Billy Fish.

By a little more than fifty years ago I had become no more than a visitor to the village. I still went back as often as I could, because it still felt like home, but the sad truth was that I no longer had any close relatives anywhere other than St James’s churchyard.
  When visiting – by this time I was fortunate enough to have a car – I’d park somewhere near the old home and walk through the village just to make sure I still recognised most of it. A Saturday evening walk would invariably end up at The Bush, in Summit Place. It was a pleasant little pub, an Ansell’s house in those days if I remember, with a good landlord (which of course meant he had a good wife, for the lady of the house always set the tone of a pub) who kept a good cellar, which then meant his pipes were always clean and the beer was as sparkling as a mountain stream. The regulars in the Bar were a grand crowd, quietly convivial, hardly anyone under thirty and all known to one another. Nor were they all from nearby streets. Such was the regard in which the pub was held that a goodly proportion of them came from outlying hamlets, Straits, Cotwall End, even the Graveyard, though folk living there had The Red Cow on their doorstep, which was at that time surely one of the best pubs in the known world. It all said a lot for The Bush.
  Conventions in village pubs seem to be different now. In the late nineteen fifties you could reckon that a bar full of regulars, all sitting round either on bent-wood chairs or on the horsehair benches against the walls – pints and half pints on little round mahogany tables with cast-iron legs – would be having two kinds of conversation, or just sitting quietly contemplating the eternal verities or wondering at the chances of the Wolves winning away next week. One of those kinds of conversation was the quiet intimate chat that immediate neighbours at the tables would have. When it was going on it produced a quiet, restful sort of background hum. The other kind of conversation happened when someone opened up a subject to general consideration. At the time I’m thinking of a typical opener was the man from Straits saying "Ah saw the big pussycat agin this morning."
  Now, if you had been a regular, or even a local, you would have known that the ‘big pussycat’ was a puma, or some other black, large and dangerous member of the cat family that was popularly supposed to have escaped from a private zoo in Sedgley, and was hiding somewhere in the wild woodland and undergrowth that then stretched from the head of the Dingle down to the slopes of what was left of Turner’s Hill Wood. Numerous sightings were claimed and the animal was blamed for the disappearance of several fowl, a cat or two and Billy Stevens’s dog. Though Bill was generally believed to have sold his terrier to a bloke in Cosely and was using the big pussycat’s reputed appetite to save splitting the cash received with his missus, who, having looked after the animal since its birth, would naturally have wanted at least half the receipts.
  Anyway, this animal was a topic of general conversation for some time. Whether it actually existed is another matter, for I don’t think there was ever any hard proof either way. Various people in the Bar would comment, or venture an opinion and one night I remember it was reported that Sam’s wife’s sister was in a state of collapse because she had been attacked at the bottom of the Alley by something ‘black and horrible’ on her way back from the Welfare the night before. The chap sitting next to me, who apparently knew what the lady looked like, said quietly that in the matter of her being attacked ‘chance ‘ud be a fine thing’. But I don’t think anyone else heard him, which was a good thing really because Sam’s cousin was in the Bar that night and he did have a short temper.
  So the pleasant conversation and equally pleasant silences would carry on, with glasses being replenished across the bar as and when required. There was never any hard drinking though, just a steady supping that gave time for every mouthful of Mild to be thoroughly appreciated.
  The only lady to appear in the Bar was the Landlord’s wife who often took her husband’s place behind the beer pulls, lending an aura of feminine charm and a bit of class to the place when she did so. That didn’t mean there were no other females in the pub. Quite the contrary, there was a moderate sized contingent of the fairer sex there, though I never heard of a man rash enough to try to count them. They were all safely enclosed in The Ladies’ Room behind the bar and separated from it by a substantial brick wall that was pierced with a discreet serving hatch which opened from time to time to allow bottles of sweet stout and the odd port and lemon to pass into the unknown interior. Now and again sounds of merriment would filter through to us which, when it was a bit raucous, would make some of the men amongst us look a touch apprehensive, for it was well known that wives had few secrets from one another, and a chap’s reputation might well be being torn to shreds.
  And so the evenings passed very happily and quietly until Billy Fish came.
  Don’t get the idea that things took a downturn when Billy arrived. Not a bit of it. Quite the reverse. Billy’s arrival was looked forward to for at least two reasons.
  The first was that Billy, always wearing a snowy white jacket and scrubbed as clean as a man could be, brought with him a big wicker basket, covered with a fresh white cloth, filled with little waxed paper cups of prawns, mussels and cockles, all cooked to perfection and fit to make the best accompaniment to a pint of mild or bitter that anyone could devise. His stock sold like proverbial hot cakes, but he never ran out of goodies because he had a little van parked outside with reserve supplies should they be needed.
  The second reason was that he was the signal for a lot of fun and merry banter. Billy was good natured and exceptionally good tempered, some would say he had to be. He wasn’t exactly half sharp, but he was what was euphemistically called ‘slow’. In a broad south Dudley dialect he would gently reply to all the banter that was thrown at him, denying the suggestion (made in fun, for it was as far from the truth as you could get) that anything in his basket wasn’t absolutely fresh and bought in live that very morning. First he would serve the Bar, then he would go to the Ladies’ Room and look after their appetites. Then he would come back to the bar to cash up, and that was where the fun would really start.
  The Bush was at the end of Billy Fish’s rounds. Every Saturday Billy would count out his night’s taking, all in silver and copper, on the bar and the landlord would change it for paper money. This was useful two ways. Billy didn’t have his pockets sagging with a dead weight of metal, and the gaffer had a till full of small change that would save him going to the bank for a week.
  While Billy was closely occupied carefully counting and piling his coins, one or other of the chaps sitting close by the door to the passage would quietly pick up his basket and silently take it through to the Ladies Room. By the time Billy was done swapping monies there was no trace of his basket to be seen, nothing but a bar full of innocent faces... and expectancy.
  Poor Billy. He would turn from the bar and make to pick up the basket that was now nowhere to be seen "Weers me baskit?" he would ask plaintively, only to be met with "What baskit’s that Bill?" and "I aye sid no baskit, an yoh?" or something like that said between ourselves. Great show would be made of searching for the basket, blokes getting up, moving chairs, looking under the impossibly tiny table that wouldn’t have concealed so much as a single prawn. General mayhem reigned, people asking "What’s it look like Bill?" and Billy, confused, searching vainly and trying to explain what his basket looked like, and nobody understanding and Billy being asked to explain again.
  After minutes of this it would dawn on Billy that it might be in the Ladies Room, and off he would rush down the corridor. That was the signal for the serving hatch to be swiftly opened and the basket passed through it back into the bar, where it was replaced in the exact same spot from which it had been taken.
  After more minutes punctuated by laughter and squawks of delight from the other room, Billy would return, flustered almost to distraction. Then he would see his basket and transformed into a happy chap again, with beatific smile of gratitude, he’d say "Oh mah werd! Theer it is!" and he would pick it up gently as one might a long lost child. Then he would go off into the night with many a good natured slap on the back and kind words to speed him.
  And believe it or not, that’s how it went, with minor variations, week after week. Billy always seemed too daft to tumble to what was going on and the regulars, never tiring of a good joke with no harm done, repeating the formula almost as a ritual.
  Then one day I saw Billy standing at a bus stop in Dudley. I offered him a lift and he climbed in beside me. To my surprise he seemed to recognise me. That wasn’t the only surprise. His mouth wasn’t slack, nor was his face vacant, and what had happened to his thick dialect? He thanked me for the lift in as close to received pronunciation as any of us Black Country men can get (somehow you can never lose the double value given to a vowel, no matter how hard you try). I admit I was taken aback. This was no half-sharp shellfish salesman, no indeed. We spent a pleasant journey together talking about all kinds of things in a very grown-up way. I couldn’t keep my curiosity to myself; as he was about to get out of the car I asked him straight out what it was all about? Why the deception? How did he put up with being patronised and made a laughing stock – albeit a well-meaning laughing stock? Billy laughed and said he really believed that Daft Billy could sell a lot more prawns and mussels than Ordinary Billy would. But why? I persisted. Billy smiled and explained that he and his wife were putting the daughter through university and every penny helped.
  And that was that. I never told anyone what I knew, nor I guess did Billy expect me to. The charade continued of a Saturday night, just the same, with never a flicker of recognition between Billy and me, though I did fancy a couple of times that he winked at me.

The Not So Small Small Print.

(Jack is very flattered... but is forced to say...)
I’ve had a surprising number of e-mails from people who have said very nice things about the couple of little stories that I’ve posted already. It really is very kind of them, and I’m very pleased that they found my bits and pieces worth reading.
I’ve even had a very nice e-mail from a university professor who asked very courteously if he could use my piece on two-up, two-down cottages. As you can imagine I felt very flattered and immediately said of course he could. Anything that helps education in any way is wonderful, and the thought that my two-pennyworth might come in handy is just great.
But now I have had two e-mails warning me that something very like my first tale, almost word for word in fact, has very recently appeared in a paid-for publication. Not only have I had not one word from the editor asking my permission, but neither have I had an offer of even a penny piece for the author.
That, in my book, is theft.
I like the idea of anyone enjoying my memories very much indeed, but I don’t much care for the idea that some unworthy skunk is making money out of them without so much as a by-your-leave, or – even more importantly – without paying Jack for the material that has been stolen.
Anyway, it’s now all been taken out of my hands. A very nice publisher, who seems to think there might be some reward in it for both of us, has written to me making me an offer that no OAP in his right mind could refuse, the gist of which is that he will buy FBSRs on everything that I write with a first option to buy full copyright on any part of it, or all of it, should I wish to dispose of my rights permanently. That of course doesn’t stop me sharing my memories with you on this blog, I’ve made sure of that, but he does insist that to protect both of us I must now make it plain that I unequivocally claim copyright in the contents of this blog and must reserve all my rights. Further he says I must say that, without limiting my rights, no part of this blog may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical recording or otherwise without prior permission. He then added, parenthetically, that any infringement will be met will the full force of the law, and that his legal department will be watching.
I told him that none of my friends would dream of doing anything like that, but he said he wasn’t addressing my friends, who he felt sure are all most honourable. What he is doing is warning the fortunately small number of real pirates who cruise the web these days.
Well all this sounds dreadfully formal and I’m very sorry to have to say it all, but apparently we live in a naughty world..........