My brothers would let me watch others fight and hoist me on to a window ledge outside the pub, from where I would get a glimpse of the fighters’ heads and shoulders as they threw punch after punch. If they fell to the ground and rolled about, someone would take the part of referee and break them up so they could shape up and start again. The drunken crowd would form a circle, shouting and encouraging their respective mates into action, oblivious to the blood and sweat that sprayed in their direction.
There was a lot of drunkenness around in those days – and snuff-taking was also popular with older people at the time. My grandmother, and others of her generation, would take it on a regular basis, like people do coke today, and you could identify the snuff-takers by the brown stains under their noses and on their smudged handkerchiefs. From a little boy’s point of view it was disgusting – especially when the old girl tried to kiss you!
Some parties at our house would turn out much the same way as the pub evenings – beginning with a song and dance and ending in a fight. Two of my father’s sisters were on the boards at the Upper Brixton Empire and part of their repertoire included clog dancing and singing popular tunes around the piano. Lizzie Mayne, my aunt, was a lively entertainer. Her special number was ‘There’s a Blue Ridge Round My Heart, Virginia’, which my father, a little worse for drink, would follow with a rendition of ‘Are We to Part Like This, Dear?’, which he sang to my mother.
We kids used to sit on the stairs and enjoy the mixed procession of people including boxers, market traders, vendors and musicians wandering in and out of our tiny house. Musicians were always welcome and from time to time, just for the crack, the Salvation Army band would be invited to play. Huge wooden firkins of beer would arrive on willing shoulders as well as quart bottles of brown ale, four to a crate. Later, to help soak up the alcohol, big doorstep sandwiches filled with cheese and mustard pickle and large jars of pickled onions would appear and be wolfed down. As the evening wore on and my old man became more spirited, he would disappear to the pigeon loft in the back garden with a crate of ale and two or three of his favoured cronies. They would sit there telling each other stories until one of the wives dragged them out to join the party.
The loft had been built by my brother Wally, the second eldest, and it still holds poignant memories for me today. A big tomcat once got in there and slaughtered all Wally’s prized pigeons. Some time later, my mother heard a horrendous commotion in the garden and ran outside in a panic. Wally had caught the offending cat, swung it around in circles by its tail and projected it across three neighbouring gardens, never to be seen again.
With the reduced pigeon population, the loft became a useful watering hole for my father and his friends. But having drunk all their liquor, they’d return to the house and the fighting would begin. The old man’s regular opponent was his brother-in-law, Johnny Wicker, who was as tough and as game as he was.
The pair would be at it hammer and tongs, battering the daylights out of one another with bare fists. They were constantly brawling and had fought each other so often that their contests had become a game of one-upmanship: win one, lose one, call it a draw, it went on and on, party after party. They never got fed up with bashing each other. I did not enjoy these spectacles, seeing my father bloodied and hurt. Those times were violent and very physical – proving one’s manhood in those days was an essential part of survival.
I never discovered whether my father spent time in a civilian jail. If he did, we were never told, although there were certainly periods when he was not around. In those days, judges or stipendiary magistrates didn’t give long sentences. You’d get two to three months for assault and battery, or for beating up the police – which was done on a regular basis. The coppers were quite into it themselves and would return for a ‘straightener’ scrap.
Hitting a police officer was considered acceptable. Talking to one was not, even if you had the misfortune of being a relative. My mother’s brother, Ted White, who ended up being Chief Constable of Durham, would drop in to see my mother if he was on a job in London. But, on the rare occasion that he visited us, my father refused to acknowledge his presence, let alone speak to him. He’d put on his hat and coat and walk out of the house. No self-respecting citizen of Sheepcote Lane would ever be seen in the company of a policeman.
My father’s hatred of authority was universal and led to a spell inside a military prison before I was born. Like my four brothers, he too had fought for King and Country, joining the army at 17. Previously, he’d been apprenticed as a blacksmith, but, when his arm was shattered by German shrapnel in the Battle of the Somme, it put an end to his blacksmith career. He returned to Aldershot, where he fell foul of a sergeant major. The sergeant poked him with his stick and my father, a young man with lots of spirit, lost his rag and whacked him with the butt of his rifle. Rather than face a court martial, he made his getaway by stealing a bicycle and cycling all the way home to London.
They eventually caught him in the bar at the Super Palace Casino, Clapham, and there was a hell of a fight. He was battered and unceremoniously dragged down to one of the military police wagons and then off to the nick.
After a further period in barracks, he was sent back into action, though not to the front line. His injuries at the Somme prevented him from using a rifle and he was packed off with a pistol to Ireland as part of the peacekeeping force. My father was of good Irish stock, so this didn’t sit well with him at all, as you can imagine – but he had little choice.
I take after him. I can’t stand being told what to do by people who abuse authority and that has got me into trouble over the years. While in custody all I have ever demanded is that which anyone else is entitled to: to be treated fairly and with civility and to be spoken to like a human being.
My old man used to say, ‘A little civility costs nothing’, and those words have stuck with me throughout my life. As a young child, I can remember he once took me for a special treat to a café, where he bought me a meat pudding and two veg. He couldn’t afford one for himself and, by the time my food was served, it was quite late and they began clearing up. As I got stuck into my meal, this guy came around and started sweeping up. Dust went everywhere. Then he began putting chairs on tables, ignoring the fact that I was a customer. My father asked him to stop, but the geezer either ignored him or made a rude comment. That was too much. My father looked menacingly at him and said, ‘Put that fucking broom down and wait for my kid to finish his meal.’ At this point I was getting embarrassed and trying to eat my food as quickly as possible because, knowing the old man, it looked like being a right fight any second now. But the man took my father’s threat seriously and stopped clearing up.
My father wasn’t a man who would take liberties, nor did he expect them to be taken. He never laid a finger on any of us five boys, although the threat was always there. Mum would give you a clump, but not viciously. And never around the head. When she got the hump with you, you’d run for the coat rack and cover yourself with the heavy khaki greatcoat from WWI. She’d then get down and smack your legs, the only exposed area she could find.
In those days, we were so poor that in winter us boys would huddle together in bed sharing the greatcoat and a couple of blankets for warmth. Gas stoves were still a luxury and there was no electricity in the house.
I was the youngest brother, and there was a considerable gap between our ages. Herbie was older by 12 years, Wally by 10, George by eight and Bert by five. Herbie was the only one to have the luxury of a single bed to himself, but he shared the same small bare room with the rest of us.
We made do with gas-fired mantel lamps above the fireplace. They would spit and splutter, occasionally making gentle popping sounds and throwing moving shadows on to the wall. Huddled together around the cooking range, toasting bread while listening to favourite programmes on our pride and joy, one crystal set radio – happy memories!
If you were the youngest, bath time could be a dirty affair. The ritual cleansing took place on Friday nights, when the tin bath was carried in from the yard and set up in the kitchen. The older boys