An Angel on My Shoulder: And Other Stories

By Ralph Hill

Ralph (he hates to be called Mr. Hill) is an eighty-four-year-old man living in the South East of England. He believes he has led a charmed life and tells the story of his childhood and growing up in a changing world.
He then adds the story of the final hours of a Lancaster Bombing in which his brother was killed. In a complete change of direction, the next piece is about a system for playing contract bridge called The Amenable Club. For one who has hated the disputes following some games, he has tried to devise a system that will cause the least friction between players.

His greatest hope is that he has amused you and not offended you, the reader, in any way. He speaks of real people in his biography but gives no names where he thought they would give offense.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477249970

Ralph Hill

Ralph Hill's life took him from a North London Council estate, around the world with the Royal Navy during the Second World War and into a long career as a teacher. With an enquiring mind and a philosophical bent, he turned many of his experiences and reflections on life into short stories, several of which have an underlying moral theme.

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CONTENTS

Chapter One

School Days

Chapter Two

Youth in Training

Chapter Three

National Service

Chapter Four

Home, Rhos on Sea, London

Chapter Five

BBC Manchester

Chapter Six

Premature Retirement

Death of Lancaster PB512

A Story of Deceit & Lies

Bridge

Two Very Gentle Men

Reunion

Jenny Rover

The Squirrel

Chapter One

School Days

Born in Leeds in April in 1928 I was the third of finally four children, girl, boy, boy, girl. I was born at home, close to the Cricket Ground at Headingley apparently at about 2am, and was ever an early riser! As siblings, we were in pairs, five years apart; that is my elder sister was six years older than me and my younger sister a year younger. I was the ugly duckling, a wall eyed boy but with a cheeky grin.

My very first memories of those early days were running with my elder sister from a jumping cracker that seemed determined to follow me one bonfire night and I vaguely remember sitting before a roaring fire in the lounge watching my older sister combing her hair which nearly reached the floor. Life was simple in those early days, my parents were furriers with a shop in Leeds, Briggate that mainly served the stage stars and wealthy farmers wives buying or having fur coats made to measure. At an early age I learnt the difference between real Musquash and the fake (cony) made from Rabbit skins. My father excelled in the better class furs and there was always at least one mink stole on display.

My brother, five years older than me shared a bedroom with me, and unlike me (a chatterbox) he was the quiet one. Although christened Frank David after his father and eldest Uncle we all called him Peter to avoid confusion if Mother shouted Frank. It is curious, looking back how we all eventually used names other than those given at birth. We were a happy family and lived at Headingley until it was time for me to go to school. Then we moved to a newly built house in Lawnswood, within walking distance of the new Lawnswood Modern School, a fee paying grammar school but without the classics except for those going on to Oxford, the preferred base for further learning because that was where our esteemed headmaster had been. Geoff Morton, he was an adventurer and every year went on wild trips to strange places. His brother was a noted historian.

Lawnswood School was by-sexual but with separate buildings separated by swimming baths. The school had excellent playing fields with plenty of room for cricket and football as well as rounders for the girls. Both schools had double tennis courts as well as big tarmacked playgrounds. The quality of teaching was excellent and there was more than one Ph.D. in each school. The school endowed a few scholarships, probably a dozen each year so there was some social mixing of classes. As far as I was aware, no one paid any attention as to whether you were fee paying or scholarship. My brother had been at Boarding School in Pocklington, Yorshire but when I started school he too transferred and was much happier. I don’t think he much cared for the boarding school system of fagging, and although he never spoke to me about it I think he had rather a bad time.

The prep school was in the girl’s building and here you stayed from age 6 until 8 when you had to sit an exam to enter the senior schools. Most of the time we spent sitting on the floor for lessons and stories and I remember a time of an extreme feeling of guilt. We had been sitting, trying out various musical instruments such as the jews harp, triangles and little flutes. I was getting bored and sitting just in front of me was a girl whose short skirt was showing her knickers. At six, I knew no harm in sticking my finger into her knickers and into her bottom. She didn’t complain, I think she liked it but a week later she was off sick and died and we learnt that she had got meningitis: I thought I was to blame and for the first time the smile left my face for a couple of days. I never wanted to touch a girl like that again.

In the boys senior school we had superb science labs, for biology, physics and chemistry. It was this latter subject which fascinated me and I tried to learn all I could about inorganic chemistry. I soon found I had some skill at making fireworks. Remember this was war time and fireworks just couldn’t be had but you could go to your local chemist and buy barium and strontium nitrates; potassium nitrate and sulphur without any problems. No one thought of small boys making explosions. Well, this one did! Since I could buy acids if I wanted, and glycerine was easily available, in no time I was making a small quantity of nitro glycerine. What to do with it? That was the problem. It needed a detonator or violent impact if it was to achieve anything so, I put it in a small bottle with some string round the neck and together with a tea light, matches and a friend we went to a field not too far from home where there was a big rock in the middle of the field which the farmer used to plough around, We found an overhang, hung the bottle by the string over a small crater where we put the night light under the string. The idea was that the lit candle would burn the string and the bottle would fall about 4 foot onto the rock below. A short way from the rock was a hedge with a ditch which was the boundary of the field. We lit the candle, ran to the ditch and hid. Nothing happened so we got up to find the lighted candle had blown out. We tried again. The third time we just got down in the ditch when there was a loud explosion and bits of stone flew past our ears. The rock had vanished and there was just a little dip in the ground and hard rock: the whole of the top piece had been blown away. Looking back, we were so lucky that the timing had been right and that we had not got caught in the blast. That was my first indication that there might be an angel on my shoulder.

I had one very close friend in my later years at school, who lived a couple of streets away. Alan was much darker skinned than me, his mother was French and maybe this had something to do with it. We did everything together, even to making fireworks. We used to meet in a wood near his house and there we would make catapults and I even made a hand gun from a piece of brass curtain rod, stapled to a chunk of wood with another at right angle for a butt. The trigger was a piece of spring steel from an old clock, held up from a cut in the rod by a bent piece of wire. We loaded the barrel with gunpowder, then pushed a pellet down on top of the power and then, holding it at arm’s length, having put some powder in the little slot, I pulled the trigger. First a slight flash from the trigger and then—Bang! The barrel split down it’s length, splitting the wood on which it was stapled and that was it. Fortunately neither of us was hurt: we went back to catapults!

As I said, we were for the most part fee paying pupils but we did have some scholarship boys and two of these did in fact cause trouble. One of them, a brawny boy who nobody would want to tangle with had somehow got hold of a flask of neat spirit and became very drunk. Eventually he was holed up in the changing rooms where he had gone for a drink of water. It took some considerable time for the staff to get to and hold him. Of course no outside help was requested: we had to be self-contained as befitted