Fluttering & Flying

Fluttering and Flying

Written on a theme of “Interpretations”(The action of explaining the meaning of something: OED)

The boy stood silently in the afternoon sun looking over the man’s shoulder. The old man’s callused fingers and gnarled knuckles gripped the pencil tightly and carefully scribed ticks, crosses, strokes, numbers and an occasional beautiful cursive script into the columns on the book’s page. He had watched as the man had placed the book on the rough table, opened it with a kind of reverence (although the boy would not have understood that word) at a blank page and then drawn up the chair before taking out his penknife and with a deft skill born of years of practice sharpened the lead to a fine point, the shavings falling to the floorboards of the wooden verandah. Then, putting the lead to his lips he had licked it and begun to write. The boy was mesmerised, this was completely out of his experience and although he was not yet ten years old he knew that this book and this writing, these marks on the page, meant something important to his grandfather who sat, concentrating, in front of him. But, what did they mean and why was it important to the old man? And, despite his tender age, the boy also knew that there was a certain incongruity in what the old man was doing; the care he was taking had a loving gentleness about it completely at odds, with what little he knew of this man who he had not long known and who he was still a little afraid of.

v

Victor had come to the small mining village of Pegswood in Northumberland ten days before, brought there by “Grandda” and “Grandma” after his mother had died. The old couple, on receiving a telegram from London had taken the train from Newcastle to the capital and after the service at a church in an East End still showing the scars of the blitz had packed a cheap suitcase, bought by his Grandma at Woolworth’s in Bethnal Green Road, and brought him to a world he did not know. They were the only relations that the boy had; his father, their son, had died during the evacuation from Dunkirk and his mother, never healthy at the best of times, had finally succumbed to the scourge of TB. Victor’s world had changed – the bombed out streets of the East End had given way to rows of little terraced houses in the shadow of the pit and the slag heap. From the big city, he had come to a small, tight knit community where, it seemed, everyone knew everyone else and where the hours of the day and the days of the week  were marked by the sound of the colliery horn signalling the ends and beginning of shifts and where even his Grandda and Grandma spoke in a language that Victor struggled to make sense of, although deep down he knew it was some kind of English. 

Victor, until now  had lived his whole life in two drab upstairs rooms of a bleak terraced house in a street still with the boarded up shells of other houses scarred by Hitler’s bombs. The toilet and bathroom, such as they were, they shared with the family who lived downstairs and at nights, as Victor lay in the bed that he shared with his mother, he would listen to the drink fuelled rows that came from the rooms below.  His mother, he knew, worked as a machinist in what she called the “rag trade” and Victor’s only knowledge of his father was of him standing smartly in his uniform in a creased photograph which had stood on the window ledge. He knew that his father had met his mother while on leave in London soon after the war began and he, Victor, had been born almost a year later. His mother had rarely spoken of his father and the only wider family that Victor knew of was from the small Christmas present to him and Christmas card - “To Elsie and Victor. Happy Christmas from Ma and Da Chapman” - that had arrived each year and then the 2/6 postal order and birthday card “To Victor with love from Grandma and Grandda Chapman XXX” that had arrived each April.  

That world had ended ten days before when he had stood by the side of a smartly dressed lady who he knew was from “the council” and who had arranged his immediate care while his mother lost her struggle for life in hospital.  He had stood by the woman’s side, unsure what he should do or how he should behave, and gazed at the four or five other people that stood in the empty pews of the church. He had listened to the priest’s words, unaware of their meaning, but when his young ears caught the words “Our Father who art in heaven.....” his lips automatically moved as they did each morning in the school assembly “Ou....Ou....Our F...F...F...Father...wh...wh...who..............”. And then the service had ended, and the lady took his hand and led him across the aisle to the old couple as they stood in the pew and said, “Now Victor, this is your Grandfather and Grandmother, they are going to take care of you now”. And the old woman had bent down and kissed him on the forehead and said “Hello Pet. We’ll look after you now, lovely boy” and the old man had stood stiffly and shook Victor’s hand but said nothing.

So, here he was, far from his home, in a strange world with people that he hardly knew, and who seemed kind but who he had difficulty understanding. When they arrived after the long train journey it was already dark and he was taken upstairs to an empty room: “This is your Da’s old room, where he slept” Grandma had said “It’s yours now, Victor” and he had watched as the old woman unpacked his case and then said, “Now you get some sleep, Pet, it’s been a long day”. Obediently, he had climbed beneath the cold sheets and closed his eyes tightly; it seemed to his young mind that he was lost, adrift in a wild and terrifying sea, unable to make sense of who or why, unsure of what he should do and what he should cling on to. But, he was not yet ten and it was far beyond his bedtime and so Victor slept, he slept heavily. He had never before had a room of his own but his dreams, if he did dream, were interrupted early in the morning by the sound of a horn. Confused and rubbing the sleep from his eyes he stumbled to the window. It was still not fully light but the early sun showed him men moving and he could hear the chatter of voices. As he watched he realised that they were all coming from or going to the dark skeleton like building at the top of the hill and in the half light he could just make out the framework of a huge wheel slowly turning in the dawn sky. And as his eyes took this in he realised something else – those coming down the hill all had dark faces, black almost, whilst those going towards the big wheel had faces white under the dawn light. “What have I come to?”  Victor thought  as he stood looking down on the scene.  And a tear ran down his cheek.

In the days that followed Victor had slowly got used to the Geordie accent of his Grandma but his Grandda said little and Victor realised that the old man was almost completely deaf. He wore a heavy a battery pack  clipped to the waist band of his trousers and an ear piece connected  to the pack by a twisted cord. Occasionally, the old man fiddled with the battery and suddenly the room was filled with a loud whistle which caused Grandma to raise her eyes to heaven and rush over and adjust the instrument. Grandma had whispered to Victor “Now don’t you worry about Grandda, Pet, he’s just a bit deaf – came back like that from the Somme after listening to them heavy guns day and night and then spending his working life in yon pit laying explosives at the coal face.” Afterwards, in the quiet of his bedroom Victor thought about this and realised something else; Grandda’s deafness ensured that he spoke little – there was no point speaking, Victor reasoned, when you couldn’t hear the answer. And when Victor’s young mind realised this he instantly knew something else: he and his Grandda were alike. Victor was not deaf, but for as long as he could remember he had stammered – his lips so often failing to utter the words that that his brain demanded. At school he had been mocked and bullied by other boys and his teachers had had little patience with his attempts to say even the simplest sentences, the words getting stuck on his tongue so that he often could often not even pronounce his name without a hard staccato coming from his lips. So, Victor had quickly learned one of life’s lessons; just as his Grandda had learned to say little because his deafness, so too, Victor had learned to say little for fear of ridicule or worse. In the little terraced house in Pegwood Grandma was the voice of the household while he and his Grandda were largely locked together in silence; the young boy who couldn’t speak and the old man who couldn’t hear. Like two wounded birds in a cage, unable to sing, they occasionally fluttered and collided but rarely sang together.

v

As the days passed, Victor learned to interpret and understand more Grandda’s long silences – they were not, he realised, unfriendly – and he learned a little, too, of Grandda’s daily routine.  The old man would disappear each day and when he returned three or four hours later he would be clutching books which he would then sit and read voraciously. One day, while his Grandfather was out, Victor picked up one of the books. Inside was a sticker with the words “Newcastle  Library Service” printed on it and underneath an erratic list of blue writing  “13 Jan 1947, 24 Sept 1947, 3 Feb 1948” none of which Victor understood. He flicked through the pages, it was full of small writing and photographs of men in white, each  carrying bats and balls with names underneath: Herbert Sutcliffe, Walter Hammond, Don Bradman, Harold Larwood, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Hedley Verity.... . Victor asked his Grandma about his Grandfather’s habits: “Oh don’t mind him, lovely boy – he goes off for his walks in the country, always has done since the war and since he retired from the pit. Likes the quiet, likes to think, y’see, it’s his way of coping....all the pals he lost on the Somme, all the pals he lost in the pit.....and then there’s yer Da yer see....... aye, yer Da most of all.” The woman’s voice trailed off but then she continued “Grandda’s walks help to stop him thinking about all the guns and the dying and such. And then, there’s his cricket – them books he gets from the library, always cricket......I sometimes think that he thinks more o’ that game  than he does me....... Yer Da again, y’see..... lovely cricketer he was....Grandda always said that he could’ve played for England........” And the woman turned away to the sink and carried on scrubbing the clothes and Victor thought he saw a tear in her eye. Victor nodded, he didn’t understand all that the woman had said but he knew it was kindly meant. Slowly this new world was starting to make a little more sense.

No more was said on the subject but on the following Saturday morning, Grandma suggested that Victor might like to go with Grandda to see the cricket on the field. Victor smiled and agreed although he had little idea of what cricket was and he was still a little uncertain of going out alone with this man who spoke rarely and showed little sign of friendship or even awareness of him.  So, early that afternoon Victor walked, hand in hand with the old man, neither of them speaking, along the street, while Grandma waved to them from the doorstep. Grandda carried under his arm a large leather bound book and from the breast pocket of his coat peeped a pencil tip and a row of pens. The old man’s boots were polished to a mirrored perfection and he was wearing the brown suit that Victor had last seen at the funeral, and on his head Grandda wore a grey cap similar to the ones that Victor had seen some of the cricket players wearing in the book’s photographs. They walked past the pit, the great wheels slowly turning and as they did so Victor stopped and pointed “ W....W....What’s that G...G...Grandda?”. The old man followed the child’s eyes and without perhaps hearing the boy’s words replied “That’s the gateway to hell...lad...where I spent most of my life and where some of the best mates in the world still lie......tha doesn’t want to go down there, Victor, so learn thee lessons at yon school, listen to yer teacher when tha starts there after t’olidays”. And with that Grandda tugged on Victor’s hand and they continued under the brooding shadow of the slag heap. After leaving the pit and the last of the terraced houses behind, they came to the cricket field with its little white pavilion standing in the corner.  Already some young men dressed in white were standing in front of the pavilion throwing a ball to one another and from the moment they arrived at the field it was clear to Victor that Grandda was a respected figure amongst these young men – they each called him Mr Chapman and touched their foreheads briefly with their finger tips as they greeted the old man. Victor, for the life of him, couldn’t imagine his Grandda playing a game with them – he was far too old – and any way, Victor reasoned, where was his kit, his bat and his ball and what was the big book for?

As Victor watched, Grandda busied himself setting out a table and chair on the pavilion verandah and then opened a large locked box to take out piles of square pieces of wood each containing  a large black number on a white background. These he set at the side of a large board that he leaned against the pavilion wall. Victor watched, desperate to understand but still afraid to speak and so he turned away and peered through the doorway into the pavilion. The walls were covered with faded photographs, men in white, many sporting ancient beards and grasping bats or balls, others standing proudly to attention or sitting in group with a shield or silver cup in front of them. Drawn like a magnet Victor wandered into the empty room and gazed at the photographs, the sun light shining through the window and casting shadows and reflecting the dust in the air. Victor’s limited reading ability took in the names and dates under each one and as he wandered along gazing at these players from yesteryear he suddenly stopped. His young eyes fixed on a single photograph and its legend: Harry Chapman: Season 1937-38: Leading Wicket Taker. Chapman – that was his name, Victor Chapman, and it was his Grandma and Grandda’s name.........and, and...... the man in the photograph looked a lot like the uniformed man in the photograph that had stood on the window ledge in London – and who, his mother had told him, was his father. Victor knew that his father’s name was Harry. Without thinking Victor ran outside and grabbed the old man’s hand, dragging him to the open doorway. “Grandda, Grandda  look, look” in his excitement the words easily falling from his tongue – all stammering momentarily gone. He pulled the old man into the empty room and pointed to the photograph. “I – I – Is th - th- that my D – D - Daddy?” The old man looked at the photograph and then down at the boy; he didn’t need to answer, Victor knew it in the old man’s gaze and in the tear that ran down his cheek. The silent moments passed and at the back of his mind Victor remembered a hymn that they sang at school; he didn’t really understand it but some of the words said “How to master self and temper, How to make their conduct fair; When to speak and when be silent, When to do and when forbear” and as these words ran through his mind he suddenly understood them; this was a time to wait and be silent. After what seemed an age the old man, still looking at the photograph spoke: “Aye, that’s yer  Da, Victor – good player ‘e was......best we’d ever ‘ad in this club.....’ad a trial for Durham but the war came and ‘e was called up. E’d have played for England if e’d lived tha knows.” The old man looked down at Victor and smiled – it was the first time he had shown any affection for the boy – “Does tha think y’might be a cricketer......as good as yer Da maybe?”. Victor looked at the man and, thinking of the hymn again and sensing that he should say what the old man wanted to hear, he nodded and mumbled “Th....th....th....think so Grandda” and the old man ruffled the boy’s hair with his hand and smiled again. 

They stood, the two of them, in the shaft of sunlight in the pavilion. In the room next door Victor could hear men’s voices and then there was a slamming of doors and through the window he saw men all dressed in white pour out onto the grass. Two older men wore white coats and trilby hats and two others carried bats. Most of them wore grey caps like his Grandda and they walked towards the pitch tossing a ball between them.  Grandda put his hand on Victor’s shoulder “Come on lad, can’t stand ‘ere gassin’ all day.....there’s work to be done” and he led the boy outside and sat down on the chair at the table.

That sun filled afternoon seemed to Victor like peeping into some wonderful fairy tale, a new world into which he might enter. He stood in silence, engrossed, watching his Grandda painstakingly and lovingly write in his book.  Then, every few minutes, his Grandda would rise from his chair, walk  across the verandah and place the  white squares of wood with the black numbers into the slots on the big white board that leant against the pavilion wall. And slowly, very slowly, it all began to make a kind of sense. Grandda was keeping score as the batsmen scored runs and the bowlers got them out.  Victor watched, his eyes squinting in the sunlight as the players and umpires stood, brilliant white, against the dark green of the trees at the far side of the field under the cloudless blue sky. He stood entranced as the fielders settled into their crouch, the batsman took guard and the bowler began his run. Almost too fast for the boy’s eyes to register the red spot that was the ball flew through the air and suddenly the afternoon calm would be disturbed by a click as leather struck willow or when there was shout from eleven throats “Owzat” as the batsman’s wicket crumbled, destroyed by the red missile and the batsman turned to see the fallen stumps. The batsman would shake his head and in frustration pump the earth with the end of his bat and begin his walk back to the pavilion while the umpire stood with his arm raised and the bowler received the congratulations of his team mates. And when the batsman arrived back at the pavilion his friends clapped him, as did the besuited old men with watch chains across their waistcoats just like his Grandda’s. They sat puffing on their pipes on the three slatted benches outside the pavilion or on deck chairs that they had brought from home and placed around the edge of the field, and Victor could hear them say “Well done sir” or “Well played, young man” or “Fine innings Jack” ......... and they would clap and smile. Victor began, too, to learn a whole new vocabulary as he listened to the quiet chatter of the old men: boundary, over, maiden, full toss, yorker and most mysterious of all LBW; what did it all mean? But even though he understood little in Victor’s young mind  it all perversely began to make a magical and mysterious  sense;  and as he watched, trying to understand more, the old man made more pencil marks on the page. 

Then, as the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped towards the tree tops the players walked back to the pavilion, and the old men clapped. “I....I.....Is the g...g...g...game finished Grandda?” he asked. Without looking up from the book, the old man replied “Nay, bonnie lad – it’s tea time. Would tha like a sandwich?”  and Victor suddenly realised that in the room behind him where the walls were lined with photographs and where his Da was on the wall stood his Grandma and other women. Unseen they had arrived and laid a long table with plates of sandwiches and two huge tea pots hovered over cups as tea was poured into them. Holding his Grandda’s hand Victor took a sandwich as the players came into the room and his young eyes took in their white flannels some stained green from the grass; he saw that one or two wore cable knit sweaters with a grey stripe around the V neck and some of the fielders still wore the grey cap like the one his Grandda had worn as they walked to the ground. He looked in awe at the two batsmen and the wicket keeper standing with their leg pads like knights in armour ready for battle and as he rubbed his hand against one of the pads he could smell smells that he had never experienced before – the blanco from the pads and their boots mixing with the linseed oil that shone on their bats.  From that moment Victor was hooked; more than anything in the world he wanted to wear those pads, to have a sweater like theirs and to swing those bats and live this life that he was experiencing for the first time. But above all he wanted to be as good as the man he had never known and that his Grandda said could have played for England. As if in a dream, his eyes looking at these sporting giants, he  sought out his Grandma as she served tea behind the table and pulled on her skirt and when she bent down to hear him Victor whispered “Grandma will Grandda teach me to play cricket like my Da?” – and the old woman smiled, kissed him on the forehead, and wiping away a tear with her apron said, “I don’t know bonny lad, but I’ll ask him.”

v

It was the start of a new life for Victor and a new beginning for Henry Chapman. The old man cut a thin piece of wood to make a small bat for Victor and in the tiny back yard of their house he would bowl an old tennis ball at the youngster as the child stood against the coal bunker with wickets drawn in chalk on the bricks. The old man endlessly bent over the child showing how to grip the bat, how to stand to defend his wicket, how to cup his hands to catch the ball, how to bring his arm over correctly to bowl, and the boy never tired. Each Saturday, they would walk to the ground together and after a week or two Victor was given a job – the official scoreboard operator – under Henry’s instructions, putting the white pieces of wood with the black numbers in the correct slots. Victor never took his eye off the field and the players, watching learning, making sense of this new world and this new love. The language of cricket – “owzat, long on, short leg, silly mid off” – became his language. He quickly learned to interpret the arm signals of the umpire and from his signals was soon able to alter the score board before his Grandfather had even the opportunity to tell him. And the old man watched and smiled in wonder to himself as he saw the boy grow and so quickly learn. Henry often found himself  wiping  away a tear as his experience told  him that the boy had a rare talent, a gift given only to a few – just like another boy so many years ago.

On the occasional wet day or when there was no cricket to watch or play the two would pour over the books that they had borrowed from the library.  Grandda had taken Victor to Newcastle on the bus and the boy was now the proud owner of a library ticket. Looking at the photographs in the books Grandda would talk wistfully of these men: of Bradman’s poise, power and manic pursuit of runs, of Hobbs’ deft, graceful flicks of the wrist to send the ball skittering to the boundary, and Grandda’s eyes would glaze over as he described what he called “the poetry” of Verity’s spin on the ball as it jinked towards the wicket. Then, his voice would drop in awe as he described the two fearsome Nottinghamshire miners Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, their fast bowls “faster and deadlier than a cheetah – they were a sight to see in their prime Victor..... the only men to put the fear of God in Bradman.....does tha’ know, Victor, after the Ashes in Australia in 1932 these two near brought the British Empire to an end”. On those wet days, in the kitchen or in the tiny back yard, Grandda would re-enact Hobb’s strokes or Bradman’s cover drive; he would twist his fingers around the ball to show Victor how Hedley Verity gripped the missile before sending it on its spinning way down the pitch towards the chalk wickets on the coal bunker. And as the ball bounced back from the wall he would say “Hedley Verity – a true gentleman Victor and the finest left arm spinner you’d ever see, Victor....he’s another like yer Da though, he didn’t come back...buried in Italy now” - and for a few moments the old man would lapse into silence, remembering a different age and other loves.

And as the old man spoke Victor’s young mind understood; cricket gave Grandda comfort: the grace and controlled power of the players, the neatly clipped grass of the field, the meticulous, painstaking detail of his score book, the arcane routine of lunch and tea, the sound of the creaking roller on the pitch and the marking out of the boundary and popping creases, the ordered rituals of the game, the gentle applause and acknowledgement of merit, the clean whiteness of the kit. These were his escapes, his convalescence from the nightmares of his mind – the chaotic hell and filth of the Somme and the black desperation of the pit, the death of his son in battle – they took him to a better place, an ordered, sane and peaceful world where he felt safe and at home. Victor, only a child, understood for he had felt the same way.

The long summer days came and went and one Wednesday tea time as the three of them sat around the kitchen table Grandda spoke. “Tha needs to get off to bed early tonight Victor, tha’s got to be up early in’t  morning we’re off on a long trip”. Victor asked where they were going but Grandda and Grandma smiled and said nothing. The following morning Grandma roused Victor soon after dawn and he was packed off with Grandda who carried a shopping bag filled with flasks and sandwiches. They took the first bus into Newcastle and then the train and by 10 o’clock they were walking along crowded streets in Leeds. Grandda still would not tell the boy where they were going and whenever Victor asked the old man simply tapped his hearing aid and shook his head as if deaf. Victor knew that Grandda was feigning deafness but he said nothing and as they walked he realised that everyone seemed to be walking in the same direction. As the crowd grew thicker they came upon their destination and on the brick wall along which they stood in a long queue Victor read the words on the poster that was stuck to the wall: “4^th Ashes Test England v Australia Thursday July 22 – Tuesday July 27 1948 Headingly Cricket Ground Leeds”. Headingly, Victor’s heart leapt, he had seen pictures, he had heard his Grandda talk with quiet reverence of Test Matches and especially the Ashes games. His Grandda had told him the story of the Ashes – the remains of stumps burned to ash and placed in a little urn – and how, ever since, the two greatest cricketing nations, the greatest players in the world, had fought over them. Victor looked up at his Grandda and in a whisper said “Is this Headingly Grandda, are we going to see a Test match?”. And the old man, his hearing miraculously recovered, looked down at the boy and smiling said “Aye bonny lad – tha’s here, and it looks like we’ve got a good day for it.”

Grandda was right; in glorious sun they sat on the boundary, Victor gazing in wonder at the velvet green pitch and the crowd, his eye eager to miss nothing. He watched, spellbound  as the two umpires walked out onto the pitch in their white coats and trilbies and then gently but officially placed the bails onto the tops of the wickets.  Like twenty thousand others he gazed in wonder, his eyes wide, and clapped with the rest of the great crowd as the mythical  Don Bradman led out the Australian team to field and when the England opening batsmen Cyril Washbrook and Len Hutton strode out onto the pitch carrying their bats like great mediaeval swords and Victor clapped even more; he sat mesmerised as Hutton and Washbrook punished the Australian bowlers and scurried between the wickets, their scores slowly mounting on the scoreboard in the midday sun. 

From the first bowl he sat awe struck, unable to drag his eyes away as the great Australian bowlers Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, whose black and white pictures he has seen in his Grandda's books, hurled the ball so fast at the England batsmen that his eyes could not follow it; and he even, without thinking,  shouted “Owzat” and cheered when at last, mid way through the afternoon, the England captain Len Hutton’s wicket fell to a glorious catch by the greatest cricketer in the world “the Don” – Donald Bradman. Then, late in the afternoon and just before tea, Victor found himself rising to his feet, again without thinking and with 20000 others and the whole Australian team, too, clapping with a gentle fury as Cyril Washbrook  stood in the middle of the pitch, his bat raised and doffing his cap in acknowledgement, as the scoreboard showed 100 at the side of his name. How grown up Victor felt, to be standing with all the men showing their appreciation of a fine innings, and again, without thinking, he found himself shouting “Well played sir, a fine innings, sir”. And then he sat down again, Washbrook took guard and the mighty Australians, their baggy green caps pulled low over their faces to hide the late afternoon sun’s glare, settled into their fielding crouches ready to pounce on the smallest mistake that the great batsman might make. Throughout that long day Victor patiently wrote all the details of the scores down on the scorecard that his Grandda had bought him for a penny – each time he wrote he licked his pencil as he had seen his Grandda do - and as he wrote he marvelled at the list of names on the card: Bradman, Miller, Hutton, Lindwall, Edrich, Bedser, Compton, Evans, Laker, Loxton, Washbrook....... a magical cricketing who’s who of names that Victor had learned over that summer and who he could see now on the pitch or sitting outside the dressing room waiting to enter the field of play. Victor turned and looked at the old man sitting beside him; he could see his Grandda’s rheumy eyes glorying in what was unfolding and of what his memory was recalling and Victor stretched out and clasped the old man’s hand and smiled at him. The old man looked down at Victor and smiled and taking the grey cap from his head placed it on Victor’s. The boy took the cap off and looked at it, he knew the cap was important to the old man, and when he looked inside he knew why – along the leather band running around the inside edge of the cap, neatly written in black was written “Harry Chapman Pegwood CC”. It was Victor’s dad’s cap; the boy ran his fingers along the writing uncertain what to do or say, it was another time to be silent and say nothing, so he put the cap on his head and squeezed his Grandda’s hand again and turned to the cricket. And the old man smiled.

v

Victor slept soundly, his capped head resting on Grandda, on the train going back to Newcastle. His dreams were of great cricketing deeds, of standing like Cyril Washbrook,  with his bat raised in acknowledgement of the crowd’s applause and of men saying “Well done Victor, fine innings young man” as he walked back to the pavilion at end of play, doffing his grey cricketer’s cap to the applause.

v

And the summer slowly drew to a close.  Victor’s new school clothes hung in his bedroom, his Da’s old room.  He had already made one or two friends with other local boys who came to watch the cricket and they all knew that he was the grandson of Mr Chapman the scorer at the club so despite his East End accent he was accorded respect amongst these miners’ sons.  August turned to September, and as summer’s green and blue turned to autumn reds and golds Victor and his Grandda would walk together across the moors above the village, the pit below them, its great wheels turning. As they walked rarely a word was spoken, they ambled along each wearing a grey cap – Grandda had bought a new one for Victor and along the inside edge was written in black ink “Victor Chapman Pegwood CC”. Over the long cricket filled weeks of that long summer Victor’s stammer had almost disappeared and the old man no longer fiddled with his hearing aid, it seemed less important to him now, the rattling guns, the mind splitting bombs and demons of a life in the pit calmed if not silenced. Talk was unnecessary in the bond that had developed between the boy and the old man; like birds no longer wounded they fluttered and flew in unison, singing together when the feeling took them, happy in each other’s company: the boy dreaming of one day walking out bat, in hand at Headingly or Lords and the old man, his hopes and dreams rekindled, seeing in his mind’s eye, a grandson fulfilling that lost dream so long held for his own lost son.

Tony Beale: December 2017