Rainy days, when we couldn’t play out, were dismal days. Rainy Sundays were even worse, though we breathed a little easier when Dad disappeared to the Rainham Mark Social Club at lunchtime. If he was in a good mood he might stop off to buy us some sweets on his way home, and occasionally he did – a welcome incongruity in a man who ruled by fear.
Till then we could only be good and behave while Granny changed the baby’s nappy and Mam slaved in a steam filled kitchen, where the aroma of the Sunday roast blended with the stench of the nappy bucket as Moon River, Stranger on the Shore and African Waltz played on the wireless.
Whatever Dad’s mood, we’d always get the Sergeant Major act with us having to clear our dinner plates before he went for his Sunday afternoon snooze. Praise then for Mitzi the family dog, for being under the dining table when I needed to dispose of a mouthful of gristle.
After dinner Dad would depart with a familiar instruction.
‘Gerard, David… dishes!’
Thank goodness for Fireball XL5
for lighting up the Sabbath’s depressing television schedule, as there was little
else to look forward to until bath night on the eve of another week at school.
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