Open Writing

At the age of 25 Ray Shotton went to live with his sister and her husband in a small Dorsetshire village.

‘You’ll ave to change your ways,’ his sister said on the first day, ‘no more thievin and things – you’re not in the East End now.’

‘We’re decent ere,’ she went on.

‘That we are,’ said her thickset husband, smoking his pipe.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Ray with his Cockney grin – which didn’t help.

‘Then see that you do,’ snapped his sister.

*
One night somebody stole a few hundred pounds from the village post office.

Ray was questioned by the police and so were several others. But nobody was arrested.

There was a lot of gossip about the postmaster’s wife.

‘I bet she let im in, whoever it was,’ said a village woman. ‘She goes fer anything in trousers. . . and it don’t matter to er whose usbnd she sets er cap at.’

‘Well, I’m sure my usband never goes near er,’ said Ray’s sister.

*
There was a middle-aged widow in the village who became fond of Ray. They got married and lived in her house.

He liked everything about her, especially her sense of humour.

‘Oi bet you never even met them Krays,’ she teased.

‘Gor, you are the limit,’ he said, kissing her.

Most days he worked in the garden and his wife said he had green fingers. He began to make money by selling vegetables to the village grocer.

‘You be a real villager naow,’ his wife told him.

*
Of course Ray knew who had stolen the money from the post office but he never said a word. Well, he wouldn’t, would he?