yourself. It was nothing to do with you.”
“But I killed him, Grandma.”
She gave me a huge hug (she could hug like an all-in wrestler in those days). “Jake, even if you did, I am sure that your granddad forgave you. He would have forgiven you anything, you know that.”
Despite this incident, or even because of it, in my family my music is a bit of a joke, albeit an affectionate joke. My dad keeps asking if I have sold a thousand albums yet and I’m not sure that I have. Mind you, he is amazing. He insists on buying every single one of them, even though I would give them to him for free, and he listens to them carefully, asking me detailed questions about the lyrics and saying which ones he likes. When you are starting out, it is brilliant to have a dad who shows real interest in what you are doing, and fifteen years later it still is. Mum appears to have listened to them too, but she delegates most of the conversation about them to dad as a father and son thing. She just makes sure I eat lots of cake to fatten me up while I remain as skinny as ever. She tries fattening Jade up too and I think she got quite a shock when Jade seemed to take off before she realised that Jade was pregnant. At least, that is how it was played. I would be amazed if Mum hadn’t realised immediately that Jade was pregnant. It’s the sort of thing mothers always look for.
Strangely, Mum and Dad never really liked Cathy. They thought she was a bit snooty and were concerned that she did not really have the same artistic interests as I have. They are much more comfortable with Jade although most parents would have had a go at me for cradle-snatching and suggested that she wasn’t really my intellectual equal (meaning that I was using a virtual minor to practise my perversions on). My mum and dad never thought that or, if they did, never said so. It was evident even from the first time they met her that they felt much warmer towards her because they immediately started teasing her, and me, about whether she was good with zimmer frames. Jade hadn’t a clue what zimmer frames were but she picked up on the gist of what they were saying and said that she knew all about which cakes and buns went best with dentures.
Hessle is both classier and less posh than neighbouring (more or less) Kirkella where Cathy’s parents live. Kirkella has a golf course which I think must be the basis for James Waudby’s great Hull anthem ‘Hull’s Too Good For England’. When I was about ten years old I used to go with a friend to Kirkella Golf Club to play the slot machines and even in those days I realised that you could have made coal from some of the smoky old fossils who used to perch up at the bar there trying to undo about a thousand years of historical and cultural progress.
I really like James Waudby’s Horse Guards Parade stuff too, especially ‘Her Scabby Knees Hold Her Disease’ about an affair of the flesh with a female worker in an abattoir.
Talking of the which, I got a phone call from Jerry while we were with Mum and Dad apologising for getting me into another fine mess and promising to extricate me this time. He must have got the number from Lesley and it made for a deeply uncomfortable exchange as I tried to give nothing away at my end, surrounded by my mum, my dad and Jade huddled around me a few feet away and quite possibly capable of hearing what Jerry was saying directly. Jerry has an impressively clear voice which he uses to great effect when he is singing and which he doesn’t tone down much when he is talking over the phone. I hope to God Jade didn’t pick up what he was saying although I have my suspicions that she might have done because she has been a bit funny since and asked immediately afterwards whether “that was Jerry” when I had been really careful not to mention his name.
I’m sure that Jade knows Jerry’s reputation, so his voice attached to an apology is enough to raise serious doubts about the conduct of
“But I killed him, Grandma.”
She gave me a huge hug (she could hug like an all-in wrestler in those days). “Jake, even if you did, I am sure that your granddad forgave you. He would have forgiven you anything, you know that.”
Despite this incident, or even because of it, in my family my music is a bit of a joke, albeit an affectionate joke. My dad keeps asking if I have sold a thousand albums yet and I’m not sure that I have. Mind you, he is amazing. He insists on buying every single one of them, even though I would give them to him for free, and he listens to them carefully, asking me detailed questions about the lyrics and saying which ones he likes. When you are starting out, it is brilliant to have a dad who shows real interest in what you are doing, and fifteen years later it still is. Mum appears to have listened to them too, but she delegates most of the conversation about them to dad as a father and son thing. She just makes sure I eat lots of cake to fatten me up while I remain as skinny as ever. She tries fattening Jade up too and I think she got quite a shock when Jade seemed to take off before she realised that Jade was pregnant. At least, that is how it was played. I would be amazed if Mum hadn’t realised immediately that Jade was pregnant. It’s the sort of thing mothers always look for.
Strangely, Mum and Dad never really liked Cathy. They thought she was a bit snooty and were concerned that she did not really have the same artistic interests as I have. They are much more comfortable with Jade although most parents would have had a go at me for cradle-snatching and suggested that she wasn’t really my intellectual equal (meaning that I was using a virtual minor to practise my perversions on). My mum and dad never thought that or, if they did, never said so. It was evident even from the first time they met her that they felt much warmer towards her because they immediately started teasing her, and me, about whether she was good with zimmer frames. Jade hadn’t a clue what zimmer frames were but she picked up on the gist of what they were saying and said that she knew all about which cakes and buns went best with dentures.
Hessle is both classier and less posh than neighbouring (more or less) Kirkella where Cathy’s parents live. Kirkella has a golf course which I think must be the basis for James Waudby’s great Hull anthem ‘Hull’s Too Good For England’. When I was about ten years old I used to go with a friend to Kirkella Golf Club to play the slot machines and even in those days I realised that you could have made coal from some of the smoky old fossils who used to perch up at the bar there trying to undo about a thousand years of historical and cultural progress.
I really like James Waudby’s Horse Guards Parade stuff too, especially ‘Her Scabby Knees Hold Her Disease’ about an affair of the flesh with a female worker in an abattoir.
Talking of the which, I got a phone call from Jerry while we were with Mum and Dad apologising for getting me into another fine mess and promising to extricate me this time. He must have got the number from Lesley and it made for a deeply uncomfortable exchange as I tried to give nothing away at my end, surrounded by my mum, my dad and Jade huddled around me a few feet away and quite possibly capable of hearing what Jerry was saying directly. Jerry has an impressively clear voice which he uses to great effect when he is singing and which he doesn’t tone down much when he is talking over the phone. I hope to God Jade didn’t pick up what he was saying although I have my suspicions that she might have done because she has been a bit funny since and asked immediately afterwards whether “that was Jerry” when I had been really careful not to mention his name.
I’m sure that Jade knows Jerry’s reputation, so his voice attached to an apology is enough to raise serious doubts about the conduct of
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