Made In Hull By Maurice Fairfield Part Three - The Calm before, (The Storm) (2/2)

(1/2), (2/2). Part One - Arundel Street Days Part Two - Our Terrace Part Three - The Calm before, (The Storm) Part Four - Schooldays Part Five - The War 1 Part Six - The War 2

In 1935 the Royal Family and its surviving loyal supporters celebrated their silver Jubilee and after the death of George the Fifth, a couple of years later, the coronation of George the Sixth. In between these events of course was the abdication of Edward the Eighth who didn't hold down the job long enough to be crowned before he went his own way. I can remember seeing my mother sitting alongside the bakelite wireless set weeping as she listened to the news.

All because a supremely useless man gave up a non-job to live a life of supremely useless luxury at the expense of people who lived down streets like mine. Soon the children ran around singing Hark the herald angels sing , Mr's Simpson's pinched our king.

The Coronation was celebrated by street parties. The Number Five Georges's coronation had been marked by Hull school-children being given a decorated mug full of toffees. Some of the mugs still sat on patriotic mantle-pieces and our parents told us about it. We were expecting the same and felt a bit let down when we learned that we were getting a souvenir booklet with pictures of the King and the Queen launching battleships and visiting boy Scout camps.

When the time came to receive our bounty we were marched into the assembly hall of our school and sat on the floor in rows. The Headmaster and some local dignitary sat at a table at one end of the room with a pile of the slim slate-blue booklets in front of them. In turn, we rose to our feet and walked across the space to the table.

We were each handed a book and a brief handshake and walked back and sat down. When it came to my turn I stood up and realised at once that almost immediately I was going to have to break wind. Even now I probably couldn't handle this situation with aplomb.

At the age of eight all I could do was to clench the appropriate muscles in a vice-like grip. This forced me to adopt what must have looked like a deliberately eccentric walk involving tiny steps and turned in toes. I began the walk across the seemingly endless floorboards towards the King's representatives.

As their faces swam into view it became apparent that their jaws had dropped. As if in a dream the headmaster handed me the booklet and shook my hand . As I turned away the new disposition of my feet made all my efforts vain and the audible signal of my relief echoed in the rafters. It must have looked like a pointed comment on the disappointing souvenir and I was terrified. For days I waited for the chop to fall until it dawned on me that I had got away with it and indeed had gained some welcome notoriety in the playground.

In 1938 there was a craze which swept Hull and probably the whole world, although I am guessing that. Overnight every third person seemed to be walking around with a small plywood bat with a little sponge-rubber ball on a length of elastic, batting away like mad. Courting couples strolled down the street together bouncing the little ball off the bat. Groups of children competed. There were competitions and exhibitions by experts.

These toys were not a new thing. As biff bats they had been around all my life, but these were marketed as game called Hi Li, in their millions.

As with so many other aspects of peoples' lives they came in first and second class. The base model was thin plywood unpainted with a black ball and cost threepence. For sixpence you got a heavier grade of plywood, smoothly lacquered red ,and a white ball.

For a week or so the whole country was united in a harmless silliness which lightened the cloud which hung over us. For a week or so. Not very long after the day came when the Prime Minister spoke on the radio and confirmed what we had been expecting. As his words died away the air-raid sirens, already in place and waiting, howled for the first time.

Copyright 2004 © Maurice Fairfield

Acknowledgements thisisull.com acknowledges that the copyright on the Radio Times cover designs belongs to Radio Times and that the copyright on the cover illustrations belongs to the individual artists and photographers.

Continued on www.thisisUll.com Part Four - Schooldays

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