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:
“4th 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
