Welcome To My World

A Butcher Boy To Be
To move on. I was to leave school at fourteen and went to work at
Zieglers on Newton Hill where P and D Autos is now situated, [yes the
same Mr Ziegler who
had been responsible for our impromptu move from Barnsley]. I was a
Pork Butcher's apprentice, but, I first worked in the bakery making
buns, tarts, pies and
bread etc. We developed a way to give hard, stale bread a new lease of
life. We soaked it for four hours in a pansion (a big bowl) of water
and then put it back in
the oven. It came out as fresh as ever - great! We killed pigs, made
sausages, brawn potted meat, haslet, penny duck etc. Lovely grub! We
would cure our own
bacon in those days, down in the cellars beneath the shop. Yes Bacon
that was properly cured, unlike the bloody rubbish sold in supermarkets
today where it is cut
as thin as tissue paper and full of water. It didn't need a fridge for
keeping in, either. Proper, cured bacon will keep for months. Well, I
suppose supermarkets and
today's modern housewives deserve each other, because, a young woman of
today would not recognise a decent piece of meat even if it was to talk
to her. She just
doesn't have a clue what cuts to ask for. She is quite happy (like
those up -market chefs) as long as it is lean and looks nice. It just
don't matter what it tastes like.
There used to be an old saying that our Grandmothers, in their wisdom,
would utter from time to time: The nearer the bone, the sweeter the
meat and you need the
fat from the meat to cook it in (and they were right too). But today
the fat is trimmed from the meat, to be used by fish fryers, to give
there fish and chips a decent
taste. The best cuts come from the loins. (of men, too). Crop of beef
is the best cut - it is near the bone and has its share of fat. Loins
of pork and lamb come next,
hence yer chops. Ah well.
There is nothing wasted on a pig, they even fitted its squeal onto
Ford truck brakes. All the best butchers in Wakefield were Germans such
as Zieglers,
Hoffman and Oesterlein. They all came over between the wars. After
about a year at Zieglers, I was to move to Kilburns which is now the
newsagents next to Argos
at the top of Queen Street in Wakefield. They also had a shop at the
bottom of upper Kirkgate on the right, just on the corner. The making
up department, or food
processing plant, as it would be called today, was down Queen Street,
at the back of the shop.There used to be toilets opposite, on the other
side of the road,
where Argos is now situated. Those toilets were for us men to use. The
ladies had their toilets, upstairs, above the shop. Well, they just
would, wouldn't they?
There were coal cellars under the road in those days. I should know, I
used to go down there for coal every time I saw a cracking bit of stuff
waiting for a bus in a
queue down on Queen Street. Oh, what a view I had through that coal
grate! Much, much better than anything the butler saw and it was all
for free! Which reminds
me, the two shop girls we worked with, Hilda and Mona, were much older
than me. We would boil pig bag and chitlings and put them in a large
container of water
for Hilda and Mona to collect and sell in the shop. They always came in
at 2pm and I always put the container at the top of the cellar steps. I
was never there of
course, I was always busy down the cellar - especially when they were
bending over to retrieve the pig bag and chitlings. Yes, I was growing
up!
We had some great times at Kilburns. Jack Talbot, the best Pork
Butcher in Wakefield, was my gaffer. Jack was as deaf as a bloody post,
I knew that all
right, but, I didn't know he could lip read. That was until I felt his
clog on my arse.
Frank Hepworth (Heppy a local celebrity and entertainer) was my best
mate. Frank had just come out of the Navy, where he had been employed
as a ships
radio operator. Well, that's what he told everybody. I, personally,
think he was the ships cabin boy, yer know, a proper little nancy boy
like. Those little cabin boys,
whilst at sea, were employed to sleep with the Captain and all his
mates, so I suppose, Frank, in his own small way, did his own little
bit for the war effort. But that
is all he bloody did. For whilst our gallant sailors were risking life
and limb, braving those Atlantic storms and dodging those German U
boats, bringing all those
urgent war materials and foodstuffs from America to Britain, where was
our hero, the redoubtable Frank? Well, he was in bed with his Captain,
sailing somewhere
off the coast of Bermuda in a bloody Cruise Liner, on their way to
collect that nice Duke of Windsor and his Mrs Simpson to take them on a
cruise around the
Islands. He, very nearly, got mentioned in dispatches too, for the part
that he nearly played in winning the war because, that nice Duke of
Windsor rather fancied him
and If it hadn't been for Mrs Simpson nearly catching them at it, well,
who knows where it may have led. Perhaps, he could have been a Lord
Hepworth of
Wakefield, or even The High Sheriff of Yorkshire. But, it just wasn't
to be. Still, we all love him as he is - just plain and simple,
loveable old Heppy. God Bless him,
the prat.
Now, Frank's dear elder sister, Audrey, had just married Frank Kilburn
junior and I actually think she married him, just to make sure that
their Frank could
get a job, because, to my mind, there was just no other way that, lazy,
idle little git could have got a job, anywhere at that time in his
life, there was just no way. In
those days, Rent-a-boys, were unemployable. No-one could afford them.
However, later in life, Frank did manage to graduate into more
worthwhile work. First, as
a professional gigolo, par excellence and then as a local entertainer -
a stripper. A hawker of kiss-a-grams, no less.
Later in life, he was to become a famous entertainer - one of the
original, redoubtable Kalahari Bushmen of Wakefield. Why they chose
that bloody name,
Christ only knows because the real, proper Kalahari Bushmen live in
hiding in a remote part of Africa and are very small insignificant,
little people. Well, that about
sums up the Wakefield lot, I reckon. Maybe they should have done us all
a favour and settled in Africa with their erstwhile adopted relatives.
The prats. After
retiring, Frank did manage to get a little, worthwhile, part-time job,
delivering flowers for their dear Audrey, but that is another story. I
think he probably made a
better job of that, than he ever did at singing. Oh the sacrifices that
woman made for her brother were just unbelievable.
It was around 1946, that Frank was given a job at Kilburns and he,
naturally, copped for a bloody soft job, didn't he? He drove the meat
delivery van, an
old pre-war Daimler car with a pre-selector box that had been converted
into a van. Just as a matter of interest, Frank's van driving days
didn't last too long because
shortly after she got Frank a job, Audrey left Frank Kilburn and she
ups-and-marries George Malcolm (the florist) and as a result our hero
Heppy, finished up selling
bacon butties, from a little shop at the bottom of Warrengate in
Wakefield for a living. Funnily enough, now that he has retired from
business, Frank does
occasionally deliver flowers for their Audrey and George Malcolm from
their florists (right next door to that little shop where Frank first
started in business). So, their
lass is bailing him out again, after all these years. I think he rather
liked driving vans, the lazy git, but that's another story.
There was an old family tradition at Kilburns: you always got your
breakfast and dinner for free, but, by God, you worked hard for your
grub and the twenty
five bob a week you were paid. Mind you, I got a bonus once a year at
Christmas. I would walk to work on a Sunday, work all day plucking
poultry, and at the end
of it all, I would be given two shillings and sixpence for my trouble -
wonderful! I must have been barmy, or perhaps I just couldn't resist
those breakfasts. Oh, those
breakfasts! We had an old codger, called Percy, who used to cook
breakfasts and dinners for us upstairs. Every morning, Jack my gaffer,
used to send me upstairs
with a great dollop of sausages and bacon and these were, without a
doubt, the best bloody sausages in Wakefield. Why? Because, the best
sausage is not ready for
eating until it is just on the turn (just going off). When it becomes
sticky, it is ripe for eating and our sausages were kept until they
were ripe. Ours were made from
special, secret ingredients, handed down through the generations and,
just like only a proper sausage can, they could, and did, burst in the
frying pan. I know I
shouldn't be harping on about something has mundane as a mere sausage,
but boy, what sausages they were. Those superbly succulent, sensuous,
sexy sausages,
sizzling together in throbbing, hot fat, just dying to burst out of
their skins and onto ones plate and when they did it was like an erotic
symphony of pure magic. A
sight to behold, a moment to remember. Those sensational sausages,
singing and dancing in that sea of steaming hot fat. Yes what a moment,
truly a moment to
savour a crescendo of sound and music, a rhapsody, to hear and to
cherish, an unforgettable experience. Yes indeed a true gourmet's
delight. I will never, ever
forget those bloody brilliant, wonderful sausages that Jack made. Old
Percy, the cook, used to, always, save some potatoes from the previous
days lunch which he
would fry with the sausage and bacon. We had fresh bread and tomato
sauce, cooked in our own kitchen upstairs. It used to be an old
tradition, in those days, that
all pork butchers shops, would provide there staff with dinner and
breakfast. Well what more could a man want? We had meals fit for a
king. The only problem was
of course, that having fed us our employers, didn't feel the need to
pay us a wage as well!
At sixteen, I was as fit as a buck lop and as strong as a horse. I used
to carry hinds of frozen beef (hard as a rock, weighing well over 200
pounds) and ten stone
bags of rusks upstairs and one hundredweight bags of salt, one under
each arm into the cellar. Boy, were we fit! Jack could lift himself up
with one arm on an hook,
he could pull his whole body off the floor and raise his chin above the
hook with only one hand. This was all down to our wonderful
sausages.
We wore clogs at work, they kept your feet warm, and on some feet they
became lethal weapons. Jack was a master with his footwork. Anybody
who
hasn't been kicked in the arse by a sixteen stone man wearing size ten
clogs simply hasn't lived. It is, most definitely, an unforgettable
experience. He was quite a
character, our Jack. He had fiddles going everywhere. Every week I
would take parcels of meat out to his barber and his bookie and . He
didn't pay for ow't, but he
was a great guy. I will never forget those days.
He came to see me as an old man when I was in business at Flanshaw,
some forty years later, and he came back to my home, later, with a
parcel of guess what?
Yes, his special, wonderful glorious sausages! They were wonderful days
to grow up in. It was hard work, but very satisfying and I shall never
forget Kilburns and
the great people I worked with. We would play cards at lunch times,
with the shop girls and the bakery staff,. Us fellah's would have
rather preferred to have played,
at cheekies with the girls, but they just wouldn't let us. I do
remember one girl Mona Sandy was her name and she for some reason,
always seemed to win at cards
[probably because she cheated.
Pontoon
When Mona played cards, she always called the tune.
Never was she known, to ever lose at pontoon
Mona would always get twenty and often twenty one.
So I decided to never play cards, with a daughter, I would only play
with a son

To continue, Frank Kilburn was, also, a great guy and he was also a
very, very imaginative businessman who had some brilliant ideas for
producing unusual,
made-up concoctions. We would make brawn and then ladle it into
pansions (very large bowls), but this wasn't good enough for Frank. He
went out and bought
some metal, jelly moulds into which half of the brawn would be placed
and sold for twice as much as normal. We used to roll brisket and put
it into brine (salt and
water) for three days and then boil it and press it. He would then sell
it, like hot cakes, in the shops by the quarter. He would also make all
sorts of blancmanges and
creams etc. In fact, anything that would increase his already massive
profitability. He once went out and bought a bloody canning machine
with which we would fill
the empty cans with sausage meat. We would then put water in the top,
put the lid on and squeeze out the air and water as the top was sealed.
These cans of
sausage meat would then be placed in the boiler and, once they were
cooked, Frank would empty the can and sell the sausage meat in the shop
by the quarter. He
called it chicken and ham roll. Not bad, eh?
We used barley kernels as the binder for our pie meat, they shared
wooden bins upstairs with cockroaches and God knows whatever the other
insects were
called. The rats had a beano and all those obscure ingredients along
with their droppings which must have been all that was required to give
our pies that very special
flavour. It was probably these little, special extras that made them
simply the best pies in Wakefield. Ah well, so much for modern hygiene
improvements, indeed
what a blessing they are. Truly, you cannot buy a decent, bloody pie
today and there have been many deaths from salmonella, an infection we
had never even heard
of when I was a lad. Perhaps we should bring some of those cockroaches
and rat droppings back to help us develop healthier eating habits!
Perhaps we should,
should we not. Surely we should, shouldn't we just.
Talking about rat droppings, it reminds me of a rather simple
individual called Albert (he was a bit daft). I think Sharp was his
second name and he lived in
Outwood Park with his brothers and sisters. One brother was called
Edgar who was to become a neighbour and good friend of mine. Anyway,
Albert used to stand
outside Lindley's bike shop in Outwood with his gob (mouth) open and,
one time, one of my mates picked up a dog turd and stuffed it into his
gob. Albert spluttered
and, trying not to swallow, said "I shall od it here till the bobby
comes" Of course, my mate panicked, patted Albert on the back and he
swallowed it. I bet that was
the best meal, he had eaten in a long time.
While at Kilburns, one of the lads in the bake house used to come to
work on a motor bike and he used to park it outside the toilet. Now, I
had been dying
to have a go on this motorbike for weeks, not withstanding the fact
that I had never ever been on one before. I didn't know how to do it
without the owner hearing
me start it up, but then like a bolt out of the blue, I had a brilliant
idea. I would jump on it and ride down Queen Street without the engine
running and, once I got to
George Street at the bottom, I would put the bike into gear, let out
the clutch, start the engine and away I'd go.
However, things didn't quite turn out like that. The bloody thing just
wouldn't start! and I carried on past George Street onto Ings Road and
the bloody thing still
wouldn't start! I stopped and tried to kick-start the bike but all to
no avail. I pushed it all the way back onto Ings Road, up Kirkgate,
onto Westgate and back down
Queen Street Lo and behold, who should be stood there waiting for me
with hands on hips and looking quite aggressive (quite nasty in fact)?
The baker and Jack,
my boss. There they stood like two avenging angels. The first to strike
was the baker who cracked me around the ear hole calling me a silly
bastard. Then he told me
that if I ever wanted to borrow his motorbike, I should first ask him
for the key, because the poxy thing just wouldn't start without a key
(it was fitted with coil
ignition!). Boy, was I knackered. I had pushed that bleeding bike about
two miles but it hadn't ended yet. Oh no. Now it was Jack's turn. He
booted me up the arse
and called me a silly, little prat.
Well, I suppose he was somewhat justified (but I wish he had taken his
bloody clogs off first!) because it was, after all, 3pm and I was only
allowed one hour for
dinner, if I was lucky. But what a way to learn to ride a bloody motor
bike!

The Teenage Years
Around this time, my old mate Frank Hepworth was going around with a
beautiful, ravishing blonde called Pat. A real cracker, in fact.
Unfortunately for Frank, Pat
was the daughter of Nash Shakespeare, who, unlike his namesake, William
(of 'A Midsummer Night's fame and 'To be or not To be'), was trying to
make sure
that it was certainly not going to be. Well, not with his darling
daughter anyway.
Now, Nash was a redoubtable character around town in those days. He was
quite a villain and a bloody hard-case to boot and there was just no
way he was going
to allow Frank to violate his lovely daughter. So, Nash decided he
would kill Frank instead. Well, this was developing into a bloody
pantomime and becoming far
more exciting than anything that Nash's namesake had ever written.
Frank dared not go out of the house for three month's since Nash would
have killed him. So,
Frank decided he would give up the chase, by chase I mean Nash chasing
Frank, not Frank chasing Nash"s lovely daughter, ah well| Instead,
Frank decides to retire
to his bed, perchance to dream (wet ones preferred and as many as
possible).
In the end, Frank was not prepared to die for it and decided to do a
far better thing than he had ever done before. So he comes out of
hiding with a white flag
and he ups and surrenders, the bloody coward. But who could really
blame him.

We had some great times, together, in our youth, Frank and I, going on
pub crawls and going to night-clubs. I was only a kid of around sixteen
or seventeen years of
age and I hadn't a lot of money, but Frank always saw me right. In
fact, on reflection, he bloody well corrupted me. I was only a minor
and he was the elder brother.
I was sixteen and he was in his twenty's. I was nobbut [nothing but] a
baby. We had some right nights out in The Ram at the bottom of Queen
Street. I used to prop
myself up around the piano, with Frank and all the lads, singing When
the Saints Come Marching In before heading off to the Embassy Ballroom
down Market
Street. Then, after about ten pints of Tetleys Bitter Fred Astaire had
nothing on us lads. We were the bees knees. Well, at least we thought
we were (and that's all
that mattered!). It was so funny because between 8pm and 11pm, The
Embassy was deserted (apart from the girls), because us lads dared not
go near the bloody
place, let alone ask a girl to dance, without our few pints of Dutch
courage. But, after the pubs were turned out, well, that was a
different story all together. Away
we would dash to the dance and, on arrival, stand in the doorway and
shout, "Here we are. Come and get us girls!" and boy could we
dance.
If we couldn't, we just stood in the middle of the dance floor and
squeezed the lucky girl. More often than not, we usually got there just
in time for the last waltz and
just in time to walk the girl of our choice home afterwards, whoever
she may have been. Yes, we were proper little gentlemen in those days
and looked after our
charges. Unlike today, where the girls are bunged into a taxi after
he-of-ill repute has had his wicked way with her and sent home to her
Mum like a discarded
chocolate wrapper after he (that selfish bastard of a modern male) has
tasted and enjoyed the chocolate (the jammy git).

No, we were just not like today's modern youths, not at all. We were
just silly, daft prat's who couldn't afford taxi fares. We sometimes
had to walk the girlfriend's
home to there front gates, maybe three or four miles before proceeding
onto our own homes, which could perhaps even be, the same distance
again. For our
troubles, if we were lucky, we would maybe get, a peck on the cheek or,
if our hands happened to stray to the wrong parts of her of high
virtues anatomy, we would
get a smack in the gob for our pains instead!. Gee, but it was great
staying out late, walking your baby back home on a Saturday night. But
it wasn't so bloody great
at three 'o clock on a cold and frosty winters, chuffing, Sunday
morning, (having left her with her virginity intact and a little smug
smile on her face) having to hop
away with one leg stuck up in the air, making your own way home.

On that lonely road back home, one had plenty of time to exercise
one's thoughts and give vent to one's frustrations and pent up
emotions, by attempting to
kick one's self in the goolies or by taking one's revenge on an
unsuspecting, passing cat (preferably a female one) or someone's front
door. Yes, it was wonderful
(and, may I add, very satisfying) to know that one had behaved like a
proper little gentleman and that one was, after all, a decent chap who
had taken his Mum's
advice and had, once again, held out against those sins of the flesh.
It was also nice to know that one's virginity was still intact too.
But, at odd times and on deeper
reflection, I couldn't help myself thinking that chance would have been
a bloody fine thing and what a bloody idiot I had been. Anticipation is
greater than realisation
(as they say) and I was ever the proverbial frustrated optimist, with
an unfulfilled mission in life, flogging a dead horse in my unremitting
search, for the perfect deaf
and dumb, partly paralysed nymphomaniac. But I had to struggle on, mile
after unforgiving mile, before I realised she just didn't exist. I
searched. Oh how I
searched, but I was to search in vain. However, I was learning my
lessons in life and yes I was growing up.

Wakefield was indeed the merry city in those days. There were six
cinemas, four dance halls and dozens of pubs and every pub had music or
dancing and,
occasionally, both. Kirkgate and Upper Kirkgate, to the top of
Westgate, was the bunny run.
This was where boys and girls paraded up and down on a Saturday night
in there best bibs and tuckers, eyeing each other up and down and
sniffing each other out.
Yes we were all out there on display. The girls would probably be
saying, "Oh, I fancy him with that crew cut," or "What about him in
them there brothel creepers
(suede shoes)," or "Oh, he's dishy. Him with the squint eye (me)," I
should have been so bloody lucky. Of course, us young innocent boys
would be saying, in our
turn: "Whoa, I'd love to give her one. I wonder if she's got her
knickers in her handbag?" Oh, how we would dream. But it was rarely
fulfilled.
Well, that was unless, of course, one was lucky enough to fall asleep
and have an erotic dream, only to wake up with rice pudding for
breakfast. Ooh, aarh!

Those girls were like bloody Preying Mantis Spiders, whose only
ambition in life seemed to be to want to get some silly fellow to place
an engagement ring on their
finger. Then, given half a chance they would have eaten us alive,
whereas, us young innocents, us lads, with our now't but honourable
intentions had but one
objective: and that was to help the unsuspecting female, to lose her
virginity and as soon as possible. The girls probably had the same idea
but they had no chance
because their Ma's, the rotten sods, had fitted them all with Chastity
belts (or at least that's what we were told!) and then hung the keys
around their own necks, just
for safe keeping like.

In those days, just saying that you loved your girl friend, wasn't
quite enough to make her capitulate. You had to go the whole hog and
buy her a ring and promise to
marry her and all that rubbish. Then and only then, she-of-high-virtue,
might (I said only might) succumb to your blandishments. That is if she
could ever steal that
bloody key from around her Ma's kneck!. When we lads were to go a
courting, in those days. It was a real challenge, because we didn't,
just carry a condom, in our
back pockets, oh no. We had to carry a bloody tin opener, an electric
drill and a pair of bloody pliers, to gain access, into, or through,
those chastity belts. I must
repeat again, Wakefield was indeed the place to be, in the 1950s.
People travelled in from miles around just to be in our town, we had
music, dancing and waiter service in the pubs. Wonderful times to grow
up in.

Which reminds me of my first nearly proper date. It was one of the
shop girls at Kilburns. Hilda Ellis was her name and she was a real
cracker. At twenty six years
of age, she was in her prime. What I would have loved to do to Hilda
was nobody's business. Oh boy, did I lust after Hilda. Well, Jack my
boss must have known
this and he and Hilda set me up. Jack told me that she fancied me
something rotten and that she wanted to go out with me.
Oh my prayers had been answered at last, the lovely Hilda was to be
mine. So, a date was arranged: I would meet her in the Chantry Pub on
Wood Street in
Wakefield the following Saturday. I was enraptured. I couldn't sleep, I
couldn't think. Boy, what was I not going to do to the delightful
Hilda. I was ten feet tall.
However, I had one problem, I didn't have a decent bloody suit to wear.
So, I had to sneak a flashy maverick waistcoat and my Dad's best check
suit, out of his
wardrobe and away. I tripped like a little lamb to the slaughter, to do
battle with the redoubtable Hilda. I certainly felt like the renowned
Clark Gable. But at sixteen,
I was hardly prepared, equipped, or qualified to play the part , but at
the time I thought I was the bees and knees, especially in me Dad's
best suit. So debonair. So
elegant. I swept - no, not walked - swept into The Chantry like Bat
Marsterson at the OK Corral. Boy, was I going to sweep her of her feet.
I half expected her to
fall into my arms as I came through the door but Hilda hadn't arrived.
I sauntered to the bar, gazing up into the ceiling, and I asked for a
pint of bitter whilst I
nonchalantly rested my elbow on the bar, and looked down at my finger
nails in the best Humphrey Bogart style. However, before I could
complete the charade by
slowly turning to look around the bar, a voice at the back of me said,
"Now, you can just P*** off out of here you little prat and ask yer mam
to send you back if
and when she ever gets you out of those bloody nappies!" The pub
landlord had spoken. Oh, was I ashamed. Oh, were my illusions
shattered. Oh was my ego
deflated. You can just bet your beautiful bottoms they were. I had
floated in like a petal on the breeze, but I quickly ran out of there
like a proper little wilting violet.
The magnificent Hilda (the bastard) never did turn up. What a set up.
What a lesson to be learned - Never bite off more than you can chew. I
realise now, I was
lucky to be alive and I count my blessings. If she had have turned up
and meant business, she would have eaten me alive and blown me (and me
Dads best suit) out
in bubbles. Dread the thought.

HILDA

Hilda they called her, that was her name,
Inviting me out was her wicked game,
Like a lamb to the slaughter I was to go,
Darling dear Hilda, well she never did show,
Arrive she chose not to, she stayed home instead.

I'm glad she didn't do the business, for I might have been dead

I arrived for our date at the chosen hour,
But I soon came away, like a wilting little flower,
Now I am much older and more worldly wise,
I realise she was a man eater, a man eater in disguise.