The Harrying – 1069

On December 5, 2013December 5, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

Walter of Calverley (A #leedsstorytime)

On November 29, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Some of you will know Calverley, off the Ring Road, on the way to Shipley. It’s high on the hill, looking down on the Aire valley. It’s an ancient place, already old by the time of the Domesday Book, when it was known as Calverlei. It was home to the rich and powerful Calverley family, who built Calverley Old Hall in medieval times and lived there.

Walter Calverley was born in 1579. Folk called him Sir Walter, although he had no title – he was just Squire Calverley. On the death of his father, Walter became guardian of William Brooke, who really did have a title, Baron Cobham.

Walter was a ne’er do well. He attended Cambridge but left without a degree, although with debts from drinking and gambling. Back home he became engaged to the daughter of a nearby landowner. But his ward, William, urged him to end the engagement. William suggested Walter marry one of his relative, Philippa Brooke, a woman with a hefty dowry – a Godsend to a man in debt.

They married, but wedlock didn’t slow Walter down. He wasn’t happy in the marriage, even if he liked the money his new wife brought. He moved back and forth between Calverley and the lights of London town. Within 12 months he’d spent all the dowry and found himself in debtor’s prison, while his mother-in-law tried to reclaim the dowry. But the marriage survived. In fact, Walter and Phillipa had 3 sons – William, Walter and Henry. Fatherhood didn’t tame Walter, either. He kept drinking and gambling and was groaning with debt.

By 1605 Walter was reduced to selling off the land he owned to pay his debts. And then something happened to turn his mind. No one knows quite what. Drink? Agonies about money? Or the madness that was said to run in the family? What is certain is that on April 23, 1605, Walter Calverley went mad. He accused his wife of being unfaithful. He said that the children weren’t his. He drew his sword, stabbed the two oldest boys to death and tried to murder Philippa. Storming out of Old Hall, he threw the nurse down the stairs; she died. Walter roared out into the rainy night. Henry, his youngest son, was with a wet nurse. He intended to kill the boy. But his horse stumbled in a hole and fell on him. Before he could escape, the night watch was there to arrest him. And with arrest came sobriety – and panic.

If he pleaded guilty everything he had would be forfeit to the Crown. Nothing left for his wife and son. And insanity wasn’t a plea at that time. So he did the only thing he could – he refused to enter a plea to the court. That meant he had to be pressed until he entered a plea or died. He was tied to the floor, a heavy door on top of him. Weights were added on top until the person pled or was crushed to death. His wife and friends tried to stop it. But with each stone added to the door, Walter just said, “A pund o’ more weight! Lig on! Lig on!” until he was dead. He was finally interred at St. Wilfrid’s Church in Calverley and became the subject of a play, The Yorkshire Tragedy.

Then the tales of the ghost began. People reported seeing Walter on his horse, riding the roads around the church

He held a bloody dagger, and would vanish as his horse stumbled and fell. But sometimes…the ghost is reported to yell ‘Lig on!’ and rush at people, vanishing just before he reaches witnesses

And that’s the tale of Walter of Calverley.

The Blue Lady

On November 28, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

As told on #leedsstorytime on Twitter (@chrisnickson2)

Most folk around Leeds know Temple Newsam, the Tudor house on land that once belonged to the Knights Templar. Its history goes back to the time of the Saxons, and blood has seeped into the brickwork there. In 1622, for the princely sum of £12,000 it became the home of Sir Arthur Ingram, and the tale relates to his family. The Ingrams were rich. They had the freedom to travel from place to place. But Temple Newsam was home. The Ingrams were rich. They had the freedom to travel from place to place. But Temple Newsam was home. Mary Ingram was Sir Arthur’s granddaughter, and proud of the pearl necklace he’d given her. She wore it on a visit to York. Just 14, it was the most valuable thing she owned. Folk claimed it was the loveliest necklace in the North of England. On the journey home from York, the carriage was held up by a highwayman. He took the family’s money and jewels. Among them was Mary’s beloved necklace. It’s said that he tore it from her even as she begged him to leave it. Mary was inconsolable. Even at home, behind thick walls, with servants around, she never felt safe again. Fearful and frantic, she took to hiding anything she owned that was of value in case the man returned. She grew wan and quiet and ate less and less. Her mother worried about her and summoned the physician. But nothing helped. Day by day, week by week, Mary slowly disappeared into a world of her own, where secrets were all. She was wasting away. She’d hide things, then move them, lest someone else find them. No hiding place was ever secret enough. There are those who say she descended into madness. Some understood her fear. The one thing true is that none could help her. Mary Ingram was still only 14 when she died. The lovely, happy girl was little more than a shadow when her spirit left. Her family buried her and mourned. But as time passed, a strange thing happened at Temple Newsam. Folk said they’d seen Mary. It would be in the night, when servants worked late and candles guttered and threw shadows. But it was here, they insisted. Thin, pale, and dressed in a gown of deep, holy blue, she’d wander the halls and rooms of Temple Newsam. In vain she’d search for her treasures, hidden so well that they’d gone from her memory, never to be found. And over the years she’s been seen often, the Blue Lady as she’s become, still seeking and never finding, lost to the ages. Her portrait remains, over the fireplace in the Green Damask Room. And on some nights she walks, still searching forever…

Northern Souls

On November 28, 2013 By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized1 Comment

Today’s flutter and faff in the news seems to be about the way the South views the North. You know, those stereotypes.

As someone recently and happily returned to Leeds after many years away, I can say it’s great to be back where my heart belongs. It just took me a long time to understand that this is really where I want – need – to be. In my teens I couldn’t wait to get away. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t going on around here, in this provincial city. The wider world was out there, far from a place where the stones were covered in soot. I ventured out. Not to London, but to America.

That, though, is by the bye.

The North is different. Except there isn’t one North, there are many. Geordies are different from Teesiders. The folk of North Yorkshire are another breed from those in the West Riding. Then there’s the parts of Lancashire, even down into Derbyshire on South Yorkshire (of course, there are different parts of the South. You can’t generalise).

This is the land where Blake’s vision of dark, Satanic mills was a reality. It was the home of the Industrial Revolution. Workers came from the absolute poverty of the countryside in the hope of a better life. They were crammed into hovels and back-to-back houses and worked for 12 to 14 hours a day. Children of six worked hour upon hour in the complete darkness of the mines. We had the water, the factories, the resources buried deep in the earth. And when human life could be bought so cheaply, it became a disposable item.

People became hard because they had no choice. Family members died or were injured in accidents in the mills or pit disasters. Life was short and bloody uncertain. The unions gained followers in the North because they gave people the chance and above all, the voice they’d never had before. The Co-Op, which is also being lambasted these days, gave people a stake in their own lives.

A great deal has changed, of course. There’s precious little industry in the North these days. In part, that’s due to Thatcher and the Tories. But capital will go where labour is cheap, and these days that means Asia. They’re the new Northerners. Today the North is clean, all the dirt blasted off Victorian sandstone, and it’s largely a ‘service economy.’ Leeds, I’m told, is a rich city. Except, of course, if you’re in the street after street of back-to-backs south of the Aire, or in Harehills or Chapeltown. All that housing, meant to only last a few years, was built for workers close to the factories, in the days before public transport, when they needed to live close to their jobs. The only problem is that the jobs vanished, and there have been precious few to replace them.

When Coronation Street first aired, almost 53 years ago now, the life it showed was, to a large degree, a reflection of how things were, in Salford or Leeds or Hull or Newcastle. It was the working classes on the screen. People said it was too different, a show like that, in the time of RP accents, couldn’t last.

The North was poor, but the heart of gold that lurked underneath, the innate warmth – solidarity, perhaps – was allowed to show. And the North is still poor. Figures have shown that the NHS up here receives less money than in the South. And then there’s this:

“The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which analysed the 30 per cent real terms cut in local government spending between 2008 and 2015, said the North and Midlands are suffering more than the south, with deprived areas left about £100 per person worse off.”

So yes, the North is different. And I’m bloody glad of it. Forget the stereotypes. They don’t matter, they can just as easily be thrown at the South, and any High Street anywhere in Britain has become the spitting image of any other High Street. One shopping ‘experience’ is much the same as any other. No, the North is different because it’s been ill-used but it’s always fought back. It’s still being ill-used, this time by a government that realises it’ll never win votes in the cities here, so it’s giving bribes to the places where it has a chance. The North is different because it’s strong. And I’m proud of that.

Perhaps the sad part of the debate is that for most people it’ll be forgotten in a couple of days.

Eating at the White House

On November 4, 2013 By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized1 Comment

Last week, heading out to the tip, I drove along Wetherby Road in Leeds and passed a restaurant called The White House. These days it looks like a chain pub centred around food. But many years ago it was quite a classy place. And therein hangs a tale…

It was, as the song title goes, the summer of ’69. I was 15 and spending the summer holidays working at Laws Supermarket. It was the first summer I could legally work full-time and I had plans for the money I’d make. It would go in the bank for some big thing, to be decided in the future.

Of course, things didn’t work out that way. By then I was playing bass in bands, a youth for whom books and music were the fundamentals of life. So my days off were filled with trips into Leeds to spend my hard-earned wages on in bookshops and record shops, filling out my sparse collection of Penguin Classics and poetry and anguishing over which LP to buy.

And it was the summer I became interested in a girl. In the evenings I’d walked a mile to meet up with friends. We spent an hour or so on a bench in front of a shopping parade, just talking and acting the fool. A girl would come along sometimes, long blonde hair, that slightly ethereal look that was so typical of the late Sixties. I was smitten. But shy.

I came up with a plan. I’d impress her. Take her out to dinner. I’d never done that before, but I could scrub up a bit and act politely in public. It would be a costly do, I knew that. After all, you can’t impress without spending. So I saver my money for a fortnight, and one evening, just as she was leaving the bench, I took her aside and asked her out.

She looked more shocked than anything. Still, she agreed. On the night, we met and caught the bus to Oakwood, followed by an awkward stroll to the place. I tried to keep an insouciant, sophisticated front in the restaurant, to seem adult and worldly, and probably failed miserably. We ate, made a little small talk and left to catch the bus home.

The spark simply wasn’t there. We were both nice people, but…

Money wasted? I thought so at the time, and I certainly didn’t want my parents to find out about it and how much I’d spent. I kept the bill in my pocket and next day, walking the dog in the park, I buried on a hillside. Out of sight, although I took a little longer to be out of mind.

Not too long after I did take up with a girl, a romance that lasted nine months, an eternity in teenage terms. But that’s another story. One I don’t want to tell.

Laura, That Summer and John Martyn

On October 24, 2013 By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized4 Comments

For some reason I’ve been thinking of someone I knew long ago. Well, not just for any reason. In this new place I’m not far from where she lived, and driving along these streets, the ones where I walked – I was just 18 and who owned a car or took driving lessons all those years ago – has bounced her back into my head a few times. I don’t even remember her surname now, her face is a blur in time, but really, that doesn’t matter.

We were a couple for less than a two months, just a blink in the scheme of things, but I owe her a great debt. After all, she introduced me to the music of John Martyn. And that really did change my life. Over the years since I’ve bought his albums, seen him play whenever I could and even ended up writing a book about him (which you can buy here if you really want to). At his best, the magic of John remains strong, even 41 years after I first heard him.

She was called Laura, which she shortened to Lol, back when that had no other connotations. I’d finished my A levels, I was done with school, an empty summer loomed ahead of me. She was a little younger, just back from a trip to Paris with her mother after a small breakdown following an abortion. We met at a party, one of those teenage affairs where a couple of bottles of light ale and a toke or two on a joint seemed daring.

Now I think she was probably drifting a bit, trying to find herself. Her parents were very liberal, her father was a professor at Leeds University, her mother a published poet. They lived in a detached Victorian house with a flagstone floor in the big kitchen. Dinner conversations ranged all over, and I was included as an adult. It was all I’d dreamed of for myself.

It was an affair that came with a time limit. I was leaving in September and she’d be back to the mundane life of school. We knew it without saying a word.

One day in August, when the trees in the garden were full green and shady, she took me into the music room. Grand piano, a wall full of sheet music, expensive stereo. We sat on the floor and she put on an LP. A few seconds later came the first notes of “Go Down Easy” off John Martyn’s Bless the Weather and I was shaken to my core. I must have heard him on John Peel’s radio show, but this was really hearing him for the first time. It was slow, sensual music, so different from any singer-songwriter I knew. The voice slurred through the notes like a tenor sax, the guitar and bass worked off each other. This was…I didn’t have the words for it. Then came the title track and all the rest and I knew I’d heard something that would lodge in my heart.

We played that album a lot over the remainder of that summer. I bought a copy, I was hooked in a way I’d never been with anyone before or since. The music still moves me. It always will. At his best, John vibrated my soul the way no one else ever managed. Even late in his career, after a couple of decades of ups and downs, he had something special – I was able to review On the Cobbles for NPR. I’m still ridiculously grateful to Lol for introducing me to him.

I did see Lol once more after the inevitable breakup. It was two years later. I was back living in Leeds, a student who’d decided studying wasn’t for him. It was outside the Town Hall, after a King Crimson concert. I was on my own, she was with some new boyfriend. A brief surprised hello and we went our separate ways into the rain. But some moments in life don’t always vanish into nothingness.

Walking With Ghosts

On October 3, 2013 By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized3 Comments

It’s six days since we moved into this new place. Six days since I came back to Leeds and 37 years since I left. And I’ve returned pretty much to the neighbourhood where I grew up. It’s a feeling of both tension and relief. Even after so long, this is familiar ground. I know the streets, I know the shopping areas, I can find my way from A to B without thinking.

In these six days I’ve done a fair bit of walking. But at every turn I find myself face to face with the person I was all that time ago. He comes with baggage. A mother and a father, a dog, the friends of his youth. He’s the ghost who walks every step beside me.

Sometimes I almost see him from the corner of my eye, wearing the old dark blue Navy greatcoat he favoured once the weather turned cold, or the cheap hippie Afghan coat that stank of goat whenever it was wet. His hair is longer – but not long, school wouldn’t allow that – and sometimes he’s carrying a guitar. He always has a paperback book peeking out of his pocket. Sometimes he seems to turn towards me with a questioning look, as if to say, ‘You look strangely familiar. Do I know you?’

It’s been six days of walking here and there. The ginnels and alleys that were my way home from school. The road to the tennis courts. The park where I lay on my back on a summer’s night in 1968, having had my head torn apart by Easy Rider, the hill at Roundhay Park, which was cut into terraces then, where I’d spend warm weekend afternoons hoping to meet girls. The paddle boats that no longer exist on the lake. Seeing the faint outline of a shaggy little dog roaring over the grass, happy to be off his lead and free.

Heartbreak, joy, and the day-to-day tedium. An awakening into adulthood. So many of the streets and the buildings around here hold my stories. For six days now I feel I’ve been walking with ghosts, going to place to place and collecting those stories, putting them in a bag and moving on to the next one. Six days so far, but many, many more to come. Then, perhaps, there’ll be new ghosts walking.

T Minus 4

On September 23, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s T minus 4 and counting. On Friday we move. Finally. Finally? Well, we originally thought it would happen at the beginning of August. But buying a leasehold place seems to create its own set of hellish problems that drag on and on. If I were Catholic I’d believe we’d already gone through at least half of purgatory.

The house is made up of hills boxes. Of course, it’s been that way since the middle of July. We’ve had to dig in some of them in order to find things we didn’t believe we’d need before moving. But now there’s very little left to pack.

As we’re downsizing a lot has gone to charity shops. Last Friday saw them take out five wardrobes (yes, you read that correctly), a couple of bedside tables and a few other things. It’s a strangely cleansing experience, watching it all disappear.

I’ve moved numerous times before – to another continent and back, and once a good couple of thousand miles across that continent, as well as many other smaller moves – but this one fills me with joy. I never believed I’d go back to the place where I was born, let alone to the area where I grew up. Yet times change feelings. Since I began writing about Leeds I’ve wanted to spend more time there. I seem to know more people there than elsewhere in the UK, and none of them are old schoolfriends.

I’m excited by what’s ahead. We both are.

A Bit More 50s

On September 12, 2013September 12, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

“Good morning, Mr. Markham.”

He glanced up, thoughts vanishing behind him.

“Hello, Joyce.” She was bundled in the old back wool coat she only shed at the height of summer. Long and shapeless, it made her look like someone who’d stepped out of another century. She worked in the Kardomah down on Commercial Street, a cheery enough soul in her sixties with grey hair curled tight against her scalp, covered with a headscarf.

“You can seem ‘em all remembering, can’t you?”

“Do you blame them?”

“Not a bit, luv. We just need to make sure we never forget and let it happen again.”

At 10, Albion Place he pushed hard on the door, forcing it over the hump in the lino and walked up to the second floor, past the typing bureau and unlocked the door of his office. Daniel Markham, the plain brass plaque read, Enquiry Agent.

One pace inside and he stopped. Someone had been here. Everything look right, the arch files on the bookcase, folders neatly aligned, the ashtray emptied and the chair squared against the desk. But there was a faint scent, a hint of bay rum, trapped in the closed room that shouldn’t have been there.

Whoever broke in had been neat; they’d even set the lock behind them. If the burglar hadn’t been so vain he’d never even have guessed. He unlocked the drawers of the desk, searching through, but nothing seemed to be missing. Even the Webley Mark Six he’d brought home from the service was there.

Another twenty minutes and he was ready to swear that nothing had been taken. Even the smell had vanished. He sat back in the chair and lit a Gold Leaf, watching the smoke rise to the ceiling. A careful burglary where nothing was stolen. A coshing with no robbery. It didn’t add up. What the hell was going on?

By dinnertime he didn’t have any answers. The telephone hadn’t rung and the postman hadn’t delivered any letters. An empty morning. He put the trilby on his head and strolled around to Briggate, glancing in Burton’s window before going next door to eat at Lyons.

The windows were damp with condensation and the air heavy and warm. Someone had left a copy of the Manchester Guardian at the table and he skimmed through it as he ate. He’d just pushed the plate aside and settled back with a cup of tasteless coffee when a hand touched his should and the fat man eased into the seat across from him with a grunt, placing his hat on the table.

“I hear you were lucky not to end up in the cells last night, Dan.” Roger Baker took a briar pipe from his jacket, a box of Swan Vestas out of the waistcoat stretched across his belly and lit up, puffing patiently until he was happy with the way it drew. “Three sheets to the wind, the copper on the beat said.” He turned to the hovering waitress. “A cup of tea and a slice of jam roll, please luv. My friend here’s paying.”

Baker was a detective sergeant with Leeds Police, a man with a wide, florid face and deep knowledge of Leeds behind his soft eyes. He’d started out as a young constable in 1935, his service interrupted by the war. He’d seen the city grow and change. Not much happened that escaped his ears.

“I know you’re young and you need your beauty rest, lad. But your own bed’s a better place than Merrion Street.”

Markham bristled. At twenty-five he was half the age of the other man, and Baker never let him forget it. Still wet behind the ears, he said. Hardly out of nappies.

“I was coshed, Mr. Baker. Got the lump to prove it.”

“What did they get?”

“Nothing,” he answered and Baker pursed his lips.

“I know they have cosh boys down in London. What do they call them?”

“Teddy boys.” He’d seen the pictures in the Sunday papers, posing with their Brylcreemed hair and long drape jackets. But he’d never spotted one in Leeds.

“Aye, that’s it. Bloody disgrace. Should birch the lot of them.” He put the pipe aside for the tea and the jam roll smothered in custard. When Baker ate, everything else stopped. He was a man who relished his food. Markham lit a cigarette and waited until the sergeant wiped his mouth with the serviette, the signal that he’d finished.

“There’s something else. Someone broke into my office last night.”

“What did they take?”

“Nothing.”

“Another nothing?” he asked with disbelief, taking a long drink. “Seems like you’ve got a whole lot of bugger all.” But his eyes gave him away. He was interested. “Sounds like someone has it in for you lad.” He relit the pipe, waving away a cloud of smoke. “Been doing summat you shouldn’t?”

Markham shrugged.

“No. I don’t even have any work at the moment. The last thing was a divorce. I turned the photographs over to the wife’s solicitor last week.”

“Dirty business, divorce.” Baker grimaced. Dan knew the man had been married for a good twenty years, with two sons and a daughter.

“It pays the bills.”

“Aye, like as not.” Baker pushed himself up with a grunt and reached for his hat. “If owt else happens, you come and tell me, lad. Alright?”

“Yes, Mr. Baker.”

After the man left he pushed the coffee away, paid the bill and made his way through the crowds on Briggate. Cars and buses and delivery vans filled the road, a tram passing silently as the crossed the Headrow by Lewis’s. On New Briggate, next to the Odeon, he climbed the stairs. The door proclaimed Studio 20 and he rattled the handle until he heard someone muttering inside and a key turned in the lock.

A short man with a long, dark beard and bleary eyes looked up at him.

“Bloody hell, Dan, what do you want?” I thought you was the bread man.”

He turned his back and Markham followed him into the attic room with its sloping ceiling and garish musicians wallpaper. An upright piano stood in the corner, a drum kit had been pushed against the wall, and folding chairs were stacked in a row.

It was the only jazz club in Leeds. Probably the only one in Yorkshire, he thought. Music seven nights a week, going on until the last player gave up. They all came here when their gigs had finished, to sit in and jam, George Webb, Ken Colyer, Ronnie Scott. He’d come down and listened to them all, carrying on until dawn.

He’d picked up a taste for jazz in Hamburg during National Service. Not that the Germans had any. They didn’t seem to have any music worth the name, just the desperation of finding enough food to keep body and soul together every day. But his intelligence work meant liaising with the American forces and one of them, Jimmy Powers, a slick little corporal from Ohio, had been a jazz nut. He’d set out to make a convert of Markham and he’d succeeded.

There’d been good coffee – real coffee, not the NAAFI rubbish – and records from the PX, enough to start a collection. Then he was back on England, on Civvy Street. And Leeds was a wasteland for the new music.

Someone had told him about Dobell’s down in London, and he spent far too much on their mail order service. And then Studio 20 had opened.

“If you’re looking for Bob, he won’t be here while this evening.” The man filled a kettle at the sink and placed it on the gas ring. “Cuppa?”

Blackie Smith seemed to live in the club. Maybe he did, he was always here, day or night, as if he had nowhere better to be. And Bob Barclay, the owner, seemed to trust him.

“No thanks. Were you around much last night?”

“In and out,” Smith said cautiously. “Why?”

“Do you remember me leaving?” It hadn’t been much of a session, no one catching fire, fronted by a tenor player no one knew who wanted to be Lester Young and feel far short.

Smith shrugged. “Wasn’t paying attention. Why?”

“I was coshed on my way back to the car.”

The man’s eyes widened under his thick brows.

“Coshed? Did they get anything?”

“Didn’t even try,” Markham told him. “I was wondering if anyone left right after me.” It hadn’t been a large crowd, just ten or twelve. Other than a couple of faces he knew, he hadn’t paid the audience much mind.

“Not that I remember,” Blackie said after some thought. “Sorry. Dan. You alright?”

“Thick skull, that’s me.” It was what his mother always said when he banged his head. For a moment he could almost hear the tone of her voice. But she’d been dead for three years now, a tumour that ate away at her brain, leaving her family helpless. His father had gone six months later, his heart broken and no will to love. “Never mind, it was worth a try.”

“You coming down later?”

“Will there be anyone good?”

“Probably just Bob and the lads. Tomorrow, now, that’s a different matter. Chris Barber’s in York. He might come over when the gig’s done.”

He’d heard Barber. The style was too traditional for his taste. But somewhere freer he might be worth hearing.

“We’ll see. Thanks, Blackie.”

And Now for Something…

On September 10, 2013September 10, 2013 By chrisnickson2In UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m happy. We have an almost[-firm date for our move back to Leeds, only the better part of two months after we expected it to happen. But better late, etc….and my copies of Fair and Tender Ladies have arrived, with its wonderful cover.

On an unrelated note, in recent weeks I’ve been reading a great deal about the 1950s. It’s the decade when I was born, so I assumed I knew it well. Wrong. Seems I knew next to nothing. But my reading sparked an idea. Or the start of one. Like they say in music, it goes something like this….(no apologies for typos – it’s rough). Let me know what you think. Please.

CHAPTER ONE

He was falling, falling, somewhere between heaven and earth. He reached out but there was nothing to hold on to, only the feeling of tumbling through space. Pictures spun and twirled in his head, things he could quite place before they moved on. A face, a building, a hand.

Then he landed.

It jolted the breath out of him. His skull banged down hard and a shock of pain ran through his body. For a moment he could do nothing. All he could manage was to lie there, trying to gulp in air and stop the nausea rising.

Finally it passed and he was breathing steadily. He rolled gently onto his side and opened his eyes. He was lying on the pavement, the flagstones shiny and wet against his cheek. It was night and he couldn’t remember what had happened.

The next he knew, something was pushing gently against his ribs.

“If you can stand up and walk away, I’ll not arrest you, lad.” He blinked, trying to bring the figure into focus. A copper, he saw finally, with the pointy hat and the black boots that shone in the streetlights. “Had a skinful, have you?”

He didn’t try to answer, but sat up, his head drumming with every movement. One hand against the wall, he eased himself upright, pausing until the dizziness passed.

“I’m sorry, officer, I don’t know what happened,” he said honestly, rubbing the gash by his temple, then the bump at the back of his skull, wincing at the tenderness.

“It’s alright, sir.” The policeman’s mile was almost hidden by his thick moustache. “Couldn’t let you sleep there all night, that’s all.” He bent and picked a trilby from the ground, dusting it off with large hands. “This yours, is it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Get yoursen home, that’s my advice. You’ll be feeling it in the morning.” He gave a brief nod. “Goodnight, sir.”

“Goodnight. And thank you.”

He waited until the constable had disappeared around the corner, brushing the worst of the damp and the dirt from his suit and picking gravel out of his palms. Then he felt inside his jacket, checking the wallet was still there, and the watch still on his wrist.

His head hurt like buggery but it was beginning to clear. Looking round, he knew exactly where he was, on Merrion Street, the ABC cinema dark at the bottom of the hill. He moved his fingers gingerly around the lump on the back of the head.

Why had someone coshed him?

CHAPTER TWO

All around, Leeds was quiet, two in the morning and barely a sound, the shop windows dark. He sat in the old Anglia, window rolled down, and smoked a cigarette. Men had taken a swing at him before; it came with being an enquiry agent. But no one had ever used a cosh. Why? There was nothing unusual on the books. Just the usual divorces and frauds that paid the bills.

Finally he pulled out the choke then turned the key in the ignition, pressing down on the accelerator as the engine caught. There was no traffic, just a few lights shining behind curtains where sleep wouldn’t come.

In Chapel Allerton he turned onto Town Street, then down the alley between the police station and the Nag’s Head, parking by a brick house. Inside, he climbed carefully to the third floor, avoiding the tread that squeaked, and let himself into the flat.

It was a small place, no more than a bed-sitting room with a sink and gas ring in one corner, the bathroom and toilet on the landing, perched at the top of the stairs. From the window he looked down on the graveyard. But it was his and a damn sight better than the lodgings.

He stripped off the suit, examining the material and hoping against hope that the dry cleaner would be able to rescue it. It was good worsted, better than any fifty shilling job. He’d bought it right after National Service, a sly deal that didn’t involve clothing coupons, and it had worn well.

Sod it, he needed to sleep.

He woke as the early sun streamed on his face. He clawed his way out of a dream, opening his eyes as he sat up, stopping as something seared behind his eyes.

By nine he’d washed and dressed. He couldn’t do much about the dark circles under his eyes but he’d shaved and cleaned up the cut on his temple. At least he no longer looked like he’d spent a week on the razzle.

He parked the Anglia on King Charles Street and walked down Lands Lane. Everyone he passed seemed subdued. The third of September. It was a date none of them could forget. The start of the war and thoughts of lost comrades, fathers, sons, brothers.

He’d been ten, called in from a Sunday morning playing in the garden just as his sister was dragged down from his bedroom. He’d sat cross-legged, picking at a scab on his knee as Chamberlain’s voice came out of the radio. When the speech had finished, his father had looked at his mother and simply said, “That’s it, then.”

He was a bright enough lad, set for a scholarship to grammar school. He knew what war meant. Or he believed he did. All the bravery of Empire, the things he’d been taught in schools. It wasn’t until he did his time in the army that he learned the brutal truth. The empty faces, the ruins as far as he could see. He spent a winter there, working in military intelligence. He saw the people freeze and work and scrabble for anything resembling a normal life. What they taught him at Roundhay, death and glory and greatness, it was all bollocks. Dead was nothing more than dead, another memory and a poppy in November.