tribute to Dave Miller

Now that the Christmas rush is over in our store I can write a little more.

This blog is my tribute to Dave Miller.

Dave and I emigrated within weeks of each other to Flin Flon in 1981, both of us said the same thing when we first arrived, “we can’t stay here, look at this place, as soon as our contract is up we’re away!” Thirty years later we are still here. Our arrival in Flin Flon was such a dramatic change to what we had been used to, he was from Manchester and I from Burnley. When a population of eight thousand gets a community city status in Manitoba, you begin to get the picture. Here we were, new residents living in the ‘city’ of Flin Flon. A city that has a population that equals the number of people that live in one housing estate in England.

“There are probably more people sitting in the Bob Lord stand than live here!” I told him.

“But who would sit there when they could watch city?” was Dave’s reply.



Dave Miller



So it began, Dave’s wife Marilyn is a devoted Manchester United fan, who would, and still does, dress in a red United shirt at every opportunity, Dave was a blue through and through. I am a Burnley fan, but in the early eighties there was no football on Canadian or US television, commentators laughed hysterically at any mention of ‘soccer’. So I adopted Manchester United as my second team, at least people had heard of the them, and Manchester, no-one had heard of Burnley, let alone Turf Moor. In normal British banter we would confuse our workmates with loud verbal attacks. Threatening to inflict terrible; deadly pain on each other once we knew the latest football results.

In the early eighties football was considered an ‘immigrant’ game in Canada. News and results were hard to get, the internet had not been dreamt of, short wave radio (remember that?) was unpredictable, with newspapers the only real source of sports news sent over by snail mail from friends and relatives. Now of course that has all changed with football being played everywhere by everyone. But in 1981 the receipt of a newspaper from England meant that we could turn to the back pages and look for the scores and league tables, and argue vociferously , great times! The Canadians we worked with were confused by our passion, and also confused by the immigrants from other countries who were just as bad in their French German and a variety of Slavic tongues.

 

the terrible two,
Malcolm Allison and joe Mercer



For those of you around at the time, Burnley were dropping like a stone through the leagues, City were specializing in mediocre results with their philandering manager Malcolm Allison, aided and abetted by Joe Mercer, who were more interested in results with women than results on the field. Manchester  United had just started to be a powerhouse, with the likes of Denis Law, Bobby Charlton and  George Best tearing up the score sheets like whirling dervishes. But I held my own in every ‘discussion’, Dave would pout, Marilyn would gloat and I would make excuses. Through the years City went down to the old second division, Marilyn reminded both of us that United were champions-again, and they both laughed at Burnley.

three United greats
Best, Charlton and Law

Last year was priceless when all three teams were in the premiership. Dave went to England for a holiday and kindly brought me back a couple of programmes, and a special edition of the daily mirror about Burnley. Such was our relationship, thirty years of threats, insults, respect and football.

On Christmas day Dave went out to walk his dog and shovel snow, during which he died of a massive heart attack. To my teenage soccer players he was ‘old’, he was sixty; (only a couple of years older than me), but to me he was not old at all. He was a big man, I have no doubt this contributed to his death, his liking of all things that were food and beer related was well known. Best described a friendly giant, with a grin and laugh to match. I will miss Dave, we did not speak as often lately, he gave up his dayshift job pipefitting and took an ‘easier’ job as a janitor in our high school, so he was working every evening, the exact time I am coaching. But we did meet up around town, and we would start again, City, United, Burnley, and the world cup was a mutual disaster for all of us. It was great to see other people looking and laughing at the group of us argue about football, only now they were joining in !  

Rest easy Dave, RIP.

A very humbling story............

There are no photographs or humor with this blog, none are required.

From 1974 until 1981 I worked for Michelin in Burnley. I worked in the maintenance department as a mechanic and though that I knew everything. I was successful, having more good things in my life than I ever thought I would have. I was married, lived in a new house full of nice furniture, and had just bought a new car. For a 22 year old my life was pretty good, we had a great social life, I played football for local clubs, we had money to spend and all we needed. Not surprisingly my (big) head told me that I was always right, why would I think otherwise? I had made good decisions so far and things were working out, and my wife and I had done it all ourselves.

One of the members of the mechanics shop at Michelin was a diminutive man called Harry, (I apologise but I have forgotten his last name) Harry was a ‘Burnley boy’ as he would proudly say. He worked as an oiler, with a very unglamorous job, which was not in the conventional way of thinking, skilled work. Harry was a typical ‘Lancashire lad’, he turned up for work every day in a shirt and tie, which was tucked into his coveralls, his grey hair was combed neatly and he did exactly what he was told and worked hard. Harry was the butt of many jokes in our department. He was small, five feet nothing, and he looked and acted as if he belonged in a bygone era. You could imagine Harry tipping his cap at the bosses horse and carriage car as it drove by. A genuine, Lancashire working class man was our Harry.

One day I turned up to work with a stubble, normally I was clean shaven, mainly because beards and me don’t mix, but also because it was the fashion to be ‘smooth’. But this particular day I had no shaving cream at home and took a childish strop and just went to work unshaven. Harry was always immaculate, even though he had a dirty, heavy job. He was always clean shaven, well groomed and wore clean coveralls. When Harry saw this he asked me why I hadn’t shaved, I told him that I had no shaving cream and ‘obviously’ could not shave. He asked me why don’t I just use soap, of course I told him that he was a silly little man and he should know better, if you have no shaving cream how can you shave I asked.

Harry did not get mad, he just left me alone, later in the day we met up again at break time, when we sat down and he told me his story. Harry had been in the second world war, and was one of the first British soldiers captured in Burma by the Japanese. He was sent to a forced labour camp, building roads. Many men died, effectively worked to death, or were executed by their captors. Harry told me how the captured British soldiers always shaved every day, sometimes using their own urine for water, without soap or shaving cream. They did this because it separated them from their captors and made them feel ‘British’. He then told me that every man executed was clean shaved, even though they knew there was no point. Harry was a hero. This little man, standing five and a half feet tall was braver than anyone I had ever met. His story was told not because he wanted to embarrass me, but to teach me that you don’t need luxuries, and that self respect is worth more than anything. As he said, “you’re not a bad lad, you just don’t know”

I felt embarrassed, two feet tall, humbled and upset with myself. I was standing next to a small man who was ten feet tall, a war hero, a man who had seen more horror than I ever will, and who was a real gentleman. Life is full of lessons, choices and actions. Harry proved that the spirit of a man will not be broken by brutality. I had proven to him that I was spoilt brat that needed a life lesson. I got one of the best lessons I have ever had.

I have always remembered my conversation with Harry. I can recite every word. I can still see his face, his eyes that had seen so much, now with a hint of a tear. November 11^th is a working day in England, with two minutes silence at eleven o clock. Harry would stop work, bow his head, stand straight up and salute, and then go back to work. For a couple of years before he retired I saw him do this; then he just got on with his job. I still feel embarrassed when I think about how self centered I was, the only thing bigger than my head was my ego, I had become an all round prat. Here was harry, A brave and very proud man, a living hero. I feel privileged to have met him and to have known him. Thank you Harry.

haircut anyone????

How can we save money, let me tell you........

There was no doubt about it, I did not have what could be called a luxurious childhood. Silver and spoon were not a vocal combination that was evident in our house, more a case of shovel and coal. Our mum was always looking for ways of saving money. I think part of this came from the time spent in the ration years, but this was 1965 and we had no war and no rationing. We used to have scrambled eggs watered down with milk, ate sheeps neck and scrag end (whatever that is), and buy broken biscuits from Redman’s grocers.

Dad worked moving furniture, one benefit was that quite often the people being moved used to leave unwanted stuff behind and dad and his helpers were given the opportunity to keep them it if they wanted. We used to get everything from furniture, old toys to pots and pans. One fateful day dad brought home a pair of hand operated hair cutting shears. “nathen” he said “use these on’t twins” The things looked like something out of an Australian sheep shearers backpack. A big, hand operated stainless steel implement. The gleam in the eyes of mum was one of realisation that she could save money. Our haircuts cost 6d every six weeks or so, from the barbers across the road. Not a huge amount would be saved and I still don’t believe that the saving was needed, but the old saving bug had kicked in.

arghhhhh

The look in mums eyes if we ever saw a dead rabbit at the roadside gave away that she wanted to stop and pick it up (we never did). We did hit a rabbit once, and we did stop and pick it up, dining on rabbit is great, I still like the flavour, but when the bones have been shattered and are in every bite, why not spend the 2s-6d and buy one! But dead wildlife aside, we had the opportunity to save 1s every six weeks, carry on with the haircuts.

The haircut operation had to be carried under the guidance of Kevin, one of our older brothers. Mum always held Kevin up to the rest of us as the brains of the family, being the only one of us who had been to grammar school, and now working as a chemist in a plastics firm he was the Stephen Hawkins of the Kirkham’s in mum’s eyes.  

not happy

 



What semester of chemical engineering covered haircutting I have no idea, but one evening we were told by mum that she and Kevin would cut our hair. A chair was brought out from the living room and placed in the kitchen. Now Kevin had, and still has, shaky hands, dad had hands that could shake a cocktail without trying, and Kevin was following suit. These are not the strengths of a god haircutter. Denis went first as the oldest, and mum and Kevin set about him. The shears were old, not sharp in the slightest and ripped more hairs out than they cut. As they were squeezed and released to operate them they made a clacking sound. The haircut was awful, a very basic ‘bowl’ cut. Knowing as I did that mine would be the very same, “twins have to be the same” heaven forbid that we would look different, I said nothing. Denis was in tears and I was nervously watching, knowing that my turn was next. It must be easier waiting for your turn on the gallows. Inevitably I was told to “sit down” and “sit still” I was sat down and a towel put around my neck, good for catching dripping blood or hair. 

"the hard bit, the back"



Mum started, squeezing the clippers furiously, moving faster than the shears clacked the pain was excruciating as at least half the hairs were pulled out and not ‘sheared’. Kevin did what he did best, told us to sit still and waited for his turn with the cutters, which mum gave him for the ‘important bit, the back of the head’. He took over and immediately told me that it was “my fault” because “he moved” To this day I know that I did not move, but I also knew even at my young age that if anything was done wrong, Kevin would blame me, and mum would believe him. He called mum over and said, “well! I have no choice, he moved and look what happened, I will just have to make it all the same, it’ll look stupid though, but it’s his fault, he moved”

Mum slapped me for moving, Kevin approached again with his shaking hands holding the clickety clacking shears to cut more hair, and Denis resisted the urge to laugh. To say I looked stupid was an understatement, mum made a special effort to find a mirror to show me what happens when I can’t sit still, the cut was awful, the hair ended half way up my head, with bare skin underneath. As if we didn’t have enough people making fun at us because we were twins, now I had this! Luckily hair grows, the shears were never tried again, but only because “because they can’t sit still”.



not my fault!!!



Denis and I still went across the road for a haircut We always had the same cut no matter what we asked for because mum told the barber what to do before we got there, Kevin decided that being a barber was not for him, I looked more stupid than ever, and mum had saved at least 1s. The shears disappeared somewhere; I have no idea where they went, if the person who got rid of them reads this, thankyou!

A more modern story for a change…..

“wow, that was close”

In the fall of 1991 I went with a group of work colleagues to a fly in fishing camp for a long weekend of rest and relaxation. The camp is on Kipahigan lake, a fairly short 33 mile flight straight North of Flin Flon. We flew to the camp in a Beaver aircraft owned by Jackson airways, a local company that flies fishermen, hunters and mining personnel to many a remote lake in our area. Kipahigan lake is beautiful and remote, without road access it still has the ‘untouched by human hand’ look. The pilots for Jacksons fit into two categories, either very experienced or very young. The former are in short supply and are much sought after by charter aircraft companies, the latter are building up hours before they can move up to the next class of plane and possibly a job with a regional airline.



Jackson's air base in Flin Flon



I have flown in many float planes during my time in Canada’s North, and the first thing I look at is the age of the pilot, hoping that he or she is not straight out of flight school. This trip out we had a mid twenties pilot who we all knew from previous flights. What you don’t want is someone from the ‘Vietnam school of flying’ as we say around here. They are all the same, showing off their skills with late take offs, steep landings and ninety degree banked turns. Just what everybody wants! As it turned out the flight into Kipahigan in the Beaver was very smooth, a bit fast on the landing for my liking, but we all got there in one piece. Around here we have a saying, ‘any landing that you walk away from is a good one’. Seeing as we all walked away, it was a good one.



flying into Kipahigan



After three days of wilderness, fishing, bear and eagle watching it was time to go home. The wind was quite strong, with small whitecaps on the lake. The lake has an island and the camp is on the island, to be safe from bears, who thankfully really do not like to swim. We waited for the flypast, this is where the plane will ‘buzz’ the camp as a signal to get ready, then you make sure you have everything before it lands. We had no sooner heard the fly over when the plane was down and motoring towards the dock. The pilot jumped out and we all gasped, he looked about sixteen, but we all knew he had to be eighteen. “My buddy Jeff just said simply “God help us”

Loaded up we got in, the old Beaver aircraft has been a stalwart of Canada’s backcountry for many years. This one was loaded up pretty good, five men, five men’s gear, plus fish, a drum of fuel from a pick up he had just been on, plus pilot, it was full, and heavy. The interior of a beaver is very basic. Everything is made to be removed. Beavers spend more time flying freight in and out of mining camps than people, so the seats are bolted in and removed on a regular basis. The seats are what you would find in a world war two movie, no more than an aluminum frame and leather sling back and seat, with a basic seatbelt to keep you in it. I think that the only reason they have seat belts is in the event of a crash at least you would still be in your seat and easier to find!



Havilland Beaver



The pilot was young, very young, we were not happy campers. The take off is always into the wind, taking off on water takes longer when fully loaded, having to build up speed to lift the plane on its floats, build airspeed up and get the thing airborne. We taxied down the lake with the wind behind us, bobbing up and down on the waves. One thought has always come to mind when I do this, are boats really meant to fly? We turned and saw that the wind had picked up, producing decent waves. On land it would be perfect for a short take off, on water, who knows. We revved up and started the taxi. We went and went and went. Trying to build up speed, the shore came closer, and closer, the pilot tried to get us up but the plane could not free itself from the drag of the waves. All of a sudden it lifted out of the water and started rising, but the shore was very close, and the trees! How we missed the trees I have no idea, I closed my eyes, there was not a sound from what are normally loud men on a weekend trip. We all looked at the pilot, he was visibly shaken, turned to us with a relieved grin on his face and said, ‘wow” he said “that was close, didn’t think we’d make it”

A couple of weeks later the same pilot crashed on take off from an exploration camp, hitting the trees. Luckily he had no where near enough airspeed and was not killed, though the plane flipped and was obviously badly damaged. He walked away and was rescued by the mining company. Rumour has it that Bill Jackson, owner of the plane, picked the pilot up at the crash site, flew him back to Flin Flon, took him to his rented apartment and waited until he had packed, dropped him off at the bus depot and bought him a ticket to Winnipeg without saying a word. That was the end of his flying career in Flin Flon!

Tommy, a true warrior…….

Tommy, a true warrior…….

where's the sheep?

Most homes with children have pets. It’s a fact of life that every child wants a pet, something exciting, fun, to play with, like a dog, you can throw twigs and they bring them back. A true friend to depend on. And who, in turn depends on you. We had a black and white sheepdog when I was very young. But with an obvious lack of sheep on the streets of Burnley, it played instead with kids on the Harold street ‘rec’. Unfortunately the poor animal was out playing one day and got carried away and ‘nipped’ a young boy on the ankle, I assume the inbred instinct to herd sheep does not apply to herding young boys. I don’t think it was a ferocious unprovoked attack, but a bite is a bite, and dad’s reaction was to have the dog put down. Fearing as he did that once a dog has the taste of human flesh every living thing is seen as a potential meal. This philosophy was nothing new. I was watching a BBC children’s program called Blue Peter one day, and the vet on the program said that dogs should be given a blend of milk and eggs to give them protein. The Blue Peter crew had a dog, and it looked very healthy. Dad went ballistic when I asked him if I could do the same for our dog. “Never feed dogs milk or eggs, cows and chickens will never be safe!” How a dog knows that an egg comes from a chicken I have no idea, and if I ever see a dog milking a cow – please shoot me, I must be completely mad! But such was dad’s philosophy, and we lived with it.

With the demise of the sheepdog, we wanted something to replace it, “no more dogs” was decreed, and so be it. So we bought a tortoise, a hard shelled tropical animal used to living in jungles amid lush vegetation, ‘Tommy’ was brought to 134 Accrington road to live on an Axminster wool carpet and cold linoleum.



Blloody hell! Tommy



Tommy had a lot going for it as a pet. It didn’t make any noise, needed little food, just the occasional lettuce leaf, and did not need walking on cold wet nights or early mornings before or after school. As far as exciting, this would not describe keeping a tortoise. Other than retracting their head and legs inside their shells and becoming immobile, not much happens, it would walk slowly across the floor, stopping occasionally and looking around, no doubt for a nice shady banyan tree. This was both a blessing and a curse. Poor Tommy would sleep anywhere, after eating it would stop and sleep, often in the middle of the floor. I lost count the number of times someone came into the living room and kicked the poor thing right across the room, “bloody hell!” was heard often followed by a thud as Tommy was stopped by either the opposite wall or a chair leg.

I have no doubt that the demise of Tommy was a result of multiple concussions, how many times can anything survive being kicked across a room and come to a dead stop. No doubt that is what eventually happened, the ultimate ‘dead stop’.  “Where’s Tommy?” someone would say coming into the room, “bloody hell” and a dull thud as shell hit something. Tommy’s head must have been spinning, wondering what was going on, or maybe Tommy said “bloody hell!” followed by “hang on - here we go again,” before hitting a chair leg or stone wall.



yum yum - lettuce!



Tommy disappeared, one day it was there, the next it was gone, “died” we were told, to be honest there was no gaping hole left in my life, not much changed. Tommy could neither bark nor wag a tail, and definitely lacked the soulful eyes of a dog.

I did see once if it could swim. I once dropped it into a bucket full of water. Blue Peter had done it the week before with turtles, and apparently turtles swam very well, sometimes across oceans. Tommy however sank like a stone, head and feet retracted, not even trying to swim, I simply thought that it was the only turtle that could not swim, ‘lack of practice, must be’! Confusing turtles with tortoises was not good for Tommy. It looked like a round, green oyster. I pulled it out of the bucket, put it down on the Axminster, immediately its legs and head came back out and it moved the fastest I had ever seen it, running under the sofa where it stayed for what seemed like days.

Tommy, one of the quiet heroes of my childhood - RIP

The ritual of the Christmas cards, and others....

If you are like me you very rarely read the verse in a Christmas card, after all how many ways are there to say merry Christmas? Or hoping that Santa came and went with presents? These verses are nothing if not basic poetry, to be honest I don’t think I have ever read one, let alone tried to match each verse up with different people.

Not so in our house. Around this time of year mum would buy her collection of cards from Woolworths, boxed in sets of twenty five they were nice enough cards, with Christmas trees on the front, scenes of snow, and people merrily skating. By this time I had never seen a real living Christmas tree, snow covered mountains and skating was only seen on television. But I figured that somewhere these things were normal, just not on a busy main road in Burnley.

One evening mum would declare, “Harry, it’s time to write the cards - lads (Denis and I) keep quiet!” Out came the two or three boxes of Woolworths cards complete with envelopes. I never knew we had so many relatives, I certainly never met them, they were either well hidden or hiding from us, either way I had no faces to match up to the names about to be announced.



snow christmas trees and moonlight



Mum would read every verse, study it, carefully, then say “that one goes to Bill” or “that verse suits Eddie” and so it went for at least an hour, mum would read each card, dad would follow instructions writing the same ‘merry Christmas from Harry, Peggy and family’ in each one, then writing the address on the envelope. The envelopes were never sealed, because unsealed envelopes were cheaper to post, besides who wanted to read other peoples Christmas cards? Mum took a lot of care matching said verse to said recipient. I am not sure if anyone appreciated how much effort she put into it, or that anyone else would do something like that. It is humbling now to think of the time and care she spent. I must admit that (if I even remember) I now just buy a card put it in the envelope and send it off, many times I forget to write anything.

Dad was stubborn to a fault, he also pretended to have no memory, but he remembered every address for every family member. I remember one occasion he was talking about birthdays, “how can I be expected to remember all the birthdays, there’s just too many of them” and then recite each one perfectly! He would sit down with his cigarette, as mum handed him each card with the instruction “that ones to Arthur” he would say “now then let me think, what’s his address?” and then write it on the envelope, of course there were no postal codes them but even so I think he would have remembered.

A funny story related to birthday cards, I have never been into birthdays, mine are not that important to me, they have been more important to other people, for years I have heard friends say “you have to go out tonight, it’s your birthday” my answer is normally “why”. I know it’s not normal, but then again I can never be accused of being a follower. I like the beat of my own drum, I can live very well with myself and very easily with what I want to do, but rarely with what someone else wants me to do, especially if it’s “just because” Many years ago my birthday came and went, no big deal, it was just another day to me, and a couple of days later, at the weekend I phoned Denis and wished him happy belated birthday I said, “sorry I haven’t sent you a card yet I forgot” Denis answered “but I’m your twin, it’s the same date as yours!” I have never forgotten his birthday after that!

Now my wife and I have the perfect system for our own cards. We have cards in a drawer, Christmas, birthday and wedding anniversary cards. On the appointed days out they come, when the joyous event has gone they are put away again until next year. It works and with no stress, they look good, and everyone is happy. Our friends ridiculed us (in a nice way), but slowly one by one, more and more of them are doing what we do, except they are now ‘recycling’ We really were ahead of the curve, especially since we were just making life easy!

Stop the bells!

Call me a Grinch if you want, but don’t judge me yet…….

The bombardment on my eardrums has begun in earnest. I have just tried a half a dozen radio stations to find one that is not playing constant Christmas music. If I hear any more songs about Rudolph, Santa’s and snow I will go crazy! You know what everyone? I know it’s Christmas, as soon as Halloween was removed from my local Walmart store and replaced with Christmas, I knew that ‘the season’ had arrived. It may only have been the first of November, but the season of merriment and joy had come around once more.



me grinch! read on blogsters



 Now I see red bells, green boughs and banners. Santa’s can be seen driving sleds, cars and smiling from underneath snowdrifts. Reindeer are everywhere, pulling Santa, smiling at Santa and obviously they have been drinking and sled driving (red noses are a dead give away). Goblins and Elves with big ears and pointy noses are hiding in cupboards waiting to deliver toys to little boys and girls.

Am I a Grinch? A party pooper. A miserable person devoid of festive cheer? Why am I not stopping strangers in the high street with random greetings of cheer, wishing happiness to all and sundry? Because I am sick of it! There I said it, I am sick of the commercialism of Christmas. With Christmas week sales, boxing week sales, heck we even have black Friday sales in preparation for the Christmas shopping season in the US on the last weekend on November! Do you eat nuts, dark fruit cake and little Chinese oranges on a regular basis? I bet not, yet Christmas brings a nut feeding frenzy that would make a squirrel green with envy. Walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts abound together with dates, molasses and citrus delights. Not all this food is eaten and there is enough food wasted over Christmas to feed a small African nation for months.

The wife of one of my former work colleagues had to take three days of work last year with ‘Christmas stress’ She apparently ‘wasn’t ready’ for the festive days. Stressed to the max she withered under the pressure of unbaked mince pies, packaged cake mixes and frozen appetizers. Appearing at last on Christmas Eve, with a drug induced smile ready for forty eight hours of gastronomic engorgement.

Is this what Christmas is supposed to be? I am not a religious zealot, far from it. In fact my life these days seems to have a certain amount of cynicism regarding most things. But I thought Christmas was a religious festival for Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Instead it has become a festival for the worship of material things.



Donald burger!



The stress of Christmas is self induced, relax, you don’t have to get over it if you don’t get into it. I am mister cool at Christmas, with the confident swagger that comes with knowing that I am not being sucked into the morass of wondering what to buy for whom, with what, and how many. If you are upset that you have not received a gift from me, don’t worry, you are not alone, no-one has. Each year my wife and I decide on a charity, and give to it, we have enough ‘things’ most of us do, so why do we want more? Last year some poor African tribe received a goat from Oxfam named Donald, I hope they kept it for the intended milk it would produce, but somehow I think it may have been Donald burgers very quickly. We did an act of charity for someone. Maybe the global impact of our little goat was miniscule, but in our minds we did something constructive, and I am sure the goat was very tender! The year before our local food bank benefited from our good fortune.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped

Please think about this blog, think about what this season is all about, please buy gifts for your loved ones, but don’t stress out over them. Spend time with family, rejoice in knowing that we are all very fortunate in our lives. The poor who have nothing appreciate everything we give to them, yet we who have everything sometimes appreciate nothing.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Bathtubs, ‘weshing’ and deo-dorent

Bathtubs, ‘weshing’ and deo-dorent

As we progressed through our childhood it was when we were probably ten years old that we had a bath installed.  Of course the problem of where to put it was a big one, we had five rooms, two downstairs rooms, and three bedrooms, the original back bedroom had been divided into two smaller rooms so that we had three functioning bedrooms. In these three bedrooms were myself and Denis in one, and Kevin in the other, with the hot water tank. Gordon had by this time left to live on Clough Street in a soon to be demolished house, and I have no memory at all of Trevor living at home. The bedrooms were full. The bath could not go upstairs. The front room was just that, a room for keeping clean for ‘guests’, we never had any ‘guests’ in there that I remember, not living anyway, I do remember a couple of family members lying in state there, and even a neighbour or two.

So there was only the kitchen. As all kitchens that were added on to the original terraced houses, this one was narrow, and not all that long, but it did have a water supply and a drain. It was decided by default that the bath tub would go into the kitchen. A plumber was called and a green bath tub arrived one day. As I remember it, as you walked into the kitchen, there was a small fridge on your left, then some cupboards, the sink was attached to the right hand wall at the bottom, it one of those big, white stone sinks that are worth a fortune now, the cooker was next to that and then the back door. It was ‘very tight’ to use building vernacular. The cupboards beside the fridge were removed and the bath was put in its place, across from the oven doors. The bath tub had no taps, and we filled it using a hose from the sink. I assume that taps were either too expensive, or too difficult to install, but it had a drain, which ran outside the kitchen wall.

a green bath - luxury!

To make this bath multi function we had a hardboard top installed. This was hinged on the wall side, and could be lifted up when you wanted a bath. One very important thing was that the kitchen had been added on to the back of the house, right behind where a window was originally placed. This window still existed. From the living room you could see through this window into the kitchen, and of course vice versa. Not exactly the most private way to have a bath. But we had a worktop, even if it was only three feet of the ground, and a bath – yeah! No more tin bath and carrying water in from the kitchen, baths were still only weekly mind you, normally Sundays, before ‘Sunday night at the London palladium’ came on. On cold days we would light the gas oven and have the door open to stay warm, for houses with two foot thick walls they could be very cold, this was as close as I ever got to central heating until I moved into my own house many years later.





The question is, what did we do for washing and bathing before we had a bath installed? Simple, all bodily washing was done in front of the big white stone sink in the kitchen. I have vivid memories of dad having his nightly ‘wesh’ in front of the sink, I only ever so him ‘wesh’ his head, face and arms, whatever happened to the rest of him I shudder to think. He would roll down the collar of his shirt, tuck it back into the shirt itself and scrub his head and face. That was it. I never saw any part of his body washed at all, and this from a man who did physical work all day. Many years later after mum had passed away he came to visit me in Canada, he would not wash in the bathroom, he stood in front of the kitchen sink, and washed there. The first morning after his arrival I thought I had died, there was a knock on our bedroom door, and there was the ghostly white figure of dad standing in his white vest saying that he wanted ‘a wesh’ but he could not find any ‘soo-ap’ by the kitchen sink.



the man from the telly!



The wonder of our Granada rental television was that it brought many advertisements into our house. One day mum said that she would get some of that ‘deo-dorent’ for dad, because his arms ‘stunk’. Dad laughed and said it ‘wer reyt’ but mum was determined. She went into town to Tasker’s, Burnley’s first attempt at a supermarket, and bought a spray can of Autumn Roses deodorant, mum pronounced it deo-dorent, (she also wanted those new ‘flori-essent’ lights)



building where taskers was
on Turf st, Burnleys first
supermarket



Now dad was not a man to be dragged into the present, I am sure he would have been happy to stay somewhere in the early 1900’s, but mum was determined to rid him of his under arm signature. Dad pretended not to know how to use a spray can, for all I know he really may not have known, he could be very stubborn when he did not want to do something. Mum was having none of it, she told him to stand still and hold his arms up, there he stood, arms straight up in the air while she sprayed him under his arms. It was a weekly ritual, the original Kirkham version of the Saturday night special. Cleaning over with for another seven days they went to a pub run by our uncle and auntie called the railway hotel in Brierfield. Mum and dad worked there on a Saturday night and earned a bit of extra money, and I assume enjoyed a night out as well. What the customers thought when dad walked in with his new signature scent of Autumn Roses I can only guess, knowing those times only too well, he may well have been the only one in there with deo-dorent!

back to normal blogsters, more tales from a Burnley kid

The birth of a mamil?

As an identical twin in the sixties it was impossible to be seen as an individual. I was always one of ‘the twins’ we were not Donald and his brother Denis, we were ‘the twins’, wherever we went we were dressed in identical clothes, and of course expected to be identical in everything. One thing is certain about kids, none of them are the same, they are all individuals; two of my memories of that time are this question and answer,

“Are they twins?”

“They must be identical, they look alike”

Our mum was oblivious to the fact that there were two kids in the house. One would have assumed that the pain of childbirth multiplied by two would have given the secret away, but even so I really do think that she thought she only had one child, albeit in two halves. (Maybe that’s why we only have one first name, instead of the normal two). Around the age of thirteen or so it was decided that we get a suit each, for a wedding I think but to be honest I can’t remember the people involved, there must have been two of them, I have that figured out! Frivolous spending on clothes was a non starter in our house, and following fashion was something that only Ray Davies of the Kinks did, as made famous by his number one hit of the same name.



Ray Davis and the Kinks, definitely followers of fashion
Italian suits one can assume!



Mum around this time had started using a Littlewoods home shopping catalogue, pages of clothes and household items that could be bought and paid for at ‘so much a week’. We never had a chance to choose our suits, mum chose them for us “Italian style” she said, "modern" and then “one each, both the same in case one gets jealous”. In due course the suits arrived. They were dark mustard coloured, tight legs as was the style in the sixties and actually pretty cool looking threads. We excitedly tried them on and I immediately took them off again, wool! I was allergic to wool. Any part of my body that touched the fabric started itching and eventually turned bright blotchy red. Denis was the same, his look of terror equalled mine as we told mum and dad. Dads answer was “make ‘em wear ‘em, soft buggers” mum was slightly more sympathetic stating “I know they itch, but I can’t send them back, you’ll have to get used to it”



littlewoods, purveyors of
Italian suits



'Get used to it', I felt as if my legs were being burnt off. When we had the suits on, our bodies writhed in a way that people thought we had  the ‘jangles’, we could make a professional limbo dancer jealous. There was simply no way to stop the itch. Gladly we took them off, and waited until the weekend. On Saturday we had to wear the suits, protests fell on deaf ears, “clothes off, suits on, sit in car” Sat in the hot car, sweating, with itchy clothes, being told to “sit still, stop scratching, sit still” we eventually got there. There are probably only one or two really hot days a year in England, this was one of them. Somehow I held it together, until the reception, then I started to scratch, nothing irritates an itch more than a scratch. The circle of doom had started, itch, scratch, itch, scratch. Mum said I was showing her up, ‘they’ll think you have nits”, dad said we were “too young for long pants”, I was dancing like Mick Jagger on steroids.

The torture of the reception, (“the twins sure know the modern dances”) ended when dad declared that it was time to go home, “I have a big job on tomorrow” and we mercifully left. On the way home mum was staring straight ahead angry that she had been shown up with our writhing and dancing, dad was staring straight ahead smoking and driving, and I was sat in the back seat with my pants down around my ankles, the relief was priceless. Denis kept his pants on, a much stronger man than me I thought. However I was (or is) never one to suffer needlessly and a confirmed coward when it comes to pain, I was in heaven. That was until mum turned around.



nice threads



The scream was deafening “Harry, Donald’s got his bloody pants off” what they thought I was doing or was going to do heaven only knows, “He’s what! Bloody hell!” Dad could drive a car, smoke a cigarette, lean backwards and give a thrashing at the same time, a skill that I have never had to use or think that I ever could. Guilt by birth came to light again as both Denis and I received a thrashing, “Why! Because Donald had his pants down” was the reason given to a protesting Denis. I felt sorry for him, he had the strength to keep his pants on, I was the weak one, after a sound thrashing to “teach the pair of them a lesson”, the journey resumed. With two very upset twins in the back seat of a car, an angry Dad, an upset mum, our red faces, my blotchy red legs, and two Italian suits.

I can still remember those suits. Denis and I talked about them when we met in June of this year. I still shudder at the thought of wearing them, if I was ever tortured it would be easy, mention an Italian wool suit and I would blabber faster than a rapper on speed. To this day I am allergic to wool, man made fabrics means made for Donald fabrics.

Maybe that’s why I have become a mamil? (middle aged man in lycra).

a canoe, a portage and a set of rapids (or two)

This time I am having a complete change of direction with my latest blog. Away from my childhood to something more recent.

My reasons for emigrating in 1981 were for the usual, new life, excitement, fresh start, new country, but most of all I wanted to get away, get away from everything I knew and start a new life with my wife Roz and experience adventure. Canada filled the bill, reasonably close as far as travel goes, English speaking and I had a job with a mining company.

For some time before our emigration, I had lost contact with some of my family members, I was never really close to my older brothers, after all the oldest, Trevor could easily be old enough to be my own father. I knew they were OK, but I had developed a life of my own and my own circle of friends, as all people inevitably do. Somehow I never found the pull of 'family' to be very strong. Maybe it was because we did not have a family of our own, or because I never came from a very loving family, I really don’t know, but lives are lived differently by different people, and that was my life.

The mining company I emigrated with, had been on a massive hiring campaign in England, and every person who emigrated at the time went through the same process, adapting to a new life, new country, new friends, it is harder than most imagine it to be. I think that now it would be easier, with the internet, emails and texting, when we emigrated in 1981, computers were the size of houses and texting was in no ones vocabulary. Telephone calls were ridiculously expensive, so it was  writing letters to people 'across the pond'. As anyone who has done it can testify the weekly letters become monthly, then three monthly then yearly. before long I was writing no letters, concentrating on my new job and new life. Flin Flon is vastly different from Burnley and it was exciting, I mean, how many bears do you see in Burnley, or Moose, Fox or Coyote. All these things took over my life and sadly my old life, and family seemed to be forgotten.



freighter canoes are big, and can carry 2000lbs



One weekend I was invited to join my late friend Mel Schiltroth on a camping trip to Dog Rapids on the Sturgeon Weir River. Mel was a Flin Flonner all his life, living in the bush was natural to him, and he loved the outdoors. Later in his life, at the age of 57 he started a new job working for a mining exploration company, who wanted to use his local area expertise, and was the happiest man you could meet. Dog rapids as a camping spot has been used by explorers, trappers and hunters for centuries. It is breathtakingly beautiful and what most people think Canada is like. To get to dog rapids is a treat in itself, launching a freighter canoe into Mirond lake. ( a freighter canoe is a big canoe, over twenty feet long, and was the mode of transportation used by the Hudson Bay Company for transporting their furs to market in the eighteen hundreds)



Mirond Lake is part of the Sturgeon Weir river system, you travel downstream, until you get to the very unpolitically named squaw rapids. These are long, fast, shallow and dangerous, so the experienced canoeists like Mel use a portage. (A portage is a path cut through the bush for the sole purpose of moving men, gear and canoe around a set of rapids. In years gone by the thought of losing your fur in a set of rapids was the worst thing that could happen to you. With months of backbreaking work lost in an instant.)



a lot of stuff, plus food for a week!



This portage is not simply picking up the canoe and carrying it, canoes have little structural strength when out of the water. It is emptying the canoe, picking it up, carrying it up a hill on a small trail, and down the other side to the waters edge. Then going back for the gear. It is hard work, thankfully this was late in the year, or else the bugs would have eaten us alive.



hard work!



Moving downstream from there I saw my first ever family of moose swimming across the river, pelicans preparing to migrate and bears looking for berries. It was perfect, there is no where in England where I have been that you can hear nothing, here was a spot where the only noise was us, the bush and the water. After a good six hour trip we came across dog rapids, these are not rapids, the name is wrong, it is a drop of about  five feet, more like a waterfall than rapids, with a small protrusion to the shoreline at the head of the falls that has been used by the early explorers and native hunters alike since man first found this spot. I checked out the rapids, the water above seemed so peaceful, and below so angry, a total contradiction in terms, it was easy to se how men could perish here years ago if their canoe capsized.



looks nice until you have portage around it!



We set up camp, I learnt a lot on that trip, hanging food by rope from a tree branch so that the bears, foxes and coyotes could not get at it. Building a fire and keeping it lit, most reality programs show someone lighting a fire, but few if any show what it takes to keep it lit, finding firewood, chopping it and keeping the fire fed. We pitched the tent, put the sleeping bags in and stored what I thought was a lot of food, as Mel said, "always take enough for a week, that's about as long as it would take to find us if the canoe was lost". Then we relaxed and listened to nothing, went fishing and ate fresh pickerel. The evening was just closing in when we heard a small boat motor, "hunters" said Mel, "must be looking for moose on the shoreline, but strange that they would use a motor, probably stupid Americans!".

The motor got closer and eventually we could make out a small canoe, with three figures, the front figure was my wife Roz, and Dave and Elaine Brown, I had a feeling that something was terribly wrong, this is not something that Roz would do, she likes the outdoors but not overnight in the bush. That is when I found out that mum has passed away. I was shocked of course, numb, all the emotions that you feel when you learn something like that. Mel was feeling my pain, having had the same experience only a short while earlier. But ever practical he also told us that it was too dangerous to travel back that night, we would strike camp first thing in the morning and get back to Flin Flon. Roz had already booked me on flight leaving Flin Flon at 4pm the following afternoon. Which is why she had found Dave, who volunteered to find me and take me back.



breathtaking sunset in the precambrian shield



At dawn we struck camp, cleaned up the site and loaded the canoes, the mood was sombre, but we also realised that we had quite a journey to get back, so we travelled upstream, getting to squaw rapids in mid morning, same thing unload the canoe, carry the canoe first  and the gear after to the other side of the rapids, the second canoe was smaller and lighter and Dave and Elaine made it up the rapids without a portage. Once we were on the other side we made for the shoreline of Mirond lake and our vehicles. Around noon we were loading up the trucks and setting off back to Flin Flon, this was a fairly short drive, maybe one an a half hours, I got in the house and my emotions finally gave way, I cried and hugged Roz, then got ready to fly to the UK. The flight from Flin Flon left on time, suddenly I was in Winnipeg, leaving there I flew to Toronto, then Heathrow than Manchester. Quite the journey, it is surreal how you can be in the middle of the Canadian boreal forest, retracing the paths of explorers, and less than 48 hours later be on a plane travelling form Heathrow to Manchester.

leaving Flin Flon you see the shoreilne
of Lake Athapapuskow

I got home and stayed at my wife's parents travelling the day after to see family, I saw Denis again, Kevin and Gordon, Trevor was travelling up later for the funeral, my dad was holding up well, and the first words he said were that he didn't think that I would be able to make it, thinking back it is amazing that I did, the next few days passed in a blur, before long we were at the church, and I was back in Burnley before flying back to Canada. I spent most of my time with my dad and Roz's parents, and spent some time with my brothers. My mother in law was not too well either, and even if it sounds awful nothing more than a  death in the family makes you realise that there will eventually be more. What I learnt in those few days is that even if you are engrossed in new things, a new life and new beginnings, there is always a bond to the mother that gave you life, I am glad that I could make it back. My feelings regarding family life and relationships with my own family started to change after that. Mum would have been proud.