The Lump

By Oldfeller

‘The Lump’ started back in the 1950s and possibly even further back in Ireland whereby men worked many hours in tough conditions and were paid cash in hand thus avoiding payment of tax. Bricklaying was one of those trades where there was little in the way of mechanical assistance, as they either didn’t exist yet, or were expensive to hire. For example, elevators, forklift trucks and cranes. Often starting work at 6 am to have everything ready for the bricklayers to start at eight and finishing sometimes at 8 pm, it was down to the hod carriers to carry all the materials up a ladder. There were advantages to this way of life as you will see when reading this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398427808

Oldfeller

As a child, Oldfeller was shy and craved love from anyone who would give it. Belittled by school tutors he became determined to grab all opportunities by the throat despite the underlying insecurity.

Book preview

About the Author

As a child, Oldfeller was shy and craved love from anyone who would give it. Belittled by school tutors he became determined to grab all opportunities by the throat despite the underlying insecurity.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to:

My long-suffering wife

My brother

My fellow sub-contractors

Flo O’Sullivan,

The builders of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s

The wonderful people I met along the way

Copyright Information ©

Oldfeller 2023

The right of Oldfeller 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 unauthorised 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 9781398427785 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398427808 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

One

Life was tough growing up, I don’t remember much before the age of five as I seem to have mentally blocked out most of it. My father was a tank driver in the Second World War and saw action at Tobruk and El Alamein; I can only remember him coming home twice in the seven years he was away leaving my mother to bring up me and my brother who is three years older than myself, when he eventually came home after the war, he was not the same man I knew, he was suffering from what people called at the time shell shock, now known as post-traumatic stress. There was no treatment for those service men then they just had to try and overcome it on their own, unfortunately, this was disastrous for my father as he took to drinking, seeking answers from other women and treating our mother badly, this finally ended in divorce, at the divorce hearing I recall my brother and I being asked by the Magistrate if I would like to live with my mother or father, how cruel is that! It would not be permitted today I am sure, after he left, there were times when there was little or no food for us which prompted me to raid the allotment at the end of our road at night to gorge on raw vegetables. Our neighbours helped out when they could, one in particular that I knew as Aunty Nell who was very good to us, me in particular, she not only gave me food but more importantly, love, I recall one time when I was very young, I think about two or three, Aunty Nell snatching me from the laundry boiler full of boiling water my mother used to make Christmas puddings, I had been standing on the sink draining board and stepped on the pivot top of the boiler, had aunty Nell not been so quick to react, life for me would have been totally different. The most important person in my life was my grandmother; she was the matriarch of the family always there to resolve the family problems which were many, most of them being money, my mother did odd cleaning jobs where and whenever she could but I cannot recall her holding or cuddling me like my Gran and Aunty Nell in fact I have not been able to forgive her to this day for evacuating me and my brother when there was little danger of our area being hit by a German bomb, my brother was placed with our grandmother who was at the time living in Tonypandy, Wales. I was shipped out to Builth Wells, Powys on the boundaries of Brecknockshire, mid Wales at the age of four to live with the most dreadful people who clearly did not want me to be there I was shouted at and smacked on a regular basis, after what seemed a lifetime, my Gran came to see if I was OK, it was clear to her that I was very unhappy so she packed my bag and took me to her home to join my brother in Primrose Street, Tonypandy, a town located in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Glamorgan, Wales, it was very difficult for her having lost her husband early in the Second World War and to look after two children in a two-bedroom house and very little money, this was the first time I can remember being happy in my formative years, my gran lived in a rank of terraced Miner’s cottages which backed onto a massive coal slag heap which towered above the cottage, I can remember my brother and I releasing the brakes on the trucks that hauled the slag up the heap from the workings below and jumping in the truck which rolled its way down to the bottom of the heap increasing speed along the way, my gran would have had heart failure if she had known. Of course, being Wales there were lots of sheep, not that we saw any lamb on the table that was for those with money or could get it on the black market nevertheless it was nice to be around them and get the occasional cuddle with a newborn. My brother and I were returned to our Bristol home when it was considered safe, they say it’s a small world, well when I met my wife’s mother for the first time in 1958 it was discovered that she also came from the same street in Tonypandy in fact only a few houses away from my grandmother, I have heard many stories from them all about how they would go dancing at the local Justices social hall once a week, the only source of entertainment at that time in such a small village, especially during wartime. In the 1970s, my wife and I decided to go back to visit the area and called into a pub near Primrose Street, aside from the pub landlord there was only one other customer there, being lunchtime in a small Welsh village, we were viewed with curiosity. As I was ordering drinks, the elderly man sitting at the bar said, Good afternoon, not seen you in here before boyo.

No, I said, we are here to recall memories of times gone by.

But aren’t you English?

Yes, but we have Welsh parents who lived in Primrose Street.

What were their names? he asked.

Mary Morgan, her husband George – a Welsh guardsman – who was killed in the 1st World War on the Western front and her daughter Mary and my wife’s family were Griffee.

Oh my god, he said, I knew both families very well. We talked for about two hours recollecting how things were back in the day. With the evacuation, my mother had seen our absence and the absence of our father as an opportunity to have a good time much to the disapproval of our grandmother, her sister, and neighbours alike, she spent many evenings in the company of men, mostly American servicemen at the local pub where we lived who lavished presents like cigarettes, chocolate and nylon stockings to all the women who they thought may give them a good time, on occasions, she would bring them home after we had gone to bed, as I lay motionless but awake in a little bed in her bedroom I would hear her say to her companion it’s OK he can’t hear anything he is asleep, I heard everything, I sometimes wonder if the memory of those nights had effected the way I saw some women in later life. School for me at five was OK but fairly uneventful, I had a few friends one of which had a miniature steam train that ran around the perimeter of his considerable size garden, needless to say, I would spend as much time with him as possible but mainly preferred my own company reading books or playing outside in the street. As I grew older, I became actively involved with sport, our school mainly promoted Rugby or Swimming and diving for boys, netball and hockey for girls, I did OK with rugby but excelled in swimming so on a regular basis the physical training instructor would interrupt any class I was attending and call me and others out for practice or time trial, at the time we thought that was great not having to sit through class but realised later in life that it affected my academic ability as I failed my eleven plus exam which meant I could not go to grammar school and had to stay in secondary modern. I got on with most of the teachers, there was of course the one lady teacher that I was in love with, I think that happens to most boys when at that age, as you can imagine, I was devastated when I saw our PTI kissing her one day in the gym, I couldn’t hate him because he was an OK guy, if any boy misbehaved in class he would arrange boxing practice at lunchtime, this gave him the opportunity to beat the crap out of you legitimately but at the same time how to protect yourself. There was another teacher who we all knew got great pleasure in handing out corporal punishment; he would use excessive force when caning a boy drawing blood on many occasions, when I was almost fifteen and in my final year he called me out for punishment in front of the whole class for something I had not done, raise your hand boy he said, no I replied I have done nothing wrong, he grabbed me by the wrist and lifted my arm, drew back the cane and with almighty force brought it down on my hand, he repeated this ten times resulting in blood and bruising to my palm, instead of returning to my desk I ran from the classroom to the teacher’s parking area and kicked in every panel of his beloved car, discovering this he dragged me to the headmaster’s room and demanded my dismissal from the school, the headmaster said that he would hold an enquiry on the issue. Having seen the injuries to my hand and spoken individually to my other classmates on what had happened, the head realised the teacher had gone too far and was forced to apologise to me and my family and was suspended for three months. On a lighter note, there was one boy in our class whose mother was a dinner lady so she would heap our plates with food, I have since tried to find some of my school classmates on social media but have had no luck at all, however, I was in a local shop looking for a card for my wife’s birthday when a lady tugged at my sleeve, hello Bill she said, I looked down as the lady must have been