leaving you with blue fingers.
There were no Biro pens in those days; a pen was made with a wooden shaft, a metal pen nib and a metal holder. Some of the lads liked to chew the wooden end of the pen and many times were down to holding the pen by just the metal part to write. To stop this habit; when you requested a new pen the teacher would dip the pen in fish glue, which proved a deterrent due to the unpleasant taste. At the time we had inkwells that fitted into the desk corner. Sometimes pupils would put blotting paper into your ink well making the ink like mud, consequently when you dipped your pen nib in to replenish the ink you would end up with a big blot on your paper. To overcome this we started to water the ink to thin it down, but unfortunately on one occasion this
Jam Jar Week Besides our half penny donations to the school funds the school held a jam jar week every year, each student was obliged to go round knocking on doors asking the occupants if they had any jam or pickle jars. We would wander around the streets with a sack over our shoulder. Each class competed against one another to see who could collect the most jam jars; there was also an individual competition. You would bring the jam jars in and have them counted and logged before taking them into the school quadrangle where they would be placed on the ground. Eventually filling the whole area. The school made quite a bit of money in this way for the rag and bone men would pay for empty jam jars. The jam jars would be collected and taken away, I think by the Moorhouse Jam and the U-LI-KUM Pickle companies. In East Leeds we had a couple of rag and bone men who came around the streets. One was called Tobins who had a yard in the Glencoes and I must admit that on occasions we managed to get into his yard and grab a few jars to add to our collection. I believe the all time record number of jam jars collected by one person was held by one of the girls: Regina Wilson.
“You know” said Madge, as she and Brian were walking down the street to their next meeting with the Gang, “young kids are really something these days”. “Yes” said Brian “I’ve got three grandchildren, and they are always up to something”. “Well,” said Madge,” our young Tommy, my daughter Lily’s son, is 16 and he says he should have the vote, because the future is all before him, and that old people – those over 60 – should have the vote taken away because the future doesn’t really matter to them”. “That’s right” agreed Brian “and some of my grandchildren are saying that Governments and electoral politics are pandering to the old people, buying their votes with expenses and social welfare things that are unfair burdens on the up-and-coming generations. Intergenerational transfer of wealth, they call it”. “I try to keep up with things” nodded Madge. ”I listen to current affairs on the wireless so that I can hold my own in conversation with the young ones when they come to tea sometimes on Sundays. But something is puzzling me Brian, perhaps you could explain before I put my foot in it”. “Go on” encouraged Brian, as they reached the corner of the street. “Well, said Madge, I tuned in yesterday and they were talking about Brexit and the angling spear, and I didn’t have a clue about what they were on about”. “The angling spear” queried Brian, “you don’t mean like a harpoon, or something that the scuba divers use when they go looking for fish in the reef?” “Was it something to do with the arguments about territorial fishing rights in the North Sea, about who could catch what and how much”. “It was something to do with Brexit” agreed Madge, “but I couldn’t make out that it was anything to do with fishing”. I’ve got it” said Brian “how are your hearing aids Madge?” “I’ve got to say that at the moment I’ve run out of batteries” answered Madge. “Well, that’s the answer, you silly old bugger” teased Brian. “It wasn’t angling spear they were talking about, it was probably the Anglosphere.” “What’s that” asked Madge? “It’s the idea that nowadays, with the tyranny of distance overcome by jet planes and computers, it is far easier for peoples who share language and culture to collaborate more effectively in trade and governance, despite their geographical distances, than attempts at a federation across a Europe with so many different languages and cultures”. “Thanks for that Brian”, not angling spear, but Anglosphere, I must get some new batteries soon if I’m to keep up with my grandchildren” said Madge smiling “a bit of ‘manspeak’ is helpful sometimes.
These little stories will appear on this site (one a month) in the hope that they will be seen by exiles from the old East Leeds of the 1930s/40s/ and 50s and so be reunited with their peers from that golden age - even though it may be from a distance. Should any such exiles have nostalgic memories of that period of their own - please add them to this site and help us provide a book three of these little tales to supplement book one and two already in print. Our memories are our legacy to the future, we cannot allow to let them die!
East Leeds Memories 