There are, of course, expectations and established conventions. Perhaps it is easier to conform to these if you have children and grandchildren to mark the route. I don’t and, even so, must all grandparents behave in such and such preset ways? Surely not.

I think too much. This has often been said, even back when thinking was what I was paid to do for a living. Sometimes, this is a comfort. Sometimes, it is a straitjacket with a chain wrapped around and a cast iron ball attached. Those days, I try to rise from my oh-so-comfortable chair and heave myself out into the world.

The other day was one such. I felt both weighted down and unanchored: a disconcerting combination. But the autumn sun was shining, so I ventured out for a bus ride.

The bus I caught was unusually full for the time of day. There was one vacant seat, yet several people had chosen to stand. Perhaps that should have been a clue.

The elderly gentleman I settled next to was muttering and chuntering. The tension in his body suggested he expected to receive (or maybe dish out) blows, at any moment.

He wore a woolly hat over white hair and a mid-length white beard (no ageing hipster, or Santa-in-waiting). Neither dirty nor unkempt, he was… untidy. As a book, he would have been dog-eared: not quite cast aside, but well-used by life.

He seemed mid-conversation; earnest, intense, agitated. I wondered if he might be on the phone, with one earphone plugged into his left ear (the one nearest the window, away from my sight). He wasn’t. Most of what he was saying was utterly unintelligible, apart from the occasional emphatic repeated utterance of the word, “stupid!”

I decided to breathe deeply, relax, and stare forward.

After a few minutes, the bus pulled in at a timing point. It waited and so did we. Out of the corner of my eye, I became aware that I was being stared at, or might that be a glare? Reluctantly, I turned to confront it.

“Are you all right, pal?” asked my chuntering neighbour. It was more a challenge than a friendly inquiry. I wasn’t at first sure how to respond to this, and then it occurred to me that he might be wishing to disembark (one of those who think body language speaks louder and clearer than actual words).

“Is this your stop?” I asked him, in a friendly, helpful, slightly apologetic voice (at least, I hoped it was all those things).

With those few words (and perhaps the way they were spoken), I became something more human for him.

His face softened, as did his whole posture. He told me he was going all the way to Preston station. And then, he started to talk to me. This was more unsettling than it might have been, because he talked as though I were already right up to speed with whatever he’d been fretting and muttering about.

“Stupid! How can he do that?”

I hadn’t the slightest idea.

“Try not to worry too much about it,” I counselled.

“I’m not worried!” He was very insistent on this. He went on.

“He can’t drive. He hasn’t got a licence. Stupid. Why is he doing it? A car’s a deadly weapon!”

Here, I’m piecing together several snippets, spread over a few minutes.

“Stupid! Stupid.”

He looked at me and I felt it was time for another interjection.

“You can only offer them advice,” I said. “In the end, they have to make their own choices.”

“I’m not offering advice!” Again, the insistence. “And why is he making that choice? Stupid!”

I nodded, and pressed the bell.

“This is my stop.” I didn’t want him feeling abandoned without warning.

He thanked me, and said it had been ‘nice’ talking to me. As I got up, he reached out, shook my hand, and told me his name was Phil.

“Not many people listen,” he said, before releasing my hand.

Looking back as the bus pulled away, I could see Phil waving and smiling sweetly, almost happily.

For the rest of that day, I felt more right in myself.

Read Martin’s story A Bedroom with a View

The post I don’t really know how old I am appeared first on Quays Life.

“Never assume. To assume is to make an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”

She did this for two reasons. Firstly, she was aware that I find such modern homilies twee and irri-tating. Secondly, she realised that I could not deny that this particular saying has an element of truth to it. The jarring combination of irritation and truth has made it stay with me over the years, as my friend knew it would.

Back in 1987, my mother discovered that (unbeknownst to either of us) my youngest brother and I shared a liking for the music of the virtuoso Irish rock guitarist, Rory Gallagher. As a brotherly bond-ing exercise (he’s fourteen years my junior) mum bought us tickets to a concert Rory was playing at the International 2 in Plymouth Grove, Manchester. Brother number three (the middle brother) also got a ticket, though I can’t remember if he wanted one.

As this was a ‘standing only’ event and I wanted to keep an eye on my “little” brothers, we stood to-wards the rear of the hall (Rory never fell short on amplification). It was their first big city gig and these were troubled times. Especially where drink was allowed (the bar here stayed open through-out) there might be, as The Specials had noted:

“Too much fighting on the dance floor…”

To begin with, all was well. Rory was really in the mood and a good time was being had by all.

Out of the corner of my eye, I became aware that we were being observed by a solidly-built man, mid-twenties, positioned four or five yards away and, loosely-speaking, dancing.

He was moving with a tense, stiff-limbed, pitifully ungainly motion – more or less in time with the music – such as Frankenstein’s monster might have displayed (if he’d been a fan of Rory Gal-lagher). It was, in equal parts, scary, laughable, and admirably unselfconscious. I didn’t much like the look of him, and he kept looking over.

“Too much fighting on the dance floor…”

Looking back, the very idea of me as bodyguard for my younger brothers was ludicrous. As my mother had more than once observed, “you couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag.” This was meant more kindly than it sounds – her intention was to remind me that, blessed with a congenital heart problem, I ought not to be fighting at all. Even so, your little brothers are your little brothers, you know? You ought to stick up for them.

The best tactic would have been to avoid eye-contact, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to keep checking if he was still looking and, of course, the more I checked, the more he looked. And then it happened. Eyes fixed determinedly on mine, he came – half-striding, half-dancing – towards me.

A seasoned dance floor scuffler might have planned to get his blow in first but, as Gilbert O’Sullivan put it, “I’m a writer, not a fighter.” No matter. Come what may, I was resolved to do what I could to deny this brute any easy route to my little brothers. I stood my ground.

Still swaying to the music, and looking all the more grimy, ragged and menacing at close quarters, the man leaned in to shout something in my ear. Would it kick off here and now, or would he be in-viting me to step outside?

“How can anybody,” he challenged, “not like this music?”

As he leaned away again, he was grinning broadly. I grinned back at him and shrugged, letting him know that those utter ingrates (whoever and wherever they might be) were a total mystery to me, too.

That moment of bonding and confirmation achieved, he headed back whence he’d come; nodding, swaying and dancing with even greater masculine abandon. And that was that. He’d just wanted to share the joy.

These days, whenever I recall this incident, I also hear my friend’s voice counselling me not to as-sume. Still irritating. Still true.

Sharing joy is, in itself, a cause of joy; so let us not just strive to share our joys with others, but to leave our doors ajar for them to share theirs with us.

Read Martin’s story Caution – Soldiers Crossing

The post An Unexpected Music Lesson appeared first on Quays Life.

My uncles, Tony and Philip, were more like big brothers to me. They were influential in many aspects of my early life – introducing me to Sherlock Holmes, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, SciFi, art, Greek and Roman culture (especially the violent bits), pirates, buried treasure, Laurel and Hardy, and girls.

By my early 20s, I had started to find my own ways in life, but when they invited me to go with them – all the way to Manchester – to see a new film, I didn’t hesitate.

Tony and Phil had often described the thrill of queuing round three sides of the Odeon in Bolton to see the latest ‘Road’ film (Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were, beyond challenge, their boyhood heroes). But I wasn’t even born then, and had never queued more than a few yards to get in a cinema.

For this reason, I think I was the least disappointed of the three of us, when we reached the Odeon on Oxford Road and saw the queue – a queue that started at the door and stretched around the corner, all the way down the side street, around the back, and along the next side street, ending almost, but not quite, back on Oxford Road. Very nearly all four sides of the building. Exciting.

We discussed the matter and quickly resolved to wait it out. Even if we didn’t make the next screening (which, given the numbers in front of us, seemed unlikely), we’d stick it out and catch the one after. We’d come all the way from Bolton to Manchester for this film, and we were damn well going to see it!

Cinemas, before multiplexes took over, were mainly single screen, and the big ones held plenty. Manchester Odeon had a capacity of almost 3,000 (even the one in Bolton could seat 2,500).

As the time for the next screening approached, slowly, steadily, the punters shuffled forward. With the minutes ticking by, we advanced in shadow along one side of the building, around the back of the cinema, down along the next side, back into the sunlight on Oxford Road, and in. We’d made it!

We took our seats up in the circle, trying to contain our excitement. We had no inkling of the ovation that would follow. Given the previous standards of the genre, we were just hoping we hadn’t wasted our money.

Shhh! The film was about to begin. Along with 2,917 other people, we held our breath. Blue text appeared on the massive silver screen: 

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”

Read Martin’s story Caution – Soldiers Crossing

The post A Standing Ovation at the Cinema appeared first on Quays Life.

When my friend Andy’s son, David, was about six years old, he was obsessed with being a soldier, in that way that imaginative children have of living rather than just playing a game. In the right mood, David could be in role from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, until his bedside light was turned out that night and he was “ordered” to go to sleep.

During this phase, there was a family celebration to which I was invited. We set off to stroll to a nearby pub for lunch. Well, most of us set off strolling. For David, this short walk along the A6 in Milnthorpe was a route march and, since he was chatting to me at the time (no doubt about soldierly concerns), I was striding along to keep up with him.

As we approached a busy junction, David’s dad and uncle, deep in conversation, were about twenty paces behind us. Andy spotted the upcoming hazard and called out:

“David! Hold Martin’s hand when you cross the road.”

The little soldier came to an abrupt, perfectly drilled, halt at the curb.

Hearing teenage children utter disdainful remarks about their parents is an uncomfortable experience. However, when the contempt for a beloved parent comes from a six-year-old, it’s a bit of a thrill to be his trustworthy pal.

“I don’t think soldiers hold hands, do they?” David put it to me, in a tone that implied ‘my father’s an idiot, but you and I know better.’

“David!” This time, Andy’s voice was louder, firmer, not to be disobeyed. It finally struck David that being a soldier was now in direct conflict with being a small boy.

The internal struggle writhed and wriggled across his brow. Soldier’s definitely don’t hold hands, but little boys have to do what their dads tell them. His small face scrunched up, while these two undeniable truths did battle in his head.

Then, all at once, he’d solved it: connected another two awkward pieces of life’s jigsaw.

The soldier and the boy could carry on living, side by side, inside him. He looked up at me and smiled, knowingly.

“I expect soldiers do hold hands when they cross a busy road,” he informed me.

Hand in hand, we marched safely to the other side.

Read Martin’s story A Bedroom With A View

The post Caution – Soldiers Crossing appeared first on Quays Life.

When they’d asked him what he wanted for Christmas, they’d heard, ‘a tricycle’. In his mind, what he’d said was, ‘a boot with wheels’. Adults and children inhabit separate worlds, so the words that cross the divide between them often change meaning between lip and ear.

When I was about 5-years-old, my dad gave a me a small penknife.

My dad was a calico printer – a skilled and, sometimes, physically demanding job. His hands were large and muscular; even in later years, his fingers were almost twice the thickness of mine. Lying in his palm, the penknife looked like a shiny sprat. I was delighted.

I don’t think my dad had consulted with my mum about this. I was his lad, and to his way of viewing things, a penknife was something a lad should have.

“Don’t be silly with it,” he warned me. Of course, I wouldn’t be silly with it; it was treasure!

At that moment, I had no idea what to do with it, I only knew I had to try it out. Straightaway. Wouldn’t you?

For the first year or so after its arrival, the magnificent cast metal rocking horse had lived with my grandparents. They had a council house, small but more spacious than our literal two-up-two-down. My grandparents’ own childhoods had been so wretchedly deprived, they must have wanted not only to conserve the most impressive toy they’d ever been close to, but also to share in my pleasure at riding him.

Now, though, my grandparents had moved to Slough, almost two hundred miles south, so the great horse had to be stabled with us; squeezed into a space under the stairs, by the back door.

My mum was in the kitchen, so she hadn’t seen my dad take the penknife from his pocket and give it to me. She was preoccupied, washing and peeling potatoes. I didn’t want to trouble her by asking for something to cut (she might have suggested peeling potatoes!).

To me the grey rocking horse, with its rubber ears, mane and tail and its studded red harness, was simply an old toy. I had a new toy. That was what mattered.

“Don’t be silly with it,” my dad had said when he gave me the knife. I understood perfectly. He meant, of course, ‘don’t break it.’.

I opened up the penknife and moved in, silently. Unnoticed, so I thought.

As she dropped the peeled spuds into a pan, out of the corner of her eye, my mum must have spotted me working away quietly. By now, she knew full well that a quiet child is a child who needs to be carefully surveilled. She asked me what I was doing. Too late. The red plastic harness was hanging loose, neatly severed.

Mum shouted, took the weapon from me (never to be returned), and marched into the living room. A brief row ensued; brief because, beyond shaking his head at me, my dad didn’t have much of a defence to offer.

I felt bad to have caused friction between my parents. I felt guilty, too. My dad had trusted me like a big boy and I’d let him down so immediately and so completely. In barely more than a minute, my day had gone from magical to ruinous. Sent straight up to bed, I was distraught.

Ah, but the way the tiny knife had sliced through that red plastic rein. Thrilling.

Read more about the old rocking horse in Martin’s story Who Was That Pointy-Headed Boy?

The post The First Cut is the Deepest appeared first on Quays Life.

It was a bright spring morning. I was walking away from Bolton town centre, on my way to teach a class at the Chadwick campus of Bolton Institute of Higher Education.

All at once, there was a screech of brakes and three police cars – one unmarked – swerved over to the pavement alongside me. The driver of the unmarked car was so eager, his front wheels bumped up onto the pavement.

A plain clothes officer leapt out of this car and, politely, asked me to step to the side because he needed to ask me some questions. I asked what it was about. A man had just carried out a robbery in Marks and Spencer and I ‘matched the description’. With this explained, I answered his questions. He listened, checked a couple of details on his radio, then stepped back, apologised for troubling me, thanked me for my cooperation and let me go. I think we both had a little chuckle about it.

It seems the principle way in which I ‘matched the description’ was that we were both holding a heavily laden Marks and Spencer carrier bag ¬– mine held my lecture notes, his contained a large wad of banknotes, snatched from an M&S till.

I shared this story with my students. They liked it better than my lecture.

The first time I was stopped by the police, was an altogether different matter.

It was a mid-summer evening and I was walking home after a long, difficult, sad meeting with my ex in a town centre pub. I walked through the subway down by the side of the Parish church. I could see a woman, standing at the far end of the underpass, silhouetted against the evening sky. Only when I got closer did it become clear she was a WPC.

She stopped me, told me to wait there and spoke into her radio:

“I’ve got him.”

Moments later, a male police officer appeared, having apparently followed me at a distance through the underpass.

By this point, the WPC had already tried to search me. I refused her permission to go through my pockets, but agreed to empty them myself.

The street wasn’t busy, but there were people walking past. I didn’t look at them but I knew, if any of them recognised me, they would mark me down as a criminal. The policewoman accused me of ‘being hostile’. It wasn’t hostility, it was humiliation.

My request to know why I’d been apprehended was ignored. The male officer asked for my name and address. His eyes lit up when I told him the latter. Temporarily, I was back living at my parents’ home – Hollycroft Avenue, Darcy Lever.

“Have you ever been in trouble, Martin?” He already knew the answer to this.

“No.” That was not the answer he “knew”.

“Really?” There was no attempt to disguise the incredulous tone.

Again, I asked why I had been stopped. Records searches took longer in those days so, almost to pass the time, they told me.

A woman had reported that, for about half-an-hour, a man “matching” my description, had been pestering people, trying to sell them drugs.

Simple solution, so I thought. I explained that, until about five minutes earlier, I’d been in a town centre bar (one of the newer, trendier ones, not a den of thieves). We could drive over in their squad car and somebody behind the bar would vouch for me.

No takers.

The radio crackled. The search had revealed no criminal record. Incredible.

They had little choice but to let me go, “guilty” though I was. The WPC left me in no doubt that I hadn’t conned her.

“There was obviously something about your behaviour that the lady didn’t like. Now, be on your way!”

This incident not only changed the way I felt about the police, it changed the way I felt about the country I grew up in. For quite some time, whenever I heard that glib phrase, “It’s a free country,” I could feel my hackles rising.

A few years further back, a lad called Paul, who lived in the next street, Beechcroft Avenue, told me about passing some other Darcy boys, just as they were being arrested. It was late and Paul was walking home alone, after a night’s clubbing.

One of the policemen shouted at Paul to come over. Paul, who hadn’t been with the other lads, protested.

“I haven’t done anything,” he told the officers. They grabbed him, thumped him on the side of the head and threw him the back of the van with the others.

He was charged with resisting arrest. He was now a lawbreaker. QED.

The first car my youngest brother, Matthew, ever bought was a Ford Capri. To be honest, the bodywork was in better nick than what lay underneath, but it looked good and he was proud of it.

Not long after he bought it, he was driving out of our street when the police pulled him over and gave him what’s known as a ‘producer’. In this context, a ‘producer’ (for those who’ve never had one) is a legal notice, issued by a police officer, instructing the driver of a vehicle to ‘produce’ their documentation (licence, insurance certificate, MOT) for examination at a local police station (within 7 days of issue).

A short while later, Matt got another producer. And then another, and another. In the end, he started ignoring them. This, of course, earned him a fine. He was now a lawbreaker. QED.

I was a highly educated man in my mid-30s; Paul was a smartly dressed young man in his mid-20s. Matt was barely out of his teens, driving a nice (well, nice-looking) car.

What marked us out, was that we all lived on one of two streets in a certain part of Bolton. We’d been socially profiled, you might say. White lads from a poor area; had we lived in certain other parts of town, we’d have passed without let or hindrance.

But here’s the thing. When you’re black, you’re black in every part of town.

                #BlackLivesMatter

The post Matching the Description appeared first on Quays Life.

Mounted on sturdy springs and a red metal frame, his mane was moulded rubber, as were his ears, his flowing tail and even the saddle. Only the reins and the straps holding the metal spurs were leather. The rest of the harness was red plastic with “silver” metal studs.

Seated astride this impressive, metal cast, beast is a boy not yet three-years-old, dressed in his Sunday best clothes (including that bane of small boys of the era – the bow tie on an elastic loop around his collar). The boy looks a little uncomfortable, in that way that children being told to strike and hold a pose often do. He’s looking down and to his left, where a small woman with glowing cheeks, lies propped up in her sick bed. The woman smiles up at the little boy, whilst holding a Pekingese dog firmly on the edge of her bed.

The dog was called Joey. The woman was my nanna (the term ‘grandma’ was strictly forbidden). The boy, of course, was me.

Lifting the photo out of its frame and turning it over, I find a typed copy of the story which accompanied the original newspaper edition.

“The secret wish of MRS HILDA HARRIS of 15 Nevis Grove, Astley Bridge, Bolton, (who has been in bed for the last three weeks with rheumatic fever) was for a rocking horse for her three-year-old grandson, MARTIN, who is a “hole on the heart” baby.

The Daily Mirror granted Mrs Harris’s wish and presented Martin with a beautiful big rocking horse.”

That plastic harness would one day get me in trouble. I’ll tell you all about it, tomorrow.

Read Martin’s story A Bedroom With A View

The post Who Was That Pointy-Headed Boy? appeared first on Quays Life.

I called round once, unexpectedly, just after noon. Uncle Ben greeted me. Auntie Nora was in bed with one of her heads. We all knew about Auntie Nora’s heads and they were nothing to do with hangovers and everything to do with her being a worrier.

Uncle Ben shouted up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Nora? How are you?”
“How do you think I am? I’m dying!”
“Well, hurry up and die quietly!” Uncle Ben grinned and winked at me as he shouted this.
(A muffled groan from the front bedroom).
“You don’t care…”
“Martin’s here!”
“Why didn’t you tell me, you daft devil?”

A minute later, Auntie Nora, wrapped in her pink towelling dressing gown, was downstairs, purse in hand, despatching Uncle Ben to the corner shop to “get some cream cakes.”

These three elements seemed to me to characterise Auntie Nora and Uncle Ben as a couple: worry, brutal but loving banter, and cream cakes.

Uncle Ben was tall. He served in the Coldstream guards during World War Two. Towards the end of the war, he brought home a trophy – a Nazi flag – which Auntie Nora decided to use as a tablecloth. This might seem a strange choice, but it was all to do with her being a worrier. No matter that the war seemed to be going well, this might all be propaganda. In her mind, storm troopers could arrive at any moment, goose-stepping through Bolton town centre and along her very own street. The Nazi flag was her insurance policy, her way of trying to protect her extended family (which would have included my mum) from being lined up against a wall and shot.

Having the flag to hand meant that, as the Germans came marching down her street, she could whip it off the kitchen table, run upstairs, and hang it out of the bedroom window (thereby making the conquering army feel welcomed). For those who feel this was less than patriotic, I ought to stress that Auntie Nora was no Nazi-sympathiser. She was never going to BE on the Nazis’ side, she just needed them to THINK she was on their side, in order to protect those she loved from a ruthless enemy.

Her other coping mechanism at this worrying time, was to bake cakes and send them off to Uncle Ben at the front. These were intended to boost his morale and keep his strength up. When the war was over and he was demobbed and home for good, she asked him if he’d enjoyed the cakes.

“They took six months to reach me,” he told her. “By the time they arrived they were that hard we loaded ‘em up and fired ‘em at the bloody Gerries. Why do you think they surrendered?”

Love moves in mysterious ways.

Read Martin’s story The Lost Art of Conducting Buses.

The post How Auntie Nora Helped Uncle Ben Win the War appeared first on Quays Life.

I was not quite three-years-old when the factory closed, and we moved to Halliwell, close to the centre of Bolton. The ruins of the ancient cottage now lie at the bottom of the Jumbles reservoir.

Our new home, in a cobbled street among many other cobbled streets, was quite literally a two-up, two-down. At the top of stairs so steep no building regs would permit them these days, there were two bedrooms – my parents’ to the left, mine to the right.

One night, in the early hours, there was a terrifying crash and I woke with a sense that the whole floor had been shaken. I leapt from bed to rush to my mum and dad for comfort. To my horror, I wasn’t able to force my way into their bedroom. It was as if some malicious power were leaning against the door from their side, keeping me out. This was a waking nightmare: jolted from a deep sleep by an unearthly noise, stepping into the cold, pitch black and now blocked from safety and reassurance by some powerful demon (what might it have done with my parents?) I started to cry.

My dad’s voice, calming and, to my ears, at ease (though he surely can’t have been), told me to wait and not to fret. With some effort, accompanied by a peculiar scraping noise, he pulled their bedroom door open just enough for me to squeeze in, telling me to be careful where I put my bare feet. As I entered, for some reason (perhaps some sound, perhaps the cold air) I looked up. I could see stars.

A hefty part of the chimney had collapsed, falling through the roof, the Victorian brickwork taking a few roof tiles along for the journey, and the combination had then crashed straight through the ceiling of my parents’ bedroom.

Hence, the stars.

Read Martin’s story: The Lost Art of Conducting Buses

The post A Bedroom with a View appeared first on Quays Life.

The other member of the team – the one who saved the driver from having to deal with the general public – was the conductor. Although there were no female drivers at that time, besides conductors, there were also conductresses and for a short time, while we were still living in that cobbled street in Halliwell, my mum was one of them.

It was the conductress’s job to take fares, give change, reel off tickets, keep order and ring the bell (once to stop, twice to pull away, three times in an emergency).

For the most part, a driver and his conductor were a settled team – they worked the same shifts on the same route. My mum’s driver was called Gordon. She liked Gordon. She said he was a good driver which, since she never learned to drive herself, probably meant he made her feel safe and didn’t throw her or the passengers about when braking. There was also one trip when Gordon demonstrated what mum viewed as grace under fire.

As I’ve said, the driver’s cabin was entirely separate. However, just behind his head, was a small sliding window (meant only to be used by the conductor to pass important information) which opened into the downstairs section of the bus.

On a crowded, late night trip, one particular gent, ‘drunk as a lord’ in my mum’s description, tottered to the front of the bus and slid open this driver’s window. Whether his impulse was primarily homicidal or suicidal, we shall never know, but he then reached an arm through the opening and started to throttle poor Gordon.

The obvious thing to do was pull over, put on the handbrake and try to wrestle himself free before proceeding. Gordon, however, seems to have been determined – whether through professional pride or reduced oxygen supply to the brain – not to allow a hand around his throat to come between him and the proper execution of his duty.

As the bus alternately hurtled and veered, there was a certain amount of panic among the other passengers; some wailing, others screaming. No doubt, many of them had in mind the famous “Just room for one inside, sir,” story from the 1945 Ealing Horror, “Dead of Night”, which ends with a bus careening out of control, crashing through a bridge and falling into the river below. This particular bus was heading towards Turner Bridge, beneath which trickles the mighty River Croal.

Anyway, as they say in Bolton, cometh the homicidal drunk, cometh the man. In this case, the man was a fellow passenger who, grabbing the assailant firmly by his collar and the seat of his pants, yanked him away from Gordon and carried him bodily towards the exit at the back. In those days, there were no automatic passenger-doors, just an open platform for getting on and off. The hero of the hour asked my mum to get the driver to slow down around the next bend.

For the first time in all this fuss, the bus did indeed slow at the next bend and, with the valediction, “My life’s precious, mate, if yours i’n’t!”, the rescuer dropped the assailant onto the pavement like a sack of spuds.

A round of applause followed. The man nodded and took a seat.

Gordon drove on.

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