Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs Read Free Page A

Chippendale Street and Millfields Road. My parents didn’t drink but we would use the ‘offy’ to buy a bottle of something every Sunday to go with lunch, usually Tizer, R. White’s Cola or Cream Soda or Succulent Lemonade. We also used to buy vinegar there, which was stored in a large barrel on the counter. We’d have to take our own empty bottle, which would be filled by vinegar drawn off from the cask. I don’t remember us ever buying pre-bottled vinegar as you would these days.
    Next door to the off-licence lived ‘Ginger’, ‘Monkey’ and their daughter, Christine. Ginger I think is obvious as she had bright-red hair. Monkey was a small hunchback, and his was the only nickname Dad came up with that he later admitted was very unkind. In the early days, Ginger was often to be seen with an enamel jug in her hand, going up to the café round the corner in Chatsworth Road to get some readymade tea as packets of tea were still on ration.
    The woman living next to Ginger was the only person in this stretch of the road on either side, apart from Peter Curtis, not to have a nickname. In fact, she didn’t have a name at all that I ever knew but that was because no one ever talked about her. She was a single woman living on her own who seemed to have a long succession of men calling at her door, morning, noon and night. I didn’t see her very often as she spent most of her time indoors but occasionally she would stand in her front yard, smoking a cigarette. It was difficult to tell how old she was but she always wore an off-the-shoulder tight and low-cutsweater as well as an even tighter black knee-length skirt. What really struck me was her extremely light blonde hair and her bright-red lipstick; being very young I had no idea why the neighbours never mentioned her in polite conversation…
    The next family along was the Lanes: Leslie, Rhoda, Leslie Junior and Colin. Collectively, they were known as ‘the Laneys’, but Rhoda had her own nickname of ‘Ee-lo’ because that would be her standard greeting, morning, noon and night.
    Next up was ‘Gatewaller’, who used to spend most of his day standing by his gate and watching the world go by. He’s one whose first name I never did know. Nor did I ever find out the family’s surname as his wife and two children were simply known to us as ‘Gatewaller two’, ‘Gatewaller three’ and ‘Gatewaller four’. One day, we saw a wedding car outside their house and, not long after, ‘Gatewaller five’, husband of Gatewaller three, moved in to be followed in rapid succession by baby Gatewallers, numbers six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
    Next door to this ever-expanding family lived ‘Old Daddy Flat Cap’ and his brood, which consisted of his wife and two children. He was never seen out in public without his flat cap on, hence the name. One day, in the mid-1950s, a red car appeared outside his door and this became Old Daddy Flat Cap’s pride and joy. He would spend hours washing it, polishing it, cleaning out the inside and generally lavishing great care and attention on it. He did everything you could do with a car… except drive it. It never actually went anywhere; it just stayed on the road outside his house.
    After spending untold hours on his beloved motor, he decidedhe had earned a holiday, so, one morning, with his flat cap still nestling firmly on his head, he set off by foot, with a brown paper parcel tucked securely under his arm, to recuperate from his efforts and renew his strength so that he could once again return to work on his red car and make it a credit to his flat cap. His wife and children waved him off from the front door as he wended his way up Millfields Road and continued to wave until he was lost from sight. About a fortnight later, Old Daddy Flat Cap returned with the brown paper parcel still securely tucked under his arm, fit and raring to