I went back to Shotley and stayed with Tony and
his wife. Tony and I had become really
good friends and it was nice to be able to sit and chat knowing that Tony had
no ulterior motive in any of the answers or advice he gave me. Despite the fact that Tony was a very
successful businessman with the standard big house, a couple of cars, the six
berth boat, the flying every Sunday, not to mention the speedboat in the front
garden, I wasn’t motivated by money.
There were no socialist beliefs that underlined this approach to life; in
fact I suppose like most people connected to the armed forces we were all
conservative, with a small ‘c’. I knew
that I wanted to do something that interested me.
I suppose there was a bit more to it than that. I felt that if I could find a job that
interested me, where I could help people, then I would become good at it and theoretically
make a decent or comfortable living. All
I had to do was find that one job. I had
collected all my mail that had been sent to my married quarter in Shotley. With each letter that I opened I could see that
I wasn’t going to start from a level position.
I think it was Cawoods, a coal merchant in Ipswich, who had taken me to
the small claims court for a fifty pound cheque that had bounced. This gave me my first county court judgement
against me, after that the letters just became more red and more frequent. I think I ended up with about ten country
court judgements against me. Today I wouldn’t
give something like that a second thought but then, I can assure you, I was
terrified. Personal financial propriety was something the air force had
instilled in all of us and I was not just embarrassed and ashamed but terrified
that the situation would go against me in my search for work. I was very angry as well, as the situation
hadn’t really come about because of something I had done or not done. The worst episode was that we had placed most
of our furniture in storage waiting for our house purchase to go through. As that bill hadn’t been paid they auctioned
off my furniture and then took me to the small claims court for the outstanding
balance. I was certainly finding out
that when you are at the bottom there are not very many people who offer you
help, but there are a huge number who are quite willing to add to your misery. I left Ipswich and drove towards Liverpool.
I had been officially out of the air force just
under a week and I had less than nothing, apart from my attitude, which was that
I was capable of doing absolutely anything, all I needed was a small break to
get me going. Irene, thank God, was a
fine strong woman who had, as an act of caution, put our names on a council
housing list months previously. We were
to be given a council house in a town called Skelmersdale. When
Liverpool began to demolish its slum areas, it built a new town called Skelmersdale,
and moved everyone out of the slums in Liverpool to Skelmersdale. Unfortunately I hated Skelmersdale, although
I have to say I was never sure if I actually hated Skelmersdale or if I hated
myself for living there. A benefit culture
seemed to prevail over the place; many people seemed to believe that they were owed
a living, that the state had a duty to look after them.
Please don’t think that I was being boorish or
snobbish, I wasn’t, but the ethos instilled in us in the armed forces was that
you worked for what you wanted and you would be paid what you were worth. I had no problem with someone ill, or
incapable of work, or looking after themselves, that as a caring society we had
a duty to look after them. Of course it
would be a few years before I understood that society didn’t actually care
about anything and of course we still don’t.
If you don’t believe me just switch on your television. Of the hundred or so stations available one
will be showing a programme about Kim Kardashian. This is a woman who leaked her own
pornographic video tape and manipulated the media to become super rich. In one way I say well done. During the advert break you will probably see
an advert for some charity trying to bring clean drinking water to an area in
Africa. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not
picking on Kim Kardashian, for example some footballer was just signed for over
eighty million pounds, and children are dying needlessly every minute of every
day.
Anyway, there’s no point in me ranting on about
the stupidly of society, I had my own problems to deal with. Irene may have got us a council house but we
had no money, no income, no job, no furniture.
As you may imagine my stress levels were off the scale. The only thing I could think of doing was to
telephone a friend. I called Louis
Henry, the SWO’s man from mountain rescue in Valley. Louis and I had stayed friends throughout my
time in the air force. He still
maintained that I had saved his life on two occasions and that he would forever
be in my debt. Louis had made good
progress in the air force; in fact he was now the Station Warrant Officer at
RAF Leeming in Yorkshire. Louis was a
good friend and so there was no embarrassment for me when we spoke. I told him that I had a three bedroomed council
house but that was it. I had no
furniture, absolutely nothing. Louis
told me to measure the rooms and call him back.
The following morning it wasn’t just me who was
surprised but all my neighbours were quite surprised to see the SWO’s working
party turn up at my house in two, three ton, lorries. First of all they went in with the carpets,
all cut to size and labelled for which room they were destined, and then they
completely furnished the whole house. I’m
not joking, from beds and chairs to knives, forks and spoons Louis had stripped
stores at Leeming and by early afternoon sent his team back to Leeming. But that wasn’t the end of it for Louis then
insisted that we all, that’s me, Irene and the three children go back to
Leeming with him as he had booked three rooms in the Sergeants mess for us and
we were to enjoy a long weekend courtesy of the Sergeant mess.
On the Friday afternoon I found myself standing
at the bar in the Sergeants mess at Leeming.
I was with three Warrant Officers, Louis the Station Warrant Officer,
the head cook and the head policeman at Leeming. We were all Irish so were drinking Irish
whiskey, it was Tollymore Dew and it was the first time I had tasted it. It was very nice and became a favourite of
mine after that. The round of drinks was
quite simple as it was four double Tolly’s.
We were having fun when I realised that it was my turn. I asked the steward to serve four more drinks
and reached into my pocket to get some money when the Warrant Officer policeman
went totally spare on me. ‘How dare you!’
he said, to me. ‘You are a guest in this
mess, so please do not try to insult us by paying for drinks. Put your filthy money away.’
That evening someone came in to the bar and
asked if anyone had children staying in the mess as they were dragging mattresses
around the corridor. Louis had booked
three rooms, one for Irene and myself, one for Jane and one for Gerard and James. Jane didn’t like being on her own in a
strange place so the two boys had dragged her mattress into their room do that
she could sleep with them. We were well
looked after that weekend and apart from the break it was nice to know that I
still had some decent friends knocking about. In fact so many strings had been pulled that weekend that the children were taken up the road to Catterrick where they were driven about in tanks. Late on the Monday Louis drove us back to Skelmersdale and I knew that
it was all up to me now. We always boasted
in the armed forces that if we ever found ourselves out of work we would do any
job to survive. I wasn’t happy finding
myself in such a situation and I wondered if indeed I would do any job to survive. The one thought that was foremost in my mind
was that advert from the Mensa magazine stating, ‘If you’re so clever, why aren’t
you rich?’. Civvy Street, I hoped, was
in for a bit of a shock.
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