Sundays in a smoke filled car

The sunday run

Dad worked as a furniture mover, or as Denis and I would say, “a flitting remover”, after all where we came from moving house was called flitting, and many a debt laden family carried out the famous ‘moonlight flit’, moving to the other side of Burnley where it would seem they could never be found. Such was the vastness of Burnley at the time, all six miles across and as many wide. But when you have lived your entire life in one street, or in a radius of several streets, a mile is a long way. The firm he worked for, was owned by the dad of a school pal of ours, Tony, the last I heard of Tony he was apparently residing in one of her majesties 'hotels' for removing something without permission.



the Bedford furniture van, change the name
of the owner and this could be the one!



Dad's job entailed lifting furniture all day, going to a house, loading up the furniture and moving it to another, most days there would be two moves a day, but after all we are only talking for the most part a house comprised of four rooms of furniture, two of them being bedrooms with only a bed, dresser and wardrobe, so moving two houses a day was normal. He worked five and a half days a week, the normal work week at that time in our area, most people worked five full days and a half day on Saturday, that’s just how it was.

Our life was a simple one, much like anyone else had, work during the week, football on Saturday afternoon, stay in Saturday night and go for a ‘Sunday run’ after dinner. Dad was not a sports fan, I never saw him go to any sporting event, to be very truthful I have no idea what he was interested in, go to work, smoke and sleep was about all I ever saw him do.

The Sunday afternoon run in the car was just as much a ritual as the Sunday dinner was, timing again was everything. If you think that people’s lives today are governed by the clock, you should have lived in Burnley in the sixties. Eating ‘out’ was a dirty phrase, “why should we eat out when we have perfectly good food at home” was echoed in many Burnley houses when a day trip was suggested. One would have thought that Sunday mornings should be reserved for worship at the church of ones choice, and for some it was, for most it was hangover recovery time, and for us it was Sunday dinner preparation time. Following dinner we invariably went on a Sunday run in the car. For Denis and I it was the only time during the week that we went in the car, we either walked to school, or went there on the bus, and once dad got home from work at around six o clock, the car was locked up in a rented garage for the night. The performance of getting ‘the car out again’ was not worth the effort of even asking, dad had rituals, putting the car away was done at a certain time for certain length of time, any deviation was subject to inquisition, it must have been easier to climb mount Kilimanjaro in football boots than opening a garage door!

But on Sunday afternoon the car would be in the back street, waiting for the off. For a man who spent his life driving, he had no idea how a car worked, nor would he even listen to any advice on the subject. One car we had years later, an Austin maxi had a radio, do you think we could have it on. Not on your life, “it’ll flatten bloody battery” was the reason, and if he spotted a car driving with the headlights on, he would gesticulate and point until the owner of the car thought he had a dog wrapped around his front bumper. When Volvo's started coming to England in the late sixties he was beside himself, these cars were made to have running lights, "must go through a lot of bloody batteries!"



John and Yoko owned an Austin, wonder if they
had their radio on?

Many years later I tried explaining to him that the battery only starts the car, after that the alternator generates electricity for running it, after an hour of solid arguing I gave up, as I often did. (Don't let me get into the squad numbering system for football argument, "number one is the goalie, number two is the right back, number three is the left back", "no dad, their all part of a squad, any number can play anywhere", "no! number one is the goalie, number two is the right back, number three is the left back", and so it went on, perfectly repeated until I gave up, and he said "see, told  I you I was right")

Anyway I digress, we would get into the car after lunch and drive, dad was a careful driver, never exceeding thirty miles an hour (even on the new motorways) and driving much slower if he felt like it as he often did. The line ups behind us were sometimes many miles long, but dad was driving as if he was in the furniture van, middle of the road, wide corners and slowly. 'they can overtake me if they want to, I'm not stopping them!"   can we listen to the radio dad? "no, it'll flatten battery". Dad would smoke steadily, cigarette after cigarette with the windows wound up to avoid drafts, we would be riding in a smoke filled chamber of blue haze. I struggled as a kid to keep up with my classmates during cross country running, I now realise that I was the heaviest smoker in the class, besides Denis!



the road into Staining is very nice, you have no idea
how long driving along this stretch can take



Most times we would visit family, arriving unannounced as was the custom, just turning up on someone's door in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, seemed normal then but not something I would ever do now. Dad came from a small town outside Blackpool called Staining, and we often went there to visit uncle Bill and auntie Mary, I found out much later that uncle Bill, Bill Elliot, actually played goalie for Blackpool after the war. We would turn up, Denis and I would play in their garden, which was great for us, adult discussions would take place and an hour later we were heading home again. I doubt if anyone could find a longer way to drive from Burnley to Blackpool as dad, it was very picturesque, but long, we were "avoiding the traffic" as he would say, we were avoiding every living being for miles around were my thoughts. It would take us an hour and a half just to get to Staining, later on I could drive it easily in forty five minutes, unless I was stuck behind a driver doing thirty miles an hour! we would get back home, dad would 'put the car away', and tea would be served on the dot at five o clock, the weekly Sunday run was over for another week, and school was in the morning again for the Kirkham twins.

Blackpool!!

Blackpool, sand and sandwiches

We rarely went to Blackpool for a `Sunday run`, dad always said that there was too much traffic, and too many people. As kids we would have loved it but were instead relegated to Fleetwood. Fleetwood was famous for nothing in those days, the fishing industry had died or at best was on its least legs. It had no pleasure beach, no donkey rides and no amusements. It did have a floral garden with a big white bandstand that on a Sunday had a brass band playing ‘popular music’, which was surrounded by old people in deckchairs half dead, or half asleep at best, listening to half decent imitations of the Joe Loss orchestra.



the hotbed of all things serene, the floral gardens at Fleetwood
on a hot Sunday afternoon the amassed throng would listen
to music from a bandstand just out of camrea shot to the right.



Now this was not a place to take a couple of young lads, at twelve years old we were inquisitive, and wanted ‘things’, none of these things started or ended with Joe Loss look a likes on a white bandstand in the middle of a hoard of pensioners, and our parents! They did start with amusements, candy floss and fun. These things unfortunately were not to be found at Fleetwood. So we went on a campaign to go to Blackpool for the day. We knew that dad came from Blackpool, so you would have thought that he might like to visit once in a while, this was not the case, any excuse not to go was presented, “its to bloody far”, its too crowded” it’s too noisy” I must admit compared to the deathwatch of the Fleetwood massed army of pensioners it was noisy, but we were only twelve, we wanted noise!

Our hope was mum, we worked on her for what seemed like weeks, the forty miles could have been four hundred, but we never gave up and whatever mum did or said to dad must have worked with the announcement one Saturday that we would go to Blackpool on Sunday, and, because we had to leave so early to miss the traffic, we would have a picnic on the beach, “café’s are to bloody expensive, I’m not eating in out Blackpool” (guess who said that?) but at least we had a result!



eehaw! donkeys at Blackpool

 On Sunday we packed the picnic, mum had decided to have tomato sandwiches, but if you make sandwiches out of something that is essentially water, the sandwiches always go soggy. I have no doubt that we would have eaten them, but to be honest the thought was not very appealing to anyone. Mum decided to take everything she needed to make sandwiches to Blackpool, bread, butter, tomatoes, a knife for slicing the tomatoes, we would make a feast on the beach. Now this was living! Leaving early was not actually that early, I think we left around ten o clock, and of course it was a beautiful day and many more revellers left at he same time, first we got held up at Whalley, then Preston, then Longridge, we could have gone on the main road that would make driving easier and quicker, but never did, “I like going the back way”. So we sat, impatiently, as we moved slowly towards Blackpool on roads deigned for horses, and looked for the tower. The smoke from dads cigarettes got pretty thick inside the car, and he almost turned back until mum stopped him, but we eventually got to Blackpool. After parking up, we excitedly went to the aptly named pleasure beach. Crowds, donkeys, deckchairs, sea, sand, heaven!

Denis and I immediately began digging a deep hole, most kids did, I have no idea why kids did, and still do this, you see sand, you have a plastic spade, and you dig, and we dug, we could have dug for England. Dad sat down, rolled up his shirt sleeves to get some sun on his arms, mum slept and we got hungry. “Can we eat mum, can we, can we”? “I can’t even get two minutes rest” and she was up, a blanket was spread out on the sand, the bread, butter and tomatoes were taken out, dad was dispatched to get a jug of tea, which you could buy from a stall that said, amazingly ‘jugs of tea for the sands’, where else would you see that? Eventually dad came back, with a jug of tea and two cups, we were to have milk, oh well, warm milk on a hot day would make me big and strong. “Now, get off the rug, I don’t want sand everywhere”. Mission impossible springs to mind.

"I don't want sand everywhere!"

Two twelve year olds, other kids all over the place running around us, how could anyone  keep sand away from us, we were sat on it, surrounded by it, and in the middle of it. Mum was used to making sandwiches in the kitchen, so I am sure that this was well and truly out of her comfort zone. In hindsight buttering the bread at home would have been better, but not today, the bread was laid out as it would have been at home, and the butter was removed from the basket, still in the same container that was on the table at breakfast.

As the sandwiches were being buttered, dad was asked to cut the tomatoes, a board was removed from the basket, together with knife, and dad with his shaking hands cut the tomatoes into the thinnest slices he could, ”makes them go further” he could have given slicing thinly lessons to British rail. Sand was flying everywhere, inevitably it got everywhere, somehow we got the blame, and were told by dad that he “knew this would happen, should have gone to Fleetwood” and that “eat them, it’s only sand it won’t kill you” for us it was no big deal, we wanted to eat, we were hungry and by now would have gladly eaten one of the scabby donkeys, fur and all.

Mum and dad both had false teeth. Four things that do not go well are sand and sandwiches, false teeth and picnics. Dads teeth must have been out a dozen times, washed in his tea and out put back in again, and every time a loud announcement was made to alert everyone within earshot of the dangers of eating on the sands. At least mum was more discreet, taking her teeth out and wiping them on her dress, being as inconspicuous as possible.

Despite this we were two happy campers, we had been to Blackpool, been to the sands, and had a picnic. How good could life get. We left early, again to avoid the traffic, travelling the ‘back way’ on lanes designed for horses and full of cars. I don’t remember going to Blackpool again with my parents. I honestly think that was the first and only time, we went instead to Fleetwood more and more, eventually branching out to even more sedate Cleveley’s, “where all the doctors retire to”.   

Now as a well travelled adult, Blackpool does not seem exciting any more, but when I do visit I still see excited looks in the faces of kids as they make there way to the beach, bucket, spade and parents in hand. Holes to dig, and sand to eat!

a lesson in concentration, ingenuity and patience

A bucket, a backyard and fishing practice

Now for an amusing blog entry, believe it or not the rest have been serious! Around the age of twelve or thirteen Denis and I became interested in fishing, angling, the sport of rich and poor, big and small, we were hooked by the time we were officially teenagers. Now as I have said before, we lived our lives in a very regimented manner. Dad was in charge, and what he said went. The fishing spots available for us were very limited, we could have fished in the murky waters of the Leeds and Liverpool canal that ran through Burnley, but that would have meant buying a licence from British waterways, or in this case two licences, one for each of us. That was out of the question. Licences were cheap, but dad was even cheaper and that was that as far as that particular discussion went. But all was not lost, close to home, maybe a two mile walk was Molly Brook, feeding the abandoned Lowerhouse mill lodge, (a lodge for readers not in the UK is an artificial lake for feeding the now disused mill steam boilers)

Molly Brook originated as far as we were concerned from a tunnel that ran from under Accrington road in front of the crematorium. It meandered for about a half a mile until it entered the lodge proper. Fishing in the lodge itself was private, but the brook was fished by all the kids in the area. The brook was divided into two halves, by a small stone bridge on Molly Wood lane. One side of the bridge was the lodge, and the other the brook that ran from the tunnel. Fishing on the lodge side was risky business, the fish warden was on patrol for kids fishing in the waters for which a licence was required, so we avoided that side, some brave kids fished it, and were often seen running, rod in hand over the fields to the safety of the bridge and the ‘free’ side of the brook. The warden and his dog in mock pursuit, he had no hope of catching fast kids, but enjoyed watching them run for their lives!



Lowerhouse lodge as it looks today, much smaller than
the lodge in our youth, but still peaceful, and full of fish!



Both mum and dad lived in mortal fear of us drowning in the brook, as a brook it was only a couple of feet deep, and maybe six feet wide, but they were terrified that one day we would be sucked under and lost forever. Mum’s warning that “the weeds will grab hold of your legs and pull you under” are still embedded in my memory, for many years I thought that weeds were like triffids and actually hunted young boys, luring them to an early, watery grave. But we could go fishing, as long as “both of you go”, “and stay together”, “and watch each other”, “and stay away from the water”, “or the weeds will get you”. Of course we had to be home by six o clock so that we could all have tea together.

Three facts that all fishermen know is that a) fish start to bite when it is time to leave, b) the evening is always the best time to fish, and c) being home by six means that you will catch very few if any fish. We were proof of the last point, we caught very few, in fact to be truthful, no fish. We were always leaving when all our friends were just arriving for their evening of fishing, “got to go home for tea” was all we could say, knowing full well that the hundreds of fish in Molly Brook were getting hungry at the same time we were.

It was decided that we would use guile and cunning to outsmart the fish, we needed to practice. Practice in all sports made perfect, Nobby Stiles said that on the radio, and he won the world cup in 1966, so how could it be wrong? But how do you practice fishing, we had no need to cast, Molly Book was only six feet across, but we needed to watch the float, that was it! Maybe we were missing the float moving, that twitch of the quill that meant that a fish was inhaling our worms that we got from under the flat stones on the way to the waters edge. We knew that we needed water, a rod, reel, and a float, but we had to be home by six, and the evenings in summer were long and bright, what could we do?



the bridge was where molly wood lane crossed the
Leeds and Liverpool canal on the way to Molly Brook



The answer was obvious and sitting in front of our noses, we had a bright red, plastic bucket, that bucket could be our water, our very own Molly Brook! We already had the rod, reels and line, we were in business. We filled the bucket with water, set the float depth (very precisely) and sat there looking at the float. For hours we practised looking at that float, mum humoured us, dad grinned and Kevin who had moved back home by this time said we were silly. But undeterred we sat there, watching for the merest movement of the float, pretending to strike the imaginary hook into the mouth of a non existent fish. Our powers of concentration were amazing and unshakeable. For evenings on end we watched in shifts, we watched together, but we watched. Mum was happy because we were away from the terrifying boy eating weeds of Molly Brook, dad looked, walked in the house and did not emerge again, and Kevin said we were silly and left us to it.

Many an hour was spent with that bucket of water, in the backyard of 134 Accrington road Burnley, looking back now it seems ridiculous, but then we were young, and both mum and  dad being much older than any other parents we knew had no desire to take us fishing after working all day. Our imaginations must have been amazing, and to this day my patience is the envy of many, and I can concentrate on anything (or nothing apparently) for hours.

A couple of years ago Denis came to visit me in late winter at my home in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada. Still fishermen, we went ice fishing, which involves drilling a hole in the ice, and using a float to fish, as I sat there at my hole, and he sat there at his, concentrating and watching for the merest movement of the float. I was in tears (no-one, even Denis has known this before now) as I thought back to the evenings in our backyard looking at a float in a red bucket of water. Sometimes life can be so beautiful and painful at the same time.

Sunday mornings, Donald Kirkham and roast beef

The Sunday ritual

Every Sunday when we were kids, we did two things, had roast beef for Sunday dinner, while listening to Judith Chalmers and family favourites which was on the BBC radio from midday for a couple of hours or so. This program was a remnant of when British forces were posted worldwide after the war, before the advent of mobile phones and internet communication, soldiers would send letters with messages to the BBC to be broadcast to the waiting families. Both mum and dad would listen intently to this program, Trevor was in the army for two years of national service, but I am sure he was home long before this, so I am not sure why they listened, or for whom. But woe to the kid who made any noise and disturbed the program. Around eleven thirty we were told “right, turn the wireless on and shut up, sit down and be still!” As if two twelve year olds could sit down for any length of time and be still!

The weekly roast was a definite ritual, starting early on Sunday morning when dad would peel the potatoes. Normally enough for ten men, even though at the time there was only mum, dad, me and Denis at home, the house was heated by a coal fire and for some inexplicable reason the potato peelings would be deposited on the fire to burn. Of course the cold, wet peel nearly extinguished the fire, week in and week out. But on it went, hand full after hand full of potato peel until the fire was completely covered, being now only a steaming mess of potato peel the house of course began to get cold, until the peel dried out and normal heating operations would resume. Next were the peas, not from a can, or fresh, “I’m not taking peas out of bloody pods, bugger fresh” dad would say, these were dried peas, left to soak in water overnight with a white soda tablet sold for that very purpose. These would then be put on the stove to boil away until soft and ‘mushy’, I found out later that marrowfat peas are the same thing, a couple of cans would certainly have been easier. But I do have to say that mushy peas are still a favourite of mine.

The roast was bought from the butchers across the road, when Denis and I were sent to pick it up on a Saturday morning the instruction was always the same ‘on the fatty side tell him, we don’t want lean meat in this house’, both my parents had the belief that fat was very healthy and had to be eaten. ‘Had’ to be eaten was very accurate, I hated fat then and still do not knowingly eat it to this day. But Denis hated it even more, to me it was like eating slime, but to save me from grief and abuse from my dad who could be very ‘forceful’ for want of a better term, I would put it on my fork and swallow it, never chewing, just in, swallow and hope it stayed down. Denis could not even do that, so our parents humoured him by pretending to trim the fat off his meat, then cut it into small pieces and mix it in with his mashed potatoes! Of course it was easy to spot and then the arguing started and the inevitable tears. Mum’s belief that not eating fat would bring untold illness to us was unshakable, and this belief was echoed by dad who made a point of cutting off a big piece of the slimy stuff and chewing it for what seemed like ten minutes, just to prove to us that it was healthy!



I can still smell it!!



So around ten o clock the potatoes would be peeled, and dad would bring the peelings into the living room in a colander, dripping water all over the floor, his hands shook badly and the colander would wobble from side to side violently sometimes. He would then bend down in front of the fire and slowly, everything was slowly with dad, place the peelings on the fire. Then he sat down for another smoke, “the only pleasure I have” his work for the first part of the morning now done. Mum would put the roast in the oven and the potatoes and peas on top of the oven waiting for the gas to be lit later. As the smell of roast beef wafted through the house, mum would wash, clean and dust, dad would sit and ‘rest his eyes’ as he would say, “I’ve used my eyes all week, they need a rest” When the roast was nearly done the potatoes and peas were ‘put on’, and we were really into the cooking, I have only good memories of bubbling pans and a kitchen full of steam and great smells.

Every so often mum would make Yorkshire pudding, none of the ponsey individual puddings found in restaurants, this would be one big pudding cooked in a pan and then cut into four equal portions. When this went in the oven we were told to stay out of the kitchen, one tap on the back door, or touching the oven would make this magnificent pudding sink, and so with it our spirits, we still had to eat it after all! 

Around a half hour later it was “Harry, mash spuds” and “Denis, Donald set table” so dad would mash the potatoes, again slowly, I never did see dad rush, ever, and we would put the tablecloth on the table and put out the knives and forks. Dad then carved the roast for serving, sharpening the knife on the top stone of the backyard wall, over time a definite groove was apparent where knife after knife had been sharpened on that wall.

Then dinner was ready to be put out and we were told to sit down. We dutifully sat down, and mum brought dinner in from the kitchen, we did not suffer through soups, or saying a quick prayer of thanks, “the next time I’ll be in church is when they carry me in feet first” were dad’s feelings on prayers and religion. The first thing dad did was putting around half a salt shaker full of salt on his food, he would pour that stuff on all his food like it was a life saver not a life ender, but such was life, and who would argue with him anyway?

 

double click on the radio!

The timing was always perfect, just as we sat down family favourites started, With Judith Chalmers announcing the first request of the day “and now this request from sapper Bill Smith serving in Aden who sends love to his wife in Nottingham, we have Louis Armstrong with it’s a wonderful world”. I always listened, quietly of course, but my mind was working overtime, just how wonderful could serving in a desert be? Better not ask that one I wisely thought to myself, some questions I had better keep to myself. So we sat down, and we listened to requests from complete strangers, to more complete strangers, me swallowing fat without chewing and Denis looking through his mashed potatoes for the hidden fat.

After dinner dad would sit down, mum would do the dishes until family favourites ended, then we heard the words of “right, let’s go for a Sunday run!”

Then we would join everyone else who had just finished their Sunday dinners, listened to Judith Chalmers, and leave our house at the same time as they left theirs, and go in our car to the same places, wondering where all the traffic came from, not realising that if we had missed sapper Bill Smith’s request for Louis Armstrong we might have missed the traffic and got somewhere before it was time to leave again, because, after all, we had to be home for tea at five!

  

Endless houses, a budding entrepreneur and Donald Kirkham

My first two years after school – part one

I left school in 1969, without a single qualification, and without a word of protest from either one of my parents. There was no such thing as a graduation, we just went to school, stayed until lunch time, and left, that was it, education finished and the wide world awaiting. Never a word was said regarding further education, or getting a job other than the one I was going to, which was working with my Brother Gordon as a property repairer. Gordon had left the fire service sometime earlier, not surprisingly he did not take too well to following orders, he went to work for Michelin, the new ‘place to work’ in Burnley, big money and good benefits. But Gordon enjoyed being a handyman and do-it-your-selfer, he had the itch to be self employed. So G.D.Kirkham property repairer came into existence, and when I joined it soon became G.&D. Kirkham property repairers. The name is self explanatory, we repaired property, anything from hanging backyard gates, repairing roofs, interior painting and decorating, to installing windows. We were the typical do anything people that we are now advised by TV home renovation programs to avoid!

But we did it, driving around Burnley in an ex-war land rover, that finally gave up the ghost and was replaced by a light blue ford transit van. The van had only one seat for the driver so I would sit on a milk crate in the passenger side. Anyone who knew Gordon knew that he drove like a maniac, how we were not killed I have no idea, every time he got behind the wheel he must have thought he was still driving a fire truck, we would career around corners as if lives depended on it, one did, mine! We had the cheapest set of ladder racks we could find, flimsy things sold as ski racks, (ski racks, in Burnley?) Now that tells you something about the quality of these things. Tied on to these we had at least one pair of extension ladders and various planks that made the transit a fast moving rocket launcher. On more than one occasion Gordon would squeal to a halt, and everything stopped moving except me and the milk crate who hit my head on the dashboard, and the ladders which would hurtle ahead and fall right off the van, “well at least we don’t have to lift them down”, he would say with a grin.



what a machine!



My favourite job at the time was stone painting. Around this time the houses in North West Lancashire were undergoing a transformation, they were being painted. To bring a house back to its former splendour, people with money would sandblast the stone, this removed a century of soot and grime restoring the stone to its former brilliance, and they looked good. The trouble is sandblasting was expensive, and invariably removed (blasted away would be more accurate) the cement from between the stone so the house had to be ‘re-pointed’, again a job I loved. My 15 year old entrepreneurial juices were flowing, I immediately saw that if we painted one house, we should be able to paint the rest of them in a block by offering a group discount. I suggested this to Gordon but was rebuffed, “don’t be stupid lad, one at once that’s enough, who do you think we are?”. So we did, to this day you can see rows of terraced houses that have been stone painted, in different shades of ‘stone’ each house looking like a block in a coloring book. One dark, one light, one bright, one has ‘tinting’, darker stone paint added to replicate the natural coloration of trimmed stone. Needless to say most blocks of houses now looked ridiculous. How the council allowed it I don’t know, you can’t do anything now without planning permission, yet anyone was allowed to alter the outside aspect of the house they lived in, I believe to this day that the rot that has overcome areas of Burnley started with this ridiculous fad. The classic example of Jack and Vera's house (they named it 'the rectory') in Coronation street shows what they looked like!



what a mess! a sandblasted house surrounded
by two stonepainted houses



Re-pointing for me was a dream, minimum outlay, the amount of cement used was small, time consuming but that was OK we charged by the hour, the more hours, the more money, and easy. All you had to do was remove any old cement, then carefully replace it so that it was straight, and looked good. I could re-point one terraced  house in a day easily, then the money came in and Donald was a happy camper. Except, Gordon had a heart of gold, he would help anyone he could, for the rest of his life it was one of his traits, if you needed help, call Gordon. All it needed was someone to say they thought the bill was little bit high and the bill was cut in half, barely covering costs, we worked like dogs some weeks and barely covered our expenses, but Gordon was never bothered by this, he was helping people who could not afford to pay. Me, I was having palpitations, I wanted my money, all of it, pay in instalments I suggested, charge interest, anything, but lets get our money.

Even at 15 I saw the potential of being in business, but then who listens to a 15 year old? I worked with Gordon for two years, and during that time learnt business lessons that have helped me throughout my life, both in my corporate world and in my business world. Give good service, provide good quality services or products, make a profit, but, always get paid!

a house, a compulsory purchase order, and Gordon Kirkham

Bugger the council!

My ‘middle’ brother Gordon was the accepted renegade of the family during his younger years. He rode a motorbike, lived life in the fast lane and to me was the Kirkham family version of James Dean. Obviously I was too young to understand most of the conversations that went on, but I do remember my mum saying "he won't be happy until he kills himself on that bike!", he did try, having a bad accident in Yorkeshire of all places, his BSA went off the road and Gordon went off the road with it!

Gordon married a girl called Kathleen, the daughter of our next door neighbours Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, and moved into a one up one down terraced house on Clough street. These houses were incredibly small, comprising as the name suggests one room downstairs and one room upstairs. The toilet was ‘out back’, as we would say and they were not just one up one down, but back to back. Behind his house was another one exactly the same, the mill owners of the 19^th century wanted to cram as many people into any space possible, having said that, in those days having your own rooms was priceless, literally, when most working class families lived four families per terraced house.

But this was 1966, and things were changing, the houses were inspected by Burney borough council and declared as unfit and slated for compulsory purchase and subsequent demolition. Gordon and Kathleen moved to Burdett street, and then it happened. Opening the post one day Gordon was confronted with an estimate from the council for his share of the costs associated with demolishing his old house, apparently the money that he had received for re-housing also included a portion that was to be used to demolish it!

It does seem a strange way of doing things, but then no one has ever accused a local council of not doing strange things. There was enough money, the problem was that Gordon now considered this money his, and not the councils. To this day I remember him standing in our living room on Accrington road, telling my parents that there was “no bloody way that lot would get a penny off him” then ensued a very unflattering view of councils, councillors and basically the whole planning department of Burnley Borough council. The last statement in the conversation was a real jaw dropper, “that’s it then, I’ll pull the bloody house down myself, sod ‘em”





where the bushes are on the right is where the row of
houses stood. Straight ahead is the Connel chip shop
our next door neighbours at 134 Accy road.



Now Gordon was known to be somewhat hot headed, but this time he meant it. At the time he was working as a firefighter, was very fit and strong, and worked a fireman's schedule. Which meant that he got a few days off at once. So on one set of days off he started pulling the house down from the roof down, the slates went first, then the roof beams. I remember looking at the gathered crowd watching Gordon use a large hand saw to cut through the two massive roof beams which ran from house to house, one end at once, and dropping them onto what was left of the upstairs floor. Then the only wall, the front, came down, then the upstairs floor including roof beams were dropped to the ground. This was incredibly dangerous, and why he was not stopped I have no idea. Maybe those "bloody idiots from the council" thought that if he was mad enough to do this, then they should stay well away! The assembled crowd of locals were unanimous in there opinion of ‘by gum he shouldn’t be doin’ that. Grand lad though, bugger the council!”

It must be said that there was no protection from falling masonry, falling glass or falling Kirkham’s. Somehow the house came down without incident, and all that was left was a pile of rubble that was proudly declared to “be all that the bloody council will get from me!” and that was it, one house demolished, one happy Gordon and one amazed group of bystanders.

One of my most vivid memories of Gordon, (I worked with him for a couple of years as a builder) was when he told me that soul music was rubbish and that Buddy Holly was the best. He then went on to give me a spectacular rendition of Peggy Sue complete with high notes, vibrato and twitching legs. Not a bad  rendition actually, but it was in the middle of Harold street when Lucas’s work day ended, once more an assembled crowd were heard to say “by gum he shouldn’t be doin’ that!”

R.I.P Gordon, miss ya buddy

This is the story of Mr Clegg, a basketball, and a useless Donald Kirkham.

So the story continues, part three, teachers don’t teach; do they?

or.........

This is the story of Mr Clegg, a basketball, and a useless Donald Kirkham.

During my last year of education at Hargher Clough school we had to take the eleven plus exam. This has been a sore point with me for a long time, I do believe that children develop at different speeds, and that all young people will eventually find their own level in society. How one exam at the age of eleven is supposed to do that fairly and equitably is a mystery to me. But, this was then, and then you had one chance in life and that was it. If you passed the exam you went to Burnley grammar school, received a higher level of education with the resulting better chances in life. If you failed off you went to Rosegrove Secondary modern school where you received what I call a very basic education. This school was boys only, and had a bad reputation among the locals as being where the lower fringes of society were educated. I sat the exam, and failed, I never did know my score on the exam, or if it was possible to take a retest, as an eleven year old failure I was sent to Rosegrove. Rosegrove Secondary modern school was a contradiction in terms, there was nothing modern about Rosegrove school, from the building to the teachers, age had crept into the very structure of both.

I had some interesting teachers, one of them was a former soldier, Mr Tomlinson, who dealt with us in a very military fashion. We had a middle aged female music teacher who never actually taught music, she had a make up cupboard behind a never used piano which took most of her time, and played records of classical music to a very bored class of boys. “now we will listen to Brahms", and so it began half an hour a week of classical music, my only thought was what about the Beatles? A very bald, shiny headed Mr Clegg taught technical drawing, and of course we had a metal shop and a woodworking shop. None of these shops or classes seemed to teach anything, if you had a talent you did well, if you struggled you just got you got low marks, the concept of investing time to find out what a pupils strength or weakness was and drawing out the best was missing from Rosegrove Secondary modern school.



Rosegrove secondary modern school
being demolished Mr Clegg had the classroom
immediately behind where the vehicle is parked



The emphasis was on providing the local factories with workers who could read a technical drawing and make objects using their hands, brains were optional.Further education was a non starter and never talked about. However, discipline was essential. We had a system called ‘being on report’, where if you did anything wrong any teacher could put you ‘on report’ for a week, during this time any infringement of rules was punishable by a public caning by the headmaster during morning assembly.

On one occasion, one of our pupils who was mentally challenged was put on report by one particularly enthusiastic and bad teacher, this poor boy had only marginal awareness of what was going on around him, and every day did something technically ‘wrong’ because simply put, he did not know what was right or wrong, he just did things. He was the only pupil in our class that was never ridiculed or laughed at, we all helped him, which when I think of the future inhabitants of Her Majesties prison service I went to school with, including one particularly long serving inhabitant, this was remarkable. How he got through his week of report defied logic, but he did, and the whole class applauded him.

Such was my education. Most of the teachers were of the older, well seasoned variety. Biding their time until pensions were available and not really interested. One year we had a new physical education teacher, a wet behind the ears, young, modern haircut, straight out of university teacher. He must have though he had come into the Bronx, the only sports played at Rosegrove were football and cricket, and that was that. There was no coaching, if you were good, or average, you played in a game during PE class, if not you were sent with the other 'no hopers' to mess around with a ball, and went home when the ‘big’ game was over. This young man came in, took one look at the school hall and said we should play basketball! Basketball, what was that? We all looked at each other, we had never heard of basketball, let alone seen a game, or a court, well, some of them had seen a court, but not the one needed here. In a genuine attempt to bring education at Rosegrove into the present day the school had white lines painted on the floor and two backboards with hoops arrived. So we played basketball. The new teacher tried to show us how to play, but our only exposure to balls was to kick them, holding, running and throwing them was weird, very weird. A recipe for disaster was looming. I was awful, I have no hand and Eye coordination, to this day I struggle to catch a ball, and cannot throw one to save my life. But I was tall, evidently that was a good thing for basketball, who knew?



the football team in my final year (1969),
with the new fresh faced PE teacher and
famous basketball back board behind him.



The students at Rosegrove were put into ‘houses’, this was to allow for competitive sports to be played. Each house played the others in sports, with the object of being the top house at the end of the school year. I was in Townely house, and we played our first ever basketball game against Gawthorpe house.

As a young kid I was taller than average, until the others caught up with me at least, so on I went to play in my first basketball game, suddenly the ball came to me, and I had no idea what to do with it, my mind went totally blank, I looked around for someone to throw the ball to, but I just seized. Each house had a house master, ours was the bald shiny headed Mr Clegg who was watching from the side of the court, instantly losing patience he shouted, “Kirkham, you’re useless, get off there now!” so off I slumped, still holding the large brown ball that had materialised in my hands, for some reason I answered back asking him “ Mr Clegg sir, aren’t we supposed to be taught how to play first?”, Mr Clegg visibly fumed, turned red faced and went on a tirade telling me and anyone else within earshot that it was not his or any teachers job to teach, either we knew how to play or we didn’t, and if not we were stupid!

I never played basketball again, and the following year the PE teacher left for pastures new, to my knowledge basketball was never played at Rosegrove after that one year.

the brief history of coachkirkham continued.......

Don Kirkham A.K.A coachkirkham - my very early life. Continued........

So there we were living on Accrington Road, I have to mention that we lived next door to a fish and chip shop. Conell's fish and chip shop. The chip range was against what was for us the hall wall. Even on the coldest day you could touch that wall and feel heat, lots of it. The same obviously applied in summer, on the hottest days of the year, the heat coming from that wall was unbearable, but at least we had some form of heating! long before the days of central heating in terraced houses, this was a little bit of luxury, the heat went up the wall into my parents bedroom, mind you on cold days the single glazed windows regularly had ice on the inside, I used to marvel at the patterns the ice made, scratching my initials (very clever, as Denis and I had the same initials) in the ice, then denying that I had done it!

This was a very nice area, relatively speaking, as mum would say "at least we don't live in Stoneyholme, they're a bad lot down there" Little did she know that my girlfriend and now wife of 36 years lived in Stoneyholme. But more of that part of my life later, much later. Around us we had a whole range of shops, the already mentioned chip shop, a bookies, called a turf accountant, though I am sure that accepted principles of accounting may not have been closely followed , (the owners bought their daughter a pet lamb, and she used to walk it along Accrington road on a dog lead, where else would that happen?) Further on our side of the road was a hardware shop, post office and something called a dainty shop, this shop sold 'stuff'. Mainly cooked meats and cakes, weird, absolutely weird combination of foodstuffs, but there we are. Mum would send me down there at least once a week to buy 1/4lb of roast pork and "don't forget to ask for the stuffing". The stuffing was the key to happiness, or free, either way it must have been one or the other because if I forgot it I was sent back, holding my still stinging ear.



Brian Redman



Across the road was a chemist, ladies wear shop and Redmans grocers. The story went around that the son of Redmans owners raced a car in Monte Carlo, and other big races. To a snotty nosed kid this story was amazing, of course I believed it, even though I had absolutely no proof of it's validity, but to be in a shop where the owners had a son who may know Stirling Moss, the Biggles of the race track, well that was special, as a young boy the thought of buying bread in a shop owned by the family of a racing driver was heaven. I have since found out that Brian Redman was in fact a real life racing legend, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Redman says it all.

Sadly this way of shopping is gone, forever. But at the age of six or seven it was what we and every one else knew, the weekly shop and the daily trips for bread, and who would have thought that it would ever change. It was in this regular, working class world that we, Denis and I, grew up as young lads, and went to school.

Our first school was Coal Clough infant school, I have no real memories of this school, I assume that I survived relatively unscathed, because later we went to Hargher Clough junior school. This was a very impressive building, red brick, the famous NORI brick from Accrington, with a caretakers house at the entrance to the school, the caretaker was the friend of everyone, a kind man who would always pick you up if you fell, and take you inside when bleeding, falling on concrete hurt, no grass for pl

aying football on was visible anywhere near this school!



Hargher Clough school as it looks today
this is the 'girls side' of the school



One interesting thing that has always stuck in my mind is that even though the classes were mixed, the playgrounds were separated. A very high brick prison type wall divided the girls from the boys, things such as physical education, and sports were separate, but classes such as English and what we called sums were not. I am not sure what we could have got up to, or maybe I was just naive, and I never thought it was strange either. We, Denis and I were placed in the same class, our mum was very adamant to the school headmaster that "twins should never be separated", incidentally she told me the same thing when I told her many years later that I was emigrating to Canada. So it began, my memories of school milk, heated on the pipes during winter, and playing out in the school yard are very pleasant, but things were not all happiness.

This was where a couple of things became very apparent, the first was that twins were ridiculed mercilessly by their fellow pupils, and that Denis and I were seen as one. If one of us broke the rules, did something wrong, or were wrongly accused of something, we were both guilty. Guilt by association is one thing, but guilt by birth is even worse. My favourite memory is that we had two classes, made up of A and B forms, the A form class was run by Mrs. Hargeaves, the B form class was run by Mr. Bannister, so the break time football match was always "Aggies tek Baggies"! If one of us kicked the ball out of the yard, we both had to go and get it back, once in absolute horror I kicked the ball and broke a window, we were both dragged into the headmasters office to explain why. Around this very early time of my life I knew that I 'had to get away, and be myself', this proved to be a prophescy that came true, though it retrospect maybe I got too far detached from my family, but no-one can ever accuse me of doing half a job! More of that later.

and so it continues, .....the history of coachkirkham

the history on Don Kirkham, A.K.A coachkirkham - pre school

So this is my first blog, which is quite surprising seeing as many, many people have been saying that I should have started one many years ago. So what has prompted to actually write one, simple answer is I don't know. Maybe to see my name in print, (very good for the ego). Or to think, maybe wrongly, that other people want to read me in print, (again very good for the ego). So in very simple terms, based on what I have just written I would say that this is an ego booster, plus I enjoy writing, so here goes.

            Who the hell is Don Kirkham, A.K.A. coachkirkham?  Amazed as I am that you have never heard of me, it seems obvious that you do not live in Flin Flon, Manitoba. If you did, you would know me, not because I am famous, but because Flin Flon is so small that we all know each other. Not in a romantic sense I may add, this is not THAT sort of town, but we are a very friendly community, where the values of helping on another still exist. But less of values, and more of me. (yeppers the ego is needing a boost)

Don Kirkham (coachkirkham)

Don Kirkham A.K.A coachkirkham - the very early years.

            I was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England on the 3rd of April 1953, in the misery that was Burnley at the time, smoke filled air, cotton mills, cloth capped men and scruffy kids, I must have been the only ray of sunshine shining on Burnley on that momentous day. Clouded only by the small fact that I was a twin, my early fame was eclipsed and shared by my elder brother, (by twenty minutes), Denis, who popped out before me. I think he kicked me in the head to get out first, and for that I have never forgiven him and kick him back in the head at every possible chance. We were born at home, as most kids were at the time, something that now seems to be the 'new' way of giving birth, but I have no memory of the house I was born in, other than seeing it on the outside when I was older. Found in the centre of a row of terraced houses called Scotts Terrace, it was very small, facing a stone wall that kept the populous from the main railway tracks that ran from Yorkshire to Lancashire. There were trains throughout my early childhood on that  track, day and night, but my parents, and my other three older brothers all say that they never heard them, I heard them from two hundred yards away, so how they never heard them is a mystery to me. The "I never heard them" changed to " we got used to them" in later years.

            Sometime in my very early childhood we moved to 134 Accrington Road. When I say 'we' moved, there was my eldest Brother Trevor, middle brother Gordon, and the youngest brother Kevin, somehow or other Denis and I were always referred to as 'the twins', never as the brothers of Trevor, Gordon or Kevin. Accrington road as its name suggests was the main road between Burnley and Accrington. It was a very busy road, with big trucks (lorries in the UK), cars, bikes, you name it travelling on it. Denis and I became very adept as kids in crossing the road, timing our runs with precision, not because we wanted to, but traffic does not stop for pedestrians in Burnley, nor does it slow down, it just keeps moving. we had to time our crossing so perfectly to make sure that we got through two lanes of cars travelling at thirty miles an hour safely.

           

134 Accrington Road was a typical two up two down terraced house, which as its name suggests had two room downstairs, and originally two bedrooms upstairs, the back bedroom being divided into two separate rooms by a wooden partition wall. A central staircase connected the two floors from the 'hall', which ran from the front door to the living room. The front facing room was called the front room, for obvious reasons, and was for the most part out of bounds. We had what mum called a scullery on the back of the house. Previous owners had built a kitchen extension into the backyard, this must have been many years and many owners before us because like the house itself it was built of stone and had a slate roof.

134 Accrington Road, (2nd window from the far end)

Into this house moved my parents Harry and Peggy, one of the older brothers Kevin,  Denis and I, five people into two bedrooms. I am not sure when Trevor or Gordon moved out, or even if they moved in, I certainly don't remember it, Trevor was 18 when I was born, and Gordon not far behind him, good thing because it only left five in a two bedroom house. My parents had the front bedroom, and we had the other bedrooms. The downstairs front room was the 'best' room, and never used except for special occasions, such occasions have left my memory because I can't remember it ever being used. So the house was full, we could not get anything else in, until we got a sheep dog that is (talk about a fish out of water, sheep on Burnley streets were as common as millionaires)!  

Each room had a fireplace, and the scullery or kitchen had a big white stone sink in the far right corner. This sink was not only our washing dishes sink, but also our washing people sink. As was normal in the early sixties, at least in our area of Burnley, we had no inside bathroom, we had an outside toilet at the bottom of the backyard. Which I may add was better than our neighbours Mr and Mrs Barnes, who still had a long drop toilet. A hole with a raised top at sitting level, and toilet seat on it that seemed to drop to impenetrable darkness. Into this hole people would relieve themselves and a tippler, which took water form the kitchen sink washed the deposit into the sewer. At least we had a 'proper toilet' as mum would proudly declare to anyone who would listen. "one that flushes". However we had no bath, it may seem ridiculous and even inconceivable now, but we really did have a tin bath that we used in front of the fire in the living room. I was the youngest, and was the last, somehow lowering myself into dirty water did not bother me, after all I always had, get in, wash, get out dry off. Once a week normally on a Sunday. Incidentally I cannot remember either of my parents having a bath, or talking about having a bath, I am not sure if they did, but I suppose they must have.

            And so we moved in, and my early life began. We were, in the words Denis, (who has a memory that beats mine anytime) the scruffy kids on the street. Looking back I now know that he is right. As twins in the late fifties and early sixties we were dressed in identical clothing. Not that being identical was bad enough, but being dressed the same was worse. We were always on show, being paraded around like poodles to anyone who uttered the words we grew to hate, "ooh look they must be twins, ahhhh". To this day if I see twins dressed alike I feel like grabbing their parents and telling them what I think of them, but I don't! We were dressed in clean clothes every Monday, and they lasted for a week, 'top' clothes and underwear, one set, one week, but seeing as we knew no different we were happy. So that's it, the next episode of this blog will be starting school, as twins, and trying to be individuals, (plus a few other things)

Don Kirkham