The Gambles in Life

Do you ever call it a day and say you’ve had enough, you’ve travelled and gone far enough? Taken as much as you stand?

Well, when it comes to TV programmes I’m definitely a yes-man to all the above questions!

When it comes to Quiz programmes, they are an immediate channel changer for me.

Not all of them however.

One of my favourites is the BBC’s programme with Stephen Fry and now Sandy Toksvig called “QI” and again the BBC with “Would I lie to you” hosted by Rob Brydon and with David Mitchel and Lee Mack captaining the opposing teams.

Both shows are examples of top-notch British comedy at its peak with fantastic guest artists, comprised of comedians, musicians, actors and even a priest or two.

However, down at the bottom and immediate channel-changers are “Deal or No Deal” with Noel Edmunds as the host, and “Tipping Point” presented by Ben Shephard. I have to admit that “Pointless” hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman  has me in a quandary that falls into no-mans-land, sometimes I can watch and other times I switch channels.

It is, I believe, an aversion that stems from my youth, when I worked for some time as a small-change boy on Blackpool’s Golden Mile amusement arcade.

 It is an aversion to gambling,  caused by the number of fights, crying children in prams and battered mothers lying in the gutter, that I saw whilst I did the job.

It was a simple job, I would wander around the arcade carrying a leather shoulder bag with several compartments filled with small change. In the late fifties when I had the job, it was filled with pennies, threepences, sixpences, shillings, and half-a-crowns, the latter being worth two shillings and sixpence. I had special secret zipped compartment where I placed the paper notes that I had exchanged for small change.

Once I had more than ten pound in paper notes I had to return it to the office, as mugging of small-change-boys was a common occurrence.

Most of the visitors to Blackpool were at that time from the working class manual labouring towns of the industrial North of England, Scotland and Wales. Miners, cotton and wool factory workers, steel foundry workers, furnace feeders, bricklayers and construction labourers. It was their annual summer holiday and they came with hard earned wages stuffed in their back pockets and secretly hoped they would win a fortune at the slot machines on the Golden Mile.

Obviously, that was not what happened.

Gambling like another pet-hate, insurance companies; they both feed off hope, desperation and fear; these are basic human emotions. The faces I see today on the TV quiz shows remind me of those faces I saw as I exchanged a last Pound note to a losing holiday-maker.

Family violence has always been an enormous problem in communities throughout the world. In fact, a recent survey found that in Australia one in three Australian women have experienced physical violence from a current or former partner, and one in four have experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner.

The survey also showed that there is a clear link between problem gambling and intimate partner violence, children, parents and grandparents are also the victims of violence perpetrated by those with significant gambling problems.

A memory that stays with me goes way back to nineteen fifty-five which resulted in the calling of the local constabulary, the ambulance service and the local social services, which at the time were almost non-existent.

It was a Saturday lunch time when a Glaswegain labourer Ken, his young wife, Monica and six-month-old baby in his pram arrived at the arcade. The baby had a small teddy-bear with him and he squeezed it with delight while he sucked on a full bottle of milk.

“I’ll change my last Tenner,” said Ken, “Sixpences, threepences, and pennies” he said to me, while he looked at his wife as though asking for approval. Monica shrugged in a non-committed way.

“And that’s it?” she added.

“Aye, gotta be, I ain’t got more!” he said in a subdued semi-belligerent tone,

“But y’ still got the ‘oliday-flat money?”

“Aye, I left it there!” he added, “as y’ told mi to!”

“Good.”

I could already sense that the two of them had had a serious conversation on the money situation before they came down to the Golden Mile.

It was about two thirty in the afternoon when the rumpus started, the sound of screaming brought myself and Stan, the arcade manger, to the front of the arcade. A small area of pavement that allowed the passing pedestrians to walk by our arcade and allow them to move on to find another venue that conned them into thinking that they might find their fortune.

When we arrived, the pram was on its side with the baby crying, trying to reach his teddy bear and finished bottle lying in the gutter. Ken had his hands around Monica’s throat and was shaking her violently. Stan made his way to Ken screaming at me, “Call the fucking cops lad!”

I turned to go to the back office, seeing Stan receive a flying right arm jab to the face, sending him crashing to the ground.

I called the cops explaining what happened and told them to come quickly before darting back to the concussed Stan.

“We’ve gotta get ‘em apart!” said Stan as I helped him up.

Stan leapt on Ken’s back and I attempted my best rugby tackle on his thighs. Our joint assault on Ken gave Monica a chance to free herself and went straight to the upturned baby.

By the Grace of God and to our luck the Black-Mariah filled with six policemen pulled up and sprang into action pulling myself and Stan off a slightly subdued Ken.

By now a watching crowd had surrounded us, and while four of the coppers tried to hold them back, the other two dealt with Ken, who by now had found his second-wind and was struggling with them as they tried to get him handcuffed. A third copper finally came over and got the cuffs on him.

Meanwhile Monica was sobbing uncontrollably while clutching her baby. After a short collection of statements by the senior officer, Constable Hardgeaves, Stan escorted Monica back to his office and ordered me to get on with my job.

The fracas had brought in many more customers and the arcade was almost at bursting point. I had to squeeze myself through the throng and be constantly aware of that other villainy that had befallen me before; pick-pockets delving into my shoulder bag.

At about four o’clock in the afternoon we received another visit from the police, this time they were detectives and a single uniformed constable. Luckily Monica was still with Stan in his office. She had chosen to stay there as returning to their accommodation would have reminded her of her time in there with Ken.

She retold her story she had told Stan. She had said that everyday Ken had physically attacked her and forced her to hand over their holiday savings so that he could play the slot-machines. About an hour later the detective asked me to make a full statement. I had to recall every detail as to what I saw the couple doing, the time and their position in the arcade, what machine Ken was playing, and what time he was at each machine. All the time I was praying that they would not search me and find my hidden “Toddie” in my trousers’ back pocket.

I knew that a Yate’s Wine Lodge sipping minor would not be a good witness for the prosecution.

It felt worse than a school test and by six o’clock I was exhausted, they said I could go home after I’d signed the statement that had been written down by the constable. They also warned me that I must tell my mother about the whole incident and that I would be asked to attend the trial in court, probably in about two weeks’ time.

Just as I was about to board a tram to take me home another official vehicle arrived carrying a driver and two meticulously dressed middle-aged ladies.

The last sight I saw was of Monica screaming on the pavement as one of the ladies carried the baby to their car whist the other wheeled the pram and placed it in the boot of the car.

To this day, seventy odd years later, that vision of Monica resurfaces as I watch the faces of losing contestants on TV quiz-shows.

Yep, an aversion to TV quiz shows and a loathing even a hatred of gambling!

POEMS for a change

Well a change is a good as a change, and so Sir Cess has given you some poetry to read, for those who have read his early childhood stories will recognise  some of the sights caught in the poems re: his mother . Grandpa and Grandmother. Hope you enjoy.

Altzheimers

 (for my Ma)

In a frozen room of locked in time.

A careful mind of long years toil,

Sits in an armchair, walls completely bare.

Fittings, furniture speak the only lines

She waited all her life to hear.

Whispers of phantoms crawl through hollow walls

Tales to her listening ears

In the street below

A child screams a playful taunt to his mate -

Her ears , a hidden bait.

Sparrows herald in a summer dusk -

Her ears, forbidden lust.

The TV gorges fact and fiction to the hoardes

Her ears

Memories stored beneath floor-boards.

The Tranquil Storm

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all

It’s eyes open from a dream encrusted sleep

Light falls the recesses of our shuttered lids

Stepping stones of bodies fall across its path

Over the river flows washing

Nothing waits for this stormy tempest

Once awoken no breakwater holds it back

No leaden vault can seal its harsh intent

No pit of our soul will it grace

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all.

Sleeping or awake

It lives on its own

Biding time

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all

Breaking glasses thrown at window panes

Smashing chairs of antique wood

Cursing loudly at friends in disguise

Wallowing pity and wishing it would go

To finish what it started so long ago

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all

A blade of sharp-edged grass

Cuts finely through the lawn

While textured clouds foretell the doom

As apple blossoms perfumes sweet

And acrid vapour stale lover’s come

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all.

Given time it’ll have its way

That tranquil storm will be released

No speck of dust will

Hide from the holocaust!

Hell no chance

When the tranquil storm takes leave

And stops

Lying hidden in us all.

Mother , son, daughter, father, wife and spouse

The tranquil storm lies hidden in us all.

Twenty-One Commandments

1.    Broken images caught in time that should be given to somebody else.
2. Acted times in a Glass Megnagerie.
3. Visions seen when they should not.
4.   Women I have known.
5.  I spit scorn and derision.
6.    They laugh and say it will pass.
7. The smell of cats invade the room
8.   Dead dogs yap at midnight’s call.
9. Everyone calls to hear a joke I can not tell,
10.    Try and understand the good book says.
11.    It’s difficult.
12. Thank god it’s past.
13.   It’s unlucky for some.
14.  The future will bring what’s locked in store.
15. The whiteness of my tomb escapes.
16. The sodden and trodden earth.
17.   Spies have seen my hard drives and will see the truth.
18.  They should! It’s their job!
19.   Thou shalt not.
20. Thou shalt.
21.   I always have.

Water Child

(Caught in Rain)

Shrimp heads lay scattered

Upon the pebbled beach.

Wind blew Sand swirling

Through my hair

Spray mounting beach-front steps

Childhood memories caught in rain.

Used Jonnies – the rubber kind –

Floating on the surf.

Swollen now with sea-salt

Water filled, buoyant like balloons

They navigate carbuncled pier-struts.

Childhood memories caught in rain.

Lollipops and donkey rides.

Coco the clown with elephants as well,

Candy floss and toffee apple stalks,

Scattered flotsam, holiday maker’s junk,

Litter swirling on the empty prom.

Childhood memories caught in rain.

Grandpa dead – skeleton he lay –

Grandma mad – mop in hand –

Pigeons cooing, seed they want.

Garden watered for the veggies to grow,

Tomatoes trussed – fertilised as well –

Childhood memories caught in rain,

  

Mother holding the wrath of God,

Sister crying, lost, forlorn,

Brother stupid – Eric was his name –

Bath-tub full –rising steam –

Naked lady – tits in bloom.

Childhood memories caught in rain

Back door locked – bolted too –

Barred from house and home.

Pants wet and backside sore,

Naughty boy – you did wrong –

Punishment taken from teacher’s hand

Childhood memories caught in rain.

Rain, rain in a pool

Water in a tub,

Sea in and out

Childhood memories caught in

Rain.

Peeping Tom

                  Helen Mirren with NYT director M Croft in rehearsals for Anthony and Cleopatra

Peeping-Tom

Can you remember what you were doing at the tender age of fourteen?

Of course you youngsters can. But for those of my generation who have to deal with the onset of senility, Altzheimers and other age-related medical problems the task is not so easy.

However, in spite of the afore-mentioned ailments, I can remember certain details with great clarity. The more exciting the memory the easier it rises to the surface.

The more mundane get zipped and, stored in the never-able-to-reach area of my aging hard drive. 

Good use of the computer analogy don’t you think?  Keeps the youngsters reading.

Sex is also an excellent tool to keep the younger generations glued to either a book or a screen.

So where was I? Ah, yes, fourteen and sex.

Well at this early stage of puberty, as we called it back then, I used to recite poetry to panels of stony faced adjudicators who sat in on Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Poetry Lovers Fellowship” examinations but I was also training as a “Peeping-Tom”.

I received this never to be lost training whilst I was treading the boards at the Old Vic Theatre in the suburb of Waterloo in London.

I was performing the minor role of Third-spear-carrier-downstage-left in a National Youth Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra.

I’ll give you the standard three guesses as to what I was peeping at.

Right first time.

Young Cleopatra’s ample glandula mammaria.

Mammary glands or bosoms for those of you without the Latin.

None other than the now famous Dame Helen Mirren was playing the role of the voluptuous queen of Egypt, who had all the local politicians of the time sporting permanent hard-ons.

She was a brilliant actress even at the tender age of seventeen and the Youth Theatre’s director, Mr. Michael Croft, had an extremely good eye for casting when it came to getting bums on seats.

There is a famous scene in the play, Act 3 Sc2 I think, when Antony confronts the love of his life about her possible involvement with his political rival, the young and also sexually active, Octavius Ceasar. The director, an astute and clever man with an immense knowledge of the Bard, had worked the scene as if it were a good old marital tiff.

As you may remember, this was the dawning of the “Kitchen-Sink” drama in the UK and Mr. Croft, in an attempt to upstage the famous John Osborne, gave birth to one of the first productions in London to have a good dose of explicit bedroom-drama.

He justified his direction by brandishing his “Stratford-Edition” of the play during the early rehearsals.

 “What does it say, line 138? Look at the stage directions!” We all perused our scripts.

Hands were raised in unison. “He strikes her!” we all yelled. “Good. And line 157?”

Our eyes glued back to the printed page. “He strikes her again!”

Mr. Croft then donned his school-teacher robe and explained.

“Shakespeare may have played this scene the same way we are playing it.” Holding the Stratford-Edition aloft he continued, “This is taken from the 1st folio edition and in several of his plays, in Othello for example, the stage directions clearly state that the leading man strikes his leading lady.”

For male kids of the Teddy-Boy era this was good news, for the young girls a few eyes were raised. You have to remember that this was the start of the Women’s Lib uprising. And I do concede that back in sixteen hundred and two, there were no “Abuse-Against-Women” marches, and as young boys played all the female parts, I’m sure Mr. Shakespeare did not have to deal with any picketing by irate females outside the Globe theatre.

However the early sixties were another ball game. There were mutterings emerging from the Australian Outback from the then naive diva of feminism, Germaine Greer. Bras were about to be burnt. Twiggy was strutting her stuff on the catwalks not needing one anyway. And Marianne Faithful and Mick Jagger were doing things with Mars Bars. Even “Ken-the-Red”, the recent ex- Mayor of London Mr. Ken Livingstone was up in arms, barricading the private garden squares of Notting Hill, so that single mums could wheel their prams.

These were heady times.

The young Ms. Mirren was no slouch either when it came to airing her views and opinions. The rehearsal room was a-buzz with heated discussions on women’s rights, the pill, violence in the home, and banning the bomb. Ms. Mirren and her gallant on stage partner Mr. John Nightengale, who played Anthony explored all the avenues that Mr. Croft opened for them.

Rehearsals continued apace and by opening night the “Strikes” were in! Thank God!

The national press reviews the following morning gave a unanimous thumbs-up for the production and audiences flooded in. Especially after they had read the Sunday review that mentioned Ms. Mirren’s mammary glands, which tended to slip out of the loose toga-like dress she was wearing. Crowds started queuing three hours before the performances so that they could get a chance of being a member of the “Peeping-Tom-Club”.

But unfortunately for these eager punters Ms. Mirren’s glands were never seen again by an audience after the opening night. With the use of her brilliant technical acting skills she had quickly developed a marvelous pirouette movement that ensured she always fell facing up-stage. I take this opportunity to thank Helen.

Two reasons.

Firstly, at a later stage in my career, I used the same twirling motion when I had to prevent my own privates being seen by the audience when I had to urinate on stage. And secondly because she gave the fifteen-or-so spear-carriers, who were standing in the up-stage wings awaiting their next entrance an occasional chance of catching a glimpse of her glandula mammaria, as they tumbled out of her dress.

As those adolescent years passed, the memories of Ms. Mirren’s boobs slowly faded as I focused on the more physically present appendages of the female partners with whom I was cohabiting at the time.

My peeping-tom days were over. Are they returning? Now that’s another story.

Mr Cess Du est Monsieur Foxy

 Mr Cess Du est Monsieur Foxy

C’est va? Noblesse noblige. Comment allez vous? Bon soir. Bon jour. Je m’appelle Cess Poole. Je t’aime. Qui, qui, madame. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Comme ce comme ca. Je ne sais quoi. Je suis un enfant terrible.

The last stock phrase I would live to regret.

I explain.

“Qui”, I thought with a few pigeon phrases in the foreign tongue of French at my disposal, I felt very confident when I was offered a small cameo role in a movie called “Crime de Monsieur Stil, Le”. I was sorely in need of confidence, as I would have to perform the whole role speaking French.

By the end of my four week shoot I had a new understanding and appreciation of the stock French phrase, Honni soit qui mal y pense -Evil be to him who evil thinks.

The movie script was freely adapted from the novel “Crime in the Gabon” by Georges Simenon, the creator of the famous detective of the fifties and sixties, Maigret.

Gabon was a French West African colony till independence came in August of 1960. An enterprising and delightful young lady our director, Ms. Claire Devers had set her heart on making the definitive French film on the political chaos that occurred during the mass exodus of the French colonial masters in the years just before Mr. Leon M’ba assumed the presidential office in 1961. The movie was of the political crime thriller genre and the basic story line was full of promise.

The Gabon was in a stable, if somewhat autocratic state at the time. Africa’s longest serving president, El  Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba was in power and was running a smooth dictatorial African ship. But as a civil war was raging next door in the Congo, the location chosen for this made-for-TV-epic was the Northern Cape of South Africa. Our base camp and lodgings were in the small town of Keimoes and all our set locations were within a two hundred-kilometre radius of the town.

This whole region of Orange River basin and the surrounding area is renowned for the growing of grapes, critus fruits, the delicious yellow clingstone peach and the production of many fine wines.

Some farmers even brewed their own marvelous illicit concoction known to the locals as Mampoer. This is the South African version of Moonshine or Irish Potcheen. The latter two being excellent tasty beverages, I was very eager to taste the local rendition.

Fire-water-extraordinaire is the best description I can give this potent medicinal drink. The medicine is made from the skins and off-cuts of the yellow clingstone peach and was of exceptional quality. So “Toddie” and I were in second heaven.

Forty-one kilometres to the west of Keimoes lies another small town called Kakamas, and to the East another one-horse town by the name of Pofadder. The name Kakamas is shrouded in mystery, with the most likely explanation of the derivation is that it comes from the Koranna Khoe words for "poor grazing".

And that the area certainly is.

The town of Pofadder was named after Klaas Pofadder, a bushman or Koi-Koi Captain of the area. Pofadder again is surrounded by “poor grazing” and is the centre of the local sheep trade, and is well known to geologists and mineralogists because of the many interesting geological deposits found there.

“Kak” or “Kuk” as it is pronounced in Afrikaans means shit. And “Pofadder” or “Puffadder” as I -  a rooinek would pronounce it, is one of the deadliest snakes in Africa. I supply all this information so that you will note, to put it mildly, we were barracked in the back of beyond!

Mademoiselle Dever was a fiery lady and the producer from France; George Campana seemed to be on the ball. However as always in our industry, money is always the bottom line. The only reason the movie was being shot in South Africa was not the coup in the Congo, it was because the local English speaking actors, who had been cast in all the supporting roles, would cost less than flying in genuine French thespians.

This as you can imagine, caused problems, strangely enough not on the monetary issues but on the creative issues. Not one us of could string a single sentence together in French!

We all had a smattering of French. We had either studied it at school as one of our foreign languages or had taken it at University. Dialogue coaching from a young French lady was the order of the day. We practiced and practiced but never seemed to improve. We were told that we had to speak in French so as to help the French actors in Paris who would dub, and post-sync, their voices.
 
Brilliant! I thought.

They are never going to use our voices. All they are interested in is that our lips make the right movements. So I quickly made my character a man of many gesticulations. When he was pensive, he would talk with his hand half covering his mouth. When he wild and angry he would move his hands so erratically that they would cross his face every two seconds. And when I was totally at a loss for words and up-shit-arse-creek without the proverbial paddle I would spin around turning my back to the camera.

My character developed in leaps and bounds. After a few days Ms. Devers had me sussed. “Ah, ah Monsieur Foxy is on the set, bon jour.”  was her morning greeting to me.

She had observed my interest in keeping most of my face out of shot during the previous night’s shoot. Scene soixtante neuf ( 69, no pun intended) was four pages long. That’s about three minutes of screen time. All the non-French speaking actors were in it. Some of us had fifteen lines, some only six or seven, I was in seventh heaven, I only had one and it was only six words long.

It was set in the country club bar, a small area of twenty square metres. Ms. Devers wanted to get the whole scene in one traveling hand-held-shot. This would require the greatest skill from all the actors and the camera crew. Shooting the scene in ten takes would have been excellent if we had been speaking in English.

At 4.45 am. the following morning, ten hours after we’d started, we wrapped the scene. It had taken us forty-one takes! This was a record for all of us working on the scene. The French expletive, “Merde!!!!” was ringing in our ears as we crawled off to bed.

As Ms. Devers greeted me at twelve noon the following day, I was full of the, joie de vivre, the joys of life.

I had a day off. “Bon jour, ma pleasure mademoiselle”, I replied handing her “Toddie” so she could have a sip. She knocked back a hefty gulp and went into an immediate seizure, gasping and coughing.

“What is this?” she asked in between bouts of panting convulsions.

“She is the evil Mampoer mademoiselle, the medicine of the fox, the creme de la creme, a gift from enfant terrible.” I replied.

“Honni soit qui mal y pense - Evil be to him who evil thinks Monsieur Foxy”, she answered as she walked away laughing in the African sun.

I Dare You!

Above photo is a Ramsbottom's picnic spot on Pilling Sand in 1946. The house in the background is Ramsbottoms house.




 On the right is Pilling Sands at dusk

I Dare you!

We were enjoying ourselves. We’d been out since daybreak on that dusky autumn dawn fully prepared for an adventure. His Mam had made him cheese sarnies, mine a boiled egg and an apple. We were doing all right.

At least we though we were.

The whole trip had been prepared several days before. The previous Saturday my mate, Stuart had burst into our kitchen clutching a map of the Fylde. It was the ordnance survey map we’d been saving for. There it was neatly rolled up, sealed with government brown paper and stamp of authenticity. The excitement was killing us. The cat was pushed out its sleeping place in front of the roaring coal fire and the map carefully rolled out and held flat at the corners with empty bottles of Jubilee stout.

Had I asked my Mam? Had he repaired his puncture? Had I fixed my bicycle chain? What time should we leave? Just the two of us or should we ask Dale to come? Was Toddie full? These questions fired between us like the speed of a machine gun.

It was decided that October the eleventh would be the day!

The 11th turned out to be a beautiful day. The air clear and crisp with hardly any wind and we were at Glasson Dock well before our scheduled lunch break.

“Let’s go down to the dock,” I said, “There are lots of boats coming in.”

I looked down at the habour and the sudden spurt of activity. “Why’s that? I ventured to Stuart but he was too engrossed in eating his Mam’s cheese sandwich. I’d already polished off my Mum’s offering of the apple and egg and I was still hungry.

“Y’ fancy some shrimps Stu?”

He didn’t need much persuasion as the smell of freshly caught fish wafted up from the trawlers unloading in the docks. Off we cycled down the hill and over the small hump back bridge to the small Fylde harbour.

The fisherman were running back and forth unloading their catch and carried heavy laden wicker baskets of freshly caught fish to the waiting trucks. Interspersed with their labour and taking a well earned cigarette break a heavily set and overweight fisherman sat down on the rear tail gate of a truck. As he exhaled his first nicotine drag he said, “Never seen owt like it!”

“Me neither.” Replied his mate, obviously the junior as he continued moving the loaded baskets.

“Has Stan got back? He were a long way out? It’s weird!”

“Dunno,” replied junior.

“Soona the betta, I reckon.

Stu and I had been listening from nearby.

“What are they on about?” enquired Stu.

“Haven’t the foggiest, but something’s bothering them. Think we should ask?”

“Why not?” said Stu timidly. I hesitated as I too was a little nervous about confronting the large overweight fisherman who looked like he played rugby for the local team and I was concerned on intruding.

“Well, go on!” continued Stu.

With Stuart prodding me in the back and taking a slug from Toddie I sauntered over looking as confident a ten year old school boy could. I decided to ask the younger fisherman as the fat one, who was still smoking seemed to be in a trance looking at the darkening horizon.

“What’s up?” I asked junior, trying to lower my voice to its lowest register.

The fat one suddenly broke his trance and yelled, “Mind ya own f’ing business! And Tommy get a move on! I need a pint and we ‘aven’t got all day!”

“I’m sorry Sir, but what’s the trouble?” I asked pleading in an innocent and naïve way.

“There’s a squall ont’ way, me lad! Look at it,” he boomed, “It be right across Pilling Sands by t’evening!”

“Who will?”

“The sea lad! The sea! Tek a look!”

I strained my eyes looking in the direction he was pointing.

“You mean the sea will be right across the Pilling beach road?”

“Aye lad. A Spring high tide with wind right up her arse. Wouldn’t surprise me if she don’t wash right into Presall, ain’t seen anything like this since thirty-nine. Washed old Ramsbottom’s place right away. Took the whole lot of ‘em! Except t’ daughter. Lucky filly was in Blackpool at the time. It were nasty.”

A shiver ran down my spine and I could see panic sweep across Stuart’s face. The thought of drowning didn’t appeal to either of us and The Pilling Sand’s Road was our short cut back home. We’d come the long way round through Garstang. The Pilling Road route would save us about twenty miles on the return trip.

“All dun boss,” said junior, “don’t suppose y’ll buy us pint too?

“A pint!” roared the fat one, “Ya’ll be needing sumat stronger than a pint if that blighter comes right in!”

The fat fisherman rose up and closed the tail gate of the loaded truck and told the driver to scarper.

I plucked up courage and asked him, “You think we’ll make across to Presall?”

“Ont’ Pilling Road?”

“Yes, we’re cycling back to Cleveleys.”

“Wouldn’t like to say lad, but suppose you could have a bash. If t’ warning flags is up y’ could come back, wouldn’t tek any chances though.”

I only half heard his final comment as I’d made up my mind and was peddling of back to Glasson village with Stuart following.

We zipped through Glasson at maximum speed and down to Cockerham village, gateway to the Pilling Sands Road. The air was still relatively calm and the road from Cockerham was flat but an ominous cloud was hanging in the distance over Morecambe Bay. Our cycles rattled over the rusted cattle grid. The local farmers were fully aware of the danger of the Pilling road and had installed the cattle grid to prevent their animals wandering onto the open marsh land.

My arse was sore from the morning’s ride and the cattle grid increased the pain. I stopped and Stuart move in next to me. The red danger flags were flying the wind and grains of wet sand lashed into our faces.

“Think we should try?’ asked Stu.

“Why not?’ I said trying to sound confident, “It’ll take us half an hour if we pedal hard.”

“It’s six miles,” said Stu, trying to hold the folded map steady in the wind, “And look, it’s pretty bloody black over the bay. The flags are up, he said come back if they were!”

“Yeak I know, but the sea’s still along way out, I dare you!”

At that instant the sky went black as an unseen hand blocked out the hazy sunlight. The wind whistled through the spokes of our wheels and seemed to speak. “Come, come if you dare, if you dare!”

“Oh, come on.”I said trying not to sound chicken, “High tide ain’t till three o’clock; we saw it the Gazette last night!”

“I know,” said Stu, “but I don’t like the look of it!”

To this day, sixty odd years later, I have difficulty remembering what I did next.

All I do remember is seeing Stuart waving frantically in the distance. I looked over my shoulder expecting him to be right behind me but he looked like some character in the closing shot out of a silent movie waving his arms up and down on the horizon in the same rhythm as to my legs pounding my bike’s pedals.

Before me stretched the long straight road across Pilling sands.

The turf from Pilling is now world famous and is used on golf courses for the greens, the open expanse would be a dream for any golfer, no bunkers, no undulating ground, just a vast expanse of lush green for that final hole.

I cycled on into the centre of the green. The wind was increasing so I was lifting myself out of the saddle to exert more pressure on the pedals. My bike was a Heath Robinson construction with a fixed wheel.

So I battled hard against the wind. Head down as low as possible gripping the BSA low slung handle bars I built up a constant speed.

Gasping and panting I slowed down as I came to a small rise where Ramsbottom’s farm had once stood. It was silhouetted in the setting sun. Adjacent to the ruins were a favourite spot for weekend picnickers. In the summer months they came in their droves, bicycles, motor-cycles with side cars and a few cars.

They came for the solitude escaping the hustle and bustle of Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach. The pick pockets, the scroungers, the drunks and the other assorted filth that Blackpool attracted over the summer months.

Today the place was deserted; the ruins stood looking like a broken down Norman Keep shimmering in the hazy light; surreal.

Shock is like floating; fear is like choking.

As I reached the top of the rise I floated and choked at the same time.

I sucked in the salty wind in short sharp gasps, panting as I stood stride my cross bar.

The road in front of me was under water. The sea was still relatively alm but far out in the bay I could see huge white crests moving in. I guessed by the time they reached me they would be twenty foot waves crashing onto Ramsbottom’s rise.

The other marsh lands inhabitants were scuttling about, field mice rushing away from the water line like lemmings in reverse. Suicide was definitely not in their minds, nor was it in mine.

But I could not move. I was rooted to the soggy marsh ground with a cold sweat running down my legs. Second by second the sky darkened and a thick salty mist engulfed me. The outline of the ruins were just visible and I though I saw a light. How was that? I didn’t stop to answer myself and with sudden effort I ran pushing my bike through the soggy earth towards the perceived light.

About twenty more strides and suddenly the mist lifted and in front of me was the impossible; what I heard was impossible.

Voices loud and clear, a song coming from a scratched record on a wind-up player drifted on the air.

 I leaned against a weather beaten stone wall  and saw six other bicycles, some looking as if they were made in the last century; next to them an empty more modern looking pram.

I was in a trance as I walked forward towards a door. The ground was firmer, sky clear and sunny.

Approaching the door it swung open and a deep warmth flowed out and dragged me inside.

There were about a dozen people cramped in small groups occupying the room, all dressed in weird clothes from a bygone eras.

An old bearded man approached shouting, “Gazette! Evening Gazette! Read all about it!” I reached out and tried to grasp the newspaper he’d just taken from the canvas bag hanging over his shoulder; I opened my mouth to speak and he vanished, leaving the newspaper floating on an unseen eddy of air.

It landed gently on the ground, the headlines glaring up at me, CHAMBERLAINE REJECTS KRUGER’S OFFER. I crouched down to look at the date-line; October the 11th 1899.

Where am I? What’s happening? Who are these people? My mind raced remembering all the recent horror and Sci-fi movies I’d seen on my Saturday mornings at the local Odeon.

I swung round to the door and grabbed the handle. It didn’t move. I turned back and looked into the room, slowly sliding down the old wooden door till I was on the floor. A young woman suddenly appeared in front of me pushing a pram, her dress and make-up were out of place, she paused looked at her crying baby and lifted it into her arms. She then stared at me.

“What’s going on?” I asked as she completely ignored me and continued gently humming to her baby.

Tears began running down her alabaster face. A shiver ran down my spine and her cotton dress shimmered. She was a step away now and my legs blocked her path. As I looked up again my whole body shivered as a warm and gentle caress swept over me and she was gone. I tried to scream but nothing came out, I was being invaded, my body, mind, my soul, words floated in my head, “Come, come, come if you want”. The smell of the sea was over-powering and Neptune with his servants had come to collect me.

I curled up into a fetal ball and cried.
………………………………………………………………………………….

My first recollection of the next day was the warmth of the sun falling on my face, I rubbed my eyelids and forced my eyes open. There was my mother dressed in all her fan-dancer’s regalia. She leaned over me and grasped my water-wrinkled hand and squeezed it gently, “God you were fucking lucky, you really were. Y' gave me the Willys, the police dragged me out of my rehearsals.” She lent down, hugged me and started crying.

It was several hours later that woke up again and looked around the hospital ward I was in. On top of my NHS bedside locker was a bowl of fruit and a newspaper.

I was front page headlines, with my smiling cherub face greeting the readers, “SAVING CESS POOLE” was the headline, I glanced down at the article reading every word.

In the early hours of Saturday morning twelve year old Cess Poole of York Avenue Cleveleys was lifted to safety by an air sea rescue helicopter. Cess was spotted by flight officer Cumbrink from the chopper. He was about a mile out to sea in Morecombe Bay floating on what looked like an old wooden door clutching a baby’s rattle. Major Cubthbert of air-sea rescue said. “Damm lad was very lucky, he should have heeded the warning flags before trying to cross Pilling Sands just before that terrible storm we had last week.” The alarm was raised by Cess’s friend Stuart Baily who did not attempt the crossing and cycled back to Cockermouth to get help.

This area of the local coast line has claimed several lives. The most bizarre suspected fatality occurred six months after the great storm of 1939 when Ramsbottom’s farmhouse was completely destroyed. On the 11th of October that year the only surviving member of the Ramsbottom family, their daughter and her baby were reported missing. She had gone with her baby to visit the ruins of her old home. What happened to them nobody knows and their bodies have never been found.

I had dared.

From Pool to Poole

From Pool to Poole

Assorted fathers

All the world’s a stage, and I’ve certainly strutted in finery across many a board.

It has been noted and reported in numerous theatrical gossip magazines that I have, throughout my illustrious career spanning the last fifty-two years, also been found lying prostrate on many a board. Deserted by party-going friends and foes alike, I have been discovered, more times than I care to remember, on a park bench clutching my beloved “Toddie” in gloved hand, mumbling, “Oh, for a muse of fire,” to many a star-lit sky.

These gloriously entertaining events have occurred with an almost curtain-up regularity, from my early days in the theatre capital of the world, London, to my latter years here in my jobbing actor’s garret in “Mr Mandela’s Rainbow Nation”.

A jobbing actor!

Now, that’s a descriptive term that is not used very often these days. I find the lack of use of this very complimentary terminology a great injustice.

Think of all those actors’ faces you’ve seen in one B-grade movie after another, or on one TV soapie in 1973, then playing the same character in another soapie in a different country in 1998, and the same character, slightly aged, in another soapie twelve years later. Well, I am one of those.

I’m a jobbing actor. I am privileged to belong to this large and often unsung group of fine talented Thespians who continue to earn a rather limited living and keep their noses just above the waterline.

My “Toddie” and my name were given to me at a very early age.

My mother, Gladys, found herself in the family way towards the end of the Second World War. She was a large-bosomed fan dancer entertaining the remaining American troops and returning British soldiers at the Opera House in the home of music-hall comedy: Blackpool, England. Unable to afford digs in high season, my mother, who was always willing to help anyone in distress, made use of the convoys of military trucks ferrying servicemen back to their barracks, and the free accommodation at a nearby public house.

The journey to the barracks near the small quaint town of Kirkham should have taken three-quarters of an hour but, if an obliging driver, and the accompanying M.P., could be bribed, then a short detour would be made via my mother’s hostelry, which offered an after-hours service. The landlord was a jovial, well-mannered and refined local country gent and, in spite of his name, Robert Ulrich Smelley was extremely well groomed. It was in Mr Smelley’s attic room that my mother used to engage in her extracurricular fan-dancing activities.

Mr R. U. Smelley was able to buy more deodorant than he needed, and acquire some rather expensive French perfume, using his extra bar takings and the ration tickets my mother stole from her clients’ trousers on a nightly basis, so a good time was had by all.

One such night was the August Bank holiday of 1945, and on a foggy London morning in May the following year I was born. My mother never liked hospitals. By eight o’clock that evening I was being cuddled in the muscular arms of visiting American actor Todd Stardust. Todd was young, wealthy and not too wise. He was playing the lead in one of America’s first radio soaps. He was passing through London on his way to Paris, where he hoped he could find inner depth for his two-dimensional character by visiting the bars frequented by Mr Hemingway.

At the airport, the next day, he gave my mother a beautifully engraved pewter hip flask as a momento of his passage. Toddie hasn’t left my lips since Mr Stardust boarded his flight; as my mother discovered that, if she held the open top of it directly under my nose, it seemed to stop the hideous wailing I enjoyed so much.

I was only christened five years later.

The tardiness of this event was due to my mother’s hectic schedule and the high demand for nubile fan dancers across the length and breadth of the British Isles. It was hard enough for her to remember all the newly choreographed routines, and deal with the threat of forgetting a downward fan swing and revealing to the Lord Chancellor something she should not, without having to find time for such trivia as the registration of my birth.

However, in 1952 she was faced with the problem of my schooling and, in order to register me with a local authority, she had to catch up on her paperwork. She managed to convince a friendly registrar in Liverpool that he could do it all for her. With one mighty leap my birth was registered. I was enrolled at a local primary school, and introduced to an Anglican priest who was going to christen me the following day. I sat in the front pew of the Anglican cathedral whilst he and my mother performed a highly athletic display of the Kama Sutra over the font.

The only hiccup in the registration came when the registrar asked my mother the name of my father.

She giggled sweetly at him and said, “Oh, my darling, it was such a long time ago, I can’t possibly remember. It could’ve been Cecil, or was it Eddie? Er, no, no, I think Steven or, yes, yes, dear Simon.”

The registrar smiled, his arm gently encircling my mother’s waist.

She crooned and softly whispered, “They were all such lovely boys at the Old Trout Pool.”

A brainwave filtered down through the registrar’s right hand as he neatly wrote C.E.S.S. Poole on the certificate. The added “e” occurred as my mother guided his left hand further towards her bra strap.

In honour of my mother’s giving ways, on my graduation from the Royal Academy, sixteen years later, I decided to keep my real name when I registered with Equity.