Hello Pedro and happy birthday in NZ Nov 1st 2004 Hello Neera and berppha hayday... in Half-Nelson – South Island.
It seems a lifetime since we dashed between the Plebian raining stair-rods together and lingered with the smell of the George Square Bogs, the Beefeater coffee and blud curdling oatcake in a force 9 Post Office gale wearing our secondhand school uniforms from Nichol Brown & Coyle with a free Hornby train carriage and real leather satchels oozing out skool milckkk and our plimsols stinking of caretaker’s sicksand as we picked up our school ties from the Vic Lounge gutter of 64. If only life now was school dinners, nitnurse and fondling 20 stone washerups who dished up the cold fish on fridays and burnt rice pudding on sports day.
Zinc bath firelight life was a technicoloured faded dream with Cathy's Clown echoing behind the bandstand and the Mr Crossley marble cold statues hands with lifelines meant for a snow shoveller pointing towards the Bill Haley steam radio with Stanley Matthews cracking another 6ft goal at the cenotaphe with fading poppies. The xmas bike that had to be hammered straight and the box of sticklebacks dipped in chocolate as a selection box with a surprise. Yes the hook was still in when Grandma broke her dentures and was sick on the farting mongrel dog and the cat sang until it choked on 'how much is that doggie in the bingo'. Dominoes didn't add up, snakes and ladders were taking the hiss and snap was something Grandad had for work’s breakfast before he spent his wage in the Dusty Miller opposite Board School near Fatty Dobson’s paper shop and Mr. Travis's broken biscuit shop in Pellon Lane, near the Horne Street middens where we played cowboys and indians with loom spindles and kissed our champagne coloured mice and sold their babies to sweaty Battinson Road fairground thugs who pinched our matches and hid the Queen’s Road schoolyard 3 sheet wonder toilet roll at breaktimes.
The Odeon Picture-house and the first prize melting ice-cream with bits for doing the crab down the orchestra steps with an old midwife's pinnie blindfold wrapped round your face with Fleetwood Beach seaweed in the stitching. The shared butter lump with your curly haired brother before you went to bed and scraped the ice off the window to see the gaslit lamps and the giant snowflakes and the sound of Grandad peeing and plopping into the pottie in harmony with fourteen wind up clocks and the sight of his medals rusting in the steam and chinking on bathnight.
So if you are having a wonderful birthday time as you walk on the NZ Pacific Ocean Beaches and hold soft hands in the starry moonlight looking out over the Marlborough Sounds remember your roots and before you go to sleep say a prayer and thank God for your cosy bed where you curl up tight when your prayers are said and forgive ME for having the shitz, hangover, white wine sickness and locking myself in your Riley Lane first modern townhouse with the swing doors after a beautiful chilli-con-carne and your marvellous double-vision films of Australia in 1973. I have always wanted to say sorry for messimg up your new bathroom and the time is now on your birthday.
Don't forget to look in your garden mailbox every day until you see a special memento from Trudi and I in your Wallby house-colours.
John Peel died today on holiday at 63 - god bless him - I guess he wanted it to be a quick CD instead of a long player. He must still have the Incredible Walker CD that we made in a Bradford studio in 1970. "Keep on playing Kinky-Town Vicar John - mention my name and you'll get a good seat".
So Pedro and Neera our NZ tickets will arrive tomorrow and we are packing you loads of Yorkshire lamb, Piece Hall tripe, fresh mango fruit, cannabis, Australian flag bunting to wrap-up your sun deck and best of all a picture of you Pedro with hair and a giant tash on a wanted poster to be plastered in every dunny in Nelson.
I promise I'll write more to you soon and I’ll tell you about the good olddays next time.
Loveshack Geoff and Backpassage (Sorry Bagpicking) Trudi with a big big... birthday wish xxxxxx
The PIZZAS are on you.
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