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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE
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1906-09 6M p6 |
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Cobblestone Cowboys by John Leeds |
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Synopsis; The main theme running through the book is the irregular getting together of a group of long time friends, (The Team). Their venue is the taproom of the 'Shires' public house, there they quaff copious amounts of best bitter ale, and reminisce on the events and adventures that they shared back in 'the old days.' Oft times, the narrator, John, stimulated by the conversation, lapses into a reverie and relives some of the episodes in his long career, working overseas in the construction industry. The contents are related to the reader in fifteen separate chapters. The characters are, (or were) real persons. The first chapter, "The Finest in The City" introduces the team members The dialogue reflects the wry, dry humour, and the strong camaraderie of working men, not just in the North of England, but everywhere where a group of men are thrown together, either by choice, or circumstance.
Excerpt from Chapter 2. "It went down alright in the end" “Oh, well, never mind, no use crying over spilt milk, let’s have a nice cup of tea,-or would you like something stronger.” I felt a quiet pang of sorrow hearing her speak those words, and seeing her brave beauty, so like her long dead sister - my mother, who solved all the worlds problems with that phrase. Not so Ada, tears streaming copiously down her florid cheeks, “Eeh, poor Bert, poor old Bert,” she wailed, standing at the coffin-side, gripping the edge, nose barely level with the top, “I can’t see him properly,” she sobbed, “I’ve got to see him one last time.” “Here you are love, stand on that.” Ada snuffled her thanks and placed one foot on the make-shift ladder, grunting with effort she renewed her grip on the coffin rim and heaved herself up. The old pouffe, unused to such violent treatment buckled forward throwing Ada against Bert’s box. Although it happened so suddenly, the scene is lodged in my mind, like a slow motion replay. I gave a start forward but was powerless to prevent the ghastly episode. Ada hit the side of the coffin with a thump, shooting it off the smoothly-worn tops of the trestles to land with a crash on it’s side. Bert shot out of his last resting place, and rolled across the carpeted floor, shroud up around his waist, to end up on his back like some fugitive from Madame Tussaud’s, his head resting on Violets country brogue shoes, leering sightlessly up her tweed skirt. Violet jumped up, screaming silently but horribly, gazing in terror at poor Bert’s head still resting comfortably on her feet. My Mary let out a strangled gasp of horror. Aunt Ethel momentarily fainted clean away, my sister Alice for once was incapable of speech and began to shout hysterically, “George, George.” George stared at the macabre scene and muttered helpfully “Jesus Christ. Bloody hell,- oh dear me - Bloody Hell.” Aunt Edith finally broke, and turning away face buried in her hands bolted to the sitting room. Peter sat bolt upright with a half bemused, scared look on his face, his girl friend clinging to him, her head buried deep in his shoulder. Sid, trying frantically to revive his wife Violet, slapped her face a little too hard sending her glasses flying away onto the carpet to be promptly trodden on by poor Ada, who was scrambling about frantically on all fours amid a sorry carpet of squashed Lilies of the Valley, trying to regain her feet, and looking remarkably from the behind like one of Thellwell’s overweight Shetland ponies. Violet regained her voice, a high pitched tremolo, “Get it off,- Get it off me, take it away.” Alice at last shook herself, and resumed her natural role of compere and commanding officer. “Alf, -George, don’t stand there like a pair of candlesticks, do something, Alf you’re the biggest you take his shoulders- George, feet, that’s it, now lift,” discreetly pulling down the hem of Bert’s nightshirt-come-shroud as she crossed the room and righted the apparently undamaged coffin. We struggled to raise Bert’s poor remains. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to lift a dead body, but it was as difficult as pushing a piece of string, it wasn’t his weight, God knows he’d lost enough. I lifted my end easily, but as George raised the shoeless feet he slipped on the pulpy flowers and Bert sagged in the middle causing us both to cannon into each other head-first. Peter came out of his trance, and between the three of us we got him at last back in the box. Unfortunately, we should have placed the coffin back on the trestles, then laid Bert to rest, for as we started to lift box and Bert together, with an ominous creaking sound the screws came out from the ply-wood bottom and poor Bert dropped once again, albeit more gently onto the Axminster. We rolled Bert over, and retrieving the bottom panel, lifted the coffin back onto the trestles. Alice tucked the white satin lining back into position, straightened Bert’s head, and shouted softly. “Edie, Aunty Edie love, come on back, it’s alright now.” Edith came in slowly, hanging fearfully on to Mary’s arm, her momentary hysteria bottled up, she was once more her old composed self. Ada, still in a state of bewilderment was led upstairs to the bathroom by Violet and Ethel. I wasn’t very impressed with the undertakers crew, I’ve seen better dressed dustbin men. I took the most intelligent looking one aside, and explained the little mishap with the coffin, he assured me that it would be no problem, and he’d get it fixed in a jiffy. After a five minute huddle with the other three helpers, he came back to me. “`Er, squire, have you got a hammer we can borrow, to nail the base up tight,- and -`erm, can we borrow a screwdriver, the nails alone are not strong enough, so I’ll put in a few screws, we seem to have forgot our tools, for the lid you know.” I took him outside to the little shed and motioned for him to have a look for what he needed. It looked like finally we could get on with Bert’s final journey, but!!- Just as they started to slide the lid into position Edie gave a despairing eek. “Alf, his teeth, where’s his teeth? I can’t let him go without his teeth, you know how particular he was about being properly dressed and that.” And so a frenzied search by all the able-bodied guests ensued, watched with interest by the alarmingly cheerful driver and his mates. Chairs and settee were moved aside, whilst we scrabbled madly about on hands and knees. Sid found them,- at least, he found the top set, by the simple means of kneeling on them, “Christ, me bloody knee.” he informed us. The bottom set of teeth never did re-appear. “Put them in, there’s a love,” Edith begged. George and Sid turned pale, and backed away, Peter had taken his hysterical Yvonne to the bathroom, that only left me, taking a deep breath, and trying to avoid Bert’s questioning, sightless stare through half opened lids. The pall bearers, ceased their muted conversation about the big events on last nights episode of Coronation Street, and set about their task, The craftsman clumsily screwed the warped lid down, managing to stab himself in the hand, but bravely finished the job with a handkerchief wrapped around his wound. Things finally, and amazingly got sorted out, and it was an almost normal party which at last set off to the parish church of St. Matthias. Edie, my Mary, Ada and Violet in the undertakers black limousine which looked quite clean but was noisily blowing black smoke from the exhaust. George took Alice and Ethel and Sid in his. Myself, Peter and companion waited for the taxi. The driver knew his way around the town, and within 10 minutes we scrunched to a halt on the gravel outside the small church of St. Matthias. I slipped the taxi man a fiver and inside we went, into the empty church. It was empty except for the vicar and two or three of Bert’s old drinking cronies. The reverend gentleman was fidgeting, impatiently, and busily trying to tidy a neat row of hymn books, the old stone wall echoed to nervous coughs and scraping feet. It seemed an age had passed, and after the vicar gave a longer than usual look at his wristwatch, and lifted his head, obviously about to say something, the oak doors banged open, and slowly in marched Bert, borne a little lopsidedly by the 4 mismatched bearers, closely followed by the rest of our small party. George whispered to me, they had had to burn rubber crossing the town from the large parish church of St. Matthew, 3 miles away. The vicar, still in a huff, said a few words about Bert’s life, then read from the bible, before a quavering attempt at the old hymn ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ He had vetoed Bert’s posthumous request to play Bix Biederbeck’s Barnacle Bill the Sailor, but relented enough for Bert to exit the church to the strains of Glen Millers American Patrol. The thin crocodile of mourners followed the unsteady bearers down the muddy grass track to his final resting place. Thankfully there were no incidents or hysterics at the graveside, and as it started to rain the vicar hurried through his ‘ashes and dust thing’, and that was the end of old Bert, apart from the tea and pastries back at Edith’s. Unfortunately, the back door had been left open and the neighbours’ Labrador had made himself at home, pulling the cloth off the table, and scoffing most of the goodies. Aunt Edith, just sighed, collapsed into her chair, pushed off her shoes with her feet, and said wearily to anyone. “Put the kettle on, there’s a love.” So there it was. We had the wake down at the club afterwards. Bert had thoughtfully arranged a hundred quid behind the bar to keep the drinks flowing. So it was quite a contented mourning party who said tearful goodbyes as the steward of the club called “Last orders pur-leese.” I can’t help thinking that as in most things, you only get what you pay for, and good old Aunty Edie seemed happy enough, so I suppose, that as funerals go, you could say that, “Everything went down alright in the end!!!.” |