Vicky’s Ditties

By Victoria J Parsons

Vicky’s Ditties is a collection of hilarious anecdotes written by a gutsy and sometimes audacious Yorkshire lass with a wicked sense of humour.

They take you on a journey from her youth, feeding laxative chocolates to scrounging kids in the park, and through her varied careers, starting with working in a pet shop, to becoming a qualified driving instructor and latterly running a farmhouse B&B with the love of her life, Dave, who was blessed with exactly the same larger-than-life personality.

If you want a giggle, this book is a must!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781786295170

Victoria J Parsons

Vicky (Victoria Ward) was brought up in a small Yorkshire village, Cullingworth, on the outskirts of Bradford, close to Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters. She lived with her parents and older brother, Michael, and her dearest grandma, Selina. From being about eight years old, most of her leisure time was spent with her very dear friend, Mandy, who shared in many of her experiences and holidays. At 15 years of age, she found herself a Saturday job in a local pet shop which led to her full-time employment, until she married in 1980. She had her first baby, Charles, who weighed only 720 grams (1lb 9oz), in 1982 and had her second child, Amy, in 1984. In late 1987, she separated from her husband and in January 1988, ‘bumped’ into Dave, who happened to be her brother’s old school friend, whom she knew from an early age of eight. Vicky and Dave set up home together and commenced a new business venture, retailing kitchens from a fine showroom in Bradford. They married on Dave’s 40th birthday in 1996. Vicky qualified as a driving instructor in 1993 and continued until 2005, whilst Dave set up a new.com business in 1998 with online hotel and accommodation directories. This successful business, and Vicky’s successful driving instructor training establishment, helped them move into a seventeenth-century period farmhouse near Skipton, Yorkshire Dales, where they both resided until Dave, very sadly passed away. The book is based on Vicky’s numerous comical and funny encounters with the general public, accrued during her working life and her wide experience of travel and holidays. Vicky’s hero and very famous stand-up comedian, Ken Dodd.

Book preview

About the Author

Vicky (Victoria Ward) was brought up in a small Yorkshire village, Cullingworth, on the outskirts of Bradford, close to Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters. She lived with her parents and older brother, Michael, and her dearest grandma, Selina.

From being about eight years old, most of her leisure time was spent with her very dear friend, Mandy, who shared in many of her experiences and holidays.

At 15 years of age, she found herself a Saturday job in a local pet shop which led to her full-time employment, until she married in 1980. She had her first baby, Charles, who weighed only 720 grams (1lb 9oz), in 1982 and had her second child, Amy, in 1984.

In late 1987, she separated from her husband and in January 1988, ‘bumped’ into Dave, who happened to be her brother’s old school friend, whom she knew from an early age of eight. Vicky and Dave set up home together and commenced a new business venture, retailing kitchens from a fine showroom in Bradford. They married on Dave’s 40th birthday in 1996. Vicky qualified as a driving instructor in 1993 and continued until 2005, whilst Dave set up a new.com business in 1998 with online hotel and accommodation directories. This successful business, and Vicky’s successful driving instructor training establishment, helped them move into a seventeenth-century period farmhouse near Skipton, Yorkshire Dales, where they both resided until Dave, very sadly passed away.

The book is based on Vicky’s numerous comical and funny encounters with the general public, accrued during her working life and her wide experience of travel and holidays. Vicky’s hero and very famous stand-up comedian, Ken Dodd.

Dedication

The only person I can dedicate this book to is my husband and best friend of 31 years, Dave. Without his help and input, this book could never have been written.

Unfortunately, Dave passed away suddenly and was unable to see the end result. But I know wherever he’s gone to, he will be causing HAVOC somewhere! That was him, a laugh a minute, until the end.

Copyright Information ©

Victoria J Parsons 2023

The right of Victoria J Parsons to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781786297792 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781786295170 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

To my very good friend, Jayne Roberts, without whose help, I couldn’t have achieved this. Jayne is also featured in one of my stories – Canal Trip on Horseback.

Also many thanks to Rose Parsons who has helped with the publishing of the photos.

Foreword

Vicky’s Ditties is a compilation of 52 very amusing, true short stories, which are an accumulation of her life experiences gained in her varied work life and leisure time. Some names may have been changed to secure the identity of those persons mentioned within the stories.

Ponies and Bilberries

Mandy and I have been good friends since we were about the age of eight and during the school holidays, we were inseparable even though I attended the local village school, whilst Mandy attended a private preparatory school in Keighley. Her parents were very successful business people who owned a chicken- and beef-processing factory.

Mandy and I were never short of anything to do and we were never bored, like some young ones these days. We would regularly eat lunch in her parents’ factory canteen and then we would either ride our bikes, play on her trampoline and if all else failed, we would go out riding on her pair of ponies. I tended to get the feeling that Mandy was a bit ‘ponied’ out but I was as ‘keen as mustard’ and rode at every given opportunity. I loved horses for as long as I can remember and had riding lessons from the age of six or seven years; but I never owned my own pony at that time and that would have to wait until I was in my ‘teens’ when I left school.

One particular summer’s evening, we ‘tacked up’ the ponies and set off for a ride to Cat-stones Moor where wild bilberries grew thick and fast. My dear Grandma loved to bake her own bilberry pie and served it with fresh cream, yummy!

Cat-stones Moor was a good two miles ride away from our homes in Cullingworth and in those days, going out on the ponies unaccompanied, in the pre-mobile phones era, was the ‘norm’. We would be out riding for two or three hours and no one worried. We turned off the main Keighley Road and galloped flat out up to the moor top where the two ponies, Jupiter and Lucky, were glad of the rest.

We pulled the ponies up and commenced picking the wild bilberries whilst the ponies enjoyed grazing on the lush green grass. We failed to notice during the moving around, picking the bilberries that the gap between ourselves and the ponies was increasing. All of a sudden, a big loose dog appeared barking and jumping at the pony’s legs and in a flash both ponies ran off in fright. It was like the start of the Epsom Derby whilst we stood frozen in disbelief and there wasn’t a bloody thing we could do but watch as Jupiter and Lucky headed down, off the moor, at what looked like ninety miles per hour.

We picked up our riding crops and precious bilberries, of which we had eaten more than we had saved, and set off after them. Amazingly, the distance between the ponies and our-selves widened until they were out of sight. Mandy said to me, My dad will bloody kill us, Vicky!

Her dad, Billy, was not a person to wrangle with as he was a big fellow with a character to match and I was a little afraid of him. We were in for a right royal ‘bollocking’ that was for sure, by losing our steeds in the open countryside on their own, and it wouldn’t go down well with Billy.

It took at least an hour for us to reach the outskirts of our local village and there was still no sign of our trusted four-legged friends.

We were hot, sweaty and completely out of breath, when suddenly Billy’s Range Rover came around the corner; how did he know we had misplaced the two ponies, we thought?

We had thought of writing a card to place in the newsagent’s window offering a reward for their safe return, much like you do when one’s ‘moggy’ goes missing.

Billy knew alright, and said, Where the bloody hell have you been? Not, ‘Are you hurt, what happened, are you okay,’ no sympathy?

Jupiter and Lucky knew their way home and arrived with a broken bridle and rider-less, at break neck speed into Billy’s yard and he just happened to be there to receive them!

Billy ordered Jayne the groom to un-tack them and bed them down in their stables with a full net of hay, whilst he set off to find the horseless jockeys. Apparently, he had been driving around looking for us for at least half an hour before he found us. In hindsight, it must have been a massive relief when he did find us with our flushed faces, tongues hanging out and purple stained teeth from the bilberries. We did indeed receive the ‘bollocking’ which was followed by a huge hug. There was a very soft side to Billy after all, which hid behind his sometimes rather brash, direct and hard-man demeanour. All’s well that ends well.

Vicky and Dave at a family wedding 2017

Laxatives in the Park

My friend Mandy and I would be aged about 13 and for many months and indeed years, we got sick and tired with the local kids scrounging from us, at the local youth club, whatever we had, be it fish and chips, pop, sweets and even the odd picnic.

We both decided it was time for action, to put an end to this constant pestering from ‘raggy arsed’ kids who followed us wherever we went.

I had heard, probably when ’eavesdropping on my dear grandmother and her friend Polly, about bowel movements, or the lack of and how laxative chocolates were an excellent remedy to get the bowels working again.

Saturday was always a bus trip to Keighley where we would spend our hard-earned baby-sitting money. We generally spent the money on new shoes or at the local youth club on Monday evenings. Even at the ripe old age of 13, you could not be seen in the same clothing or shoes twice.

Whilst we were in Keighley, this particular day we entered Boots, the chemist, to purchase our ‘revenge chocolate’.

Once purchased, the laxative chocolate, we hid it in my bedroom under my bed in an old shoebox until the following Monday evening, when it would re-appear to do its worst to the four or five young scroungers in the park.

The plan was to mix the laxative chocolate in our sweetie bag with midget gem sweets, jelly babies, and mint humbugs to disguise them. We just had to wait. I went around with a cheesy grin on my face, knowing the plot which couldn’t go wrong, not with that lot, they were bound to fall for its free sweets; it would be like feeding strawberries to a donkey, dead easy!

We were sat, as usual, on the swings in the park before the youth club started, when a young lad Steve Davies asked What you got there; can I have one?

Good god lad, can’t you buy your own? I snapped.

Steve replied, Go on let’s have one.

I agreed, Go on then, you can have a piece of chocolate, just one-piece, mind.

Steve’s hand dipped into the sweetie bag and as usual grabbed a handful; he just couldn’t help himself. I shook my head, some things never change.

A queue soon formed and the kids took it in turns to dip into the sweetie bag and grab a handful of sweets. What they didn’t realize was that only one piece of the demon laxative chocolate got your bowels moving and three or four pieces would have you strapped down onto the ‘pot’ for a few days.

Needless to say, that Steve Davies among others were absent from school for a few days, apparently suffering from a mystery bug that caused extreme Diarrhoea; funny thing was that myself and Mandy never suffered from it, how strange!

John and the Monument

When I was twelve or thirteen years of age, I used to catch the bus from our village to a neighbouring village called Denholme, because on a Monday evening there was a youth club held at The Mechanics Institute.

It certainly wasn’t a ‘posh’ venue, quite the contrary, if anything, a bit on the rough side, however always a laugh and in later years, it was a good place to visit for under-age drinking as I found out to my peril, swearing never to drink again!

It was in the summer months and after the youth club had finished that night, we decided to all walk to the local park and mess about there until the very infrequent bus arrived to take us back home to Cullingworth.

John, who was about a year younger than me, used to follow us around like a lost sheep. He was a cheeky chappie and a young lad with a lot of life experience, probably due to hanging around with his older