113 The Summer of 69

In the news… the ha’penny was scrapped. Ha’penny chews became two a penny. Everything else got rounded up.

Making the most of the light nights, Clive, Paul, me and Stan took our bikes out to race around the narrow lanes of lower Twydall and lower Rainham.

Football. If I wasn’t having a kick about on Eastcourt Green with the local lads, I’d be playing football on Beechings Way with anyone that happened to be around, often till the sun went down. On one such occasion the light was fading fast when Clive dribbled straight at me. Keeping a close eye on the ball I backed off, unaware that I was being set up. When Clive had me right where he wanted me, he made his move. As quick as a flash he knocked the ball past me and as quick as a flash I turned to go after him… and almost bashed my brains out against a tree. While I slumped to the ground seeing stars, Clive laughed like a lunatic.

At the International Stores on Twydall Green Mister Sullens asked me if I’d like to help with some midweek stocktaking. As a minor my hours were restricted but I enjoyed the experience and of course, the extra money. In quiet spells between deliveries Mister Sullens or his supervisor Mrs Brown, a middle aged German lady, regularly gave me a little job on the shop floor, such as pricing Shippams’ pastes with an ink pad and a sixpenny stamper.

I liked Mister Sullens. Tall, straight backed and very smart in his collar and tie and white grocers overall, he was a perfect gentleman, addressing his young female staff as Miss Yapp, Miss Hayward and Miss Croft, rather than Margaret, Susan and Liz.

Pat, a quiet girl with glasses, was another young lady on the staff. So too was Janet Knight, who’d been one of the big girls in the playground when I’d first started at Twydall Juniors. Another person I knew from Twydall Juniors was Mister Sullens’ son Kevin, though I didn’t make the connection till I saw the family leaving the flat above the shop one afternoon. A year or two older than me, I’d known Kevin as Salty Sullens, for the amount of salt he sprinkled on his dinner,

Occasionally I went out in the delivery van with Fred Bullock, an old chap who’d taken over from Mrs Stone. Paul Prickett – the other delivery boy – had left and gone into full time employment, leaving me and Fred to clear the deliveries between us. Fred was okay but I much preferred being out on the bike.

Downhill, the bike went like a runaway train, but riding uphill was a different story. Forget the gears. Sturmey Archer’s finest might have lessened the strain on the thighs but the need to pedal like a lunatic turned my legs to jelly in a matter of seconds. The only way to climb a steep incline was to get out of the saddle and put my full weight on the pedals. One such incline was Twydall Lane. Peddling up Twydall Lane was hard work, though it didn’t seem so bad on the afternoon I delivered a hefty box of groceries to Mrs Robertson on Brenchley Road. At her request I carried the box into the hall, where I was surprised to see her pretty young daughter.

‘Oh you must be strong to carry heavy boxes like that!’ said the pretty young daughter. With dark wavy hair and a captivating smile, I recognised her immediately as the grown up version of a girl from the year below me at Twydall Juniors.

Wow!

After giving her my best ‘Oh it’s nothing’ smile, I swaggered back to the bike feeling ten feet tall, knowing I’d be keeping a sharp lookout for Mrs Robertson’s groceries in future.

A return to school was on the horizon when I went to the barbers for my customary crew-cut, only to ask for a full skinhead once I got in the chair.

I felt very smug when I knocked at Clive’s door on Milsted Road to ask if he was coming out to play football.

‘Who cut your hair; an Indian or your mum?’

‘The barber.’

‘Where did you go – The West End?’ asked Clive, citing the inaptly named barber’s on Twydall Green as piss-take number two.

‘Thurston’s on Canadian Avenue, opposite Benham’s’ I said, as casually as I could over the music that was blasting out from his living room. ‘What’s that crap you’re listening to anyway?’

‘Honky Tonk Women; the Stones latest.’

What a daft title, I thought.

Mam received a box of Christmas cards. Strange, I thought, in August. ‘Samples’ she said. ‘Take them out and see if you can get some orders.’

The samples had come from the people at Aburound House, the day centre on Woodlands Road that my brother Garry attended. Though I realised there was something wrong with our Garry – at six years old he was still in nappies and couldn’t talk – his wrongness had no label until I saw the back of those cards.

So for a couple of days a fourteen year old youth with a skinhead haircut traipsed up and down, and knocked at the door of every house in the catchment area of Eastcourt Lane, Beechings Way, Featherby Road and the top road… and got three orders.