three

one...

I couldn’t find shoes one night to go down to jimmy’s parent’s corner store. Jimmy’s parents weren’t working so me and the boys would go down and jimmy would give us free cigarettes and put the kettle on and wed sit there and drink tea and talk about the new rich girl that lived on the other side of town or how Russel had just gone to war and been shot straight away. Poor kid. Then when the shop closes jimmy gives us a beer and our drunken chatter fills the quite night air. We would all have tea but sometimes we wouldn’t have enough tea leaves and someone would have to miss out, it was normally gorge because he only drank half his tea half the time then the rude digger would complain it was too cold then jimmy would get mad at him for wasting his mums tea leaves and not give him a beer when he asked for one later that night and jimmy would mock the beer was too cold for gorge and gorge would get angry then. So Yar. Umm
I walked to the shop in mums slip on shoes. The boys gave me shit for weeks, not like they had heals or anything.




two...

One day I decided to go get a new heel for my shoe that I had broke about a month ago. Wouldn’t be a long trip, just pop on the ferry to Shelbyville. So, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I started to get ready, did ma hair, tided my onion onto my belt because that was the style at the time. Got my money ready. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them “two bees for a bob” you’d say when you got down to the pub, because the pub always had change, after the generator had run out of power and you’d be left in the dark or the middle of winter with no heat. I’d always have to go get the change because the pub said my little sister was too young. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah...the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war; the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones, oh they flaked everywhere and make your pants look a right mess, but that’s what you did because it was the thing at the time.


three..
(Before you read please realise that I love pommies and England and it is just a reference to the types of people back then not my hate towards any race)

Mum was sick that morning so she made me walk my little sister jenny to school. Jenny wont walk to school herself because she swears black and blue that the men that spend all day and night at the pub she has to walk past, yell out how pretty she is and one time she stuck the finger up at them and one of the men said if he hadn’t of just opened a new beer he would go over there and teach her some respect, so jenny ran all the way home, not to school and asked dad to get mad at them but dad said those lads were legit good guys and wouldn’t of done that and then got mad at jenny for telling lies. Then mum got mad at dad because she believed jenny and realising she was going to be the one having to walk jenny to school everyday she insisted dad go down to the pub and talk to the men. But dad refused too and after a small argument dad stormed off to work. Dad runs the elevator in the big building on the other side of town, the one all the Poms dad works at, ya know? Dad hates the Poms, says they need to learn some fucking respect for working class men like him. I never really saw a problem with the Poms but Uncle Neil, who isn’t really my uncle just a man dad met when he went to war and they stuck and survived though the tough times together, they became and stayed best mates. Neil has been though both wars, made his age older for the first one, younger for the second one he doesn’t really have anyone. So dad and Neil, who didn’t really say much, unless to abuse the Poms would sit there complaining about the Poms they work with even though Neil didn’t even have a job and sat in our kitchen all day putting away the dishes for mum when he could help and drink the beer dad bought for mum but mum cant drink it because she’s sick.
So I walked jenny to school and on my way home went to speak to the lads at the pub, ended up having a beer with them and they gave me some tea for mum because she’s sick.