Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival by Janey Godley Page B

spoke. She was certainly not unkind; she just liked a bargain. She knew we were desperate to stay and exploited that knowledge. At the height of the summer season, she shifted us into a wee caravan in the backyard, but we still had to pay her the full money. Our caravan had no gas and she told us we had to buy our own; she understood our financial set-up and realised there was no way we could buy gas, but still left us in a damp caravan with no light or heating. We were so young, so overwhelmed by our elders and so desperate that we never argued.
    We must have made an odd couple: Janey with the chatty mouth and Maggie the silent smoker. She hardly spoke two words to anyone except me and would sometimes only speak to other people through me. Our only belongings were the cassette player Dad had given me and our treasured wee transistor radio. We listened diligently every Sunday afternoon to the chart show on BBC Radio 1 and could not believe how long Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta were at Number One in the charts with ‘Summer Nights’, the song from the film
Grease
. Every night, we would hang out at the beach or go to the café and play one song –usually ELO – on the tabletop jukeboxes. It was good to feel like a real teenager for a change. Life in Redcar had turned out to be not so bad; I even noticed that the local college ran a free art course in the evening, so I enrolled for that. Maggie – who could not draw to save her life – came along too because she did not want to be left alone. I used her as my model and, when she was forced to take part, I would paint her contribution as well as mine to keep her happy.
    I called Mammy a few times at her local pub (we had no phone at home) and she sometimes wrote to me; the rest of the news from Shettleston was passed on to me through the monthly phone call from my sister Ann. I was also given the address of some people from Shettleston who knew us and who now lived in Redcar. Maggie and I went to visit them a few times; they had met all of my family at one time or another; I didn’t feel quite so isolated then. But Maggie never received any news from home: no letters, not even a phone call to our guest-house.
    I loved the B&B and, despite her shortcomings, I did like Bessie. She even took me with her on a three-day trip to Blackpool; basically, I was there to keep her company. We shared a wee room on the seafront and went shopping together. I only had about £3 to spend, but she kept me fed. I went on a few rides at the Pleasure Beach which I enjoyed, but when I turned a corner and saw a mechanical laughing clown I was terrified and even the fairground game where you throw balls into a clown’s mouth frightened me. That night, Bessie took me to a dinner dance at the Winter Gardens and she introduced me to a tall man.
    ‘This is Janey Currie from Glasgow – she works in my guest- house,’ she said to the man. ‘Janey, this is James Callaghan, the Prime Minister.’
    I looked at him and thought
Fuck! So it is! I recognise you off the telly
. I didn’t know if he was Labour or Conservative. I shook hands with him and thought he looked clean and shiny though a bit worn out. He said, ‘Hello, Janey,’ did that smiley thing that politicians do and moved on. Bessie spent the rest of the night dancing; I sat at the side of the dance floor drinking Coca-Cola and thinking
I just met the Prime Minister – how weird is that?
    On the train back to Redcar I decided that Maggie and I could no longer live like this and figured it was time to move out of Bessie’s but, when I talked to Maggie about it the next day, we both realised it would be too difficult trying to get a flat when we were on Benefit.
    Later, I was out shopping for our dinner in the town centre when I walked past a betting shop and a voice behind me rang out, ‘How are you, Sweet Pea?’
    I turned and there stood Uncle David Percy, in the doorway of the shop.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him,