Stories Volume 8
Introduction > Stories #181 to #199
Peter Gray - A Beautiful Evening - #181
A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my eighty eighth birthday. We went to The Wetherby Whaler fish restaurant. All the family. My son and his partner had come up from Essex, my other son had come over from Harrogate with his daughter Anna, my grandson and his wife, who is expecting my first great grandchild. It was wonderful to see everyone together, because we haven’t been able to meet as a family through the pandemic.
My brother and I were telling stories of when we were young and living in Woodhouse.
Towards the end of the evening I received a phone call from Bernard to say he was at The Heart in Headingly where there was going to be a jazz concert and he invited me to meet him.
When my daughter dropped me off Bernard was sitting outside which surprised me because the concert had started. “There’s no room for us” he told me, but as it was a decent weather, we sat outside and listened through the open window. It capped off what had been a beautiful evening.
Debbie Spirrett - Embarrassing Dads - #182
Every Sunday morning our dads would take us swimming to York Road baths. Me (Debbie) and my dad would call for Carole and her dad and we would walk down York Road to the baths. Our dads would sing the whole time at the top of their voices with me and Carole begging them to stop whenever we saw someone walking our way – we were so embarrassed! Of course it only made them sing louder!
Barry Ward - The Mannequin - #183
A friend and I went to Leeds City Council tip to take some rubbish. We saw two old mannequins standing there. A male and a female. We asked the staff if we could have the female mannequin, they said yes, so we put it in the back of the car.
I had to repair the nose. She had no arms. I repainted it in silver and black. I used the mannequin to sell clothes and homemade hats on eBay.
After a few years I put the mannequin up for sale on eBay. Sold it to a fashion shop in Keighley.
The shop owner’s father came and collected it from my house.
Christine Pitts - The Day Centre - #184
They make us dependant. If I’d known what was going to happen I’d have wanted to go for good, cause they treat us less than children. I’ve no autonomy. It’s taken out of my hands. I’m talked to rather than talked with. The staff are very condescending and they don’t value what we’re saying. Always looking for new jobs, looking to leave and they don’t hide it from us. We’re clumped together, despite our different abilities, because we’re old, we’re all classed as the lowest ability. I feel for the poor people that have to have help to go to the toilet. They’re clumped together on a time schedule – “You have to go at 11’o clock” all taken together. It’s going backwards. I’m aware I’ve got rights. I stand up for myself. But they don’t tell us things.
When others die they don’t tell us. Our friend. We realised we hadn’t seen her in a while so I asked one of the staff and she said “Oh she died a few weeks ago”. We were so upset. We would have wanted to go to the funeral but it was too late.
I tried to send a card to the minister at their church asking him to pass it on to family. They wouldn’t do it. I understand about data protection but I’d asked them to write the address and post it for me. They wouldn’t do it. I’d paid for the stamp and the card.
Colin - Cigerette Dogs - #185
I’d just started going to Sunday school at age 11. On leaving the building I passed the foundations for a new church that was being built. There were children playing near by and petrol barrels that were being used on the site. One exploded and I got hit in the leg. I was the only one hurt, as far as I know.
I was in hospital for six months and had ten skin grafts. The physio said to me “I’ve got just the thing for you” and produced empty cigarette packets, John Player, Senior Service. She began cutting them into strips and then showed me how to make the strips into animals.
The first animal I made was a dog. I went on to make giraffes and all sorts. That was 1953. People keep asking me for them. The only problem now is finding packaging boxes. If I’ve got boxes in the house, I put them to one side. The local chemist saves medicine boxes for me and I collect them in bulk.
Doreen - My Friendship with Christine - #186
It started one day at the Day Centre. I was with another friend. We’d just been on holiday together to a sort of nursing home and I was upset. My friend needed to go to bed early every evening and I’d be left alone by the staff, there was no social life. Every evening alone. And Christine said how about you come with me next time? So we went to Blackpool! We stayed in the Bond Hotel. It was celebrity week and we meet an actress from Emmerdale or Coronation Street. There was music, dancing, events, every night. Christine entered a fancy dress and won another holiday!
I’d help Christine with her shopping picking things up her. We got back to the hotel one day and Christine said I didn’t buy all these cokes. Christine called it shoplifting, but it was by accident. We always stick together. When she’s down I lift her up and when I’m down she lifts me up. When I don’t see her I get upset, worrying that something’s happened.
Michael Hassell - East Meets West in Inverness - #187
Back in the mid-1970’s my friend Lucy and I decided we needed a holiday. I was in my late 20’s, Lucy is six years younger. Our families were friends, and I had known Lucy since childhood. However, in 1974 we both discovered the other was gay, and our friendship was cemented as we both discovered the ‘Gay Scene’ in Leeds and Bradford. Initially we caused some consternation and confusion as people couldn’t work out what our relationship was.
Anyway, back to the holiday. We didn’t usually have a holiday, mainly because we couldn’t afford one. But Lucy had a car, and we thought we could go camping. Neither of us had any experience of camping, but how difficult could it be.
For no particular reason we chose Inverness in Scotland. I borrowed a tent and some camping equipment from a friend, and we set off on a Friday afternoon after work. We got as far as Perth before stopping at a Supermarket to buy provisions, mainly tinned items that were easy to cook. Only after leaving the store did we realise we had no tin opener.
It was very late when we arrived at Loch Ness and too late to find a campsite. We slept in the car. Next day we found a campsite a short way out of Inverness and alongside Loch Ness. It was a basic campsite though there were shower and toilet blocks. There was no shop or club house or any social amenities.
The next day we drove right round Loch Ness stopping at a pub on the loch side on the way back. We decided that the Pub was not that far from the campsite, and we could both have a drink, so next day we walked along the loch to the pub for lunch. It turned out to be much further than we had thought and we were both exhausted when we arrived. In those days’ pubs were not open all day, but even so we had consumed a few pints and neither of us fancied the walk back. Fortunately, the barman came to our rescue. He happened to be going into Inverness and kindly gave us a lift back to the camp site.
The next day we went back to the pub again to buy the barman a drink and thank him again. This time we had taken our own car. As we sat enjoying our drinks we were approached by two young people who asked if they could sit at our table. We chatted away and discovered they were both hitchhiking their way round the UK. One was a short, bespectacled young man from Japan. He had been sent by his father ‘to see the world’ before settling down to work for the family business. The other was an American girl from California, just out of High School. She was very tall, bronzed, athletic; our idea of the all American girl. They had met in the Lake District and decided to travel together. We made an unusual foursome, as I too am only five-foot-tall, and Lucy is a bit taller.
We discovered our Japanese friend, whose name I can’t remember was heading for Newcastle where he had relatives. The girl, and I don’t remember her name either, was hoping to go to the Whitby Folk Festival.
They were heading south from Inverness, and having seen our car keys on the table they asked if we could give them a lift in to Inverness. Lucy and I had previously agreed we would not pick up hitch-hikers, so made some excuse about going in the other direction.
We felt a bit mean as we had been grateful for a lift the day before. When the pub closed, they left and Lucy and I agreed that as we had enjoyed their company, we would give them a lift. We went into the Car Park, and they were waiting on the road so we told we would give take them.
We dropped them off on the road south out of Inverness. As we drove away I said to Lucy that we would be heading south at the end of the week, and we could have saved them the trouble of hitch-hiking. Lucy agreed and we turned the car round and went back to where we had left them. As we arrived they were just loading their rucksacks into the boot of a car. We told them of our plan, and they readily accepted. I spent the next few minutes trying to explain to the occupants of the car that had offered them a lift what was happening. They drove off looking bewildered.
We took our new friends to our campsite. They were experts at camping and just took over. They soon had us organised and took over the cooking. Lucy and I ate very well for the rest of the week. In exchange we took them around in the car visiting various places of interest. We also introduced them to ‘pints o’ heavy’ beer and the subtleties of a Single Malt Whisky.
We left Inverness very early on the Friday as we wanted to show them a bit of Edinburgh. A quick stop in Grantown-On-Spey, to stock up on miniature malt whiskies to take home for our friends. We spent the afternoon in Edinburgh and then set off to find a local camp site. They were all full. Somebody told us people were camping on some grass by the Firth of Forth on the outskirts of Edinburgh. We found the place and just left the car, and went looking for some food and a drink. We found a real ’local’ on a housing estate. Being Friday night the pub was full, with Mum and Dad out with son, and possible future daughter-in law, all dressed up to the ‘nines’. Then this assortment of four slightly eccentric oddballs, in a range of bizarre outfits walked in to the Lounge Bar and everything stopped; you could have heard a pin drop as everyone just turned and stared. What on earth……. I just walked up to the bar and ordered ‘4 pints of heavy’ and then just as suddenly the noise resumed and nobody paid us any attention.
It was late when we left the pub, and slightly the worse for wear, and nobody could put up a tent. We sat in the car and drank the Malt Whisky intended for home. Finally, the four of us just laid on the grass and pulled the tent over us.
Next day we headed home. It was very sad when we said goodbye to our Japanese friend in Newcastle. There were hugs and tears. Then we drove to Leeds. I had invited the girl to stay with my family for a few days. As well as seeing Leeds, she had time to do some washing and sort herself out for the next leg of her journey. I took her on the bus to the York Road. The last I saw of her she was trying to ‘thumb a lift’ to Whitby for the Folk Festival. I had a couple of postcards from her over the next few weeks. Lucy and I still talk about that holiday. How people can come into your life for just a few days and make an impression that stays with you for ever.
Alma Rushman - Working At Burtons - #188
When I left school at 15 I went straight to work at Burtons doing piece work. My job was sewing trouser pockets – you didn’t get to see the finished suit. You got to know lots of people working there, even if you didn’t know their name you knew them by sight. Burtons were really good to us – we had free dinners, they organised dances and beauty competitions and in the summer, sports days on the paying field along side the factory. Both me and my sister worked at Burtons. One day, we were lined up to be inoculated – it might have been for Polio – we had the injection at about the same time and we both passed out! I loved it at Burtons, it was great working there.
Peter Bartram - A Strange Encounter - #189
It was May 1997, and I moved into my new house near Morley Station. Opposite the house were fields, trees, and horses. The road was a dead-end and there was hardly any traffic, so it was a very quiet area. There was little street lighting, so at night it was very, very dark. There was just me in the house. And the house wasn’t actually new. In fact it was quite old. And it was in a bit of a state. Officially, it had three bedrooms, but it didn’t, really. The smallest was not much more than a cupboard. The middle one, the back-bedroom, the important room in this story, was big enough for a single bed and not much more. It was north facing, gloomy, with wallpaper peeling off. It was an unhappy room in an unhappy house. I decided to dump everything in this unhappy back- bedroom until I got sorted out, got back on my feet. It became filled with suitcases full of clothes, boxes full of books, bags full of bric-abrac, and copious carrier bags full of files and folders. At that time, as well as trying to hold down a full-time job, I was also a part-time university student. And now, I had this house to start on. I was feeling the strain.
So, whenever I wanted anything, I had to go into the unhappy back-bedroom to get it, usually climbing over piles of boxes and suitcases. I had been in the house about a week when, probably needing a clean shirt or a toilet roll early one evening, I opened the door of the room. You know when you go round the corner of a street and there is someone coming the other way, and you end up ducking and diving to avoid colliding with them? That is exactly what happened. As I was about to step through the door, there was someone coming out of the room. It’s a cliché to say that my blood ran cold, but my blood ran cold. I was supposed to be the only person there. My first thought was that someone had somehow got into the house. And, to make matters worse, he, or she, had now suddenly disappeared. I didn’t want to go in the room, but I had to. Terrified, I looked behind suitcases, under boxes, inside carrier bags. Noone there. I searched the house. Under furniture, behind doors, inside cupboards. There was no-one else in the house. So what on earth had I seen? I was on good terms with the bloke who had sold me the house. I thought about asking him if he had ever seen anyone in it. Apart, of course, from his wife, three kids, and visitors. I’m glad I didn’t.
Over the next few days, my terror gradually subsided. Over time, I decorated and furnished the house and it became a nice place to live. I sorted myself out and got back on my feet. I have lived in the house now, more or less contentedly, for over twenty years. I cannot imagine living anywhere else. It is a happy house, and the back-bedroom is now a happy room, with bright curtains, colourful wallpaper and a plush carpet. The area has changed dramatically. The fields and horses have gone, replaced with a shiny brand-new red-brick housing estate. The road is still a dead- end, but has been properly surfaced and now resembles part of a grand-prix circuit. And sometimes sounds like one . There is state-of-the-art street lighting. Morley station is still wet and windswept, but has an electronic information system and CCTV. And, whereas twenty years ago I often had a carriage to myself during the ten minute journey into Leeds, now I can rarely find an empty seat. I retired in 2009, discovered the Playhouse, and have become a performer, of sorts. I have attended acting classes, singing classes, guitar classes, ballroom classes. But I have never forgotten my strange encounter. That’s why I am telling you this story. What on earth did I see that afternoon twenty years ago? I am the most logical person in the world. There has to be a rational explanation. But to this day, I have no idea what it is.
Rita Keeley - An Easy Reader - #190
As a child, I used to cycle with my friends over to Cross Gates from Seacroft. This journey was a necessity because the library was at Cross Gates and I had to go to the library every week.
I’ve always been a reader, I don’t remember learning to read, I could just do it. When I was at junior school the teacher used to just let me loose in the book cupboard, which was full of reading schemes and odd books. She just let me go in there and choose what I wanted.
I can remember when I was first taken to the library by my parents. I was six and you weren’t allowed to join the library until you were seven, so I had to prove that I could read. I was given this book, it had a small print, a lot of print on one side and then a picture on the other side with all these little figures on it. It wasn’t what you would consider an easy reader these days, but I managed it.
When I was older I became a librarian.
Nancy Benson - Arthur Harrisons - #191
I remember coming to Leeds after I lost my Mum and Dad and I got the job in Arthur Harrisons, in the mill as a mender. It was long hours and poor pay. Then you got two pound 16 shillings when I first started and you were on piecework. I was still working there when I got married at 19 and for the piecework I were earning about 10 pound a week.
I remember walking to work from Headingley in some shoes – I would stuff them with brown paper, making some lining out of brown paper because I simply couldn’t afford new shoes.
I enjoyed working in the mill. It were a friendly atmosphere you met plenty of friends, but it was hard work. When the fabric would come off the weaving machine then it gets brought into the mending room. The boys used to lift it onto the table and then you had big daylight at the top of you and you had to look for all the faults and put everything right what had gone wrong in the weaving shed and that was my job till I got married.
Betty Lally - Free Ride - #192
Paulette Morris - Step Into (Verse One) - #193
I will be your light
Through the darkest nights
You don’t have to be alone
I am the Air that You breathe
Sunlight through the Trees
Jasmine on the breeze
I’m an eco melody
Playing a symphony
Autumn winter summer spring
Come take my hand
I will show you who I am
Take my hand
I’ll take you there
Come with me.
John Poulter - The Italian Old People's Home - #194
I’d rocked up in Vicenza after riding over the Dolomites and down into the north Italian plain. At breakfast I looked at the map of Italy. The magnet is always the high ground. Twisting mountain roads are what motorbikes are made for. I’m looking at an area of the Apennines when I see a town called Bobbio. That’ll do. I can send my old mate Bob a postcard. Reason enough when you are on the road with no plan.
Late afternoon and I am standing at a tourist booth in Bobbio. My leather trousers feel like they are filling up with sweat. It’s hot. The lad at the booth suggests a hostel in a small village in the hills nearby. Sounds good.
I ride up the twisting road through vineyards and into a small square. A group of youths eye me with surprise. I ask them ‘Hostel?’ One of them gestures towards the building they are leaning against. It is his family home, the hostel. Or rather it used to be a hostel. Now it is an old people’s home. But! They have a spare room I can stay in. He shows me to the room. It is huge and has 6 beds in it. Just for me? Yes. And it is cheap. Okay. Great.
We go back to the bike to unload my stuff. He asks for my passport. I dip my hand in the inner sanctum pocket of my leather jacket. Nothing. I instantly realise that I never collected it from the reception of the little hotel in Vicenza. A days ride away at the other side of the country. When Stefano is telling this story in the bar later that evening he performs this weird Englishman crying SHEEEET! SHEEET! to much laughter.
It is decided that we will ring Vicenza and ask them to post the passport here. It should only take a couple of days. I can have a break.
I go to the village bar to watch football with Stefano and his father. I am a figure of much interest. The next morning I am amazed and touched to see some blossoms placed on the clocks of my old Suzuki. Must be one of those lasses from the bar last night. Blimey! I take a photo. One of the old ladies from the home is sitting soaking up the sun on the bench just beyond the bike. She points at the flowers then herself and smiles. Ah. Yes. That makes more sense. Hey ho. Very sweet!
The days pass. After the first day I no longer eat in the dining room but in the kitchen with the family. A couple who work there take me out for the day in their little car. I explore the mountains on my bike. I watch more football with the father and his friends.
At the end of a week the daughter turns up. When told the story she determines to get this sorted. She calls the hotel. From the conversation my lack of Italian doesn’t stop me guessing what has happened. They’ve sent it to my next of kin in England haven’t they? The address at the back of the passport. Yes!
The next day I set off back for home armed with a letter of safe passage to get me across the border. It is written by the mother and includes the phone number of her friend the local Chief of Police. I have no need of it. I blast across the border on the motorway. Up through France and onto a ferry. I roll off and up to passport control in Dover. Passport? I haven’t got it. I left it at a hotel in Italy and they posted it back to my next of kin. He looks at me. Where are you from? Leeds. Okay. He waves me through.
Shelly Sorkin - To Australia and Back - #195
I was born in Leeds in 1923, of immigrant parents from Poland and Russia. My mother did not speak or write English, yet in spite of this, we three siblings did well at school. We played with buttons and chalked on the pavement. I remember getting on well with other children and not feeling different, even though we were Jewish.
I left school aged fourteen years, and got a job in Lewis’s until the war broke out, when I was fortunate to be employed by the Food Office.
I met my husband Lionel when I was fifteen, and we married when he left the forces. We both worked hard to provide for our two children. Although we loved England, we felt unable to give them a good start in life: to be educated and secure. At this time, many families were being encouraged to take the £10 scheme, and sail to Australia. Sponsored by relatives living there, you could expect to be set up with accommodation.
Dilemma: should we go, or stay with family and friends, in a country where we felt safe?
A decision to go was made, and the four week sea journey was a great experience for an old-fashioned woman like me.
When we stepped off the ship and set foot on this distant land, the first feeling struck me, of overwhelming fear. What would happen to us, as we had no money and no jobs! I guess with true Yorkshire grit we made it work, and our children had a good education and a healthy outdoor life, and made lots of friends.
But I missed England, and after my father’s early death I was concerned for my mother, who was all by herself. The life in Australia was fantastic – but letters from home made me feel guilty. So we returned to Leeds and with the money we had saved, we bought a sweet shop.
I believe you have to make the most of what you have. I love life at 95 years old, and always look for interesting things to do. Life is there to be enjoyed, after all.
Joan Bosomworth - Long and Happy - #196
It’s Saturday night in 1965, and I am getting ready for a night out at the Locarno Ballroom in Bradford, with my best friend Barbara. Off we go, two happy seventeen year olds, ready to dance the night away. As the night draws to a close, Barbara goes off to dance with someone, leaving me alone. A young man comes up and asks me to dance too – and I say yes.
When it’s time for the last dance of the evening, I look round in vain to try and spot Barbara. But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I can’t find her anywhere. My newly-met friend, Peter, offers me a lift home. What do I do? Risk it with someone I’ve only just met, or chance it, going out onto Manningham Lane on my own on a Saturday night? Anyone from Bradford will know that’s not really an option. So I accept his offer and go with him. He is really quite nice. Before I go in, he asks if I would like to go out again? He says he will come round on Sunday evening at about eight o’ clock.
Sunday night comes, and I sit there in my glad rags, waiting for him. The minutes tick by, quarter past, half past, quarter to. At nine o’ clock I come to the conclusion he’s changed his mind. I decide to get ready for bed and go upstairs and read. Our bathroom is downstairs, so when I hear the loud knock on the front door, I open the bathroom door to listen, and am mortified to hear my dad come out with these words: “Come in for a minute, she’s just gone to get ready for bed.“
He must be thinking all his Christmases have come at once! I quickly get dressed again, and – somewhat sheepishly – go out in the hallway to meet him. He apologises profusely, and says his mother had not woken him, when he fell asleep after his evening meal. As a farmer working outside all day, I could forgive him for that.
That night, we went out to Rawdon for a drink, and thus began the road to a long and happy relationship. We’ve had our ups and downs, but in July 2020 we celebrated our forty seventh wedding anniversary.
Khadijah Ibrihiim - The Sounding Ground - #197
Do you see me?
Sankofa
stirring rituals of memory
cast out of deep ocean magic
inscriptions to recall
rhythmic sounds
of a cartographer’s feet moving
to anchor father’s dreams
of back home
baptized in mother’s tears
and a holy ancestral spirit
I soar in all shades of the moonlight
body spinning truth
as if the storm and wind
evoke my skin
to remember
a soul molasses softly man
a tuff drum reggae man
a bronze like man
birthed from old
Caribbean prayers
in the drip of British coldness
my body a well-made vessel
that holds posture and beauty
limbs like tree roots
wheels knowledge
to come again
to a sound track
of life
Keith Bristow - Developing the Garden - #198
While the weather was nice, I thought I’d get out and start getting things prepared.
My garden is about 40 foot long. Well, it used to be when I was working. It used to be mainly grass with a few borders around the edge. But once I retired, I started cutting out beds, sort of about four foot wide, through the lawn with a lawn mower, with paths in between just remaining grass so that makes them easier to work on. And you can work on them without actually walking on them and trudging all over it.
I mean, that’s one of the things, when you see these gardening programmes, where these people have gone about having hidden views where you’re supposed to sort of, rather than have a straight path, like I have, have a winding path. So you keep on discovering different parts of the garden.
So many, many years ago, the garden gate was that took you out onto the path of the bat. But that’s theoretically the path still there, but it’s completely overgrown.
Paul Hudson - Better Than Tablets - #199
I go out for at least two hours a day walking. I go to the Leeds and Liverpool canal, round Horsforth, Headingley. I go by myself. I keep to myself; I don’t actually talk to people as such. If they say “good morning”, or what have you I say “good morning” back.
I’ve been doing it for months. I just can’t stop in my flat, so it gets me out for a few hours. I wake up in the morning and know that I’m going out anyway, so I think “I’ll have a walk down on the canal”, it’s nice, especially on a sunny day, when all the water’s glistening.
You see all the birds; the ducks and sometimes a couple of white swans on the canal. You get a lot of younger people walking up and down, some of them jogging, others are cycling, backwards and forwards. There are dog walkers, or couples holding hands, or single women or men walking up and down the canal. You always get a smile or a ”good morning”.
It makes you feel as though you’re alive. As somebody, after all this time, who’s not been with people… you feel a lot better in yourself. It’s better than having tablets!