I wanted to write these stories as a tribute to my parents and family. The stories are all based on the truth but, as I’m sure you’ll understand, I’ve had to disguise some identities and facts to protect the innocent. Those of you who still live on the Canterbury Estate will appreciate the folklore that we all grew up with: the stories of our predecessors, good and bad, and the names that can still strike fear or respect into our hearts – the stories of the Canterbury Warriors.
Listerhills, Bradford, 1946
Shirley glared at the man who was sitting across the table from her; sitting, moreover, in her mam’s chair. He was old and very tall and he was staring at her.
He leaned forward. ‘You’ll sit there all day, madam, if that’s what it takes,’ he said. ‘But you will eat those sprouts and that’s an end to it.’ Then he sat back in her mam’s chair and lit a cigarette. Shirley looked down at the disgusting green balls on her plate. No way was she eating them. Her mam wouldn’t have made her eat them. Her mam had gone to work – she worked on the trolley buses and had left hours and hours ago – and if Shirley had to sit there till she came home, then she would.
Shirley couldn’t quite believe her mam had gone and left her with this strange man in the first place. Normally when she went to work she’d leave her with her Granny Wiggins or her Auntie Edna, but then the man had turned up last night and they’d both sat Shirley down, with serious looks on their faces. ‘This is your dad,’ her mum had explained. ‘He’s come home from the war.’
Shirley didn’t remember much about the war, but she knew she had a daddy and that he’d been in it, far across the sea, somewhere hot. He was called Raymond and her mam said he was going to be in charge now, which apparently included cooking all the meals when her mum was out at work and forcing her to eat things she hated.
Well, trying to. ‘But I hate sprouts!’ she protested again, hoping that he might get fed up of listening to her and allow her to leave the table so she could go and do something else. She still had to make her favourite dolly some new clothes.
‘And I don’t care,’ he said, blowing smoke out of his mouth in a cloud that wafted across to her and made her nose wrinkle. ‘Good food is hard to come by,’ he added, ‘and sprouts are very good for you. So you’re not going to waste them. I’m your father and that’s that.’
Shirley scowled at him. Two could play at that game. She folded her arms, started to swing her feet under her chair and counted sheep going over a wall in her head. She could count to a hundred now – her mam had taught her how to do it when she couldn’t get to sleep at nights, and now it would help pass the time until she got back home from work.
As Shirley counted she stole glances at the man across the table. He had shiny stuff on his hair and the tops of some of his fingers were all yellow, and she decided she didn’t like him one bit. She’d wanted him to be an uncle so she knew he’d go away again, or, if he wasn’t, at least be nice like they always were. Her mam had brought home several uncles, all of them vastly preferable to the miserable-looking man in front of her, so if she did have to have one move in with her and her mam, why couldn’t it have been one of them instead?
Not that she’d ever tell anyone. Her mam had warned her that she must never, ever mention the uncles, and because Shirley was a good girl she would do as she was told.
But she wasn’t going to be a good girl when it came to eating sprouts. Her mam didn’t make her eat them and this dad man wasn’t going to either. So she was still sitting at the table when the sky grew dark outside and her mam finally got home from work.
With her back hurting and her bottom numb, Shirley was upset enough as it was when she saw her, but it was the parcel of chips her mother held in her hand that hit her hardest. She jumped down from the chair and immediately burst into tears.
‘What’s going on here?’ her mother asked, immediately rushing across to scoop her up and embrace her.
‘He’s saying I have to eat these sprouts, Mam, and I won’t! Tell him I don’t like them!’
The man she was supposed to call ‘Dad’ was now squatting in front of the fire, a pair of wet socks dangling from his hands. He’d washed them in the sink earlier – her mam’s stockings, too – while Shirley sat and glared at his back, and he had been in front of the fire drying them ever since. ‘You rotten sod!’ Shirley’s mum snapped at him now, which made her feel better immediately. ‘Don’t you dare start laying the law down already, Raymond Read, or I’ll have your guts for garters, you hear me? Your daughter doesn’t like sprouts and she doesn’t have to bloody well eat them!’
He stood up suddenly, making Shirley jump, and pointed at her mam. And Shirley knew it was very rude to point, as well. Not that he seemed to care. ‘And don’t you bloody undermine me, Mary!’ he snapped, in his horrible deep voice. ‘She’s going to have to get used to me and we might as well start as we mean to go on. It’s a bloody crime to waste food. There’s people starving, in case you hadn’t noticed, and this little madam chooses what she’ll eat? Not on my watch.’
Shirley’s mam let her back down to the floor again. ‘Go on, love,’ she said, patting her back. ‘Go upstairs and get your nightie on. I’ll put you some chips out, eh? Don’t forget to wash your face, lovey. And behind your ears.’
Shirley scooted off as fast as she could, leaving her mam and dad shouting at each other. She’d still been in her mam’s belly when her daddy had gone to be in the war, but she’d always told her he was a lovely, handsome soldier. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t lovely at all, Shirley thought. She ran all the way up the stairs, clapping her hands over her ears to drown out the arguing. She didn’t like that she’d have to ‘get used to him’, as he put it. She didn’t like that he was set on making her eat things she didn’t like.
She wriggled out of her dress and into her nightie and then went to wash her face and hands, as she’d been told. She knew she should try to look on the bright side her mam had told her about. She’d said her dad coming back might at least mean she’d get some brothers and sisters, and Shirley wanted brothers and sisters more than anything in the world.
So she could only hope than her mam had been telling her the truth. He definitely wasn’t worth having on his own.
June 1958
Shirley and Anita burst through the front doors of St George’s Hall into the warmth of the early evening air. Shirley couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so ecstatic. It was almost as if there was electricity running through her. She could certainly still feel the music throbbing away in her chest. But what she mostly couldn’t believe was that she’d actually seen Cliff Richard in the flesh. She knew she’d never forget it ever – not as long as she lived.
‘Oh, my good God, Shirl,’ Anita cried, linking arms with her as they spilled out onto the pavement. ‘I love him so much. Did you see how he danced? Did you see? God, them hips!’
‘Trust you to be looking at his bloody hips, Anita!’ Shirley scolded. ‘What about his voice?’ She sighed happily as they began to walk. ‘I was far too busy singing along with him.’
He was sexy though. She had to admit that, even if it was only to herself.
‘You bloody liar!’ Anita huffed, reading her mind the way she always did. ‘Far