H-Henry
My father on buying a much-needed new car found he couldn't sell the old one for love nor money. Consequently it just sat at the bottom of the drive and beckoned me every time I looked at it. It had a magnetic pull. I didn't so much see an old car as a den; a balloon; a rocket; a fighter plane; a getaway vehicle; but more than any of these I saw a Lancaster bomber.
He was certain that sooner or later he'd find a buyer. I was less so and told myself that maybe in the meantime it wouldn't harm to play in it occasionally just so long as I was careful and didn't do any damage. This reasoned argument brought forth the response that if I went within a foot of that car I would be thrashed to within an inch of my life. A standard response to any behaviour deviating from his idea of what children could and couldn't do.
As I was in awe of my father, to wit scared stupid, I naturally followed his advice - for a while - but come the six weeks holiday boredom soon set in and I and a group of friends found the lure of the old Singer Gazelle too strong to resist. We were careful to wait until he'd gone to work before going anywhere near the object of our curiosity.
My mother of course warned me of the likely consequences and the pain, anguish and suffering that would surely follow. Except she put it more bluntly, 'He'll tan your bloody hide.' By this time though we were desperate to be off and for the next few weeks we robbed banks; flew to the moon; colonised Mars; explored the Amazon and relentlessly bombed Germany in our trusty Lancaster; H-Henry. Named after my father; which wouldn't have mattered a jot had he caught us. He'd have just thought we were taking the piss, which, to be fair, we were!
Being a good and partisan Yorkshire child I was always slightly miffed that the Lancaster rather than the York bomber became the premier bombing machine, but always one to put my country before parochial considerations, if it was deemed necessary that I should fly a Lancaster then so be it.
Returning one day from a particularly arduous mission over Germany - Berlin if I remember correctly - I was having trouble finding our home base. We'd been harassed all the way back by night-fighters, cloud was low, visibility non-existent and to cap it all we'd been fired at by our own Ack Ack batteries on the way in. We'd lost three members of the crew, Dave the bomb aimer, Guy the wireless op and a spotty youth called Russ whom nobody really liked, who'd been our tail-end Charlie. Being the rear gunner involved sitting in the boot with the lid up so anyone who incurred my wrath - which was usually Russ; he was the smallest and weakest of my friends - ended up there.
Finding the airfield, I came in low, jinking and weaving, generally throwing the old crate round the sky, lined up beautifully on the runway, then had to abort the landing - a herd of cows had escaped from an adjacent field - so I took her round once more, ran out of fuel, found that only one side of the undercarriage would come down and finally managed to land without losing any more of the chaps, or substantially damaging the aircraft.
As we rolled to a halt right at the very end of the runway - another 20 yards would have seen us in the river - I switched off the two remaining engines, breathed a sigh of relief and lit a much needed Craven A. Graham, my co-pilot told me I'd made a right bollocks of that and he should be the pilot next time. He then tried cadging a cigarette but I told the bastard to buy his own. I think he resented this piece of advice and proceeded to take one anyway. He was bigger, twice as hard and much less of a coward, so I let him.
We puffed away contentedly in the camaraderie that only close physical danger can bring when I heard an angry buzzing noise. I thought at first that enemy raiders were shooting us up, but it was worse than that. I glanced sideways and saw the angry face of my father bearing down on us. The buzzing noise got nearer and louder and as it did it became more discernible as shouting.
'If I've told you once I've told you a fucking dozen times not to play in that car.'
By this time the rest of the chaps had realised what was happening and my gallant band; the same hardy souls who'd been over Berlin with me barely four hours before were out of the craft, away down the garden and over the fence to the relative safety of Mr. Bedford's - he only had six Doberman Pinchers to contend with after all. That the deserters included Dave, Guy and Russ I found particularly mortifying. 'But you can't run off,' I called after them. 'You're dead!'
My father circling the car and calmly assuring me that when he got hold of me I'd be well and truly fucking dead as well persuaded me to abandon ship and join my buddies over the wall where we immediately started planning our route to the Swiss border. I took Russ to task for not warning us that Hitler himself was approaching. He maintained that as he was supposed to be fucking well dead how could he and furthermore he was fed up of always being tail end Charlie. I suppose we were all a little bored by this time and went back to Action Man the next day.
A few days later I was involved in a furious altercation with my father - the reason eludes me now, but I'm sure it was, to me anyway, something trivial. I stormed out of the house in a real violent temper, screaming at my father that I was going to put his windscreen through with a brick. We'd been having some building work done and a sledgehammer was lying on the ground. I picked it up and proceeded to bounce it off the old car in the drive. My father thinking I was knocking seven bells out of his new vehicle flew out of the house and chased me round the garden with a pitchfork, which he eventually hurled in my general direction. It narrowly missed and I shot off up the drive with his curses following me.
Creeping back several hours later I was sad to see that I'd inflicted more damage in a three-minute frenzy than the combined attempts of German flak and night fighters in numerous missions over Germany. A few days later a scrap dealer arrived, loaded up the old Singer and departed for the scrap yard. H-Henry never flew again.
He was certain that sooner or later he'd find a buyer. I was less so and told myself that maybe in the meantime it wouldn't harm to play in it occasionally just so long as I was careful and didn't do any damage. This reasoned argument brought forth the response that if I went within a foot of that car I would be thrashed to within an inch of my life. A standard response to any behaviour deviating from his idea of what children could and couldn't do.
As I was in awe of my father, to wit scared stupid, I naturally followed his advice - for a while - but come the six weeks holiday boredom soon set in and I and a group of friends found the lure of the old Singer Gazelle too strong to resist. We were careful to wait until he'd gone to work before going anywhere near the object of our curiosity.
My mother of course warned me of the likely consequences and the pain, anguish and suffering that would surely follow. Except she put it more bluntly, 'He'll tan your bloody hide.' By this time though we were desperate to be off and for the next few weeks we robbed banks; flew to the moon; colonised Mars; explored the Amazon and relentlessly bombed Germany in our trusty Lancaster; H-Henry. Named after my father; which wouldn't have mattered a jot had he caught us. He'd have just thought we were taking the piss, which, to be fair, we were!
Being a good and partisan Yorkshire child I was always slightly miffed that the Lancaster rather than the York bomber became the premier bombing machine, but always one to put my country before parochial considerations, if it was deemed necessary that I should fly a Lancaster then so be it.
Returning one day from a particularly arduous mission over Germany - Berlin if I remember correctly - I was having trouble finding our home base. We'd been harassed all the way back by night-fighters, cloud was low, visibility non-existent and to cap it all we'd been fired at by our own Ack Ack batteries on the way in. We'd lost three members of the crew, Dave the bomb aimer, Guy the wireless op and a spotty youth called Russ whom nobody really liked, who'd been our tail-end Charlie. Being the rear gunner involved sitting in the boot with the lid up so anyone who incurred my wrath - which was usually Russ; he was the smallest and weakest of my friends - ended up there.
Finding the airfield, I came in low, jinking and weaving, generally throwing the old crate round the sky, lined up beautifully on the runway, then had to abort the landing - a herd of cows had escaped from an adjacent field - so I took her round once more, ran out of fuel, found that only one side of the undercarriage would come down and finally managed to land without losing any more of the chaps, or substantially damaging the aircraft.
As we rolled to a halt right at the very end of the runway - another 20 yards would have seen us in the river - I switched off the two remaining engines, breathed a sigh of relief and lit a much needed Craven A. Graham, my co-pilot told me I'd made a right bollocks of that and he should be the pilot next time. He then tried cadging a cigarette but I told the bastard to buy his own. I think he resented this piece of advice and proceeded to take one anyway. He was bigger, twice as hard and much less of a coward, so I let him.
We puffed away contentedly in the camaraderie that only close physical danger can bring when I heard an angry buzzing noise. I thought at first that enemy raiders were shooting us up, but it was worse than that. I glanced sideways and saw the angry face of my father bearing down on us. The buzzing noise got nearer and louder and as it did it became more discernible as shouting.
'If I've told you once I've told you a fucking dozen times not to play in that car.'
By this time the rest of the chaps had realised what was happening and my gallant band; the same hardy souls who'd been over Berlin with me barely four hours before were out of the craft, away down the garden and over the fence to the relative safety of Mr. Bedford's - he only had six Doberman Pinchers to contend with after all. That the deserters included Dave, Guy and Russ I found particularly mortifying. 'But you can't run off,' I called after them. 'You're dead!'
My father circling the car and calmly assuring me that when he got hold of me I'd be well and truly fucking dead as well persuaded me to abandon ship and join my buddies over the wall where we immediately started planning our route to the Swiss border. I took Russ to task for not warning us that Hitler himself was approaching. He maintained that as he was supposed to be fucking well dead how could he and furthermore he was fed up of always being tail end Charlie. I suppose we were all a little bored by this time and went back to Action Man the next day.
A few days later I was involved in a furious altercation with my father - the reason eludes me now, but I'm sure it was, to me anyway, something trivial. I stormed out of the house in a real violent temper, screaming at my father that I was going to put his windscreen through with a brick. We'd been having some building work done and a sledgehammer was lying on the ground. I picked it up and proceeded to bounce it off the old car in the drive. My father thinking I was knocking seven bells out of his new vehicle flew out of the house and chased me round the garden with a pitchfork, which he eventually hurled in my general direction. It narrowly missed and I shot off up the drive with his curses following me.
Creeping back several hours later I was sad to see that I'd inflicted more damage in a three-minute frenzy than the combined attempts of German flak and night fighters in numerous missions over Germany. A few days later a scrap dealer arrived, loaded up the old Singer and departed for the scrap yard. H-Henry never flew again.