Open Writing

‘A character,’ the dictionary informed me, was an ‘outstanding individual’. There were several individuals who, to my mind fitted that description in Earlsheaton village where I spent my formative years.

There was Harry Nettleton, not to be confused with the Ossett Nettletons. They were butchers, and Joe of that ilk, was one-time Mayor of the town. It is said that during one council meeting a proposal was made for the provision of a gondola on South Ossett park lake. “Good idea,” said Joe, “but let’s have two. They might mate!”

Harry, though, wasn’t one of that lot. He lived at the bottom of Providence Street -- some fifty houses built either side of a steeply inclined road and known locally as ‘Provi on Peep Street’. For any non-resident walking between the two rows of houses, the noise of doors banging shut after the occupants had peeped out to see who was passing by clattered like a rifle firing range.

Mr. Nettleton worked in a mill by day. What he did on summer evenings I have no idea, but in winter time he became the local pea-man. A sturdily built character he needed to be, having to lug his can o’ peas round, especially at the outset when it was full. He always seemed to have a red face, and he also sported a large moustache of similar hue, picturesquely described by some as ‘looking like a sod over a rat-oil.’

Nevertheless, Harry’s peas were ‘resoundingly’ good. He sold two varieties, green ones and brown ones, from his twin-chambered pea-kettle. The green ones weren’t the monosodium-glutomated E-numbered mush of today. Harry’s were genuinely proper sloppy. They possessed an inbuilt, natural rib-sticking viscosity, and at a penny per ladleful, excellent value.

His brown peas had greater solidity. They were often called grey. Why, I don’t know.
Admitted, they did take on a smoky shade when liberally slarted with vinegar, and were known in some circles as ‘grey farters.’

Legend has it that one dark night at the bottom of what was known as ‘t’little ‘ill’ -- as opposed to ‘t’big ‘ill, which was Provi -- Harry suffered an accident. He tripped and fell, his full boiling of peas spilling out as a result. Now Harry was a thrifty man. ‘Waste not want not’ was part of his creed. And so, as best he could in the dark, by hand he scooped up his dispersed wares. So efficient was his effort that when he’d finished, there were three bowlfuls more in his can than he’d started out with! So people say.

Now at the top of the aforementioned Little Hill lived Simon Rhodes and his brood. Si, as he was always known, was the sole proprietor of a whitewashing concern. He too was a solidly built man, basically he was fat, with a small wife and a large family. He also owned a donkey and a cart with pneumatic tyred wheels, no less. A familiar sight was donkey and cart with Si, sat reins in hand, legs dangling over the side, his corpulent bulk counterbalanced by two barrelfuls of whitewash and his wife on the opposite side of the equipage nursing a child.

By day Si slaked his lime and by night he slaked his thirst in the Crown Hotel. He was fortunate, since he had the whitewashing monopoly within the local area. So if whitewash was needed, Si was your man. It didn’t matter what it was or where, cellars -- beer and domestic, outside privies, earth closets, pigeon lofts, cricket field boundaries and site boards, bowling green gutters, cowsheds, stables, mills warehouses and rag oils. To all these Si applied his labours, at a price.

There were nine mills within the district, and the annual holiday week was Si’s harvest time. It was then that the Rhodes family was dragooned into action. Whilst other children painted coloured pictures with dainty penny paintbrushes, Si’s offspring wielded ten-inch wide whitewash brushes, or turks’ heads, on long poles, working on a broader canvas, most likely some weaving-shed wall.

The term ‘high-tech’ hadn’t been coined when Si was around, so that he pre-empted it by some forty years. When ARP was created, this entrepreneur was quick to appreciate the business potential of the stirrup pump, and his wife could regularly be seen pumping away whilst her spouse dealt with the technicalities of directing the spray onto the desired surfaces. That called for skill, and it was thirsty work too.

I said that Si owned a donkey. This was stabled behind the house. But the architecture of the property was such that to get there, the animal had to be led through the living room. The donkey never seemed to mind!

A slight divergence here. I had an ‘Aunt Mary’. Didn’t we all have some such? She was a kind-hearted soul who lived with her adult son. One bitterly cold winter’s day Harry, the son, came home as usual for dinner. Not much got past that lad. So when he entered the house he was quick to spot the donkey which was laid out on the hearth enjoying the warmth from a blazing fire.

“What’s that doing here,” he enquired. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

“It was durin’ t’ morning’,” his mother said, “’t’ poor thing stuck its eead in t’door oil. Ee, an it did look cowwd, sooah ah browt it in t’get waarm!”

Perfectly true, and I’m only sorry I don’t know what happened next.

Now, back to Si. His wife could often be seen holding a baby on one arm, breast-feeding it, whilst stirring a barrel of whitewash with her other hand.

Come to think of it, I now wonder who was the character here -- Si, his wife or the donkey.

The Rhodes kids were easily recognisable. They all bore the stamp of the family business, off-white, very matt hair and polka-dotted footwear.

Talking of polka-dots, Ruddle Annie was a different character entirely. She radiated health, vitality and cleanliness. To me as a ten-year-old she was an old woman, but then, you understand. Ramrod straight with a manly gait, she clattered her way around in clogs which were polished as well as clog leather would polish, the brass toe-plates burnished. Always dressed in a blue denim skirt, newly laundered and protected by a coarse harding apron. That too was always fresh-looking. A crisp cotton blouse with mandarin collar and a large red white-polka-dotted kerchief enveloping her hair.

The ochre stone was carried in a large rectangular crate with shafts. No inflated tyres here, but discarded wheels from ancient mangles, handles removed.

Annie’s street cry was, “Do yer want any ruddle?” And this in a voice which would have sounded wonderful across an Alpine gorge, since the word ’ruddle’ was sung out in a glorious yodel. Mind, she had few teeth to impede her vocal delivery, only the well-known pickled onion stabber at the front was visible. Nevertheless, she was a delightful character.

Carts were plentiful in those days; hand pushed or pulled, horse-pony-donkey drawn, all criss-crossed the village on their daily rounds.

Spivey’s ice cream man had a pony for his cart, the ice cream tub being sunk into a central wall built for the purpose. We, as youngsters, never knew the man’s name, nor the pony’s either. We knew his cry though, “Icy-cooler.” So that was his name given by us. He was about the same height as the pony, and dry humoured. I don’t remember seeing him smile.

“What kind of hoss is it, mister?” we asked him one time. “It’s a warr-‘oss,” he told us.

“It isn’t,” said we, “it isn’t big enough.” We knew our history!

“It’s a warr-’oss ah tell yer,” he persisted. “An’ if it gets any waar it’ll dee.”

Like his ice cream, he too has melted away.

Freddie Senior didn’t have a cart. He didn’t have a full set of digits either, only an index finger and a thumb on his right hand. I think his left hand was intact, but I couldn’t swear to it. He must have shaken hands with something very aggressive at some time, but we never learned what.

However, his impediment didn’t prevent him from shinnying nimbly up his ladder. He was a window cleaner-almost. My godmother said he ought to have been in the navy, as his style of window-washing was most suited for portholes. He never washed into corners.

He owned a fouwed where he kept hens and rabbits, among other things. Rumour had it that when Freddie sat down to a rabbit dinner, there were only two at the table -- Freddie an’ t’rabbit. Again, rumour held that he approached the operation of rabbit consumption in a very clinical manner. First, he would dismember the cooked cadaver, sucking the bones clean whilst held between his finger and thumb. Each bone he would then carefully lay on the table until he had a line of them across the surface, at which point he re-traversed the trail in case he’d missed any morsel on his outward journey. The bones were by then almost as polished as Ruddle Annie’s clogs.

Talk of kitchen tables reminds me of the husband -- I don’t say it was Freddie -- who complained bitterly about his wife who had changed the tablecloth before he’d finished reading it!

Another Senior, no relation to Freddie, was Willie. He did have a cart, a long-shafted, low-slung box on bicycle wheels. Willie was a milkman, and people today still wonder how for so many years in all weathers he was able to push that cart up all the hills around with two full cans holding 25 gallons each to begin with, and him with less meat on his frame than one of Freddie Senior’s rabbits. He had a mile walk each morning to the dairy to collect his milk before he could start on his round.

But a character he was in the fullest meaning of the word. In the many, many years that I knew him he was always cheerful, with a merry greeting for everyone he met. And didn’t he love his ale? Willie was one of a rare breed, who could go out in an evening without a penny in his pocket and come home blind drunk. He was so well liked he had no need for beer money. Although when he did have funds, all and sundry could drink with him.

He ended his daily milk round at dinner time, coincidently at the Commercial Inn, from where, having passed a few pleasantries with other pilgrims, he would make his way to the Spangled Bull, perhaps via the Park Hotel. Milk hawking can be thirsty work!

By mid-afternoon Willie would be happier than ever. “What’s for t’tea today, Willie?” someone might ask. “It’ll be tongue as ‘t’ think today, an it’ll av a thick skin on it!” would be his reply.

It was said that the cart brought him home. It certainly supported him.

His ardent boozing partner was Abe Townend. Whereas Willie was short in stature, Abe was long and big with it, head and shoulders taller than Willie, with a liquid capacity to match, and jovial to boot. It may be truthfully said that this duo were extremely public spirited. Between them in their time they saved countless pints of ale from going bad.

There are three clubs in Earlsheaton, namely Lowside and Topside, both working men’s, and t’Con, .and Willie was a member at each

One night during wartime a lady in the Lowside club became somewhat incapacitated. In fact, she was paralytic and passed out completely. As she lived on a housing estate almost a mile distant, there was some discussion as to how she would be conveyed there. To the rescue came our two knight earrants. Willie’s milk cart was ideally suited for such a task.

Now there were two routes that could be taken. One was along the High Street, where people might witness the trio and wonder where two men were going at that hour of night pushing a cart containing a female form whose legs were dangling unceremoniously over the leading edge of the vehicle. So the less obvious route was taken. This was known as t’back o’ t’town, because that’s where it was.

Progress, however, was impeded at one point by two iron stoops firmly situated for the specific purpose of preventing vehicles such as hand-propelled carts containing duffen women from obtaining free passage. The simplest solution, it was decided, was to lift cart and cargo over the two posts, they being only three feet high.

No, she didn’t fall out of the cart! Willie held the shafts and Abe took hold of the front end. With the cart in the air, Willie enquired, “Ah ta all reight Abe? Ah can’t see a thing.”

“Tha sud be weear ah am,” said Abe, “ah can see ivvery-thing.”

The lady had by this time quite unconsciously adopted an undignified and revealing posture at Abe’s eye level. But they reached their destination without mishap and delivered their burden.

Later Willie’s wife, having been aware of the errand from the time the cart was commandeered, repeated the story to eager ears and ended by saying, “Ah wa fair worried. Willie wor aht i’t’black-aht, an t’cart ed nooh leets on!”

The bar room at the Con’club is situated on an upper floor, access being gained via a long straight, steep stairway. Leaving for home one night, Willie’s feet touched two of the top steps. He bounced down the remainder. People at the bar heard the clatter and went to see what had happened. Among them was the local doctor, renowned for his whisky consumption. He took one look at the crumpled heap at the foot of the stairs and said, “Leave him. He’ll be dead.” At this the ‘corpse’ rose to its feet, called out, “Goodnight, everybody,” and walked off unscathed.

I like to think of Abe and Willie as being in their Valhalla, drinking and recalling past glories with one saying to the other, “I remember when….”