I was born in post war Britain, in The Potteries, or to give it its proper name, the city of Stoke-on-Trent. As the name suggests, the city is famous for its pottery industry. That means bottle kilns spewing out black smoke all over the city, twenty four hours a day. We did have a bit of other industry, but coal mining and steel production, aren’t known for their cleanliness. Rationing would continue for a few more years and housing was still predominantly terraced two up, two down with an outside toilet. The one good thing about our city was that there was work for whoever wanted it, poorly paid work, but still work. House ownership was for managers and above. Car ownership was even more infrequent. The best the ordinary man could hope for was a combo, a motorcycle and sidecar. When I was three, my parents moved into one of the hundreds of council built homes that were springing up all over the city. I was far too young to appreciate the jump in living standards. Our new house was a semi-detached, three bedroom one, with interior bathroom, upstairs no less. Instead of a front door opening directly onto the street and, if you were lucky, a small yard to the rear, we now had a good sized front garden and an even bigger rear one. We even had a purpose built coal house come shed. For my parents and their neighbours it was a dream come true. Our estate had a few hundred homes, for which the council provided eight garages, and initially, even this was an over estimate. The majority of houses were built for families, but a few bungalows and flats were also available.

The City General Hospital started life as a workhouse in the nineteenth century and was built to house up to five hundred inmates, and yes, that is what they were called. Parts of the site still looked as foreboding as it must have been for those paupers who first approached it. The bricks didn’t look like they’d been cleaned since it was first built, not a good look in the smoke covered area. A few pre war additions had been provided, mainly a new maternity block and an incinerator. The latter was supposed to burn all the disposable waste and also provided heating for the hospital. As the buildings were spread over a large area, hot water pipes lay in tunnels beneath the roads, covered only with concrete slabs. Beneath, in the year round warmth lived, amongst other creatures, feral cats. The council estate that I lived on was next to the hospital, separated only by a road, and there were many neighbours willing to pay a small amount for a cute little kitten. My brother Joe, with just a little help from me, was more than happy to satisfy that need at the cost to us of just a few scratches. I’m sure the new pet owners were equally wounded, though none complained.

My initial childhood was a happy one. We had nothing, but neither did anyone else, so we knew no different. I had friends and enemies that changed, almost on a weekly basis, as you or your best friend did or said something annoying. They became your enemy for a week or so, by which time everything was forgotten. I got into the usual trouble all local lads seemed to attract, but in hindsight was pretty harmless, usually some practical joke that didn’t quite work, or one that did, but you didn’t run away fast enough. Scrumping (stealing apples from gardens) was probably the worst crime. If caught, you could expect a clip around the ear. You never complained to your parents about that, because if you did, you’d end up with another from your father. I wouldn’t say it was an idyllic time, but we were always happy. All that ended at the first of my childhood’s two defining moments.

That first moment was in 1956, when I was just eight. It was then that I contacted Polio. As I’ve intimated, our house was virtually opposite the City General and the waste that wasn’t burnt, was often flushed straight down into the local stream. That stream and it’s surrounding area also doubled as a playground for the local kids. Old medicine bottles of all kinds were also thrown onto the tip aside the stream, once holding, who knows what. Naturally, they made great targets as we all tried to improve our aim, either with a thrown stone or better still, a home made catapult. Nowadays, no-one would be allowed near a site like that without a full biohazard suit. They couldn’t be sure, but the doctors guessed that was where I picked it up. I was immediately taken to Bucknall Isolation Hospital on the outskirts of the city. I was secreted in a small, single story building used solely for contagious diseases, of which polio was amongst the most feared. It was not a pleasant place for anyone, let alone an eight year old child, whose parents weren’t even allowed onto the ward. The words ‘lumbar puncture’ still put me in a cold sweat. Many who ended up there never made it out, so I was relatively lucky to escape with just a shortened and withered left leg.

I can now say ‘lucky’, but for the next decade or so, I certainly didn’t feel it. The name calling started as soon as I returned to school. I was reasonably popular before, so it came as a massive shock to be called so many unpleasant names, before the nickname of Crip took hold. The terror that Polio spread through my 1950’s estate hadn’t helped, as all the kids had been warned to keep well away from my home, many even crossing the road twice rather than walk directly past our house. I didn’t realise until much later that my elder brother, Joe, suffered a similar ostracism and even though he never caught the disease. It also helped explain why he joined the RAF as soon as he was old enough to leave the area. My name is James Laker, Jim to the few that actually used my name. Apart from my mother, only my school teachers used James, and that was only in conjunction with my surname.

Kids can be cruel, sometimes by engaging mouth before putting brain into gear, or by design. The latter seemed saved for anyone different enough from the norm. I suppose that I’d been guilty of both types as I’d joined in the teasing of the one girl who wore glasses and had red hair. The polio thing would have probably passed with time, but having a withered leg and needing a cane to get around was with me for life.

In any school you will find bullies, looking to prove themselves by picking on those weaker than they are. To make matters worse, like finds like, and you end up with a small group, best avoided if you are anyway different. Some managed to hide those differences to a greater or lesser extent. With my leg, that just wasn’t possible. It didn’t help that I couldn’t run away. The only thing that saved from severe beatings was Joe. Although he no longer attended our school, he was still well known on the estate. His reputation started when I was in hospital and a couple of the older bullies felt that his ostracism warranted a beating, and a beating there was, only they were the ones on the receiving end. He’d had numerous fights growing up and had won most. In the ones he lost, he ensured that the winner never left pain free.

The estate we lived on was Council run, with rented properties only. Few ever managed to escape its clutches, only education, sporting prowess or the armed services offered any real alternative. The only way any of the adults had even a hope was the Football Pools (think lottery but predicting football results instead of numbers). The area had no sporting facilities, so natural talent was a must if that was to be your escape. None ever managed it whilst I lived there. That meant, for the kids it was grammar school or being prepared for a life of manual labour. Both my parents worked full time, one as a machine operator at the local Michelin factory, the other as a cleaner for a few wealthy individuals. I’m sure that you can guess which of my parents did which job.

With no friends or sports to occupy my time, I spent more than most, reading and studying. Naturally, doing well academically, did little to alleviate the bullying. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was again ‘fortunate’ that this only took the form of verbal abuse and being regularly tripped up or knocked off balance, the girls being easily the more vindictive. Joe had put the word out that I was to be left alone so the boys were far more circumspect.

All the regular studying meant that I was able to qualify for Hanley High School, the best boys’ school in the city. The advantage of going to grammar school was that the majority of pupils were there to learn and here my academical knowledge was only average. This meant hardly any bullying went on during school hours. As Hanley High was about an hour away and required a minimum of two bus journeys, I had to spend time every day with those few from my estate who also attended my school. Fortunately for me, those few were never really bullies, though I was subject to a lot of name calling. After what went on in Junior School, I could easily ignore that. School rules said that all pupils must queue outside the room until the relevant teacher came. Rather than lockers we tended to use either satchels or briefcases, with the latter being far the most prevalent. These then became a useful tool for bowling down the polished wooden corridor into a group queuing outside a room. I was particularly prone to this attack as I was the slowest between classes and therefore at the end of the group. I never failed to land in a heap, much to the amusement of those who hadn’t joined me. I never took this as bullying for I knew that it was a game played whether I was in the queue or not.

At about the same time I started to notice girls, but I knew, that for me, that was the impossible dream. Only once did I dare to ask a girl for a date, and that took weeks to build up enough courage to ask. Jenny, the girl in question, was one of the few that didn’t torment me. I considered her cute with an elfin face with button nose. Her hair was dirty blonde and I could just about make out breasts pushing out from her usual flowery dress. Her response was one of incredulity, that I would even consider that she would go out with a cripple. It wasn’t said in a nasty way, which, in reality, hurt even more. I never asked anyone again, I knew my place. At least she didn’t rub my face in it and I heard nothing else from her about it.

My father had served in the war, as had most men of his generation. He was a man’s man, representing the army at both boxing and football. Given my disability, he rarely had time for me, considering me a waste of his time. He loved the atmosphere of a pub, but only ever went when the family could afford it, which was hardly ever. In that way he was a good father, or more accurately, a good provider. It wasn’t rare for men on our estate to come home on payday, already skint after visiting the pub, bookies or both. Their families then had to do without for the week. They were the type of men that considered a back-hander was justified if their wives dared to complain. Many a mother was sporting a black eye on a Saturday.

For me, and the majority of kids, pocket money was unheard of and sweets only appeared at Christmas and birthdays, so when, just shy of my fifteenth birthday, I found half a crown (12.5p) I didn’t know what to do with it. I decided to risk a bob (5p) for an extra line on my father’s pools entry, on condition that we share any winnings. I have no recollection as to how I spent the rest. A Pools win was the dream of just about everyone, and I was no exception. I saw it as providing the halcyon life I’d often read about, with big houses and fast cars.

That brings me to the second event that changed my life. My line proved to be a jackpot winner with well over £270,000 coming our way. In the early 1960s that was a fortune. My father was the one whose name was on the coupon and it was to him the money was paid out. When I mentioned my half, he just laughed telling me that nothing was coming my way. The discussion got quite loud and when I called him a thief he really laid into me. He’d obviously lost little of his boxing skills, as I ended up with three broken ribs and a chest covered with bruises. He didn’t stop until I was in a heap on the floor. I’m sure that Joe would have stopped him, but he was already in the RAF by then.

I never considered him Dad again and refused every single thing he later offered, which, to be honest, wasn’t much. Sadly, with no chance of a part time job, I had little choice but to accept the food and room that I’d been receiving to that date. My mother treated me slightly better but she was of the generation where wives did as their husbands demanded.

As soon as I was fifteen I managed to get an office job at one of the smaller family run potbanks (pottery factories). This allowed me to leave home and move into a tiny bedsit. My parents had purchased a larger house and given up work. Owing to the ridiculous system we have in this country, we had still not moved into the new house, so I’d never lived in anything but our council house. As I’d spent most of my time in my bedroom, even more so since the pools win, a bedsit wasn’t too much of a change. My landlady, Mrs. Carding was brilliant. A slim widow, in her sixties, she was still active and full of humorous tales. She was also a great cook, at least for standard English fayre, often ‘accidentally’ cooking too much so I just might as well have some.

I’d actually applied for a manual position, as I knew that many of the jobs in the pottery industry are done seated, but when the M.D. saw that I was a grammar school boy, he changed that to an office job. So it was that in 1963, aged just 15, I started as a junior clerk. Although Stoke-on-Trent is a city, it is really a row of smaller towns, roughly in a line north to south. Transport was either by foot, bicycle or bus, although a few had motorcycles. This meant that most worked as close to home as possible. Although I was now in a bedsit, I’d still remained in my local town of Stoke which is one of the middle six towns. Therefore it wasn’t that much of a surprise that a couple of older girls from my junior school also worked there. I was disappointed, though not surprised, when my nickname made itself known. Soon, everyone, except senior management was calling me Crip. It was soon clear that any hopes of meeting a nice girl at work were dashed. As I worked in the office, I was, wrongly, considered management and so was looked by most of the workers as the enemy. That, along with the jeering when I hobbled past, ensured that I had no friends on the shop floor.

I’d been there about eighteen months when one Saturday, whilst I was strolling around Newcastle’s street market, I spotted some of our ware on one of the stalls. Newcastle-under-Lyme is a small town bordering, but definitely not part of, Stoke-on-Trent. It was known as a market town and had stalls out most days of the week. It was the place to go if you needed anything cheap and cheerful. Automatically, I picked up a plate and checked underneath, expecting to find the seconds mark we used.

The stall holder saw what I was doing and tried the hard sell. “Firsts they are, as you can see and they only cost a bit more than seconds. How many do you want then? Half a dozen?” His accent gave him away as a local.

“Just the one.” I responded.

“One is going to be a bit lonely,” he laughed, although the humour never reached his eyes. This was patter and I never considered it genuine.

“I only want one to replace a broken one from my set,” I lied.

“Okay,” he said, obviously disappointed in such a small sale. “Anything else? How about a tea set? I can do you a good deal on the same design as your plate, firsts as well.”

I declined his offer, and paid him, before putting the plate in my bag and continuing my stroll, ending up at the chippy on the high street, where I treated myself to fish and chips, before continuing my jaunt around the stalls. Nothing else caught my eye so I headed home. With nothing better to do, I decided a slow (as if I was capable of any other type) walk back was in order.

Monday morning at work, as soon as I had a moment, I asked my immediate boss if we ever sold firsts for seconds prices.

“That would be economic suicide,” he laughed. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

I took out the plate that I’d purchased and handed it to him. John Potts was a portly man, approaching sixty, who had accepted that his current position was as far up the ladder as he’d ever progress. John was a nice genuine man and a good listener. His accent wasn’t normally as strong as most in the area, but it was clear that he was a Stokie. It changed, becoming more pronounced, when he became angry, which fortunately was a rare event and even more fortunate, had never been directed at me.

“I bought this on the market in ‘Castle, on Saturday, sold as a first. I’m not an expert but it looks good enough to be a first and there is no seconds mark.”

He studied it for a while before telling me to fetch Bill Cope, which I promptly did. Bill was in charge of Quality Control, and if anyone could tell the difference it was him. Bill was still classed as hourly paid, and therefore on the shop floor, even though he was better thought of, and paid, than most of management.

“Definitely a first,” he confirmed, after being told the story. “Was this a one off piece?”

“No, he had a fair bit of our ware and told me that it was all firsts.”

“Well then, something fishy is going on then. Leave it with me and I’ll do some investigating.”

“Well spotted lad.” He finished, before heading back to his own area. Bill was tall and lean with an army style haircut and a reputation for getting things done. One of his greatest assets, essential in his job, was that he couldn’t be bullshitted. I was sure that he would find out if anything dubious was going on.

It was nearly a month later that I was informed that two of the checkers were in cahoots with a few traders and were slipping a load of firsts into the seconds area whenever they were due. Both were sacked and I got a ‘well done’ from senior management.

I also got a beating. Wendy Spencer was one of the office girls who’d gone to my junior school, albeit two years ahead of me. She was reasonably pretty but also extremely spiteful, which for me negated any good looks. A couple of days after the sacking she cornered me as I was making a brew for John Potts and myself.

“I’d watch my back if I was you, Crip. Tom isn’t happy that you got him sacked.” She told me with a smirk.

I didn’t know any Tom, but assumed that he was one of the two dismissed.

“He got himself sacked. Anyway how does he know it was me that started the ball rolling?” I asked.

The smirk got bigger. “Oh, I think I might have let that slip.”

There was not much I could do, but to keep an eye open and avoid areas where I might get trapped. That was easier said than done, for that weekend as I was leaving my bedsit, I was set upon by three men, all wearing dark balaclavas. I was knocked to the floor almost immediately and then kicked by all three. No words were exchanged, but I knew why I was on the receiving end of this attack. So many people cannot accept that it is their own doing when things go wrong. Fortunately, one of the neighbours heard the commotion and came out to investigate. Stan Fowley was a miner and not someone you wanted to cross. Used to swinging a heavy pick all day, he was built like the proverbial shithouse. My attackers took one look at him before deciding that I’d had enough of a lesson and that they weren’t inclined to take Stan on in order to prolong it.

Nobody I knew owned their own telephone, so Stan sent his wife to the nearest red telephone box to summon an ambulance. Before that arrived, a police constable arrived on his bicycle. By then, I’d recovered enough to give him details of the attack and the warning I’d been given. I’d just finished doing that when the ambulance turned up and whisked me off to the hospital. A few hours and several x-rays later I was discharged with a prescription for some strong pain killers. Not being the first time I’d been beaten up and kicked, I’d automatically curled up into a ball to protect my head and body, meaning all the injuries were to my arms and back. I’d live. The most painful part was the walk back to my digs without my cane, which had been left behind at the scene of the assault. Stan had spotted it after the ambulance had left and handed it to Mrs. Carding for me.

Monday morning, I hobbled into work, even more slowly than normal. As all my bruises were hidden from view, no-one noticed, except Wendy, who gave another smirk as I struggled to my desk. I decided not to bring it to the attention of the company as it had happened off site and I had no proof of who the culprits were. I heard later from the police that Tom had a number of friends that all gave him an alibi. The sergeant I spoke to said that they knew it was him by his cocky smiles, but had no proof to take it any further. I just hoped that Tom and his cronies felt that they’d paid me back sufficiently to let it go.

The main part of my job was compiling data for incorporating into reports. This information could usually be found on forms completed by departmental supervisors or managers, but occasionally I would have to hobble around the factory to ask questions. A few months later, just after my eighteenth birthday, I happened to be in a meeting of the senior managers, as a topic they were due to discuss concerned a report that I’d produced. I arrived on time for my part, but they were running over, so I sat on a chair and kept quiet. They were discussing breakages, or more importantly, how could they reduce them. The debate was a bit heated, with departmental heads blaming each other, but no definite solution seemed to emerge before they call a halt to the topic. I was then asked to present my findings to the very minor problem that I’d been set.

“Before I begin, I couldn’t help but hear the previous discussion. All the reports that cross my desk show that the vast majority of breakages take place between moulding and drying. If you made a doorway from the moulding area, near the back stairs, into the drying area that would remove the need to take everything halfway around the factory and changing levels a few times.”

There was total silence. I didn’t know whether that was of what I’d said or that I’d had the nerve to say anything. I decided that I’d best just make my presentation quickly and then get out.

It was about six weeks later before I needed to go into the drying area. I was amazed that someone had followed through on my suggestion for there, right where I thought best, was a doorway into the moulding room, and all on the same level. I was happy that my suggestion had proved a good one, but disappointed that no-one had mentioned it or thought to thank me. Perhaps it wasn’t having the results I’d predicted, or more likely one of the bosses had claimed the idea as his own.

Towards the end of November, I received a surprise visit from my brother. Joe looked really down and when he told me that my parents had been killed in a road traffic accident, I understood why. Although I was no longer in contact with them, I’d never wished even my father, any harm. Joe was stationed in the UK at the moment and had been granted leave to attend to matters. I was to learn later that my father had bought a rather high powered Jaguar. Now he hadn’t driven since the war and then it was in rather slow and heavy trucks. The Jag proved to be beyond his ability to drive at speed, especially after a couple of pints. At least no innocents, if you exclude my mother, had been involved.

Despite my feelings for them, they were my parents, so I attended the funeral, which was held a few days later. I was surprised at just how few attended. My father had retired from work, so no work colleagues; they had moved from the estate to a new posh house, where no doubt they were looked down upon, so no neighbours. I thought it sad that money had taken away the few friends that they had. Of course, there were the distant relatives hoping to dine at the trough.

As expected, I wasn’t required at the reading of the will. Joe received everything, which I thought was as it should be. He immediately put the posh house and most of its contents up for sale. He did ask if I wanted anything from the house, but I declined. He even offered half of the money, but I again declined. He refused to accept that and left it at ‘we’ll see’.

The next big moment in my life came a few months later at the company’s Christmas party. It was held in a large country house hotel and attendance was considered mandatory. So, attend I did. As I was consider a management stool, especially after getting two of the workforce sacked, I was considered an enemy by most of the workers. They seemed to ignore that the sacked duo were basically stealing from the company. Thanks to Wendy, everyone knew that I’d been the one to report it, therefore I was the one to blame. Also thanks to Wendy, the younger office workers give me a miss and I was far to low on the totem pole for the real managers. So, after a rather mediocre dinner, I retired to a quiet place in the gardens. Fortunately the weather was not too cold and I found a bench overlooking one of the French windows. From there I could listen to the music and observe the occasional couple that sneaked into the garden for whatever, all without being disturbed.

“No!” I heard a girl hiss as I saw a young man dragging one of the waitresses through the doors. It was clear that she didn’t want to be there and, equally clear, that he didn’t care.

I felt that I had no choice but to intervene, hopefully persuading the man to leave her alone. I was under no illusion that I could force him.

“You heard the lady, she does not wish to go with you.” I stated loudly as I hobbled towards them.

“She’s no lady,” he laughed, “just some slut waitress that will keep me amused for a while.”

“So you intend to RAPE the poor girl.”

By then he had taken in my appearance and smirked. “And if I am, how do you propose to stop me.” He laughed some more. He was extremely well attired and had a haughty stance, as if he expected to get his way, whatever anyone else’s thoughts. Arrogance usually comes with money, looks or sporting achievement. This man definitely had the first two and the third wouldn’t have been a surprise. I had little doubt of the outcome, but I had to try.

I took another step towards him, holding firmly to my cane. He then made a mistake by releasing her arm to move towards me and push me back. I only just about managed to stay upright.

Noticing that the young waitress had retreated inside he reacted angrily. “Now look, you stupid imbecile, I’ll have to go and get her all over again.”

He then punched me in the face. This time, I couldn’t stay vertical, and fell to the floor. He then stepped closer and started cursing me while raining kicks to my body. One connected with my head and that was the last thing I remembered until I woke up in hospital a few hours later. An annual kicking seemed to be part of my recent life, though one I could well do without.

The following morning, a police sergeant walked in to talk to me. He was typical of his type for the period. Slightly overweight, with a red nose, indicating that he liked a drink. His manner was brusque. I felt intimidated and I was the victim. I told him what had happened, but I also asked him about events following my beating. It seemed that the girl ran back inside and fetched some of the hotel’s burlier staff. They had managed to pull the man away. I was asked whether I knew the man before, which I didn’t, though he did look vaguely familiar. I assumed that he worked in some context for the company.

Because I had suffered concussion and before hospitals were run by accountants, I was kept in for a further day. I did have one surprise visitor. Michael Walker was the owner of the company and I thought it splendid that he would spare enough time to visit me. That was, until he spoke.

“What do you think you were doing? My son is facing serious charges, just because you interfered.”

“Eh!” I proved unhelpfully. It then clicked that the man who put me here must be his son. “He was going to rape that poor girl...”

“So what, she was only a stupid little waitress, she’d probably have enjoyed it anyway. I want you to tell the police that you aren’t going to press charges and that it was your own fault for interfering.”

“Not a chance!”

“What do you mean? You will do as I tell you if you know what’s good for you.”

“No!”

“You will if you want to keep your job.”

“I don’t. Your son is a misogynistic bully and I can see that he gets that from his father. I have no wish to work any longer for such a family.”

“Right, you’re fired. Gross misconduct I think, which means you get nothing.”

With that, he turned and stormed out, pushing past the nurse who was standing in the doorway.

“If you need a witness to what he just said, then I’ll be happy to oblige. People like that really disgust me.”

“I’ll probably need you then, as I plan to sue for wrongful dismissal.”

As it turned out, I didn’t need to do that, because someone talked some sense into him and I was made redundant, rather than being sacked. Obviously the package was the absolute minimum required. Still, I’d planned to quit anyway, so it was a small bonus.