Grab a Granny
What a start to
the week. It can only get better.
I was having a
very pleasant time watching Goodnight
Sweetheart on UK Gold whilst breakfasting but had to cut the episode short
to undertake the inconvenience of going to work. I had no desire to watch the programme,
starring the gangly Nicholas Lindhurst, while it was running but viewing it by
accident this morning I quite enjoyed it.
The nanas were so
bad on the train once I got to the Jewellery Quarter station that I had to get
off the choo choo for fear of being sick and hot foot the rest of the journey
into work through the snow. It turned
out to be a lovely walk encountering a number of young beauties walking up Livery Street
I finally got to
work only to find the computer was up the swanny and a stream of irritants then
set about busting my balls to such a degree that I had to hide in the toilets
for 5 minutes just to get a breathe of air.
Two people were on the blower before 10 asking if I had dealt with their
emails that they sent to me after close of business on Friday. No sir, I have not read your email. I have been attending to the much more
important business of visiting a cheese and cider festival on Saturday with the
Still-in-Fjords and the Noog and spending the day in the good ship the Waggon
yesterday discussing religion, amongst other things, with the Pirate and Lario
Manza. The Pirate concluded the discussion with the unanswerable statement
about god, “if he’s such a good bloke why does he want to f*ck me up.”
The only heartening
thing so far today is that I have managed to foreclose on a deal to purchase a
rather fetching light check Italian sports jacket for the bargain price of
£9.99, an absolute steal in anyones estimation. I won’t be able to wear the jacket in the
Beech Tree in Blackheath though (known in Blackheath as The Big Beech,
given the smaller Banks’s house also called The Beech Tree down the road), as it as been shut for some while. The subject of the Beech Tree arose, as my
valuer and auctioneer associate Willy Mantitt asked me about the pub.
The Beech Tree
was the socialising home of Birchley Football Club when I was manager and the
venue where the Frymaster General used to burn his chest hair for a whip round
of £1 each. Great value entertainment. The burnt chest hair smelt like marijuana, so Rose the landlady
accused us of smoking dope, which was ironic as we were the only people in
there not on drugs.
Two killer
lines were delivered in that pub. The
landlady Rose (a depressive type from Liverpool )
had a daughter, Pip, who worked there, who had a certain attraction but who had
a little excess baggage, so to speak.
Rose apologised for the post-football chips being late and justified it
by stating, “I only have one little fat fryer.”
To which Taffy famously replied, “Please don’t talk about Pip like
that.”
The other line
was delivered by the formidable Liam Jelly Jinkins, my favoured central
defensive partner, second only to Sleepy Tom Parker. We used to have a themed fancy dress day the
game before Christmas and one year we had a grannies day. Everyone was true to form. Harry Gout dressed as a down at heal scumbag
granny (and his dedication to authenticity was such that he even stank of p*ss)
and the Frymaster as a Burlington Bertie slag granny in full ball gown. Mine was a shoddy effort and given the
freezing weather I desperately needed tights.
The Imp and Lolly went to town with their outfits and the former looked
like an archetypal granny and the latter looked actually quite attractive.
On the Sunday
morning of the match, to my great relief as boss of BFC the opposition manager
called me while my bunch of 9 desperado players (which is all we could scrape
together) were assembled on Toys ‘r’ Us car park to say the game was postponed
due to a frozen pitch. We repaired to
Sainsbury’s café for porky breakfast goodness, so I took the opportunity to
remedy the lack of tights while we were there.
I mistook a shopper for a Sainsbury’s shop assistant and asked her what
size tights she thinks I needed, to which she replied in a straight faced
fashion, “you will be a large love.”
Given her lack of humour she must have thought I was a genuine but
albeit inferior transvestite.
Once the
breakfast had settled, showing a distinct lack of patience we sauntered to the
Beech Tree and knocked persistently on the door to alert Rose the landlady that
we required entrance, given it was only 1030 hrs. The front door bolt was drawn back and in we
shambled. As skipper, Jelly took the
initiative and approached the bar and came out with the fabled line, “nine
sweet sherries please.”
Being
impoverished at BFC we had to train on a cheap concrete pitch on Thursday
evenings at Somers’ Club in Halesowen and Jelly is the only man I know who
would slide tackle on the concrete, which sums up his committed character. He should indeed be committed.
We trained from
2000 hrs until 2100 hours so once we had showered and changed it did not leave
too much time to relax in the bar and as a consequence the Frymaster, Taffy and
I invariably ended up in the Stag & Three Horse Shoes as they served
late. One week there was a sign behind
the bar saying “bottles of wine £3.”
The Frymaster ordered a bottle of red and a bottle of white for himself
and when the barmaid asked him how many glasses he wanted he replied,
“none.” He proceeded to stand there with
the bottle of rouge in his right hand and the blanco in his left, swigging from
the bottles. Needless to say, the
following morning the Frymaster woke in a less than optimum state and it was
only the charity of his staff at the bookmakers where he worked, taking him for
a livener at opening time, that saved him.
Back to the
grannies day and we foolishly migrated into Birmingham
After dancing
on the Walkabouts stage with the band Broken Spokes (which I have no
recollection of but was informed of later) it was out sloshed into the night
alone to organise transport home. I had
a little treat in store for myself for the homeward journey as I remembered
that I had earlier hidden half a kebab in a bush close to the bus stop. In the time honoured fashion of my associate
Sleepy Tom Parker I nodded off on the bus and was relieved that the kindly
Jamaican bus driver, who recognised me, woke me up shouting the words, “Hey
granny, wake up, it’s time to get off the bus.”
And for a poor old pensioner like
me, there ended a long and tiring day.
© Dominic Horton,
26th March, 2013.
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