Here's a true tale from my childhood that involves a dastardly insult. I previously alluded to this memory eight years ago.
In the East Yorkshire village where I was born and raised, there were five significant roads. At "The Hare and Hounds" pub, four of those roads met. They were North Street, South Street, West Street and East Street. Pretty imaginative, huh?
The fifth major road was called High Stile. At the bottom of South Street by "The New Inn", it headed off in a north easterly direction, meeting up with East Street after a quarter of a mile. This meant that in the heart of the village there was a large triangle of land - about ten acres all told.
Near the angle of East Street and High Stile there was a recreation ground with a large butter-coloured tin hut known as the recreation hall and beside that a precious grassy area where village lads were allowed to play football. We did this incessantly at weekends and and on dry summer evenings.
Next to the recreation ground there was a house that had a small market garden business behind it with a high brick wall extending northwards from the house. I have racked my brains to remember the real surname of the married couple who lived there but over time that name has evaporated and so I shall refer to them pseudonymously as Mr and Mrs Hobson.
One summer evening, there were about ten of us playing football. I guess I was nine years old. We were having a fine old time until somebody booted the ball over Mr and Mrs Hobson's wall. It didn't land anywhere near the big greenhouse they had at the back of the property.
Mrs Hobson had revealed her unsunny character before so the boy who had kicked the ball over was very reluctant to retrieve it. It was decided that I should be the one to go round and I felt slightly apprehensive but very capable of fulfilling that task.
Nervously, I went round and I could see our ball in the potato patch but I didn't want to risk just grabbing the ball and running back to our football game so I knocked on the kitchen door.
Mrs Hobson opened that door after a few minutes - wearing her floral housecoat.
"Yes. What do you want?" she asked.
"Excuse me Mrs Hobson. Somebody kicked our ball over the wall. May I get it please?"
"Where is it?"
"It's there in the potato patch."
She came out of the house in her slippers and walked up the garden path to retrieve the ball. However, when she returned to her kitchen door she kept the ball. I was open-mouthed.
"You're not having it!" she snapped.
"What? You are keeping our ball?"
"Yes!"
I was infuriated and though I knew some proper swear words by that age I had never used them so instead, I said, "Well I think you're a... you're a damned rotter!"
"What did you say?"
She had raised her voice . She grabbed by arm and dragged me into her kitchen where she said she would telephone my father and then asked for our phone number which consisted of just three memorable digits - 272.
Dad arrived after what seemed like an age and Mrs Hobson recounted the incident, possibly expecting me to be later clouted like a disobedient dog. But I was not afraid of my father. I loved him as he loved me. He led me away, holding the lost ball.
The other boys were still in the recreation ground wondering what had taken me so long. Dad tossed them the ball and advised them to keep it down but for appearance's sake he led me away - back down High Stile to "The New Inn" and then right up South Street to the schoolhouse.
Years later, he recalled the incident with amusement and agreed, "She was a damned rotter!" It was the kind of remark that Billy Bunter might have made or Lord Snooty in "The Beano".
Mrs Hobson should have invested in a rottweiler or pit bull to keep those pesky schoolboys out of her potato patch.
ReplyDeleteI hope that no irreproachable young lads live close to Ye Olde Church House.
Deleteafter an umpteenth clatter on the kitchen window, i took hold of the football and plunged a kitchen knife into it..... i threw it back to the red faced youths, in a way that you'd throw a frisbee to someone...... true story.... sorry boys
ReplyDeleteNo wonder you have to wear an electronic tag.
DeleteI used to call my middle daughter pumpkin. What about honey and sweetpea? My love? Beloved, I like that one.
ReplyDeleteYou called your middle daughter names associated with natural food products and flowers? How about carrot, wallflower or lobster?
Delete"A damned rotter" -- I am shocked, SHOCKED, at your filthy, disrespectful back-talk, young-man-that-was! (Hahahahaha, how sweet can you get? I'd hate to think what a kid of today would say in that same scenario.)
ReplyDeleteShocked by "damned rotter" Debra? I have got some other horrible words up my sleeve including useless cad, blasted bounder and silly nitwit. There! Take that!
DeleteSo a kid does the honorable thing and gets into trouble for it.
ReplyDeleteShe imprisoned me briefly! Surely that is not allowed.
DeleteI try to think good of things and people, but sometimes it gets a bit hard, especially when idiots are on the news instead of safely tucked away in rubber rooms.
ReplyDeleteFoam rubber?
DeleteWhat dratted little scoundrels you were.
ReplyDeleteDillydown? Really?
Don't worry I will not be calling you my dillydown any time soon... but I note that it rhymes with silly clown!
DeleteShe was a rotter! We used to get told to "Go and play up your own end!"
ReplyDeleteI have a beautiful, wooden framed, traditional greenhouse that we bought three years ago. It's my pride and joy. Don't you be coming round here with any nasty footballs!
She wasn't just a rotter Christina - she was a "damned" rotter which is ten times worse! If I can't play football, may I play cricket within sight of your lovely greenhouse?
DeleteYour father was a sensible man and good Dad, no wonder you are a good father and grandfather yourself.
ReplyDeleteIn our neighbourhood lived an old woman on her own in a house with garden bordering onto the triangular (yes, like yours, just much smaller) patch of grass in the centre of our block of terraced houses. When we played there, as we did most days, it was inevitable that every now and then a ball landed in her unkempt garden, as was the noise we made. She never gave back any of the balls, and when she died or moved to a care home (I can‘t remember), rumour has it that one compartment in her cellar was found to be full of balls.
Her name was Hitzelberger, and we were all scared of her. She threatened us repeatedly, and at some point my Mum went to talk to her. She returned, telling us that Frau Hitzelberger was a very lonely old woman, bittered by her life experience, and that instead of being scared we should feel sorry for her. We genuinely tried to keep a distance from her house and garden, but the space was small. We even said good day to her when we saw her outside, but apart from a grumble and half nod there was no response.
Frau Hitzelberger had more balls than most men. She would be a great subject for a scary children's story... scary until we find out near the end that her husband and eleven children were all killed in an autobahn pile up back in 1965.
Delete"Dillydown" is a new one to me. I tried googling it but didn't really get any wiser. Any special context when to use that? (or not?!)
ReplyDelete"dillydown" is an obscure term of affection that had some traction in the middle ages in England. It means something like a darling or a pet. For example, I might rock up at your flat in Sweden and when you open the door I might well say, "Hello my sweet dillydown!" Whereupon you might slam the door in my face!
DeleteYour post was weirdly relevant. Yesterday I told two young boys off for playing football in an alleyway alongside my house. Every time they kicked the ball into my wall (about every 20 seconds) my house shook and it sounded like a bulldozer coming through the wall. I have a side-window on the ground level and the ball was whizzing past about 3 inches from that, so i was worried about a broken window. We have a big communal lawn/field not 6 feet from the alleyway, so I suggested they played on that. I half expected some indignant parent to ring my doorbell, but so far nothing. That's the trouble with having shared grounds to our houses.
ReplyDeleteHow dare you speak to someone else's sons? Correcting their behaviour too? It's outrageous! Social services might get involved. The poor lads are probably so traumatised that they may never play football again.
DeleteHobsons Choice? Whether to give back that laced up casey football back or not!
ReplyDeleteMaybe Mrs Hobson wanted to get involved in our game. We could have used her as a goalpost!
DeleteI was a kid once, a long-long time ago, I would be kind and wish the kids well.
ReplyDeleteI think that both you and your father handled that perfectly.
ReplyDeleteWe had large soccer nets in our backyard and we always had kids playing back in the day when my 5 kids were young.
ReplyDeleteThanks for printing the nice words, Neil.
She was a "damn rotter". Thanks for the morning smile.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for anyone who did not have a Mrs Hobson or, in my case, a Mrs Brennan in their youth. I'm sure they were totally unaware of the lessons they were teaching us about human nature.
ReplyDelete