Kevin turned up to play with
me and my brothers in our back garden, all wrapped up with socks on our hands. And a brilliant time we had until one of us hit a window in
a snowball fight and got us a telling off.
Saturday, 30th January 1965. My brothers and I were playing in the front room and not paying much attention to the broadcast of Winston Churchill’s funeral on the telly that morning, when Dad wandered into the room and pointed at me.
‘And there’s the
Gerard who’s ten.’
I smiled at Dad’s
acknowledgement, a day late, of my tenth birthday. Not exactly a show of
affection but an acknowledgement, at least. Affection was something we got from
Mam and Granny, especially Granny, who brought laughter, homemade macaroons, coconut ice and birthday cakes into our lives. Good old Granny.
Then one night in
March, Granny tucked us into our bunk beds and broke the news that she’d
be going back to Bolton in the morning. Not just to visit but for keeps. I was heartbroken and unable to understand
why, after living with us for the best part of two years. She couldn’t tell me it was down
to mother in law/son in law tension between her and Dad.
At school… William ‘Bimbo’ Hollands was impressed to
hear I’d learned the words to the Beverly Hillbillies song, so much so that he
pinned me to the wall of one of the hut’s at playtime and wouldn’t let go until
I’d sung it all the way through.
At school… Miss Saw, a trainee teacher stepped in for Miss Rusted once or twice a week
to give us a Greek Mythology lesson.
At school… I wrote a multi-paged story about a
creature called The Weird One.
Paul Parker: “I remember Gerard Lynch writing a
mammoth story – seemed to go on forever. I remember I copied the idea and wrote
about a giant Guy Fawkes coming alive and terrorising the planet.”
At school… 3/2 enjoyed the excitement of a first
school trip, though a visit to a musical instrument exhibition at Gillingham
Library to see a collection of lutes and mandolins and the like wasn’t
particularly exciting. Nor was it much fun to be sick on the double-decker that
took us there and arrive at the library with a bag of puke.
At school… at the end of each day Miss Rusted read a
chapter of Emil and the Detectives to us before home time.
Out of school… Kevin Garlick and I ventured to Sharp’s
Green and the chalk pit. In truth, I didn’t care much for either and though I
didn’t mind sticklebacks and tadpoles, I had a quiet loathing of frogs.
At Kevin’s… I avoided the old fish tank in Kev’s back
garden when his tadpoles started sprouting legs.
At Kevin’s… on Waltham Road, toy soldiers dominated our
games.
Paul Parker: “Kevin had a fine collection of model
knights.”
Kev’s
army was superior to mine in numbers and quality,
meaning Kev usually won our battles but matching our soldiers one for one on
the throw of a dice, it was fun to advance the Alan-A-Dale figure I got as a
free gift in a box of Corn Flakes, and (in my mind) bash one of Kev’s soldiers
over the head with a mandolin…
…or bump off another with a clonk from my frogman’s oxygen tank.
In my mind my frogman was Mike Nelson from television’s Sea Hunt.
Only our Generals were immune from death, and those who’d earned a
medal (painted on with Airfax enamel) in combat (by winning six individual
duels). Sometimes our battles extended into Kev’s back garden, where prisoners
were buried up to their necks with a blob of jam on their heads to
attract zarbis – as we now called ants, after the ant like creatures we’d seen on
the latest series of Dr Who.
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As some of our soldiers were armed with grenades and bazookas, and
cannons from which we fired cocktail sticks, Kev and I decided it was only
right that some of our less valued combatants should get an arm blown off; an effective
touch of realism achieved on the gas stove and approved by both of us, until a
blob of molten plastic dripped on my thumb. Argh!
We owned a few small
scale Airfix soldiers too, purchased from Arnold’s
at two and six a box.
The advantage of
midget men, as we called them, came in acquiring a lot of soldiers for a
relatively small outlay. On the downside, the figures standing on one leg
weren’t so well balanced and kept falling over, but we had a lot of fun with
them all the same.
Kevin’s tenth birthday in March was memorable for a few reasons,
not least that my brothers and I were invited to his party. Amidst all the fun
and games organised by Kev’s mum was a competition to see who could dance the
best Zulu Stamp. I thought I’d won but no, our Dave was declared the winner. Miffed,
I sensed a charitable decision to ensure everyone won something but in truth
Dave was good, out stamping us all with ridiculous enthusiasm.
And the highlight of the party… indoor fireworks!
‘Indoor fireworks, really?’
My brothers and I had never seen indoor fireworks before but from thereon no
birthday party would be complete without them.
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