A Life Retrospective - A social account of life in the 1960's
Fifty-nine-year-old Vagrant, Georgios Katholatis, traipses aimlessly along Golders Grove, the dislocated sole of one shoe tapping out the rhythm of his stride as it beats against the damp pavement. Sores, splits and scabs of wretched hands tell countless tales of woe, yet Georgios knows no pain in hitching the string of a torn rucksack over the damp collar of his trench coat, and contemplating the coming winter months with a wry grin and a few mumbled words for an absent friend.
Pausing at the corner of Darwin Street, he watches intently as Mary Flaherty tugs straight her floral pinafore whilst kneeling at the threshold of terraced asylum, the front step worn to a curve by years of donkey stone toil. She scowls at his presence, while he, moved with content, smiles his Sunday best.
Inside next door’s parlour, Joseph Grimes lays with the grain; like a sallow oyster in a womb of satin meringue, his organised surroundings unequalled in life. Joe’s widow is, as always, close at hand, dusting Christ’s ivory brow, cast in shadows by the flickering light of half-spent candles. Beneath a patchwork of linen tea towels, meticulously arranged triangular cucumber sandwiches lie undisturbed. She sighs. One quarter turn of the sherry bottle to display the maker’s name and she wonders if her time would have been better spent with goodbyes.
Along Darwin Avenue, the gnarled branches of wind-bent trees part like the red sea, carpeting uneven flagstones in a shimmering palette of amber and bronze. Leafy volcanoes caught by the gale dance their way into the crisp morning air like transient maelstroms coiling around lamp posts and factory workers alike. Outside the factory gates, men use their fingers as coat hooks to drape jackets over their shoulders, whilst women in Paisley headscarves and knee-length skirts gather beneath tiny clouds of cigarette smoke, broadcasting their plans for the coming weekend. At 8.55 precisely, the factory’s hooter splits the smog-heavy atmosphere; the trigger for busy brogues and kitten heels to scrape the ground in making that five-minute deadline.
Mrs. Burton at number 13, stands to lose a small fortune. Her husband, Frank, has tried to pay the bills with a trip to the bookies. Alice is standing in the kitchen with a tear in her eye as she gazes into the empty Coleman’s mustard tin where she keeps the board money, then ruefully places it back on the cupboard shelf and wonders if she can face another winter like last.
From across the road at number 12, Julie Thorndyke can see the houses along Darwin Street. She peels back a nicotine-stained curtain and reminds her husband that today’s the day Joe is cremated. Her sad eyes dwell on his presence a moment longer than necessary; his jowls weighted with idle growth; his worn belt, shiny, and stretched farther than her resolve; that vest, once as white as her wedding dress, now with more tales to tell than Fanny Cradock’s hands. "One of these days," she says, “It’ll be me saying goodbye to you.” He repeatedly jabs his cigarette stub into a chromium souvenir ashtray from Brighton, whilst preparing his considered reply. “How do you know that I’ll be the first to die?” he muses. Julie allows the curtain to fall back into place. “Who said anything about dieing?” Turning on the radio, “She’s leaving home,” by the Beatles, crackles through the speakers. Unmoved by the irony, Colin Thorndyke yawns. “If you’re going down to the shops this morning, you can get me a Mirror and ten Woodbine; and don’t be too long, I could do with a brew when you get back.”
The door of Number 19 bursts open, spilling out two young schoolboys. With ties askew and shirt buttons yet to be fastened, they taunt and tease each other as Joanne Maddox strains her larynx to get the message across. “And don’t forget to behave yourselves when Mr. Harris is about! I don’t want to come home from work and find that toffee-nosed ponce on my doorstep, preaching about the social implications of unruly children. Once is enough, thank you very much!”
The two boys pause like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights, as though questioning the dubious benefits of multi-syllable words. Being the mother of prospective delinquents, she comforts them with her reassuring chirp. “Go on you little sods - get your backsides off to school; you’re already late!” Her postscript halts their progress further. “Oh, and err, I’m cleaning down at the Red Lion this aft’, so you may as well go straight round to your Auntie Maureen’s and wait for me there, yeah? She had a little win on the gee-gees yesterday, so you can bet your life she’ll have a pan of stew on the boil. You like stew, so make sure you fill yourselves up because we’ve not enough food in the cupboard to satisfy Twiggy, let alone stretch to supper. Oh, and don’t shovel it down either, I don’t want her thinking that you never get fed.”
Two Bailiffs stand at number 10, hammering out their intent with fat knuckles and the coarse voice of reason. The curtain twitches as the big man crouches, mouth to letterbox. "Come on, Mrs. Watson. We know you’re in there. Don’t make this any more painful than it already is."
It’s the haunting sound that reminds us of our mortality. Only Gods and Kings will never hear their voices. Mrs. Watson, on the other hand, will have to suffer their wit a while longer. “Mrs. Watson; we’re only here for the Hi Fi. You can always hum whilst you’re doing the housework, can’t you?” Interrupting their sniggering is the sound of a creaking sash window being raised. It’s Mrs. Watson, preparing to eject her Armstrong Hi-Fi from an upstairs window. “You really don’t want to do that, Mrs. Watson!” Mrs. Watson seems intent on proving that Bailiffs aren’t always right.
The shop doorbell announces the arrival of Alison Jones. Julie Thorndyke is already at the counter being served. “Here we are,” says the Shopkeeper, “one Mirror newspaper, ten Woodbines, and one box of Rat Nip. That should do the trick.” Alison places a pack of plain flour and a block of suet on the counter. “Having trouble with a rat, Julie?” she enquires. Julie’s tired expression barely changes. “You could say that.” Quietly slipping her shopping into a carrier bag, Julie politely thanks the Shopkeeper and departs. On the way back to her house, she passes Mrs. Watson’s house where two forlorn-looking gents are standing around a pile of shattered plastic and two broken speakers. They stare upwards as the sound of a sash window slamming shut settles the argument.
As the hearse arrives outside Mrs. Grimes’ house, Mary Flaherty respectfully removes her pinafore, whilst Julie Thorndyke enters her house and stares through her nets with aberrant envy. “You took your time,” says Colin. "We all have doors to our lives," she murmurs, staring at Mrs. Grimes as she steps from her door and awaits the coffin to be brought out, "doors without keys. Then, one day…" Colin flirts with the possibility of seeking an explanation for her seemingly senseless words, but thinks better of it. “Are you going to make that brew then, or what?” Julie reaches inside the carrier bag and rolls the rat poison around in the palm of her hand. “Coming right up.”
Later in the day, as the light begins to fade and the moon prepares itself for another nightshift, the Red Lion echoes at the sliding open of deadbolts. Landlord, Geoff Mulligan and his wife, Sarah, carry out their routines as instinctively as breathing. A final wipe of the bar and the shuffling of hammered copper-topped tables provide the final touches, only then do they afford each other a contented smile.
Factory worker, Jean Brown arrives outside the Red Lion astride Davey Walsh’s Lambretta. Disembarking, she carefully pushes and prods her five-point bob haircut without making the slightest bit of difference. Seemingly, the quarter can of Ozon Fluid Net applied earlier, is doing its job. Davey, meanwhile, nonchalantly kicks out the bike-stand and leans it towards the kerb. He takes a moment to admire his shiny, chromium peacock, proudly sporting the eight rear-view mirrors, two horns and four headlamps that adorn the front fame-work. “Are you coming, then, or are we going to stand out here all night?” Her carping leaves on the breeze as Davey swaggers past her and opens the door with an extended gentlemanly arm. “After you, Princess.” She pauses to comment. “All the other girls will be sipping cocktails down at the Lyceum tonight. What do I get? Half a Watneys Red Barrel and a game of bleedin’ doms.” Davey glances at his Lambretta. “If you want the best, you have to make some sacrifices, darlin’. A beast like this doesn’t run on fresh air.” Jean raises her eyebrows, “Neither does a girl like me.”
By the playing fields just off Birch Road, a beat Bobby rhythmically strides along like a human metronome. Sargeant Brian McKenzie takes a brief moment or two to pause by the black iron railings and gaze across at the swings, remembering the little girl whose frail, naked body was found in the undergrowth not far from where he is standing. Being one of the first on the scene, it’s a memory that Brian will take with him to the grave. The sound of an engine drawing to a halt and the slamming of a car door draws his attention. Standing by his side moments later is colleague, James O’Driscoll. “Brian; not a bad evening, is it? Makes you glad to be alive.” The metallic splendour of a silvery-blue moon floods the landscape. “It didn’t look much different to this on the night we found Kelly Bishop,” recalls Brian, “There were about a dozen of us over there near the swings and a couple more with dogs. I remember a Handler holding one of Kelly’s white socks up to the dog’s nose so it could take the scent. I never did explain to her mum or dad about how the dogs knew what they were looking for. There again, there was lots we didn’t tell the parents. The way her body was all disjointed; the bite marks on her neck and arms; how her lifeless brown eyes were still wide open, like she’d been staring at her attacker.”
James shuffles his feet somewhat awkwardly. “Hey, Brian, fancy a ride back the Police Station? Come on, I’ll let you buy me a cup of cocoa. There doesn’t appear to be much going on tonight anyway.” Brian wanders to the car and gets in. As James starts the car, he notices Brian staring at the moon. “Impressive, isn’t it? I’ve always thought of it as God’s flashlight; and to think, they’re talking about putting a guy up there within the next couple of years.” Brian’s illuminated face grins. “It’s never going to happen, Jimmy; not in my lifetime anyway.”
The trip back to the Station takes them along Darwin Avenue. There’s an Ambulance and a Police Car parked outside number 12. Behind the net curtains, two silhouetted Police Officers appear to be chatting to Julie Thorndyke.
“Huh, I wonder what’s going on there,” remarks James. Brian peers through the car window as James slows to a crawl. “It’ll be a domestic. It nearly always is. Haven’t you heard; this is the swinging sixties; she swings for him; he swings for her.”
As the car picks up speed, they pass Georgios Katholatis making his way back along the Avenue in search of his destiny, whilst strangers’ lives unravel all around him.
Footnote: Somewhere, in a remote North London cemetery, there is a headstone that reads, “Sargeant Brian McKenzie, Aged 65 years. Born 16th February 1904 – Taken from us 19th July 1969.” Sergeant McKenzie died one day before the moon landing.
THE END
Pausing at the corner of Darwin Street, he watches intently as Mary Flaherty tugs straight her floral pinafore whilst kneeling at the threshold of terraced asylum, the front step worn to a curve by years of donkey stone toil. She scowls at his presence, while he, moved with content, smiles his Sunday best.
Inside next door’s parlour, Joseph Grimes lays with the grain; like a sallow oyster in a womb of satin meringue, his organised surroundings unequalled in life. Joe’s widow is, as always, close at hand, dusting Christ’s ivory brow, cast in shadows by the flickering light of half-spent candles. Beneath a patchwork of linen tea towels, meticulously arranged triangular cucumber sandwiches lie undisturbed. She sighs. One quarter turn of the sherry bottle to display the maker’s name and she wonders if her time would have been better spent with goodbyes.
Along Darwin Avenue, the gnarled branches of wind-bent trees part like the red sea, carpeting uneven flagstones in a shimmering palette of amber and bronze. Leafy volcanoes caught by the gale dance their way into the crisp morning air like transient maelstroms coiling around lamp posts and factory workers alike. Outside the factory gates, men use their fingers as coat hooks to drape jackets over their shoulders, whilst women in Paisley headscarves and knee-length skirts gather beneath tiny clouds of cigarette smoke, broadcasting their plans for the coming weekend. At 8.55 precisely, the factory’s hooter splits the smog-heavy atmosphere; the trigger for busy brogues and kitten heels to scrape the ground in making that five-minute deadline.
Mrs. Burton at number 13, stands to lose a small fortune. Her husband, Frank, has tried to pay the bills with a trip to the bookies. Alice is standing in the kitchen with a tear in her eye as she gazes into the empty Coleman’s mustard tin where she keeps the board money, then ruefully places it back on the cupboard shelf and wonders if she can face another winter like last.
From across the road at number 12, Julie Thorndyke can see the houses along Darwin Street. She peels back a nicotine-stained curtain and reminds her husband that today’s the day Joe is cremated. Her sad eyes dwell on his presence a moment longer than necessary; his jowls weighted with idle growth; his worn belt, shiny, and stretched farther than her resolve; that vest, once as white as her wedding dress, now with more tales to tell than Fanny Cradock’s hands. "One of these days," she says, “It’ll be me saying goodbye to you.” He repeatedly jabs his cigarette stub into a chromium souvenir ashtray from Brighton, whilst preparing his considered reply. “How do you know that I’ll be the first to die?” he muses. Julie allows the curtain to fall back into place. “Who said anything about dieing?” Turning on the radio, “She’s leaving home,” by the Beatles, crackles through the speakers. Unmoved by the irony, Colin Thorndyke yawns. “If you’re going down to the shops this morning, you can get me a Mirror and ten Woodbine; and don’t be too long, I could do with a brew when you get back.”
The door of Number 19 bursts open, spilling out two young schoolboys. With ties askew and shirt buttons yet to be fastened, they taunt and tease each other as Joanne Maddox strains her larynx to get the message across. “And don’t forget to behave yourselves when Mr. Harris is about! I don’t want to come home from work and find that toffee-nosed ponce on my doorstep, preaching about the social implications of unruly children. Once is enough, thank you very much!”
The two boys pause like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights, as though questioning the dubious benefits of multi-syllable words. Being the mother of prospective delinquents, she comforts them with her reassuring chirp. “Go on you little sods - get your backsides off to school; you’re already late!” Her postscript halts their progress further. “Oh, and err, I’m cleaning down at the Red Lion this aft’, so you may as well go straight round to your Auntie Maureen’s and wait for me there, yeah? She had a little win on the gee-gees yesterday, so you can bet your life she’ll have a pan of stew on the boil. You like stew, so make sure you fill yourselves up because we’ve not enough food in the cupboard to satisfy Twiggy, let alone stretch to supper. Oh, and don’t shovel it down either, I don’t want her thinking that you never get fed.”
Two Bailiffs stand at number 10, hammering out their intent with fat knuckles and the coarse voice of reason. The curtain twitches as the big man crouches, mouth to letterbox. "Come on, Mrs. Watson. We know you’re in there. Don’t make this any more painful than it already is."
It’s the haunting sound that reminds us of our mortality. Only Gods and Kings will never hear their voices. Mrs. Watson, on the other hand, will have to suffer their wit a while longer. “Mrs. Watson; we’re only here for the Hi Fi. You can always hum whilst you’re doing the housework, can’t you?” Interrupting their sniggering is the sound of a creaking sash window being raised. It’s Mrs. Watson, preparing to eject her Armstrong Hi-Fi from an upstairs window. “You really don’t want to do that, Mrs. Watson!” Mrs. Watson seems intent on proving that Bailiffs aren’t always right.
The shop doorbell announces the arrival of Alison Jones. Julie Thorndyke is already at the counter being served. “Here we are,” says the Shopkeeper, “one Mirror newspaper, ten Woodbines, and one box of Rat Nip. That should do the trick.” Alison places a pack of plain flour and a block of suet on the counter. “Having trouble with a rat, Julie?” she enquires. Julie’s tired expression barely changes. “You could say that.” Quietly slipping her shopping into a carrier bag, Julie politely thanks the Shopkeeper and departs. On the way back to her house, she passes Mrs. Watson’s house where two forlorn-looking gents are standing around a pile of shattered plastic and two broken speakers. They stare upwards as the sound of a sash window slamming shut settles the argument.
As the hearse arrives outside Mrs. Grimes’ house, Mary Flaherty respectfully removes her pinafore, whilst Julie Thorndyke enters her house and stares through her nets with aberrant envy. “You took your time,” says Colin. "We all have doors to our lives," she murmurs, staring at Mrs. Grimes as she steps from her door and awaits the coffin to be brought out, "doors without keys. Then, one day…" Colin flirts with the possibility of seeking an explanation for her seemingly senseless words, but thinks better of it. “Are you going to make that brew then, or what?” Julie reaches inside the carrier bag and rolls the rat poison around in the palm of her hand. “Coming right up.”
Later in the day, as the light begins to fade and the moon prepares itself for another nightshift, the Red Lion echoes at the sliding open of deadbolts. Landlord, Geoff Mulligan and his wife, Sarah, carry out their routines as instinctively as breathing. A final wipe of the bar and the shuffling of hammered copper-topped tables provide the final touches, only then do they afford each other a contented smile.
Factory worker, Jean Brown arrives outside the Red Lion astride Davey Walsh’s Lambretta. Disembarking, she carefully pushes and prods her five-point bob haircut without making the slightest bit of difference. Seemingly, the quarter can of Ozon Fluid Net applied earlier, is doing its job. Davey, meanwhile, nonchalantly kicks out the bike-stand and leans it towards the kerb. He takes a moment to admire his shiny, chromium peacock, proudly sporting the eight rear-view mirrors, two horns and four headlamps that adorn the front fame-work. “Are you coming, then, or are we going to stand out here all night?” Her carping leaves on the breeze as Davey swaggers past her and opens the door with an extended gentlemanly arm. “After you, Princess.” She pauses to comment. “All the other girls will be sipping cocktails down at the Lyceum tonight. What do I get? Half a Watneys Red Barrel and a game of bleedin’ doms.” Davey glances at his Lambretta. “If you want the best, you have to make some sacrifices, darlin’. A beast like this doesn’t run on fresh air.” Jean raises her eyebrows, “Neither does a girl like me.”
By the playing fields just off Birch Road, a beat Bobby rhythmically strides along like a human metronome. Sargeant Brian McKenzie takes a brief moment or two to pause by the black iron railings and gaze across at the swings, remembering the little girl whose frail, naked body was found in the undergrowth not far from where he is standing. Being one of the first on the scene, it’s a memory that Brian will take with him to the grave. The sound of an engine drawing to a halt and the slamming of a car door draws his attention. Standing by his side moments later is colleague, James O’Driscoll. “Brian; not a bad evening, is it? Makes you glad to be alive.” The metallic splendour of a silvery-blue moon floods the landscape. “It didn’t look much different to this on the night we found Kelly Bishop,” recalls Brian, “There were about a dozen of us over there near the swings and a couple more with dogs. I remember a Handler holding one of Kelly’s white socks up to the dog’s nose so it could take the scent. I never did explain to her mum or dad about how the dogs knew what they were looking for. There again, there was lots we didn’t tell the parents. The way her body was all disjointed; the bite marks on her neck and arms; how her lifeless brown eyes were still wide open, like she’d been staring at her attacker.”
James shuffles his feet somewhat awkwardly. “Hey, Brian, fancy a ride back the Police Station? Come on, I’ll let you buy me a cup of cocoa. There doesn’t appear to be much going on tonight anyway.” Brian wanders to the car and gets in. As James starts the car, he notices Brian staring at the moon. “Impressive, isn’t it? I’ve always thought of it as God’s flashlight; and to think, they’re talking about putting a guy up there within the next couple of years.” Brian’s illuminated face grins. “It’s never going to happen, Jimmy; not in my lifetime anyway.”
The trip back to the Station takes them along Darwin Avenue. There’s an Ambulance and a Police Car parked outside number 12. Behind the net curtains, two silhouetted Police Officers appear to be chatting to Julie Thorndyke.
“Huh, I wonder what’s going on there,” remarks James. Brian peers through the car window as James slows to a crawl. “It’ll be a domestic. It nearly always is. Haven’t you heard; this is the swinging sixties; she swings for him; he swings for her.”
As the car picks up speed, they pass Georgios Katholatis making his way back along the Avenue in search of his destiny, whilst strangers’ lives unravel all around him.
Footnote: Somewhere, in a remote North London cemetery, there is a headstone that reads, “Sargeant Brian McKenzie, Aged 65 years. Born 16th February 1904 – Taken from us 19th July 1969.” Sergeant McKenzie died one day before the moon landing.
THE END
