The Testimony of Benjanim Smith: The Survivors Club

By Brian B Rogers

Despite growing up during the Second World War, watching the nightly vigil of German Bombers destroying the ship builders by the river,some of us did survive, had our fun, our adventure s, first loves and misfortunes.

As young adults our circumstances changed. New pals, new loves, Dont forget to keep in touch, but as time went, you didnt.

Untill one day by chance accidentaly colliding into my old school pal Graham, nearly seventy years after parting our ways, things changed.

They say everything happens in threes, but in our case it increased as more, now grey haired delinquents from 4A joined the monthly meetings of the Survivers Club, to reminisce on old times over a few beers.

Being pressured into putting pen to paper, and transcribe the tesimony of our memorable youth, this narrative was composed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477235263

Brian B Rogers

Born on the Wirral, Cheshire UK, the Second World War unfolded and soon reached our shores. The May Blitz, as we called it, deverstated parts of our area. We lads were not put off by German Bombers, we had our adventures, our young loves, tomorrow might have been to late. Time rushes by, my old pals go their own way and I find myself married, now with six grandkids, six great grandkids, and you find out what life was all about, when your old and grey.

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© 2012 by Brian B Rogers. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/02/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3525-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3524-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3526-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

A New Home From Home

Old Friends—Older Faces

Old Times Remembered

The Start Of Funny Goings On

A Lesson From The Master

The Importance of Being ‘Smith & Jones’

More Past Memories

Treasured Memories

Meeting Graham Halfway

My Monthly Prescription

Is It Christmas Already

Happy New Year?

The Assembly of Old Minds

The Disappearing Axe Man

Poor Old Mike

Teaching Gropey A Lesson

A New Love For Paul

And Then There Were Four

Farewell Fishy

Mike, Nobby And Mrs Noah

Medals, What Medals

Your Future In Leaves & Palms

The Day Of The Mighty Hunk

Keep Your Eyes On The Shoes

In The Art Of Seduction

My New Love

The Art Of Paula Brown

The Stranger In The Closet

Being Press—Ganged Into Being A Scribe

The Art Of Being Cupid

The Big Smugglers’ Scam

A Shorten Counter With Espionage

Another Immoderated Spirit Bites The Dust

Honeymoon? What Honeymoon?

The Vanishing Denominator

A New Member For The Geriatric Club

As Time Goes By A Post Script

Little White Lies For The Kids

The Truth Of The Bullet Revealed To All

Prologue

IT WAS SUGGESTED I place on paper the Testimony of circumstances which led to the meeting of great minds, the Class of 4a in the1940s and on until we made our way as young adults in the big wide world, together with the goings on which led to our meetings.

Not all of us survived to be decrepit grey haired old men, but some of us that did finally met to discuss our lives and to have that last farewell drink before departing this mortal coil for that great class in the sky, that we all hope to meet in again one day.

So, as we go on this journey of detailed memory’s of the old fools that survived, and met over sixty years after they were separated by adulthood, new loves, and the ball and chain that goes with it, we nostalgic old fools finally got together to remember our somewhat hair-brained schemes in pursuing what the meaning of life was all about.

The war didn’t worry us too much as long as we had our girlfriends, and explored as much as they would let us, and kept anything else to ourselves.

One thing I would ask you not to do, as I say to the lady when I go to the Outdoor for my bottle of malt, tell you what darlin’, give me a packet of twenty nicotine stained coffin nails, but for Christ sake, don’t tell the wife, while this nicotine deprived twit skives off for a fag!

I started to wonder what it had all been about. Mortgages at 15 and 13%, when the man behind the desk finally lets you have one, the bended knee may have helped.

The kids and grandkids all doing their own thing. We had our bricks and mortar to hide in, a garden to sit in when you got a nice day, and I started to think.

Our horizons were limited to the odd pub lunch, the trip to the shops and tidying the garden, under pressure.

One afternoon I was having forty winks in the chair, as you do, when the front door bell rang.

Two of the youngest members of our family walked in when I’d opened the door. Hiya Nan, Gramps, we’re here to do your garden, cut the grass and tidy it up.

Bliss, about time. The grass got cut, the edges got titivated. Was this a dream? Damn right it was a dream, to put it in its right perspective, a bloody nightmare!

In my sleep I walked out to examine the highly improbable sight of the garden now being landscaped to perfection.

Chunks of our grass, their weeds were mostly my flowers. It looked like the builders had made a start on an extension.

I woke sweating in the chair from this horror film being shown in my head and thought is this a bloody warning or what.

If any of them did turn up, which was flippin’ unlikely, I’d have to remember to tell them to bugger off.

I was getting really peeved off.

I’m bored, I’ve got nothing to do, that’s all you get from the kids. Gone are the days of the whip and top, or a little metal gun and you played cowboys and Indians.

The highlight of our week was a Saturday morning trip to the Roxy, pay your shilling for the best seats and find out if Hop Along Cassidy was going to sort out the wicked rancher who had slipped through his fingers last week.

If your luck was in, you just might get a snog and cuddle from your girl friend when the lights went out, and if you managed to get a back seat.

If a load of bricks got thrown over into your garden, or a window gets bashed with a football, and you can just about manage to slowly rush outside and catch the little creep, it’s he’s a good boy really, he’s bored, he’s got nothing to do.

Bored? Some of them want a ball and chain around their flippin’ ankles, that would stop them being bored humping that around!

I had to do something to change all this, I’m bloody bored too.

When you’re getting older a year seems to pass in no time at all compared to when you were a kid.

Christmas and your Birthday came around every month, and the summer when it arrives goes before you get time to put your bloody shorts on!

What happens one day? You’re slumped in your chair, an alarm bell rings, you look at the clock, Christ is that the time, my flippin’ tablets, where are they? In the kitchen cabinet.

In you go, you look around, what the hell did I come in here for? It’s gone, your mind is blank. Hope I’m not getting cursed with Alzheimer’s, no it’s gone. Sod it; let’s skive off to the shed for a fag.

Oh hello, you two off somewhere then? Oh yeah, going to Barbados for a week, got a good deal on the Internet.

Oh err, mum, Graham’s borrowed a little tent, and his mum says it’s alright if it’s alright with you for me to go. He knows a farmer in Wales, we could camp out in his field for a couple of days, make a change.

Could you give me a few dripping butties to keep me going, we’ll get a drink from the farmer, it’ll be fun."

Oh err, mum, Margaret’s got a little tent, and her mum said it would be alright with her it it’s alright with you to go to a little farm she knows over in Wales, not far, just for a couple of nights, make a change. Could you give me a few jam butties or something to keep me going, we’ll be alright, she knows the farmer.

More manipulative rubbish followed, all for a glimpse of freedom, and a dirty weekend if you were lucky.

And if you’re not, and anyone found out, you got your bloody head bashed in when your dad got home from bashing Gerry’s.

A far cry from a dirty week in Barbados, thanks to the Internet.

They are hard done to? They haven’t got a clue.

The kids don’t have to listen half the time at school. Don’t forget your homework. "Oh yeah, I’ll just switch on the computer, get on the Broadband, or whatever they call it, and get the flippin’ answers while Dad pays the flippin’ bill.

If they give the teacher a load of buck at school, what happens? Now don’t be naughty boys.

If they gave the little beggars the cane, or a swipe with a ruler, they’d be dragged off to prison, tagged around the ankle or strung up by some goody goodies that probably don’t have any kids to clout.

Yeah, I know, I’ve been told all about it before, times have changed, a good job I suppose in some ways. But you get fed up when your expected to put up with anything, and you’re bored to death, and you feel you want to do something before the fiery furnace catches up to you.

Yeah, I also know they all call me a moaning old grouch.

But eventually, life did change, if only a little. By chance I literally bumped into my old school bosom buddy, then finally more old pals.

At last I’d have some intelligent conversation, and a load of old rubbish to talk about, but it was better than stagnating in a smoke filled shed having a sly gasper.

Something’s have changed for the better of course. When the young kids during the war had to carry their Mickey Mouse gas masks around with them every week, just in cast we were going to be gassed.

Poor old Mickey would have had a coronary if he thought he looked like those grotesque looking things.

And we lads had to try and keep our girlfriends happy with our meagre couple of bob pocket money.

The letterbox rattled with its usual stream of junk, the first highlight of the day.

I started to read.

A New Home From Home

THE HIGHLIGHT OF our day arrived, rattle, rattle, Mr. Posty shoves the usual junk Mail through our letterbox.

Two bills, they could wait, I was getting fed up with being the idiot, paying bills

As soon as the first request was ordered.

What’s this? Two pounds a month wanted for a donkey sanctuary, another two quid to save the bears in some distant land.

The next thing would be a letter from a Mrs Smith or Brown telling me they’d landed in Muck Street please send a thousand quid straight away, poor little Johnny wants a pair of designer trainers, hopefully for mummy to wrap them around his insubstantial little neck!

Than an envelope I did read Life Begins at 60, what a load of preposterous drivel.

I read on Because you are retired doesn’t mean life stops.

This guy obviously hadn’t been around to our house! Our days were taken by cleaning the house, doing the garden, going shopping.

My excitement heightened as I read more contents of this through provoking junk mail.

Release Equity from your home.

Spend the kid’s inheritance? That’s a bloody good idea, no money to pay back until you’re boxed off. Too late to worry about bills then.

The wife was attentive for a change and listened to my intriguing solution to our present boredom.

To hell with this, let’s take the advice given in the junk mail that’s been thrown through the front door; spend the kid’s inheritance.

We decided on equity release and spend the money.

Right, I thought, let’s get our priorities right, I want a nearly new Jag.

You’re a flippin’ poser you are, the voice came from the settee.

And why not, I’m fed up with these kids whizzing passed me in their little hatch backs and their baseball caps on. I’m getting a Del Boy ratting hat as well,. Poser!

The cheque in exchange for a portion of our home arrived and I put it in the bank, just in case they changed their minds, or we snuffed it first.

We had a lovely static caravan before deciding to sell and put the money towards a new bungalow.

Nothing has changed, we’re in our nice new home, the cleaning and dusting still goes on, the garden still gets mowed, what’s this all about. It was time for another van.

What about the garden, the cleaning, what about . . . ? Aud, my better half of over fifty years thinks you should do everything yourself, at our age.

Forget it, the dust can stay where it is, the garden can be cut and tendered by someone else while we’re sitting on our veranda looking over the sea and country.

I must have sounded very demanding and the authority in my voice appeared to do the trick, for once, and Aud agreed, a nearly new van would be a good idea.

The morning ritual had once again arrived. Thinking I’d better try to look reasonably smart, in case I bumped into someone important plugged the magic beard scraper into the socket and nothing happened.

I suppose after eleven years or so it had lasted pretty well. A good advert for the makers I thought.

With more money to spend we drove to our giant electric shop to have a browse around.

The electric razor cabinet came into view and there were all shapes, sizes and prices.

Aud must have felt kind heated and pointed to one standing in pride of place.

That looks a nice one, get that.

Yeah, very posh. I looked at the price. Two hundred bloody pounds? You’ve got to be joking!

Aud gave me her disgusting look.

You are a tight something, saving up, now you’re a rich man are you?

Now, silly old me, we wouldn’t be rich for long, a two hundred pound razor, a van, and of course, my nearly new Jag.

I didn’t even contemplate the super-duper, guaranteed for fifty years job. I didn’t want to get my ear chewed off.

Get it if you think it’s a good one, it might just last you out.

It was a joke . . . I hoped. Well I suppose someone could inherit it.

Looking around for an assistant, I asked to examine this super sonic robot that was going to cost me two hundred pounds. Well, it’s only money, and that’s what credit cards are for, so they tell us.

Handing over my piece of plastic to get in debt, I said to the young executive What happens then, I just sit in the chair each morning, whistle a certain tune, and it flies out of its case and shaves me all by itself?

He looked at me and didn’t know whether I was joking or being funny-funny.

Oh, I get it and laughs.

Yeah, I’d better get it for two hundred bloody quid, I could pay a young slave girl to shave me every day for years for that.

Aud didn’t appear too pleased with the possibility of my slave girl fantasy and told me to pay up.

Returning home I charged the battery in my new razor for two and a half hours as told in the instruction book, sat in the chair and whistled, but nothing happened, so I got on with my daily chore of shaving, hoping that at any moment it would spit out gold nuggets, but it never did.

I got my way with the nearly new car, and we headed to our old stamping grounds in North Wales to find our nearly new van.

Arriving in our familiar surroundings we booked in at a small hotel, and were welcomed by the owner’s whom we had known for years.

Telling them of our plans they showed us to our room and we settled in for the next few days.

The following morning our bacon and eggs demolished, we headed toward our old site to see what changes had taken place, and if they could offer us a super-duper nearly new van with all the mod cons.

Little had changed except the roads were a lot better and had more flowerbeds, now a mass of colour.

Parking in the car park, we strolled over to the office to have a chat, hopefully with someone we used to know. I thought if they saw our nice shiny car they might think we were loaded and give us a bit more attention.

Over they came, one guy we’d known from our last stay on the site looked and I beckoned him over. Eyes glistening, probably thinking of his commission, he walked us to seats and brought over coffee.

Shaking our hands, his next words were We’re not going to have to put up with you again are we? and laughed. I hoped that was a joke, on our last stay it had cost us a fortune.

Telling us there were two or three nice vans, as the owners had purchased new one’s that year, he took us to see them.

Deciding on a large 14 x 40, all mod cons, double-glazed, with central heating to keep our old bodies warm and an en-suite in case we took short in the night. The damn thing was nearly as big as our bungalow.

Being told it would be sited and ready to walk into by the middle of the following week, we surveyed the area that around our new holiday home.

Old Friends—Older Faces

THE CAR NOW filled to the hilt with all the essentials we originally brought home from our last van, we set off for our first night in our new holiday home.

As promised there it was, all shining, spick and span, our new home from home.

Aud displayed our nick knacks here and there and I made a place for the microwave, set up the TV and checked everything worked.

The fridge was stacked with the usual bits and we made the bed, ready for our first night.

Deciding on a meal at a local pub we used to frequent, the rest of the evening went by as we watched the usual visions on the channels we could receive and decided the day was over and it was time to try out our bed. Tomorrow we would see what changes had been made to the Club and Restaurant and explore the site. That was tomorrow, we’d had a hard day and went to bed.

The next morning after a late breakfast, we decided to visit friends further along the coast we’d known for some years and see if their restaurant had changed and have our lunch and a chat, if they had time.

Early evening arrived and it was time for a few drinks in the quiet lounge on the site, and a meeting that would change the next few days of our stay.

Finding a table with comfortable soft chairs, I headed for the bar and ordered our drinks.

Drinks in hand, I turned and my neighbour at the bar also turned. His arm crashed into me and the golden liquid shot over my new fancy shirt and trousers. Looking like an idiot playing in the paddling pool with the kids with his clothes on, I looked at the semi-bald greying old lunatic who was hunched forward still holding his drinks. It was mine that near drowned me in beer and ruined my Sunday best shirt.

The apologies came flooding in. Thinking I’d better play it cool, otherwise I might loose some of my hair and end up looking like him. The beer waster insisted on more drinks from the bar as the young barman handed me a dry towel to soak up the beer that was dripping to the floor.

Looking at me in a puzzled way the apologetic old maggot finally spoke once more, Smithy, it is you isn’t it?

Smithy? Good God, I hadn’t been called that in the last sixty years. My names weren’t Smith, but that’s another story. Jonesy wasn’t his name either. He went to grab my hands that now gripped the replacement drinks, and beckoned me over to his table.

Who are you here with? My wife, I can’t afford a bit on the side as well.

The old fool that tried to drown me was Graham, an old pal that I hadn’t see since school days.

Graham, his hands full with his drinks nodded to his side. Come over to our table, there’s someone here I think you know.

We walked over to the table he occupied with, I thought to be his wife, who turned and looked at me when Graham said, look who I’ve just drowned in beer.

The lady sitting waiting for her drink stared at me and after a minute got up, put her arms round me, kissed me and said Ben!

Well, at least that was my name, we were halfway there. I looked over at Aud, now sitting staring and wondering what the hell was going on, and who the floozy was kissing her husband.