In Spite of Everything
by Charles Lacey
Chapter 7
Paul
After we were caught in the hayloft by Mrs Hobson, I hoped that Mother wouldn't find out. But I reckoned without the gossip network in the village, and especially the Chapel. One or two of the women loved nothing better than a juicy tidbit of scandal. The next day was the first day of term so I was at school, but when I got home she was waiting for me, with the Reverend Hodges by her side.
"I thought I told you not to meet that heathen boy," she hissed.
I was too frightened to say anything, but my blood turned to ice.
"Do you not know that what you were doing was a sin and a crime?" boomed Hodges in his preaching voice, "giving way to unnatural lusts, an offence to man and God?"
"But we weren't doing anything…" I began.
"Don't add lying to your sins," said Hodges icily, "have you no respect for your mother?"
Mother cut in. "Your father's too weak to do what is necessary, so I asked the Reverend to come and deal with you."
He broke in, by now well launched into his preaching manner. "What you have done is vile and filthy, a stench in the Lord's nose. Since you have not heeded either the Lord's Word in Holy Scripture, or the teaching you have received in the Chapel, you must learn in a different way. Bend over."
I stared at him, scarcely understanding what he was saying. How could there be anything wrong with my friendship with Aiden?
"Bend over, I said."
Until that day, I had never known what pain was. I'd had one or two canings at school, but they were laid on reasonably mercifully and limited to two or three strokes. Hodges was a short man, but powerfully built, and he used the full force of his arms. The cane he used was long and flexible, and he must have dealt me at least a dozen strokes before he tired. The pain was too great for me even to weep. I suppose I must have cried out, but I don't remember.
As I stood upright again, my mother hit me a great blow across my face, and screamed "You were… doing things with that boy. You…" and the next word came in a hysterical shriek, "you are an Abomination, accursed of God and man. You were doing foul, filthy things. Get out, and don't ever come back. I've done with you for ever. Go on, get out of my sight."
I ran out to Dad's workshop. He was waiting for me. "Oh, Dad, what am I going to do?" I cried.
"There's only one thing you can do," he replied, gently. "Your mother has made up her mind, and you will have to leave tonight. Go to your room now and pack some clothes. I'll get out the van and take you to your grandmother's house. She'll look after you for now, until we know what's best to be done. Oh, Paul, why did you do it? You must have known it's a sin."
That was the final blow. Even Dad thought I had done something wholly wicked. And I still didn't know what it was I was supposed to have done, except that it involved Aiden. But he was an honest, gentle, friendly boy with nothing bad in him at all. I crept to my room – fortunately my mother was in the sitting room, talking to Hodges – took down the suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and packed some clothes.
Riding in Dad's van, I wished I could lie face down on the floor. Hodges' beating had covered my lower back and my backside with weals, and sitting on the seat was agonizing. But soon we arrived at Grannie's house in Derby, and mighty surprised she was to see us. Dad explained that I had been caught "misbehaving" with another boy, and Mother had thrown me out. Grannie shot me a sharp look, but didn't say anything. When Dad had finished, she said, "Of course you can stay here, Paul laddie, as long as you need to. Just get settled in tonight, and we can have a good long talk tomorrow."
Dear Grannie! She was Dad's mother, by the way; my other grandmother had died when I was quite young. She was kindness itself to me, and made me welcome in her home. It was only a two-up-two-down in a terrace, but it was clean and comfortable, and her cooking was wonderful. She was so proud of Dad; she had a lovely table, where we sat to eat all our meals, which he had made for her when he was an apprentice, and some of her other furniture was also his work, including the bed where I would sleep. It felt good to have that link to him.
When I undressed that night to go to bed, I saw dried blood on my underpants and vest. There wasn't a mirror in my room, but by just craning round I could see huge cuts and bruises. But at least I could lie face down, and the coolness of the sheets was soothing.
The next morning, after breakfast, we sat down together. Grannie started by asking me what had happened. I told her everything, and for a while she looked thoughtful. "What was it you and this other boy were doing?"
"I don't know, Grannie. We were just hiding in the hayloft at Hobson's Farm, and Mrs Hobson caught us. But we didn't break anything, or steal anything, or do any harm."
"Are you sure that's all you were doing? You can tell me, you know. I won't be angry, as long as you tell me the truth."
"Truly, Grannie, that was all."
Grannie was silent for a few minutes.
"Well, Paul laddie, what's done is done. And I've never known you tell a lie, so I will believe you now. And God forgive me for saying this, but your mother was never anywhere near good enough for my Arthur; she's far too much sense of her own righteousness. And getting that so-called Reverend to thrash you, that was really wicked. I'll give you some arnica presently, you can put it on the bruises and it will help to take the pain away. But what are we going to do with you? I can't afford to send you to a good school, so we'll have to look around and see what's going by way of work for you to do. It doesn't cost much more to keep two than one, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find something that will suit."
In the afternoon we went out into the city, and visited the Labour Exchange. They had quite a lot of jobs for skilled men with experience, but nothing for a fourteen-year-old beginner. We were a bit cast down by this, and Grannie suggested we might go to Mr Grimbold and ask his advice.
Mr Grimbold had been Dad's master when he was an apprentice. He was a short, chunky man in his sixties with untidy grey hair under the paper cap that all joiners wore in those days. He had a large workshop on the Eastern side of Derby, and I felt at home immediately with the resiny smell of wood, the cheerful litter of shavings, tools lying on the benches or hanging on racks, and the sharper smells of glue and varnish. I've often thought that men become like the materials they work with, and most of the wood-workers I've met have been easy-going, kindly people. Mr Grimbold said that he didn't really need another workshop boy, but he'd take me on because he had such good memories of Dad, and he would pay me twelve-and-sixpence a week, at least until I could find a better job.
Mr Grimbold and I took to each other straight away. Never did a man have such an inappropriate name! He was genial and kindly from the first, and I could understand why his men all worked so well for him. He insisted upon the highest standards of workmanship, but as long as a man did his work well he could count upon Mr Grimbold's support in every way. I had two tasks from the first: sweeping up sawdust and shavings and making glue. Mr Grimbold would have nothing to do with stale glue: each evening I would put fresh glue to soak overnight and in the morning I would put it on the stove to heat. And little by little, as he found I was a willing worker and ready to learn, I was given small, rough tasks of sawing, sanding and the like to save the time of the skilled men. After I had been there about six months the oldest of the three apprentices finished his time and left: he was going to get married and had a job to go to in a furniture factory. Mr Grimbold asked if I would like to be properly apprenticed.
"I'd love to, sir," I replied, "but I don't think my grandmother could afford the premium." This was usually ten pounds, but in those days that was a lot of money.
"Don't worry about that, Paul," was his reply. "I'm needing another apprentice, and I'd much rather have a lad I know will be a good worker than take my chance with someone new. I'll stand the premium, and you can pay me back a shilling a week from your wages."
And so I became an apprentice, and to someone who was a good man and a good master. Mrs Grimbold, too, played her part in the business: each day she would bring a good hot dinner down to the workshop for her husband and his men. I think she looked after the books as well. And I learned how to saw along a line, how to make a chisel travel exactly where it needed to go, how to cut a set of dovetails or a mortise and tenon joint, how to plane a moulding. Mr Grimbold, and his journeyman Mr Timms, were good teachers, though exacting. "Look, lad," they would say, "You've given yourself the bother of doing that twice. Concentrate on the job and get it right the first time!"
Time passes quickly when you are young, and when you are – well, I couldn't say happy, but at least doing useful work that I enjoyed and was becoming better at, and learning a good trade that would keep me employed life-long. And although I wasn't earning a lot of money, each week I handed over my wages to Grannie and she always gave me something back, a shilling or so, occasionally a half-crown if she could afford it.
But disturbing things were happening in the wider world. We'd beaten Germany soundly in the Great War, and the Allies had put rules in place to stop them re-arming and becoming a threat again. But now there was this new Chancellor, a man called Adolf Hitler, who was making great changes, and was said to be building up a new German army and navy. There were other, less savoury, tales about him, too, how he had a gang of plug-uglies who carried out his orders, and didn't much care who they hurt or even killed in the process. And at home the behaviour of the new King was causing a lot of talk, once the news broke. He wanted to marry an American woman; that was bad enough, especially since she had no Royal blood at all, but she had been divorced, and more than once!
Everyone had loved the old King, George the Fifth, who with Queen Mary had led the nation since long before I was born. In the event, as all the world knows, the new King was never crowned, but he abdicated, and then sloped off to live abroad with his impossible wife, and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned King. And he proved to be a marvellous King, and Queen Elizabeth was adored by everyone. We were so glad of them to lead us, along with Mr Churchill, when the war came. I heard a lovely story about the Queen, which shows her quality. It was when Buckingham Palace was bombed, and one wing was badly damaged. Her Majesty said, "I'm glad we've been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face." There were lots of tales like that about her, how kind she was and how she could talk to anyone, never mind if they were upper class or just ordinary working people.
Grannie and I used to listen to the nine o'clock News on the wireless each evening. She, not my mother, was the maternal figure in my life. She was not well off, but we had enough, and her cooking put my mother's to shame. She used to tell me tales of when Dad was young, and some of the scrapes he got into. Occasionally, when he had business in Derby (or, as I sometimes suspected, he had invented some reason for coming), he would call on us and reassure himself that we were getting along well. A couple of times he came to Mr Grimbold's and was made very welcome; a fine time they had chatting over the old days!
And Grannie was a shrewd lady, too, and a very good judge of character. On her advice, I went to the Working Men's College on a couple of evenings each week, where I continued my education. There was a surprising variety of subjects taught there, and the fees were very modest indeed. I found myself becoming quite interested in History, which I'd always found rather dull stuff at school. But the pleasant young graduate who taught it had a knack of relating it to our own experiences, so that it became far more interesting. We learned a good deal about the causes of the Great War, and the Treaty of Versailles, and came to understand the way things were shaping in Europe. And it didn't look promising.
The one thing missing in my life was Aiden. Grannie was sweet and kind and I loved her dearly. And I was friendly with the other apprentices at Mr Grimbold's, but I still wished I could see him. I'd taken up pen and paper to write to him several times, but was put off by the thought that he might also have got into serious trouble and getting a letter from me might make it worse. But I was disappointed not to hear from him. Sometimes I would dream about him, and wonder if he were dreaming about me.
Then Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, went off to Germany for talks with Herr Hitler. At Church on Sunday the Vicar prayed for peace, and asked the Lord to be with Mr Chamberlain and bless his efforts. Grannie and I always went to St Michael's Church on Sunday mornings. The Vicar, Mr Light, was a gentle, elderly man with white hair and a rather quavery voice, but everyone liked him. St Michael's was very different from the Chapel at Ainsworth. For a start, the sermon was seldom more than ten minutes in length, and they had a choir that sang beautifully and led us in the hymns. There was a lovely organ, too, which was much better than the wheezy old harmonium in the Chapel, and Mr Kent, the Organist, was a very good player. I used to try to stay in my seat at the end of the service so that I could listen to him.
Poor Mr Chamberlain! We can see now, looking back, how that Herr Hitler hoodwinked him. He was the pattern of an English gentleman, was Mr Chamberlain, but he thought everyone else in politics was a gentleman, too, and Hitler certainly wasn't. And I remember, as clearly as if it was yesterday, Grannie and I sitting by the wireless and listening to Mr Chamberlain's tragic voice. "…I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."
Grannie and I just looked at each other. She had lived through the Great War, and her first husband, my Dad's father, had died in Flanders. She remembered all the horrors. And I could almost hear her silent prayers to God to keep me safe. Well, for the moment I was. I had a job, but it wasn't in a reserved occupation, and the likelihood was that I would be called up when I turned eighteen, which would be in November of 1940.
As it happened, I didn't get my call-up papers immediately. I continued working for Mr Grimbold until the dreadful night of January 15th 1941 when there was a ferocious air raid on Derby. I later learned that fifty bombs were dropped. One landed on Mr Grimbold's house, and the workshops were pretty well destroyed. Worst of all, dear Mr and Mrs Grimbold were killed. I'd not shed a tear over my own fate, but I cried like a baby in Grannie's arms over what happened to the Grimbolds, who had become almost a second mother and father to me.
The next morning I went to the recruiting office in Derby. I have never hated anyone as much as I hated the Germans then, and I wanted to fight them, if necessary to the last breath in my body. I was interviewed by a nice Sergeant, who filled in a form and told me I had forty-eight hours to change my mind. I went back and told Grannie. She already knew; she had an almost uncanny ability to read my mind. And though she was sad, and afraid for me, she would not stop me going. And so it was, a couple of weeks later, that I got on the train from Derby to Birmingham, and then on to the training camp.
I think some of the new recruits found it tough going, but for me it wasn't too bad. The Sergeant-Major had a rough tongue, but for me, who had lived fourteen years with my mother, it was nothing much to worry about. I made friends with a couple of the lads, and learned to drink beer. We were drilled, marched, trained to use rifles and mortars (and I had a picture in my mind of the German who had dropped the bomb on Mr Grimbold's house and wished I could do the same to him); we learned to salute and to obey orders. I won't go into endless detail; anyone who has done Army training will know all about it. But at the end of my training I had a week's leave, and then I was posted abroad. Fortunately Ted Eddis, one of my mates, was posted in the same draft, so that there was at least one familiar figure. Because in all my life I'd never been further from home than Manchester, and now here I was going half way round the world. I thought back to when I was a boy, and how I had wanted to travel. I'd thought in terms of London, or perhaps a Channel steamer to France and back. Well, Mother, I thought, I'm travelling now, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
Something I discovered in the army was that friendship was hugely important. You had your "mates"; you went around together, got drunk together, and looked out for one another. What you had, you shared. But for a few men, it went further and became a deeper relationship. We all knew about it, and no-one made a fuss. It's inevitable, with large numbers of fit young men cooped up together, especially where there are no women around, that some affairs will start up. And if a couple of the lads went off together for a bit of fun, what harm was that? You had to be slightly cautious, but most of the officers turned a blind eye. The only thing that was not approved of was an enlisted man making up with an officer. If that happened, the enlisted man generally got a few weeks in the glass-house, but the officer was usually cashiered. Quite right too. You can't have the upper classes taking advantage like that!
But at last I understood what it was that Aiden and I were believed to have been doing. How I wished we had been! Because although I had my mates in the squadron, I hadn't started anything more serious. I still thought often about Aiden, and wondered what he was doing, whether he was also serving, or if he had found some other occupation. Because there was no doubt that if he had wanted to go to bed with me, I would have agreed enthusiastically. But we'd been fourteen, and innocent, and our love had had no more wrong in it than a new born lamb.
Our unit was posted to India, of all places, and landed at Bombay. We then travelled inland by troop train to Mahratta. I don't know which was worse, the dust, the flies or the heat. We slept under mozzie nets, of course, otherwise we would all have gone down with malaria. Though when I say slept, we at least got into our 'charpoys'. The heat prevented any but those who were utterly exhausted from sleeping. At first we were really just patrolling, keeping the peace. But there was the odd explosion or outbreak of gunfire from time to time.
We were under very strict instructions not to 'fraternize' with the Indians. Two or three of the lads went off and spent some time with Indian girls. They ended up with a black mark on their record, and a dose of the clap. That was enough to put most of us off trying anything similar. The biggest problem we had was sheer boredom. So we had daily drill, first thing in the morning before the heat became unbearable, and the rest of the say was ours to do as we pleased. Or would have been, if there had been anything to do. A few of the lads played poker and other card games, and there were quizzes, and lectures, and games of housey-housey, but otherwise we mostly lay on our beds and looked at the ceiling.
Then came the riot. We were woken in the middle of the night by the bugler and assembled with the speed and orderliness that only the highly disciplined British soldiery can manage. The riot had obviously been very carefully planned and the rioters provided with weapons and explosives. We fired into the air, warning shots, but the rioters took no notice. Then came the next stage. I saw a large mortar bomb come flying towards me. I dodged out of its path, which saved my life. I remember thinking "if that goes off, I will never see Aiden again". Then it exploded.
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