stoppers that she inserts into each nostril and, shoving her hand beneath his body, his anus. There is more lifting and shoving as she cuts, folds and puts on a cotton-cloth nappy, and then slips over that a pair of clean long johns and a nightshirt. Almost done now, Walter. She binds his chin, enfolds his arms over his chest, and puts his prayer book under his right arm. Finally she takes from her purse two dark pennies which she rubs on her cuffs and places on his eyes. Then she kisses him and goes upstairs to sleep.
In the morning she will withdraw the money they had saved and order for him an oak casket with polished brass handles. Later, friends and sons-in-law will bear him past the houses with curtains drawn, down the hill to the Bolton-upon-Dearne graveyard at the bottom of the valley.
It is almost eighteen years to the month since he sent the letter about the bullet. Keep your spirits up. They have not broken mine, as heavy a fire as I have been under, and I don’t think they will. Kiss the children for me, and remember me to all at home.
11 The Magic Half-Pint
Highgate and Skegness, 1936–38
‘Right. Are you ready?’
It is an autumn night in 1937. In the sitting room at Number 34, Highgate Lane, an expectant crowd has gathered: Winnie, Juggler Jane, Danny, Millie and their new baby daughter Pamela, the children, Roy, Tommy, Brian and Barbara. In the passage Harry is calling to them as he waits to make his entrance.
‘I said “Are you ready?”’
‘Yes!’ they all shout, they are ready. Get on with it!
The door opens, and Harry walks in wearing a curly ginger wig, a long satin skirt like Jane’s, a shawl, and a hat with ribbons tying under the chin. Below the hem of the skirt his audience see the frills of a pair of bloomers. He is carrying a bottle of whisky and his gait is deliberate and slow.
Winnie sighs in mock embarrassment. Millie, Roy and Tommy laugh, and Jane, sucking at a clay pipe, looks nonplussed. The clothes are not old-fashioned to her, though she is puzzled as to why her grandson is wearing them.
‘Mother Riley!’ says Millie, and Harry smiles.
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘but watch this.’
He walks across the room, pauses, and licks his lips, then he brushes back the ginger curls of his wig, puts his right hand under his long black skirt and produces from somewhere near his thighs a full half-pint of bitter, which he drinks off in one.
His audience is speechless. Roy breaks the horrified silence. ‘How did you do that, Dad?’
‘Do it again, Uncle Harry!’ says Tommy.
‘You’re not really going to do that in front of people,’ says Winnie. ‘Are you?’
Harry repeats the trick, and then explains that it is part of a new act based on Arthur Lucan’s Old Mother Riley character. In the last few years Harry has become popular as a drummer, comic and singer, well known in the valley for his ad-libbed version of ‘ All of Me’ , but he has been trying to think of ways to increase his bookings and his fees. Seeing his first Old Mother Riley film has given him an idea: a ribald South Yorkshire take on Lucan’s act, but with the beer gimmick. If that works, he will add his version of the Sand Dance, which has become popular on the back of a craze for Egyptiana following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and for which he has bought fezzes, fake moustaches, long white nightshirts and sandals. To the two copy acts he adds a third one of his own. For this nameless character, Harry tapes pitmen’s metal Dudleys to his body, and wears women’s stockings with dripping tins pushed inside them. Over this he wears a floral-print dress and finishes off the look with the application of foundation, lipstick, eye make-up and rouge, and sometimes the ginger wig. The effect is more frightening than anything else, but when he takes his drumsticks and plays the Dudleys and dripping tins as if his whole body is a drum, the audiences will go wild.
Roy and Tommy want to see it all now.
In the morning she will withdraw the money they had saved and order for him an oak casket with polished brass handles. Later, friends and sons-in-law will bear him past the houses with curtains drawn, down the hill to the Bolton-upon-Dearne graveyard at the bottom of the valley.
It is almost eighteen years to the month since he sent the letter about the bullet. Keep your spirits up. They have not broken mine, as heavy a fire as I have been under, and I don’t think they will. Kiss the children for me, and remember me to all at home.
11 The Magic Half-Pint
Highgate and Skegness, 1936–38
‘Right. Are you ready?’
It is an autumn night in 1937. In the sitting room at Number 34, Highgate Lane, an expectant crowd has gathered: Winnie, Juggler Jane, Danny, Millie and their new baby daughter Pamela, the children, Roy, Tommy, Brian and Barbara. In the passage Harry is calling to them as he waits to make his entrance.
‘I said “Are you ready?”’
‘Yes!’ they all shout, they are ready. Get on with it!
The door opens, and Harry walks in wearing a curly ginger wig, a long satin skirt like Jane’s, a shawl, and a hat with ribbons tying under the chin. Below the hem of the skirt his audience see the frills of a pair of bloomers. He is carrying a bottle of whisky and his gait is deliberate and slow.
Winnie sighs in mock embarrassment. Millie, Roy and Tommy laugh, and Jane, sucking at a clay pipe, looks nonplussed. The clothes are not old-fashioned to her, though she is puzzled as to why her grandson is wearing them.
‘Mother Riley!’ says Millie, and Harry smiles.
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘but watch this.’
He walks across the room, pauses, and licks his lips, then he brushes back the ginger curls of his wig, puts his right hand under his long black skirt and produces from somewhere near his thighs a full half-pint of bitter, which he drinks off in one.
His audience is speechless. Roy breaks the horrified silence. ‘How did you do that, Dad?’
‘Do it again, Uncle Harry!’ says Tommy.
‘You’re not really going to do that in front of people,’ says Winnie. ‘Are you?’
Harry repeats the trick, and then explains that it is part of a new act based on Arthur Lucan’s Old Mother Riley character. In the last few years Harry has become popular as a drummer, comic and singer, well known in the valley for his ad-libbed version of ‘ All of Me’ , but he has been trying to think of ways to increase his bookings and his fees. Seeing his first Old Mother Riley film has given him an idea: a ribald South Yorkshire take on Lucan’s act, but with the beer gimmick. If that works, he will add his version of the Sand Dance, which has become popular on the back of a craze for Egyptiana following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and for which he has bought fezzes, fake moustaches, long white nightshirts and sandals. To the two copy acts he adds a third one of his own. For this nameless character, Harry tapes pitmen’s metal Dudleys to his body, and wears women’s stockings with dripping tins pushed inside them. Over this he wears a floral-print dress and finishes off the look with the application of foundation, lipstick, eye make-up and rouge, and sometimes the ginger wig. The effect is more frightening than anything else, but when he takes his drumsticks and plays the Dudleys and dripping tins as if his whole body is a drum, the audiences will go wild.
Roy and Tommy want to see it all now.
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