If the tide was in I was forced up much higher and had to start my route a lot further away, but the beams were relatively hazardless. I didn’t really mind the thought of falling in the water in any case. I was a good swimmer, but nobody wanted to end up in that mud.
For me, the task of getting there and getting back with a shirtful of wriggling squabs was the most satisfying thing I knew. For Brian, shivering up above on a wintry Hull day with my cast-off shirt to keep him warm, the only reward was the threepenny bits and he didn’t seem to care much about them.
Come the spring and I would be in the woods, continuing my studies of miracles. One day I was up a tree, looking into a blackbird’s nest, checking that Mr and Mrs B had not been neglecting their duties and that all six of their offspring were thriving. These chicks were almost ready to step out onto the branches to try their wings. I didn’t want to stay long in case I put the parents off but the sound of footfalls below made me hesitate.
Oh no. It was Johnny Edwards, known as Eddie, a boy two years above me at school and one to keep clear of. He was big for his age, therefore much bigger than me, and he was feared for his ability to thump the living daylights out of anyone he cared to take on. If a foolish new boy came to school with a lunch box, Eddie would demand to know what was in it. He’d take a bite of a sandwich, spit it out in disgust, and smack the boy about for trying to poison him. I hoped that if I stayed still in my tree, he wouldn’t notice me, but he saw my faithful Skipper sitting at the bottom, looking up.
‘What’s in t’nest?’ he shouted.
‘Nowt,’ I called back.
‘Get down here,’ he replied. Thinking about the alternatives, I did what he said.
‘What’s in t’nest?’ he said again.
‘No eggs,’ I said. ‘Only blackbird chicks.’ He had a duffel bag, its cord drawn tight shut, which he placed gently against the tree trunk. I noted the gently, and wondered.
‘Don’t touch,’ was his economic instruction, with the death threat left unspoken, as he shinned up the tree to reach inside the nest, stuff the chicks in his jacket pockets, and slide down again.
The next thing was doubly amazing: to see what was in the duffel bag, and to have proof that Eddie was human all at the same time. Even though I represented to him a matter of no more importance than a dead amoeba, his pride in his duffel bag’s contents was such that I became an audience. He loosened the cord carefully, and slowly reached inside. I could hear a very odd noise, quite loud, like two wooden rulers being tapped together in anger.
So far, it looked to me like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. This was Eddie’s showy variation, pulling his trained pet clicking rabbit out of his duffel bag, but instead of a rabbit he drew forth a ball of feathers, brown and grey. I knew immediately what it was although it was the first time I’d seen one. I had pictures at home in my animal books. It was a young tawny owl.
The tawny is the most common British owl, about fifteen inches tall with a wingspan over three feet. It’s the one that allegedly says tu-whit tu-whoo, although what it actually says is either something like kerwick, or something like hoo-hoo, and if you hear both it’s two owls calling, probably a male and a female. It has a rather rotund appearance and a serious manner, and the young ones have more grey feathers on their heads and upper bodies so they look like miniature high-court judges in full wig.
This judge seemed rather narked, making its angry ruler noises with its beak and digging its talons into Eddie’s arm. Whatever its expectations when out of the bag, things clearly were not happening quickly enough. Eddie took the hint and a chick from his pocket. The owl put its head back and opened wide. In went the chick, not very much smaller than the owl’s head, wig included. After two gulps, all that was visible of the chick was one skinny leg dangling out of the owl’s closed beak. Another swallow and that was gone too.
I felt my eyes so big and popping that I must have looked like an owl myself. I don’t think I’d drawn a breath through the whole proceedings. I knew from Sunday School about St Paul and his blinding vision on the road to Damascus. This was my Damascene moment. Whatever else might happen in my life and whatever obstacles might lie in my way, one thing was sure and certain. I had to have an owl.
When Eddie pulled another owlet out of his bag and fed it too, my owl-owning necessity suddenly had ways and means. He didn’t want two. One would be mine. I asked Eddie if I could come with him to find more owl food. He shrugged. I could if I wanted.
By the end of that day I had made my calculations and my decision. With my savings, next week’s pocket money and a major initiative on Mrs Atkinson, I could raise about six shillings.
‘I’ll give you ten bob for one of them owls,’ I said, almost fainting with the excitement and what the City slickers call the exposure. Ten shillings was a colossal amount, and I didn’t have it. Eddie was too clever for me. He could recognise sheer desperation, and shook his head.
‘Five shillings and my fishing rod.’ How pathetic, said Eddie’s snort. ‘All right. My fishing rod, reel and tackle included, five shillings, and a two-shilling book token.’ The book token, Eddie well knew, could be exchanged at the newsagent’s for ten cigarettes, normal price one and tenpence.
Eddie picked up his duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked away. It was the classic salesman’s manoeuvre. If you really want someone to buy, tell him he can’t have it. I walked home so slowly, I’m surprised I got there before bedtime.
‘I’m not keeping tea things out all night in case you turn up, our Carter,’ said my mother. ‘There’s bread and cheese in the pantry. And you can give some to that dog who’s been out all day with nothing.’
I lay awake in bed, trying to make owls seem less essential than life itself, and failing. No, there was nothing for it. A boy had to do what a boy had to do, and the condemned boy ate a hearty breakfast very fast. Round at Eddie’s house, I knocked on the door. He answered.
‘My fishing rod and tackle, my new rugby ball, five shillings and my sheath knife.’ Eddie almost smiled. Maybe he’d be a professional torturer when he left school.
‘My fishing rod and tackle, my new rugby ball, five shillings, my sheath knife …’ and here I had to pause. This was to be a pledge of galactic proportions. I was about to offer Eddie the one object I prized above all else: ‘… and my air pistol. Webley. Point one seven seven.’
‘With a tin of slugs. And that book token,’ said a cool Eddie.
I nodded. I was now destitute. I had endowed Eddie with all my worldly goods. He must have known I had nothing left and had driven me until I could be driven no further. But, joy of joys, I had my owl.
I ran home, got all the money out of my pot pig, ran to the ironmonger’s, bought a tin of slugs, ran home again, picked up my rod, rugby ball, fishing bag and all, and ran to Eddie’s. With all the drama of two spies being exchanged at Checkpoint Charlie, I swapped my entire wealth for a funny little heap of feathers. I had never been so happy. I was home in a fraction of a second and moving pigeons from one loft to another so that My Owl could have his own spacious apartment.
He was not appreciative. He clicked and complained like mad at the indignity of his recent imprisonment inside a blue cotton bag with Yorkshire Penny Bank written on it, and he looked around with suspicion in his gaze. Where, he wanted to know, was his breakfast? And his lunch, come to that? My mother had some stewing steak she was going to make into a pie for our tea, so I begged a little lump of that, wrapped it in a few small pigeon feathers, and down it went.
Such a dietary regimen couldn’t last, of course – or could it? Mother soon had the butcher saving unconsidered bits and pieces and Tal didn’t seem to mind if it was beef, lamb or pork or what cut it was, although there was an overall preference for chicken. The feathers were for roughage, to maintain his natural system, which