Knights Without Armour

Our street ran roughly south to north. It was an assortment of
terraced, back-to-backs, and some slightly better houses. My family
lived in, what we regarded as, one of the slightly better ones, 149 (on
the left hand side, next to the allotment, and last before the 96
terminus which was situated under the L.M.S. railway bridge). We had
four bedrooms (including the attic), a separate kitchen and our own
outside lavatory.

The unusual thing about our street was it continued across the city
border - part in Birmingham, part in Smethwick. Not only was it a town
border, but as Birmingham was in Warwickshire and Smethwick in
Staffordshire, it was also a county boundary. We (I lived on the
Birmingham side) were citizens of a major modern city. They, the ones
on the other side, were the inhabitants of a small, grimy, industrial
town, on the borders of the Black Country, all but left behind in the
Industrial Revolution. We worked in modern factories conducting
precision engineering. They slaved in smoky old foundries making
rough-arsed castings. With such cultural differences, it was
unsurprising that the two communities could not live side-by-side in
peace.

Perhaps there should have been one, but there was no official border
crossing point. The only guide to the boundary was a lamppost
positioned in the middle of the pavement, somewhere between the Railway
Inn and The Royal Engineer. To the left of this landmark was Smethwick,
to the right - Birmingham.

The street terminated at Black Patch Park, where it swung sharp left
into Smethwick, where the name changed from Wellington Street to
Foundry Lane. This left part of the park, where the swings and
roundabouts were, in 'our territory' and the rest in 'theirs' - the
Merry Hill Wallahs. (Merry Hill being that area of Smethwick - Wallahs
probably coming from one of us, more educated Brummies, with a
knowledge of the Raj.)

To intimate that we were continuously at war with our Merry Hill
neighbours would be over-sensational. From what I can remember, I think
the adults rubbed along pretty well together. My father had drinking
companions from across the border. My mother had an office-cleaning job
at Avery's, which although advertising its address as Birmingham, was
actually in Smethwick, where she worked with many a Merry Hill
colleague. But, having been born on the other side of the border, I
suppose her choice of companions wasn't that much of a surprise.

No, it was us kids. We weren't prejudiced or biased in any way (we'd
never heard those words) we just hated one another. Strangely enough,
'they' shared our school and I can't recall any animosity in the
classrooms. I think they accepted being in the 'C' stream for
everything. It was the school holidays when the warring used to take
place. (Well, you've got to find something to fill in the long summer
days, and knocking seven bells out of somebody is as good a pass-time
as anything; it doesn't cost much either.)

The battle lines would inevitably be drawn in Black Patch Park. A
fenced off brook, carrying all sorts of unknown toxic effluent from
factories, separated 'our' patch from Wallah country. We would
infiltrate along the brook and invade from a bridge further down
stream. 'Ammo' as we called it (sticks, stones, bricks etc.) could
sometimes be hard to come by. That was until, for some reason, which is
still unknown to me, loads and loads of building rubble was dumped in
the backfield, deep in the heart of Wallah ground. They were quick to
exploit this by building bunkers and other defensive structure out of
the large pieces of masonry, which included broken up gravestones, and
keeping the smaller stuff for ammo. Well, this was a red rag to a bull.
Those structures had to be destroyed whatever the cost. Looking back,
I'm surprised the cost wasn't greater than it actually was. In fact,
such was the ferocity of the ensuing war, it's amazing that nobody was
killed.

Being completely unprepared and unorganised (I blame our generals), our
first onslaught was about as effective as the Charge of the Light
Brigade. We were easily repulsed by a heavy bombardment of stones and
half-duckers (broken house bricks) launched by the Wallahs heavy
artillery. Injuries were sustained and prisoners were taken. The latter
were later released in exchange for building material. The grossly
exaggerated stories the released captives had to tell were terrifying.
They included tales of numerous breaches of the Geneva Convention, such
as being tied hand and foot, being tortured with lighted candles, and
being forced to work as slaves to repair the few defences we had
managed to breach.

As far as our forces were concerned, this was it - no more skirmishes.
This was all-out war. From now on there would be no quarter given. We
needed to take time to organise and gather sufficient resources. The
cuts and scrapes sustained by some of our gallant soldiers told us we
needed protection from the superior artillery of the Wallahs. A
scouting party was sent out to collect dustbin lids from their own
homes to use as shields. One of our ordnance experts discovered that
with a bit of patience and brute force, the iron railings around the
brook could be loosened and removed, making them ideal for use as
spears and lances.

These new sophisticated; lethal armaments enabled us to equip
commando-raiding parties who carried out successful sorties to capture
materials and manpower for building our defences. The security offered
by these new fortifications served in attracting more willing recruits.
Although there was some initial opposition to them, my sisters enlisted
for front-line action. Neither of them were bad scrappers but, besides
this, their presence had the added advantage of attracting some of the
bigger kids into our ranks; those, who for some strange reason enjoyed
the company of girls. Unfortunately, they did also attract some
characters we could have well done without, like the prat who worried
about getting his white socks muddy in case his mother killed
him.

That was one advantage our enemy had - there were no wusses like that
in their ranks. Nor did they have any sissies who had to leave the
battlefield at mid-day because their mommies would have their lunches
on the table. (This was probably because there was nothing to eat in
most of the houses in Merry Hill.) No, the Wallahs would bring their
own provisions for the day, a stale jam sandwich and a bottle of water.
And brother, couldn't they fight on that? Just like the Japanese who
could give the yanks hell on just a bowl of rice a day.

With both sides evenly matched, as with most wars, the upper hand swung
between the two. Ground captured one day would be lost the next etc.
Then came the rains, which left Black Patch Park resembling the Somme.
I can remember both sides being bogged down in their bunkers, with no
action taking place for a whole day. Then things began to turn. The
elder of my two sisters began fraternising with a fusilier from the
other side. He managed to convince her that going to a matinee at the
Winson Green Picture Palace would be preferable to wanging half-duckers
at a bunch of gorks in the Black Patch Park. As she had a place at a
grammar school in the coming term, I thought she was fairly
intelligent, but she fell for his crap, hook, line and sinker.
Fortunately, the vast majority of the combatants were more committed to
the cause (whatever it was), enabling the war to carry on almost to the
end of the long summer's break.

I can still recall the final and decisive battle when the Merry Hill
Wallahs gave in to the humiliation of our superior forces and left the
field with their tails between their legs. In a textbook manoeuvre, we
managed to rout them from their rat holes and for once and for all,
totally destroy all their amenities, leaving them absolutely
defenceless. We celebrated their withdrawal by beating a tattoo on our
dustbin lid shields with our railing lances.

I can remember my sister and I returning home, elated, battle weary and
covered from head to foot in mud. Our mom would be leaving for her
cleaning job at 5 o'clock so, fearful of her wrath when she saw the
state of us, instead of going round to the back door, we sat on the
front step to await her departure. We knew that in her rush to work she
would not have the time to stop and clatter us.

No matter how careful you are an unknown quantity can always upset your
plans. In our case it was Mrs 'Nosey' Glew. She saw us at the front of
the house and immediately went round the back to informed on us. The
rest was more predictable: Mother went mad. We got scragged off the
step and clattered (well in time for her to get herself ready for
work). Then we were banned from the ground that we had fought so hard
to make 'ours'. For every bloody day that was left of that summer
break, to keep us clean and out of trouble, Mom insisted on dragging us
around the shops with her.

In retrospect, I suppose, I am fortunate to have lived to tell the
tale.