PINS - Rule Thirty-eight: Yet More Manoeuvres

(Eeeh, ah don’t know…)

We are still out on manoeuvres, as it’s summer. And you should be too; get out there and get some sun on your backs, no moping around inside, that’s for cry-babies who never get healthy, and die early.  In fact, all players of PINS should be out on manoeuvres, even if it is only a trip to the back fields, where you once found the dirty magazines, and where you almost died when that golf ball nearly hit you.

‘Where are we going?’ I look out of the back window of the tatty old Vauxhall and worry. The large gas towers hove into view, we’re going past the industrial estate soon. ‘We’re leaving your mum for a bit. We are going on a secret journey.’ The answer, even if it is a joke, does nothing to ease my anxiety. I don’t like secrets and I don’t want adventure. It’s only been a couple of years since I was in the big hospital and never thought I’d leave. Going away in the car, or being left in a car, is not what I want, at all.

After a while I just gave up. All that effort of walking into town and back every day. What was the point?

Eeh lass, if if and ands were pots and pans. You and your worrying!

We can go to the church off Eccles Street but that’s High Anglican - they wave incest around, nearly Catholic! We’ll get some chips at York Street on the way back if you're quiet.

Not going up Devonshire Drive, nor down Clayton village, rough as houses.  Knives on sticks. And they smell bad down there.

1994. Day following (March 28th) there was a very heavy snowfall followed by a severe frost on March 29th. New feature at Catforth Gardens - waterfall being built. Began clean-up at side of house. Used up buddleia canes on stakes for peonies. Repositioned tubs of peach, holly, montbretia and sedum. Bought 3 concrete tubs as seconds (£12) from Brierland Gdns Brierfield, a new happy hunting ground for statuary etc. - plus one headless statue for £5 which I intend to place behind the apple tree to give a fright to next door - must move Japanese Anemone.

I don’t know, they mean well but it’s not the same without him being here. It was a nice little dance on the boat, songs with melodies and with the bingo, no young music, that’s all thuds and thumps and I can’t be doing with it. Silly bunkum. For dopes, that’s what it is for, and I hope the boys don’t grow into that kind of music, horrible. We can just sit still and hold hands to take our minds off the boat rocking. The first time abroad for the boys, and Norway! It won’t be the same but it will be nice to see the gang in Telemark after all these years. The first time was over twenty years ago with the girls: reading A Young Traveller’s Guide to Norway, no poor do’s over there. I haven't got the gumption for picking berries, they go crackers for berries in the summer. Norwegians are a bit crackers anyway, but the jam is lovely, like we had it when I was a little girl.     

1996. Two euphorbias - York Gate, Leeds.  Small golden leafed hosta - Cleverly Mill, Gorton nr Garstang. Sysirium striata, phlomis italica - Maghull. Parsley leaved blackberry, crambe cordifolia - Beacon Hill House, Ilkley. White willow herb, Corsican hellebore, bergenia, purple  primula - Highfield House, Ilkley. 

1997. Buxus sempervirens - Ling Beeches, Leeds. Digitalis mertonensis - Old Sleningford Hall, Ripon.

Leafmould - up Trapp Lane, Sabden way. That’s an ancient route, that. Probably late Neolithic.

We sit in contented silence in the fusty sitting room. A clock ticks, we look up; it’s seven-thirty on a summer evening. The rain quietly runs in rivulets down the large bay windows. They’re steaming up. Glass cabinets full of porcelain and pot animals occupy each alcove of the room. One cabinet is almost entirely devoted to shire horse figurines. We have, according to our age, been offered a can of local cider or pop, with a small glass to accompany each drink. And a plate of biscuits. The television has its plug out. We are on holiday in a part of rural southern England we don’t know, and have no family in. This is another country. So this is what we do for now, in this strange world, we can sit together, that’s nice. We could play whist, for buttons, later on. Cards are in the glove box.

We can take a ride to North Shields on the Metro if you like. Or go to Gateshead Stadium.

Living up past Intack now. No one outside of this diary knows where I am. 

Thank goodness the men had their own pubs up there, the noise! They could all bugger off there, away from us and we could get some peace. All that high-pitched screeching, I’m glad we couldn’t go in, awful.

It’s early 1999. We take Julian Cope's Modern Antiquarian book out on the road and check out loads of stone circles, henges and other Neolithic sites right round the North and north Midlands of England. Northumberland, Cumberland, the East Riding, Derbyshire, you name it.  While I was messing about trying to find the bloody stones or waffling on about some historical point, he would find the absurd or weird in the smallest situation. One that sticks in my mind was when he pulled me to one side in Penrith and said, ‘Listen to me, there are no pigeons in Penrith.’ We’d only been there for about ten minutes, but he was right. Despite a chippy doing a roaring trade, there were no pigeons at all. None. And we didn’t see one for hours. It still makes me think. We also went to Ostrich World, where he showed a bunch of visiting school children a boar pig having a ginormous shit, whilst it was lying down. His timing was impeccable in these situations. ‘Watch this, children.’ How the hell did he “stage manage” that? 

(This is the second option for a story at the wake.) 

Farms surrounded Newcastle back after the war, you didn’t have to go far for fresh grub back then! We’re going to the new city farm, for your granda’s sake, no arguing! He’s proud of the lads there. You could look at the pigs and have a bacon sandwich with real fat on it. (Slab of pink meat, specs of charcoal on the flesh, the rind a wee bit yellow between the black. Slapped into a stottie smeared with marge.) Proper that!

I was in digs all round here for years, most of the lads were; one had a little lady with a cap and pinafore, she must have been over seventy, had been in service. Eggs and bacon every morning, no messing, and no point asking otherwise.

He’s had a rough time of it with his insides.

An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.