Author: chrisnickson2

On Books And Movies.

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I’m not much of a movie person. I never have been. Given the choice between a film and a book, I’ll crack the page every time. Of the few movies I really love, only one started out as a book (The Year of Living Dangerously) and the films adds the dimension of sweaty, heady sensuality, plus Linda Grant’s stunning performance.

What prompts this is the fact that I’m re-reading The English Patient. It’s a glorious novel, a worthy winner of the Booker Prize, more than the equal of the rest of Michael Ondaatje’s canon, and I love most of this books. I’ve never seen the film and doubt I ever will. It would become too concrete. I’d hear the voices and see the faces from the movie, rather than the ones the author puts in my head.

There’s real beauty in imagination. It soars, it flies. Movies, at least to me, are too grounded, they have too much gravity to them. They keep me trapped on the screen, I can’t escape. Television does much the same, and is often far more mundane. I prefer things to happen in my head, where I’m an active participant, than to be a consumer.

I’ve been asked more than a few times who I’d like to play the leads if the Richard Nottingham books were filmed for the big or small screen. Apart from the fact that it’s never going to happen, the answer is I simply don’t know. I’m not familiar with actors or actresses. The closest I can come, for the upcoming Gods of Gold, is for Maxine Peake to play Annabelle Atkinson (but that’s not going to happen, either).

Really, no one could match of to those people who populate my mind. Those characters are nebulous. To give them definitive faces and voices would change them forever. Within they freedom of a novel they will be whoever you see them as being.

An Elegy For My Father

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In January 2001 my father died at the age of 86. He was a writer and a musician, a man who revealed facts about his life in passing, never elaborating, never telling the stories behind them. One of the things he mentioned was that he’d played piano with Nat King Cole. At the time I found it hard to believe; Cole was a superb pianist himself – why would he want someone else to sit in. But after my dad had gone, I asked my mother about it. It was true, she insisted, although there were still no details.

It’s taken me 13 years to write this elegy for my father. Maybe it’s taken me this long to be a good enough writer to do him justice. There are plenty of facts in here – he was a pianist, he did have a band in Leeds in the 1930s, he did serve in India and Burma. He did end up spending four months as a guest at the Calcutta Country Club. He was a salesman. However, not everything might be real in the way it seems here. In thoughts and dreams, reality and fantasy bleed into each other. But, wherever he may be now, I hope he likes this. It’s what I can offer in his memory. He was The Man Who Played With Nat King Cole.

More than a year after the war and England still looked grey and sullen, as if all the effort had exhausted it. Grey November turning into cold, rainy December. As he walked the sky opened and he ran the last ten yards past to the pub, brushing the rain off his mackintosh as he entered. Half-past two and the bar was empty, everyone back at work. Even the old, hardened drinkers had gone off to rest. Only the barman remained, lazily washing the glasses massed along the counter.

            The two o’clock appointment had been a waste of time. He’d known it from the moment he walked in, the wholesaler too distracted to pay attention. He should have just packed up the sample case and left instead of carrying on. But there was still one more in an hour, a customer who’d bought from him before. A little luck and he’d be driving home with a decent order. Enough to make today worthwhile, anyway.

            “What’ll you have?”

            “Just a whisky, please.” He counted out change as the man poured a measure into the glass and offered a tumbler of water.

            He glanced around, spotting the piano in the corner. An old upright, the lid open like an invitation.

            “Do you mind..?” He gestured towards the instrument and the man shrugged.

            He tried a few scales. It was almost a miracle; every key worked and it was in tune. The ivory had browned with the years, but that didn’t matter. He let his hands move, forming a chord, then another. Almost without thinking it became I’m Getting Sentimental Over You. He’d played it every weekend in the 1930s. Back then he’d let Stan take the solo, the tenor sax so mellow and sensuous that the couples on the dancefloor always held each other closer.

            Now the ideas flowed through his fingers, lightly picking out the melody before gliding up an octave while his left hand vamped the chords. Then he found the sweetness at the core of the tune, spinning and making it shimmer in the air. One thing suggested another and he lost himself in the music, slowly bringing it back on the chorus and finishing with a gentle flourish before picking up his glass and taking a drink.

            “You’re not bad,” the barman called. “Want to give us another? I’ll pour you one more on the house.”

            “All right,” he agreed and drained the glass in a swallow, feeling the heat in his throat and into his chest. “Any requests?”

            The barman thought for a moment, smoothing his Brylcreemed hair.

            “You know As Time Goes By?”

            He smiled and began to play the chords. It was the one they’d always wanted in the NAAFI. Or even in the country club in Calcutta. That and White Cliffs Of Dover. After Casablanca, everyone loved As Time Goes By.

            But the version he remembered was Cole’s. That voice like cream, slowly cataloguing every regret. He could hear it now, the pitch so perfect and pure that everything else fell away and all that remained was him.

            He started to play arpeggios, using the pedal to make them hang, trying to capture that feel. A soft run at the end of the line and he was on his way, easing the melody into dives and curls. When he was done, the barman was standing by the table, holding out a double, a contented smile on his face.

            “Professional, are you?”

            “No.” He smiled, nodding at the compliment. “I’m a salesman. Manufacturer’s agent.”

            “You should do it for a living. You’re better than them on the radio, if you want my opinion.”

            “Thank you.” He looked over at the clock. Quarter to three.

            “You play as long as you want, mate,” the barman told him. “It’s the best I’ve heard in years. I’ll just lock the door when it’s closing time.”

            He started on Blues In The Night. He’d heard it out in India, playing on American Forces radio and loved the quiet way the tune progressed. So graceful that it almost seemed to fly. For more than a month he’d played it every day at the country club, exploring its corners, its nooks and crannies. Now he found them again, sweeping them out into the light. He gave the tune the gravity of a solemn left hand, transposing it into the minor before bring it back, allowing the tension to rise before he resolved it with a series of quiet, broken chords that satisfied his ear.

            From somewhere below he heard the clatter of bottles, then the barman appeared with two crates of brown ale, looked at the clock, now right on the hour, and turned the key in the lock.

            “Are you from round here, like? I’ve not seen you before.”

            He shook his head.

            “Leeds. I had some business up here. Some appointments”

            “I’ll tell you what. I don’t know the sales game, but if you’re as good as you are on the piano you’ll be making a cracking living. I told you, man, I’ve not heard anything like you.”

            “Music’s better as a hobby.”

            “If you say so.” The barman shrugged. “You’ve got some colour on you. Overseas, were you?”

            “India. RAF. I only got back six months ago.”

            He’d been one of the last ones from the war. Out there in 1940 and not home until the early summer of 1946. Back to a daughter who didn’t know his face and a wife who didn’t want him anymore. Finding lodgings and taking Stan up on his job offer, selling knitwear to wholesalers. From Leeds all over the north east. It was the only reason he was in Sunderland today.

            “Bloody hell, Ray, you’ve got the knack for this,” Stan told him after a month on the job. “These are better orders than I ever brought in.”

            “Put me on commission, then,” he said impulsively.

            Stan eyed him across the desk, his expression doubtful.

            “You sure you want that? It’s chancy. All it takes is a couple of bad weeks and it goes arse over tip.”

            “I’ll try it.” He had five months of back pay in the bank. Not a fortune, but a cushion that would see him through a lean time. All that money from when the RAF lost his paperwork. When he didn’t exist and he’d lived on the charity of the Calcutta Country Club.

            The CO had arranged it, the last thing he did before he was shipped back to Blighty. He was embarrassed, sitting back in his shirt sleeves, the fan going full blast to try and break through the thick heat. He brought out a handkerchief and cleaned his spectacles, holding them up to the light before replacing them on his nose.

            “I’m sorry, Nickson. They’ve made a balls-up of it. As usual. Can’t trust a pen pusher.”

            “What do I do now, sir?”

            The CO frowned under this thin moustache.

            “That’s the problem, you see. Until they sort it out you don’t even exist. So they can’t pay you, or house you or feed you.”

            “Sir?” He felt the panic beginning to rise in his belly, but the officer smiled.

            “I had a word with a chum of mine. Move your kit over to the country club. They’re going to put you up there until everything’s sorted out. The clerk said it should only take a week or two, then they’ll send you back to Blighty.”

            “Thank you, sir.” The gratitude in his voice had been real.

            The CO waved it away.

            “Can’t have you living on the street like a bloody native, can we?” He stood up and offered a handshake. “Good luck, Nickson.”

            It was the perfect billet. The room was small and out of sight, but it caught the evening breeze. He had a wallah to take care of everything. Food from the kitchen that put some weight back on him after years of air force rations. And complete freedom of the place. All he did was swim, eat and spend his free time reading or playing the piano in the bar. Heaven after airfields tugged out of the Burmese jungle and the constant threat of the Japs attacking.

            The fortnight passed. Soon, the clerks promised, patting their files and tottering heaps of paper; the paperwork would be through soon. Two more days, a week then another. “Soon” became an idea that retreated into the distance until it seemed mythical. He needed to be home. He could read between the lines in Maureen’s letters, how the love she felt had dried up and fallen away. He wanted to be home. If he was there everything would come right again and he’d see the little girl he only knew from the smudged, wilted photographs that had survived the heat and humidity to sit on his dressing table.

            He took a drink of the Scotch and shifted on the piano stool. Without even thinking, his fingers moved into some stride piano. Octaves in the left hand, a steady syncopated beat while the fingers of his right hand played around with thirds and fourths before going into long, looping runs. It was a nothing, really, an exercise. But it was joyful, the kind of thing that set feet tapping

            He’d played it over and over at the country club, along with every other piece he knew, improvising chorus after chorus to fill the hours. At first people gathered round, but the numbers dwindled as they all went home. The diplomats went first, followed by all the senior military staff, from generals to fawning aides-de-camp. Over four weeks there was a slow attrition, a few less each day until only the waifs and strays remained. Those who were stuck there. Some by choice, most because they had no opportunity to be anywhere else. And he continued to dredge up the tunes the band used to play, vamping and filling in the different parts. Tried to remember pieces from the radio. Anything and everything.           

He lost himself in playing, letting it eat up the hours. He had all the time in the world. It wasn’t practice, it was pleasure. He improved. Over the last five years, since he’d joined the RAF, he’d probably had less than twenty hours to play. Now he sated himself.

            “You must be a Tatum man,” the voice at his shoulder said and he stopped playing. He hadn’t heard the man approach; he’d been lost in a fantasy that built around the theme from Rhapsody In Blue. He turned and saw a US Army colonel holding a glass of Scotch. He was a stocky man, in his forties, with the same open face and buzz cut he’d seen on so many of the American troops.  “Carry on, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

            “I’m fine, thank you, sir.” He took a sip of the lime juice and tonic. The ice cubes in the glass had long since melted. “I wish I could play like him.”

            “No one can.” The colonel’s face creased into a smile. “I saw him in New York a few times. But you got the touch, son. Been listening to you for the last few days. Are you a pro?”

            “No, sir. Never had the chance.”

            The colonel leaned against the piano, took a packet of Lucky Strikes in an army green pack from his pocket and shook one out.

            “You never had a band? You should, you’re pretty sharp.”

            “I had a band.” He shrugged. “Before the war.”

            But almost everything in his life dated from before the war. The band had begun while they were still at school: the Cockburn Boys, and they’d stuck together for most of the Thirties, playing dances around Leeds every weekend. Anywhere they could reach on the bus, anywhere that would pay them, with every member helping to carry the drums. They covered all the popular dance tunes, giving people a chance to kick up their heels on a Friday or Saturday night. But the real fun had come on the breaks, when he carried on playing alone and half the dancers would crowd around the piano.

He’d met Maureen that way. The first time he saw her she’d been with a boy. The next weekend, in a place in Wortley, she arrived with some other girls. It didn’t matter where in Leeds they played: Bramley, Holbeck, Pudsey, she was there. They began to talk, and soon enough he was seeing her. Courting. Ray was in his twenties then, with a good engineering job at Fairbairn Lawson, one with prospects for the future. They married in ’38, war clouds gathering behind the wedding.

            “Get you another, son?” the colonel asked.

            “Thank you, sir.”

            The man signalled to the waiter and two more drinks appeared.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Nickson, sir. Leading Aircraftman.” He had to make himself stop before he gave his serial number.

            The colonel smiled.

            “First name.”

            “Ray, sir.”

            “Well, Ray, I’m Pete Austin, colonel with the US Army. Tell me something, you like Nat King Cole?”

            “Very much.”

            “You know he’s playing a USO show tomorrow?” He knew. He’d read about it; he’d planned on going and hoping they let him in, even with the RAF uniform. “One of the things I do is work with the USO. How’d you like to go see him?”

            The offer took him aback. “That would be…thank you, sir.”

            Austin smiled again.

            “You know where the show is, right?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “You come on down to gate C at twenty-one hundred and ask for me. I’ll give you the best seat in the house, Guaranteed. That sound okay?”

            “Yes. Of course, sir.”

            Austin raised his glass in a toast.

“It’s a deal, then. I’ll see you there.”

 

He stood outside the gate, blue shirt ironed, a crease in the canvas uniform trousersA couple of guards stood casually at the entrance, Sam Brownes glowing with polish, pistols holstered by their sides.

            “What you need, fly boy?” one of them asked.

            “My name’s Ray Nickson,” he said, hoping that the promise hadn’t been a lie. “Colonel Austin told me to report here.”

            The guard checked the name against a list on his clipboard.

            “You’re okay. Go on through. Second corridor on the left.” The soldier’s hard mouth curled into a smile. “Enjoy the show.”

            He followed the directions, footsteps echoing down a concrete tunnel until he could hear the restless voices of a huge crowd and came out at the side of the stage. The best seat in the house, the colonel had said; he’d told the truth. A grand piano sat on the stage and close by, a double bass on its side.

            “Looking forward to it?”

            Austin had walked up without him noticing. The colonel was freshly shaved, uniform impeccable, the cap low over his forehead.

            “Yes, sir. And thank you for this.”

            He was staring intently at the stage and the audience when three figures moved past, one stopping to give Austin a pat on the shoulder.

            “This the guy?” A smooth voice, almost like cream, with a hint of the Southern states.

            “Yeah, this is the one.”

            He turned to see Nat King Cole staring at him, calmly smoking a cigarette, a hint of a smile on lips. Tall, slim, and just as sophisticated as the newsreel clips he’d seen. The man was wearing a light tropical suit, the collar of his shirt open, no tie. His hair was cut short and glistened with oil in the sunlight.  The man extended his hand and Ray shook it.

            “I’m Nat. Pete here tells me you play the piano.”

            He didn’t even know how to answer. This man was a star, about to perform for thousands of people, and taking the time to talk to him.

            “A little,” he answered finally. “I try.”

            “The guy’s good, Nat,” Austin said. “He’s better’n that. I’ve heard the cat play. He could hold his own in Harlem.”

            Cole raised his eyebrows.

            “You know Getting Sentimental Over You and As Time Goes By?”

            “Yes, sir, I do.”

            Cole gave a fleeting grin. “No need to call me sir.” He brushed a hand over his jacket collar. “No bars up here. I’ll give you a wave when it’s time. We’ll be in G.” He ground out the cigarette and ambled on to the stage, raising his hand to acknowledge the cheers before sitting at the piano and pulling the microphone close.

            He was a superb pianist. Every so often he reminded the crowd of that, letting his fingers dazzle on a solo. But it was the singer that they’d really come to hear and he didn’t disappoint, his voice lazy and rich, nailing the emotion at the heart of a tune almost without trying. Ray desperately wanted to listen to it, to take it all in, but he couldn’t. All he could feel was fear so powerful he could barely move. Soon he’d be ought there, with a star, every eye on him. He was going to fluff it. He was going to forget everything. He looked down at his fingers. They seemed, fat, awkward, as if they’d never manage to play a note. He was still numb when Austin gave him a nudge.

            “You’re on, son.”

            The biggest audiences he’d had were church halls in Leeds where the couples didn’t care who made the music as long as it had a tune and a beat. And here there were…he couldn’t even guess how many thousands standing in the bright glare of the sun.

            Cole stood and bowed to him as he sat on the piano stool.

            “We’ll start with Sentimental. Take a sixteen-bar intro and give everyone the nod to come in, okay?”

            The star moved to the front of the stage, to a waiting microphone.

            “We got a bit of reverse lend-lease here today. This gentleman is British and I’m told he’s a good pianist. So we’re putting him on the spot. No warning, no rehearsal.” He turned and smiled kindly. “But I just know he’s gonna be good.”

            Ray began the tune, a gentle run through the chords of the melody before his fingers explored a little. He stopped thinking about all the faces staring up at him and lost himself in the music, the way he did at the country club. Then he raised his head and suddenly there was a bass and guitar giving it a rhythm, while Cole eased into the first line, as relaxed as if this lineup had played together for years.

            He kept to a soft vamp under the voice, a run or two between the lines. Then they finished the bridge and Cole said,

            “Take it, Ray.”

            He did, two choruses that started low and built, letting the double bass do the work of his left hand, leaving him free to fly, building and building until there was nowhere left to go and he finished with a series of chords that rolled down the keyboard before the verse returned. Cole was right there, entering perfectly on cue to finish off the piece.

            The applause was deafening. So intense it scared him. But there was magic in it, too; the knowledge that part of it, at least, was for him. He glanced at the other musicians. They were smiling and nodding at him. Cole turned, raising a thumb in approval before casually saying,

            “You know what to do, Ray.”

            They let him stretch out on As Time Goes By. Before the solo he took a deep breath then let himself go completely, switching the melody between hands, bringing in broken chords followed a lightning tumble of notes that resolved itself just before it might fall apart, then finishing with the melody syncopated in the left hand and back into the tune. He’d never played it better and he knew it. He’d never play it as well again.

            Once it was over he began to stand, hearing them all clap and cheer. The bass player and guitarist had their hands together for him. Cole strode over, beaming.

            “Ray, man, that was beautiful.” He took him by the wrist, raising his hand like a boxing champion, and leaned close. “Listen, if you can get yourself to Los Angeles, I know a record company would love to record you. I mean it. Whatever it is, you got it.”

            And it was over. He left, glancing over his shoulder to see Cole seat himself at the piano, in control again, with his trio, his music. Austin clapped him on the back as he came off, into the shadows of the wings.

            “I don’t know where you’d been keeping that, but it was beautiful. I haven’t heard a piano played like that in years. Did you see Nat looking at you in that solo? You had him scared there.”

            Ray shook the man by the hand and kept on walking. He felt so tall that he could have reached England in three strides.

 

He lifted his hands from the keys. Almost quarter-past three. Time for the final appointment of the day and the long, wet drive home. The barman was wiping the final glasses and stacking them on a shelf.

            “You’ve got class in those fingers,” he said as he lifted the flap and came out “Come back anytime.”

            “Thanks.”

            The day after the concert he’d spent hours in the bar, playing, hoping the colonel would return. But there’d been no sight of the man, nor the day after or all the ones that followed. Just endless time to fill, playing, reading, swimming, until the papers finally came through and he was a person again. Then a month at sea. Suez and the Mediterranean before they docked at Southampton and he searched out the travel warrant to Leeds.

            The barman held the door open.

            “Still cats and dogs out there,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

            “Thank you,” Ray replied and walked out into the rain. It was Sunderland on a Monday afternoon. A long, long way from Los Angeles.

Leeds History – The Ice Fair

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After Beyond Guardian Leeds shut up shop last month, I promised I’d keep going with a little Leeds history. Being a man of my word, here’s January’s edition.

We’ve been lucky in our winters lately. Some snow and cold last winter, but nothing like those during history. And if your parents or grandparents have ever said how bad 1963 or 1947 was, even they don’t know how bad winter can be.

The tail end of the 17th century was a little ice age in Britain. The winters were truly brutal and cold. In Leeds, the winter of 1683/84 was the real one for the record books. It was the year the River Aire froze.

It didn’t simply freeze, the ice was thick enough and lasted long enough to hold an ice fair on it. Stalls, markets, hot foods – and probably hot mulled wine – were erected on the ice, and most of the population, which would have been around 3,000, came to enjoy themselves. In all likelihood the Town Waits or musicians would have played at times and dignitaries been on show.

There was no river trade at this time. It was truly impassable, so the vessels that would have moved goods all the wall to Hull couldn’t penetrate. It’s almost certain that the cloth market would have been suspended, as the weavers would have found the roads impassable from their outlying villages. Grand and interesting it might have been, but it also meant that Leeds ground to a halt.

How far did the ice extend? We’ll never know for sure, but Leeds historian Ralph Thoresby recounted that he and a friend strode on to the ice at the mills below the Parish Church at the bottom of Kirkgate, then walked along the ice under Leeds Bridge and all the way to the Upper Dam, which is more or less where the railway station is today.

While ice fairs became almost annual events for a few years down in London as the Thames froze in this period, this is the only year Leeds was ever hit so hard. So, no matter what January or February do, just remember that it could be a great deal worse.

Mr. Thoresby’s Curiosities

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Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725) was the Leeds historian. No one before or since comes as close. He lived here all his life – educated at Leeds Grammar School – and tried his hand, unsuccessfully, as a merchant. He was lucky, inasmuch as he didn’t have to work. After attempting to make fortunes he gave himself to learning and published three books  – Ducatus Leodiensis, Museum Thoresbyanum, and Vicaria Leodiensis. The first is his great work, a history and survey of Leeds and its surrounding area, plus the great families there.

He lived in Kirkgate (a blue plaque commemorates the place, close to Superdrug) and was an avid collector of all manner of things. He really did have a museum in his house. But when he died, no one was that interested in his collection. Much was thrown away, and the rest went to his eldest son near London and was sold when he died. Sad, really. Which brings us to the story…

MR. THORESBY’S CURIOSITIES – 1725

“It won’t do,” he said, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “It just won’t do.”

“No, sir,” I agreed.

Mr. Brocklehurst looked slowly around the room once more. He’d tied his stock too tightly in the morning and his large face had been red all day.

“No,” he repeated. “It just won’t do.”

But it would have to be done. Every item in this collection of curiosities needed to be catalogued. And I knew it wouldn’t fall to Brocklehurst the lawyer to do it. It would be my job, his clerk.

Mr. Thoresby had amassed thousands upon thousands of objects during his life, so many that he’d needed to build an annexe to this modest house on Kirkgate for them all. Now he’d passed on his heirs needed an inventory of everything.

I’d miss the man. He’d been my favourite of Mr. Brocklehurst’s clients. Whenever he’d visit the office he’d ask after my wife and children with honest interest. No matter that he was a gentleman with his independent means and I was no more than a law clerk.

Even after his first stroke his mind had been alert. I’d come here several times with papers to be signed and he’d always been polite. He’d even insisted on showing me around this place, his museum as he called it with a wry little smile, and he’d pressed a copy of his book on me, his history of Leeds and the areas around it, picking it from a tall pile, blowing off the dust and inscribing it with his name, writing in an awkward scrawl. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that only gentlemen had the leisure for reading and learning. For the rest of us, life was made for work and sleep. So his Ducatus Leodiensis propped up a broken table leg in our house now, the gold letters on the spine growing dustier each month.

Brocklehurst paced around the room, hands clasped together in the small of his back, pausing here and there to look at this and that. Finally he announced,

“Well, you’d better get to work. And don’t be too long about it. I want you back in the office as soon as possible. There’s plenty of work among the living.”

“Yes, sir.” I opened the ledger on an old table then set down the quill and the ink pot, hearing the door slam in the empty house as the lawyer left. I knew I should begin the task, but instead I walked to a shelf at the far end of the room and picked up a small object.

I’d last been here two months earlier, no more than a fortnight before Mr. Thoresby suffered his second stroke and died. I’d come on a trifling errand, his signature on a note to append to an annuity. He’d been sitting in his parlour, lost in thought when I was shown through.

“Young man,” he said with real pleasure, as if I’d been his first visitor in an age. He struggled to his feet with the help of a stick, putting out a heavy, palsied hand to grip mine. Wigless, he showed wisps of grey hair over a shiny pink skull, and a mouth that drooped on one side. But his eyes still twinkled. Over the last months he’d grown portly, his movements confined to his house or the streets close by. No more wanderings around England or setting off in the morning to walk to York and dine with the archbishop. And invalid now, his wide world had become so small. “Come with me, come on. I have something very special to show you,” he urged, his voice just an echo of the cannon boom it had once been.

I followed him through to this room of wonders. He shuffled slowly, pausing two or three times to catch his breath. Yet once we reached the shelf and he reached out, it was as if his illness had never happened. His hand was steady as a youth’s and his thick sausage fingers were deft as he plucked up the item.

“Do you see that?” he asked me, letting it sit on his palm. “The vicar in Rothwell sent it to me last week.” He displayed it like something precious but I had no idea what it could be. I wasn’t like him, I had no knowledge of these things, no chance to learn. My only learning had been letters and numbers before I had to earn my way in the world. It seemed nothing more than a piece of sharp stone, nothing of value. He saw my look and smiled. “Would you like me to tell you?”

“Yes, sir, I would.” If it was important to him then it must have a purpose, I thought.

“Long ago, before there was any Cambodunum, or Leodis or Leeds, long before anyone thought of a town here, there were people in this country,” he began. It wasn’t the chiding, strident tone of my old schoolmaster. Instead, there was enjoyment in his voice sharing these things with all the eagerness of an enthusiast.

“Where did they live?” I wondered.

“In caves, perhaps, or out in the open. We don’t know that yet,” he answered with a small sigh, as if he was disappointed that he’d never know. “But they hunted. They had to, for food. And they possessed spears and arrows, we do know that. And clubs, I suppose,” he added, as if it was an aside to himself. “This, young man, is an arrowhead made of flint.”

Once he told me, I could discern the shape of it, the point at one end. It was delicate, crude yet carefully worked and I marvelled at how anyone could have made that so long ago and that it could still be found like this.

“Just imagine,” Mr. Thoresby continued, “that a man might have killed many animals with this arrow. Perhaps it ended up in some beast that escaped him. Or maybe it was a wild shot he never found again. Or,” he winked at me, “he might simply have lost it somewhere.”

He replaced the arrowhead on the shelf and we returned to the parlour to finish our business. Since then I’d thought of it often. I told my wife about it but she paid it little mind. Seeing an arrowhead wouldn’t put food on our table or clothe our children. It came to me later that I’d never asked him just how old it was. He would have known; after all, he was acknowledged to be the most learned man in Leeds. Now, though, he was interred under the choir of the Parish Church, his widow gone to live with one of their sons.

I lifted the arrowhead very carefully, astonished that something with all this wait of years on it could be so light. I ran my thumb along the edge and gasped out loud to discover it was still sharp enough to cut the skin. How long had it taken to fashion something like this? What tools had he used? Suddenly I had so many questions ringing like Sunday morning bells in my head and no one to answer them.

Furtively I looked around, as if there might be someone spying on me. It was a ridiculous fancy, of course. The house was all closed up, the shutters pulled tight, the air inside stuffy, still holding that old, desperate smell of disease and death that tugged at the nostrils. Then I took out my kerchief and gently wrapped it around the arrowhead. Another glance over my shoulder and I tucked it away in my coat pocket. No one would know. No one but me would count all the curiosities here.

Dickens, Chandler and Me

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Heading swiftly towards the end of the year and I find myself reflecting on some of the things from the past twelve months. In writing, at least, two stand out – doing things I’d never imagined. In one case something I swore I’d never do.

A Victorian mystery? Why would I want to do that? After all, everyone and his brother (and sister) has written one. I’ve never been a fan of the Victorians. And yet…I have one coming out in April called Gods of Gold.

I blame Leeds history. I started reading about the Leeds Gas Strike of 1980, when the workers took on the council and won, and realised that people should know about this. And then I thought about a family story, one my father told me, about the landlady of the Victoria in Sheepscar (now no longer there). I’d featured her in a story before, after a fashion (and she’s in this Christmas story I wrote for Leeds Book Club this year). From there I started to dig deeper into 1980 Leeds and realised how fascinating it was. The start of organised working-class politics in this country. I wanted to write about that, too.

So all the old vows were washed away. I wanted to take people to that time, to feel the excitement, the poverty, the power and grandeur of a city hitting the peak of its power – and also into the underclass.

And then there’s the 1950s. I was born in that decade, close to the middle of it. But the more I read about it, the more I understood that I didn’t know. I’d assumed a great deal that was wrong. It began to intrigue me more and more.

I’ve always been a fan of good private detective stores – Chandler, Hammett, Ross MacDonald, etc. – and I’d enjoyed a TV show back in the ‘60s called Public Eye, about a rather down-at-heel British private detective. But there’d been little set in the 1950s about an enquiry agent, as they were known. Not in an English provincial town. That was a thought. One that blossomed.

I’m now revising that book, and I’ve discovered that I’ve ended up with ‘50s English provincial noir. Where will it go? That’s yet to be seen. But I guess I’ll find out. No title yet…

So it’s been a year of Dickens (okay, not really, he was long gone by 1890), Chandler and me. Funny how those things happen, isn’t it?

The Unchanging Leeds No One Notices

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In the early evening last Thursday, a couple of hours after dark, I was walking up Briggate. I’d been down in the glittering Victoriana of the Adelphi, one the other side of the bridge, poised at the top of Hunslet Road where it meets Dock Street.

The place was busy. Town was busy, many heading home from work, others beginning a pre-Christmas evening out. Plenty of foot traffic on Leeds Bridge, spilling out into the road, vehicles passing. If they’d been carts instead of cars and lorries, it could have been a re-enactment of Louis Le Prince’s 1888 moving pictures of the scene (the first in the world, in case you didn’t know).

Queen’s Court, Lambert’s Yard and Hirst’s Yard, each with their tiny entrances off Lower Briggate, looked like dark portals back to the nineteenth century, each with their menaces and joys. Cross over Duncan Street to see the police arresting someone, possibly a shoplifter or pickpocket. Buskers entertaining, hoping for change in their hats or guitar cases from the generous.

The little ginnels that lead through to Whitelock’s, the Packhorse, the Ship. All of them with memories going back three hundred years. How many drunks had held themselves upright on those walls? How many had waited in the shadows to rob the unwary? How many prostitutes has tumbled their clients just a yard or two off the street?

Further up Briggate, street vendors are crying their wares to drum up trade. Calls that echo back through the years. ‘What do you need? What do you lack?’ They’re there, in the space where Leeds market stood for so long, every Tuesday and Saturday, pretty much from where Harvey Nicks now sparkles all the way up to the Headrow, where there was once the market cross.

So what’s the point of this? It’s simply that, for all the sheen of the 21st century, Leeds is very much the same as it was 200, 300 and more years ago. The same things in different clothes, with different words. We have far more in common with those who came before us in Leeds than we admit or even think. Briggate and the streets that surround it, might change their facades. But that’s the only thing that really changes, along with the tat offered for sale; the nature of people doesn’t necessarily alter that much.

Next time you’re walking along there after dark, think about that.

Leeds Story Time – Robert of Red Hall and William de Wayte

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In 1318, one of the years of famine in England, Leeds was still a very small town. Little more than a village, really. It had two streets, Kirkgate and the more recent Briggate, which was just 100 years old. No more than a few hundred lived in Leeds but it already had its share of rich and poor. Among the richest was the de Ledes family of North hall, whose oldest, arrogant son was Robert. Like so many rich young men, he believed the laws didn’t apply to him. That was way, on his way to church one Sunday morning he was throwing dice with William de Wayte, another young Leeds man of wealth. An argument rose up between them, almost coming to blows or more, but neighbours pulled them apart and calmed them. In the church, William told his page and his friend John de Manston what had happened.

The service over, the trio waited in the churchyard until Robert appeared and began to taunt him. William and his page came at Robert, swords drawn. The church door was barred, there was nowhere for him to run.  He tried to defend himself and in the fight that followed, Robert killed William de Wayte. As soon as they realised what had happened, the page, de Manston, and another man took hold of Robert. Even the chaplain joined them. In the ditch that separated church from graveyard they beat him and left him for dead.

But God was looking kindly on Robert. His brothers found him and took him home. Injured, bloodied, he still recovered. But the de Wayte family wanted revenge. They accused him or murder, a charge far too serious to be heard in the court of the manor; he had to be tried in far-off London. Arrested, Robert de Ledes was taken in chain to Marshalsea prison in the capital.

But his father had money to hire the best lawyer and also went to work on his son’s behalf. Many had witnessed what happened after the service. He gathered depositions and statements from witnesses, ready to present at the trial. Robert spent months in the Marshalsea, for just moves slowly. The prospect of the noose was always close.

In court Robert claimed self-defence, to the outrage of the de Wayte family, who wanted him hung for murder. But while they had those with William as their witnesses, Robert could present more evidence to make his case. It mounted up, word by word, person by person, until, finally, it couldn’t be denied. There was no hanging that day. Instead, Robert de Ledes walked out a free man and returned to Leeds.

Diving Deep Into History

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Yesterday I felt very privileged. For a few minutes I could look deep into the heart of Leeds’ history. 400 years into the past at the oldest house in the city, three storeys, each one jettied out from the one beneath.

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Let me explain: This week saw the opening of Lambert’s Yard, a new retail/arts space on Lower Briggate. From their windows, and especially the gallery on the floor above, you can look down into the yard and across at the wonderful Grade II listed house. You can’t go in, it’s in a real state of disrepair, but simply to see it after so many years of it being shut out of sight is a joy. As are the buildings behind it. A little younger, from the look of them, probably 18th century, but still beautiful in their simplicity.

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On the surface the house doesn’t look too magnificent. It’s been wood-boarded with tongue-and-groove boards, an ugly white board on one side for repair. The days when it was timbered and limewashed have long faded (look in the gable and you can see where the timbers were cut). But it’s a slice of old Leeds history, and God knows there’s precious little of that left, certainly from pre-Victorian times. Gaze out of the windows, see beyond the surface to the lives that were lived there over the centuries.

No one knows who built the house, or who lived in the yard back when Elizabeth I was still on the throne. What we do know is that the yard took its name from the Lamberts, tea merchants who worked and lived in the house up until the early 1900s. Before that…look and make up your own tale. Just as I did (see below).

Go to Lambert’s Yard is you can (162-163 Lower Briggate) and see it for yourself. And while you’re there, buy something so this place can stay open and grow into something deeper, where we’ll all be able to reach out and touch history.

 

The last part. The limewash.

            He stood in the yard and watched the workman up on his ladder, working with his trowel to give a smooth finish, brilliant white on the gable above the third story. The sun came from behind the clouds and caught it, gleaming.

            The man kept going, working the same piece over and over until he was satisfied, then climbing back down, slowly. He was a hunched old man, a smock over his clothes, legs bowed with the years, a full beard and a quizzical eye. The best in Leeds, folk said. But the best was what he wanted for this house, so he’d paid the workman his price. It had been worthwhile.

            He’d worked hard enough to afford it, the design in his head for years. Every month he’d counted the coins in the chest, although he already knew exactly how many were there. From his marriage, then the births of Adam and Hannah, the death of his father, he’d wished the time away until today.

            There was money in wool these days. Not like the trade from Bristol or Norwich, but enough to give a fair living to a man with enterprise in his heart. Not the way it had been before Henry has taken all the wealth from the churches. He’d heard the tales when he was young, passed on from his grandfather’s father. How Kirkstall sold all their wool abroad, precious little for the town.

            The workman lowered his ladder and began to clean his tools.

            “You’ve done a good job.”

            The man shrugged.

            “Just what you paid me to do.” He raised his head. “It’ll last years, will that. A well-built house.” He hoisted the ladder on his shoulder and left.

            It was. It ought to be for everything it cost in materials and design. The frontage on Briggate, the gate through to the cobbled yard. A house in the latest fashion, each storey jettied out from the one beneath, not only in the front but on the sides. Good mullioned windows to bring in the light, entrances to the yard and the street. Strong hearths for heat and a kitchen to prepare a feast.

            With a warehouse for cloth, a strongroom for his accounts and money, and cobbles down over the mud, it was finished. Finally.

            He stood by the entrance to the yard, gazing across Briggate. The old house had been home to the family longer than anyone could recall. Cramped, cold, dark. It was no place for a modern man and his family. When his father died, as soon as the coffin was in the ground, he’d begun to make his plans. His mother would have objected. She’d have talked about the history in the wood, but she’d been gone these twenty years now.

            He could hear the children inside, running up and down the staircase. Soon enough he’d go in and tell them to have respect for property. For now they could have their moment of fun.

            One long shelf in the warehouse was full, the cloth bundled and tied. Already sold, simply waiting for a boat to carry it down to the coast. There’d be more to take its place. He’d bought lengths at the market on Leeds Bridge two days before. It was off with the fuller now. Dyeing, then stretching on the tenter frames, carefully cropped and ready to go on its way. It took time. Success took patience. His father had drummed that into him. But it needed more than that. An eye for opportunity, the willingness to gamble, to parlay a little into a lot.

            He had orders from the Low Counties, down into Italy, all the way to Jamestown in Virginia. A man had to look to new markets. It was how he’d been able to afford this house. Soon others would follow, he’d wager good money on it. Richard Sykes had talk about building when they shared a jug of wine last month. And there was Metcalf, although he probably had even grander visions. The only one who wouldn’t was Bowman the shoemaker. He loved that place with its bowed windows for showing off his goods.

            Leeds had grown and changed, there was no doubt about it. When he was a lad there’d been nothing to the place, it seemed. Now he saw new faces each day, and more people on the streets than he could count. Folk with money in their purses.

            He slapped a hand against the house’s corner beam, feeling it solid under his palm. A house to last for years and years. For his children and theirs, and all the generations to come.

The Harrying – 1069

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William the Bastard (or Conqueror) didn’t immediately rule all of England from 1066. He faced rebels in the North, men who attacked his forces but wouldn’t face him in pitched battle; guerilla forces, if you will. Finally, frustrated, he took out his anger on the ordinary people who made their lives there. In a massive act of genocide his troops destroyed villages and all who lived with them, leaving huge areas waste, often salting the earth so nothing would grow again. They came to Headingley. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 people were there again, but there was no doubt that it had suffered. I’ve borrowed some of the images from Martin Carthy’s wonderful version of the traditional ballad ‘Famous Flower Of Serving Men.’

They came in the night, the Norman bastards. The first we knew was the screams and the sound of burning. My man was up quickly, grabbing his hoe and dashing out into the dark. As he pushed the door open I could see flames lighting up the sky.

We’d heard the word from folk passing on the road. William, him as ruled us now, he said, was sick of rebellion, of the lords and them who defied him. He’d sent out men to destroy the North.

For weeks people had been coming through in their ragged, desperate ones and twos, a family and sometimes more, clutching what little they could carry, just seeking safety somewhere. We fed them, gave a place to sleep in a byre or a hut and saw them move on the next morning, hoping for a home to live free from sword and fear. Precious little chance of that in this land. In the church we prayed to the Holy Virgin that they’d leave us alone. But even as we mouthed the words we knew they’d arrive sooner or later.

Headingley had been famous once. I’d listened to the old men when I was a girl; I knew what all the tales said. How famous warriors, good men and great, would come from miles to gather at the Shire Oak and make their laws. I never pay mind to stories these days. They’re just words and words won’t feed my bairn. I’d lost three in blood and screams and pain before he was born and every day I beseeched God to let him grow to his manhood.

I picked my sweet William up from the scraps of cloth that swaddled him and held him close to my breast. Keep quiet, I whispered. For the love of Jesu, suckle and stay quiet. His mouth found the nipple and he closed his eyes again as I huddled in the corner, trying to keep hidden from the terror and yelling that filled the world beyond my walls.

Embers gave the only light, shadows that moved around the room. A steer lowed helplessly somewhere before its cry was cut short and a man began to laugh. I cowered, pushing myself hard against the wattle, head down, trying to soothe my William.

They’d kill who they wanted and put it all to the torch. That was what they did; we’d been told. What could we do against the power of armed men on horseback, with evil in their heart? Ten houses in the village. All we had were hoes and scythes and the hunger that clawed at bellies our bellies. What match was that?

There were screams that wouldn’t end. I put my hands over my ears but they remained. Even in her agony I knew her voice. Matilda, beautiful Matilda, and men doing what they always did in war and drink and rage.

I could smell the burning. Straw, flesh, meat. The shouting was loud, careless and urgent together. Matilda’s voice fell silent.

Someone kicked the door open and came in, holding a brand. There was nowhere to hide from the light. A tall man, with blood smeared on the leather of his jerkin, the lust of killing on his lips. He grunted and dragged me upright. I just tried to hold William close, to keep him safe as I was pulled outside.

The dead lay on the ground. Ten, fifteen, twenty and more of them. I picked out my man, eyes blankly staring up at nothing, a deep wound in his chest. Matilda, the clothes ripped all the way to her flesh. Her throat had been cut.

The soldier casually threw his torch into my house. The days had been dry and the straw caught quickly as the fire began to crackle and roar. I kept my arms tight around William. A man grabbed my hair and pulled hard. I wanted to cry, to do anything, to vanish into the darkness. To take my son and live.

Without a word he slapped me so that I staggered, and someone else tore William away from me. I reached out. I screamed. I shouted. I begged while they laughed. They held him close to taunt me. When I lunged to reach him, they drew back again.

Then one of them gave an order with his strange words I couldn’t understand. The tears ran down my cheeks. They held my head forcing me to watch as one of them lovingly drew his knife across my William’s throat. The blood bubbled on his skin as his yelling turned to nothing.

They let me go then. I fell to my knees, cradling my lovely boy. His blood was warm against my flesh.

The men turned and began to walk away, leaving me there. The only one still alive here. Their testament. Their warning. Their memory. A warrior passed me, spat, and tossed his broken sword on the ground before me. I wanted to die, more than I’d ever desired anything.

Long after they’d gone, when the sound of hooves had vanished and all that remained were the burning houses, I rocked my baby. I sang him soft lullabies and let my tears fall on his cheeks.

Through the night I whispered and cooed to him, stroked his soft hair. I spoke and I mumbled until my throat was raw. I told him every hope and dream I had stored for him, all the love I felt and the joy he’d given me.

By dawn he was cold.

Smoking from the ruins and black timbers were all that was left of Headingley. And the bodies tossed on the dirt. My man, my sister, my father, my friends. My son. The only building untouched was the church.

Finally I stood, picked up the ruined weapon and begin to hack out my William’s grave. The earth was soaked with blood, coming up in wet clods. I dug all through the morning, not stopping for water or rest.

I had blisters on my hands but I kept working until I was three feet in the ground. Too deep for the wolves ever to dig him out again. Safe for the coming of the Lord. I lowered him down, his face so beautiful even in death, and started to scoop the soil on top of him.

I said a prayer for his soul. God would listen. He’d been no more than a babe with no sin to stain him.

In the church I took hold of the rope, pulling until the bell began to toll. I let it ring for the memories of all those who were out there.

Outside, back in the light, I picked up the sword. I touched my man’s lips then held the fingers to my own. And I walked away.

Memory in the Bone

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Outside, the sun is shining. The only clouds are over on the horizon and the grass on the field is a brilliant shade of green. It’s chilly, but well, it’s December, what do you expect?

We’ve been in Leeds for a little over two months now. The house has been pulled together and we’re starting to develop lives up here. For me this return to my roots is wonderful, but often strange. Not hallucinogenic, but certainly weird.

Last Saturday took us to a pair of Christmas fairs. Normally I’d give those things a very wide berth, but both places had associations for me…

Going to your old school is never going to be an easy thing, even if you were fairly happy there. It’s impossible not to sound like a throwback: “When I was here that used to be…” “I remember there were old buildings there. Gone now…”. A visit like that turns you into an instant relic But a little over 40 years have passed since I left Roundhay School. At that time it was boys only, a state grammar school with a shockingly high rate of Oxbridge admissions (and no, I wasn’t among them). The girls’ school was next door. Now…ah, now it’s probably much better in so many ways, freed from the restrains of aching to be a minor public school. The weirdness became complete when I met someone on the school committee who introduced me to the current head teacher and I didn’t quake to be close to that authority.

On the way back to the car, my partner suggested walking across the outfield of the cricket pitch in front of the building. We couldn’t do that in my day, I started to say, then realised the hell with it. What could they do, give me a detention?

The second fair was at St. Matthew’s Church. I hadn’t set foot in there since I was 11. Back then I’d been a pupil at St. Matthew’s Church of England primary school, where pupils were supposed to attend church every Sunday – not that I did. The building that housed my school, an old board school from the 1870s, is long gone, replaced by houses, but I was curious to see the church. The vicarage, built for the arrival of Canon Shields in 1964 (don’t even ask how or why I remember that) still stands. There’s a new primary school where an orchard once was. The fair was in a recent annex, spilling over into the church nave. There was no pang of memory. Too long ago, or had the place really never touched me that much? I’ve no idea.

The moral? I don’t know, perhaps there isn’t one. But the tug of school, the unchanging smell through generations, that sense of being a pupil as soon as you walk through the door. 41 years after the fact and it’s still the same. Like memory in the bone.