Her hand would go up and I’d smartly hand her a fresh sheet. She shake her hand irritably, this signaled, “I’ve got enough paper you clot, now get the wood.”
She always caught me out; it was her first early morning pleasure, me getting something wrong. The wood came in neat bundles fastened with soft iron wire. This was done with a larger version of the gadget used for tying up asparagus. I of course at the time had not heard of asparagus or the need to tie it. You either untwisted the wire or pushed the middle stick out. This slackened the whole bundle, which fell all over the place like splillikins. I would check if there was a suitable piece of wood, which with an elastic band and a hairpin pinched from Mam, would make a ‘Matchstick Flicker’.
Then I would hand the wood to Mam one stick at a time and she would lay them across the top of the paper like soldiers in a straight line. I would have preferred the log cabin method myself. That is building the sticks up in a square. This was good if you had a fire lighter to put in the middle. You could of course start with the fire lighter and build a tepee of wood over it.

‘Zippo’ firelighters came in blocks like chocolate. When you broke off a section they reeked of sawdust and paraffin. We didn’t usually have firelighters and for a while we didn’t have wood. Someone told Mam that you could save money by tightly rolling newspaper from one corner diagonally into long tight tapers. These you then looped and tied into a knot and could be used instead of wood. It did work but what a trouble it was. Thankfully Mam soon gave up on the idea because Doreen and I became amazingly ‘kack-handed’ at paper rolling and started producing slack tubes of paper. (I still, to this day find myself unconsciously rolling receipts, bus tickets and bits of paper into tight little tapers and knotting them.)
When the wood was satisfactorily placed. Mam would look at the ash pan and select any clinkers she thought might have a bit of phlogiston left in them. Her fingers hovered over the clinkers as if she was selecting a choice chocolate. With her thumb and forefinger, so minimum contact was made, she’d lift them one at a time and place them carefully on the firewood. I then had to take the ash pan to the dustbin. To this day, in memory of this task, many plastic dustbins bear the legend, ‘No Hot Ashes’
The journey to the bin was all right if I was just carrying the ash pan but if there were too many ashes the extra were wrapped in the, ‘News of the World’. The parcel of ashes often split leaving a trail of ash and me looking like a white faced Aborigine on a walkabout. Meanwhile Mam would continue kneeling in front of the fire waiting till I got back. She waited because I was required, as the apprentice fire maker, to fetch the coal. While the ash pan was being replaced and the front cover put back; I went with the shovel for the coal.

CARTOON STRIP 'FIRE FLIES'

We didn’t have a coal scuttle. The coal was kept in the coal cellar or coalhole, known to us as, 'The coil oil'. I had to delicately select choice pieces of small coals to start the new fire. This had to be done in the dim light coming from the outward open door and the chinks round the coal grate. In the early days at Thornhill Road this wasn’t a great problem. Later on when we moved to Crown Street and Timmy the poodle arrived it was a problem. They say perpetual motion is impossible because you can never get more out of a thing than you put in. Tell that to someone on diuretics or a dog owner. When Timmy was a puppy Mam trained him to crap in the coalhole. So all his life, no matter how far he was taken for a walk, he would not crap outside. Timmy could pee in public forever. Like all dogs he was never empty, he always had a little squirt left but he would not do a poodle poop in public. He would only crap on coal; he’d only shite on anthracite. He’d save it up until he became absolutely desperate then he would run hell for leather dragging me with him back to the coal cellar. It was like holding on to a bull with a chilli pepper up its bum. He’d drag me on the lead back to the house at break neck speed. At the house I had to get in front to open doors before he smashed through them in his desperation to get to the cellar. You could almost hear the sigh of relief or was it steam when he let it all go on the coal. This was all right for him but when I had to pick up small pieces of coal in the dark I found it difficult to spot dehydrated Timmy turds. I know a little squeeze would have instantly told me the difference but I was reluctant to do that in case I pick up a fresh one.

Consequently I would end up with at least one on my shovel. Unlike camel dung, dog dung doesn’t burn well. It does burn in a good fire but it’s difficult to light even if you apply a match direct to one end of the coprolite cigar. Perhaps if we fed the dog liquid paraffin the poop would be easier to light and could economically replace expensive firelighters. I quickly forgot about this idea when I realised that it would also alter the consistency of the doggie dung. Altering his diet set me thinking, wouldn’t it be a good idea to feed Timmy something to change the colour of his turds from dark anthracite brown to magnolia or even white? Strange you don’t ever see white dog turds nowadays. They used to be quite common when I was a lad during rationing. They were very white, if only the secret of what these dogs were fed on were known. Perhaps it was a breed of dogs that’s died out and had only appeared during the wartime blackout. White dog turds were a great asset to the walking public. Better still for night time I thought, how about luminous ones. I could perhaps have spiked the dog’s food with luminous paint. Or as we kids, familiar with Blackpool Illuminations, called it, ‘illuminous paint’. Fortunately I never did it. Latter I found that luminous paint is poisonous. Clock number painters got a terrible disease called ‘Phosy jaw’ from licking their brushes.
In the meantime, I’m thinking about the production of white luminous poop.
I’ve designed the doggie dung warning flag. I didn’t of course have these when I stood beside Mam with my shovel of little coals and desiccated dog dung. Even if I had I wouldn’t have used them. I would watch her pick up the small bits of coal waiting for her to pick up a poo piece. Uncannily for someone with such bad eyesight she never touched a turd. They do say when you lose one sense your other instincts compensate. Mam always left the dog do do on the shovel till last. When all the coal was in place she took the shovel by the handle and tossed the turds on the top. They had to go on the fire. Mam knew that if they didn’t burn them we’d end up with more crap than coal. When all this was completed I would hand Mam the box of matches.

Taking out a match she would strike it along the sandpaper away from her body. We’d heard dreadful tales of silly boys striking matches towards their bodies and setting fire to their celluloid shirt collars. Separate collars were worn then. The collars would burn fiercely, cooking their heads. Alternatively if you had celluloid spectacle frames they could burst into flames leaving you with cracked lenses and a short frizzy haircut and you wouldn’t like that would you. I never saw a celluloid collar. Woolworth’s sold thin cardboard ones that weren’t easy to light. The only consequence I suffered from striking matches towards me was a slight singeing of the hairs on my woolly pullover. Mam wore glass and metal specs but she still always stuck the match away from her.

When the fire started going, Mam would stand the shovel up in front of it and put a sheet of newspaper over the shovel and the fireplace opening. The shovel stopped the paper going onto the fire. This arrangement caused the fire to suck air from under the grate quite dramatically. The newspaper would be sucked tight against the fireplace opening only the shovel stopped it being pulled into the fire. Sometimes the roaring fire was so intense the heat would cause the newspaper to catch fire. This was very alarming, a blaze in the living room. Mam would calmly take the shovel and use it to push the fiercely burning paper into the fire, thus saving the day. All this was called, ‘Drawing the fire’. if this didn’t work, I fetched the bag of sugar and Mam threw a handful on the sluggish glimmer and it would burst into flame. The fire had to be seriously struggling before this extravagance was brought into play. When the fire was nicely burning it was time to clean up. I would hand Mam the push-out brush and small brass shovel from the fireside, ‘Companion set’. Companion sets comprised; a small shovel, coal tongs, brush and a poker all placed either in a container or dangling from a stand. Whether they were called companion sets because the objects were company for each other or for the owner I don’t know. I never found them much company. The hearth nicely cleaned Mam would put her left hand on the fire surround for support, her right hand on her back to signify the effort she’d gone through then she’d stand up. That was how my Mam made the fire.

The fire only radiated heat a short distance and the clotheshorse, constantly drying clothes, usually blocked this off. if the clotheshorse wasn’t in front of the fire Granny Annie would be. She’d stand there with her skirts pulled up warming her pink bloomer enclosed bum. People during the food shortage endearingly called this action, “Warming dad’s supper”.
In other words the only person going to have something warm inside them was the lady of the house. If I managed to catch a moment when the front of the fire was clear of bodies, I would stand there myself with my legs apart, hands behind back, like the Lord of the Manor. It wouldn’t be long though before Granny would say, “Let the dog see the bone” or “You’d make a better door than a window”.
Then I would have to move and Granny or Dad would pinch my place. If Dad did it, I had a way of getting my own back. I’d wait until the back of his floppy long trousers started steaming then I knew they were really hot. I’d grab his trousers just below his knees and pull it forward. The hot cloth at the back would be pulled against his calves and oh! how he’d jump with pain. The effect is known as ‘Joan of Arc leg’. He couldn’t play the trick on anyone else because he was the only one wearing long trousers in the house. I didn’t realise how painful it was until I got to wear long trousers and it was done to me. It was for this reason that Levi had to get rid of the crutch rivet in their jeans. It got so hot by the campfire cowboys burnt themselves. I suppose the trick should have been called Guy Fawke’s leg but he was only burnt in image on bonfire night.

A USEFUL DOGGIE DUNG DEVICE.

FLYING THE FLAG !

The recent correspondence about dogs and Greenhead Park has prompted this witty comment from Wilf Lunn: "The problem comes up every year, " he says," I feel strongly about it. I've even thought of putting up a sign THIS PARK DOES NOT FLUSH. Perhaps not, but there ought to be a few dog owners' faces that do." HUDDERSFIELD EXAMINER Wilf's new book 'My Best Cellar' (his autobiography up to the age of eleven) can now be ordered online. £ 9.99   download book sample here ORDER NOW