Number Ten---Sex, The Cane And Naughty Schoolgirls 10
Without Prejudice
We've moved into the flat at last, so funny Dad and Jay struggling up the stairs with the double bed mattress, both red in the face and yelling at each other. The mattress wobbles in the middle and falls back to the landing. I can't watch, I really can't, they are so funny. I have be in bed by nine' o clock and it's not funny. I so want to be an adult and be able to stay up late. Mum and Dad get to watch the best shows. There's a big deal about Kenneth Tynan saying Fuck on the Beeb. Mum said it is just an old English word. Sometimes if I am really lucky I get to That Was The Week That was.
Every Sunday now we go down to see Grandma and Grandad for Sunday lunch at Bottomboat. Grandma shows me how to make "Proper Yorkshires". Eggs and flour, water and milk, salt and then it goes in the fridge and rests, while you make "Ash", a thin gravy of meat and vegies boiled. When the batter comes out of the fridge she adds her secret ingredient, more water and it has to be icy cold. The Yorkshire pans come out of the oven where they are in with the joint, she has heated them up and put a bit of dripping in each pan.
I've only known Yorkshire Pud to be flat and square but these pans are four circles to a tray and each one is about 4" across. Grandma puts the batter in each and puts them back in the oven until they are golden and crisp. Then she sits us at the table, Jay is there first, of course, he has to have his with lemon and sugar, just because. We sit and have them with "Ash" and hot sauce, H.P. which I love. Granny says that's the way all Yorkshire people have them as meat in the old days was too expensive. So if you filled up on Yorkshires you didn't want as much meat.
There is always dessert as well, apple pie, steamed jam roly poly and custard. I am so stuffed full I think I''ll die. They all stay inside and I go out to Dad's car and listen to Radio Caroline and the Forces Dedications and imagine my older brother all the way over there in Australia in the Army. Wonder if he misses us or feels lonely. All the adults are inside, eating caramels and having cups of tea, so are Jay, Jenny and Dennis. It's just me out here and I am happy. They don't like my music but all I want to do is listen to it.
It's only 2 weeks now to School holidays and they last 6 weeks, six whole weeks and I shiver in the car and think about Australia. I look out side of the car at the Railway line cross the road. Grandad said a man died there last week, drunk, lay on the tracks and the train cut his head clean off his shoulders. I think about that man and feel sad. Who wants to end their life on a railway line, it's all weedy and grim. Dad knocks on the window and tells me to come back in, Jimmy Tarbucks is on and Ken Dodd. So I go in with the oldies where its hot as blazes and the telly is blaring as Granny is deaf.
Grandad says who wants to go the Rising Sun and Mum and Dad don't drink, ever but we go and I am allowed to have a baby cham and I get all giggly and drunk, or I think I am. They all start singing along to some old sing a longs and get teary some of them. It is so boring I want to scream but soon enough we are leaving as it shuts at 3 and wander back down the road to the "bungalow" and get going to home as it's school tomorrow. Two more weeks, only two more weeks, can't wait.
Dennis is going to a scholl called Flushdyke now, before he was at Outwood but as we've moved, he has to move schools, poor little kid, but he doesn't seem to care. He looks so Aussie with his freckles and streaked by the sun hair. I'll ask Mum if I can take him to the Pictures in Leeds over the hols if I can. I want him to see Mary Poppins with me. Jay will think it's too babyish, but I can get the bus with Dennis, it can't be that hard. When I was in Australia I had to catch the bus and the train by myself for swimming practice 3 times a week. When are Mum and Dad going to see that I am older and can be trusted ?
We've moved into the flat at last, so funny Dad and Jay struggling up the stairs with the double bed mattress, both red in the face and yelling at each other. The mattress wobbles in the middle and falls back to the landing. I can't watch, I really can't, they are so funny. I have be in bed by nine' o clock and it's not funny. I so want to be an adult and be able to stay up late. Mum and Dad get to watch the best shows. There's a big deal about Kenneth Tynan saying Fuck on the Beeb. Mum said it is just an old English word. Sometimes if I am really lucky I get to That Was The Week That was.
Every Sunday now we go down to see Grandma and Grandad for Sunday lunch at Bottomboat. Grandma shows me how to make "Proper Yorkshires". Eggs and flour, water and milk, salt and then it goes in the fridge and rests, while you make "Ash", a thin gravy of meat and vegies boiled. When the batter comes out of the fridge she adds her secret ingredient, more water and it has to be icy cold. The Yorkshire pans come out of the oven where they are in with the joint, she has heated them up and put a bit of dripping in each pan.
I've only known Yorkshire Pud to be flat and square but these pans are four circles to a tray and each one is about 4" across. Grandma puts the batter in each and puts them back in the oven until they are golden and crisp. Then she sits us at the table, Jay is there first, of course, he has to have his with lemon and sugar, just because. We sit and have them with "Ash" and hot sauce, H.P. which I love. Granny says that's the way all Yorkshire people have them as meat in the old days was too expensive. So if you filled up on Yorkshires you didn't want as much meat.
There is always dessert as well, apple pie, steamed jam roly poly and custard. I am so stuffed full I think I''ll die. They all stay inside and I go out to Dad's car and listen to Radio Caroline and the Forces Dedications and imagine my older brother all the way over there in Australia in the Army. Wonder if he misses us or feels lonely. All the adults are inside, eating caramels and having cups of tea, so are Jay, Jenny and Dennis. It's just me out here and I am happy. They don't like my music but all I want to do is listen to it.
It's only 2 weeks now to School holidays and they last 6 weeks, six whole weeks and I shiver in the car and think about Australia. I look out side of the car at the Railway line cross the road. Grandad said a man died there last week, drunk, lay on the tracks and the train cut his head clean off his shoulders. I think about that man and feel sad. Who wants to end their life on a railway line, it's all weedy and grim. Dad knocks on the window and tells me to come back in, Jimmy Tarbucks is on and Ken Dodd. So I go in with the oldies where its hot as blazes and the telly is blaring as Granny is deaf.
Grandad says who wants to go the Rising Sun and Mum and Dad don't drink, ever but we go and I am allowed to have a baby cham and I get all giggly and drunk, or I think I am. They all start singing along to some old sing a longs and get teary some of them. It is so boring I want to scream but soon enough we are leaving as it shuts at 3 and wander back down the road to the "bungalow" and get going to home as it's school tomorrow. Two more weeks, only two more weeks, can't wait.
Dennis is going to a scholl called Flushdyke now, before he was at Outwood but as we've moved, he has to move schools, poor little kid, but he doesn't seem to care. He looks so Aussie with his freckles and streaked by the sun hair. I'll ask Mum if I can take him to the Pictures in Leeds over the hols if I can. I want him to see Mary Poppins with me. Jay will think it's too babyish, but I can get the bus with Dennis, it can't be that hard. When I was in Australia I had to catch the bus and the train by myself for swimming practice 3 times a week. When are Mum and Dad going to see that I am older and can be trusted ?
