Selfie With George Clarke

 

The Cool House at Signal Lane (1975-1985)

 

I think that Nanna Joan Cool’s most looked-forward-to day was a Sunday, because on Sunday morning, she got up bright and early, spent a long time selecting which hat to wear, and walked down to St Cuthbert’s parish church[1] in Donington to show off her finery. She was always very proud in relaying to us the flattering comments other parishioners had made about her head gear. I always had my doubts about her religious convictions, though, because I never (not at all unregrettably) heard any feedback about the sermons she had surely sat and listened to, so I had long suspected that her sole reason for going to church, [2] was to show off her latest hat. A motive which I, Jay Cool (expert hat maker), can very much relate to.
Nanna’s hat collection was very fluid. I rarely saw the same hat worn twice; this was largely because, having worn it to church once, she would decide it wasn’t quite what she had wanted after all, and would take it back to the shop where originally purchased, often six months afterwards, to exchange if for another. All the shop assistants in Wolverhampton knew Joan Cool, a regular customer, who spent hours choosing a hat or another garment, and another few hours on her return arguing with them that she had not missed the date by which they could be exchanged or refunded, and that being such a loyal customer, she certainly did not need to provide them with her original receipt or any other proof of purchase.

 

On my visits to Signal Lane, I would enjoy secret visits to Nanna’s wardrobe, trying on her hats and shoes, and carrying around with me for ever after the very-telling odour of mothballs. When the shoes and hats had been exhausted, I would raid her wooden jewellery box, which may have been a wedding gift from the Sankey family, for brooches and hat pins. If prevented from further explorations around the house, by let’s-see-how-far-I-can-wind-you-up interventions from my older brother, I would wander out and down the garden path. I often heard cursing and swearing, words that were shocking and unrepeatable here (I am a ‘Mission Child’ after all), emanating from one of the two long greenhouses. My Grandad, Arnold, could always be found sitting on a squat, wooden, three-legged stool, amidst his tomato plants, chain-smoking his way through multiple packs of cigarettes and chatting animatedly with his nephew, Norris Cool. They were partners in crime, both keen gardeners, and both keen to escape from their polite, God-fearing, wives to the sanctuary of a greenhouse and the company of like-minded blasphemers.

On a successful bypass of the greenhouse, I would gravitate towards a large-cubed-metal container, full of gallons of pitch-black rainwater. This was the home to several very old and large goldfish. The water was so filthy, dark and deep that I could happily pass hours there waiting for a rare sighting of a goldfish, on an occasional visit to the surface. I suspect that the fishes ended up there after being won by cousin Ned at a visiting funfair, because it’s doubtful that Grandad Arnold Cool would have made any acquisition that he couldn’t make a tidy profit from.

Defeated, and fed up of waiting for goldfish to appear that may or may not have been dead and gone by then, I would seek out an old oven that lay buried or burrowed into a mound near one of the greenhouses. I believe it originally served the function of heating the greenhouse but, to my mind, it was a play oven and I loved making mud pies and baking other concoctions for my dolls and make-believe friends. In those days, you see, I could cook [3] and was a fantastic hostess and entertainer. Some parties did, however, get disbanded and the guests dispersed if I was discovered by Grandad, who seemed to enjoy blowing his fuse at me if he found me doing anything that involved making a mess in his dominions.

Occasionally, when cousin Ned grew tired of the company of my older brother, Simon, he would lower his sights and join his girl-cousin. Together, we persuaded Nanna Cool to donate some firelighters, and went on a trip down the garden to make a camp fire, over which to heat up a can of baked beans and some roast mouth-watering marshmallows on sticks. This was, by far, my favourite Signal Lane pastime, but Joan Cool was none too pleased on finding that we had used the whole box of firelighters – to light a fire for just one can of beans! Oh well, back to the rolled-up newspapers, Nan! If I remember correctly (i.e. this is probably all made up!), I believe that I had to use Friday’s pocket money to replace the lighters, whilst Ned, once again, got off Scott free. Just one more example of the oppression of the fairer sex throughout time. And I’m not in the slightest bit bitter!

The salt and the fire lighting episodes did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm for getting ourselves into trouble. At the back of my grandparent’s massive garden, was an L-shaped extension which went around the back of the next-door neighbour’s property. At one time, it had been full of rows of cabbages, but in a concession to his old age and smoker’s cough, Grandad had left it neglected and overgrown for a couple of years. This was an opportunity for development. Ned and I decided to build ourselves a secret den, well out of sight of the cottages, and unlikely to ever be discovered. We set about collecting planks of wood from the back of the henhouse to begin our building work.

 

 

 

A superb construction was soon well under way, tucked in a corner and propped up with an old apple tree. Unfortunately, a nosy neighbour spotted us and objected to the appearance of this eyesore at the rear of his garden. Grandad was quickly informed and we were chased down the garden, with the kindly Arnold waving his walking stick around at us, yelling at us to dismantle our ‘artwork’ immediately.

Rather than give in to this kind of intimidation, Ned and I sought a new location for our den. No-one used the third cottage (my Grandparents’ house had, at one time, been a terrace of three cottages – two of which they had knocked through into one, and the other which, at various times, s
erved either as a rental property, a honey-processing factory, or a shed) at that time, or so we thought, so we would be safe enough if we added an extension onto the old coal bunker which fronted onto Signal Lane.

Only one firelighter was needed in this case; it was more than enough to turn Grandad into what, even at that time, one could have likened to an atomic bomb. Another eyesore had to be dismantled: What would our military neighbours think? [4] It didn’t even last as long as the first!

A near-death experience might have put most children off den-building for life, but it didn’t occur to Arnold to take a look inside the coal bunker. Ned and I had kitted this out nicely with a couple of makeshift stools and a plastic tea set. It wasn’t so much fun, though, to have a hideaway that truly was a secret – and our coal shed den was soon abandoned! [5]

Whereas it is true that Grandad’s walking stick was waved around in front of me an awful lot, to be fair, I didn’t ever receive any bruises from it. He was more threat than action, that is, if one chose to delegate some of his tales of childhood to fantasy land.

 
Copyright of all content owned by Jay Cool, April 2018

 


 

[1] St Cuthbert’s church, Donington, was founded by Roger de Montgomery over 900 years ago. I have yet to find a family connection with the Montgomery family but, rest assured, I am looking for it and will keep you updated! UPDATE! Roger de Montgomery was best pals with my 28th Great Grandfather, William of Normandy, and was keeping him company as plans were made for the invasion of England. Being of wise mind, Roger stayed in France, and waited until William had done the dirty work, before travelling the seas to claim his own piece of pre-prepared English soil and taking the titles of first Earl of Arundel, Chichester and Shrewsbury. I think I can accurately relabel him as the first Parasite of William and will henceforth blame him for my loss of inheritance.
[2] Either that, or, in a quest to find common ground with her husband, she had read the Gough’s ‘History of Myddle’ and was hoping that her hats would get a prominent mention in its sequel: ‘The History of Donington’, as, in the 70s, it was no longer expected that every parishioner be in attendance, at church every Sunday. Indeed, I am quite certain that the vicar, Mr Hounsfield, would have welcomed a break from being compere of the weekly fashion parade.
[3] I made the mistake at some low point in my career of allowing myself to get roped into teaching Cooking. I was invited, by the Head of Department, to choose the recipe for that week. Fond memories of peppermint creams made at Brownies, led me to go for this option, a wise choice which didn’t involve any cooking at all. It was a big hit with the parents, whose darlings returned home with Tupperware containers full with sloppy green slimy stuff. I don’t think I saw a single self-contained solid sweet at the end of my lesson. Not entirely sure what went wrong there! Needless to say, my name did not appear on the following term’s teaching schedule for Cooking. Clearly, my name is not in any way linked to my talents; ‘cook Hayward’, a well-regarded estate cook, mentioned in Gough’s ‘History of Myddle’, has no actual connection, as far as I can work out, with the Cool family. I do, however, think I might have something to offer, in terms of creativity, with Heston Blumenthal, so I do have plans to get in touch with him soon to discuss how we can work on a collaborative project.
[4] I think Grandad made a mistake in dismantling our front garden den. Like the signs advertising his honey, pickles and jam, I believe it would have been an instant tourist attraction. After all, in 2016, thousands of customers spent a fortune buying tickets to see Tracey Emin’s un-made bed at the Tate modern. Our den was far more creative and inspiring! Plus, you could hide inside it and have private conversations. Who would want to try out a bed full view of the public? And the bed eventually sold for £2.2 million, so what would our den have been worth? Still, it’s too late to put Arnold Cool right on this now!
[5] Now, I think it a pity that I abandoned this den so quickly, as I am sure the adult-me could have gained a great deal of publicity for this memoir, by featuring the den on Channel 4’s ‘Amazing Spaces’. Plus, I , Jay Cool, would now have been the proud owner of a selfie taken with George Clarke!

 

Day 1: Misery on the M6

It’s time.

It’s been a year of a year in Sudbury, Suffolk and something is lacking. It’s time for a pep-me-up, a bit of a filler, a return to centre-court – a top-up! A top-up with a back-up!

“Is it our sort of a holiday, Mum? Or, your sort?”

“Well, …”

“Mum?”

“It’s a …”

“It’s your sort, isn’t it?”

“Well, the thing is that there’s something in this one for everyone, for all of you!”

“Such as?”

“Well, there are lots of caves and castles and …”

“Like we said – your sort of a holiday!”

“Well …”

“Your sort!”

“Our sort. It’s for everyone. For everyone, everywhere. We’re going back to the Myddle. Back where we all belong.”

“Back where you belong, you mean!”

“Well. Well, okay, you have a point ,but …”

“But, what?”

“There’ll be lots of … spooky graveyards!

“Great.”

“Pile in then! Dad’s driving.”

Things have got off to a positive start. The kids can’t wait for their second instalment in The Red Lion Inn, our (my) ancestral home. TripAdvisor.co.uk wouldn’t let me book Great-Something-Or-Other-Uncle-and-Grandad Humphrey Kynaston’s luxury cave dwelling up at Nesscliffe, so I had to make do with the next best thing. But, no matter – the pub’s beer’ll go down well after the hubby’s completed his five-hour M6 stint in Birmingham’s rush-hour traffic. With a few pints, I’ll soon have him believing that, all along, it was his idea – to play chauffeur and chaperone to the living.

And the journey’s not at all bad. It’s slow going, granted, but that does at least leave plenty of time to soak up the views, passenger-seat style. Discarded CDs, gloves, urine-filled plastic bottles, and Adidas footwear. There’s a fortune to made along the embankments of our motorways. Why should street-kids have to rummage around in the developing-world’s dwindling rubbish tips, desperate for just one thing, for anything – any old scrap of plastic or tin to sell in exchange for another day’s survival? Why do the British make such mountains out of mole-hills of immigrants? There’s plenty here for everyone.

I consider taking a short trip out there myself …

There’s a sick-bag in the foot-well of the rear-left seat, just waiting for a fill-up, and there’s bound to be something to my taste in the encroaching mud drifts of CDs – a Five Star hit, or a Belinda Carlisle number – or even something a little more current.

Moana’s ‘Song of the Ancestors’ perhaps? Or, Zedd’s ‘The Middle’?

The embankments of the M6 churn out a steady flow of valuables, swept along by a slow but strong current that feeds into the M54, and trickles through Shropshire, in the hope of a surreptitious invasion of bedraggled English wasters into Wales. The embankments of the M6 have the capacity to feed the whole world. Surely it can spare just one tune for Jay Cool?

But, I’m thinking hubby might be more than a bit pee-ed off if I abandon ship on the M6 (slow-queue or not), so I take alternative action and, as unselfish as ever, I decide to go with the flow and summon up some spirited and heaven-sent entertainment of my own – I’d do anything for my back-seat descendants!

“So, why don’t you? Why don’t you just meet me in the middle? In the ….”

“Shut up!”

“..MIDDLE!”

“You can’t sing, mum! Remember when you embarrassed us all, back in …”

“Okay. I’ll shut up. For now. Just until … I meet you in the middle …. in the middle!”

“SHUT UP!”

So, I keep quiet. I stay put, keep quiet, summon up the ancestors and …

… the traffic begins to move.

Wolverhampton. Cosford. Fat-on-Wellington-and-Dawley-and-Donnington-Wood Telford. Shrewsbury. Albrighton.

Time for a loo stop – traditional style. There was never anything quite like wiping one’s rear end (Vicar’s daughters can’t use the other word!), with a scrap of newspaper. So, just for the sake of nostalgia, I persuade (order) the hubby to stop by at Jay Cool’s paternal Grandparents’ abode at Single Lane, in Albrighton. We both need a cuppa and, even though Nanna Joan Cool is no longer available to provide one, my Uncle Dan Cool (resident in situ) is on hand to take my order. But, I need to vacate my bladder prior to this particular top up, and hubby has raced ahead of me to the flushable commode. So, I head through the sidegate and down the very familiar old garden to …

.. the outdoor loo and ruins of the attached pigsty! Amazingly enough for an ancient listed building, it turns out to be a bit of a no-go area. I return to the house to await my turn for the modern convenience.

Hopping around from arthritic-middle-aged toe to arthritic-middle-aged-other-foot-toe, I reminisce about Nanna Cool’s old-tin potties. Are they still under the beds upstairs? I’m tempted to take a look, but Uncle hands me a hot-steaming mug of one-cup-bag tea. I take a sip and utter a two-fold prayer of thanks for modern short-cuts: Uncle’s self-installed toilet is a piece of ingenuity – the Cools have always been a clever clan. There’s a double-door entry system. One can enter from the hallway, or from the laundry lobby. I wonder whether hubby knows this? Has he remembered to lock both doors? Can I make a surprise entry and frighten him out of there? But the steaming tea smells so … tea-bag ish, and the waft emanating from the lobby smells so ….

I decide that the loo can wait.

Focus on the tea.

It may not have been served out of one of Nanna Cool’s green-leaf-patterned dainty teacups, but the Cadbury’s chocolate logo design’s not bad – I can almost imagine that I’m drinking a Mocha, complete with squirty-I’m-full-of-air cream – and it’s not so bad not to have to deal with the hindrance of a saucer. And there’s a very excitable mutt licking the kitchen floor tiles. Seems it likes tea! Oh ..

… that’s why Nanna Cool always handed me my teacup with a saucer – seems the ‘bull in a China shop’ clumsyitis gene doesn’t improve in mid-life! I mutter a second word of thanks: ‘Dear God, thank you so much for the invention of dogs who like tea!’

And, as an afterthought: ‘And thank you also, for the invention of dogs who create fear in very loud-and-non-stop-talkative sons.’ The latter being in recognition of the fact that my son is still sitting in our car, refusing to set foot on the soil of this canine-savaged land called Single Lane.

I hear a not-so-distant flush …

Relief!

The historian in me uses the me-time to sit and ponder about whether Thomas Crapper really did play a part in the introduction of flushable toilets. But my intelligent thoughts are rudely interrupted by the harsh sounds of approaching footsteps.

Did I lock the door to the hallway?

I reach out one of my ‘Mr Tickle’ arms, recalling the time when I proudly came first in a who’s-got-the-longest-arm-span completion in my Aberdonian schooldays. My fingers just about make it to slide the lock across, when I realise that my backside has departed from it’s wooden seat. Another spillage … best not go there (I’ll spare you the details!).

Best just clear up (where is that dog now?) and be off.

Back on the road to ….

Harmer Hill.

Myddle.

Rain, grey skies, and sandstone slosh.

Back.

Miserable Myddle Manor House (takes on the title of Myddle Castle on sunnier days!)

Back with the ancestors.

The Red Lion Inn.

Home?

Not according to hubby! He’s looking more-than-a-grumpier-than-grumpy chauffeur should look. Time for a cure!  I know he’ll buck up after a pint (or two, or three plus) at the once-managed-by-my-twinkle-eyed Great Aunt pub, The Red Lion. With kids in tow, glued to us by the promise of food, we head out for our second long journey of the day. The front door of The Red Lion is reached in approximately twenty steps. Okay, it might have taken the offspring more like thirty steps or so but, at the mention of pork cracklings, my son flew out of the door of our accommodation at The Red Lion’s guest lodge, and arrived in the lounge bar well ahead of the aged. So unfortunate that the trip to school each morning isn’t made in a similar time-scale! But, it matters not – we’re on holiday now!

Aware that not all family members are at one with that last thought (i.e. they have been forced to Myddle under sufferance), I get the food and booze order in ASAP. My son goes for chicken nuggets, peas and chips (just for a change!). And the daughter goes for …

The daughter? Where is the daughter? What is there for younger-than-young vegetarians? But, she’s still in the car park, walking very, very slowly towards the pub’s entrance. Clearly, dropping pork scratchings into the conversation doesn’t do it for everyone! Luckily, there’s not much choosing to do for vegetable sprogs: cheesy-tomato pasta or cheesy-tomato pasta? A little bit of each please!

I fancy the pasta myself, but seems us adult veggies have to make the pretence of being classy – so Farmfoods’ pasta’s off the menu (Get away with you, ye doubters, I’m sure there must be a Farmfoods’ store  somewhere in Shropshire!). There’s a handcrafted vegetable patty in a bun, but I’m not convinced it’s not a by-product of the grass-munching alpaca’s over the road, so I go for the alternative posher-than-Jay-Cool-could-ever-hope-be stilton and broccoli tartlet with tatties (except that they use the proper word of potatoes, here in upmarket Myddle). And hubby goes for (How can I remember what the hubby ate, when I am sitting here writing all of this up weeks later in Sudbury, Suffolk?) something or other fleshy-and-dripping-with-blood, complete with a crunch of a garnish (the deceased beast’s toe nail?).

A creative commons image courtesy of Pixabay & shutterstock

I buy him a beer, but half-an-hour later, all fattened up and rehydrated, he’s still got a frown on his face. We depart from the dining area to a comfy-leather sofa back in the lounge bar. The kids are engrossed in fighting over our one Nintendo Switch console, and I steer hubby onto the topic of ancestry. He doesn’t seem at all impressed by the fact that this very pub was once managed by my Great Aunt Hetty Cool and her second hubby, or that my first cousin once removed, later took over –  for the sake of family tradition. None of this is of interest to him at all.

Is he really my other half?

And, he starts telling me all about his Great Uncle So and So, who parachuted into Italy to startle the Germans during World War Two. Yes, parachuters are fascinating, I suppose, but we are here – here in The Red Lion in Myddle and …

Whilst narrating his own family history, hubby’s flicking through a leaflet he picked up on the way in (he’s a great collector of junk mail), and … suddenly … a light goes on! A connection is made. “Did you know?” he says. “Did you know that this building was originally brought here by cart by some geezer called Charles Maddocks?”

Hah! I’ve got him now! During my extensive and somewhat obsessive genealogy research, I discovered that a branch of my hubby’s tree has roots in neighbouring Staffordshire. And their surname? Maddocks!

‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ I say, ‘if it turns out that the late Charles Maddocks, founder of The Red Lion Inn is one of your ancestors?’

With that, we fly on back to the Lodge, and take up company by the wood burner with my most trusted advisor – Ancestry.com.

The urchins abandon us oldies, and sneak up to our luxury bedroom to settle themselves onto our lovely comfy bed for an evening of Nintendo’s Mario Cart, with enlarged viewing on The Red Lodge’s mod-con flatscreen TV. You are most likely wondering why I, Jay Cool, blogger extraordinaire, am bothering to write about a flatscreen TV. Doesn’t everyone have one?

Explanation required.

This is our TV back in Sudbury:

 

Vintage TV, a free image available from clker.com

And, no, hubby is not an antique dealer from Long Melford – we just haven’t got around to updating an excellent specimen which is in fine-working order, and with just one channel to choose from – it does have the advantage of saving us from a lot of arguments. And this is why we are still together after a lot of a lot of years of marital bliss. Thank you, Uncle Dan of Albrighton, who delivered this wonderful item to us at some point in the dim and distant past. May God be with you!

And God bless remoter-than-remote ancestral in-law Charles Maddocks. It’s past midnight, and we’re still here, on Ancestry.com, in your Red Lion Lodge, in Myddle, looking for you!

May the quest continue ….

Copyright of text and photographs owned by Jay Cool (with such prestigious family connections, it’s only right to retain my maiden name), April 2018


Related information:

If, like the great author Jay Cool, you have an interest in toilets, look no futher than this very informative link – https://victoriaplum.com/blog/posts/a-brief-history-of-the-toilet – it even tells the reader how to install their own, Uncle-Dan-Cool style convenience.

Surplus-to-requirements information for Uncle Dan Cool:

I didn’t really fly off your beautiful-wooden toilet seat and mess up the … Honest!

Bloomers and Beer

 

I, Jay Cool, am back and feeling chipper. Just as well, as I’m in for a treat with Aaron Chipper, first comedian of the evening. It has to be said that Aaron seems a tad insecure in his abilities to entertain. He’s introducing himself as ‘white, male and American’ and as akin to Donald Trump, in that neither is very ‘good at getting the job done’, never finishing anything.

 

Immediately, I relate to this because Aaron reminds me of the last Americano I had the misfortune to take a sup of at Café Nero. Cheap (Aaron comes free), lacking in cream (not being the crème de la crème of celebrities (hence cheap) and bitter (unless five sachets of sugar are added to the mix).

 

I know that Aaron’s bitter, because he’s ranting on about London. A London that ‘sucks of miserable couples who live together’, solely for the ‘purpose of sharing the rent’.

 

Sour grapes!

 

If you want a real woman, Aaron, the genuine British article of femininity, you need to start charging for your services. Get PJ the Booker to pay you, and you’ll have all us beauties falling at your feet. It’ll be like Gerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch, or their American counterparts, Melania and Donald Trump. The only small difference being that rather than being half your age, us ladies who frequent The Tap, have more in common with your grandma. But, that’s no matter…

 

Mature is best. Consider how much tastier a Shropshire Blue cheese is, compared with Tesco Value. With cash in your pocket and an end-of-season English rose, a real bloomer, at your side, what more could you want Aaron? Job done. Finished for once. Or, ‘Mission Accomplished’ as our friend Donald would say. All targets hit and destroyed, with the minimum of fallout, thanks to the assistance of a mature English rose (with just the tiniest sprinkling of youthful French pheremones thrown in).

 

My advice is working –  Aaron’s off, before he’s even got going. Finished. And he seems pretty chipper about it too! America’s off and Essex is on!

Spot Neil from Essex!

 

Neil’s an Essex lad (if at thirty-two, he can still lay claim to that label?), but as with most Essex lads he’s kind of insular. So insular and so anxious that his travels exist only in the borrowed imagination of the late Stephen Hawkins. It’s soon apparent, though, that there’s little difference between a comic from Essex and his American predecessor. Both cheap, both lacking and both bitter. Neil’s so bitter he has to convince himself that somewhere, somewhere out there, somewhere in a parallel universe, the punters at The Tap are laughing with him – rather than at him!

 

 

Not sure why Neil’s so worried when he’s in the company of a familiar – Eleanor Bennett – the female version of the Essex-born non-nomadic human. Like Neil, she doesn’t get around too much; as she herself admits, she’s no Essex slag – she’s too old! But, these Essex lads and lasses need to lighten up a little – they’re entitled to stay put, to stay in their Hobbit burrows, because their ancestors did the travelling for them.  Their orange-faced, blonde, shoulder-padded ancestors, walked on out of their burrows, swam over the Atlantic and carried on with their inbreeding in New England. And then? Then, those who didn’t manage to buy their way into the Presidency returned.

 

Chipper’s here. He’s standing at the bar of The Tap with a pint of Old England beer to hand, and he doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

 

You been paid yet, Chipper? Mind if I join you? Want me to write something nice about you? Pint of mango cider will do nicely, thank you! Cheers!

Mission accomplished!


Copyright owned by Jay Cool, April 2018

All photography by the author, Jay Cool.

Suffolk Punch Comedy raises funds for prostate cancer research via voluntary donations at our gigs – first Wednesday of every month at The Brewery Tap Sunday. Interested comedians need to contact Paul Johnstone or Suffolk Punch Comedy Club via Facebook.

 

Curly Toes

1939-1945 – the war years at Single Lane, Cosford, Albrighton

img_20180825_122936
‘Traction Engine & Driver’ photo taken by Jay Cool in Wroxeter

The patriotic reader might be forgiven for wondering why my grandparents were happily ensconced at their home Single Lane, Albrighton. What entitled such an insignificant couple to remain in the Shropshire countryside, growing and selling their own produce, during the second world war, during a period of rationing, of make do and mend? If Arnold Cool had such a strong work ethic, why wasn’t he out there in North Africa, Italy, Russia or France, serving his country?

Curly toes. Arnold Cool was rejected on his application for the army, not on the basis of his age, for he was thirty-three years old at the outbreak of World War Two, but because his curly toes made him an unsuitable candidate for forcing his feet into army issue boots. Home duties suited Arnold just fine; he hadn’t yet been married for four years, and although now a proud father of three-year-old Dan, there was certainly no more time to waste. Wife, Joan, was no spring chicken, and the arrival of a second Cool child (my father-to-be) was imminent.

But, if Arnold imagined that he would be enjoying the home comforts available at Single Lane, whilst other local men were fighting abroad, he was very much mistaken. My paternal Grandfather-to-be was in possession of skills essential for the war effort. As a traction-engine driver, Arnold Cool was employed in the preparation of emergency landing strips, felling, hauling and clearing timber, in locations as far afield as Lower Slaughter, Upper Slaughter and Boughton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire.

The traveller lifestyle was all very exciting for young Dan, who was treated to a break away from the constant crying of newborn brother, Spike – a holiday with his dad at Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire! This was almost like being promoted from working-class country lad to royal heir, if ‘one’ could brush aside the fact that the accommodation on offer was a bench in a freezing-cold workman’s portable hut.

Home at Single Lane became increasingly appealing. The heat of a coal fire drew Arnold back in to family life. The traction engine was abandoned, and a pair of curly-toed-incapacitated feet managed the short walk across the road to the Costord RAF base, to take Arnold to his new post as a general joiner and handyman.

 

img_20180825_122939
‘Traction Engine & Worker’s Hut’ photo taken by Jay Cool in Wroxeter

 

 

At this time, my Great Grandparents John and Ann Tomlin, had sold up their home at Penderford Mill, near Wolverhampton, to live closer to daughter and son-in-law Joan and Arnold Cool at Single Lane. With their children having flown the nest, the elderly Tomlins were thought to be ideal candidates to be allocated a young evacuee from London, a girl who went by the name of Diane. Diane lived with Ann and John Tomlin by night, but spent much of her day-time hours at the Cool’s home in Single Lane, her skinny form fleshing out, as she became more and more acclimatised to the country lifestyle. She had never seen so much luxury in all her living years. At supper-time, Diane tried out all of the hot drinks on offer to find out which was the tastiest, before settling on a warm cup of Cocoa. The village school, Donington Parochial Church School, was the distributor of a plentiful supply of tubs of Cocoa, rations difficult to obtain in the cities.

 

Ann and John Tomlin also acquired a lodger, a Mr Humble, who was an RAF civilian expert – an extremely clever man. He too took his meals, not with Ann and John Tomlin, but with Joan and Arnold Cool at Single Lane. Joan Cool was a superb cook and loved to play host to appreciative visitors. I have no doubt that Arnold would have silently cursed under his breath at the ‘scroungers’ but, even Arnold knew to keep his views to himself at a time when the majority of able-bodied men were ducking from shells and dodging land mines. Besides which Mr Humble was a great entertainer and an endless source of fascination to the young Cool children: the increasingly troublesome toddler Spike, who was beginning to find his feet and his voice, and the growing (well sort of growing!) Dan. Dan, being a little older than Spike, had a better concentration span and watched with fascination as Mr Humble crafted a boomerang out of an old piece of wood from a collapsed garden shed. And this moment may well have planted the seed for Dan’s later career as a Carpenter.

Happy years of hot chocolate and boomerangs came to an end when the allies announced their victory on 8th May 1945. Diane and Mr Humble departed company with the Cools and returned to their urban origins. But, there were many other displaced victims of the war who had no choice, but to stay put awhile.

In 1947, Shropshire suffered from three weeks of extreme weather conditions – it snowed for three whole weeks! But Italian and German prisoners of war encamped at Donington, still awaiting deportation back to their home countries, came to the rescue, and dug out the inhabitants of Single Lane from their snow caves.

One of Shropshire’s six WWII POW camps http://shropshirehistory.com/military/prisoner.htm

When eventually thawed out enough to make it to school, the children of Albrighton were treated to milky cocoa, warmed up by the coal fire.

Rows of calloused, corned and carbuncled toes in various states of uncleanliness uncurled themselves by the heat of the flames. Rows of runny-red noses, oblivious to the release of ungodly odours, rescued by the enemy, and protected from the possibility of any future war-time traumas by a steaming force field of sweet-chocolate heaven.

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, April 2018.

Sources: Photo of Donington Parochial school taken by the author, Cool. Kind permission granted by Adrian Pearce for the ‘prisoner of war’ camp photo. Photo of ‘traction engine’ available from Wikipedia via a Creative Commons Licence.

 

Un-named Item in Baggage Area

I’m not lost ..

But, I am late.

You might not think it possible to get lost in Sudbury, but you are very much mistaken – and you are not me, Jay Cool.

Only two weeks ago I, Jay Cool, got lost on my way to our Horse and Groom venue – and its only 200 yards up the hill from where I now stand at The Brewery Tap.

Still, it feels good to be on familiar territory again, and its comforting to see that I am not the only loon who, occasionally (on a lot of occasions), gets lost! There’s a tiny lost-and-found child behind the mic, cracking a joke about our emcee, PJ, being a **** chaperone, and lamenting the fact that he’s here in The Tap, instead of at home snuggled up with mumsy and watching Chuckle Vision.

I’m trying to chuckle along with him, trying to play the surrogate mum part, as is more appropriate to my age than the Eyeore t-shirt I’m wearing, but it’s just not happening. Guess, this is the consequence of being a late arrival, always having to make do with the tail-end* of the joke.

A Creative Commons image from khwiki.com

Realising I have no idea of the kid’s name, I dip into my back pack for an ‘informed consent’ form. Wasted paper. I can’t ask a sprog to sign his own consent form – I need a parent. PJ’ll do – he is the named chaperone after all and, therefore, in loco parentis.

‘PJ?’

But the kid’s already leaving – he’s finished his set and now he’s off.

How rude!

Fancy not waiting to see the other acts. Perhaps – bless his little cotton socks – he can’t face the competition! There he goes, rushing out the door, muttering apologies about his dad being out there in the car, waiting for him, revving up his engine and raring to go.

His dad?

A parent?

And I’m out the door, waving the consent form around!

Dad? Dad? Stop! Wait! Sign here!

But the kid’s already in the car – behind the wheel! And, there’s an old man slumped on the passenger seat beside him. Behind the wheel? This kid’s no kid – I’ve been conned. We’ve all been conned! PJ’s chaperoning skills weren’t needed.

Still, at least I can write what I like about this guy now. I can name and shame him. Name? What was his name? I missed that!

If you recognise this guy – he just drove off in a Morris Minor with something lifeless on the passenger seat! Name?

WANTED! SEE PJ FOR REWARD!

Bim.

No, the fake sprog wasn’t Bim!

Bim is the next comedian to take the stand. I’m confused. Isn’t BIM was the name of a prestigious music college in Brighton? This Bim’s claiming to be from Cambridge. And, even more confusingly – he’s claiming to be a 19 year-old Chinese man!?

But nothing is as it seems here at the Tap this evening. Bim is really a poverty-stricken teacher, who shops in charity shops – a far cry from the celebrity TV comedian PJ led me to expect – but it might explain why he’s come bare-footed. Either that or, since Bim’s traumatic experience of living with a flatmate called ‘Jesus’, he’s indulging in some self-aggrandising wash-my-feet-and-I’ll wash-yours behaviour.
Sorry, Bim, but PJ’s not even going to pay his Blogger Extraordinaire, Jay Cool, for doing this charity gig, let alone lick anybody’s toes!
Bim, you tell us that your old mate never did teach you how to ‘turn water into wine’ but, more importantly, can you turn Coca Cola into mango cider? Because, at this moment, with thoughts of crusty feet on my mind, I’m having second thoughts about my resolve to go tee-total. I’m going back to the bar for seconds.
I’m in for the mango.
Who’s up in the second half, PJ? Gavin Milnthorpe?
 
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, March 2018


Sources: All photographs by Rob Lee http://www.facebook.com/rhlphotography – used on this blog by kind permission of the artist.

 
* This attempt at a joke, PJ, is the reason why I, Jay Cool, have got down from the stage and am now sticking to Blogging!
 

If you dare – come and join in with the laughter at The Brewery Tap, Sudbury, first Wednesday of every month. All donated proceeds go to prostate cancer research.

 

Today

 

 

Today’s the day

my feet step out –

Yesterday, snow drifts so tall

that I swam in them

surfed on them

sailed on them

into beyond

into today.

Yesterday, my mind went out.

Today, ……….my feet.

 

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, March 2018

 

Fresh & Flappy

 

Unfamiliar territory.
A new venue for the Comedy Club.
Fresh.
I, Jay Cool, Blogger Extraordinaire, am here. Feeling as young and rejuvenated as ever, I’m dressed to kill. But, somehow, I’ve got it all wrong. The punters are all wearing a uniform of grey-branded-zip-up casuals and shapeless denims – but my legs are living-it-up in a pair of hot-red skinny jeans.
Extraordinarily hot I may be, but I’m also all wrong. Very wrong. But …
at least I’m not the only one:
I’ve just spotted, the emcee, PJ! And he’s pulled out all the stops with a bright red V-neck pullover. Fresh!
Two have-beens, trying to make ourselves feel younger with a splash of colour – instead, we both look like we’ve come dressed to lure the bulls in to the kill!
Creative Commons image http://kennychung.net/photo/about/
Still, I reckon that with sharpened pencil to hand, I can get into this role. A bit of a poke at Chris Jones, our first comedian, and I’m in. From Blogger to Picador. Transformation complete! PJ’s right in there too – trying to take centre stage by jabbing away at some hefty punter’s breast badge. At this point, I consider egging PJ on, daring him to go for the in for the artery. But this bull’s ferocious. He’s rising up to the challenge. Off, PJ! Get yourself down! Sit out of this one and let Chris take over.
Chris, it turns out, is a seasoned Metador – a crowd puller! (And bucket filler!) And he’s got a beautiful set of pearly-whites, courtesy of a bargain-basement dental plan with some Bulgarian back-street tooth extractor, and a set of Dracula fangs from Poundland’s closing-down sale. Seems that his homeland of Glasgow has the highest rate of tooth decay and obesity on the planet Earth (the existence of alien teeth and cellulite having not, yet, been established as scientific fact!). Due to his short Glaswegian life-expectancy, Chris reckons he’s brought the ‘local house prices down by 40% just by being here’. I want to tell him that he’s got it all wrong. My kit’s half wrong, and he’s all wrong.
Sudbury’s a property hotspot.
Us Suffolk ladies love our vampire heroes. And, what with previous billings having included the blood-sucking Carl Denham and the funereal Sean Patrick, why shouldn’t Sudbury rocket up into the treetops and beyond ….?
Just as well that the next act on is a poet. Somebody sane and sensible. Someone to keep us Sudbury folks grounded. A lover of T. S. Elliot. A blast from the past. Nostalgia. A lover of ‘boils’, ‘tattoos’, ‘rabbit-bombers’ and …. Simon Cowell! Who is this guy?
A complete fruitcake! This is Sudbury – Thomas Gainsborough country – a hub of bygone creativity. Get him off the stage! Stick him on The Voice – give him a once-over and have done with! (What was his name, PJ? You don’t know?*)
Back to the future.
Out with the old and in with the bald.
Matt Adlington.
A time-seasoned traveller. Time-seasoned and boasting about his adventures in Australia, his wranglings with divorcees, scorpions and adders, and the time when he ‘lost everything’, including control of his …
bladder!
From a comic doomed to a short life, to a poet who’s lost his plot, and through to the last release ever from Crocodile Dundee, I’m thinking that the end of the world must be …
… getting back ‘into a flap’ with …
ALI WARWOOD!
But, it turns out that, warm and cosy at it is in here, this is not the end …
Ali’s a birther … one big push .. and I’m
out.
Blood sports are no longer PC and this particular picador’s been written off …
Jay Cool’s out …
and she’s in ….
ALI WARWOOD.
Snowperson Stand-in for Ali
The future.

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, March 2018

Credits: Unless otherwise labelled, then all photos were taken by the author, Jay Cool.

*If anyone caught the name of the fruitcake poet who did a one-off at The Horse and Groom, please send it on a Tweet to PJ!

 

 
N.B. If you fancy a flap of the action, get yourself to Suffolk Punch Comedy Club’s regular venue, The Brewery Tap, Sudbury, Suffolk – first Wednesday of every month. Free entry. Donations for prostate cancer research welcome.

Fancy Footwork

Closure.

BMW Bike – a Creative Commons image from Wikimedia.org

Don Mackie‘s going for it full throttle – he’s replaced his tricycle with a motorcycle and he’s revving up the audience at The Tap, whilst I …

I, Jay Cool, the one and only once-was-ginger Blogger Extraordinaire, am …

… very busy eyeing up the most magnificent pair of red shoes.

Yes, Mackie, it may well be that, you are still suffering from PTSD, after your fourteen-year-old self mistook talk of a ‘menstrual cycle’ for an especially-adapted-for-adolescents’ ‘bike’! And you may well still be receiving stress counselling, after you became the laughing-stock-victim of all the girls in your secondary school. But, that particular incident really was a very long time ago, and we all understand about ASD (Look it up! Google it!) these days, and this … This is in the here and now.

And, the objects of my own fourteen-year-old self’s desires have chosen this moment, the here and now, right here in the Tap to present themselves to me.

And they really, truly are the most magical shoes ever.

I’m back. Back in the past. I’m wearing these shoes and I’m pirouetting a la pointe, twizzling and turning all around the punters in the Tap. And the applause I’m receiving for my performance? The applause is deafening. So many fans. Unbelievable.

‘Moira Shearer Red Shoes’ a CC Licensed image

I remember my ballet teacher’s best advice. Look up and smile. Make them believe that you are enjoying every moment. Make them believe that you are enjoying the excruciating pain emanating from your big toe, because you ignored my advice to stuff the ends of your ballet shoes with sheep’s wool. Smile. Beam. Enjoy. So I look up. And I smile.

I smile. But, no-one is smiling at me. They are all laughing. And they are not even laughing at me, or even looking at me. They are all laughing with Mackie.

Don Mackie, alias Weeble

Laughing at Mackie’s jokes,  his one-liners, his gags, his wit – his invitations to join him for an overnight stay in his lodgings. No-one is interested in Jay Cool. No-one cares about my own trauma – my failed ambitions to be a ballerina! And the red shoes escape – slip away into the crowd. Closure evades me yet again. I didn’t even get to see who was wearing them! Was it a comedian? Was it a punter? Was it PJ, our emcee?

PJ – Emcee Extraordinaire

Now, I will never know! Help me out, folks! Who wore red shoes at The Brewery Tap, for Wednesday’s comedy gig? (Facebook your answers to PJ, at the Suffolk Punch Comedy Club’s web page! The reward? Free entry at February’s gig!*)

But Mackie, bless him! I guess he is quite funny in a not-quite-yet-ripened-apple kind of a way. Because although he lives with past regrets and pines after closure, he’s still just a boy really. All short, chubby-cheeked and cuddly. A cabbage-patch boy. There’s still time, Mackie – you can do it! You can overcome! You can move on! One last guffaw from the Kojak lookalike in the audience, and you’re here; you’re here in the moment. And then you’re off. Move on Mackie – because it’s time for Ruth Wright. Time for Ruthie!

Ruthie, alias Mum

And I can relate to Ruthie. She’s not the one with red shoes but, like myself, she has qualifications galore – boxes full to the brim with awards (in her case a Brownie first aid badge, and in mine – a pre-Grade 1 ballet badge)! And, like myself, in spite of an all-consuming talent for the organisation and labelling of collectables, can’t even recall her own name! She knows that she gets called ‘Mum’ an awful lot by others, and that she calls herself Mrs Tom Hardy – but her actual name, her real name, eludes her. I too get called ‘Mum’ far too many times for my own comfort, and I call myself Jay Cool, but my real name? Chooky? Ginger Minger? Squirrel Bush (No, idea where that one came from!)? And my most recent acquisition? Pod? Would someone please explain to me how the great one and only Blogger, acquired the name of Pod?

Yes Ruthie’s a real Mrs Tom Hardy – a real barrel of laughs! I mean, why would anyone want to be take on the name of a depressive who killed off an entire family in a suicide pact, rather than have to come up with a decent ending for a set? I’m so quick with inferring the real meaning of jokes that I’m full of sympathy for young Mackie. It must be so draining, being on the spectrum, and constantly having to ask the best of comics to fully explain their gags, and to have to then relay how difficult it is to place one’s feet inside someone else’s shoes.

Creative Commons Licensed image – wikipedia.org

Inside someone else’s red shoes. Someone else’s elusive red shoes. Find the wearer. Bring me closure! Please!

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, alias Pod, February 2018



If you enjoyed reading this blog, come and be blogged about! Get yourselves to The Brewery Tap, from 8pm, first Wednesday of every month, in East Street, Sudbury, Suffolk. Grab the mic and offer up your best one-liner during the open mic slot, or just sit back and soak up the best of Suffolk Punch Comedy Club comedians, whilst Jay Cool invites your shoes to a modelling shoot. (It’s okay, PJ, the Booker and Emcee now has a professional photographer, Rob Lee, for the portrait shots. And, he’s even employed a regular punter as a Technician (Joe Warren sorts out the sound system for the fake laughter!) So, that leaves me free to focus on the familiar – the fancy footwork – my skills are needed down below!) 


P.S. If you need a genuine photographer, get in touch with Rob Lee: http://www.facebook.com/rhlphotography or tweet @Robrhlphotolee


* Disclaimer: Entry to gigs at our regular monthly venue, The Brewery Tap, is free for all! But, donations for Prostate Cancer Research are gratefully received.

Images: The ‘Red Shoes Dancer’ image is in the Public Domain, labelled as Creative Commons Licensed, and is also available at https://allthemoderndances.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/moira-shearer-in-the-red-shoes2.jpg
All the photos of comedians are the author’s own and taken at The Brewery Tap.

Bone Chin

1946 – Spike Joe Cool (1939 – present), Jay Cool’s father, of Single Lane, Albrighton, Shropshire

Foolhardy.

Spike, like his predecessor Humphrey Kynaston of Myddle, could only be described as the perfect embodiment of the phrase ‘bull in a China shop’. Spike, just like his mother Joan Cool of Albrighton, was forthright and fearless. And, like his mother, Spike liked to chat. It was preferable, but not essential, for his mother to be listening; it was enough for Joan to nod her head in feigned agreement and then to continue with her own outpourings.

This might have been all well and good, but hindsight suggests that young Spike would very likely have benefited from some gentle guidance. For in the passing of time, the not-so-young Spike came to be considered as a survivor against the odds; the cat who, scuffed and skedaddled and still bubbling with ceaseless chatter, had had more than his fair share of nine lives. For if Spike spotted something of interest, he would say so – and he would say so with gusto! At full volume, and with total disregard for what could, on occasion, be some very embarrassing consequences.

Very embarrassing indeed.

Hats. Petite hats. Purple hats. And plush hats. Embarrassing Mum hats.

Joan Cool loved hats and she loved shopping. What better opportunity for an expedition to find a hat pin for her Sunday best, than a trip to see her ailing sister, Lottie, in Clitheroe, Lancashire? What better opportunity to spend the profits from her husband’s honey pot sales, out of said husband’s sight and mind – and out of her eldest son Dan’s sight and mind? Such a long way away from home! Perfect.

Drawing  by  David Ring

Best though, to leave prying youngest son’s eyes outside. “Spike,” I just need to pop into the Draper’s shop to get something for Auntie Lottie. “Won’t be a moment! You’d best wait here! Back soon!”

“How long?”

“Not long!”

“How long?”

“You won’t even know I’ve gone!”

Boring. Spike hated shopping and he hated waiting. He thought of little brother, Dan, back at home, back at Single Lane, back helping their father with the gardening. Gardening. Boring. Spike hated gardening even more than he hated shopping. Best get on with the waiting.

It was a long wait …..

It was always a long wait for Joan Cool. And Spike was certain beyond a doubt, that Auntie Lottie was too sick to be interested in any fancy wares from the Drapery. Best make the most of it. Best investigate the locals.

… Best not ….

“Mum!” shouted Spike, yelling through the door of the Drapery. “Mum!”

“Won’t be a moment, dear. Be with you soon!

Now, I’m not quite sure that this pin will quite go with the mauve. Can you show me what else you have in your …?”
“Mum, mum! Mum, mum, mum!”

“No, no. I don’t want that brassy shade! Please do show me …”

“Mum, mum! MUUUUUUM! Come quick!”

“No, no. I really don’t think that …”

“Mum. Mum. Mum. MUM. MUM. MUM!

Mum – look! Come quick! Look, look, look! Look at the three witches! They’re coming this way! Look. LOOK! THE W – I – T – C – H -E – S”

Joan Cool had no choice but to emerge from the shop. Joan Cool had no choice but to abandon the extensive array of hat pins laid out on the draper’s counter. Joan Cool had no choice but to look. She looked and her smudgy freckles went from a peachy-pale orange, to a shocking-red shade, as her mouth opened in horror and her cheeks expanded. To be more precise about it, then she looked rather like a puffa fish. [1]

Pulling her precious son Spike into her side and tucking him under her overcoat, Joan, a God-fearing and upstanding member of the Church of England, immediately underwent a transformation. [2] Her puffed out cheeks took on a more natural appearance, as she forced the corners of her lips up into a half-moon smile and nodded cheerfully at the approaching ‘witches’. Spike, shaking, was more than happy with his overcoated sanctuary. Enclosed and suffocating, he felt safe and secure.

“Good afternoon Sisters!” Joan greeted. “Lovely day for a walk!”

“God bless you, dear! And god bless your young son! Bless him!” And the good nuns, stifling their giggles, went on their way.

 

White Ladies’ Priory, near Albrighton, Shropshire

“Is it safe now, Mum? Are you okay, Mum? Have the witches gone?”

“Keep your voice down! There are no witches! Those ladies are nuns!”

“But, mum, MUM! Nuns don’t wear black dresses and hunts. Nuns wear white. You know that, don’t you? They wear white, like the nuns at the White Ladies’ Priory back in …”

Joan shushed Spike up and made quick haste.

And Spike wondered at how his mum, who was so tiny, managed to take such gigantic and brisk strides that he had no choice but to emerge from her overcoat and fall behind. Puffing and panting, but still talking. Ceaselessly talking.

Still, it was best to make the most of the quiet times, relatively speaking! Because Joan Cool had a more of a preference for t
he louder-than-loud talking, than for the shrieking and screaming that ensued, back at Single Lane, when it was bath night. Baths took place, once a week, on a Saturday morning, so that her boys, Dan and Spike, would look clean and respectable, ready for Sunday morning attendance at Saint Cuthbert’s church, Donington. Filling up the bath was an arduous task in itself.

 

The bath was made of tin and was situated in the Wash House, an extension built onto the back of the main house. The Wash House also housed a Butler sink, wash tub, dolly and mangle. The soap was in the form of a large green block, which also served as the main cleaning agent for the washing of the Cool family’s clothes. The water for the bath had to be heated up from underneath, via a brick-built coal fire, some time in advance of the bathing rituals, and some time in advance of Jean Cool’s elbow test. The temperature had to be just right in preparation for the immersion of two small mud-encrusted boys.

Just right.

Dan was in and out of the tub, all fresh and ready to scramble into his clothes, whilst his younger brother Spike, was still standing there – screeching like a cat in a gang fight! Joan did her best to force Spike into the tub, but this was very rarely achieved without enlisting the help of husband Arnold. It took two adults to get Spike into the bath and even then, he would flip his feet and knees up, and hang, from the hands of both parents, before he gave in to force and submitted to the soaping process. [3]

After extracting a still-screaming Spike from the tin tub, Joan let him loose and set to work scrubbing a week’s worth of laundry – in the same murky bathwater!

To be fair, though, there was one occasion on which young Spike might have had a justifiable reason for making a lot of noise. By which, I mean that the outcome was reason enough for Spike to experience the fear of the fox, as he screams in terror just before being ripped apart by a pack of beagles. One might, however, question whether, or not, the outcome could have been avoided. Because what Spike had set his sights on, Spike fearlessly, and with a total disregard for his own safety – went for!

Every year, the country folk of Cosford and Albrighton, psyched themselves up for the big day of excitement, for the day of the annual Albrighton Hunt.

Photo by Dan Sharp, reporter at Stourbridge News
 
Although not born into the privileges of the class of people who chose to take pleasure out of persecuting the fox, the local children enjoyed the adrenalin rush that came from catching a glimpse of all the fine gentlefolk in their best hunting gear sitting proud on their inherited wealth, or on their horse-purchasing power. Spike [4] was no exception – he loved to see the hunt. When big brother (a pint-sized replica of his mother Joan Cool) Dan informed Spike that the hunters and their beagles were meeting near the Cosford RAF Officer’s Mess, adjacent to their home in Single Lane, Spike was ecstatic. Up bright and early and ready to go – he was full of it!

“You ready, Dan?” asked Spike. “Why are you wasting time fixing your bicycle up now? We need to get going, if we want to catch sight of all the posh folk on and their dogs. Come on!”

“Sorry, Spike!” muttered Dan apologetically. “I can’t go. I’ve got to help dad with the honey – he’s scraped the honeycomb caps and needs someone strong to turn the handle of the extractor drum. And you can’t go getting all horsy either. You’re needed! Mum needs you to go the village on an errand! The Griffin’s are coming round for lunch and we’re out of tea leaves. You’ll have to miss the hunt this time round! Go on – I’ve fixed up your bike. It won’t be so bad to have a ride out to the village. Get going!”

“No!” wailed the seven-year old Spike. “I’ve been looking forward to the hunt all week. I’ve got to go!”

“You’re out of luck, little brother. Look on it as an adventure – your first time out on your bike without me!”

RING, RING! Spike pedalled to the village shop, as fast as his long legs would allow him. He ran into the village-shop-come Post Office, handed over his mum’s shopping list, and hopped around from foot to foot, jogging up and down whilst he waited for the tea leaves to be weighed out and bagged up.

“Hold your horses!” laughed the shop keeper. “I’m being as quick as I can. Do you need the toilet? Nip out the back if you must!”

“No, no, no. I just need …”
Finished.

“Thank you!”

And Spike was off.

“I’ll put that on the tab for Joan, shall I?”

No reply.

Spike was out the shop and on his bike, and he was already whizzing on down Rectory Road, under the railway bridge, through to Shackerley Lane … already on his way to the hunt. He was coming on down to Single Lane and there was no stopping …

.
.
.
.

Two men were striding on up the hill, right on into the oncoming path of the non-stop bicycle. Two men, deep in conversation.

RING, RING! Spike couldn’t understand why the men didn’t just step aside and allow him on his way. He ploughed on; perhaps they were about to make a last minute tactical move. RING, RING!

CRASH!

On attempting an emergency stop, Spike discovered that his brakes, expertly maintained by big-brother Dan, were in great condition. The front wheel halted immediately, and the back wheel reared up, just like a terrified back-to-front breed of horse. Spike had his first experience of flying. He was catapulted right up and over the handle bars and onto …

the gravelly lane.

Hands reached out to help him up, but young Spike barely even noticed them, let alone acknowledged them. There was a hunt to see. And Spike was on his way to see it ..

“I’m fine!”

And he was up and off again.
Back to Single Lane.

“Mum, mum, mum! I’m back – I’ve got the tea leaves! Can I go over the road to see the hunt now?”

Jean Cool looked. She looked and her freckles turned white. She looked again and her whole self turned green.

As Jean turned gr
een, Spike felt a warm blobs landing on his bare knees. The kitchen floor, usually so cold, began to feel warm. Spike put his hand up to his chin. Bone. Bone and blood. His chin had been cut right open.

The hunt …?

Gassed up and stitched up and lying in a bed at the RAF hospital – so conveniently located, just across the road from his house – Spike Cool realised that, even though, he’d missed the annual hunt, he had a far more exciting tale of devilry and adventure to relay to his school mates on Monday morning. [5]

[1]Modern readers will have seen Donald Trump looking like this, as he makes daily headline news with his tweeting, so will know exactly what I mean.
[2]No, she didn’t turn into Wonder Woman, the Incredible Hulk, or even Captain Underpants!
[3] Today, I expect that my readers have some sympathy for Jay Cool’s dad. After all, it must have been freezing cold out in the Wash House and that old green soap smelt like Dettol. But I would ask, you to compare it with your own first-hand experience, because I doubt there is a parent out there who doesn’t have the same issues with their own child’s bath-time, and your bathrooms are indoors in centrally-heated bathrooms with supply and demand hot water. So, really, all things considered, very little has changed!
[4] Please note that the adult-marginally-more-cautious version of Jay Cool’s dad, is against all forms of animal cruelty, including the ownership of pets who have to be tanked up, caged up or yanked about on leads.
 
[5] And to this day, Spike Cool sports a very impressive zig-zag indentation on his chin, which puts Harry Potter’s forehead trophy to shame. The RAF nurses were used to sewing up the walking wounded and churning them back out ready for second run! Just as well, otherwise they would not have one day been there in that very same hospital, witnessing the birth of the highly-self-acclaimed author, Jay Cool!

Images: the photo of White Ladies’ Priory is by Nilfanion, is Creative Commons Licensed and available from Wikimedia; permission has been granted by Dan Sharp (Stourbridge News) for non-commercial reuse of the Albrighton & Hagley Hunt photo (note that this is not the same as the Albrighton Hunt, and is merely intended for mood-enhancement, not factual accuracy); drawing of hat pin by David Ring available by Creative Commons License at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatpin#/media/File:Hatpin.jpg

Other sites of interest: Check out http://www.albrightontourism.co.uk/gallery.php

 

 

Fresh Beards

Poor wee-lost Dylan Dodds. Shame he’s left The Tap and gone of looking for the ‘rest of his car’, because in a skinny sort of way, I found him kind of cute. Kind of cute in the same way that drinking a skinny latte at The Mill Hotel is kind of cute (when the built-like-an-ox-ginger-bearded one is serving!). And in the same way that having a Miss Piggy kind of a smooch with Kermit the Frog is kind of cute (i.e. when you’ve plenty of your own flesh to bounce around on, etc.). It’s not that I, Jay Cool, am trying to get too personal about Dylan’s body shape, but …

This is Dylan Dodd’s:
And this is Dylan’s doppelganger:
And this is the puppet that all ladies past a certain age, and with a particular kind of figure, model themselves upon – kissing …
And now, to complete the romantic scene, all you ladies have to do is to replace Kermit with …..

Ooops, sorry …! This is the comedian Olly Benisworth – so last year! (Sorry, Janet Benisworth; Jay ool, the Blogger extraordinaire, didn’t really kidnap your son – just a case of mistaken identity!)

This is the ginger-bearded hunk Jay Cool was summoning up … This one’s soooo current! Sooo … gender neutral ….

But, granted, this is actually the beard that deigned to join me on my last visit to Sudbury’s Water Mill …

At my age, though, young Dylan Dodds, one has to settle for what one can get – focus on the obtainable (Sorry, if you are not really obtainable – handsome ginger-beard man in the pic, but it’s just that I love your skull and crossbones’ shirt!):

But .. Dylan’s gone (and I have to admit that, as I am a serious fan of the Muppet Show (and of Dylan’s jokes)), I’m feeling kind of dejected!). Still, I’m kitted out with a pint of mango cider. I’m at The Brewery Tap (not with my ginger fancy at The Mill), and I’m here for the second half of the show.

I’m here for Danny Marks.

I’m here for Ciera Jack.

And I’m here for Harrison Salter.

So (if you really love him (Kermit), let him go), let’s get on with it Jay Cool.

Danny Marks is on and he’s ranting on. Ranting on about ‘Mike Tyson’s new bestseller about ethics’ and about his gran who sends him ‘Easter cards but forgets about the egg’.

Danny might well be, as he’s now claiming, ‘a big guy who carries it well’. But ‘big’ or not, I don’t reckon any of our young Suffolk ladies are going to be donating any eggs to him – not now he’s admitted to a fetish for ‘Avenger’s lounge pants’ ..

I can just see it now …

Kiera Jack’s rounding up the troops for a group rendition of ‘Loving You’ (No, she doesn’t have a nestful of Avenger’s lounge-pant-wearing sprogs who’ve formed a family choir!).

She wants some audience participation, and this is right up Jay Cool’s street, an evening’s singalong with a colander-wearing-raise-the-volume-enough-to-communicate-with-my-late-grandmother Ciera! There’s plenty of material here, to feed my obsession with genealogy – because it’s pretty clear to me that Ciera’s inherited her father’s penchance for unusual headwear – the spirits tell me that he ‘donned a balaclava’ to go on a crazed-pigeon-shooting spree.

I can empathise, Ciera! We don’t get to choose our parents. This is my father, the Reverend Cool, and he’s still around, still on his perch – still spreading the word …

You can remove the colander now, Ciera. Harrison Salter’s here for the takeover.

Poor old PJ the Booker – he didn’t have much choice about this one! With a degree in banking, Salter had no chance of standing up and spurting out it out, of giving anyone or anything a salting. Jobless and loveless, he got himself a job in recruitment – and recruited himself for this evening’s gig. You’ve got to fell a little bit sorry for him – he ‘hasn’t had sex for two years’ (not surprised with that fresh-off-the-street kind of smell). And he’s had PTSD ever since seeing ‘Julie Andrews throwing herself out of an aeroplane with an umbrella’. Still, someone had to get the punters in, and someone had to help the homeless, so we’ll give him a break. Harrison can have his ten minutes of fame. He can do his own Julie-Andrews’-style stunts if he really wants to. Whatever make him happy.

Tis so important to be happy, so important to live life to the full.

Mango cider?

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2018
 
 

To see Suffolk Punch Comedy Club’s comedians for yourselves, come along to our gigs on the first Wednesday of every month at The Brewery Tap, Sudbury, Suffolk. Free entry. Donations for prostate cancer research welcomed.

 
 

Sources: All photos of the comedians taken by Jay Cool; Beard Papa image labelled Creative Commons; the Bird Perched on the Pulpit was photographed at Hartlepool Art Gallery by Jay Cool; Kermit is a Creative Commons image from Flickr.com; Kemit & Miss Piggy is a CC image from blogography.com; the Bull is a CC image from pixabay.com; the gorgeous red-haired gentleman is a CC image of Harry Knowles, taken by Gage Skidmore; the knitted beard is labelled as CC on google images; the chicken jumpers CC image is available at http://www.wideopencountry.com/chicken-jumpers/; and the avenger eggs image is courtesy of deviant_art.com