we met up with Ronnie, running an errand for his gran. We accompanied him to the butcher’s. Ronnie bought a pound of sausages and a couple of pounds of scrag-end. I stared at, could not take my eyes off, the poor little skinned rabbits – ‘Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting’ – hanging up by their front, still-furry paws from a row of hooks on a rail in the window.
Ronnie was in no hurry to return home with his shopping. We went back to the park. Tony Leatherland and some others were kicking a ball about in the swings; a couple of rowers were out on the pond; Mr Skidmore was fishing still. Ronniewas keen to conduct an experiment with an earwig. It was generally believed, by us kids anyway, that if an earwig got into your ear (and why else call it an earwig?), it could travel from there to your brain and send you mad. Ronnie hoped to obtain an earwig and thereafter, I suppose, an ear (not his own).
If Tommy Pye was a natural, Ronnie Horsfield was a naturalist, a great gazer into muddy puddles, grassy banks and hedgerows, a lifter-up of rotting logs and corrugated-iron sheeting. Ants’ nests and frogspawn held a fascination for him. He would climb any tree if there was a nest in it. But Ronnie was a boy with a reputation. He blew frogs up with a straw. There, I’ve said it! There was other stuff too, involving fledgling birds etc. He was reported to cut the heads off sticklebacks. But it was the frog story that got to everybody. Frogs fascinated Ronnie and I guess he fascinated us. There again, I cannot say I ever witnessed him do any of this. He never spoke or boasted of it. It was just said of him that he did these things. It was his reputation.
Ronnie found no earwigs that day, it was the wrong time of year, but he did share a bit of his gran’s scrag-end with Archie, inviting him to perform a three-legged leap for it. And he would’veshared one of his sausages with us. He wanted us to get a fire going in the bushes and cook it. We tried begging matches from a couple of fishermen (Mr Skidmore had departed), but had no luck. Thus Ronnie’s grandma’s sausages survived and he took them home.
Four days to the final – well, three and a half now. A practice match had been arranged by Spencer, with Leatherland’s lot again, for Monday after school. Tuesday too, probably. As for Wednesday, that depended on the unpredictable Mr Cork. Would he be marching us down to GKN’s ground as usual, have us running around for an hour and a half before the final? You wouldn’t put it past him.
One other worry we had, looking ahead to the final itself, was: the shirts. Spencer had received a letter giving details of various presentations, speeches and so on. The teams would get to shake hands with the Mayor and Mayoress of Oldbury, Alderman and Mrs Haywood of Haywood’s Outfitters fame. How well did they know their own stock, we wondered? Were they liable to recognize it, if it shook hands with them? We’d find out soon enough.
20
Lucky and Unlucky Omens
Accles & Pollock made weldless steel tubes of every kind and for every purpose, right the way down in size to hypodermic needles. There was a story told, and popularly believed in Oldbury, that in the 1930s an American steel-tube manufacturer sent Accles & Pollock a sample of their finest-diameter tube, claiming it as ‘the smallest in the world’. The grimed and sweaty men of Oldbury had a good look at it and, eventually, sent it back with one of their own inside it.
Accles’s sports ground was up on the Wolverhampton Road. We needed a bus to get there. There were fourteen of us, all told: the team, plus Spencer, Brenda and Patrick Prosser with his well-autographed if grubby plaster cast. We charged upstairs to the smoke-filled upper deck. Normally, the conductor would have put a stop to this, butwe had him outnumbered. Tommy Pye instantly went into a panic, claiming he had lost his fare. He found it almost immediately, in his hand. Ronnie had to be
Ronnie was in no hurry to return home with his shopping. We went back to the park. Tony Leatherland and some others were kicking a ball about in the swings; a couple of rowers were out on the pond; Mr Skidmore was fishing still. Ronniewas keen to conduct an experiment with an earwig. It was generally believed, by us kids anyway, that if an earwig got into your ear (and why else call it an earwig?), it could travel from there to your brain and send you mad. Ronnie hoped to obtain an earwig and thereafter, I suppose, an ear (not his own).
If Tommy Pye was a natural, Ronnie Horsfield was a naturalist, a great gazer into muddy puddles, grassy banks and hedgerows, a lifter-up of rotting logs and corrugated-iron sheeting. Ants’ nests and frogspawn held a fascination for him. He would climb any tree if there was a nest in it. But Ronnie was a boy with a reputation. He blew frogs up with a straw. There, I’ve said it! There was other stuff too, involving fledgling birds etc. He was reported to cut the heads off sticklebacks. But it was the frog story that got to everybody. Frogs fascinated Ronnie and I guess he fascinated us. There again, I cannot say I ever witnessed him do any of this. He never spoke or boasted of it. It was just said of him that he did these things. It was his reputation.
Ronnie found no earwigs that day, it was the wrong time of year, but he did share a bit of his gran’s scrag-end with Archie, inviting him to perform a three-legged leap for it. And he would’veshared one of his sausages with us. He wanted us to get a fire going in the bushes and cook it. We tried begging matches from a couple of fishermen (Mr Skidmore had departed), but had no luck. Thus Ronnie’s grandma’s sausages survived and he took them home.
Four days to the final – well, three and a half now. A practice match had been arranged by Spencer, with Leatherland’s lot again, for Monday after school. Tuesday too, probably. As for Wednesday, that depended on the unpredictable Mr Cork. Would he be marching us down to GKN’s ground as usual, have us running around for an hour and a half before the final? You wouldn’t put it past him.
One other worry we had, looking ahead to the final itself, was: the shirts. Spencer had received a letter giving details of various presentations, speeches and so on. The teams would get to shake hands with the Mayor and Mayoress of Oldbury, Alderman and Mrs Haywood of Haywood’s Outfitters fame. How well did they know their own stock, we wondered? Were they liable to recognize it, if it shook hands with them? We’d find out soon enough.
20
Lucky and Unlucky Omens
Accles & Pollock made weldless steel tubes of every kind and for every purpose, right the way down in size to hypodermic needles. There was a story told, and popularly believed in Oldbury, that in the 1930s an American steel-tube manufacturer sent Accles & Pollock a sample of their finest-diameter tube, claiming it as ‘the smallest in the world’. The grimed and sweaty men of Oldbury had a good look at it and, eventually, sent it back with one of their own inside it.
Accles’s sports ground was up on the Wolverhampton Road. We needed a bus to get there. There were fourteen of us, all told: the team, plus Spencer, Brenda and Patrick Prosser with his well-autographed if grubby plaster cast. We charged upstairs to the smoke-filled upper deck. Normally, the conductor would have put a stop to this, butwe had him outnumbered. Tommy Pye instantly went into a panic, claiming he had lost his fare. He found it almost immediately, in his hand. Ronnie had to be
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