MY BIOGRAPHY. |
CHAPTER 17. Back to Realiy. |
1. Hardly reality, as so much had changed and despite the fact that I had big plans I still didn't know in which direction I wanted to go and I also had responsibilities. I was married and had come home to a small terraced house that I had only heard about in letters but which I was happy over because my wife had arranged to buy it at a very reasonable price from my mother in law who, a few years before, had bought it as an investment and it had been rented out, but had become vacant at just the right time. I arrived home with only an address for somewhere on the outskirts of Bradford, written on a piece of paper. Having travelled overnight and arriving in the early hours of the morning, found only an early morning newspaper shop open from which I could ask directions. When I actually found the house, which was at the bottom of a maze of narrow streets, I got a bit of a shock for it was rather run down and what originally I thought was a bargain at the price now looked very much like the right price for what stood there. Later I would learn that you never got a bargain from my mother in law, you always paid top whack and as with this house, you also paid interest and the mortgage every Friday evening, that she would turn up for, at exactly the same time every week, and collect. But with a mortgage and looking forward to the challenge of making the place look the way I felt I could make it, it became obvious, as I knocked on the door, that for the foreseeable future I would have to cash my demob pay of around £45 and go straight back to my old job. 2. I knocked again and looked through a dirty window. The place was empty and there were no signs of life. So hoisting two large kit bags back up onto my back I set off on the long walk to my mother in laws. My wife, instead of being pleased to see me, was in tears and looked dreadful. She was still recovering from the effects of the 'Asian Flu', which had ravaged Europe that summer and so she had done very little of what she had planned to do to the house. Her dad having promised to help and she still hoping to do something had been unable to inform me that things had not worked out as we had not been in contact for the last couple of weeks. So I had a cup of tea and then set off, once again, to hump my kit all the way back. 3. The interior was like a bomb tip. The kitchen had been ripped out in preparation for a new window frame and sink unit and the sink top was propped up on two corner supports. Plaster had been stripped off the lounge walls and there was an empty room, with a cast iron fireplace, upstairs. The second upstairs room had some new grey/blue linoleum on the floor and several cardboard boxes stacked up. They contained all the things my wife had collected and accumulated for 'our home.' There was a cold water supply to the kitchen and an old gas cooker and rickety table and that was basically it. The first thing we did, on that first day, was go out and buy a paraffin heater and then with something to warm the place, or at least the room it was put in, my wife warmed food, in a new pan, on the old cooker and we ate, sat on two wood boxes in the room upstairs. That night we listened to a portable radio and after nailing an old sheet over the window, slept on a mattress, on the floor, and that was the start of a fortnights 'honeymoon.' We did our best in that first two weeks but with all our savings gone and my wife's sick leave and holiday allocation all used up, we went back to work. 4. At work things had changed dramatically. Working alone my boss had found it necessary to drastically cut back on the type of work he could accept and cope with, as a one-man band. He then had to find work for me and that was not easy at first and we had a lean time. Then sadly for him he was not in a position where he could do anything about it, as far as I was concerned, because to start with he had agreed to take me on and complete my apprenticeship and the law also stated that anyone having completed National Service was guaranteed their job for two years. So we struggled on, more as partners than anything else and we often went from doing very little to working long hours and all for the minimum rates of pay. He was brutally honest with me and I knew the score from the start. I also had a house that badly needed renovating and naturally needed cash spending on it and although my wife worked our income was not great and yet despite all that I still managed, with a lot of support from my wife, to keep up my studies. My first priority in that direction was to get my final City of Guilds and that was not easy and took some achieving, as much of my enthusiasm for Cabinet Making had gone, as had the opportunities to practice some of the finer arts of it. We were, at that time, making mainly kitchen and fitted units and working with a local Joiner as Shop and Hotel Fitters and with a local Funeral Director. We would make, polish and furnish his coffins but nothing like the style and quality of the old days, yet over a period of time I became quite involved in the Funeral 'Trade.' We would don our long black coats and gloves and go and 'collect.' I remember we went to one to find the old man not yet dead but where the wife was preparing for it and wanted to talk to us about it and if, while we were there, we measured him up it would save time later and my mate muttered something about that not being very wise as he claimed, as his excuse for not doing it, that they tend to shrink slightly following death. On another occasion we received a call to say grandad had passed away and could we remove him before the children came home from school. We had a simple, plain and rather large coffin, especially for that purpose, so off we went. The woman was more agitated than upset because of the time factor and to add to our agony this guy had passed away in the attic of a house that had a narrow central staircase and also several relations had turned up and were all in the way. 5. Now let me explain. The dead, although dead, still deserve some sort of respect and must be treated with dignity. So what we would do, as we proposed to do in this case, was try and get rid of everyone, send them next door for a cup of tea or something, so that we could open the bare coffin downstairs and bring the body down in a bag, then, lid on coffin and out. Not so on this occasion, some were so distraught that you couldn't talk to them, while the woman herself wasn't helping and could only 'natter' on about the time and the kids. So my mate suggested that we take the coffin up to at least the first floor and try from there. It was a struggle getting the oversized coffin round the bends but we did it. Once upstairs everything went well in so far as we dispensed with the bag and my mate carried him down to the first floor over his shoulder. Once installed the manoeuvre round the first bend at the top and down the stairs was reasonably straightforward but it is not easy for two to carry a large coffin with a dead body in it and at the same time have a distraught crowd, at the bottom, looking up at you. At the bottom the only way round the tight bend and through the low doorway was to stand the coffin up on end, twist it and then pull the foot end out and angle it through. Up on its end presented no real problem but twisting it in the confined space meant that I was obliged to wrap my arms round the whole box and twist. It went part way then stopped and no matter how I tried it wouldn't shift. Then a scream rent the air and I twisted my head to see this woman pointing. I then leaned back to see this dead, old guy sat on his backside with his legs stretched out between mine and with the coffin lid pressed against his chest and the box against his back. In a panic I bent down and grabbed him by the ankles and unceremoniously pulled him across the floor. I then worked the lid free and stood it against the wall and then finally the coffin itself came out with my mate still clutching one end. His face was white and rigid and without saying a word he nodded and grabbed the old bloke by the shoulders. I took his ankles and we dumped him in the box. Not one single word was spoken as we put the lid on and then as dignified as possible carried him out. Later that day the body was collected by another Funeral Director and for some reason we didn't get paid for our services. 6. Over a period of time I got involved in all aspects of Funeral Directing but never had any aspirations to pursue it. I made coffins for many people that I knew, including my first 'boss' and for years after would help out the guy we had originally worked for, when he was stuck. Also during that time I became friends with a guy who engraved the coffin plates, by hand in those days, and by giving up my Saturday mornings would help him and learnt a great deal about his trade. He actually gave me my first diamond tipped cutter and introduced me to glass, an art form I practiced for many years and became, though I say it myself, quite an accomplished glass engraver. But before we leave funerals and all that morbid stuff, I did go to the crematorium on many occasions and I did look through the spy hole and no they do not sit up. There is only just sufficient room for the coffin and all you see in there are the gas flames and when it is all over everything is left to cool, before the base plate is withdrawn and the ashes swept up and placed in a container. Sorry to kill the myth but that's all it is. Dead bodies do not sit up in the crematorium. |
MY BIOGRAPHY. |
