STILL SPITTING IN THE FIRE THEN
This is a short story about my grandfather NED Kelly.
The district nurse allowed the old heavy bicycle to run down the cobbled hill, she was a large girl and the bike suited her well with its carrier at the back of the seat for her bag.
This was her second call and likely to take some time but she was used to allowing her patients the time they needed, much of her work being listening to their problems and desires. Some of the problems she could assist with, broken windows and leaking taps, generally just took a call into the town hall to resolve
She had been born in the area and had never been known as “Nurse” by the older ones, to them she would always be “ Mrs Crawford’s Oldest” or “Nan”, remembering her as a little girl going to school, and this meant that she could not use the “district nurse “ to achieve her ends . Only her tact and persuasiveness made her one of the favoured who could come and go in and out without formality, just a knock and a quick shout round the door.
“Hello its nurse!”, “Come in Nan” and it was as “Nan” she could care for her little flock..
She stopped at the little cottage half way down the narrow cobble stoned hill and leaning her bike against the wall, knocked and opened the Jade painted door.
“Hello its Nurse” no answer! She pushed on through the inner porch way and looked round the inner door.
There sat old Ned in his chair, he had heard her but would not acknowledge her presence until his good time.
Ned spat a stream of tobacco juice into the coal fire, she was relieved to see his little dog was not present, Nipper could be a handful, and with Ned’s encouragement inclined to bite first and ask questions later. she moved into the little room ,cluttered with furniture and shining brassware, the fire reflecting in the polished “brass fire dogs” on the hearth and the brass kettle sitting on its stand at the fires edge !.
The room had little natural light and the gas mantle over the fireside sputtered and popped in it’s struggle to illuminate the room with a warm glow.
Ned spat again, more to establish who’s boss around here, than the need to relieve himself.
Nan was not to be intimidated “Still spitting in the fire then Ned?”
Still spitting in the fire!? Course he was still spitting in the fire, He had been spitting in the fire for the last seventy years and was not going to stop now, not for her anyway!
Who do’s she think she is ?, coming here with her great big arse an giant hands, Great bear of a woman, bossing im about?. Why didn’t she bugger off an annoy some other poor fella?
“I’ll just go and chat with Aida, Is she in the kitchen, I expect so!, she’s always busy Ned isn’t she?. You’re lucky to have her Ned”. “I’ll come back and see to you love”.” Have you been good since I last came?”
Ned snorted, been good! What’s she on about now. Been Good! Ow, the ell can he be out else but good sat in this bloody chair most of the day wi one leg and a bit of one, an one bloody eye, Been Good! Daft bugger. He glared at her and said nought
An he didn’t need her to tell him about young Aida, though who “had” who was a matter of some conjecture. Little poison dwarf as he called her, but deep down; if Ned loved anything; he loved Aida.
Aida was only second to his terrier Nipper. Which wasn’t bad seeing as how there was only Aida and one Nipper in Ned’s life .
Aida would not bite folk, and Nipper couldn’t make proper Yorkshire puddings so he loved both for different reasons?
Mind! Aida didn’t like Nipper and Nipper wasn’t to keen on Aida, so a tenuous truce existed between them. Which, when Ned was bored and felt the need for entertainment, would break out into a frenzy of snapping and newspaper tearing? .
Ned would encourage Nipper to snap at Aida by poking him with the end of the crutch, and in return Aida would secretly encourage Nipper to tear up Ned’s newspaper as it came through the letter box..
“OH” he’s torn up your newspaper Ned”, he’s a naughty dog isn’t he, why don’t you get shot of him love?” “Young Freddie will ave im”
The nurse, “talking again” disturbed Ned’s thoughts ,””Oh! We are in a mood today aren’t we love? I expect your bottom bits are a bit sore if you’ve been sitting a lot, I’ll see to them later don’t worry!”
BOTTOM BITS! What the ell is she going on about now? Bottom Bits! What doe’s she think I am a bloody coble or summate? I’d like to see to her bottom bits, I would, mind take as few gallon of tar to cover that lot.
Ned smiled to himself as the thought of nurse with a tarry bum. That wud show her a thing or two about BOTTOM BITS...
The nurse called out to Aida, Ned’s wife.
“Are you in the kitchen Aida, its Doris love?” “Has he been behaving himself this week?” “Well let’s see what you need and then we’ll sort Ned out.” “Has he been keeping dry Aida? It’s important to make him go down the yard, just keep reminding him love””
Andrew Flintoff or, as he was known to the locals, “Ned Kelly” quietly fumed and did a big spit of black plug tobacco juice into the open coal fire. Where it hissed and spluttered in protest...
Pity young Aida had put Nipper in the yard or he could ave got im to bite her on the arse.
Somehow Nipper always got “put in the yard” before visitors arrived and Ned always got put in his chair without his wooden leg or his crutches handy,so,he could't move .
Young Aida was at the back of it all somehow! If he had his crutch he could trip folk up with it and get a bit of entertainment, but Aida would shift it early on an give im no chance for escape down the hill to the harbour.
He could hear them talking in the kitchen, Aida and the nurse. I bet she doesn’t offer to see to Ida’s “bottom Bits”. Assuming Aida still had em.
Bottom bits hadn’t been talked about in Ned’s house for the last forty years, since he had been discharged from the naval hospital. Minus half of a leg and one eye, which he had when he joined up and didn’t t think it right not to have em when they had done wiv im and the Germans.
His Lordships regret the loss of your limb and one eye but a pension has been awarded to you for the remainder of your lifetime. ”TEN BOB a week” “TEN BOB A WEEK” You couldn’t buy some bodies leg off em for TEN bob a week, “could you? “ Not if thie ve any sense at all you couldn’t. TEN BOB and a “replacement leg”. “A replacement Leg” they called it, just a bit of wood cut to the same length as his other leg and sanded smooth with a knob at the bottom an a canvas strap for
the top end . Ida’s table had better legs than im;………an they never gave im an eye back”!Just left the socket where his eye had been before that daft bloody skipper had steered over the mine they had just swept up with the minesweeping rig. Steered right over it! The enquirers said it was another mine swept together which caused the loss of his ship and was an unavoidable incident of wartime activities. However, Ned knew better.
The silly young fart only had command of his trawler-converted minesweeper cos his daddy was a Lord of Admiralty or summat like that. Useless he was, yellow wellie brigade bumped up to command for the period of wartime. Ned thought there were thousands of em in the navy; and all, in his opinion, useless on a real ship of war. Aida had “done right by him” when he came back, home or most of him came back!
His eye and his leg never came back!.! He was in a mess with bandages everywhere and it was struggle to get to the outside loo never mind stay on it when he got there.
He sometimes fell off the seat and Ida would get young George to come from next door and lift im up again.
He fell off a few times, until young George put fish boxes each side of the privy seat so he was wedged in a bit, good thoughtful lad that one...He used to make sure there was plenty of newspaper squares hanging on the strings in the privy. Aye! Good lad.
But Aida didn’t seem too keen to have him in her bed again, he wouldn’t wear his eye patch in bed and she said the that empty eye socket staring at her was the final straw, so by quiet consent he moved into the big chair downstairs and Aida had the big feather bed to herself which she probably got used to whilst he was away sweeping up mines.
Aida had never been a “physical lass” as her mother put it, but a good honest worker and a real good hand in the kitchen, baking and cooking were Ida's forte, she “wasn’t keen on the flirty clarty stuff”
THEREFORE, Ned had grown up without “clarty stuff” in his marriage. There had been sex in the earlier days but it was a dispassionate undemonstrative affair, Aida never had an orgasm and Ned never understood that women had such things anyway.
Therefore, it was easy to drift into the current regime.
“Shall we get the dominoes out Ned”? “We will have to wait for the car to take us to the slipper baths, Can’t plonk you in a tin bath Ned eh
“I ad a bath last week an I aint been nowhere to get mucky yet”
Ned shook his head in a resigned fashion , how people like to waste time and effort making others do what they don’t want to do. He didn’t mind the slipper baths so much as all the fuss and having to have an attendant with him. Then they would check his leg for sores, they didn’t check the wooden bit for woodworm he noticed!
When he varnished it with boat varnish, they had a lot to say about it, and when he did some scorch scrimshaw on it you would think he’d ruined it. He just burnt his name on it and a bit of a sailing ship picture. Lot of fuss they made of that.
Visitors liked his scrimshaw leg; he had discovered this by one of those strange incidents that life throws up now and then. He had been sitting down on the pier one summer morning, it was very hot and he had been pushing a shrimping net along the shallow edge of the tide picking up a few shrimp for sale to the crab stall holders, He used to tip them into a little tin bath near the lifeboat house on his return there .
Pushing the big net along towards the spa and then the return push back to the boathouse usually caught a few nice size shrimps.
The round trips taking him about an hour, slow and steady were the way to lift them out of the sand and into the net. He managed quite well as long as the sand was firm; most of his weight was on the chest bar of the net anyway so he coped fairly well. He kept his trouser legs pulled up with a short piece of line round the top of both thighs, and anyway a wet arse never hurt anyone, as long as it was sea water as wet it. He had returned to the tin bath and emptied his little haul of shrimp; as usual, he was sitting with his back against the wall and his leg stretched out in front, his cap on the sand next to him.
This bloke and his wife stopped to look in the bath and Ned “impressed” them by grabbing a handful of live shrimps and eating them, “best way to eat shrimp lass” he said with a wink to the woman. The bloke was looking at Ned’s scrimshawed wooden leg, “I collect scrimshaw” he said, “but I’ve never seen it on a wooden leg before”
Ned showed him the Whale spouting and the inevitable busty woman, the sea lions and the two little sailing ships burnt into the wood.
The story of Ned’s loss of his real leg was told and a graphic account of a sea fight between a lone British minesweeper and three German destroyers was related, “as if it were yesterday
How out of the smoke the embattled minesweeper came Ned steering the errant vessel, and working the engine too!, still waging war, still firing his gun, minus a leg and an eye,his companions scattered about the decks like paper toy sacrificed to king and country, and freedom for all the youngsters like himself and his lady. The young couple were very impressed and a new white fiver fluttered down into Ned’s cap lying at his side.
No protests would have the lad pick up his cash. He was proud to have met one of England’s bulldogs. One of Nelsons finest. One of the men who sacrificed themselves so he and his new wife could walk on this beach free of the jackbooted hordes.
He left with a “God bless you old timer” and marched off up the beach almost forgetting his new wife in his enthusiasm.
A little crowd had gathered during the graphic account of this sea battle, and several of them applauded Ned’s narrative and other donations of various values dropped into the cap. Ned brought the “penny dreadful” to a close by another demonstration of live shrimp eating washed down by a half-pint of beer some chap brought from the pub over the road, which persuaded the audience it was time to leave him to his lunch.
Ned was astounded, eight quid he had, for nought! Aida had better not get wind of it.
During that summer Ned became well known on the beach, some returning next day to hear again the battle’s he fought almost single-handed winning the peace for old England. Coins rained down into his cap and he lived on crab sandwiches and “just a half then “in the pub over the road. Never has much been given by so many to such a cause.
Ned’s wooden leg was, he discovered, a little goldmine.
The battle of the River Plate was in fact fought, somewhat disguised, in the Dover Straits between Ned and the Germans twice or thrice weekly. Sometimes he fought “just out there” he would say pointing to the open sea,
The battle of Filey Brig? Was a possibility but rejected as an unlikely earner.
“Knocking again Ned?” The nurse brought him back to the present problem.She was getting on his nerves now. She was a better player than he had thought and was constantly making Ned “knock”. Here he needs a four as she has blocked off one end with the double four and he does not have a four.
Ned’s hand goes down to the side of his chair and he gets a spill to light his pipe from the coal fire. On the way there he touches the side of the range where the soot lies cool and makes a great play of lighting his old briar pipe Suddenly there appears to be a five and four domino in his hand, how convenient is that then. Ned plays the five and four on the double four end that nurse has had blocked for most of the game.
“No! I’m not knocking as yet “says Ned with a smile. And goes on to win the game.
“I didn’t think you had any more fours Ned” “Never mind the lads are here now we can go to the baths”. Ned is persuaded to get into the ambulance type bus.
“I’ll see you later Aida, can you wash those dominoes? He’s filled on of them with soot to change it to suit him, it’s the double five and he’s filled one in to make one end a four”
Aida laughs, “He never gives up with his tricks”.
“Aida ,if he had lost we would never have got him to the baths today, sometimes you have to be one or two steps in front you know” ,”Oh and he’s pulled that stunt out of the bag before, soot on the dominoes! Whatever next?”
Pete skipper
more about Ned later
