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I still wasn't interested in conker fights but I'd started hanging around on Sunday afternoons with my mate Michael. I'd met him the Summer before when I was 9 years old and we'd become really good mates. We'd get up to all sorts of things together – sometimes money-making schemes but nothing really illegal. We used to pick the wild rhubarb that grew on the bomb sites and then set up a stall with an old door we found there and sell it. We also used to find old beer bottles that had a deposit on them and we'd clean them up and take them back to the off-license. There were loads of other things – a couple of which were a bit dodgy and one of which got us into big trouble but I'll keep that under my hat. I wanted to save my share of the money and buy something for my mum but he just spent his straight off – and he shared anything he bought like drinks with me. When we were up around the tube station pulling a stunt, as soon as he got any money he used to go and get a dab of brylcreem from the machine in the station and slick it all over his hair. He wanted me to put some on too – and I needed it really as my hair was always sticking up but my mum would go mad if we put anything on our hair. I didn't risk it but I did used to get a suck of the ice lollies he'd buy. That did get me into trouble as my mum banned ice-lollies – she thought the colouring agents in them were bad for you and she was ahead of her time there. She didn't mind ice-cream – especially from the Italian shop down the road from us. Anyway I came back one Sunday and, without realising it, I had a bright orange tongue from sharing Michael's ice-lolly and that was a dead give away. I still didn't realise why my mum was laying in to me “for no reason” until she took me down and held me in front of the bathroom mirror. It was a fair cop and I couldn't say anything. Anyway Michael was into conkers. They were allowed to play at his school – they had a bigger playground – and he was always looking for new material.

Weekends

I've told you before that during the school terms Saturday afternoon was important for play. I used to have to help out around the house in the mornings or go shopping and Michael went Irish dancing. In the afternoon we met up in the park and played football with other boys or something. If Saturday was important though Sunday afternoon was sacred for play. For one thing it was back to school the next day and for another time was limited. I went to Sunday School in the mornings and Michael went to Mass and we both had to be in early to have a bath and get our school things ready so those few hours that we had to get out together were really precious. We never wasted a minute deciding what to do we just went and did something – anything. I never resented much my mum did but the time she kept me in one Sunday so that she could teach me to sew still rankles. I felt she'd taken away a whole chunk of my boyhood. Anyway – to the “conker-clothes”.

The New Conker Tree

One Sunday afternoon when I'd at last got away from the family meal, changed into play clothes and gone round for Michael I could tell that he had something up his sleeve. His huge extended family were usually still eating and he relied on me to help him escape. He had to wait for his dad (who I was a bit scared of) to tell him that he could go out and the more he got impatient the more his dad made him wait. His mum usually rescued him though and then we'd be off up to his room and he'd sling off his mass suit and shirt and tie and throw on any old clothes so we could get out before his dad changed his mind. He normally grabbed the first t-shirt, jumper and jeans that came to hand – sometimes ones belonging to one of his older brothers but he'd just roll them up or grab a belt – slipped on his plimpsolls and we'd be off. This day I learned he'd made a ! great discovery. He'd found a new conker tree that nobody else knew about. I don't know to this day how he'd spotted it - maybe his dad had been working in one of the houses (he was a builder) and Michael had been sent round there in the evening with some sandwiches, which happened quite a lot – but he'd found this tree and also worked out how to get at it. He always came up with these ideas and never bothered explaining. I just got to trust him – and he me. That was the other thing about Sunday – lot's of kids weren't allowed out at all – or went out with their parents visiting relatives on a Sunday so there weren't that many people in the parks. It normally ended up with just us two doing something down by the river or around the streets. There'd sometimes be a group of West Indian kids who we knew with their families playing cricket in the Summer and they'd let us play for a while and give us this homemade ginger beer to drink – which would blow your head off but was better than anything you could buy in the shops. But normally we'd be off on our own. And this was now Autumn.

Anyway this tree was in a really odd position.It was in it's own space surrounded by the back gardens of some of the bigger houses. It was weired as it was like a circle surrounded by three of the garden walls – as though it had been there for years (which it probably had) and they'd just built around it. Anyway to get to it you had to go down one of the alleys – climb up onto the wall seperating the first two gardens and then shuffle along past five or six of the gardens and then drop down into the space. The beauty was that the houses on both sides had all built wooden fences up against the wall so as long as you kept on your hands and knees no-one could see you from the houses. The trouble was – on the third wall along someone had put a layer of cement on top of the brickwork and embedded old broken bottles in it. I'd seen this before where a house backed on to an alley and it was meant to deter burglars but this wall was between two private gardens and I couldn't see the point – unless it had been done before the second lot of houses had been built or there was serious neighbourhood disputes going on.

Juvenile Cat Burglers

Anyway – that wasn't our concern – our concern was to get past it. It was only about 12 feet in length and the glass wasn't razor-sharp – it was quite worn down really – but still not good to cross on your hands and knees. Michael had it sorted in an instant though. He went first as he was wearing jeans – for some reason my mum would never let us wear jeans on a Sunday. We took off our jumpers and folded them up and then he'd kneel on his while I passed mine to him.Then he'd shuffle forward on the jumper so I could kneel behind him while he took his weight on his hands on my jumper in front of him. Once I was kneeling on his jumper he could shuffle forward on to mine and we'd start again. It hurt your knees a bit – especially me as I was wearing shorts - but this was great fun and we soon crossed the “glassy wall” as we got to call it, then the other plain walls and then dropped down into the space where the conker tree was. It was all a conker collector could want – nice ripe conkers lying there for the taking. The trouble is we had nothing to put them in. Michael took off his t-shirt and tried to tie it into a sack – but it had short sleeves and my button-up shirt was no better. Worse than that it was none too warm and we both had goose-pimples. We realised that we wouldn't be able to carry them anyway. So we stuffed our pockets with some of the best ones and decided to go and find a bag.We crossed the walls again easily enough – although we had to jetison some of the conkers as they were restricting our movements. Michael didn't dare go home as he might not get out again and I thought of sneaking home to get my satchell but even that was risky – you never knew with my mum. Michael wanted the conkers – I just wanted the adventure but in the end we decided to leave it until the next Saturday as it was later than ! we'd thought and if either of us was late home on a Sunday it was big trouble – for him not being allowed out at all. Anyway we went back onto the bombsite and started making plans for next Saturday. We'd both bring our satchels and thick jumpers and then we'd have it made. Michael was even talking of setting up a conker stall and selling them!. Anyway we both got home in good time and that was it until Saturday. I never saw Michael in the week during term-time – I think he had homework from his school. We had some but not much. I got more later in the year as my teacher wanted me to practice for the enterance exam for my grammar school. For the time being though I was relatively free.

The next Saturday my mum was a bit suspicious when she caught me going out with my satchel after we'd done all the work in the house. She also wanted to know why I was was wearing one jumper and had another one stuffed in my satchel (I was aiming to make things as easy as possible). I told her I'd been feeling cold – which was a bad mistake as she immediately started feeling my forehead to see if I was going down with something. She was starting to get in her bad moods with me as I was getting up to quite a few things – especially since I'd come back from Germany – and I was a lot more secretive. It was just growing up I suppose but she was probably worried I was getting up to no good. Anyway she wanted to know what I wanted my satchel for and in the end I gave up and ran out leaving it behind with the spare jumper in it. I felt I'd let Michael down – but I still thought his satchel could hold all of the conkers he needed. He'd have come up with a reason for the satchel quick as a flash – but I could never lie to my mum. I could have just told her that I wanted it to collect conkers in – but who thinks of simply telling the truth when you're a kid on a big adventure?

Anyway as it turned out the whole thing went to pot because Michael too was in trouble and his dad wouldn't let him out. His dad wasn't there but his mum told me – but she did let me in. She'd have probably let him out but his dad's word was law in their house. I think he'd had another argument about his Irish dancing with his mum or dad because he wouldn't tell me what had happened and he didn't like mentioning the dancing even to me. He just said his dad and his mum expected him to be Irish but he wasn't – he was English like me!. It was a funny time because “The Troubles” had just kicked off in Ireland again and some Irish people were re-emphasising their heritage again and there were a few heated discussions aroung their Sunday dinner table when I was waiting for Michael - but nothing too heavy and it was his mum who told the men to calm down – at least until we were out of the way. Michael was caught up in the middle of this but he just wanted to knock around on the streets like me. His brother's hadn't had to do Irish dancing - although their mum would have liked it they could appeal to their dad and he backed them. When it came to Michael because of the political situation his dad too thought he should go – his mum just wanted it as he was the youngest. I don't know if he was ever any good at it – I doubt it! Anyway we stayed up in his room complaining about the world as we saw it until his mum came up and got us down into the kitchen for some of her freshly-baked homemade bread and jam and when his dad did get home with his older brothers he was back in a good mood so Michael tried to get him to let him out but he still said no which put Michael back in a really bad mood and his dad exploded then and sent me home.

I was scared to go round there as usual the next day - so I was surprised when Michael turned up at my house while we were still eating all dressed up for conkering and with his satchel. He was full of it – chatting away to my mum (who really liked him as he made her laugh) and I got away quite easily – with my satchel too and no questions asked. I only nearly blew it when I asked my mum if I could wear my jeans like Michael and she just gave me one of those looks she had that was a warning. I still don't know why she had that rule of no jeans on Sunday – trying to have a bit of respect for the Christian Sabbath I suppose – but it was a rule she kept for most of my boyhood. If you could get round my mum with a lot of things once she'd made her mind up about something you argued with her at your peril! When we got out I found that Michael had come even more prepared – he'd got gloves (proper leather ones that he'd “borrowed” from his older brother) and he'd even put on a pair of his jeans that had iron on patches where the knees had given way – making them even more suitable for the “glassy wall” than a normal pair as these iron-on patches were made of pretty thick plasticky material. With my shorts and just a jumper to kneel on I was very ill-equipped in comparison. As it turned out we got along the wall kneeling on our satchels and the jumpers so you could even have done it on your own.

We went a couple more times on a Sunday and got loads of conkers until the season ended. Michael always went up and changed into his jeans with the patches and a thick jumper and packed his brother's gloves in his satchel for these expeditions so in this sense you could call these his “conkering clothes”. He offered to lend me jeans – but even though she probably would never have found out I would have felt that my mum would “known” somehow. Anyway – as I said it was never too bad and Michael led the way. I never got cut knees or anything. He just wanted to play the part to the full. These days we'd probably get arrested as potential cat-burgalars!.

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Created: 6:47 AM 7/10/2004
Last updated: 6:47 AM 7/10/2004