U Can Do It

CHAPTER 1. 

Once upon a Time. 

Have you ever heard of Staffordshire? If you have you may know that a little town known as Newcastle under Lyme rests in Staffordshire. It is a historic and pleasant town and is a Borough to boot. Poor Newcastle is always being confused with its namesake on Tyneside. The town is famous for it’s connection with John of Gaunt. Not far from the centre of the town are the ruins of part of the battlements of the castle. These ruins are adjacent to the Catholic Primary School, St Mary’s at which establishment I was taught. There are keen debates as to whether the town gets its name from the Lyme tree or the Lyme brook. The Swan Brewery has now gone so also have the coal mines, tile quarry and steel foundry. In more recent times the town became noteworthy because of the University of Keele. Keele University was founded, it was said, to replace the specialised University Education with a true catholic University Education. That is a rounded education taking in a number of subjects as opposed to total specialisation. Another of its qualities is its ancient market. This market takes place twice a week on the Stones and is famous for miles around. The presence of the market is due no doubt to one of the Royal Charters. The first Charter was granted by King Henry 2nd in 1173. The second Charter was granted in the time of Queen Elizabeth the First in 1590.

One of the major problems for the town, so it’s said by the locals, is that Newcastle is situated a mere two miles from Stoke on Trent. The Potteries! No real Newcastle Black will ever admit that Newcastle relies on or needs the Potteries. Needless to say this is not quite true because many people live in Newcastle and commute to work in the Potteries.

It was in Newcastle on the 27th November 1937 that I was born. Like most of life my birth or at least the place of my birth was an accident. However this statement really begs the question. So it needs a short digression. A little trip along the back roads and then back to the main road.

Me at 6 months old

My father was named Frederick the same as me. The reason for this was the old tradition, that the eldest son should carry on the paternal Christian name. Why? Why indeed when my father was the eldest and his father was named Tom? Still that’s the way it goes. I never met Grandfather Tom. He was a carpenter. In Newcastle there is a dying breed of men they are called Burgesses not the surname Burgess but the Borough men. Only a man can be a Burgess of the Town. In days of yore to become a Burgess it was necessary to have been born in Newcastle. Then it was necessary to have served an indentured apprenticeship with a tradesman in the Borough. It was also possible to become a Burgess by birth. The advantages of being a Burgess are that certain lands, Common lands, had been given to the loyal of the town following the War of the Roses. The income from this land was then shared out between the Burgesses once a year. If a Burgess no longer lived in the town he could still collect his Burgess money if he slept in Newcastle on the night before the dividend was paid out.

Grandfather Tom was always reputed to be a Burgess having we believe been born in Newcastle and served his apprenticeship in the Borough. At some time in his life my father’s family lived for a time out of the Borough. Naughty Grandfather Tom did not go back to Newcastle to collect his Burgess money nor did he spend the statutory night in Newcastle. As a result his right to be a Burgess lapsed as also did my fathers right and as night followed day so did my right. In those days the 1920’s the Burgess money was very small. A few pounds a year. Nowadays with falling numbers and inflation the money is well worth having. It was one of mother’s bitter complaints that this right and this honour had been allowed to lapse and therefore lost to the family forever.

My father and his brother Jesse and sisters Elizabeth and Ruth lived in Newcastle. And that is what I mean about my birth in Newcastle being an accident. They could have lived anywhere. Would I have been born at all could then be the question? My mother was not from Newcastle but from Tunstall one of the six towns known as the Potteries. Another fallacy is the Arnold Bennett creation that the Five Towns constitute the Potteries. There are and always have been six. It is said that the reason he only acknowledged five towns was because one of them was unkind to him in his early career as an author and refused to recognise him. That town is Fenton.

My mother’s maiden name was Coupe. In my younger days I was convincingly told that Coupe was a French name and the family had come over from France at the time of the Norman Conquest. Why is it that we all seek romanticism in our lives? It is similar to the claim to be of Royal lineage. We wish rather than we know. Anyway, the issue was eventually solved by Aunt Celia. She had married Uncle Bill after his first wife died. She had in her first marriage also been married to a Coupe. When she married Uncle Bill she did not have to change her name. Anyway she was very keen to create the family tree. She did a marvellous job tracing the family tree back to 1722.

During the course of her investigations Aunty Celia discovered that the Coupe name was not derived from the French but was more likely a derivative of Cowper. Ah the dreams that life is made of. But all was not lost. It was established that one of the family descendants was Scottish. The way this fact was treated was in some ways, with more excitement than the French connection. Lots of the women in the family were away to buy the kilt. It was suddenly appropriate to give a tartan tie for a present at Christmas. The Scottish family from which we were all descended was the Gunn clan. I am not sure that further investigation is a good idea. It may be that our Gunn ancestors were bandits or maybe something worse. I have managed to obtain a brief summary of the major Scottish Clans. In that booklet it is stated that the Gunn Clan is derived from a gang of tinkers and vagabonds??!!

My father was a joiner by trade and a cyclist by pastime. My mother was a member of a family of 11 children. She was number nine. There were two younger than she Mark and Marguerita (known as Rita). It was said that it was my mother’s responsibility to see that the two younger ones got to school on time etc. I can remember Grandma Coupe very well. She was a brilliant pianist. In her time she had worked in the cinema playing for the silent films. I can well remember listening to her with admiration when she played the piano on my visits to my Grandparents in the holidays. She also had a fur coat and I remember the lovely feel of the fur.

Grandfather Coupe was a bit of a lad. He liked his pint. He was an indentured plumber and for some reason in about 1910 he lost his job and was out of work. At that time the family was fairly small, there were only four or five children at that time. Their home was at Orrell near Preston in Lancashire. Somehow Grandad Coupe heard of a job being offered at Lord Stafford’s Estate in Swynnerton. As a result he walked from Preston to Swynnerton a distance of about 80 miles and literally knocked at the door of Swynnerton Hall and asked for the job. He got it and the family moved into a little thatched cottage on the outskirts of the village. My mother was born there in 1913. The cottage still exists and is still in its thatched state. In the middle of the village is an old forge. Another family fable was that it was that particular forge which inspired the poet Longfellow to write the poem The Smithy. You know the verse Under the spreading chestnut tree..etc. Subsequent research showed that the poem was written in America well before the poet visited England in the 1860’s.

When my mother left school she went to work for her elder brother Roger who had a number of cycle shops in the Potteries. No doubt it was while working in the cycle shop that she met my father. Whatever the cause they got married in 1934.

During the earlier years of their marriage my father worked as a chippie, a joiner. It always amazed me that although my father was a craftsman, when it came to simple and delicate repairs he was hopeless. On one occasion my youngest brother Stephen had a guitar. It broke. The piece that held the strings to the belly of the guitar came adrift. My father re-fixed it with a screw that was far too big for the job and looked totally incongruous. A short time after their wedding my parents moved to 52 Liverpool Road in Newcastle. It was a shop. My father at this time and even until he was into his forties was a very good racing cyclist. The peak of his success was to go to Holland for the 1932 World Championships as a reserve for the England Road Race Team. There were always numerous trophies all over the house. In old age he became very proud of them. But I’ll come to that a little later. My eldest sister was born on 18th April 1936 she was christened Christina. I followed some 19 months later on 27th. November 1937.

It seems I was hurried into this world rather than being left to come in my own sweet time. (Or whatever it might have been). The story goes that when I was about 7 months old and in utero my mother went to see a play at the local theatre. Well it wasn’t a theatre in the proper sense. It was the Municipal Hall. This was demolished in the name of progress in the 50’s. The demolition was regretted thereafter. Why? Because thereafter there were no places where the local social events could be held. As a result there was nowhere for the local Amateur Dramatic Plays to take place or for the Catholics to have their Paddy’s night Dance or any other function for that matter.

Mum and Dad on their wedding day

Anyway, to get back to the story. My mother at 7 months pregnant went to this play at the Municipal Hall. During the play one of the actors got shot. At that point in the play my mother told me that she jumped out of her skin and as a result her labour was induced. A short time later I was born some 2 months premature and still in the sac which I am told was complete and which I am also told is very lucky. My birth took place in the local Maternity Hospital at Bradwell. It was named The Fanny Deakin Hospital. Long since gone as a maternity hospital but now rebuilt as a geriatric hospital. From one extreme to the other. Talking of luck I reckon that I have been very lucky in my life. But more of that later, save to ask, how much is luck and how much luck do you make for yourself?

Paul my next brother was born 30th. April 1942. Stephen, my youngest brother, followed Paul. He was born on Christmas Day

1948.

Until I was nine or so we all lived above the shop. Well above and behind. Liverpool Road was the main A34 Southampton to Manchester Road. I can still remember steamers or steam engines complete with Trailer making their way past on the road. The road outside the shop ran slightly downhill into the town. There was no such thing as a ring road or bypass in those days. Therefore all the traffic went through the town centre. About 200 yards from our shop there was a set of traffic lights. It was the case that the lorries would be slowing down, for the traffic lights which were in fact out of sight round a slight bend, as they passed the shop. The brakes squealed the engines revved and the gears crashed. The noise was awesome and went on all through the day and night. And of course the lights of the lorries peeped and flashed through the curtains of my bedroom at the front. At least we kids never needed a torch to read in bed.

The shop front sat directly on the Liverpool Road and only a small pavement separated it from the traffic. Because of Father’s connection with cycling and Mother’s experience working for Roger, the shop was opened as a Cycle Shop under the name Freddie T. Brown. The shop was not very big. Also downstairs were a dining room and a kitchen. Upstairs were three bedrooms. The only toilet was outside, up the yard. We eventually had a bathroom installed in the back bedroom after it had been split into two rooms. Even so I cannot remember the tin bath though I know we had one. Perhaps I never needed a bath!? To my sister it was a good trick, to me it was a painful and a scaring bore. I refer to the dirty trick she often played on me. Before going to bed it was of course necessary to go to the toilet. My eldest sister was highly amused when she hid in the back yard as I returned from the toilet in the pitch darkness. The embarrassing results of her leap out upon me was only saved by the fact that, I had no longer any fluid in me with which to wet myself. For an imaginative youngster going to the toilet in the dark was quite frightening without having your sister jump on you as you came round the corner. In the winter great lengths were necessary to make sure the toilet did not freeze up in the night. Both Paul and Stephen were born while we lived in Liverpool Road.

The immediate area around the shop was fantastic. It was like a little self contained village. Within a very short space were all the necessities of life. Next door to us was Lovatt’s fish and chip shop. Next to that was a newsagent. Then came a cobblers shop and the owner was at one time accused of molesting small boys. Whether this was true or merely rumour I was never to find out. The next shop was a butcher owned by Mr. Lindop. On the top corner was a grocers. This grocer was a real traditionalist. It was owned by a Mr. Bishop. He invariably wore a bowler hat on his head and a large white overall that stretched to the floor. Peeping from underneath his overall were highly polished shoes. With his waxed moustache he certainly looked the part. Up from this grocery shop and across a little side street was a painter and decorator. Going towards town from our shop there were three or four houses and on the corner a sweet shop and tobacconist. Across the side street was another grocers then a couple of houses and then a bakery. The bakery was run by two brothers and their sister. It was situated behind their little shop. Inside, the bake house was like a furnace when the ovens were in use and that was every day. Baking commenced very early in the morning so that fresh bread was available for breakfast. The long spatula oven sticks were everywhere and it was quite an education to see the baker kneading the dough and working the cake mixes. As I recall this bakery did not make brown bread. The brown bread was delivered by Mr. Emery on his carrier bike. The loaves were hygienically covered in the wicker basket on the cycle with a ragged piece of sacking?! Across the main road was a funeral undertaker, a blacksmith, a dress shop and a builder’s yard. About 50yds away and up Croft Street was the Register Office and 20yds up the same street a barber’s shop and a little way to the left was an off licence. Thus within a radius of 50yds practically everything needed to take you from the crib to the grave was obtainable.

Our milk was delivered daily in a horse and trap. The dairyman would fill our jugs using a metal mug attached to a long handle in order that it could reach to the bottom of the churn that stood some three feet high. Thoughts of hygiene were far from our minds. The dairyman was not wearing rubber gloves. He regularly dealt with the horse on his rounds and his hands were regularly dipped into the

churn. Hopefully his hands missed the milk!

The town centre was no more than 200yds from the shop. And yet when I was small I would not dream of going into town. The immediate area was our playground. We had our own little gangs not necessarily to fight with other gangs, though that did, but rarely, happen. Make believe games were played. The best story teller was John Brindley. He had elder twin brothers. I can remember well the fact that they won Scholarships to the High School. In our house at the time it was quite an event and something to aim for.

In lots of ways life was good. We never had much money. When times were bad my father would go out of the shop and get work as a joiner. My mother would then take over the shop. Dad would do the repairs when he got back from work. There was no T.V. We did have a wireless and I can recall sitting in the dining room while one of my parents tuned the crystal radio to get Children’s Hour. As I got older I was allowed to listen to Dick Barton Special Agent. And, when a little older still, to listen to the Man in Black, who told stories of horror in a deep voice. The storyteller was Valentine Dyall. Heating was non-existent in the bedrooms unless you were ill then you could have a coal fire. Going to bed in the winter was achieved usually with great speed.

Every Sunday we as a family would go off cycling. At first we would be carried in a sidecar attached to Father’s bike then to a Kiddie Carrier fixed behind his saddle. The next step was onto the back of a tandem. We invariably went on our rides with a cycling club. Every week on Fridays in the local newspaper the Sentinel each of the local Cycling Clubs, and there were three, would publish their destination for the Sunday ride. The place and time to meet was stated. Invariably in any club there were the younger quick riders and the family groups. So sometimes the quick ones would race ahead while the family group followed more leisurely. We were Catholics and as my father and mother were two of the founder members of the local branch of the St. Christopher’s Catholic Cycling Club we went with them. The rides were usually of about 20 to 50 miles ending up at a cyclist tea rooms where our sandwiches were eaten and a pot of tea drunk. One day we stopped for refreshment at a tea room on the way to Chester. We were served by the mother of the house. It was a beautiful thatched cottage. We settled down at the table to enjoy our food when Willy the younger son of the establishment came in carrying a box.

They are his latest pets, his mother proudly announced. Willy with great pride and affection took the top off the box to reveal half a dozen large black slugs. With even more pride and affection Willy then proceeded to take them out of the box for us to hold them. He did not get a lot of co-operation. Whenever I now pass this cottage I always think of Willy and his slugs. It is impossible to explain how enjoyable the weekly cycle ride was. There was companionship, exercise and fresh air. We had great fun and saw many parts of the countryside.

In my early years the Second World War played a great part. I do not remember my uncles going to war but I do remember them coming back. Uncle Mark and Aunty Margaret lived in a house in Newcastle in a street off Liverpool Road. Uncle Mark was captured by the Italians and spent some years in a Prisoner of War camp in Italy. I can recall the day he came home. It was unbelievably laid back. He walked from the railway station on his own and popped in the shop to say hello as he made his way home. Things like this had to happen in this way because communications then were nothing like they are today or how they will be in years to come. He had little time for the Italians after his experiences.

Everyone was involved in the war effort. My father was called up but rejected on health grounds. He had severe varicose veins. It was considered that his legs would not stand up to the marching that had to be done. He was very upset that he could not serve in the Army. He served in the Auxiliary Fire Service instead. He was also called up by the Ministry of Defence and worked as a foreman on an Airfield Building programme. In his usual way he cycled everywhere, to and from his work places, all over the country returning home when on leave or on some weekends. In the meantime my mother ran the shop. One weekend dad had been working for the MOD at a site in Worcestershire. On his way home he had come upon a crashed lorry. He salvaged some of the goods from the load of sugar. Dad arrived home with a saddlebag full of sugar. The sugar ration was for a little while supplemented by this free issue.

During the war the schools would regularly carry out collection exercises for the war effort. One of these was to collect as much waste paper as possible for recycling. With the approval of my parents I searched the shop and cellar seeking waste paper. My dad was the sort of person who did not throw anything away.

It might come in useful, was one of his favourite sayings.

Hence, I was able to accumulate a mass of old cycle catalogues. I took them to school and since I accumulated more than any of the other school children I won a prize. It was a parachute. It was not a large parachute, probably one used to drop supplies as opposed to a personnel parachute. Thinking about it and bearing in mind the year, the parachute that I won was probably a reject?! I was very pleased and took it home. I decided I would see if it would work and planned to climb out of my parent’s bedroom window. This window overlooked the back yard. From this window it was just possible to get on the roof from which I planned to launch myself. It was most fortuitous that the window was too small for me to get out of. At least that fact prevented me from having the need to test my courage. I am basically scared to death of heights so my memory of this incident is probably more in the imagination than in fact. A surprising element of our backyard was a large lilac tree and in the spring the blossom was a joy to see.

Play in those days was self made. No computer games or T.V. Our favourite game was to go out on the backs. This was an open space where some houses and a slaughterhouse had been demolished. I was quite young when the slaughterhouse finished. This slaughter house had been part of the butchers shop and before its demolition I can remember the odd animal escaping and running amok in the immediate area. In our games there would be one storyteller. It was he who would designate the parts to be played by the others. There would be the goodies and the baddies. You would then play the game whatever it might be. The roads, the pavements, the alleys, the doorways all would be the props. Dressing up was allowed if there was anything available to dress up in. In fact the possession of a toy gun or a piece of wood or whatever was an excellent reason to be able to choose your own part in the story, subject of course to the overriding control of the storyteller. Another source of pleasure was to build miniature houses from the hundreds of shattered roof tiles that lay around. A type of Lego! Many happy hours were whiled away in these pastimes. Another source of entertainment was to go to the Iccky Pickey. The Lord knows why it was called by this name. It was a small playing field with a few swings and a climbing frame. It was much too far away to go to when I was very small but O.K. when I was older. Intense football competitions took place there usually between our own gang but sometimes and with great danger against a foreign team. Whoever owned the football was in the position to have first pick when the teams were selected from the pool of players who were available. The goalposts were coats on the floor. It was not unusual for the goalkeeper while the play was up the other end of the pitch to narrow the goals slightly. This was alright and you could get away with it provided you weren’t too greedy and made the narrowing too obvious. There were many arguments about whether or not a goal had been scored. It went over the bar or It hit the post. There was no problem in those days for offside, that particular rule had not then been invented. The offside rule came about, I believe, because Bert Trautmann, a goalkeeper for Manchester City or United, suffered a broken neck in a Cup Final when an attacking player charged into him. The theory was that the offside rule would protect the goal keeper. What it has done is stultify the game of football and concentrate the play within the 15 to 20 yards around the centreline.

The decisions and arguments in our game were much more fundamental and caused for many difficult decisions. Numerous vigorous arguments took place to resolve these knotty problems. Then and in other similar disagreements the family became involved.

I’ve got a big brother or

My dad is bigger than your dad was often a good enough reason to allow the other’s point of view. Funnily enough this was so even though you knew he didn’t have a brother or he only had a little dad. Alongside the field was a scrap

yard and the railway line to Silverdale and eventually Shrewsbury. The scrap yard made good pickings for this and that.

It was amazing how news would travel amongst the childish community. One afternoon a story came around of the fact that there was a witch living nearby. The rumour stated where the witch lived. We hurriedly made our way up Rye Croft down a cobbled alley and into the street where she was supposed to be. She lived in a house located on a bank so that the house towered over the street. Within a short time there were up to 200 children gathered within a safe distance of this poor old lady’s house. A safe distance was measured as a function of how brave you were and or as to how fast you could run. The children including me watched and waited. There was just a flutter of conversation. Eventually the old lady appeared at her back door. On her appearance there was a deathly silence you could hear all the kids holding their breaths. She was a small white haired lady and was not wearing a conical hat or riding a broom stick. The old lady asked quite quietly why we thought she was a witch. Of course no one answered because we didn’t know. She then quietly and with dignity told us all not to be silly and go home because she was not a witch. Somewhat subdued but not wholly convinced we all left and began to make our way back home. As we went we continually looked over our shoulders to make sure we were not followed. On the way and round a corner we soon met one or two of our gang who had concluded that absence was the better part of valour when the old lady had first appeared at the front of her house!!

In later life I did a lot of athletics and in particular running. My first memorable sprint took place one day when as I made my way from school I heard the Air Raid warning. I reached home ten minutes before my sister and it was only 400 yards. My mother had forgotten to remind us that they were testing the air raid warning systems that day. At least that is what she claimed.

Another memory and lesson that I learned was the one relating to trust. On the backs lorries would often be parked for the night. On one occasion a lorry driver asked us to look after his lorry. The promise was that he would pay us when he returned. Our duties were to stop all the other kids from playing on and climbing on the back of the lorry. It will not stretch your imagination to be told that the driver did not return before bedtime and we were not rewarded. This incident was a lesson in life, the moral of which is payment up front.

A memory that has troubled me all my life was the time when I was asked for food and drink by an old man. I cannot remember whether he was a tramp or how he was dressed. I remember he came to the back of the shop premises. This part was a warehouse type of building. At the time I was on my own in the house there was no one to confide in or consult. I locked the back door and fetched the old man a cup of water and a piece of dry bread. I was very frightened. What has haunted me since is that all I offered the old man was dry bread and water and how relatively mean I was.

It was at Liverpool Road that my younger brother Paul had two fairly serious accidents. The first one was when my mother poured a bucket of boiling water over him. Washing at that time was done with a dollytub and scrubbing board. The water was heated on the kitchen fire. It was summer and my mother was doing the washing in the back yard. As she carried the bucket of boiling water out of the back door Paul came running down the yard and straight into her. He was not wearing a shirt at the time. This fact probably saved him from serious scalding. The other accident happened shortly after he learned to ride a two-wheeler cycle. Paul was always a bit wild and he was cycling around the block showing us all how well he could cycle. He went up a slight hill turned round at the top and came careering down shouting, Look at me I can ride with no hands.

The inevitable happened and he ended up sliding down the road on his chest instead of the bike. His gravel rash was something to be seen. The moral, walk before you run.

During the week dad would go training on his bicycle. He covered many miles in a week. At weekends he would often race on Sunday morning, at dawn because that was the law at that time.

CHAPTER 2. 

School. 

My first school was St Mary’s Primary that was situated about 1 mile away from home. To get to school we always walked. The route took us across Liverpool Road down towards the town for 200 yards then down Bridge Street across some waste ground to Dunkirk. This name had nothing to do with the evacuation from Dunkirk in the Second World War. This was because the events at Dunkirk had not yet happened. The area was named after the public house, The Dunkirk which stood nearby. St. Mary’s was a modern school having been built for the Catholics of Newcastle in the early 1930’s. My first teacher was Miss Norrey a rotund happy individual but quite strict when the need arose. I don’t really remember a lot about the lower classes. One thing I do remember is the school being closed for a few days because some of the classes had been vandalised. The mess was phenomenal, paint, chalk, powder, mess everywhere. All our little works of art destroyed. To my mind the vandalism was another example of mindlessness and showed that there were such people about even then.

The teachers in the school were made up of a mixture of nuns and lay teachers. The Headmistress at the time was a Sister Mary Theresa. She had at least one bad habit that I was aware of. That was, if she caught you misbehaving, to punch you in the back with a fist with one finger protruding. It was quite painful. In terms of discipline things were not too bad either at home or at school. I very soon came to realise that my parents usually meant business. If they said you were to do something that is what they meant. At least that was the case with Christina and me. Later when it came to Paul and Stephen for them things were a little different. I reckon they got away with murder. Unfortunately this was due to the fact that at times my parent’s marriage struggled to survive and each of them was striving to keep the affection of the children. But more of that later. An early lesson that I learned the hard way was when to keep your mouth shut and when not to. I had been disciplined at school. I came home in one way upset as to the injustice of my punishment and in another way excited at being punished. I told my mother what had happened with the expectation that I would get a bit of sympathy. Not on your life. My mother told my father who promptly gave me a good clout. From then on I was very slow to communicate my indiscretions at school and realised that there are times to tell and times not to tell.

There was at this time quite a bit of religious prejudice. On our way to school we had to cross an area of waste land and we would often meet children from other schools. Being Catholics we often had to endure the odd taunt. The favourite was:

Catholic Bulldog sitting on a wall eating hoss muck at a penny a ball.

Not so offensive as frightening but I had few worries. I was usually accompanied by my elder sister who could in her own way see off most Bulldogs. By the way a hoss is a horse. Yet at the same time the Catholics in Newcastle had each year their Easter Procession. This would start at the St. Mary’s Primary School and process through the town to the Holy Trinity Church in London Road. The traffic would be stopped and the affair was quite a show. I remember one such procession during which it rained from first to last!

Being Catholics we went to church on Sundays to the Holy Trinity Catholic Church this is situated at the bottom end of town on London Road. Within a short space of time I became an Altar Boy. At the time the Parish Priest was Fr. Daniel Kelly who was a most devout and holy man. Little did he know what his gang of Altar Boys got up to. The Head Altar Boy was George Jackson. He eventually went to be a priest. Each Sunday before Evening Service the Altar Boys would have a meeting. The purpose of the meetings could not have been too important because I cannot remember what we discussed. I do remember we practised for particular services and arranged the rotas for the services for the weeks ahead. But as far as we were concerned the main objective was to have a game of football or cricket in the schoolyard of St Patrick’s School adjacent to the Church. Invariably these activities resulted in there being a gang of hot sweaty little boys, who shortly after the match, would file serenely into Church dressed in their cotters and cassocks. Of course playing football and cricket was not the only things we used to do. Fr. Broome a curate at Newcastle for a time had a B.S.A. Bantam motorcycle. He kept it in an outhouse, this was an old wash house, near to the Presbytery. This particular outhouse was out of sight of the Presbytery. At first the motorcycle was taken out of the shed and used to coast on down the sloping yard. There were queues of boys to have the odd ride. One evening some bright spark decided to put the motorcycle into gear as it coasted down the yard. The engine started and before he knew where he was the motorcycle shot away down the yard. With some degree of foresight he was fortunately able to jump off it before it hit the wall at the bottom of the yard. Well that was that. Further experiments were carried out on the motorcycle until quite a few of us could ride the motorcycle with some degree of control.

Thinking of Fr. Broome brings to mind another incident with him. At the time the inside of the church was being decorated and there was a considerable amount of scaffolding round the church. As a result the lights of the church were out of order and temporary lights were draped around the scaffolding. One evening we were in the church. There were quite a large group of altar boys about. As we were in the church Fr. Broome called us all over to where he was standing close to the scaffold. He told us all to hold hands which we did. He then told the end boy to touch the scaffold while he took hold of the hand at the other end of the line of boys and he then touched another part of the scaffold. Immediately the hair on the head’s of a line of altar boys stood on end. We all received a significant electric shock. The only person who was amused was Fr. Broome. Perhaps he did know what we had done to his motorbike?! It must be remembered that this was before the advent of the cult of Health and Safety.

Because of the obvious interest in football and the degree of our training (!) football matches against other teams of altar boys from other churches were sometimes arranged. During and after these matches it was usually impossible to establish who had won since the matches invariably ended in some sort of fracas. It seems this was typically a Christian way of expressing oneself. When you think about it, in the history of the world, a lot of wars have been fought and an awful lot of people killed in the name of religion and furthermore it is still going on.

There were other interesting and amusing Sunday night activities. On one winter’s afternoon an intense snowball fight, between the altar boys, was taking place in the adjacent schoolyard. This particular yard was fairly level but the main road which ran along the yard sloped. There was a 4’ high wall separating the yard from the footpath that adjoined the road. It can easily be visualised that a pedestrian walking up the slope would gradually appear over the wall head first followed by the rest of the body. It was quickly realised by the warring snowballers that there was a better game to be had than throwing snowballs at each other. What developed next was a form of chicken. As the head appeared above the wall snowballs were launched at it. Fortunately not many hit. The target however soon realised the danger. The chicken part came in that the last one to run as the head appeared over the wall earned a point. In this situation a good lesson in life was learned. That is that in a situation like the one described not many of the targets take real physical action but some do. The gamble was to know which of the targets would chase us and which ones would not. When a hit had been made the reaction had to be assessed and the necessary action taken. Run like mad around the corner or bluff it out. I know what I did. Get around the corner as soon as possible. After a while and with extreme care one could return to the field of action. There were however certain problems that became apparent. There was a gate in the wall that led into the yard. This gate was unlocked. One of the victims decided to take the matter a little further than the normal verbal abuse given by most. When we all reappeared round the corner there was a person waiting for us. He had come into the yard through the gate. He then stood out of sight and waited for the snowballers to return. Boy oh boy were we shocked when faced with an irate man as we returned to set up the next target. It is an understatement to say that a bit of a chase then ensued. The only consolation of which was that the pursuer could only catch one or two of us while the rest got away. Usually the ones caught were the smaller and slower boys and therefore attracted a degree of sympathy. Another little anti-social game we used to play was knick knacking. This was a very simple game. Near to the church were rows of terraced houses. Thus the front doors were on the street and opened either into the front room or a passageway. The game was to start at one end of a street and run along the street knocking at each door as you went. Everyone had to knock at each door. In the altar boys were one or two good runners. In particular Brian Simcock could run like a rocket. The further he got along the street the further away he got from the slower runners. Eventually someone would come to the door following the knock knock of the passing runners to come face to face with the next knocker. The key rule was to keep running and hope the householder did not catch you as you passed by. Everyone but the slower runners thought this was a brilliant game. The game did not persist for more than two streets because the team was somewhat reduced as the slower runners realised who was going to get into trouble.

Even in church there were many other mischievous activities. There is in the Catholic Liturgy an Easter midnight service. Although a lot of the altar boys were very young nonetheless they were keen to take part in the services and not always from a religious point of view. At one of these Lenten Services a reading from the Bible is made describing the Crucifixion. According to that when Christ died on the cross there was darkness over the earth and thunder and lightning. It was a tradition that at the point in the reading when Christ dies the reader pauses, everyone kneels down and there is a period of quiet during which one was supposed to dwell on the significance of Christ’s death for the world. To symbolise the darkness and thunder and lightening all the lights in the church were switched off and at the same time books were discreetly banged on the seats officially by the priests only. A senior altar boy was designated to control the master light switch located at the back of the church. It was mutually decided that the symbolic thunder of banging books on a bench could be jazzed up. We decided that in order to do that the long wooden forms we sat on would be lifted up and banged down on the floor. I must emphasise that this decision was taken completely independently of the priests or hierarchy of the altar boys. The controller of the lights was in on the act. The time duly arrived in the reading. Out went the lights up leapt four or five of us and in pitch darkness the wooden forms were noisily banged up and down. There had not been before nor has there been since such realistic thunder. The agreement with the lights man was that the lights would be left off for a reasonable period of time. That is sufficient for a reasonable amount of thunder and then time to get back into one’s place. Regrettably the altar boy in charge of the lights decided that he would turn on the lights to catch us all out. The lights came on to reveal the illegal thunder makers in flagrant delictae. Meanwhile he of the lights was convulsed with laughter. Gerald you’re a rat.

Serving on the Altar was quite an onerous duty. This was because the rotas in force were such that it was necessary on occasions, to attend at church for a 7 o’clock weekday mass. At one time I seriously thought that I wanted to become a Priest. This ambition disguised as a vocation came about I concluded on older and more careful analysis for two reasons. The first being that I was a poseur. As I saw the Priests dressed up in their vestments I visualised myself in such finery. Really the truth was that I was quite shy and had difficulty expressing myself. Therefore I could see an easy way in which I could legitimately show off and pose. The second reason was that I would possibly be able to go to Cotton College a Boarding School (Junior Seminary) for potential Priests and others. The attraction of this school was that every afternoon was devoted to sport. In hindsight my vocation was extremely thin. It was a good job perhaps that Fr. Kelly recognised my vocation for what it was otherwise it is highly likely that the Catholic Church would have been foisted with a randy priest.