Issue No. 12: THE WILDING BUNCH

We lived next door to the Wilding family. The Dad was James, or ‘Lucky Jim’ Wilding. He was a pitman and worked at the coalface. He had a brilliant, big tool shed. He was always taking wood into it but, strangely, he never brought out any finished article. I imagined he was sinking a deep shaft right there, like in the prisoner of war films or, maybe, just out of habit.

The Mam was ….(well, she had no first name, so was just known as ‘Mrs Wilding’). Their two elder daughters, Iris and Maureen, were both ‘lookers’ (and accomplished piano accordion players). Robert was their son. He was a year older than me. Mary, their youngest, was a year younger than me.

My brother was (and still is) nearly eight years older than me. When I was just twelve, he was already married. As I have no memory whatsoever of my existence before the day I started school, my memory of my brother and me in a shared ‘childhood’ only really lasted from when I was five to when he left school, when I was seven and a bit.

Sadly, (and for reasons I didn’t understand at the time but did many years later) he much preferred young Robert next door to the Robert he lived with. He called him Rob; I called him ‘Willy’, as my personal way of making him sound like he was rude. Willy was my deadly enemy, even if he didn’t realise it. He was always cheerful and smiling…..but in a cunning and evil way, I felt. I wanted to tell him and others what I really thought about him, like I thought he was a pig. The problem was that sort of talk could get you a ‘good hiding’ (a walloping), as it was both a social taboo and a working class convention to never say words like ‘pig’, whether it was in the home or outside. However, it was entirely acceptable to spell out the word in conversation. So, whilst I couldn’t say “Willy is a pig”, I could say “Willy is a P.I.G.” In fact, I would have probably got an extra jam sandwich because I had spelt out the word. I’m not at all sure, though, what I would have got as a reward for the other rude words which described him. Probably nothing as I couldn't spell them.

The Wilding's had a pet dog called Butch. He was a cross between a Boxer and a Dalmatian, with possibly a bit of Great Dane thrown in. He looked like a Boxer, but with black and white spots and patches. He lived in an enormous kennel in the back garden. I never saw Mr Wilding making this kennel in or out of his shed, so maybe Butch built it himself. He was a very self-sufficient and capable dog and no doubt very handy with a hammer and a mouth full of nails. I was terrified of him, but never let on. I’d been told that if you showed fear, a dog would attack you and go for your throat …or maybe it wasn’t a dog but a tiger.…or a ferret.

Butch was not only a resourceful dog but also a born leader, a 'fixer', a manipulator, the sort of dog who, fifty years later (and if he was human) would make millions as a matter of routine. In fact, if he had been human and living in 2013, he would be Simon Cowell. I can imagine him being the Svengali behind erratic and egotistical canine superstars, such as 'The Dog Formerly Known as Prince'.

One day, Butch was out on an important errand; he may even have gone to work. Anyway, when Butch was out, I crawled into his kennel with Mary. I forget the preliminary chat, but soon I blurted out (entirely out of character but driven by childish curiosity rather than infantile lust) “Will you show iz your bum?”

Mary wasn’t a conversationalist. She didn’t even say ‘OK’. She just set about meeting my request.

It was a task never completed. We were interrupted by loud and raucous hootings and catcalls. We crawled - me red-faced - out of the kennel. It was Willy and his gang of pals. They were all smiling… evilly, Willy in particular.

Westoe Colliery

Willy was always smiling, except once. One night I was woken up in the early hours of the morning and a tearful Willy and a distraught Mary were ushered into my bedroom by my Mam. I was embarrassed because I was wearing pyjamas, so coyly pulled the blankets up to my chin. Their dad, ‘Lucky Jim’, was so called because he’d survived two cave-ins at Westoe Colliery, which went out for miles under the North Sea. He hadn’t survived the third cave-in that night.

Childhood - for the Wilding's if not for me - seemed to end that night. Mrs Wilding turned to drink. The two elder daughters soon got married. The eldest, Iris, had four kids and an unhappy marriage. Maureen entered into a long courtship with a bus driver. He parked his blue and yellow Corporation double- decker bus outside of her house every dinner time. Luckily, there were no passengers on board.

Willy converted his Dad’s magnificent tool shed into a pigeon cree. The pigeons thanked him by depositing huge mounds of guano on top of it and on all the surrounding house roofs. They were always falling down our chimney, and had to be rescued, sometimes dead, sometimes alive. I’ve no idea of what became of Mary.