Bloody M.P's ar eer as tha looked up chimney.

[cuttsie]

WHEN I was very young in the late 1940s I remember being woken up because the bedroom [with frost on the inside of the window] was suddenly bathed in a bright light.

Now to a five year old this was very frightening as the fear of bogy men was prevalent in those days as your mam would often say "if tha dun't behave bogy man will get thi".

 

After all these years I am still scared of bogy man;)

But!!!!! it was not the bogy man who entered my frozen bedroom that night but theM.P.'s , not the fiddling type that pretend to look after us in Parliament but proper M.P's with peak caps and red bands around them caps.

 

They were from his Majesty's army and where looking for our Alan who it seemed had deserted along with Les Briddon from Gleadless Common.

 

Now our Alan who was a conscript along with millions of others did not like the bloody army and would at all times forget when his leave had actually expired so along with Les from Gleadless Common he would extend the few days into a few weeks or so.

 

Les would declare that he was a pacifist and did not agree in being made to be shot at even though he was in the R.A.F. [Ground crew] he also hated flying saying that it was dangerous and unnatural to any thing that was not an Owl,[ Les was a blade and appeared in that daft film , When Saturday comes].

 

Any way getting back to the raid on our humble frozen abode.

The bloody M.P.s kicked our porch door in and entered our scullery without even checking that the door was unlocked [ as it always was due to the fact that no one would be daft enough to think that we had owt worth pinching ].

 

They then run through no 64 at great speed while being bit by our gip the Jack Russell .

My Ma suitably dressed in her winter woollies inc four cardigans and a pair of long Johns tackled the invaders at the top of the stairs and sent them backwards while shouting "what the bleedin hell are yor lot here for"

 

This lead to a lull in the raid as the sergeant said" we are here to take your Alan back as he has deserted'

 

My Ma retorted' well tha can **** off because he caught train to York this afternoon and he will be back int barracks now tha twaat'

 

This caused a sudden about turn in the raid on Gleadless Crescent as the Military Police did a retreat from my Ma [she licked em single handed while me and Jim [dad] stood behind her shivering because it was bleedin freezing].

Mean while as the sergeant slowly backed towards the kicked in porch door she called him back and said' does tha want a cup or tea love tha looks frozen"

 

Less Briddon was hiddon in the coal house next to the kicked in porch door and they never even looked.

 

My Ma was the greatest women that ever lived , she adopted me after I had been abandoned by rich parents [another story] even though she was as skint as a fart and stuck up for me just the same as she stuck up for our Alan through thick and thin.