Chapter 1

I lost Mavis a month ago. To tell the truth it wasn't a surprise; she had fought long and hard, never complaining of the pain always talking of the better times to come when she was well again. We both knew that was Pie in the Sky, but neither of us admitted it to the other. When the end came the grieving had already been done, my son and daughter joined me in taking the phlegmatic approach and were grateful that she wouldn't suffer any more. We had been together for forty-three years and she had been a good wife. I suppose that after all that time I had grown to love her. I had always liked her even from our first meeting when we were kids growing up in the same mean street of terraced houses. As we grew older it seemed inevitable that we would be together. My parents and her parents assumed that, but assumptions are usually hopeful wishes and we all know what wishes are. More Pie in the Sky.

My Dad was a railwayman, starting with the G.W.R. in the early nineteen thirties. Getting a job on the railway was considered sensible as with all the unemployment at that time the railway companies offered secure, even if poorly paid employment. My grandfather was a railwayman and favour was shown to applicants who had a relative already in service. Dad had joined in South Wales where I was born but after nationalisation he moved to Saltley which had been a Midland Railway depot. Dad had an unshakeable belief that I would also be a railwayman, so in nineteen fifty-seven at seventeen years of age I was taken down to the Engine Shed and was signed on. It wasn't what I wanted. I had achieved good passes in the G.C.E. and would have liked to go on to Technical College. That dream vanished as the family needed another wage and I had to provide it. My older brother, William had poliomyelitis when young. He was weak, spending most of the time in a wheelchair and needed oxygen often so he would never be a wage earner. My wishes were naught compared to the family needs, so at six the next Monday morning I reported for duty. I became a member of a gang responsible for cleaning the engines on shed. It was filthy work climbing all over and underneath them and at the end of the shift I would walk the short distance home dirty and smelly. Mum, after a lifetime of working around dad's shifts was equal to the task. She had the tin bath full of hot water ready for me in the scullery. This was no time for modesty as she was determined that I would be clean, and as I bathed she would use a scrubbing brush to remove every last grain of dirt and I suspect a few layers of skin. There would be no dirt in her home!

Cleanliness was next to Godliness and mum took that mantra and translated it into fact. You could eat your dinner off the floor in her home if you could ignore the overwhelming odour of bleach. Mum kept the chemical manufacturers in business. Her hands were always chapped red from frequent immersion in the stinging liquid. The house had been built in the eighteen eighties by the Midland Railway Company for its employees. It consisted of one room and a scullery downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. The toilet, called the privy in those days, was a small brick hut built on to the back of the house. It required great resolve to visit it on cold dark nights. The privy too was fragrant with bleach the linoleum flooring having to be renewed frequently as the bleach would readily dissolve the stuff. Dad kept a short handled Fireman's shovel in the privy and most nights he would use it in his constant battle with rats. William and I would lie in bed and count the thwacks as dad put paid to yet another of the loathsome creatures. His best score ever was four in one night.

Our street was called Midland Terrace, a narrow, cobbled, thoroughfare shoehorned in between the houses and the railway. There were houses to one side only, the other side was a fence built from old sleepers (ties) set on end. In two places the fence had been torn down as railwaymen took a short cut to the engine shed rather than walk the extra yards to clock on. The street was our playground when young and was adapted to the game being played according to season. It was football in winter with our coats becoming the goalposts. I would have preferred Rugby as we were a Welsh family. Although living in England Dad and I would rejoice whenever the Welsh rugby team beat the English, especially if the game was played at Twickenham. Our smiles were hidden from our neighbours after all they were mostly English and we had to live next to them. In summer we played cricket, with an ancient gas streetlight serving as the wicket, and a bit of rudely carved waste wood as a bat. The girls would play hopscotch and there was many an argument as at times a football or cricket player would stray into their chalked grid on the pavement. There were always at least two windows broken every year, when one young budding Denis Compton would connect surprisingly well with the ball, too well as it happened and the crash and tinkling glass was a signal for all the kids to vanish practicing the innocent looks that would be needed later. Punishment and caring was dished up equally by any of our neighbours. It was no good complaining to your dad that Mrs. Wilkins had given you a slap. His reply would be.

"I expect you deserved it."

We were all in the same boat. There was employment on the railway and with that enough money to keep the roof over our heads and food on the table. But there was nothing to spare for luxuries. If a celebration was required, then everyone in the street would rally round and find the wherewithal for it to happen. In nineteen fifty-three there were tables of various shapes and sizes taken out into the street for the celebration of the Queen's Coronation. There was an abundance of food provided by households that could only usually just feed themselves, yet what little they had was put on those tables for everyone to share. We ate, laughed, cheered and danced, for one moment forgetting the hum-drum existence that was our lives.

Mavis lived just down the street in another of the railway cottages. We went to the same schools, Junior and Senior. Not always in the same class yet often enough so that we would exchange notes and cribs. The gawky, skinny girl I first knew as an eight year old grew up into a slim but shapely young woman. As we moved through our teens we began to go out together socially. We would go to the local cinemas together on weeknights, catching up on the latest Hollywood movies as they came round. Then on Saturday nights we joined the crush at the West End Ballroom. Ballroom dancing was out of fashion then as the hurricane of new music had blown in from America, which our parents regarded as sinful, spelling the breakdown of society's order. Our dancing would be Rock and Roll, to the sounds of Bill Haley and the Comets, Freddy Bell and the Bellboys and Little Richard. We watched the films at the cinema then went to the dance and tried the steps for ourselves. We called it Jive. Always towards the end of the evening they would play slower, romantic stuff from The Platters and Connie Francis giving us the opportunity to dance close. That was the time when much face powder would be transferred from her face to my jacket and lipstick somehow found its way on to my collar. Later walking Mavis home more powder would appear on my jacket. Nat 'King' Cole got it so right.

Our relationship was good, although I doubt that either of us would call it love. We got on well together, and liked each other. It was a bond forged by growing up and common interests. She did look good. Slim, a pretty face, especially when she put on makeup, with dark hair cut close to her face. On Saturday nights she would wear a nice dress, her slim waist emphasised by a broad belt and ruffled petticoats to spread her skirts out. Her breasts were not prominent yet when we danced close I could feel them pushing into my chest, a rather nice pressure. Walking home after the dance was probably the only time we became a little romantic, I would hold her hand conscious that hers was dainty and clean with painted nails and mine was ingrained with oil and coal dust, the nails broken. Mavis worked in an office as a Comptometer operator, I with brute steam locomotives, solid lumps of coal and hot metals. It was that difference that would become one of the factors that parted us. Mavis lived and worked in a clean world, my world was dirty, and I brought the dirt of work home with me. I could only get my hands clean by scrubbing them red raw, but the smell of oil stayed with you always. Mavis had from time to time asked me why I didn't get a clean job. It was difficult to explain that quitting the railway would be throwing dad's help in his face even though I hadn't wanted that help in the first place.