Open Writing

The fact that she had been born on Christmas day had never really bothered her very much. They always told her at Sunday school that she was very special to be able to share her birthday with Jesus.

She didn't really feel deprived when other children looked forward to three main celebration days in a year and she had only two. The three days that were special to children in Wibsey, were their birthday, Christmas day and Wibsey fair day.

But, had she not been born on Christmas day, and had she not invented her own secret day, she might never have met Sir Leonard. Not because she felt deprived, nor because she wanted to gain anything in particular, but as very young girl she had invented her own secret day, a secret which she never shared with anyone.

Now that she was almost sixty, what bothered her more was that she had been born before the turn of the century, Christmas Day 1897, and that secret day which she had invented as a child, seemed to come round more quickly as the years went by.

Wibsey Fair was always held on the first Monday in October. It dated back to the middle ages and even in relatively recent times she remembered the horses being brought to the fairground in Fair Road. They were paraded up and down by their owners and with a bit of luck you could get a cheeky wink from one of the lads.

She remembered as a child the treacle toffee and broken biscuits on sale at the stalls, the toffee apples and the Bottomley's mint rock. Just once a year you would see 'Pie Herbert' with his pork pies
running with juice, and a huge cauldron of steaming peas thickening over a coal stove. They seemed quite different from the ones which you bought in the normal shops. They were probably from the same supplier.

The electric tramcars, route number 1, were used to disgorging their passengers from all over Bradford. To-day they had been replaced with the trolley buses, which were not half so exciting.

The cockerels and electrically driven rides came as she got older. The steam organ with its shrill music was always there. Everyone, whatever their age or station in life, enjoyed Wibsey Fair.

She remembered very precisely when she had invented her secret day. It had happened when she was on the tram with her mother to Bailiffe Bridge to visit Aunt Lucy during the second week of November. The pub at the fare stage was called the 'Half-Way House' and the idea for a secret day had almost forced itself upon her. Because the other children had three days to celebrate in a year and she had only two, she invented her secret 'Half-way-day'. It was to be exactly half way between Wibsey fair day and Christmas day.

It would be her special day, and her special secret. She was very excited, and the very fact that nobody else knew, made it all the more exciting.

She would comb her hair until it shone, and tie a double bow in her hair ribbon. She would make certain that she polished her shoes until she could see her face in them, and she would attend to lots of little details which might otherwise have been overlooked. Then, she would walk slowly from home at the village terminus to the top of St. Enoch's Road and back again.

She was known to everyone who lived along the route, after all she had been born and raised and gone to school in the village, and lived there all her life. If anyone remarked that she was looking nice or special she would have denied it, preferring to keep her secret of her special 'Half-way-day' to herself.

Even after she had married her Leonard when she was 20, she religiously celebrated her 'Half-way-day' privately. She might spend a couple of coppers extra at the Co-op (pronounced quop - in Wibsey and not quorp as in Wyke) as she bought her food for dinner that night.

She might have treated them to a rasher of bacon to go with their fried liver at teatime, depending on what day of the week it was. She might have put on her 'bit-better' shoes when she went up the village, but above all, whatever she did, she did it in secret. No-one would ever know that it was 'Half-way-day', not even her husband.

It was 1957 and her sixtieth birthday was approaching fast. She was wanting to do something a little bit special for her secret day this year. She and her husband Leonard were what in Wibsey you might call 'comfortable'. They only lived in a back-to-back, but Leonard had worked hard as an overlooker at the Blind Institute, and they had put a few coppers away for a rainy day.

Above all, they were satisfied with their lot. He went out to work, and she looked after everything else and she tended the house, and generally took care of financial matters.

They had been the first in Thornton Street to have a television, but not wanting to break the habits of a lifetime she still took two daily newspapers, the 'Daily Herald' and the 'Express' so that she could get a 'balanced' view of the world. In the evening the 'Telegraph & Argus' was delivered, mainly so that she could have a look at the 'hatches, matches and dispatches' column. These days there always seemed to be more names in the 'dispatches' section than either of the other two.

She definitely needed a little bit of cheering up. It was whilst reading the 'Telegraph' that the idea came to her. The very first Chinese restaurant had opened in the town, and it was doing very well. It was at the bottom of Bridge Street on the first floor above Len Hutton's sports shop.

She would go down into Bradford on the trolley bus and do her weekly shopping in the city, and then she would go and find out for herself what Chinese people really did eat. It was not all that expensive, and she felt sure that she would have been one of the first in Wibsey to taste
Chinese food, even including the people from Moore Avenue and the posh end of the village.

As she planned this little treat for herself, fain could she have imagined in her wildest dreams the encounter with 'Sir Leonard'. In the village of Wibsey, all those who had chiming or striking clocks, always set them half an hour fast. The original reason for this practice was that in the days when they all worked in the mill, when the clock struck six, they knew that they could turn over and have an extra half hour in bed. It was almost like cheating time.

Habits die hard and to this day there are still people who have 'Wibsey clocks'. On the morning of auntie's sixtieth 'Half-way-day' she needed no excuse to stop in bed. She was too excited.

She got up in good time to make Leonard's breakfast and get him off to work. “Why two eggs this morning?" Leonard asked.

"There were two in the tray," she replied, giving herself an imaginary, surreptitious wink.

She knew that she would have a leisurely hour to scan the papers before going out to catch the 9.16 'trackless' into Bradford. "Just imagine launching a dog into space", she said to herself. Why had the Russians chosen a dog? They normally use monkeys for this sort of thing! She didn't come up with an answer.

What is the Queen doing in Canada? Has SHE ever eaten Chinese food? I'll bet that she hasn't eaten it in Bradford. In any case she doesn't need to have a 'half-way-day' because she has two birthdays anyhow.

Although she was reading the papers and although she was thinking about the news, she was not doing either in any great depth. At the forefront of her thoughts was her intended trip to celebrate the last 'Half-way-day' before her 60th birthday. Donning, not her 'best' hat, but one of her 'better' ones and making sure that her coat was free from 'fluff and fruzzins', she carefully locked her front (only) door and strode off to the terminus with a spring in her step not unlike that which she had as a girl on her way to the top of St. Enoch's Rd.

The shopping in Bradford was a bit of a task and when all was said and done it was only a ruse to get her to the Chinese restaurant. She could hardly wait for opening time at 12 o'clock and had no idea what to expect.

The menu was not very enlightening. Finally she decided to ask the waiter what she should have if she wanted to enjoy her first experience of Chinese food. After some discussion on world affairs it was decided that she would have a No.37 'Special Chow Mein' and, as a carefully negotiated concession, if she really didn't like it that he would take it back and give her a No.63 'Steak & Chips'.

In about 15 minutes the meal was majestically put in front of her and slowly but surely she set about it, determined to enjoy every morsel. She was quite pleased at this stage that she was alone in the restaurant, in case she should show herself up by not knowing how to eat it properly, but soon gained confidence. What a lovely finale to her day!

Little did she realise what was yet to transpire. Almost at the end of her meal, and still alone in the restaurant, she noticed the door open and a smartly dressed gentleman walk in and seated himself at a table not very far away from her own. Being more interested in the food on her own plate, at first she did not realise who the new diner was. However it suddenly dawned on her that her compatriot diner was no lesser personage than Len Hutton.

No!, not Len Hutton, these days it was, of course, Sir Leonard Hutton.

She was almost dumbstruck at the very idea of even being seated in the same room. This situation needed handling with a great deal of care.

After some long and hard but nonetheless quick thinking she devised a little plan. Very carefully so as not to be spotted, she took all the little sachets of sugar from the sugar basin and secreted them under the cushion of her chair. Then she waited patiently until there was not waiter in sight.

Pretending that there was none on the table she leaned gently over and spoke to the man. "Could I borrow your sugar, Sir Leonard?" she said in her very best voice.

Taken a little by surprise, Sir Leonard kindly got up and passed her his sugar bowl. Her little ruse had worked better than she could have imagined, he actually spoke to her. "So you know me then ?" he said. "Is it England or the County that you follow." "England or the County - nothing !" she said. "I remember when you scored 108 in the second innings of the First Round of the Priestley Cup, for Pudsey St. Lawrence and sent Bradford home with their tails between their legs, when you were not quite seventeen. I'll never forget it because it kept raining and we all thought that the match was going to be abandoned. "

Amazed at her instant recall of that match almost 25 earlier, Sir Leonard asked if he could join her at her table, which of course she was delighted to agree to. She didn't look like the sort of person who knew anything at all about cricket.

They sat and chatted for quite some time and most generously Sir Leonard picked up the tab for both lunches. He had already established that she came from Wibsey, and as they descended the stairs into the street he offered to give her a lift to the terminus in his open red sports car.

Beside herself with excitement she accepted his generosity. Opening the passenger door for her he lifted her bags into the back. While he went round to the drivers side she gave her hair a quick flick and repositioned her hat.

He was quite a speedy driver and in no time at all they were at the top of St. Enoch's road passing at least two trolley buses on the way, the first time on the steep stretch just outside the Prince's Theatre and the second time just before the left turn down into the village.

"Sir Leonard," she ventured, "you have been most generous today to an old lady. I wonder if I could ask you one last favour? As you drive down from St. Enoch's road down to the terminus in the village, would you be so kind as to drive fairly slowly?"

As Sir Leonard took his foot off the accelerator, she positioned her arm at the same angle that she had seen the Queen Mother do on television.

Not everyone in Wibsey would recognise Sir Leonard, but almost everyone would recognise Jennie Rimmington.

"Why cream-horns for the tea, in the middle of the week ?" asked her Leonard when he arrived home from the Blind Institute.

"There just happened to be two left in window as I passed Knutton's," she said.

This time she could hardly suppress the surreptitious, imaginary wink.