No. 9 Crown Street is a terrace house. When I lived there it was on an unmade cul de sac. At the far end is a playing field; at the near end, across the road, on an upper floor there was a strange tiny door in the wall. This was there because the funeral director who worked upstairs had put his circular saw too near the wall. Consequently he had to push his longer planks through this little door to get them on his saw table.

Part way on Crown Street on the left, is a large passage going through the row of houses. By going down this passage and turning right you could get to our back door. Through the passage to the left you would pass Fish Harry’s house in the corner. Fish Harry was that day’s equivalent of the ‘Hell Driver.’ His job was to get the fish from the coast to the shops as fast as possible, no matter what. He did this in a small, blue, open- backed pick up truck that had an aroma even this speedy truck couldn’t leave behind. He probably brought the crabs to the crab dressers on Pong Alley.

Next door was Mrs. Bolton with her little West Highland White dog, called Candy. Mrs. Drew house was in the other corner. Back across the yard next to the passage was Mrs. Wood’s then Mrs. Bass’s. The houses were always called after the lady of the house. So it was Mrs. Wood’s at number three, Mrs. Bass’s at number seven and we were at number nine. Nobody knows why there wasn’t a number five.

A small flight of stairs went up to our back door through which was our living room/kitchen /bathroom. Diagonally across the room was the door to the cellar. Straight in front of you at the opposite side of the room was the door to the bedroom stairs. Past the bottom of the stairs was another door into the front or best room. At the other side of the best room was the front door leading to the tiny front garden with its excellent crop of chickweed and then the gate to street. The front and back door had Yale locks. I was not allowed a key to either. Is it not written in stone and said at Bingo, “Key to the door twenty one”? So until I was twenty-one years old, no key for me.

Mam and Dad went to bed early. If I was still out they would leave the back door unlocked. One night I returned late. I went down the passage turned right up the back yard and entered through the back door. Without bothering to put the light on I dropped the latch, thus locking the door behind me and I crossed the kitchen to the stairs door to go to bed. Gripping the doorknob I turned it and pulled it towards me. Usually, when I did this the door opened and I walked through. On this occasion I automatically stepped forward smacking my face into the door. It hadn’t opened. Rubbing my head I turned and tried the knob again. The knob turned but I could feel it was not engaging the latch and pulling it back. The thing was worn out; no amount of turning would pull the latch back. I considered forcing the door with my shoulder. That wouldn’t work because it opened towards me and I would be ramming it against the doorframe. I gave it up as a bad job and decided to sleep in front of the dying kitchen fire. I took my shoes off attempting to fool my body into thinking it was bedtime and I lay down on the rag rug. By the fire glow I examined the many coloured rags that made up the rug.

A rag rug in Brighouse was like Wampum to an American Indian. It told the history of the tribe and was made by the tribal elders, in our case Granny Annie. The khaki bits spoke of the war. Uncle Tommy’s escape to Switzerland, Uncle Clifford’s service in India. The few brown pieces rescued from my old short trousers, brought back terrible memories. I was on the baby swings playing parachutes, swinging high and jumping off shouting, “Geronimo!” The swings were like small chairs. You could hook a chain across the front to stop toddlers falling out. We of course didn’t use this. The idea was to leap off the swing at it highest point over Germany. Unbeknown to me, the hook on the chain was up my trouser slot. I flew through the air. Pulled the ripcord on my imaginary parachute. The hook on the chain tightened and ripped my trousers from bottom to top. I fell on my face with only one complete right trouser slot and a flap round my left leg. No underpants, it’s the stuff of nightmares! It was like wearing a transient garment that was a cross between trousers and a kilt, without the benefit of kilt pin. Holding my trousers up with my right hand and clutching my torn left leg where the kilt pin would have been I made my way home wounded to Mam. Germany was safe for another day but I wasn’t. On the rug, in amongst these brown scraps of my short trousers were the grey scraps, the remains of my first long trousers. The green bits looked like Doreen’s dreaded green Mackintosh and the navy blue my miniature gasman’s Mac.

Suddenly the stair door rattled and from behind it I heard,
“Ergogert Whiff.”
It was Dad, although he was stone deaf he must have felt the vibrations when I tried to open the door. Either that or he’d come down for a smoke. I rushed to the door and started frantically turning the handle and flicking the stair light switch, which was on my side of the door. Frustrated I shouted, although I knew he couldn’t hear a thing. Dad knew I was there. He must have thought I had some how locked the door but there wasn’t a door lock. He couldn’t work out what was going on. So he did what all great thinkers do he went back to bed to think about it. I couldn’t believe he’d gone back to bed! Really fed up, I returned to reading the rag rug. I was trying to find Doreen’s green Mac bit when the stair door rattled again. This time I heard my Mam saying in her fashion,
“Open door Wifherd.”
Dad had obviously thought he couldn’t sort it out so he’d brought in a higher authority, namely Mam. I rushed to the door and found myself carefully mouthing explanations before I realised even an Olympic lip-reading champion couldn’t lip read through an inch thick unflushed door and twenty coats of paint. So now, they were both behind the door one deaf and dumb the other deaf and lip-reading. Mam was getting angrier and angrier. She wanted the door open and she wanted to know what I was doing. I don’t for one minute think she thought I had a girl in the kitchen. She probably thought it was more serious. I’d perhaps got the tin opener and mad with hunger I’d opened a tin of salmon. She raved and raved. I, of course, heard everything she said. She only felt the door moving. I couldn’t go back to sleep with her carrying on. I even tried Morse code flicking the lights in the kitchen on and off. Three long, three short flicks, S.O.S. This only made her more angry. This was fun. When she switched the light on, at her side. I could switch it off, with the two-way switch on my side. To a Mam, being in the dark was the same as me putting my fingers in my ears. You can’t tell what any ones saying in sign language if you shut your eyes or it’s dark. I never did make those fluorescent gloves for dark, deaf, disco parties. She was steaming.
Suddenly it went all quiet.
There was a pause and she said very deliberately, “I’m sending Father round.”
Just like they say to little kids, “Wait till your dad gets home.”
I listened to the silence of sign language. My fathers grunt of assent followed shortly by the opening and closing of the front door. He was on his way down the street past Mrs. Bass’s then Mrs. Wood’s on through the passage, past the back of Mrs. Wood’s and Mrs. Bass’s.
Up the yard to our back door, where I was waiting to calm him down. He was not a happy man in his pyjamas, undone boots and raincoat. Dressing gowns were unknown to the like of us. (The recognised procedure on rising was straight from night attire to fully dressed or if it was a particularly bitter time of year, fully dressed to extra dressed). I led him to the stair door and let him try the handle. That was easier than trying to explain. All this time Mam, not knowing he’d arrived, was behind the door chanting,
“He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming.”
More of a threat, than a promise of saviour. Dad quickly grasped the situation. I mimed that I would go back the way he’d come and charge the door from the other side. He nodded, fully understanding the mechanics of forceful door opening. Then firmly pushing him back from the door, I mimed that he must stand well back, so he wouldn’t get hit when the door flew open. I then left him there and set off in my stocking feet. Through the back door, down the yard, through the passage, I turned left up the street. Arriving at the front door with my socks soaked right through. The front door was locked. Dad, the gourmless clot, had shut the door behind him on the Yale latch and it was now firmly locked. I couldn’t believe it. I opened the letterbox to look through.
There was Mam I could see her talking to the door, “He’s coming, he’s coming.”
I tried waving my hand through the letterbox. She was turned away from me chanting to the door and my deaf dad on the other side. Waving was a waste of time. I decided it would be better if I went back to tell Dad what an idiot he’d been locking the door behind him. Cursing him, I set off down the street. Past Mrs. Bass’s, past Mrs. Wood’s, right down the passage, left past the back of the houses, to our back door, which was locked!
I’d cursed my Dad and I’d done the same thing.
When I shut the door on the latch I ‘d locked myself out. I’d called Dad an idiot but he was locked inside. I was outside cold and miserable with wet stocking feet. Off I went back past Mrs. Bass’s past Mrs. Wood’s left through the passage right down the street. Hoping Mam had come to the front door.
No, she hadn’t, I looked through the letterbox there she was still chanting,
” He’s coming, just you wait, he’s coming.”
I think she had sort of forgotten what was going on because the chanting was sounding slightly religious.
Dad was waiting on the other side of the door oblivious to her messianic mumblings. Tensely waiting for the door to burst open like watching a firework when the flames gone in the top and nothing’s happening.
At least he was warm. Outside, where I was, lights were going on up and down the street. Bedroom curtains were being carefully opened, just a little. When they realised the incident was obviously going to continue for a while, the lights went out but only so they could open the curtains more and carry on watching unobserved. They could also deny all knowledge of the event and not feel too bad about not helping, should it prove serious.

It was looking like I would have to put into action the last resort plan. The plan was to climb down the coal grate. This was a lift up metal flap in the front garden wall. I’d often had to furtively stand at the front room window counting the coal bags tipped through it. Mam trusted no one. There was a chain fastened to the back of the grate so it could be padlocked. It was never locked; only someone desperate would climb down it. This would get me into the cellar and from there I would climb the stairs and end up back where I started in the kitchen with Dad. At least I would be inside for the night. I was reluctant to do this because it was an extremely filthy way to get into the house. The only other time I’d done it, I ‘d come up in Mrs Bass’s house. She wasn’t pleased. This time I’d count off the houses and coal grates and to be sure I’d get the right one. I took a last look through the letterbox at the light and warmth. Mam was looking upwards chanting,
“He’s coming.”
Then she must have thought hang on, he’s taking a hell of along time coming. She turned to look at the front door. I quickly stood up and pushed my hand through waving frantically. Fortunately she had her specs on. I think she thought the night had gone and the Daily Mirror had arrived. She walked to the door and realised it was a hand. Bravely she opened the door and let me in. Before she could start berating me, I took her back to the kitchen door and carefully mouthed that it was stuck. I was going to bash it open.
She was alarmed she stood back and with out more ado I shouted,“Geronimo” and threw myself at the door. Meanwhile Dad had forgotten what the plan was. He had one of his deaf ears to the door (he’d seen hearing people do that) where upon the door burst open knocking him to the ground.
Mam ignoring Dad stepped over him to have a quick look round to see if it was all a complicated ruse to cover naughty activities. She saw nothing amiss. Not totally convinced she had a quick look in the cellar head pantry to see if I’d been at the tinned salmon. Every thing in order she turned her attention to Dad. Dad was stunned so I helped him to the armchair. He smiled weakly; his false teeth had stayed in. Why had he put his teeth in to come down stairs? Who the ummer did he think I had in the kitchen to smile at; or was he going to bite a burglar? Mam rubbed margarine on Dad’s bump. We all had a cup of tea and went to bed. Fortunately, none of the noise woke Doreen she slept through it all. I still wasn’t given a key to the door, in fact I never got one. I left home before I was twenty-one.

I was reminded much later of the door incident when I saw a sign on a door that said:

‘Beware people on the other side.’

Mam and Dad died within a week of each other, Dad on the 18th of July 1990 and Mam on the 22nd He was 74 and Mam was 68. Dad left lots of Readers Digest books. I suspect he only bought them for a chance to win the prize. One of them is ‘The Right Word at the Right Time. A guide to the English language and how to use it.’

When I visit their grave, I particularly remember Mam, because I walk past the grave of five year old Rob Roy who died March ~ 1899. On his grave stands a white marble cherub with one hand raised. Mam always told us that the cherub used to hold a silver sixpence in its fingers, the very sixpence that had killed the little lad after he swallowed it. Of course the sixpence had been pinched long ago and the fingers were empty.

This story had useful lessons. One, not to put a foreign object in your mouth because the germs might get you or two, you could swallow it and die. This was particularly aimed at Doreen because at home, nestling in Mam’s Gladstone medicine bag, was a steel ball bearing which she’d swallowed. Mam would on occasions take it out and show it to us whilst telling us how, in a panic, she had fed Doreen on milk and cotton wool till, eventually, with a dull clink, Doreen parted company with it into Granny’s best potty and lived. No marble cherub holding a ball bearing for our Doreen. The third lesson was, of course, not to leave your money lying around, even in graveyards because it was sure to get pinched. When I visited with my children, the cherub’s fingers had been broken off like a chip shop man’s.

I returned recently to find the complete hand had been broken off. Is someone maybe stealing it a bit at a time and rebuilding it at home? Lets hope there’s some of it left so my kids can recount Mam’s tale to their children or maybe, because it’s hard to swallow a credit card, they’ll have to change it to a cautionary nail-biting story.

TH’END

END OF WILF LUNN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (UP TO THE AGE OF ELEVEN)

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