house (rumour had it that the builder had read the plans upside down) and in this she used to wash the clothes and cook steamed puddings in pillowcases. We had a wooden three-piece suite with brown corduroy cushions, in the living room, a relic, I imagine, of more affluent days. The settee and two chairs could be transformed into a ship or an outpost when my mother was out. My brother Roy and I played many games in that room, spoiled once when he attempted to make a campfire with some books under the wooden table. We managed to put out the flames before the whole interior was ablaze but there was smoke still pouring from the windows when she got off the remote bus.
Our house on the rise was clearly visible from that bus stop even though, up and down hill, it was a quarter of an hour's walk away. Trouble, in either direction, could be seen from afar, and sometimes the agony and uncertainty seemed far longer than fifteen minutes. The smoke puffing out like a signal was not the first, nor the last, of these distant shocks. Once, in summer, she perceived that we had pitched a white tent at the front of the house and, as she panted home, her suspicions hardened to the certainty that the tent was formed from two Witney blankets, prized possessions, given to her years before and which had never known a bed. In those days good things were often stored away unused.
Roy was more adventurous than me. I would stay at home and read while he set off, in the family manner, to other places. Lin and Hally were away at sea and we rarely saw them. My only memory of Hally from those days was when it was suggested that he should shin up the lamp posts in Milner Street to afix flags and banners during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. Since he was a seafarer, it was calculated that he ought to find it easy, but he made the excuse that he could only climb up things like that when he was at sea and the ship was rocking on the waves. Lin, who was working his way up the decks, had interludes when he returned from voyages, went out to dances and brought girls home. These young ladies often used to make a fuss of me and let me sit on their laps with my head on their chests so I really looked forward to his return from a trip. One of his ex-girlfriends who lived quite near once gave me an old piano, in a spirit of vengeance perhaps. I could only have been seven or eight at the time and I was trying to make arrangements to move it from her house to mine, but my mother found out and told the girl we didn't want it.
Lin used to study with matchsticks on the table, calculating winds and currents for his exams. He had an amiable Latin-looking friend called Guy Hodges, who I can picture clearly even now. He had a concise moustache which he called his 'little bit of dog' and he could draw adventurous pictures of ships and storms and could also play the mandolin. During the war my brother went to visit him and found that both he and his brother Eric had been lost at sea. My brother cried bitterly and I have never forgotten the brothers' names, although I never even met Eric.
When Lin had gone back to sea I would sit studying matchstick winds and currents just as I had seen him do. My mother was both proud and worried. She did not want her younger sons to go away. Then I began to draw sea gulls, sunsets and steamers bedecked with funnels. 'Ah,' she said in an attempt at re-routing my life's course. 'You'll be a draughtsman when you grow up. Now that's a nice job.'
Thereafter, for some years in fact, I imagined a draughtsman was somebody who poled a raft down a river, a wet and perilous living. I even used to have nightmares about it. When, eventually, I realised that a draughtsman was someone who drew lines on paper, usually in the sanctuary of an office, I found the image more becoming, but at fourteen I went to technical school and quickly discovered it was not my future. My drawing was surrealistically inaccurate and
Our house on the rise was clearly visible from that bus stop even though, up and down hill, it was a quarter of an hour's walk away. Trouble, in either direction, could be seen from afar, and sometimes the agony and uncertainty seemed far longer than fifteen minutes. The smoke puffing out like a signal was not the first, nor the last, of these distant shocks. Once, in summer, she perceived that we had pitched a white tent at the front of the house and, as she panted home, her suspicions hardened to the certainty that the tent was formed from two Witney blankets, prized possessions, given to her years before and which had never known a bed. In those days good things were often stored away unused.
Roy was more adventurous than me. I would stay at home and read while he set off, in the family manner, to other places. Lin and Hally were away at sea and we rarely saw them. My only memory of Hally from those days was when it was suggested that he should shin up the lamp posts in Milner Street to afix flags and banners during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. Since he was a seafarer, it was calculated that he ought to find it easy, but he made the excuse that he could only climb up things like that when he was at sea and the ship was rocking on the waves. Lin, who was working his way up the decks, had interludes when he returned from voyages, went out to dances and brought girls home. These young ladies often used to make a fuss of me and let me sit on their laps with my head on their chests so I really looked forward to his return from a trip. One of his ex-girlfriends who lived quite near once gave me an old piano, in a spirit of vengeance perhaps. I could only have been seven or eight at the time and I was trying to make arrangements to move it from her house to mine, but my mother found out and told the girl we didn't want it.
Lin used to study with matchsticks on the table, calculating winds and currents for his exams. He had an amiable Latin-looking friend called Guy Hodges, who I can picture clearly even now. He had a concise moustache which he called his 'little bit of dog' and he could draw adventurous pictures of ships and storms and could also play the mandolin. During the war my brother went to visit him and found that both he and his brother Eric had been lost at sea. My brother cried bitterly and I have never forgotten the brothers' names, although I never even met Eric.
When Lin had gone back to sea I would sit studying matchstick winds and currents just as I had seen him do. My mother was both proud and worried. She did not want her younger sons to go away. Then I began to draw sea gulls, sunsets and steamers bedecked with funnels. 'Ah,' she said in an attempt at re-routing my life's course. 'You'll be a draughtsman when you grow up. Now that's a nice job.'
Thereafter, for some years in fact, I imagined a draughtsman was somebody who poled a raft down a river, a wet and perilous living. I even used to have nightmares about it. When, eventually, I realised that a draughtsman was someone who drew lines on paper, usually in the sanctuary of an office, I found the image more becoming, but at fourteen I went to technical school and quickly discovered it was not my future. My drawing was surrealistically inaccurate and
Similar Books
