Moorhead 1949
The carthorse shakes its
greasy mane, giving a musical jingle to the polished brasses of the halter
round its brawny neck, and breathes fiery steam across the gutter from the haybag dangled on
its nose; Fumes rising from the brazier give shimmering, dancing life to the
statue atop the purple pillar; Beneath, a dirty lagoon of water fills the
horse-trough hewn from that same shiny stone.
The air is bitter-cold, and
as a clanging tram bell tolls the knell of parting day the news vendor cries in
hoarse salute: “Final, Late Night Final
!” The lights of Roberts Brothers store
go dim and in Newton Chambers, the clerk puts down his pen. The heavy-jowled
landlord of The Grapes Tavern throws back the doors and yawns to shake away his
teatime nap.
On Button Lane the coalman
throws down the sack toward the cellar grate of number 13, the last house standing after the bomb fell
that night in ’41. It crunches to the ground and slairs the nutty slack into
the blackness of the cellar.
Maurice carefully selects
first gear and eases his old Leyland bus away from the stop outside the Picture
Palace, across the top of Furnival Street where two trams stand, brightly lit,
awaiting their call to duty. The bus whines across the front of the pub, pauses
and moves into the slow and smoking conveyor belt of cars and vans that stutter
down The Moor.
At the back, on the perished
open platform, his clippie, Madge, hunches up her satchel, coughs away the last
Woodbine, and prepares to storm the downstairs saloon with the familiar demand “Any More Fares Please?” And in the steam
bound windows of the Transport Office beneath the statue, Inspector Tommy
Atkins waves away the next tram to Meadowhead.
With a loud metallic snap,
the doors of The Hippodrome throw outward and disgorge the audience from the
matinee, a strange assortment of men and boys who have no job to fill their
day. They melt into the homebound crowd as silently as if they, too, had spent
their time buffing, grinding and packing.; They did not. Instead they were lost
on the prairies of a far-off sun-drenched dream where six guns and sheriffs
reigned supreme.
Now a trio of buffer girls
appears from down Eyre Lane. Freedom
after eight long hours of imprisonment
behind their grimy blue overalls. Their shouts disturb the night as the
acid mist descends and clothes the scene in a dark, gas-lit gloom. Their
turbans dance upon their heads and as they gather up their collars they face
again the darkness of the city street in Winter, hobbling noisily off on
precarious high heeled shoes.
The time is dusk. It is
curtain fall on the drama of the day, and overture to the melodrama of the
night. And here in steel city, this is where all roads lead to home. Stand with me by the foot of the pillar and
look across to where the flower seller stands, and left to where a flat dray of
fruit and veg are lit by the yellow glow
of a paraffin lamp. Do you not see what
I see?
This is the rebirth. This is the
resurrection. This is the life. Here, where what seems just a few months
before, hell had been on earth as bombs and fire rained down and all seemed
blown apart, here at Moorhead, a new life is beginning.
I see you still my friends. I see your faces, pure
recall, the very detail of you all,
Your
hard won smile, your scowl and frown,
your gleeful up, your mournful down,
Your
scars and blisters, brothers, sisters,
Fate-accepting, fatalistic,
Never
questioning the mystic round
Of
life and death, toiling hard and seldom
play,
Greet
the dawn of each new day, the simple pleasure you enjoy,
A
drink, a smoke, a joke with friends and all too soon your story ends,
But
not, thank God, just yet.
It is later now, and inside
the police box on Union Street, the weary constable prepares to meet the night, but pauses first to steal a moment
more of meagre warmth from the barely glowing heater on the floor, and then he
goes and throws the heavy cape around
his arms, laughing off the lipstick charms of Dirty Doris, the local prostitute. Soon he
will be with his thoughts alone, patrolling gas lit streets and lanes, but first he stands with folded arms,
ringmaster among the clowns, and Moorhead is his Big Top.
Here beneath a canvas sky of underbellied
cloud a sudden blaze of light flares in the east, not a spotlight following this mocking cavalcade of life , but the
flickering aurora of the Bessemer furnaces spewing white hot steel in far off
Brightside, and as the pouring stops the sky falls again to a leaden grey reflecting
the city lights below
Inside The Grapes, Stan the
Bookie sits in an unnoticed corner of the saloon far away from the busy, beer
slopped bar and furtively writes up a note with his well chewed pencil,
stopping only to reach for another take of the pint glass on the table. His two
minders sit smoking, waiting for the nod
from Stan. Tonight the books have been closed after a frenzied day at the dogs,
the flapper track at Hyde Park on the hill by the church. Later they will
receive their reward of a few shillings and slip away into the night for
pleasures unknown in the arms of their blousy women. To them this is life
itself, a mirror of the Capone-like existence of prohibition.
George Curtis knows of this
and likes the heart-stopping moment of the “flutter”. But his choice is for the
“steady” job that is the vital spark to
The Grapes. Earlier this day he’d used
his massive frame to steady eight barrels of best bitter as they skidded on the
grappling hooks into the beer cellar from his horse-drawn dray. Now, with his
tiny woman Ethel by his side, he was here to claim his reward, a few pints on
the house. The purple pitted nose and
red rimmed eyes give away the clue that “a few” is not just “a few”.
Like an island in the middle
of this pool of humanity there stands a tall man with a blue serge overcoat
atop his pin stripe suit. Beside him another man in tweeds smokes a pipe. And coughs..He should know better. Doctor
Gillespie is chatting to his old friend Lawrence Bailey, the solicitor. Not for
them the sour tasting beer, Scotch Whisky is their tipple, with a little soda…
not too much. Here, away from critical
professional gaze, they are amongst unquestioning friends, soulmates in pursuit
of nightly oblivion.
I see you still my friends. I see your faces, pure
recall, the very detail of you all,
Your
hard won smile, your scowl and frown,
your gleeful up, your mournful down,
Your
scars and blisters, brothers, sisters,
Fate-accepting, fatalistic,
Never
questioning the mystic round
Of
life and death, toiling hard and seldom
play,
Greet
the dawn of each new day, the simple pleasure you enjoy,
A
drink, a smoke, a joke with friends and all too soon your story ends,
But
not, thank God, just yet.
The fat, ruddy faced comedian
stands centre stage of the Empire Theatre and waits expectantly for the
response from the crowded stalls as he tells for the umpteenth time the joke
about people at Nether Edge fetching their fish and chips in violin cases. And
the audience respond again as if hearing the gem anew. This is the last act,
top of the bill, a famous name from “off the wireless”. Behind the curtains and in the wings the
chorus line get ready to perform the finale, eager to get back to the smoky
dressing room and out into the night.
And then, as the band in the
pit start up the National Anthem, the lads and lasses in the “Gods” clatter
noisily down the long concrete steps and out into Union Street to get to The
Barleycorn before the landlord calls time. Was it worth the nine-pence they
each paid? It was better than staying in amongst the lines of steamy wet sheets
hung over the fire, wasn’t it? And did
you hear that one about the woman from Bents Green with no knickers? Do you think it’s true?
Down Wellington Street, in
the archway of a row of Little Mester cutlery works, one couple are about to
put the question to the test as their passion reaches boiling point and all the
advice the girl has heard from her mother flies through her brain and out the
other side. He swears again his undying love and moves his hand smoothly but
forcefully through layers of winter underwear to achieve his objective. Here,
away from the pools of light around the gaslamps, he can be confident of
remaining unseen. In years to come he may live to regret his passion on this
dark and fumbling night.
Twenty-eight minutes past
ten, according to the clock on Newton Chambers’ tower, and the pubs are
closed. Only the last few men stand
talking in quiet groups. One trio are
deciding that the night is yet young but no-one can suggest where else they
might find that scarce and rationed commodity –
Fun! They are different to the
rest because they wear the dull, khaki uniform of the Yorks and Lancs Regiment. But their boots gleam with reflections of the big white street lamps
that shine down on Moorhead. Frustrated,
they move off reluctantly down The Moor, their boots making sparks across the cobbles.
Inside the Grapes, just by
the door, old George, “Powey” to those who know him well, takes out a large khaki handkerchief from his
grimy overcoat, wipes the dewdrops from his nose, then drains the last drop
from his glass of stout before rising to his feet at exactly the moment the
landlord appears to eject him, picks up his grey canvas newspaper satchel, and
heads out into the night towards the attic lodgings he rents from a distant
nephew. Powey is a lonely man. Was he ever married? Why is he not with a
family? How does he manage to scrape a
living by selling newspapers on the street outside the Grapes? Does he know he will die a lonely man in a
crowded hospital that used to be a workhouse? The landlord noisily bolts the
door behind him to underline the casting-out.
I see you still my friends. I see your faces, pure
recall, the very detail of you all,
Your
hard won smile, your scowl and frown,
your gleeful up, your mournful down,
Your
scars and blisters, brothers, sisters,
Fate-accepting, fatalistic,
Never
questioning the mystic round
Of
life and death, toiling hard and seldom
play,
Greet
the dawn of each new day, the simple pleasure you enjoy,
A
drink, a smoke, a joke with friends and all too soon your story ends,
But
not, thank God, just yet.
Nellie is a large woman with
a round face as befits her matriarchy. She cleans the marble step of the main
door of Newton Chambers and as she wrings out the limpid grey floorcloth,
pauses to wipe her sweated brow with a pass of her plump forearm and looks around
to see who else has emerged onto the stage that is Moorhead in the morning. The
Corporation Tramways tea-bus has arrived and it obscures her view of the public
conveniences beneath the statued pillar and the horse-trough alongside.
Charlie Wells the toilet
cleaner wrings out the floor-mop in precise unison with the unseen Nellie and
lifts his face to wink at a tram conductress making her way to the tea-bus. He
whistles incessantly with a tuneless warbling which somewhere contains a stanza
from The King and I. “Shall We Dance?”
is the tune he tries to re-create and the mop becomes his partner as he
quicksteps round the lav.
Out at the front of this
strange edifice a queue is forming ready to board a blue and cream double deck
tram whose destination is Ecclesall Terminus via Banner Cross. Three boys in
uniforms of navy blue and emerald green swap excited stories and as the
conductor sweeps aside the red guard chain they rush noisily to the top deck
and forward to the front bay, their fiercely guarded territory for the 25
minute journey through the leafy suburbs to the Grammar School.
Across the road, outside
Roberts’ Brothers, four girls wait in shivering anticipation for a tram in the
opposite direction. For them a journey through the terraced corridors of the Don Valley to Middlewood
will take longer. The tram will be full until it is past The Infirmary where
all the people with pots and slings will alight and they will be able to claim
one of the two bay seats for themselves.
The Manager of Suggs Sports
Shop drives down Cambridge Street in his black Ford car, executes a smart right
turn, and with the right hand trafficator
glowing by his shoulder he crosses the kerbstones and parks the car, OWE 107, on the flattened rubble of the bomb site
on the corner of Button Lane. Alighting he checks the fob watch in his
waistcoat pocket and on the stroke of Eight O Clock strides across Moorhead
into Pinstone Street for another day amongst the tennis rackets, golf bags and
toys. But as he does so he turns to
sneak another look at the Ford he can barely afford.
I see you still my friends. I see your faces, pure
recall, the very detail of you all,
Your
hard won smile, your scowl and frown,
your gleeful up, your mournful down,
Your
scars and blisters, brothers, sisters,
Fate-accepting, fatalistic,
Never
questioning the mystic round
Of
life and death, toiling hard and seldom
play,
Greet
the dawn of each new day, the simple pleasure you enjoy,
A
drink, a smoke, a joke with friends and all too soon your story ends,
But
not, thank God, just yet.
And now, at noon, this circus ring is filled for the main event
as Alderman Sydney Dyson, chairman of the Transport Committee, puffs on a small
cigar, bares his large teeth, strokes his bushy black eyebrows and walks
importantly at the head of the inspection sub-committee, towards Furnival
Street. Not for the first time, the committee are trying to decide whether this
short stretch of tramline linking Moorhead and all the services in the upper
city to the lines in Paternoster Row, Shoreham Street tramsheds and all the
services in the lower part of the city, should be “extinguished”. The small
knot of councillors and officials, accompanied by the Transport Manager, nod
and shake their heads, put their hands in their pockets and adjourn to the Town
Hall for lunch. This meeting, timed for
mid-day, is a convenient excuse for the small feast – with cigars and wine –
which must follow.
Alderman Dyson is pleased and
all is well at Moorhead.
David France 18/03/2017 ©
Author’s Note:
“Powey” was George France, a great-uncle who died penniless in Fir Vale
Hospital in the early 1960s. Most of the
other characters are fictitious except the reference to Ald Dyson and for the
reference to the “council feast” I draw on my real-life experience of Council
meetings before local government re-organisation in 1973 when I was Sheffield
Telegraph’s Municipal Reporter.
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