The Devil's Waiting Room

By berry burgess

The Devil's Waiting Room is biographical journey centred around the summer in 1969 in the fishing port of North Shields on the banks of the River Tyne. Racism was still very strong and open and had an iron grip on the town during perpetual time for change. The last summer sees the changes and adventures through my eyes as a 10 year old innocent who just wanted to run and play but was caught up in the undercurrent of the times.
As one of the few mixed race families in North Shields, that created isolation and tension that a pre-pubescent child could never really understand at the time. North Shields had many interesting characters that spilt over into our lives, whether we liked it or not.
The Sandman and the Ghosts kept us awake at night till the morning broke. Outside we ran. At home we persevered. And late at night, I would hear my father cry. The world evolved in black and white, everything only ever happened in cold shades of grey. However, the summer of that year was the colour of freedom. It spun around in a spectrum of kaleidoscopic vibrant tones that no adult could ever see. While older people saw news and information, we fed on the freedom of our playground. From the Spanish Battery to the Tiger Stairs, there was no black and there was no white. This was our Promised Land, and in it we were free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: berry burgess
• Release date: Jun 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458082763

berry burgess

Few people, least of all myself, would have thought that after nearly 30 years in the advertising business I would end up owning my own design agency Armadillo Creative on the very playground I ran on when I was an innocent child the Fish Quay in North Shields. The River Tyne has witnessed many changes through the years: from the demise of the once proud fishing fleets and the mighty Swan Hunters to the erection of designer Quayside luxury apartments and the influx of new style progressive businesses and developments. The Devils Waiting Room started out as playful meanderings through one summer in 1969, the last summer before the ‘gang’ broke up and went off in different directions to secondary schools. It was time of innocence and change. Racism was very strong and had an iron grip on Shields, and coming from one of the few coloured families in the town that isolation and undercurrent was a major factor in my childhood. The late sixties was a time for change, and when you’re young and three-foot-odd it seems too big and of no relevance to pocket money and comics. Where are my friends now? Who knows? Many may have left the area for good. When I was 15 I ran away from my foster parents and went to London; but something dragged me back to North Shields a few day later. That magnet has kept me here ever since, and I’m proud of my small town. I still live in North Shields with my beautiful and understanding wife Judi, and I have two children although not that small; Rachel who is a Director at Armadillo and keeps me on a short leash, and my son Lewis who from being a cute innocent bundle of fun, since becoming a teenager now just engages in a dialogue of grunts and snorts in-between sequences of Gears of War and Call of Duty. Both grew up in my childhood playground but neither ran with such freedom or the wind on their faces like I did many years ago. For that I am blessed. Few people, least of all myself, would have thought that after nearly 30 years in the advertising business I would end up owning my own design agency Armadillo Creative on the very playground I ran on when I was an innocent child the Fish Quay in North Shields. The River Tyne has witnessed many changes through the years: from the demise of the once proud fishing fleets and the mighty Swan Hunters to the erection of designer Quayside luxury apartments and the influx of new style progressive businesses and developments. The Devils Waiting Room started out as playful meanderings through one summer in 1969, the last summer before the ‘gang’ broke up and went off in different directions to secondary schools. It was time of innocence and change. Racism was very strong and had an iron grip on Shields, and coming from one of the few coloured families in the town that isolation and undercurrent was a major factor in my childhood. The late sixties was a time for change, and when you’re young and three-foot-odd it seems too big and of no relevance to pocket money and comics. Where are my friends now? Who knows? Many may have left the area for good. When I was 15 I ran away from my foster parents and went to London; but something dragged me back to North Shields a few day later. That magnet has kept me here ever since, and I’m proud of my small town. I still live in North Shields with my beautiful and understanding wife Judi, and I have two children although not that small; Rachel who is a Director at Armadillo and keeps me on a short leash, and my son Lewis who from being a cute innocent bundle of fun, since becoming a teenager now just engages in a dialogue of grunts and snorts in-between sequences of Gears of War and Call of Duty. Both grew up in my childhood playground but neither ran with such freedom or the wind on their faces like I did many years ago. For that I am blessed.

Book preview

The Devil’s Waiting Room

By Berry Burgess

The Devil’s Waiting Room

By Berry Burgess

Published by Berry Burgess at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Berry Burgess

Smashwords Edition, License Notes



This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Judi, Lewis, Rachel, Elaine and Vivian.

Blood made us family,

Love made us friends

PREFACE

Few people, least of all myself, would have thought that after nearly 30 years in the advertising business I would end up owning my own design agency Armadillo Creative on the very playground I ran on when I was an innocent child the Fish Quay in North Shields.

The River Tyne has witnessed many changes through the years: from the demise of the once proud fishing fleets and the mighty Swan Hunters to the erection of designer Quayside luxury apartments and the influx of new style progressive businesses and developments. The Devils Waiting Room started out as playful meanderings through one summer in 1969, the last summer before the ‘gang’ broke up and went off in different directions to secondary schools.

It was time of innocence and change. Racism was very strong and had an iron grip on Shields, and coming from one of the few coloured families in the town that isolation and undercurrent was a major factor in my childhood. The late sixties was a time for change, and when you’re young and three-foot-odd it seems too big and of no relevance to pocket money and comics.

Where are my friends now? Who knows? Many may have left the area for good. When I was 15 I ran away from my foster parents and went to London; but something dragged me back to North Shields a few day later. That magnet has kept me here ever since, and I’m proud of my small town.

I still live in North Shields with my beautiful and understanding wife Judi, and I have two children although not that small; Rachel who is a Director at Armadillo and keeps me on a short leash, and my son Lewis who from being a cute innocent bundle of fun, since becoming a teenager now just engages in a dialogue of grunts and snorts in-between sequences of Gears of War and Call of Duty. Both grew up in my childhood playground but neither ran with such freedom or the wind on their faces like I did many years ago. For that I am blessed.

PROLOGUE

The Devil's Waiting Room is biographical journey centred around the summer in 1969 in the fishing port of North Shields on the banks of the River Tyne. Racism was still very strong and open and had an iron grip on the town during perpetual time for change. The last summer sees the changes and adventures through my eyes as a 10 year old innocent who just wanted to run and play but was caught up in the undercurrent of the times.

As one of the few mixed race families in North Shields, that created isolation and tension that a pre-pubescent child could never really understand at the time. North Shields had many interesting characters that spilt over into our lives, whether we liked it or not.

The Sandman and the Ghosts kept us awake at night till the morning broke. Outside we ran. At home we persevered. And late at night, I would hear my father cry. The world evolved in black and white, everything only ever happened in cold shades of grey. However, the summer of that year was the colour of freedom. It spun around in a spectrum of kaleidoscopic vibrant tones that no adult could ever see. While older people saw news and information, we fed on the freedom of our playground. From the Spanish Battery to the Tiger Stairs, there was no black and there was no white. This was our Promised Land, and in it we were free.

CHAPTER ONE

THE DARK MAN

It was so hot. I remember the heat burning endlessly through that last summer. It was fire on the fingertips. All this heat and space was our inheritance that summer. When you’re young, space comes very easy – you don’t have to find it, it’s just there. So there we were, with all this heat and space. Daydream Believers every one. The last summer had begun…

The Dark Man stood like a great ageing sentinel, guarding the dimly lit entrance of the two-roomed downstairs flat that was his home. A thin wry smile began to stretch across his tired face that had witnessed everything, but seen nothing. Painful eyes recorded every breath and every movement: aware, unaware. From the shadows his eyes blinked and caught the last remaining twilight rays that slowly sank across the concrete cricket pitch carved in chalk. So many miles from the balmy nights of Kingston Jamaica, where cricket was king. So many miles from everywhere. Shuffling quietly, his pajamas crept casually beneath his heavy trousers and peeked out between his shoes and his two-inch turn-ups. The string holding the coarse twill battleship grey trousers had arrived attached to a large parcel about two years previously, courtesy of Auntie Vera’s Marshall Ward catalogue.

As the sun retreated, the heat was replaced by something else, a kind of stifling entity that we could never identify. The space rapidly disappeared and an impatient waiting heaviness descended – the heat was our life, and we had runs to score and sixes to strike.

The Dark Man was never unclean, but neither was he a Jason King. At around sixteen stone, six feet, and touching the wrong side of sixty-five, it’s hard to put appearances as a main priority in one’s life when you rely on a pension book every Tuesday. The same could never be said for his children. Nobody claimed to understand the big Jamaican, least of all his two children; but everybody respected the effort that he put into his children’s appearance.

Still standing quietly in the doorway, observing the final few over’s of the cricket match. He was the square-leg umpire, the final arbitrator, the spectators, the commentator, the green-keeper, the first and last word. His creased eyes squinted in the dusk as his small son patted down the concrete wicket and took his guard. While all the other children from the street were either Boycott, Milburn or Trueman, the Dark Man knew his son walked in Gary Sobers’ and Charlie Griffiths’ shoes. He was pleased. The night drew on and at eleven the stumps were pulled for the day; the light was getting bad anyway. As the boys raced down the street the Dark Man spread his huge arms to guide his children into the doorway. Tomorrow it would be hot again.

The front room of the flat wasn’t lit much better than the light at the end of the last over. One single bulb with no shade hung desperately between ceiling and floor, casting little comfort in the dark room. If anything it created darkness. Nooks and crannies opened up under its flickering glow, as long silent shadows held hidden secrets waiting to be explored by brave adventurers. The crackle of the open fire was the one point of reassurance in the room. There was heat. That meant space. Space to feel warmth, Space to feel the love that lived in that room, a love that would fight any of the shadow demons.

Threadbare…that could be the only kind description of what was once a carpet. Luckily the vastness of the dining table cast its presence over most of the carpet so it never looked quite as bad as it really was. Despite the regularity of the Bixell carpet sweeper, countless hidden crumbs mingled with the eager dust mites, surfacing for inspection in the warm radiance of the coal fire at frequent intervals. There was very little physical space in the flat. Outside we ran. At home we persevered. And late at night, I would hear my father cry.

The summer nights were strange quiet affairs. The days may have belonged to the Seventh Cavalry, but the nights belonged to my father. Endless evenings of silent solitude were broken by the scratchy whirring of dials and the interrupted intrusion of crackling and static. Distant voices called our names in the darkness, from places unheard. From the Other Side. Be grateful, my father would snap, when we asked yet again why we couldn’t have a television like everyone else. Televisions damage your eyes. was always his reply. I never once saw any of my friends with square eyes, as was often suggested.

Who knows where that big brown box of a radio came from – it didn’t really matter anyway. Two huge cream Bakelite knobs sat beneath the central speaker, which was covered in a tawdry mesh of coarse material that had certainly seen better days. Arching smoothly at the top in a gentle point, the radio dominated the corner of the room, positioned delicately on an odd-looking bedside cabinet that was way past its best. Wearing the same clothes as yesterday, and days before that; my father would hunch over the old radio, his huge frame seemingly gaining new strength from the radio waves with each minute. No longer broken by the chore of washing and cooking, his spirit soared like a bird when the voices began. It was one of the few times we actually had company in our home. The wallpaper creaked to hear any dropped word, and the shadows would fall silent.

That was the power of the Time. This was his Time; we gave him the respect, even if we didn’t understand. We valued our skin. My father’s skin was black. My sister’s skin was white. My skin was the colour of a Caramac bar. On the radio there is no colour, but his voice haunted my mind. It said something in its calmness, in its vigor, in its passion. It disturbed my summer.

I have been to the mountain top… I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight; that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I am happy tonight. I am not worried about anything. I am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

His voice was so distant, but I touched it that night. It covered my father too. I know that. His intrusion into my world was unkind. The world ended at Wallsend swimming baths. Why bring it closer? I never asked my father about the voice. I never asked my father about anything. As he crouched hawk-like over the brown box his face would stiffen as his eyes strained to see further into the fabric covering the soundbox. It was as if he was asking the radio to suck him in and take him to the Voice. The intensity on his aged brow was there for all to paint. Did the Dark Man understand? Or was progressing technology the quiet flame of bewilderment?

Radio Rentals showed a kaleidoscope of events from the Big Country – the riots, the fury and the anger. Martin’s death. I would gaze endlessly enthralled by the square box. I wanted a television. Everyone else in the street had a television but we still had a radio. Sometimes the Radio Rentals window became our second home on our way back home from school. We would press our eager faces into the cool glass of the window and stare with open mouths as the world unfolded in front of our silent eyes. Assassinated. they said, whatever that meant. So soon? He was only talking to us just a few days ago. Knowledge brought only confusion, and I had dragons to slay that summer.

The world evolved in black and white, everything only ever happened in