Chapter 82

The Easter break had finally arrived, and with it the big occasion of my parents throwing me a 21^st Birthday celebration ‘do’ at home.

(In those days, 21 was your real coming of age, despite it no longer being a legal mark for anything other than becoming a Member of Parliament; the voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969, and of course the really important benchmark of being able to legally buy alcohol had been 18 in Britain since the Great War, when soldiers had pointed out that if they were old enough to die for their country, then perhaps they were old enough to buy beer? Julie tells me that a lot of countries reduced the age of majority from 21 to 18 during the 1970’s, though of course that didn’t always include everything – I never will truly understand the drinking age system in the United States, although she tells me that essentially the Federal Government blackmailed the State Governments in 1984 by linking a basic minimum drinking age of 21 for liquor with getting federal funding for roads. At least when I first went to the States I was obviously old enough, though I then had to do some fast learning on the rules as to where, when and how you got the drink from the bartender to your table... )

Anyway, on Maundy Thursday 1975, six cheerful students in holiday and party mood, complete with rucksacks and sleeping bags, left Cardiff at the crack of dawn, picking up two more at Bristol Parkway, and another two when they changed trains at Didcot.

Sian, bless her, had pointed out, when I first invited them all to ‘the bash’ on Easter Saturday, that it might be a good idea to book seats in advance, so at least we didn’t have to stand all the way on the busy holiday trains. We all chattered non-stop, catching up on our doings since the previous summer when we’d all shared the caravan at the vegetable processing factory, and the journey went surprisingly quickly.

I was sitting next to Adrian, who told me that the twins had taken up Badminton as a sport since we’d last seen them, and hoped to continue with it. He said that he now preferred it to playing Rugby for several reasons:

“It’s held in a nice warm dry sports hall out of the wind, rain and mud, your opponents don’t wear studded boots or try to maim you, Twin and I can play together, and it’s really good cardiovascular exercise!”

“Cardio what?”

“Cardio-vascular. It means that you’re moving around all the time, so it gets the blood pumping oxygen round your body to feed your muscles, and gets your heart rate up and your lungs working properly.”

“I thought Badminton was a nice gentle game for middle-aged people to bat a shuttlecock to and fro on the South Lawn until the butler brings out the seed cake and the silver tea pot, more genteel than Croquet and not as competitive as Billiards?”

He laughed at my misconception.

“And that night one of them drops dead at the Dinner table or is found stabbed in a locked study? You’ve been reading too much Agatha Christie! Nah, trust me, mate, it can get exciting and extremely competitive. It’s a bit like squash; they actually have different grades of shuttlecock that go faster. Give it a go if you get a chance.”

I said that we probably would as he was so enthusiastic about it, and our conversation moved on to how their studies were going.

“We’re doing Pathology at the moment, and the normal lecturer is away, so we’ve got a retired consultant in to cover, and he’s a right old bastard, or as Twin delicately put it after we got our first essay back covered in red ink, ‘a shit of the first water’.”

I laughed at the expression. I’d heard of ‘a diamond of the first water’, but this worked just as well.

“Is Pathology the one where you have to do your Burke and Hare impersonation?”

He chuckled.

“Big cloaks and shovels over our shoulders? Nah, there’s no bopping innocent passers-by on the head or body snatching at dead of night required for Pathology – that’s Anatomy. Pathology is where you examine tissue or removed organs to work out precisely what disease or problem caused the symptoms – like whether a tumour is cancerous or not, and how far a disease like cirrhosis of the liver has progressed. It’s really interesting, but the bloke expects us to know everything already, and of course we don’t. I think Twin would quite like to dissect a certain part of his anatomy; she didn’t take kindly to having the word ‘IDIOT’ scrawled against her essay!”

“Oh dear!”

“Mind you, she got even crosser when I got to page four of mine, and found the word ‘CRETIN’ in big red capitals!”

“Are they still allowed to use that word? I thought it had been banned, like calling someone a ‘spastic’?”

“No, they haven’t been banned, but they’re considered offensive these days; when we had an ethics class they talked about being careful how you used them – spasticity is a medical term which means the involuntary or constant muscle spasms people who suffer from cerebral palsy suffer, and ‘cretinism’ is a recognised disease.”

“How does that work with the ‘Spastics Society’ then? It’s a bit daft naming your charity and then finding out that the very people you are helping find your name offensive?”

“Goodness knows – they’ll probably have to change their name. They must have thousands of collecting boxes around the country, so it’ll take them a while!”

He clicked his fingers as he remembered something else.

“Oh yeah, you’ll not like this bit either – apparently there is an old legal definition of an ‘idiot’, someone who has an IQ below 25, between 25 and 50 they are ‘imbeciles’, and then from 50 to 70 ‘morons’. Some Americans had a flirtation with eugenics between the Wars, when they were thinking about forcible sterilisation of what they termed the ‘feeble-minded’ to reduce future criminality, so it wasn’t just Hitler.”

We both shuddered. The crimes of the Nazi death camps only a few years before we were born were still so recent as to not count as history; the extensive newspaper coverage of the Yom Kippur war eighteen months earlier had included a lot of background information about the mass killing of not just Jews, but Gypsies and those considered less than perfect for the Aryan Master Race. Oh yes, we knew the term ‘eugenics’, and we didn’t like it.

“Can’t you complain that he’s using language like that?”

“We did! Sheila nipped round to see Catriona, and Alastair has had a word with the Dean of the Medical School, so we don’t think we’ll be seeing that blighter again!”

“Good! You shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of behaviour.”

We passed on to happier topics of conversation.

You’re going to find this difficult to believe, but it was actually snowing by the time we got to Birmingham, and we made our way across country to Nuneaton in what at times seemed like a blizzard outside the warm train, until the skies brightened up to sunshine as we left Leicester headed for Melton Mowbray.

Mum and Dad were at the station waiting for us with both cars; they laughed as they saw the big group of us emerge from the train struggling with all our baggage. Dad had to make two trips home in the big car; Mum set off first with Jen, Julie, Sheila and Vee somehow (tightly) all packed into the Mini, and he took Sian, Adrian, Fred (with his guitar) and Malcolm and a boot-full of luggage the first time, coming back twenty minutes later to pick up Hamish and I and the rest of the rucksacks and sleeping bags. By the time we got home, there were the first flurries of snow in the air and against the north-facing windows of the house. At least the others had made a fresh pot of tea for us!

My bedroom was to be the boys dormitory, Jen’s was hosting the five girls. By moving the beds to one side, it was just about going to be possible to get four doss bags on the floor and still get through the door; the spare room was left empty as using it would just create more washing for Mum. (Jen did whisper to me that maybe the Six Musketeers could share it and push the twin beds together, freeing up our single beds for the other two Cardiff couples; I assumed that she was just trying to wind me up. Could have been really good fun, though, right up until the moment that our parents found out what we were doing and took exception to it, then it might have got a bit messy, what with my entrails spread all over the place... )

We had a rather late lunch. Mum already had a huge stockpot of chicken and vegetable soup going on the cooker; we all had a good bowlful of that before starting on the toast, ham and pork pie, which kept us all quiet for a bit. My parents were normally sticklers for sitting down at the table for a meal, but they didn’t have twelve kitchen chairs, nor was the formica-topped table big enough for more than half of us to sit at, so Dad and the five girls got it, and the rest of us propped up against the walls, trying to keep out of Mum’s way as she served up. Hamish and I had been put in charge of the toaster – Jen jokingly told Hamish that it was about time he did some work – and Adrian was kept busy handing round the plates as Mum carved the ham. Mum had made up a cupful of Colman’s English Mustard, and there was a bit of wheezing and sniffling as the others got used to the greater strength when you make it from the powder, rather than the ready-mixed jars. (Dad always kept the empty distinctive yellow tins; he said that they were ideal for keeping safe the odd screws, nuts and washers that would otherwise have got lost or mixed up in his shed or workbench in the garage.)

Fred and Malcolm volunteered to wash up and dry, and Julie and I put the things away. By then it was time to sit down with a cup of tea and update my parents on what we had all been up to – they knew of course from the previous summer that Fred played the guitar well, but they were fascinated by his description of what he and Vee were doing with the Folk Music Society. Vee then told them about the Welsh Folk Museum at St. Fagans; I hadn’t previously heard the story of how the Museum was looking around for old Welsh vernacular buildings in need of TLC, buying them up and then moving them lock, stock and barrel to the site for re-erection and preservation – but then the chances were that Julie and I had been away from Cardiff the weekend that they had been to St. Fagans, and rather more interested in a different sort of re-erection...

Of course, that discussion about music led on to a plea from Mum for Fred to bring his guitar downstairs for a sing-song, and then a sudden realisation that it was almost eight o’clock and supper was long overdue. Mum had got Mr Johnson the butcher to keep two dozen slices of his cold rare roast beef on one side for her, and we enjoyed them with fried potatoes and piccallili.

We didn’t stay up too late; with only one bathroom, the washing arrangements were that the five girls went first, then the boys, and then Mum and Dad, and it still took quite a while. Luckily the downstairs loo was available for other necessities. We’d all learned the previous summer in the caravan not to hog the bathroom when there was probably someone else hopping up and down on one leg outside, waiting to use the facilities, so it was all good humoured.

It was interesting, shall we say, when it came to organising the four doss bags and our overnight things on the small expanse of floor so that no-one was going to be trodden on, we’d all be able to find our own clothes come the morning, and we could still open the door. At least I had my own bed! But nobody snored too loudly or suffered unbearable flatulence – we had all been carefully housetrained by our girlfriends – and we all slept well.

There was snow on the ground when I carefully navigated my way past my sleeping friends to my bedroom window, opened the curtains and looked out on Good Friday morning; it was only a couple of inches, but enough to cover everything with a thin blanket of white.

I nipped into the bathroom for a quick wash and a shave while the coast was clear, and then headed downstairs to put the kettle on again and greet my parents, who were already up and about. Mum, bless her, made a huge bowl of batter and was knocking out pancakes on demand for breakfast as people came down; the stocks of jam and honey took a real hit that morning! She’d also got a couple of trays of ‘Ski’ yoghurts from the cash and carry; I liked the apricot variety, while Julie preferred the pineapple one; we both got our favourites. As usual, the hazelnut ones were left over at the end, they just seemed a bit unusual a flavour for breakfast.

Being Friday, it was Market Day despite the Bank Holiday, so we all walked into town, noting that the snow was on the verge of turning to slush. It was almost a Christmas mood with the snow; it seemed very strange that it was in fact Easter! The Banks and the Post Office were about the only shops that weren’t open; with the coming holiday weekend and the schools broken up there were lots of people out and about.

Mum and Dad went to see Mr Johnson the butcher to quickly check on the order and delivery time for my party, and the rest of us wandered around the market stalls, making a circuit back through Broad Street before going to Woolworths to see what the record charts were doing. The Number One single was still the ‘Bay City Rollers’ with ‘Bye Bye Baby’. None of us even considered buying it; we were certainly not ‘teeny-boppers’, and we were at least eight years too old to fit the ‘tartan sensation‘s key fan demographic.

I did buy a Cadbury’s ‘Bar Six’ chocolate bar for 4p and split it with Julie; she also blew 3p and bought herself a tube of ‘Spangles’ square boiled sweets to suck. I’m sorry to have to report that the twins went a bit mad in the ‘Pick ‘n Mix’ aisle; their ‘quarter pound’ selection weighed in at over twelve ounces when the assistant put the little white paper bag on the scales, and it seemed to contain a heavy bias in favour of ‘Chocolate Eclairs’ when they offered them around. Their excuse was that there wasn’t a Woolworths in Clifton Village and so it was a bit of a treat for them. Their cousin Sian, having considered buying one of the new-fangled ‘Crème Eggs’, decided that she wouldn’t get away with popping it in her mouth whole, and therefore settled for an ‘Aztec’ bar. Woolie’s confectionary selection was certainly much more extensive than the Union shop, or indeed the corner shop where we normally stocked up on milk when we were running short. There was an awful lot of temptation!

Fortunately for the long-term health of our teeth, Mum bumped into us there, smilingly selected a piece of wrapped nougat from the bag proffered by Sheila, and delightedly dragged Adrian and I off to give her a hand at the fishmonger – she’d ordered a whole salmon for supper, and was borrowing a fish kettle to cook it in, and needed two beasts of burden to carry them home. She gave me her house key and instructions to put the salmon in the larder to keep it cool, and then went off to the greengrocer with Jen and Hamish in tow; they turned up at the house a little later with a stone weight bag of spuds, some lemons, two cucumbers, and urgent instructions to turn on the oven to cook the steak and kidney pie that we were all having for lunch.

Everyone was back home by one o’clock; Mum opened a seven-pound tin of mixed diced vegetables from out of the pantry and put a pan-full of it on to heat up, and by half-past we were all sitting down or standing up and enjoying our hot lunch. I’d certainly missed Mum’s home-made pastry; we rarely bothered to make it when we were cooking for ourselves, although pies and pasties were a favourite from the chip shop and Union canteen.

The afternoon started with three of us peeling potatoes, two cutting wafer-thin slices of cucumber, and the girls being instructed on how to cook a whole salmon – basically, you lay it in the fish kettle, cover it in cold water, bring it slowly to the boil, turn off the heat, and let it cool. When you lift the trivet out and drain the cold salmon, it’s cooked perfectly. The complicated part was the other bits being added to the water to give it extra flavour, like the herbs and peppercorns. The really complicated bit came a couple of hours later, when they took the fish out, carefully removed the scales and skin, laid it out on Mum’s biggest oval plate, and then covered the whole thing in slices of cucumber – it looked truly amazing! With the rest of the tin of mixed vegetables, some white sauce and boiled potatoes, it tasted just as good as it looked. Mum looked very pleased with all the praise she deservedly received!

ITV had apparently been madly advertising their first TV showing of the film “The Robe’ on Good Friday; as it was first released in 1953, none of us youngsters had ever seen it, indeed most of us had never heard of Victor Mature. With Richard Burton playing the lead, we thought it was worth a punt. Basically, it’s a story about a man who commanded the Roman guard at the Crucifixion, and the political goings-on between the courts of the two Emperors Tiberius and Caligula, and the early spread of Christianity. It was okay, there was lots of action, but our parents small television couldn’t cope with the widescreen ‘CinemaScope’ format, and we really couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about. Still, it used up most of the evening!

Dad announced that he’d put the immersion heater on for extra hot water, and we let the five girls have first go at the bathroom shower; Mum asked if we needed towels, but we’d all brought our own. She was delighted, and said that we could all come again because we were such easy guests to look after.

“Even me, Mum?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“Yes, Jon, even you, as long as you keep up the good progress. Julie seems to be an excellent influence on you; you didn’t even bring home any dirty washing this time!”

My friends chuckled at my discomfort. It served me right for trying to be too clever!

Breakfast was scrambled egg, oven-cooked sausages and fried potatoes, with toast and marmalade to fill up any holes. Mum seemed to be having a whale of a time catering for ten guests; she had the chance to use up some of her big tins from the cash and carry in one go, so she was soon making a huge cherry pie as the second course for lunch.

My parents had hired the function room at the Royal British Legion club for the party; it was the same place where we’d met for tea and sandwiches after Grandpa Shaw’s funeral, so it was going to be good to have some happy memories there as well.

We all went over there after lunch on Saturday to lay out the room and put up some decorations; it wasn’t until then that I discovered that Dad had arranged to have a barrel of County, and one of the normal Ruddles Bitter, on tap. We chatted to Ned, the barman, who told us that he’d moved the barrels in on Wednesday and was about to broach them.

Mum intervened at that moment to get us back to the task in hand; it was only fair to agree that we’d set up all the trestle tables before helping with the booze. With many hands making light work, in only twenty minutes we had the buffet table erected against the side wall, and ten round tables set up with eight chairs stacked close to each one, and it took only a little longer to shake out the tablecloths and pile the crockery and cutlery at the ends of the buffet table. A couple of ashtrays on each table and we were pretty much done – a large silver-coloured plastic ‘key to the door’ with the figure ‘21’ on the shank was suspended above the table I was told that I would be sitting at, and a couple of strips of bunting were strung along the back wall, and Mum was happy.

None of the girls had ever witnessed a beer barrel being broached, so they too were keen to see how it was done; Ned had a big audience. The two wooden casks were already set up on a solid trestle and chocked to ensure that they couldn’t move; they were currently both covered with damp beer towels to keep them cool, although the antiquated heating in the Club wasn’t really a threat.

“How much is in them, Dad?”

“Only eleven gallons each, Jen, so it’s ‘family hold back’ as far as you are concerned!”

She laughed and teased him back.

“Even if I restrict myself to my normal twelve pints of an evening, that still leaves lots for the guests – Hamish only needs to catch a whiff of a barmaid’s apron and he’s away with the fairies, and Jon’s given up beer for Lent, so I don’t see a problem myself?”

He raised his eyebrows at her clearly exaggerated claim to drink that much beer.

“Well, as long as you stay sober enough to drive your grandparents home without getting breathalysed, I don’t mind you having a couple of halves of shandy over the course of the evening. Just don’t let your mother catch you drinking out of a pint glass in front of her friends; you two are on show tonight.”

My sister nodded in understanding at the serious point he was making. It was okay to tease Mum with a pint glass, but not to embarrass her in public. As Mum had often muttered during our childhood, she’d ‘have our guts for garters’ if we ever did that, but then we loved her too much to have any intention of making her lose face in town. It was still a small enough (and olde-worlde enough) place for the gossip mill to look unkindly on a girl drinking a pint – in the same way, you didn’t often see anyone eating in the street, and the men always wore jackets and ties to come to Market.

Ned the barman returned with his paraphernalia; a chipped enamel bowl that was probably older than me which contained four sticks of wood, two brass beer taps and a small wooden mallet. He took the towels off the casks and checked that we could all see what he was doing.

“Sir Kenneth is very fussy about sending the casks out in plenty of time to settle down from the journey, and these came over from Langham on the brewery waggon on Monday, so I’m confident that the beer will be crystal clear. Nevertheless, it’s important that we don’t tilt the cask while we’re doing this, so that the fines stay in the bottom. That’s why I’ve got them firmly wedged. Now, the first thing to do is to broach the top of the cask to release the pressure from the secondary fermentation; you’ll see that there’s a wooden plug up here, which we call a ‘shive’? I take this peg, which is known as a ‘hard spile’, and I knock it into the shive to broach the cask, using one sharp blow of the mallet so I don’t shake the cask more than I have to. Then I pull the hard spile out again, and you’ll see that there’s no froth coming out, so the beer hasn’t got too shaken up. Now I put this other peg in; it’s called a soft spile, and it’s more porous, so it will let air in to replace the beer which is being withdrawn. Now for the tricky bit, and if you don’t mind, I’ll do it for both casks. See the plug here on the end, which we call the keystone? That’s where we’re going to drive the tap in, and it needs to be done in one sharp blow, or there’ll be wasted beer all over the floor, and that would be a crying shame in more ways than one.”

He picked up the brass tap, which had a gentle conical end which was perforated with small holes.

“Now, if you ever do this yourselves, for heaven’s sake check that the tap is in the ‘off’ position before you drive it in. I made that mistake when I was a youngster, and it took a long while to live it down, I can tell you! And me Ma was downright shirty that I’d got me trousers drenched in beer!”

Holding the tap between two fingers, he picked up the mallet and positioned the end of the tap against the keystone. With practised ease, he struck a sharp blow and the end of the tap disappeared into the barrel. He gave it a second blow and checked that it was firmly home.

“Okay! We’ll have a look at that in a moment. Jon, as the birthday boy, would you like to vent the cask of Bitter?”

He held out another hard spile and the mallet.

“I always use a fresh spile; it won’t matter as you’re intending to finish this cask tonight, but hygiene is everything with real ale, so you don’t want any cross-contamination between barrels, just in case you’ve got a wrong ‘un, not that Ruddles produce too many of those. Rightyho, Jon – hold the hard spile on the shive, and then a sharp tap.”

I gripped the mallet and brought it down on the spile. It only went in half its length.

“Again, boy – you’re being too gentle.”

So I whacked it again, and it sank to the same depth as it had on the other barrel.

“Okay, now use the teatowel and gently wiggle it to loosen it a bit. Any hissing noise?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, pull it out and put this soft spile back in. Now I’ll tap it, and then we can test them.”

Again, Ned checked the tap, and then with one deft swing of the mallet sent it through the keystone. Putting the mallet back in his bowl, he reached into a box of half-pint glasses and pulled one out. He held it to the light, rubbed it round with his teatowel, inspected it again and nodded in satisfaction. Then he turned to the barrel of County and gently opened the tap to let a steady flow of beer into the glass, shutting off the flow as it got to the half way point. He held the glass up so we could see it.

“Clarity good, so the beer has settled. Carbonation okay; a little bit of head but that’s going away nicely. Smells fine, so I need a taster. Mr Baker?”

“Thanks, Ned.”

Dad took the proffered glass, sniffed it, and took a sip. Smiling, he took another gulp, then passed the glass to Jen.

“That’ll put hairs on your chest!”

She swiftly stuck out her tongue, smiling to show that there was no real offence taken.

“It’d better not! I like my chest as it is.”

(To our credit, those others of us who also liked Jen’s chest managed not to snort or otherwise give ourselves away... )

Then she sniffed and sipped, before smiling.

“Yes, that quarter pint seems absolutely fine to me. Do I have to check every glass that we serve?”

Ned chuckled.

“The answer is definitely no, but sadly, all too many publicans feel that they should, and that’s why an awful lot of them end up drinking most of the profits. It takes a lot of character to run your own pub, and I’m always glad that I don’t have that temptation. People buy me the odd half, and that’s more than enough for me. I can lock the door at the end of the evening and leave it all behind me, and that suits me just fine.”

Jen passed me the glass. There wasn’t more than a mouthful left, but I enjoyed it.

“Right, let’s check the Bitter. Sometimes it’s a wee bit livelier, let’s see.”

It was. There was a lot more froth in the new glass, but again it settled down quite quickly. He held up the glass to the light, and we all agreed that it was clear. Without speaking, Ned passed the glass to Jen, who tried to look knowledgeable as she sniffed it and then sipped.

“You’re not going to like this, Dad, but I think I prefer the Bitter to the County!”

Ned chuckled.

“You aren’t the only one, not by a long chalk. A lot of people will have a County to start with, and then go on to the Bitter. It’s not as strong and it tastes a bit cleaner, somehow, the hops come through better. Now, I’m going to pull the soft spile out a bit, so that we lose a touch more of the carbonation, but I’m going to cover it again with a teatowel so we don’t get anything in it. Just be warned that it will pour a bit faster than you expect if you draw any beer before I put the spile back this evening.”

“Thanks, Ned. Sorry everybody, but we’ll leave the tasting at that, otherwise the beer will be half gone before the party has even started!”

There were pretend groans from us all; the others had got used to enjoying Ruddles Ales during our trips to the ‘Darby and Joan’ the previous summer, but of course they understood Dad’s reasoning. It wasn’t as if they weren’t going to get plenty of free beer tonight!

“Mr Baker, can I show you the wine and check how you want to play it?”

Ned took Dad round the back of the bar to inspect a pile of wine boxes. I followed out of curiosity; Mum and Dad hadn’t told me very much about the arrangements for the party, and it seemed a much bigger event than I was expecting. The eighty chairs had been a bit of a shock!

“Peatling and Cawdron brought these round this morning, all on sale or return as you asked. Six dozen, two red, two white, two Champagne. How many do you want opened?”

“Let’s put a bottle of red and a bottle of white on each table to start with, and see how that goes. I think most of the men will drink beer; if anyone wants spirits they can pay cash at the bar, but you’d better let me have a couple of bottles of sherry for the ladies; I know my mother-in-law will want a sweet sherry or two to aid her digestion!”

Grandma Shaw was known to enjoy the odd glass of Wincarnis Tonic Wine; I had found it filthy stuff, but then I had only been twelve when I had sneaked a gulp! I wasn’t a fan of really sweet sherry either, especially not the ‘British’ cooking sherry that Peatling’s dispensed out of a five gallon plastic container if you took your own bottle along to be refilled...

“Right you are! Now, the champagne?”