Working behind the counter was the real deal for me: it was recognition, it was respect, it was civilised and with the marking up complete, it was a cup of coffee for Mike and tea for me. We would take turns brewing up before I took over the shop and Mike went ‘in the back’. I never really knew what Mike did when he went ‘in the back’—he was probably thinking about Jill and Thrill and the countdown to their fag run, not that I cared, I was out front performing my first ever breakfast show.
‘Good morning, how are you today, what can I do you for?’
Real adults handing over hard cash. I used to pride myself on knowing the customers’ different orders. Some would leave their car engines running outside while they popped in to pick up their paper and a half an ounce of tobacco. Others would announce their arrival with a glorious exhibition of uncontrollable coughing and spluttering.
Once these guys started to cough and splutter there was no telling how long it might last, it could go on for minutes and the noises that they used to make were extraordinary—exclusive only to the serious early morning smoker: chesty rumblings, throats sounding like they were gargling with broken glass, coughing so hard their faces would turn a violent shade of purple. Often they would have to excuse themselves as they found the need to go back out of the shop ‘mid-order’ to spit out a huge pavement cracking greeny. A typical order would be:
‘Daily Mirror please, sixty Senior Service and a box of Swan Vestas.’
Sixty cigarettes! And non-filtered Senior Service! A day!
Shit, man, that was serious, these guys were hard core. Do you have any idea what just one of these cigarettes would do to the average human lung? Maybe with the exception of Capstan full strength, which were just insane, Senior Service were the strongest cigarettes known to mankind. They would make the ‘Lights’ of today seem like fresh mountain air in comparison. It was incredible the men who smoked these coffin nails were still breathing, let alone going to work every day and asking for more.
Then there were the ‘silents’, a strange breed who only ever pointed to what they wanted and always had exactly the right money so they didn’t have to speak to you. What was all that about?
As the morning developed, the shop would go through peaks and troughs of patronage with the clientele changing according to the schedule of the day. The shift workers would cough their way into the shop either side of six o’clock, depending on whether they were just starting or just finishing.
There would then be a bit of a lull between 6.30 and 7.30 when we’d try to get most of the boys loaded and on their way—if they had turned up by then that is—and then the school kids would start to come in at around a quarter to eight.
Eight till nine would see a procession of younger pupils stocking up on their daily supply of sweets and snacks and as the big hand headed towards nine, in would come the young mums with their little bundles of joy off to playschool. Finally, the pensioners would begin to assemble on parade ready to descend upon the post office for their various benefits and other requirements.
The OAPs often arrived much earlier than they needed to. They used to meet their pals for a chinwag but Ralph made them queue up outside so as not to clog up the shop—even in the rain, even in the snow in the middle of winter. I suppose he had a point but it just seemed so wrong. These people were elderly, often infirm, and most of them had served in one if not both of the wars so we could still have a bloody post office in the first place.
I vowed that, whatever else I did in my life, I had to make enough money never to have to queue up in the rain for my pension. That’s the least well off I ever wanted to be.
As my time behind the counter progressed I would stay on at the shop for as long as I could until the last possible minute before I had to leave to go to school. The shop was now my life, whereas school was quickly becoming the villain of the piece, a place I attended just because I had to, a mere interruption to my busy working day.
As far as I was concerned I was learning more of what I needed to know about life and how to get on at the shop every weekday morning and evening, all day Saturday as well as Sunday up until lunchtime, than I ever could from my lessons. If I could have left school there and then I would have done. School had taught me all it could by now and in my opinion had taken up far too much of my time in the process.
10 Mint cracknel
9 Ice Breaker
8 Cough candy
7 Cola cubes
6 Refreshers
5 Black Jacks/Fruit Salad mix
4 Texan
3 Merry Maids chocolate caramels
2 Lyons midget gems
1 Curlywurly
After walking out of the grammar school that day, after my altercation with Nutjob the physics teacher, I just carried on walking, I walked all the way home.
For the first mile or so, I was still shaking with adrenaline, I felt no anger or fear, I was satisfied that my actions were justified. I kept going over in my mind what had happened and how crazy it was that one’s circumstances could change so quickly. Soon it was like it had happened to someone else, and as my journey continued, my mind began to clear and it wasn’t long before I found myself thinking about other things.
I had undertaken this three-and-a-bit-mile journey on foot several times before but usually in the summer when I had chosen to spend my bus fare on a bag of fizz bombs or a can of Lilt instead. I had a feeling this might be the last time I might have to consider such a dilemma instead of paying for the bus purchase.
When I arrived home, much earlier than expected, another Curlywurly had bitten the dust. (Who came up with the Curlywurly, by the way? Not only the concept of the funky lattice-shaped bar but the name Curlywurly—it has to be the coolest name in the world of confectionary.)
‘How come you’re home so early, love, has something happened?’ Mum asked, naturally surprised to see me.
I managed to explain as honestly as I could what had taken place at school that day and that I knew I’d done wrong but that I didn’t think a grown man should be allowed to hit a child in such a way. She listened intently, without saying a word. After she’d heard what I had to say, she congratulated me on my decisive action and said she would enquire about a new school the very next day. Her exact words were: ‘You’re not going back there, over my dead body.’
Mum is a very no-nonsense person and once a chapter is closed that’s it—it’s time to move on. Though she has never admitted it, I believe she went back to the grammar school soon after to give the headmaster a piece of her mind and to set the record straight.
Her enquiries as to a new school resulted in my being much nearer to home, albeit at a comprehensive school. Not that I had a problem with comprehensives, but they were generally considered inferior to the much grander grammar schools. Comprehensive schools were where you went if you couldn’t get in anywhere else.
This school was a bit special though. It was a brand new school, where my year, the fourth year, were the eldest—there was no fifth form or sixth form yet. The school was so