Dolly

By George Christos

Hi, Im Georgy. I want to tell you my story that goes back to many years, when I was a child of only twelve years old. Its basically a true story about a part of my life over a period of four years, which created me into who I became, how I think, and moulded me into the person I am today. This story did not upset me in any way, and I think many of you will see the charm and the hilarious funny side of the events, maybe some readers could only wish that this had happened to them in their childhood.
I am in no way ashamed of what had happened to me, but, on the other hand, am a little embarrassed of these exploits. I never felt
it robbed me of my childhood innocence nor did I lose out on my normal childhood in any way. I suppose it could be fairly said that
these experiences matured me faster than I otherwise would have, or that I learnt to run before I could walk, metaphorically speaking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Oct 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465359919

Book preview

Chapter 1

How Not to Make Money

When I was just about eleven years old and had, I think, just left my infants’ school, I was a very bad boy—always fighting. Well! Not what you could say was real vicious fighting, usually more bluffing and threatening, with the occasional smack across the chops, which was enough to settle most issues. We used to have a fighting game called ‘Tag Fight’. It involves almost always four boys that would make up two sides; one boy would ride piggy back on another boy. The two sides would face each other on piggy back and the boys riding would try with all his might to pull the opponent’s rider off the back of the other boy. The rider could use any means possible, but not carry any weapons like sticks or knives. It was bare-hand pulling, dragging, and hitting until the other rider was forcibly dismounted. The pair that was left mounted was the winner. I tell you all this because I used to team up with a boy called Jimmy Elegot, who was the biggest and toughest boy in the school. I would ride piggy back, and we would pulverise all the opposition. Jimmy didn’t fight; that was my job, but he was so strong and stable that he would always stay upright even if I was being dragged off his back; sometimes we would have two or even three different teams, with two sets of riders all fighting each other at the same time. However, you are allowed to support your other team members by attacking their opponent’s attacker. Many a school shirt and blazer got ripped to pieces in these Tag fights. There was no prize for the winner, just the glory of wining.

As far as I am aware, very few boys ever had pocket money; we all lived on the Dog Kennel Hill Estate, which was a large council-owned apartments complex with about 1,200 flats built in buildings of about four or five storeys high. Each of no more than thirty apartments, built on the side of a fairly steep hill, with the primary school built on the top of the hill.

No disrespect intended, but most of the tenants had a small income and were a mix of just about every variation possible, including single-parent families such as our family, mixed-race families, which was quite rare in early 1960s. Furthermore, broken-home people living on social welfare, maybe alone and without a family.

Getting back to the beginning of this chapter, we had no money, so we devised ways of making money for a variety of reasons, but mine was purely to help my mother by earning some form of cash to help the family. One of the easiest ways and a way I did like was collecting old newspapers and cardboard boxes to sell to the waste-paper merchants that were in the Peckham area in Colliers Road. We didn’t get much for doing this the honest way, and in a short period of time, we devised ways and methods of getting larger quantities to sell. We realised that all the dustcarts that collected peoples’ household rubbish were taking bundles of old newspapers into the paper merchants and selling direct for cash to the merchants. So first, we would watch the dustcarts going around the streets and at what days and times, go around before them, and steal some bundled newspapers left on top of the dustbins; we got so much of it that we could not get it all on our little cart, so we would raid the pram sheds on the estate and take any old pram we could find and transport much larger quantities to the paper merchants.

I remember, one day, the boss of the paper merchant coming out to talk to us. He only had one eye, his left eye; the other had some sort of glass placed in it. It was not a good fit and had no iris or pupil in it, just simply a piece of glass like a plain marble. It did not do his features any good at all, along with his big pot belly, braces, and rolled up sleeves. He was quizzing us as to where we were getting all this paper from. The next time we went out on the paper run, we got bashed up by the dustman that was lying in wait for us. We was not put off for too long because Joey, my best mate, had found out where the dustcarts were getting the folded large cardboard boxes from. The larger shops in Rye Lane, which was also in Peckham area, were breaking them down and leaving them in a place in the rear of the premises until the day the dustcart arrived to take all there rubbish away. Thus we could go at, more or less, anytime and take some boxes, even two or three days before the dustcart was due. Most of the stores even saw us taking them, but they didn’t seem to mind as long as we didn’t leave a mess behind us. However, it turned out that we had another problem which was that the boxes were usually made of corrugated cardboard and not very dense or heavy and bulky to carry on our prams. This, in turn, meant we had to make many trips to the paper merchant to get even one pound for each of us; it seemed hardly worth the effort. Anyway, one day, a man stopped us from his van and told us to go to a local newspaper office because they had lots of old newspapers to get rid of; so we walked a few miles to this office in Brixton to see if they would give them to us. They said it was okay, but there was a condition. All these papers were in mint condition and were old weekly issues over several years. So we had to retain one copy of each week for them to keep for filing. This was not as easy as it sounds because there was a whole room of them stacked to the ceiling and not in any particular order. Joey and I, along with two other mates, set about this task; it took us a few days and was hard work. The results was very rewarding, though; we had tons of old newspapers to take to the merchants. We took our first load there on four prams. It took all day; however, when we got there, ‘old one-eyed’ started asking questions about where we got them. We told him the truth, and he offered to get his son to come the next day in his lorry to load up all the newspapers and take them to the paper mill. What a result! we thought. So next day we met his son and went to the paper office to collect the papers; all went very well, no problems! During the loading, the boss’ son noticed a large pile of printers’ lead plates, which are used for pressing the print on to the paper. ‘What you doing with that lot?’ he asked the manager, and the manager said, ‘Well, that’s got to be cleared for scrap.’ To which the son said he would take it off his hands. Joey and I looked at each other, and Joey quickly said, ‘Let us have it, and we will give you half of what we get for it’. He agreed, and the next day, we came back for the lead in the truck again. Well! We got sixty quid for it all, which was a fortune for me and Joey. We kept our part of the deal and gave the manager half. I had fifteen quid to give to my mum, which was more than her week’s wages, making hats in the factory. She cried, ‘Bless your heart!’ She was so grateful to me, I think I had a welling up in the eye; well, I certainly did when I was writing this line. This changed my thinking about earning money; maybe it was simply greed staring in the face for the very first time. This was a powerful emotion for me. I think these days we would call it a buzz either way, I liked this feeling. All my life, at times, I’ve had exactly that same rush of adrenalin when I achieved something a bit special. Not as much as I would like, but that’s what it does for me; it drives me to try harder. That was it, no more looking for waste paper, start looking for Lead metal its less bulky and much heavier on the weighing scales, thus much more valuable.

Joey and I put our heads together to think where we might be able to find lead; we came up with an idea from where we used to play at the weekends and holidays. At the top of the hill behind our school was a very large derelict house, which, as far as we knew, had always been empty. Not just empty but totally gutted; no floorboards or ceilings, just bare joists. The roof was still there, but all the windows were missing. I don’t think it had electricity because I recall gas mantels everywhere. The roof was of great interest to us because it had a valley roof, which basically means it was sloped inwards and at the bottom centre of the pitch was lined with a rain gully. This gully in those days was made of lead because it’s rustproof, waterproof, and malleable. The plan was to get on the roof, peel up the lead, and take it away for scrap; however, it turned out to be a little more difficult and dangerous than that. Because after we got on the roof, peeled the leading back, and rolled it up into a huge roll, we could not lift it; it was so heavy. We decided to push it off the edge of the roof on to the garden below; incidentally, we were four floors up, including the roof; to me, it seemed very high. I was scared, and I don’t mind admitting it. Joey never showed any fear or emotion; he would just crack all of a sudden, burst into tears, and run away, crying. I didn’t want that, so I tried to keep him busy talking about the lead that it must be worth 100s of quid. We waited for a pause in the passing traffic and pushed it over the edge. In a couple of seconds, we heard a big thud, followed by a shattering of glass. We didn’t look over; we were already scrambling back towards the roof skylight as the lead was slowly falling off the roof. We were giggling and laughing all the way down the rotten stairway, taking little care about slipping through the bare landings at the turn of the staircase. Somehow we made it to the bottom without injury, ha ha but we had a shock waiting for us as we emerged from our exit window. There were two of the bigger boys from the estate. I knew one of them; his nickname was Cobnut, and he lived in the next block of flats to me. ‘What the f – – – you done to our camp, Dolly?’ He grabbed the back of my shirt and started dragging me along the garden. I tried to stop him pulling me mainly because my shirt was strangling me at the front. Joey just followed sheepishly, not saying anything. I was struggling for breath and trying to keep my footing at the same time. This was important because underfoot was an awful lot of broken glass and debris, It could be bad for me if I got dragged along the ground. We got around the corner, with Joey following closely behind sniggering; then I was brought to a sharp halt. Cobnut said. ‘Look at that, you little git, that is our camp. You f – – – it right up now, ain’t ya?’ He slapped me around the head whilst mouthing off. I tried to deny it was nothing to do with me, but he was not having it. He just kept shouting verbals at me. His mate had gone and stood behind Joey, so he couldn’t run away. Anyway as I started looking more closely to the pile of old broken doors and pieces of wood, I realised that the big roll of lead had crashed straight through the top of the camp. I was not just flattened, but it had imploded around the lead. Mind you, it was difficult to make out exactly what the damage was because surrounding it was so much crap and rubbish anyway. Cobnut said, ‘Dolly, you tossa when I tell Boney what ya done you are dead meat.’ Cobnuts’s mate started on me from behind Joey; all this threatening and mouthing off went on for a couple of minutes, and it came to a gradual pause, and then a halt. It turns out that they had just arrived at the camp when they saw this big clump of something falling off the roof; if they had been a little earlier or the lead had rolled off a minute later, they would have both been inside, preparing the camp for a gang’s card game later that day. They would both have been brown bread (dead).

We all went back to the estate; Cobnut went off to meet up with his mates. Joey and I went to the square at the base of my flat and hung about and waited for Boney to read the riot act to us. Some boys were playing football in the square, and so we had a kick about with them for the afternoon. Eventually, Joey and I could see a group or should I say a gang of teenage boys coming towards us from a distance of about 100 yards through the square. They were swaggering with arms flared out and heads rocking from side to side. Joey and I stood together, watching them menacingly strolling towards us. I could just about make out the profile of Boney coming towards us. He was an Irish kid, about fourteen years old, always scruffy with black short hair, obviously very Skinny, which would be how he got his nickname. He had a fearsome reputation and was scared of no other boy. But he wasn’t the best fighter as I recall. I suppose that because he had no weight behind his fist. I was a little scared of him, but I knew I would have to fight him, but six of them against me and Joey; no chance we had. All the other boys in the square had gone up the stairs on the balcony’s leading to each apartment. As I looked up, I could see that some parents were also looking over the iron railing balconies; obviously, their kids had told them there was going to be trouble in the square soon. As Boney got closer, I turned around and looked up to look at who was looking over the balcony. Were any of my mates there? I couldn’t see any. To my absolute horror, my mother had come out on to the balcony to view what was going on. I smiled at her, really hoping that would reassure her, and she would go back inside. But she just waved back and smiled. She didn’t have a clue what was going on; no one would have told her; and I’m thankful for that. My father had died of tuberculosis when I was four years, so I never knew him, and I had no others to depend on to help me or give advice. I needed defending sometimes, but my poor mother couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t want her to fight or argue with anyone anyway. I just kept praying she should go inside. Finally, Boney and his gang stood in front of us; he looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘What’s this all about shitface. You looking for a good kickin’, yea?’ Just as I opened my mouth, Joey started saying, ‘No, it was an ac—.’ He gets stopped at that moment by Boney’s fist impacting on Joey’s mouth. Joey went to the ground, holding his face; it was a full square head-on punch, and Joey’s mouth was oozing blood. Joey was trying to hold back the tears, but it was no good the teardrops were falling from his cheek and blood from his mouth had started running between his fingers of the hand holding his mouth. God alone knows why I did what I did next because I don’t know whatever got into me, but I ran into the porch up the stairs to my balcony past my mother into the house. In the kitchen of the flat was a very large chopper underneath the sink. I used it for chopping up the firewood to make the fire each evening if we needed some warmth. It was a heavy chopper, not like an axe. I think it was a butcher’s chopper that would have been used to slice through the meat and through the bone if used on a chopping board. I had it in my right hand, and I ran out the house past my mother along the balcony. My mother shouted, ‘No, Georgy, don’t. Come back, I beg you.’ I just kept going. I was in such a rage, transfixed on killing Boney and his gang, who had now been joined by Cobnut. I could hear them laughing and shouting at me as I was running down the eight flights of stairs to attack them. I bounded the porch into the main square or arena, you might call it on this day, and charged, wielding this large chopping axe over my head at the gang in front of me. I was a boy possessed by the devil himself in a frenzy of hatred. At this time, the gang had panicked and in a moment of bewildered confusion, turned around and ran through the squares with me in hot pursuit, chasing behind them wielding my chopper and shouting at these bastards. I could hear the audience on the balconies, shouting and laughing but saying, ‘Go on, Dolly, give it to um, let um ave it.’ I ran off into the sunset, chasing Boney and the gang; fortunately, I never did catch them. Well, this chopper was a bit heavy after a while. After that, things went quiet for a few days. I hadn’t seen my mate Joey, and I got a lecture from my mum. Everything simmered down, and I was thankful for that. Sometime after that, I came across Cobnut when out and about. He started by telling that I was in big trouble because they were going to get me, but I stood my ground and told him that maybe I will get them first. Then we got on to talking about their destroyed camp and the roll of lead that I owned. I agreed to Cobnut and Boney gang half of what I can sell the roll of lead for, and he went to talk about that to Boney. They agreed but wanted to come with me to the scrap yard to make sure I did not stitch them up. This was okay by me because I would need some help to lift this heavy lead roll on to a pram and wheel it nearly three miles, which would take some time to the scrap yard. We arranged to meet up Saturday morning at 9 a.m. This would give us plenty of time to load up and get it to the yard before one o’clock, which is when the yard closes for the weekend. I hadn’t seen Joey for ages. I reckoned that his mum and dad must have barred him from seeing me, especially as someone had told me Joey had one of his teeth knocked out. So he was out of the deal as far as I was concerned. Cor! it was a struggle loading this lead on this nearly new pram that one of Boney’s gang had nicked the day before. We had to cobble together a ramp from planks of wood and bricks to slide the Leads into the pram. There were four of us altogether: Cobnut, Boney, Boozer, and myself. You may recall that I said that the big old house was at the top of the hill being Dog Kennel Hill. Well, we had to take the lead down the other side of the hill along a very long road. I think it was called Grove Park. This road was easily over one mile long and perfectly straight and downhill all the way to Camberwell at the end. So we headed off down the hill, everyone happy and joking around and me telling how much I got for the last load at the printer’s place. We decided to push it along the roadway because we were having difficulty on the pavement, especially coming to frequent driveway entrances closing the payment. All four of us pushed the pram, and then we noticed that the gradient of the hill was pulling the pram. We went quicker and quicker all trying to hold on and slow the pram down. The pram was going faster and faster and by this time, it was getting more and more difficult to keep the pram in a straight line. Our joking and laughter had now changed to anxiety and concern at how we were going to slow this thing down. Fortunately, no cars were coming or going down the hill, but there were many cars parked in the roadway. Eventually Boozer lost his grip on the outside of the pram handle and fell off into the middle of the road. Very foolishly Cobnut let go to help boozer out of the road. So Boney and I were galloping with all our strength to keep hold of the pram. The pram veered down the side of a parked car, gouging, scrapping, and cutting into the paint work. Then the next car, the next, and so on and so forth. We were totally out of control of this runaway pram, and finally, it was pulling away from us, and we had to simply let go and watch the devastation and destruction that this pram’s, weighing about two hundred pounds was inflicting on everything in its path.

As the pram kept veering to the left and scrapping car bodywork along its path, finally there was a gap of empty spaces of cars parked and the pram crashed with tremendous force into the back of a very nice and shiny Ford Anglia, turquoise in colour. In fact, it hit so hard that the roll of lead went flying out of the pram from the impact and smashing the rear window, lay motionless on the boot of this lovely car. Oh f – – – me, I thought after picking myself up and brushing myself down. Boney came next to me and asked what we were going to do then. I don’t know, I thought. Then just at that point, Mr Plod turned up (policeman). He pulled up behind us in the empty space in his Black Maria van. That was it! Boney was off, running, as if his arse was on fire and left me holding the baby and the pram, so to speak.

Mr Plod came out and pronounced those immortal classic lines of ‘Well, well, well! What have we got here then?’ whilst removing his notepad from his top pocket.

I replied, ‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t look like nothing to me, my lad, does it?’ he said.

‘And what may your name be then?’ he said, opening his pad and removing his pen from it.

Then I said something really stupid. ‘Dolly’ I said.

What I was thinking was to give him a false name and address and that was the only name I could think of. To which he replied, ‘Hello, Dolly.’ It wasn’t so funny then, but when I look back at the significance in the modern world, of saying it, I find it absolutely hilarious. Anyway, let’s not dwell on it. We have a lot more to get through yet. Onlookers started arriving; car owners were coming out and inspecting the damage inflicted on the paintwork. The damage done to this Ford Anglia was considerable; the rear bumper and back valance was totally caved in, the boot lid was a write off, even the roof was damaged, caused by the impact of the roll of lead, and of course, the rear window shattered.

All things considered, Mr Plod was a good guy to me, especially with all the local residents, I did give him all my correct details; he was just too clever to be fooled by me, so I gave up and told him the truth. Well, almost anyway, he asked me what I was going to do with the lead, and I told him I was going to make fishing weights, to which he almost broke into laughter. I could see his cheeks compressing the air in his chest to refrain from laughter. After about an hour or so, he took me back to the station for further interrogation because I wouldn’t say anything about the others involved. Well, it just wasn’t done in those days. You never grassed on your mates; if you got caught, you took the blame. However, Mr Plod got me back to the station, leaned on the counter looking down at me by his side, and said, ‘I want to introduce you to my station officer.’ To which the Plod behind the counter said, ‘And who might you be then’?

Looking down over the counter at me, ‘This might be Dolly, you know. He’s a bit of a keen fisherman, you know.’

This banter went on for ages between them about fishing, where I might go fishing, and there must be huge fish. It didn’t finish there; police officers would come into the interview room and take the Mickey about using a pram as a getaway vehicle, and I should have checked the brakes and stuff like that. I think a lot of what they said just went over my head; after all, I was just a kid. I went to court and ended up getting a one-year probation and a good ticking of by the magistrate.

Chapter 2

Dolly’s Free Holiday

Every Monday, after school, was the time to go to see my probation officer, Mr Alex. His office was in a basement of a parade of shops at the traffic lights at Camberwell Green. He was a youngish man, about thirty, five foot five, quite strong and muscled, always well dressed and well groomed. He had an office and next to the office was more interesting large waiting room area. It had a very large table with chairs all around in. I think around the table a dozen or so could sit. This room was dimly lit, but that’s because there was no natural light getting into it. Some of his boys, such as me, would meet there around 6.30 p.m. Whilst waiting for my turn to meet Mr Alex, I got the chance to talk and listen to all the other boys on probation. This I enjoyed very much. I’m not really sure why I enjoyed it, but I think it may have been because I met boys that seemed interesting, talkative, and had individual characters and personalities. We would talk amongst ourselves, and it was obvious that we all shared a respect for Alex, as he liked us to call him so. I cannot remember much about conversations, but everything seemed to wake up after one evening when he asked me if I had ever been mountaineering. Of course I had not been anywhere really. My uncle, who used to supply and deliver Greek delicatessen food, sometimes, came to take Mum, my younger brother, two sisters, and myself to the south coast for the day. He would drop us off at Brighton beach and pick us up in about four hours and take us home again in the back of his ex-ice cream van. Not much used to happen