Much against Herself’s advice, I was clearing the gutter on The Shed of dead leaves and I stretched just that fraction too far and felt this ominous twinge in the small of my back.
It was a sensation I’d not felt for years – indeed, not since I used to play cricket and, as sure as night followed day, on the first training session of the year I would ‘do’ the sacroiliac, whatever that might be.
Then I’d make my way down to Beuzeval’s to see Madge, hoping that the gift of healing which she clearly possessed would fix me, and hoping also that the invariably busy shop would for once be bereft of customers.
The reason for this seemingly ungrateful sentiment is that no matter who was in the shop, if someone like me (with a back that needed fixing) came in, she would stand them in the middle of the place, hoist their shirt from inside their trousers and do weird and wonderful things behind their back with her hands.
I thought about Madge a couple of times last week, not only because ‘the back’ meant that I was sitting about the place feeling sorry for myself more than I usually do, but also because of the death of Sir Jimmy Savile.
Sir Jimmy called his mum The Duchess and, if my memory isn’t totally addled with age and other punishments I have inflicted upon it, I have a feeling that she and Madge Hayes were friends.
I know that The Duchess used to stay with the Little Sisters of The Poor at the top of New St John’s Road when she was on one of her frequent trips to Jersey, but I have this vague recollection also that she might well have stayed with Madge and her husband, perhaps in the flat above the shop.
What I do know is that I met both Sir Jimmy and his mum a few times at Madge’s shop –once when I had my shirt half-way up my back and with Madge doing the business as he walked in. He didn’t bat an eyelid ,but looked at the grimace on my face and suggested I should ‘get rid of that snooker table before it really damages you’.
Despite the banter, it was clear that he absolutely doted on his mother, and the impression both left with me (as did Madge Hayes, if it comes to that) is of people from an age where courtesy and good manners were second nature and rudeness was not only frowned upon but simply not tolerated.
I wonder what he would have made of the situation Herself and I found ourselves in the other week. Because of ‘the back’, I had taken Herself’s advice and not got behind the wheel of the passion wagon. Instead, we got the bus into town, had a coffee and toasted teacake somewhere or other, and then made our way to the bus station in time to get the 5.15 pm bus to my mate’s place just past Five Oaks on the Maufant road where we’d been invited for a meal. Not surprisingly, the bus was fairly full – mostly school pupils – when we set off and once we’d picked up a load more passengers at the Forum bus stop it was a case of standing room only.
Now, when the jolly old JMT ran the buses (Major Blakeway was the boss and the drivers included my old man’s mate Mons Kent and his conductor ‘Fifi’), there were notices in all the vehicles clearly stating that children ‘must not’ occupy a seat when an adult is standing.
What was clear from our relatively short journey (a little over two miles, I’d have thought) was that not only did no school pupil make a move to give up a seat for an adult, some of whom were elderly, but such was the climate on that bus that there was a clear reluctance on the part of adult passengers to say or do anything about it.
In the end, when we stopped at some traffic lights, I gave up my seat to a young woman who not only had a toddler with her but was clearly expecting another child. As I did so, I observed to two teenage pupils sitting in the seats behind that it would be considerate if they followed my example.
They said nothing but stared at me as if I had two heads, and so, like the rest of the passengers of my generation, I gave up. Those brats are the sort of people that teachers (and many parents) and other education apologists tell us are just as good in every respect as those of similar age-groups in previous generations.
It seems that those like me who deplore not only the lowering of courtesy standards but in many respects their total absence are the ones walking out of step. What’s it going to take for those standards to return? Well, I referred to the days of the jolly old JMT and I know that it is impossible for Connex to require their drivers to enforce what should be company policy.
But in the old days, not only did all routes have conductors who issued tickets and kept a general eye on things, but there were also a number of roving inspectors, and it would be nice if Connex reintroduced them.
AND finally … Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday. A couple of weeks ago I shoved a tenner in the British Legion tin and took two poppies – one each. If I change coats I sometimes forget to transfer the poppy. I do wish those self-appointed poppy police would understand that instead of treating me like a pariah.
