to comply with British Boxing Board of Control rules, he had made a more than promising start. After 43 fights his record read: 37 wins (18 by KO), 5 losses, 1 draw. He had given boxing a try and had, as Reynolds News and the old Mirror of Life and Sporting World (Jackie’s favourite literature) would have it, ‘been caught in the fistic net’. And then in a split second it was (Jackie liked to say) Goodnight Vienna. ‘Curtains. Boof! All over. Goodnight Vienna.’ He was twenty-one.
Jackie had started walking back from Stantonfence in the direction of the village. Telfer and Ellis, used to spending their lives cooped up, and unpredictable in traffic, were on short leads; Stella was free and running on ahead, stopping every so often to throw his head back and bark at them with what seemed a mixture of jealousy and delirious impatience. The day was cool and grey, with the long grey clouds moving slowly against the grey sky. There was a chance of rain, with bright periods forecast for later.
All three dogs took it in turn to leave their mark (the younger shepherd just managing to remain upright this time) against the zinc dustbin that had been put outside the main gate at Nettle Hill Farm for the benefit of the postman (somebody had written ‘ POST ’ on the lid). A second notice had been fixed to the gate: ‘ PLEASE KEEP OUT. WE ARE NOT CONTAMINATED, WE WANT TO KEEP OUR ANIMALS .’
Stella was standing at the corner of Half Nichol Street with his tail whirlybirding nuttily in circles, waiting for the signal to tell him whether to continue straight on or turn right into what wasknown locally as the Settlement. Old Nichol Street, New Nichol Street and Half Nichol Street were narrow cinder alleys cutting between rows of miners’ cottages. The Settlement was the oldest part of Rusty Lane. Jackie lived in the new part of the village along with most of the other ‘blow-ins’ in a modern development called Manor Grange (or ‘New Kennels’ to the locals, after a large sign with fluorescent arrows that had gone up on the trunk road pointing traffic in the direction of Jackie’s estate. The developer’s ‘traditionalizing’ elements at the New Kennels – cast-iron foot scrapes, decorative cobbles, ‘Victorian’ street lamps incorporating a make-believe flicker – had also been the target of considerable mockery.)
There had been two pits in Rusty Lane, but they had both been closed for over twenty years. The pit rows in the Settlement, once tithed to the colliery, were now occupied by retired miners and families with close mining connections. Without the renovations of recent years, the cottages would have been museum pieces. (Identical cottages from a nearby village had in fact been transported brick by brick to an open-air theme-park museum, where they formed part of a hands-on interactive display.) The cottages had had temporary-looking, semi-prefabricated structures added on front and rear: new kitchens and bathrooms at the back; glassed-in porches erected around the existing front doors. And, after the now nearly unimaginable privations of their predecessors , the people who lived there were proud at last to be able to consider themselves modern. The porches, which were sun-traps, were showcases for all styles of resort furniture – fatly padded recliners and loungers, and wrought-iron and bamboo occasional tables and sofas. Tinkling wind chimes were popular, as were tweeting budgerigars and lovebirds in domed cages. Many houses had vertical swivel blinds at the windows and most had a black, colander-like satellite dish probing the ether for sport and films round the clock.
What Jackie was always most struck by when he walked through the Settlement, though, was the way relics of the old industrial past had been reassigned a new use as hanging baskets and planters. All summer, French marigolds and nasturtiums and petunias frothed out of Davy lamps and pitmen’s helmets. Love-in-a-mist and sweet william grew
Jackie had started walking back from Stantonfence in the direction of the village. Telfer and Ellis, used to spending their lives cooped up, and unpredictable in traffic, were on short leads; Stella was free and running on ahead, stopping every so often to throw his head back and bark at them with what seemed a mixture of jealousy and delirious impatience. The day was cool and grey, with the long grey clouds moving slowly against the grey sky. There was a chance of rain, with bright periods forecast for later.
All three dogs took it in turn to leave their mark (the younger shepherd just managing to remain upright this time) against the zinc dustbin that had been put outside the main gate at Nettle Hill Farm for the benefit of the postman (somebody had written ‘ POST ’ on the lid). A second notice had been fixed to the gate: ‘ PLEASE KEEP OUT. WE ARE NOT CONTAMINATED, WE WANT TO KEEP OUR ANIMALS .’
Stella was standing at the corner of Half Nichol Street with his tail whirlybirding nuttily in circles, waiting for the signal to tell him whether to continue straight on or turn right into what wasknown locally as the Settlement. Old Nichol Street, New Nichol Street and Half Nichol Street were narrow cinder alleys cutting between rows of miners’ cottages. The Settlement was the oldest part of Rusty Lane. Jackie lived in the new part of the village along with most of the other ‘blow-ins’ in a modern development called Manor Grange (or ‘New Kennels’ to the locals, after a large sign with fluorescent arrows that had gone up on the trunk road pointing traffic in the direction of Jackie’s estate. The developer’s ‘traditionalizing’ elements at the New Kennels – cast-iron foot scrapes, decorative cobbles, ‘Victorian’ street lamps incorporating a make-believe flicker – had also been the target of considerable mockery.)
There had been two pits in Rusty Lane, but they had both been closed for over twenty years. The pit rows in the Settlement, once tithed to the colliery, were now occupied by retired miners and families with close mining connections. Without the renovations of recent years, the cottages would have been museum pieces. (Identical cottages from a nearby village had in fact been transported brick by brick to an open-air theme-park museum, where they formed part of a hands-on interactive display.) The cottages had had temporary-looking, semi-prefabricated structures added on front and rear: new kitchens and bathrooms at the back; glassed-in porches erected around the existing front doors. And, after the now nearly unimaginable privations of their predecessors , the people who lived there were proud at last to be able to consider themselves modern. The porches, which were sun-traps, were showcases for all styles of resort furniture – fatly padded recliners and loungers, and wrought-iron and bamboo occasional tables and sofas. Tinkling wind chimes were popular, as were tweeting budgerigars and lovebirds in domed cages. Many houses had vertical swivel blinds at the windows and most had a black, colander-like satellite dish probing the ether for sport and films round the clock.
What Jackie was always most struck by when he walked through the Settlement, though, was the way relics of the old industrial past had been reassigned a new use as hanging baskets and planters. All summer, French marigolds and nasturtiums and petunias frothed out of Davy lamps and pitmen’s helmets. Love-in-a-mist and sweet william grew
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