I negotiate my way round the warren of twisting side-roads that lead to Hal’s secluded close and park up in the small public area behind his home. I walk up the concrete path between the neat lawns and pretty garden. I knock on the door. Hal is in the doorway wearing his old honest grin. He wears a powder blue tracksuit and white trainers. His pure white, slightly protruding teeth, are set in a still handsome face, his spiky hair black, though grey at the temples. The epicanthic folds of his smallish eyes are crinkled in welcome.

'Hi Jud! You managed to find it all right then?' He laughs, 'Well if you hadn't managed to find it you wouldn't be here standing on the front-door step now I suppose.'

He leads me into the carpeted lounge, and bids me sit on the large comfortable couch. Hal surveys me critically. 'You're looking good you old bastard.' He punches me lightly in my chest. 'No wonder you could pull such a young wife.' 'You look no more than fifty at the most. How do you manage it you swine?' He sniggers. 'And two kids too! Nowadays, It takes me all night to do what I used to do all night!' We both laugh.

'Must be all the oats I eat,' I smile, 'I read somewhere that...'

He wiggles his finger in his ear. Want a cup of tea? He says, interrupting me. 'Go on…sorry - I'm listening to you.

I nod an say 'I read somewhere… it was in some newspaper… that vegetarians live twenty per cent longer than carnivores.' I follow Hal as he walks into his spacious kitchen. 'Go on,' he says, as he fills the kettle.

'Yes,' I continue, 'some insurance company is offering reduced rates for lifelong vegetarians.' Hal plugs the kettle in the socket and turns to face me. 'And how the hell do you prove that you've been a lifelong veggie?' He nods for me to take a seat round the small kitchen table. 'Orrrr,' he draws the word out to give himself time to think, 'or more importantly, how does the insurance company know that you're telling them the truth?' We both sit down laughing.

'It's great to see you again Hal.' I say. 'I've brought a bottle of nice plonk to go with the meal and a bottle of Irish for after.'

Hal takes the bottle and examines the label with mock expertise. 'Hm,' he grunts, 'a cheeky little wine, rather presumptuous but worthy of trial.'

We laugh in unison.

'Bit different to the old days Judder.' He grimaces and replaces the bottle on the table.  'I'll get a corkscrew.' He returns and removes the cork with a satisfying  plunk!

'Mind you,' he says, 'Looking back now I think that possibly you had it worse than me?'

I nod. Then memories come flooding back. Hal suffers similar deprivation to me in his childhood, although he has a loving hardworking father, and a competent devoted mother. It's delightful to see him again. He retains that cheeky boyish grin, the sharp pragmatic intelligence and genuine warmth that endears me to him in my youth as it does today.

Hal smiles as he fills my glass.  'Ok, now I'll take you back to those scary slum courts, and the black shawls the women wore.  I know you will remember looking down off the top deck of the 22, or 19 tram car and seeing the big bundles of washing carried on their heads to the wash-house?'

I nod in agreement and I sip my wine.  Hal mentions the men lolling on the pub corners in canvass jeans which only the very poor wore (they were looked down on even by us) and of course the jugs of ale that the women took home to their hubbies, if they got enough ale down them it made the surrounding a bit more bearable.

Hal frowns.  'How they ever mated and had lots of kids beats me, everyone stunk, but as the saying goes if you constantly smell the SAME smell, you cease to smell it.  It is a good exercise to imagine getting in a time machine and going back in time WITH your family, and trying to live as they did...it certainly makes you cherish what we have now.'

I nod and hold the glass up and look at the ceiling light through its roseate glow
'In a way we grew up on the cusp of a great cultural change didn't we?' I say, 'We are blessed with insights into ways and values that no longer exist. We are able to apply them in our attitudes to the way the consumer society is now. Mostly our experience makes us grateful for the facilities and appreciate the better standards of living that we now enjoy. Sometimes however we feel occasional frustrations when we look at aspects of contemporary society where the young seems ungrateful for what they get, and we are saddened at the lack of neighbourliness, compassion and working-class togetherness that was the norm in the immediate post war years.

Hal pours himself another glass of wine and fills mine up to the brim:
He eases himself back into his comfortable chair. 'You are right about the young now, they are so ungrateful for what they have, but they'll get a shock when they get a family of their own and they find they have not got the stomach for sacrifice, the FAMILY ETHIC is about all done in. Kids with different dads etc. I will not even mention the drug culture. Peer pressure is the number one influence, regardless of education, and common sense. been there, got the tee shirt, and the bad lungs.'


'I still feel privileged that I can get a shower whenever I wish,' I laugh, 'Nowadays I can sit in a nice warm toilet instead of dashing down the yard to sit on a freezing cold seat with the wind whistling under the door and the nooks and crannies crawling with spiders. The absolute delight of flicking on a light switch and getting a burst of bright light which illuminates the whole room is still with me. The yellow depressing gloom of the wheezing gas-mantle, and the shadowy periphery of the kitchen where we lived out our childhood is a constant reminder of how lucky we are now in our retirement. Our love for our hard-working parents, your Dad on the docks in all weathers and my Mam slaving away at a machine will always be with us. They deserved so much better, and they did the best they could for us.'

I stretch out my legs comfortably and kick off my shoes. I am much attached to Hal as a young lad. Having no brothers of my own, he fills a much-needed gap in my life. When, as a young lad of sixteen, Hal goes off to a training school for seamen in the Merchant Marine - I am heartbroken. It's called MS Vindicatrice (or the ‘Vindy' as they called it). I lose my companion and friend.

Hal demonstrates his remarkable memory, and entertains me with his memoirs of Eton Street days. He talks about Cathy, his wife with pride, and obviously, he loves her a lot. He brings out photos of his family, some of which are in California. They all look like lovely people, and are all very good looking.

It seems somehow incredible that half a century has slipped by – our sense of humour doesn't seem to have changed at all! We talk of the times in the street, and the characters that shared those childhood years. Here we are, two sixty-three year survivors. We giggle and snort with laughter at mutually remembered incidents from half a century ago.

Hal mentions a boy called Jimmy Grügel.[1]. 'You remember him don't you Jud?' I laugh audibly. 'I certainly do!' I'm standing beside Hal in the kitchen as he prepares our meal. 'Jimmy goes to our school and is a notorious street fighter.' my friend continues, 'He's continually sagging off school and often attacks the teachers without any fear whatsoever. The lad has a strange manner of looking at an imaginary spot in the centre of your forehead when he's talking to you. His eyes are red and narrowed. The lips are thin and curling. Once an article about Jimmy appears in the Liverpool Echo. D'yuh remember Jud? We read how he has broken into a confectioner’s shop on Walton road. When the police catch him, he's half way through eating a wedding cake.'

The food is now ready. I've already prepared the table and opened the wine in readiness.

Together we carry our plates to the dining room. We sit at the table and begin our meal of pasta, mixed vegetables and beans topped with a hot Cajun sauce. We chat about the cost of living and other matters. I'm pleasantly surprised to discover how knowledgeable Hal is about diet. He teaches me some complicated principles for working out the various caloric and fat contents of common foodstuffs. He lays down his knife and fork and jots down a formula for me on a piece of paper. My friend tells me that recently, he travelled to Speke in the south of Liverpool to collect an article he has bought. From the car in which he's travelling, he spots a man working in a garden. He recognises him immediately. It's Jimmy Grügel. Hal requests the driver, who is actually the vendor of the article that he's buying, to stop the car. Nervously the guy pulls up and Hal strolls over towards the labouring figure. He stands above the bent form. When the man straightens up, Hal sees the narrow red eyes of Jimmy Grügel – yes, it's he indeed. The eyes flicker round quickly, assessing the situation, then find their natural resting-place in the centre of Hal’s forehead. The tongue flicks nervously at the thin, dry lips. After Hal introduces himself, Grügel’s response is very warm. He insists that the two men go inside and have a drink. They stay together for perhaps fifteen minutes before Hal excuses himself. Once they reach the car, the other man heaves a sigh of relief. 'Wait until I tell my family and friends that I had a drink in Jimmy Grügel’s house!' He says. 'Don’t y'know that he's the head of the biggest criminal gang in the area?' Hal swears that the man looks at him with increased respect from that moment on.

Relaxed in our good fellowship we chew in silence.

I'm reminded of his aptitude for lateral thinking. Hal is always the one to come up with fresh ideas when we're kids. If we're struggling with a problem, Hal offers a different, fresh, perspective. Hal’s intelligence and pragmatism work well for him, for he ends up a foreman in a local factory. Later I'm to discover how well liked and respected he's in the local community.

'Do you remember going to Jack Millingtons dancing academy?' says Hal between mouthfuls.

'It was facing the Merton Hotel. Up the road was Connie Millingtons Dance Academy ( Jack and Connie were divorced and the ex-wife and ex-husband had schools of dance right next door to each other - Jack's place catered for males and Connie's for females.

     One summer evening we were queued-up  waiting to go in perhaps around  7 o'clock and a drunken man was hammering on the door of THE MERTON HOTEL.
I think he had been chucked out of the main front entrance door which was flanked with large pillars.  He was attempting to gain entry by the side door. As we watched his trousers slowly started edging down until he was finally still hammering on the door with all his bare arse exposed.  IT WAS A SUMMER NIGHT and everybody could see him. Jack Millington arrived and opened the ACADEMY door, so we never saw the finale. The 'Academy' was a large terraced  house really and the instructional action took place in the parlour.
It was only boys that went to Jack's.

    As we progressed Jack used to be "the woman" and he backstepped us around the floor in the female role. I never liked embracing him.  He was a bit portly and his belly used to press up.
I always went very red and got pins and needles in the head.'

I remembered the incident well and we both laughed heartedly at the recollection.

We finish the meal and remain at the table for perhaps an hour deep in animated conversation on subjects past and present.

Our meal over, we return to the lounge and settle back into the cushions of the comfortable armchairs. Hal gets the drinks. We have a couple of beers. We change to whisky. With a bit of prompting, he agrees to recount some recollections from his childhood. Hal recharges my glass then lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.

'I'm sitting on our step.' He recalls. 'Don’t know how old I'm. Very young I suppose. I get up and go back into the house. I'm very cold. I suddenly feel my body going rigid – more rigid. Something is happening inside my head. Next minute I'm going into a fit. I don’t know whether y'know I suffered from fits?

'No,' I reply, 'I don't remember that Hal.' He sips his drink and eases himself into the cushions.

'I had at least three to my knowledge.'

Go on then!' I urge.

'I know nothing about it until I come to – and then the house is full of neighbours – everyone is anxiously bending over me. I remember crying and feeling nauseous and being informed that I’d had a fit. I'm feeling very frightened.’

‘We had it rough in those days,’ I say. ‘Your Dad was a docker wasn’t he? What do you remember of him.’

Hal lifts his glass against the glow of the table-lamp and scrutinises the amber liquid.

‘Sitting on the step again,’ he continues ‘Looking down the street, waiting for my Dad to come home. I seem to be waiting for hours. Peering down to the bottom of our street where I know he will come round the corner by the Red Brick.[2]. After a long time waiting and looking, suddenly I see him. Jumping up from the step I run down what appears to be a long street – the street seems short now that grown up. My Dad meets me with a smile. Suddenly I'm flying up in the air in his arms. He puts me onto his shoulders and I feel wonderful. I've been waiting for hours but it's worth it. His rough hands hold me. He stinks of cowhides. His clothes are wet from handling the rain-soaked skins down on the docks. I always remember my Dad now when I get a whiff of cowhides on a passing lorry. When I smell that smell, I'm up there on his shoulders again – on top of the world.

He carries me all the way up the street to our house. I'm triumphant and hope that the other kids can see me. When we get back in the house he puts his hand into his pocket and brings out an old paper bag which contains a sandwich that he hasn’t eaten during the day. I look forward to it. He opens the bag and gives me the sandwich and I gobble it down as fast as I can. I'm happy that he's home and the family are here together.

After we've had our tea and the darkness has come, the family settles down. If we're lucky, we get to sit on Mam’s lap in front of the fire. Our knees burn in front of the fire, but we're so comfortable, we don’t want to move. The potato-peelings whistle on the coals. In the flames, we can see pink and blue pictures. It's a lovely relaxing feeling as you put your head on your Mam’s breast and fall asleep. Next minute you feel yourself being lifted and carried upstairs and placed in bed. You lie very content.

The sleeping arrangements are: Mam and Dad in the middle room, Billie, me and Georgie in one bed in the front room and Bob and Walter in the other bed in the same room. The girls, Elsie, Agnes and Jenny sleep in the small back room right facing the stairs. You can see that it is crowded.’

Hal laughs and drains his glass. ‘At least you and your Mam have plenty of room. There is only the two of you.' I nod wistfully.

'Strangely enough,’ he went on, ‘storage is no problem. There is always plenty of room in the house for clothes, because we have none. The wardrobes and cupboards are nearly empty. We boys have maybe one shirt to wear. It used to be getting washed when it could. If it couldn’t get washed it just stayed dirty. *[3] A little bit of dirt never hurt anyone and we were quite used to it. We often heard the noise of mice scuttling around the bedrooms. We got used to that. It didn’t frighten us. When we woke up in the morning, we’d look at the bedroom walls. The walls were full of bed bugs that were swollen from their overnight feed on us. We’d put our hands up and smear them down the wall in red streaks. Mam used to go mad when we did that. I read the scientific name for bed bugs is. Cimex lectuarius and I've remembered it. The bed bug, compared with the Iouse, has a very different form of parasitic association with man. It lives in cracks in walls or furniture, or in the seams of mattresses, where it also lays its eggs. It can feed on other warm-blooded animals as well as scruffy scousers.'

Hal has obviously studied the subject.

'It also has a much longer lifespan and is able to survive as an adult for as long as a year and a half, so that a single bug can be an irritating pest over a long period.

Coming as they do in the dead of night to steal their drops of blood from a sleeper's throat or face like diminutive vampires, bugs are held in a very special dread. If a house is infested no amount of slaughter will stop others from creeping up the moment sleep sets in, and it's almost as bad to have a single crafty bug which waits with predatory intent for the moment when exhaustion causes sleep to take over from nervous watchfulness.'

'We grew up with the bugs'. I say. 'They were comfortable. We were used to them. We’d be horrified now!'

'What! You must be joking, splutters Hal, 'there'd be a bloody murder if people found a bed bug in this day and age.' He sniffs, then continues. 'Later in the day, when we look at our bodies, there’d be tiny irritating spots, where we scratched - where the bed bugs have been feasting on us. If you lift the lino, you see literally thousands of them asleep in the hemp backing. If it's later in the day that you look, they're very small and dark black, but if you look at them in the morning, they'd be a silvery light black and all puffed out. You only have to touch them with your finger and they burst – they were so tense with the feeding.’

Hal looks at me slyly to see my reaction, his mouth is half open and tiny crinkles radiate from the corners of his eyes. He's no desire to shock me with these revelations. He's simply telling the truth. I sense that he's enjoying unburdening himself. I tell him that we also had an infestation of bed bugs, but I don’t think he really hears me.

I have discovered them in the wooden frame of my bed in the middle room where I sleep. Sinister flat black creatures the size of a baby’s fingernail. They do not attempt to escape. My Mam gets on to the council and they come with the fumigation van. The men seal up all the doors and windows with sticky-tape and newspaper. They put a hose through the letterbox and pump in poison gas. After they have gone, we have to leave all the doors and windows open for hours afterwards. Mam and I huddle together with my dog Blackie in front of the fire, while the freezing winter wind blows through the house. Next day Mam paints the bed-frame with creosote.

Hal gets up and draws the heavy velvet curtains. The memories of those sunlit days come flooding back.

back to catching daddy long-legs in the brickwork of the bay windows?’ I say. about looking at the dancing ladies? .[4] ‘We made tar-babies from the softened tarmac on hot summer days. It is a terrible job for Mam to get our hands clean.’

Hal smiles and nods his head. ’I still remember popping the tar bubbles. They're like black shiny chewing-gum bubbles they are. Soft as silk, aren't they? When they burst, the tar splatters all over your kecks.[5]. A car revs up noisily outside. Hal gets up, closes the window, then sits down, and carries on with his reverie.

‘Friday night is when Elsie, Agnes and Jenny do all the things to make themselves beautiful. They wash their hair. They put the curling tongs in the flames of the gas cooker, curl their locks up, and squeeze their blackheads. They put cream on their faces and paint their toenails red. They make themselves beautiful.

The chores the girls have to do are often a cause of disagreements, which often leads to slanging-matches and hair pulling. We boys perch up on the table and enjoy it thoroughly – especially if it gets heated and leads to blows. When the jobs are done, they get the old wax 78-rpm records out and put them on the wind-up gramophone. We wind it up and then have a singsong. When the girls feel like dancing, there's only us little ones to dance with, so they lift us off the table and waltz us out into the back-kitchen, singing songs which we all enjoy.’

Hal’s eyes have misted up and he turns to pour another drink. I guess it's a ploy so I won’t spot his wet eyes. ‘Yuh!’ he exclaims. ‘That’s the way it is.’

‘Saturday night comes and there's a great deal of excitement in the household. Saturday is special. Mam and Dad go down to the Red Brick for a drink late on. Remember that the pubs closed at 10pm in those days. They are all happy before they go out. Their faces are shining. They’re talking more than usual. They get themselves dolled-up best they can, and off they go to the pub. We are left on our own and sometimes we get up to mischief – sometimes we don’t.

When they come back, things are a bit different. Fuelled with alcohol – things aren't as nice as before they went out. Their inhibitions have been suspended. We are frightened when my Dad calls my Mam a Catholic bitch, a Catholic get[6] or a Papist swine.

She calls him King Billy,[7] which doesn’t sound half so bad.

I don’t know if y'know that my mother was a Catholic Jud? Although they live a long married life together and have eight of us kids, their religious bigotry is so strong that whenever they need to find something to argue about, they've a readymade subject. I'm terrified and worry like hell about it when I go to go to bed. Our Billie puts his arm around me and says, 'don't worry, if Dad makes Mam go away – I’ll look after you. Go to sleep!'

I sob and say - 'We're were not going to see her any more…!'

Billie answers solemnly, 'This is the way grown-ups are. I used to worry like you, but I don’t any more. Everything will be OK tomorrow.'

'Billie's right. Things are quiet on Sunday morning when we wake up. There's salt-fish with maybe a bit of bacon on it - we really enjoy that and Sunday is special.’

I excuse myself and go upstairs to the toilet. Hal is not the only kid who has bickering parents. Mine fight like cat and dog and then finally separate. At least Hal doesn’t have to suffer that. Most kid’s parents experience drama and loss. Many experience illicit romantic affairs that far outstrip the pretended passions of the silver screen. Some however, are happily married. Most are satisfied to live vicariously through the imaginary lives of their heroes and heroines whom they worship weekly with their one and fourpence. My Father John meets my mother Annie on the bridge in Stanley Park, Walton. She's a machinist working in The Dunlop Rubber Company in Rice Lane, Walton. At that time, she lives with her mother and Father in the family home at 54 Eton Street, Walton. According to my Father, he's a virgin at that time. He's twenty seven years of age. My mother is two years older at twenty-nine. She's much worldlier my Father tells me later. Soon she's pregnant but unfortunately miscarries. My mother's brothers, Arthur and Ernie insist that my Father do the right thing and marry their sister. According to auntie Nellie, they almost frog-march my Father down to Brougham Terrace Registry office, where they are married on Saturday 5 November 1932. They set up home in Eton Street with my mother's parents. My brother Frank is born on the Thursday
28th of December 1933, and I follow on Monday 4th of February 1935.

I think of my Dad and the humiliation he faced on the Liverpool docks. My Father told me that on the docks men were herded into a pen like animals. They stand in a mass hoping to be selected for a job unloading the ships. It's said that if you buy the foreman a drink in the crowded Dock Road pub, you stand a chance of being taken on and taking bread home for the family. The proud ones or the non-drinkers are not take on. The bitterness poisons the labour relations on the Liverpool Docks for fifty years. Fathers pass the stories of their humiliation on to their docker sons. The cries of 'Scab!' echo down through the decades, right up to the lockout dispute, which has only just ended now as I write in 1999 sixty years later.

Like many unemployed working- class men, my Father moves politically to the left. He toys with the idea of joining The Communist Party, and sets off to walk to London to join the International Brigade to fight in The Spanish Civil War against General Franco and his Fascists. Luckily for him, the war is reaching its final deadly conclusion and the Recruitment Office is closed.

Hal tops up my glass while I'm away and when I retake my seat, he continues with his tale.

‘Sunday is a special day. It’s hard to describe in what way. It 's quieter and yet there are more kids out in the street. The posh kids are dressed well on a Sunday. We seem to have the same clothes on. Sometimes we're a bit ashamed to go out. The kids who belong to families with only one or two children seem to do OK. They have better clothes. Kids like Roy Lello, Brian Blackler or Val Snape.’


[2] The Red Brick. A Public house at the bottom of Eton street. Real name: The Prince Albert.

[3] This phrase is exactly as it was spoken by Hal and suggests an Irish influence.

[4] Dancing Ladies. Rain-splats hitting the hard street surface.

[5] Kecks - pants or trousers. The word is believed to be of Irish origin.

[6] Get. I once checked the Scandinavian etymology of this word and found it originates in the seemingly innocuous Goat.

[7] King Billy.  King William of Orange.