The House of Commons

By John Commons

The life and times of John Commons: biker, pub landlord and occasional TV star!

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Commons
• Release date: Mar 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215000106

John Commons

Hi folks, I'm John and I'm the landlord of the Victoria Bikers Pub in Coalville, Leicestershire. Once named ‘The Best Biker and Trucker Pub’ by the Oldie Magazine, The Vic has featured on TV shows such as Holiday Showdown, Four in a Bed, BBC Inside Out, and was also chosen as Al Murray’s ‘Pub of the Week’. Famous guests include Chas n Dave, the Hairy Bikers and England World Cup winning captain and Leicester Tigers legend Martin Johnson. We have regular live music, weekend festivals and rock discos and are renowned for being friendly and welcoming. I started writing The House of Commons circa 2018, the memoir of my life and various careers before taking over stewardship of the Vic. I'm now working on my Johnny's Jaunts series, taken from my Facebook blog, which chronicles my motorbike journeys around the UK, Europe and beyond. I hope you enjoy them!

Book preview

I was born in November 1951 to Harry and Edna Commons, and I was two days old when I had my first motorcycle journey in my mum’s arms, sat in a sidecar. (I’m sure the bike was a BSA M20, according to my dad, anyway).

On my birth certificate it mentions my dad’s occupation as a boot and shoe operative. Why it would state that, I have no idea! (I still have the original).

We lived with my grandparents in Griggs Road, Shelthorpe, a suburb of Loughborough. It was a huge council estate with loads of wide grassy areas between the pavements and roads to play on. (I’m surprised they wasted the land to be honest, they could’ve built hundreds more houses on it). The gardens at the backs of the houses were huge as well. I take my hat off to the planners, it wouldn’t happen nowadays with building land at such a premium.

Few people had cars in those days; working class citizens either caught the bus or had a motorbike. My parents had an outfit (an ‘outfit’ was a word used to describe a motorbike and sidecar). My dad had this outfit until I was about eight. He used to sit me on the tank after they weaned me out of nappies, but he let me work the throttle, so I sat on top of a tankful of highly flammable liquid, fastened above a red hot engine, seeing how fast I could make this bike go! If you’re familiar with a BSA M20, that’s not fast – as mentioned, he had this bike for years, and if he needed a car he would borrow my Uncle Bill’s Vauxhall Deluxe. Jet set stuff, eh?!

After my sister came along, I had to swap positions on the bike. I would go on the back seat of the outfit behind Dad and she would go in the sidecar. We were like one of those Honda 50s you see in Bangkok with a family of six on!

When I was about three or four years old, out of nappies anyway, my gran gave me an old handbag to play with. I was playing in the front garden with it, putting pebbles in to use as ‘money’. The town bus used to pass my gran’s and I’d caught it many times with Mum. When I noticed the bus heading my way, I ran and put my arm out like I’d seen Mum do. The bus stopped and I jumped on and ran down to the back seat (the back seats were everyone’s favourite right?). Eventually the conductor reached the back of the bus, so I gave him my handbag to help himself to the money. Erm… pebbles.

Realising what had happened, , the bus driver turned the bus around and took me back to where I’d gotten on. The conductor took me to Gran’s door and told her what I’d done but I don’t remember getting told off for it, I think they were all just concerned that I didn’t do it again. I think going walkabouts must be in my blood!

I remember I had an old saucepan for a toy (I was easily pleased) and a table spoon that I used to dig in the flowerbeds for worms with. I’d put them in the saucepan with the soil, add a bit of water and make some great worm soup! I didn’t eat it, just made it for anyone who might be hungry but funnily enough they never were and so I had to pour it back into the flowerbed. Did you know that you can put a stick into the ground about ten inches deep, wiggle it about a bit and worms will come out of the ground? I’m not winding you up as I used to do it, if the worms are there they’ll wriggle out but you have to be patient.

When I was about six or seven I had a mate called Raymond Dicks. We used to go trainspotting at Loughborough Station and buy a platform ticket for 2d. With the platform ticket we’d sneak onto a train and go to Leicester. As we’d only be going onto the platform we got away with it, nobody ever asked any questions. There were far more trains to spot at Leicester, mainly steam trains with the odd exception of a diesel (it’s the other way around now and rare to see a steam train). When it was teatime we would catch the train back to Loughborough, jump on our bikes and pedal home, which was about two miles away. Nobody ever touched our bikes when we left them, it’s a bit different nowadays eh? Our parents didn’t know where we were either!

Raymond was a good friend, along with a mate called Alan Cayless who I’ll mention later on in the book, but Raymond had an odd quirk: he would walk on the balls of his feet! In fact, his brother did too. Apparently it’s called ‘toe walking’. I wonder if they ever grew out of it?

I remember my dad, sitting in his favourite armchair facing the TV. As a family we’d watch TV together at night; the news, comedies, films, and the footballs results on a Saturday at five. We all had to be quiet whilst he checked his football coupon, and no-one could sit in his chair: that was for him! I used to tease him by sitting in it anyway and he’d tickle my feet until I moved.

I remember he kept a bottle of Corona fizzy pop at the side of that chair, although on Saturdays it was a bottle of Mackeson Stout. We used to have pop delivered by the Corona lorry, the Co-op had a red bus that would travel around the estate selling groceries and there was also a mobile shop that would visit that was owned by a Mr Townsend.

Unlike today, there were goods that you could only buy at certain times of the year: peaches and apricots were special in those days as they came from abroad, although I seem to recall bananas were plentiful. Many people in those days kept chickens or ducks and grew their own vegetables. My favourite chicken was called Brownie and she used to come to me to feed her. One Monday I came home and couldn’t find her: then I realised we’d eaten her the day before for Sunday lunch!

My dad made picture frames for a living, working for Arnolds of Loughborough. Any older folk reading this may remember them – they also had a big shop in Biggin Street. My mum was a housewife and we lived with my grandparents until my sister Joy was born, then we got our own council house further down the road, next to my Auntie Mavis, Uncle Les, and cousins John and Doreen.

My dad always dreamed of being his own boss and had this idea of working Loughborough Market on a Saturday (his day off) selling pots and pans, etc. He made a good few friends, two being Norman and Alice Boon who had a stall selling knitting wools, ladies’ stockings and underwear, and also Ray and Betty Hancock, who sold sweets and confectionery. At one point, Ray mentioned to my dad that he was thinking about wholesaling sweets to local sweet shops and asked my dad if he wanted to go in with him on this new venture. My mum and dad thought about it but decided it was too risky. Hancock’s confectionery wholesalers now have twenty-seven warehouses throughout the UK... nice one, Dad! That was so close to being Hancock and Commons Confectionery wholesalers and Johnny-boy here would have lots of pennies!

The Boons bought a boatyard in Mountsorrel, moved from Shelthorpe and opened a shop in Biggin Street selling haberdashery. My Aunt Mavis worked for them for a good few years, and I remember going over to Mountsorrel, where they kept a small sea-fishing boat. They would go down the river to a pub in Barrow-on-Soar for a pint and they would let me steer the boat. I even wore a captain’s hat, cool or what?! The Boons did quite well really, also running an indoor market stall selling the same stuff as on the markets. It was called ‘The Superstores’ and was located in The Rushes. My dad had a pots and pans stall up there as well, and Cousin Doreen worked in the cafe.

My mum and dad soon went into retail with a bit more venom, and opened a shop in Shepshed, selling pots and pans. They did diversify by also selling knitting wools, plus lots of other household products: wash powders and cleansers; mops and brushes; buckets and bowls; children’s toys; even condoms (would you believe!) and ladies’ sanitary protection. Basically, anything they could make a profit on!

I remember going with my dad to the wholesalers in Nottingham one Sunday morning for stuff to sell in the shop, and he bought a box of condoms. It was hellish windy outside and we were pushing the trolley to the van to load it up when the wind blew the box of condoms off the top of the pile. It hit the deck and spilt the contents, which the wind then scattered down the street with my dad running after them, trying to catch up with as many as he could!

My maternal grandparents were Frank and Ivy Parsons. Frank was a toolmaker at Westland Aircraft in Yeovil (formerly Petters Engines) but relocated to Loughborough and joined Brush Electrical Engineering. Ivy was a glovemaker and worked from home making leather gloves on a Singer sewing machine. As my mum was the youngest of three daughters, she was the only one to relocate with them, the other two having already settled in Yeovil.

My grandad Frank used to spend hours teaching me basic engineering skills like soldering, drilling holes, how to use hand tools and how to take things apart and put them back together again. I always found it fascinating and I’m sure his tutelage helped me in later life.

Uncle Ted

Uncle Ted wasn’t my real uncle, he was a gamekeeper and a mate of my dad’s who worked at Simkin and James on the corner of Market Street, near my dad’s stall.

Simkin and James was a wonderful delicatessen, although it would have described itself as ‘general provisions’ in those days. It had huge cheeses and whole sides of smoked pork and giant hams in the window. The smell was unique; a mixture of spices, coffee, smoked meats and cheese, and no modern deli comes anywhere near it.

Uncle Ted lived in a cottage down a lane off Charley Road, between Shepshed and Copt Oak, and worked for the farmer that owned Blackett’s farm. His drinking water came from a well via a hand-operated pump at the side of the sink, and it had no gas or electricity: light was via candle, and a wicked log fire in the winter. His toilet was a kind of sentry box outside, it had a wooden hinged seat with a bum-sized hole and your business went into a bucket underneath. To empty it, you lifted the lid and took the bucket out. Ted used to mix it with soil for fertiliser to grow his potatoes! There was a babbling brook outside his cottage with some deep holes where he used to tickle trout. When he caught one, he would put it in a small pond until he was ready to eat it for his tea. Me and Dad would visit him on Sundays in the outfit. My Dad wouldn’t let me out of the sidecar though until Ted had chained up Pongo. Pongo was a nasty-tempered boxer dog and Dad didn’t want to have to explain to Mum that I’d been eaten.

Uncle Ted was a small man, and when he was at work he’d wear a brown coat like a school caretaker’s. He had rosy cheeks, probably from being outdoors so much. I don’t think he ever had a woman in his life but he did have a sister called Barbara who used to cook for him on an open fire while Ted was out on the land checking for poachers. Blackett’s had hundreds of acres of land and held regular pheasant shoots, so keeping poachers out was a big responsibility. He would even lie out in the woods at night waiting for them, and just seemed to know where to look for the snares that they used to catch the hares and rabbits. What a horrible death.

I don’t think Blackett’s charged him for his cottage but allowed him to do his gamekeeper work in lieu of rent. His main living was earned from Simkin and James and he didn’t need much money as he lived off the land. He kept a