Tales from a Harrogate Caravan

By Karl Swainston

Tales from a Harrogate Caravan is an entertaining collection of stories stretching from the cavalier sixties to the modern day. Through a panorama of characters and action, the book shows how times and society change, and how the characters in the tales try to adapt to those changes and not altogether successfully.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karl Swainston
• Release date: Mar 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370601042

Karl Swainston

Karl lives in a small village outside Goole with his two Chihuahuas, Arthur and Bambi, and a perfectly ugly cat called Audrey. Karl is a keen runner, DIY and SEO enthusiast. Karl is father of two children, Rebecca and Alex, and grandfather to a wonderful granddaughter called Chloe.Karl was born and raised from humble beginnings in South Leeds, poignantly and comically remembered later in life when, as a landlord of a pub in Harrogate, he penned his stark but very funny, Tales from a Harrogate Caravan.After leaving St Thomas Aquinas Grammar School in Leeds, Karl worked as a fishmonger and a postman for a year before moving to London to work within the construction industry for nearly twenty years.In his early and mid-twenties, Karl was a strong county chess player, playing for both Leeds regionally and Yorkshire nationally, a beautiful and charming time, and certainly not dull! Tales from a Harrogate CaravanIn his mid-thirties, Karl returned to education and graduated from Leeds University with an Honour’s Degree in Latin, with additional duly electives in Russian and English classical literature.In the next year Karl successfully undertook a PGCE and became a secondary school teacher, specialising in working with students with complex behavioural issues; sometimes a difficult profession, but one with many memorable and funny moments.Karl’s published literary writings are panoramic, covering genres from fiction, metaphysical, psychological, philosophical, supernatural, spiritual, physical, health, to business and construction. His books include Murder and the Devil, A Quantum Way of Life, Scardale, A Metaphysical Journey, and Tales from a Harrogate Caravan. Karl has also written various home improvement guides. Recently, Karl’s literature was translated into Portuguese and published.Karl now writes full-time. He is currently writing both fiction and non-fiction, and he is also writing various articles for different websites.If you wish to read more on the varied writings of Karl Swainston, then visit:Amazonhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=karl+swainston&ref=nb_sb_nossorSmashwordshttps://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Karl+Swainston

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The 1960's. I often strain to remember my earliest recollections. I overhear the word 'crusade,' and that brings to mind a memory from many years afore, when, no older than six, hearing the stirring music and hoofed sound of the Crusaders – both a cheap television programme and the name of my childhood gang, battling our way against the dark forces of Evil in faraway distant lands. Crusaders and Foes would meet upon a council-estate field, and then bricks and other objects would fly high and down over the field. It wasn't long before a screaming kid took half a fist of concrete on the head, and whereupon the ambulance was called for, and the wicked game was ended for another week. On another occasion a baked-bean tin lid, complete with jagged edges, and as big a dinner plate, was hurled, only to return, boomerang fashion, and stick into the head of a bleeding comrade.

Wicked? No, it aroused in us council brats much fun. Then, you didn't see the danger. Does any kid see the dangers of life at that age? Strange, now, to launch a handful of brick and hope with eager eyes, it would smash and fell a foe by knocking him senseless. No concept of danger; no understanding of the injury caused. Lobbing bricks and sharp mettle lids from a distance is fun to a young kid, incomprehensible to us adults, but fun to them.

A child is insensitive to danger. For the most meagre gain of advantage, all personal safety will be sacrificed.

Growing up on a Leeds council estate in the 1960's and in autumn meant only one thing to a young scamp: apples and apple nicking. In the posher parts of Leeds they had pear trees, but on the Middleton sprawling council estate, there were only apple trees.

Jimmy and I had been eyeing up this one particular tree since the beginning of September. Now, nearing the last days of September, the fruit hung heavy from that tree. There was only one problem though: the owner of such a treasure tree was a big-brute of a man, and even at our tender age, knowledge was known he wouldn't take kindly to two kids nicking his apples. But that did not deter us and a stratagem was called for.

'We'll knock on his door first, and if no one's in, we'll raid the bloke's apples and then get away quick. If he's in, we'll ask for a drink of water and pretend we're thirsty, but we'll know he's in, and then we will wait for him to leave.'

We dutifully marched up to his front door, through the large garden of that semi-detached house, past the apple tree with the lush apples hanging from the branches and knocked upon the door.

'What de yer want?' boomed the big man.

'We're thirsty, and can we have a drink of water please?'

'No, you can't, and fuck off out ov here,' throwing his big-grubby finger towards the iron gate,' and if I catch you in here agen, you're in forrit,' and without ceremony, he began to march us towards the gate with a firm grasp of our dirty shirts and our little legs in short pants scrambling to keep apace.

The first part of the plan was accomplished, however, and we now knew he was in the house, and the raid couldn't take place until he'd left. All we had now to do was to wait, be patient, and the man would go to work or somewhere else; it mattered not: the apples 'were gonna be ours.'

Sure enough, barely twenty minutes had passed before there emerged from the front door the aforesaid brute, now complete with jacket and striding towards the gates.

'He's here, Jimmy,' and I pointed to the man opening the gates and then walking back to get into his car.

'Yea, I bet he gets back out o car and shuts his gates.'

Sure enough, Jimmy was right. The man had barely closed the gates and driven away from the drive before Jimmy and I were hurtling towards our booty of apples.

The gate was flung open, and within a second or two, I was ascending the tree. Jimmy remained below, cupping his scruffy shirt to gather the apples as I shook the branches of treasure. The apples were that ripe even climbing the tree loosened them from their creator. The biggest fruit was at the top, and that was where I was headed, when suddenly, the horror: he was back in his car:

the brute.

'Jimmy!' I cried.

But Jimmy had barely turned around to see the danger when the man came crashing through the gates. I can still remember to this day viewing the spectacle up there in that apple tree.

Jimmy's body froze, and only his arms moved, falling to his side, whilst the purloined apples, out of Jimmy’s cupped shirt, fell to the ground, bouncing upon the concrete and rolling away.

The attack was instant, and Jimmy had no escape. Slaps across the face and even harder ones across his bare legs were administered without much respite. Even Jimmy's cries went completely unheard, as the man picked him up by an arm and leg, and without much effort, launched him over the fence and onto the grass on the other side.

As Jimmy took to his feet screaming and ran off home, the man purposefully walked up to the base of the tree and growled, 'And you're next, you little thieving bastard.'

There are times when incontinence cannot be resisted, and the very terror of being beaten, as had just happened to Jimmy, sent the warm liquid through my short pants.

Here I was: undone, shaking with fear, pissing myself, and about to die of a heart attack at six year old when my little brain came to the rescue.

The mind can be extraordinarily astute at saving your arse in moments of utter despair, and my mind did just that. In a matter of moments the man would be upon me and violence upon my person was indeed a certainty. Within those few short seconds, from up the tree, I saw a privet hedge of saviour. To those who've never jumped into or on a privet hedge, the hedge can take a significant impact upon the top and can also be quite bouncy, especially to a young child of no more than a few stone.

Just as the brute was about to reach out for my foot, I hurled myself towards that hedge, making sure I landed upon the bushy and springy top as flat as possible to spread my weight. Sure enough, the top did its deed and took most of the impact; only a small part gave way and administered a small cut upon my knee.

But I was free. I knew the man couldn't follow such a daring escape, and with this knowledge and him cursing to himself, 'The little bastard,' off I fled through the next garden and off like the clappers, as the saying goes, with only a wet pair of pants and a little cut as punishment for apple nicking days in childhood.

*

1968. St Phillips Roman Catholic Primary School: the dominion and bastion of corporal punishment? Not really; it was simply another school raised in stone by the church to raise upright Christians for a life in Leeds.

In Middleton you also had a Protestant school, John Blenkinsop, where a commonly bandied-around tale between youthful thieves was that a 'Blue Lady' wandered the night corridors as a ghost, and had one night, rubbed the throat of a common council thief upon some broken window-pane glass. No one ever dared break into her abode. Oooh, no! God forbid! Even more so to us Catholics!

Higher up the hill of Middleton – if you can call the incline that, and as the resident Catholic priest regularly pontificated to us: a superior mount to the 'proddies,' the

Protestants, you had the church of St Phillips, Catholic St Phillips. Religion dictated which school your parents sent you to, a law immovable, non-transgressible, and a downright must-do for parents. On the streets, though, to the kids complete with dirty faces, hair in the cheapest of pony-tails, boys in different coloured snake belts, all dirtied and all looking the same, all frequenting both schools, all playing in the same red-brick streets, the same council estate fold, they couldn't give a fuck: such was the wisdom of youth over religion. I can't remember my first day at school. The institutions of the time started on your education at the age of five, and you remained in their grip until your 16th year.

St Phillips had a head-teacher, Mr Healey, and he was a gangly, tall sort of creature with wiry-grey hair, or at least that's how I remembered him back in those early days. Many years later, though, I called upon his house for the fellow to sign my passport – as you did in those days – and as he stood there in the kitchen, I can remember viewing this very old man, wizened and shrivelled up in frame and complaining of just being stung by as wasp, and how time had changed the fellow, and how, back in the days of the sixties, he was a monster of a man to be feared.

Mr Healey's chosen form of behavioural correction was the slipper, and I can remember numerous occasions when the aforementioned beast was belted against my arse. One particular occasion sticks foremost in my memory, though.

Sports and especially running, football and rounders were packed into the junior school curriculum. At every opportunity the school would have some sort of physical activity on, and all the students were encouraged, nay made, to participate. Mr Maddon, the PE teacher, would regularly cram us all into the back of his three wheeler van and drive us to some sports venue. One time, just as he was setting off up a hill, and giving it some throttle, the back of the van loosed open and half a pack of kids came tumbling out on to the middle of the road. Luckily, no one was really hurt, and the kids were once again packed back into the back of the van, but with the door firmly secured this time; such was child safe guarding in those days.

The golden prize of all this exercise was to be awarded Sportsman of the Year. Strange, in those days, there was no Sportswoman of the Year, or least I can't remember if there was, and I simply didn't notice it. Every kid in the primary school wanted to win that prize, and I was no different. Whenever occasion provided I would participate to my utmost, hoping to be the golden child to walk up on that stage and collect that trophy. I was convinced I was the best; I was deluded I was the best, and when the celebrated night came around for both the annual play and the presentation of the awards, I was on another planet.

I think I was no more than six or seven, and I know that because I had learnt all the names of the birds in the British Isles. I'd found a book and memorised them all, and the teachers at the primary school were impressed with the deed. But enough of that, and there I was, sat on the floor of the hall with all the other kids waiting for the prizes, my prize, the best prize to be awarded. Other presentations proceeded the big moment and that only drove insane my anticipation for my award. And then the moment came.

'And the prize for the Sportsman of the Year goes to..,' I swear I nearly stood up there and then when, the horror: '.. Peter Brolin!'

There are times in one's life when you're completely confounded, stunned even, and that was one such time. I'd convinced myself I'd won that trophy, and looking back now, I know that Peter Brolin was the better sportsman, as he was always the better footballer. At the time, though, the delusional insult of not winning began to turn to anger, and the powers of the school must have thought that I would have been upset at not winning, and that's probably why they immediately called me up and presented me with the R. A. Briggs Award – and I don't know to this day who the hell he was – for being able to memorise all the birds of Great Britain. Mr Healey, the head teacher, presented me with The Mystery of Monster Mountain by Enid Blyton - I think - when I believed I should have been receiving Sportsman of the Year. Suffice to say I was not all that pleased, and I merely muttered something awkward between clenched teeth to him and walked off the stage without waiting for a reply; a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by the head teacher because the following day, I being involved in some minor infringement of rules - and certainly not enough to warrant the dreaded slipper - I was hauled into the head teacher’s office and informed what an ungrateful child I'd been the previous night in receiving my award, and how the slipper would correct such ingratitude, which it duly did.

Looking back I was an ungrateful child, and The Mystery of Monster Mountain book didn't really have a chance when I returned home that day, and it was promptly taken out into the back field and burnt with only a ceremony of curses.

St Phillips School had a church adjacent to it, and to this place of worship all children, without exception, would have to attend to Sunday mass. There were three appointed times: 9am, 11am, and 6pm. At the back of the church sat a teacher, and this teacher would note down all the names of all the kids attending, and lo and behold if you missed, because the first ritual on Monday morning back at the school for those who did not attend was the ruler on the back of the knuckles.

All in all, though, I recall school with many pleasant memories, and probably all the punishments that were administered were deserved and warranted. On one such occasion another pupil and I had been instructed to carefully take a big television on a wheel stand to another classroom. Instead of undertaking the task safely and as we were told to do so, we began to play a 'push-of-war' with it, seeing who was the stronger. In the end, one of the wheels caught on a big, thick orange-haired mat, and the whole lot keeled over; when one of those big, old televisions crashes to the floor, and the tube in the of back of it explodes everyone knows about it. Mr Maddon certainly did, as he came charging out of his classroom and grabbed a rounders bat and gave us both six-of-the-best with it.

*

When you weren't at school, you were, almost certainly, out of the house somewhere or other. Back in the late sixties, early seventies, there wasn't the gamut of technical stuff kids have today. Television came into the house in only a couple of channels, and that's as far as technology went. You'd have to find your own recreational activities. For the kids in Sissons Avenue, you'd be off to either Miggy Park or the West-Woods, where, upon the latter, there were endless rolling fields to make an untold number of dens, find other gangs' dens, wreck them, and then burn them down. Occasionally, one gang burning another gangs' den would lead to a large grass fire, and some dutiful citizen from off the estate would phone for the fire brigade, and the naughty fire was put out, but only to be lit by another gang a day or so later.

In Miggy Park there was a golf course, and a common recreation was to search for lost golf balls and sell them on to the golfers. Invariably the golf balls found tended to be aged by the weather and brought back the least amount of cash. The newer balls, which commanded a higher price, were harder to find, and often, the only way to get one was to nick a new one from one golfer and sell it on at a profit to another golfer.

Near the pond, where, one cold winter, this Griffin lad fell through the ice, there was a large gulley, hidden by trees, and it was there where you would lie in wait for a stray golf ball to come crashing through the trees, and then a whole army of kids would charge for the ball, scrambling through thickets and branches to get to it before, finally, scarpering off with the booty before the golfer turned up looking for his ball. On every single occasion bar one, we'd escape, but on one occasion, a very fit golfer was having none of it, and noticing his ball had been purloined by a bunch of kids, he set off after us at such a blistering pace. I can't remember which one of us had the ball, but it didn't really matter as Gaz was the unfortunate one who got caught and was lifted up in the air by both legs, shook, and then slapped hard across the face before being let go, and in tears, running off.

Miggy Park, or Middleton Park as it is officially known, had vast swathes of forest, too, for us kids, and tree climbing was a favourite pastime of most kids from off the estate. Whether it was climbing the branches for fun, for acorns, or to raid the nests for bird eggs it didn't matter: you did it, almost everyone did it; even those who had a fear of heights would, at least, clamber up a few low branches. Occasionally, some kid would climb a little too high and be a little too bold and risky, and a branch would suddenly give way, and the brat would fall in stages back to earth, breaking a couple of ribs and an arm on the way down as they hit the branches, as is what happened to Stee when he fell from an acorn tree.

And it wasn't only trees you climbed; anything was scaled, so long as there was something to be had. I can remember going up an electric pylon for a crow's nest; on the side of the pylon there are bolts protruding, and which are alternately staggered on each edge to allow for climbing up them. I can still hear the buzz of electricity at the top of one of those pylons when reaching over and stealing a blue -speckled crow's egg. No wonder so many kids get killed because, like me, they have no concept of what danger really is when you're a kid.

There have been a couple of occasions when I've courted either death or, at least serious injury, as when, in my younger years, I'd clipped the side of a kerb, cycling back from Rothwell, and falling out onto the road and hearing behind me the screeching of car tyres, and the car coming to rest with its wheels trapping my long, curly hair on the concrete of the road; then the man, jumping out of the car, thinking he'd killed me, and seeing this brat who was saying, 'I'm all right, but my hair is stuck under your wheel, Mister.'

The man didn't bother with a reply and simply dragged me unceremoniously from the road, leaving a few curly strands of hair under his wheel, 'You fucking-stupid little bastard,' before picking up my bike and slinging that over a hedge and into a field and then driving off to do whatever he had to do that day.

Passing the 11+ wasn't hard, as Mr Maddon had taught us all well, and the day I left primary school was the last day I ever saw the fellow. Well, that's not quite true in a way, as I did attend – as did many ex-pupils – his funeral some twenty so years ago. I remember thinking there, sat in the church, that the fellow, the teacher in the box at the front of the church had had such a passion for sport, such great enthusiasm for teaching it to the catholic kids from off the estate, and once running to kick a ball, losing his balance, falling on me, and tearing my ligaments and tendons in my knee, and here was that great fellow now: dead and ready to meet his maker up in heaven. God bless you, Mr Maddon, one splendid teacher.

*

St Thomas Aquinas Grammar School was in name only a Grammar School. Educated in its walls were a bunch of regular council estate upstarts like myself.

The secondary comprehensive – because that is what it really was – was situated in the north of Leeds, in Moortown, and that meant two buses a day for us living in the south of Leeds.

We'd all catch a bus in Miggy, alight on the Headrow, and then catch a number 52 to school, Tongue Lane, if my memory serves me.

On one such occasion, while waiting for the number 52 to arrive, I and a couple of mates noticed the postman thrusting through the jeweller’s letter-box some very unusual and large packets of booty.

No sooner had the fellow vanished than our skinny hands and arms