Lowlife 62 – First Tango in Parish

First Tango in Parish

By Dominic Horton

The recent sad death of Tony Benn reminds me of my first political experiences under the tutelage of Arthur Von Rossi (Jonty's older brother) when I was 13 or 14 years of age. Arthur used to play to me on his cassette player long meandering speeches made by Benn, which he assured me were politically sound and made perfect sense, but being a wet behind the ears schoolboy the speeches sounded like double Dutch to me and I could not make head or tail of what Benn was banging on about. Fortunately for me Von Rossi the elder explained the content of the speeches in simple terms that I could understand and he also supplied me with copies of the socialist newspaper Militant to further add to my understanding of leftist ideas and ideology. Despite being open to argument and challenge and not being an expert in politics by any means, my views have remained left leaning over the years, which is often the case with people who are skint.

Arthur did not keep his political activities covert despite strongly believing he was on MI5's 'people to keep a weather eye on' list and although I thought this to be paranoid poppycock at the time things that I have learnt in the intervening years do make Von Rossi's claim seem not so incredulous after all. Arthur had some strange practices in life at the time, most of which would be indiscreet of me to go into, but my most vivid experience with him back then was when he urged me to take a good sniff of some unidentified, murky liquid he had stored in an old Mellow Birds coffee jar; I inhaled the liquid fumes heartily (as you do when you are young and foolish) and I was unfortunate enough to smell what turned out to be the most putrid, foul odour that I have ever had the displeasure of sniffing, much to the amusement of Arthur. One of the Pirate's worst bottom burps does not even come close to the malodorous contents of the festering jar. I could not be 100% sure what was in the jar but I had a good idea after a brief discussion with Von Rossi the younger, who I suspected Arthur had subjected to his Mellow Birds torture in the past.

I was reminded of Arthur's unorthodox dentistry methods recently as I popped into the Olde Swan in Netherton (affectionately known to all as Ma Pardoe's of course) with Fudgkins, the lovely Mrs Fudgkins and Harry Stottle prior to attending a production of the Noel Coward play Brief Encounter at Netherton Arts Centre. Many years ago whilst in Pardoe's one Sunday evening with the Von Rossi brothers and the Frymaster General, Arthur explained to us that a filling had dislodged itself from his mouth and he had erroneously swallowed it but instead of visiting his dentist, and parting with his hard earned shekels, he had waited for nature to take its course before cleaning the filling and restoring it back to its proper place with some industrial strength glue he had procured from his place of work. Now that's something for you to chew on.

All hands enjoyed Brief Encounter and the shine was only taken off the evening for me by me not feeling tip top, due to my ongoing illness, and subsequently suffering a mild-graine in Pardoes after the show, even though I was drinking bitter (teasingly only the one as I was driving). Mind you the evening might be better described not as Brief Encounter but as Close Encounters of the Third Kind as it is relatively alien for me to be outside of my usual haunt of the Flagon & Gorses. To entertain us in Pardoe's Harry Stottle recited a steady stream of anecdotes to us from his Thespian days in the theatre, the highlight of which he informed us, was playing a spare part in a lavish production of My Fair Ladyboy.

Returning back to my schoolboy days of my political awakening with the Von Rossi's. At the time we used to play football over the cemetery, which is not as bad form as it sounds as there were vast fields of open ground, which are quickly filling up these days due to the inconsiderateness of people who have failed to cheat mortality. Incidentally, I have always found it odd that we refer to expired persons as “the late …..” as it must be terribly difficult to be punctual if you are deceased and tardiness (which I normally abhor) can be excused in the circumstances. That said, the phantasm that visits me in my nightmares on a Monday night never fails to appear on cue, so I am possibly cutting the lifeless too much slack and they are most likely spending too much time pushing up daisies instead of getting to appointments on time.

Anyway, we were always glad when Philly Idol came to the cemetery kick-abouts as he was the first person in the parish to own an Adidas Tango football, the type that were used in World Cups, and given that we were used to playing with the workmanlike Mitre Multiplex football (which dominated the market at the time) the lighter and more exquisite Tango was a very exotic and sort after treasure indeed. The games of football were always inconveniently punctuated by the cemetery keeper chasing us off (to shouts of “Parky!”) and he turned up even out of opening hours, which I thought was pretty Draconian of him. I used to be terrified of being caught by the mysterious Parky but none of us ever were but looking back I am not sure what exactly he would have done if he had caught up with us anyway; it would mostly likely have been the case that on sight of the alluring Adidas Tango that he would have asked if he could have joined in with the game but being a newcomer he would have of course had to have gone in goal to start with.

At the back of the cemetery was a wooded stream and hilly meadows and we used to explore them Huckleberry Finn style and climb trees and do other typical things that schoolboys get up to. One night we decided to camp in the fields, each of us telling our mothers that we were staying over at one of the other's houses. Such was the general nonchalance of parent's towards their children at the time that none of the mothers could be bothered to check our stories. The success of the camping adventure lead us to do it again a few weeks later, but that time camping on the sports field at the demolished Greenhill School. Once we had pitched the tent it was pitch black but being boys we wanted to partake in a sporting contest and decided on a game of cricket. A makeshift bat was found, a ball appeared from somewhere and a dustbin was utilised for the wickets. We swiped a load of flashing yellow warning lamps that you used to see at roadworks and used them to illuminate the boundary, which I thought was an act of genius, but would have lead passers by in the adjacent gulley to think that a strange Druidic procedure was being practised. Given the flashing lights and loud shouts of “Howzat!” we were clearly drawing attention to ourselves, in what was a residential area but we paid no mind to it, being vacant brained boys.

After the cricket we returned to the tent but in no time at all we heard sinister footsteps approaching, that were being made by a person wielding a torch. We all looked at each other, as if to say “what the f*ck do we do?” and in our silence we all acquiesced to stay put and remain still. The beat of our hearts quickened in direct proportion to the increasing closeness of the footsteps and fearing a knife wielding madman we retreated to the back of the tent, not a wise move given that a thin piece of canvas would hardly protect us from a sharp, murderous blade.

The footsteps stopped outside the door of the tent. There was a pause which seemed to last longer than the Oscar Pistorius trial, then slowly, agonisingly, the hand of the foreign body slowly unzipped the door to the tent, all of us contemplating a grisly end. A torched poked into the tent and shone in our eyes, blinding us, like the subjects of an interrogation and our collective fear peaked but right at that moment, not being lost for words like the rest of us, Ollie Leaver shouted, “we do not want your sort round here mate, so f*ck off.” The torch bearer replied, “this is the police, get outside of the tent, now.” I had never been so relieved to be apprehended by the law in my life. The officers (turns out there were two of them) ordered us to return to our homes immediately but we pleaded in unison that our mothers would kill us, so they showed us clemency and allowed us to remain for the night as long as we remained quietly in the tent.

After we had struck camp in the early morning I sauntered home in the sunshine and acquired a bottle of orange juice that was conveniently sitting on someone's doorstep and while I sipped it I pondered on what had been another colourful and memorable, yet pretty harmless, jolly jape.

© Dominic Horton, March 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com