SELECTIONS FROM VOICES

INTRODUCTION 

THE MANCHESTER BASED MAGAZINE OF WORKING CLASS WRITING

“During the Autumn and Winter of 1971-1972, an English class met at New Cross Ward Labour Club, which I conducted. Its purpose was twofold: to discuss literature on the basis of a Marxist analysis, and to encourage free and original expression by the class members. These aims are distinct, and are not easily brought into one focus in a series of class meetings. The collection of writings by 20 contributors contains the work of 15 contributors who attended the class, including me. Six other contributions have been included because we knew them as the work of worker-writers. 

I can make no great claims for these pieces, except that they are, it seems to me, varied, interesting, freshly written, and in most cases the work of men and women taking up a pen late in life; with some qualms, though with real curiosity as to how it will turn out. We offer this collection to the Labour movement at large, but especially of Manchester and district. We hope to produce another collection towards the end of 1972, and will welcome any contribution from anyone in the Labour and T.U. movement and we would also welcome criticisms and comments from all who may feel able to make them.” 

Ben Ainley’s modest introduction to issue 1 of Voices had much to be modest about. A glance at the facsimiles of that truly rats-arsed production show a ragged collection of pages, execrably laid out, typed by two different typists (one on quarto the other on foolscap, just to make things interesting) and hurriedly stapled together (my own copy has several duplicate pages). Could he have imagined that ten years later the magazine would be on sale nationwide and still going strong four years after his own death? Issue 2 is missing from this collection. Issue 3 appeared a year later. The format had settled down to something approaching A4 and now the pages were punched and held together with treasury tags (bits of string with toggles). Issue 4 had the ingenious front cover of a V sign repeated the other way round on the back to look like a victory sign. Issue 5 was the last of the big format With issue 6, the house-style had become A5 at about 60 pages and began to include drawings and photographs in a progress which owed more to Xerox and Bill Gates than Communism and Karl Marx.  

One added confusion was in the numbering system. Issue 7 became issue 1 “New Series” (perhaps the “new start” syndrome – just like the French revolutionaries restarting the calendar in 1793.) But after issue 14 (labelled as Issue 8 – still with me?) Issue 15 reverted to the original numbering system and became – issue 15. Simple really.

Even Cyril Connolly, the editor of the wartime Horizon thought that any literary magazine had a natural life of no more than ten years – and so it was with Voices. Rick Gwilt a young lorry driver with a degree from Lancaster University (an acolyte of professor David Craig) took over after Ben’s death but couldn’t disguise a lack of novelty and nerve as the production staggered to its death. The gap between issue 22 and 23 had pushed out to 15 months. It may have gone on longer but I saw no issues after 23. 

Not much in Voices had great aesthetic merit although it did have contributions by two writers who became nationally known figures – John Cooper Clark and Jimmy McGovern. It was, however, genuinely working class and a great outpouring from a previously unheard community. Poetry was a preponderant mode in the early issues and some readers complained of this. But poetry in Voices is mostly just chopped up prose and should be read as such. Extended prose works were either factual reminiscences such as Frank Morgan’s The Glass Works or Joe Day’s Recollections of the General Strike. These might get some literary processing to become stories such as Vivien Leslie’s Bronchitis Mk. II about working on a production line, John Small’s funny account of Liverpool binmen in A Dead Dog Story or Roger Mills’ story of removal men in The Movers.

Maybe Voices did flip across the boundary between sociology and literature but it’s that strange hybrid quality which gives it a unique fascination. There are boring longeurs and much trite, derivative, sentimental, propagandist claptrap but the apparatchiks were just as often sidelined to make way for the authentic proletarian voices. 

Ken Clay Feb 2000

The complete text and graphics of issues 1 - 31 are now on a website at www.mancvoices.co.uk

The Glass Works – Frank Morgan

Recollections of the General Strike – Joe Day

The General Strike – B.J. Hill

Bronchitis Mk II – Vivien Leslie

Dead Dog Story – John Small

The Movers – Roger Mills

Whatever Happened to the Good Samaritan – Jimmy McGovern

Them and Us - Mike Rowe

Jubilee - Mike Rowe

Memoirs – Ben Ainley

Michael's Story - Mike Weaver 

THE GLASS WORKS

Frank Morgan 

The Glass Works was now owned by the Co-op, purchased to meet the ever growing demand for milk, jam and sauce containers. It had previously been owned in the old glass blowing days, by Mr. Jones an important figure in the town, and a City magistrate, who sold it for a sum reputed to be around £50,000 The co-op had immediately installed three large, second-hand automatic bottle-making machines, made in Cincinatti. So, whilst mountains of silver sand and soda-ash went into the factory at one end, an endless stream of bottles and jars came out at the other, an average of 20 a minute, off each machine, 24 hours a day, millions of jars a year. 

Johnny wondered, "who could eat all this jam? Even the Co-op couldn't surely be selling all that much sauce." He had never worked in a place like this glass works. The loud clatter of the machines, the oil and dust, the pungent smell of burning lubricant liberally used to regularly swab the hot machines; the intense heat of the large furnace operating at more than 1250^O centigrade, with large annealing ovens in close proximity to the machines. All made for almost intolerable conditions in the heat of the summer but in winter it was warm and pleasant. Above all the character of the men fascinated Johnny. They appeared to be moulded by the conditions of manufacturing within the factory. He had found that all the machine men and helpers were rogues, liars and thieves. He found to his cost that anything of value, tools or materials mysteriously disappeared if he turned his back or misplaced them. Nothing was sacred. There was no respect for authority, no discipline, except that imposed by the machines, their speed determining the bonus earnings. The supervisors and foremen were regarded contemptuously as supernumeraries as far as the men were concerned, except when the machines broke down or were held up for reasons outside the men's control who as a result, lost their bonus. Earnings were high for 1936, in the region, a consistent wage of £7 to £0 a week for 37.5 hours when generally a skilled engineering craftsman received £3.12. per week for 44 hours. Thus any stoppages were violently dealt with by the men and the foreman was suitably abused. 

It appeared that when Jones the previous owner was a magistrate on the bench during the First World War the culprits before him were given a choice of either a sentence in the army in the mud and blood of the Flanders fields or to work in his Glass Works. Most of those who thus appeared, being sensible men, preferred the Glass-works to the Glass-house, especially as the slaughter in France was at its height.

Jones died just after the sale of his factory to the Co-op but he left all his money to his secretary - not a penny piece to his wife. The lads told Johnny 'he did it to spite his wife because she made scenes at the factory about his secretary. He got on well with his secretary they said. 'Cow Elsie we called her'. She did most of her secretarial work on the new couch in the office that Jones had bought specially. We used to watch 'em from the stairs and she knew we were watching. They were the rummest crowd that Johnny had ever seen or worked with in his job as a skilled maintenance engineer. 

There was 'Mad Alf', a scrawny wisp of a man who had been in trouble with the law more than once. On drawing his wage of £7.10/- he would separate £2 to give his wife. 'Is that all you are giving your wife out of that packet and you are keeping all the rest for yourself?" "Course I am" said Alf, 'Don't forget, I buy my own clothes out of it'

Then there were the two brothers who had a tremendous reputation as lady killers. Many a time a husband arrived at the factory enquiring with violence in his voice as to the where-abouts of Dickie. Dickie was never around of course, but unfortunately had his love life ruined later when somebody, either by accident or design, dropped a blob of hot glass down his trousers. 

After a while Johnny came to realise that he had no longer to face hostility in his relations with the men. They even returned his tools or materials that he had inadvertently left on the machine floor. He had been accepted 'on all fours' with the rest of the shop. 

There was nothing these men would not do to help you once you had been accepted. Their comradeship which was so tightly knit, was in fact Johnny came to realise, directed against authority. This was their common denominator. 

An example of this was the occasion when a foreman nicknamed 'Knocker', (he was a joiner by trade) had the gall to sit outside the main exit to prevent the men leaving before their recognised meal-break at 12-30 Somebody, by arrangement, from an upstairs window conveniently placed, poured a full bucket of water on to Knocker. It was said by an eye witness that he received every drop in the bucket. Every worker in the factory knew who had tipped the water. The management however does not know to this day who the culprit was. 

Alas, the old glass works is no more. Its inadequate lay out and out-of-date machines proved unable to cope with the expanding demands of new generations of bottled-food eaters. Its workers scattered with their specialist skills to the four winds of industry. New gigantic factories have been built to serve Co-op  customers, but where-ever the bottles were made, it's quite certain that the workers in those factories will have the same disregard for authority as those employed in the old Glass Works. 

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE GENERAL STRIKE

Joe Day

In another 4 years and a few months, 50 years will have passed since the General Strike of 1926.My memory is not the best in the World. In fact I have a struggle remembering what happened last week, yet some of the happenings that took place during and shortly after the General Strike are as clear to me as if they had happened yesterday. 

I was 16 years old at the time and worked for the L.M.S. Railway Company, and I was considered to be fortunate in having a job that brought in regular wages and holidays with pay. Very few people had holidays with pay in those days. 

The General Strike itself only lasted a few days, and during that time every town and City in the land had it's march and demonstration. The march that took place in Manchester culminating in a huge meeting held in Platt Fields, seemed and still seems to me to be the greatest march ever held. Never have I had the feeling of excitement that I had that day. Maybe it was because I was very young and this was my first march and everything was very new to me. 

I walked along with my young workmates and felt as proud as Punch. It seemed to me that all the world was marching that day. 

There were policemen everywhere, almost one policeman to each row of marchers and their normal duties such as traffic control etc. were taken over by the Special Constabulary. 

We saw many of these Specials on the march to Platt Fields and booed and catcalled every one of them with great enthusiasm. We, the young ones really enjoyed it all. 

Finally we reached Platt Fields, where platforms had been erected and speakers were already addressing the huge crowds round each platform. 

At the particular platform we arrived at the speaker was describing how God had made the world. Eventually he reached the point in his speech of the last and lowest form of life God had made - a jelly fish. He paused and then apologised to his audience, "I am sorry," he said, "there was something he made that was lower than a jellyfish, he made a scab." This got a great cheer from the crowd and a man standing near where I and my workmates were standing, shouted in a loud but most beautiful Oxford accent, "Hear, hear, Oh hear, hear." We had never heard this form of applause before, and we nearly died. - it bowled us over completely.

It was a huge source of fun to us on our walk home, each of us every few minutes would mimic the man in our best cut glass accents. 

That march was my first industrial and political commitment and it made a great and lasting impression upon me. 

After the Strike was ended, partly because of the disorganisation to industry, and partly I think for punishment revenge not all the strikers were taken back immediately. Each day a list of names was placed in the window of the lodge naming the men who had to start back the next day and I was out of work for 5 weeks before I started back This long wait to start back was the cause of some concern to my mother, who badly missed my wages and was convinced that I would never start back again. 

The hatred, anger and bitterness of the men after this Strike was really astounding to me. I have never encountered it in such a widespread manner since. 

You must remember that I was only 16 at the time and all this was new to me and I didn't fully understand what was happening around me.  It was impossible not to overhear the men talking and arguing and you couldn’t avoid this intense anger, it rubbed off on one. 

One man, who, it was said had been a warder at Strangeways sometime in his life and who had been a blackleg during the Strike, was given regular work, whilst many of the strikers still remained unemployed. Although this man had never worked on the railway before the strike. The men felt that this was another way of rubbing their noses in it, and were not prepared to stand it. 

It was with great difficulty that the Union Officials at the station prevented them from going out on strike again. 

They gave this man a terrible time, he was constantly in arguments and fights until one day he never came back. I don't think the Management sacked him, I think he left of his own accord. 

During the Strike our strike headquarters were in a room over a coal yard. To reach this room it was necessary to climb several steep wooden stairs which finished with small platform surrounded by a handrail. This led to the door of the room where the strike committee met every day and all day. 

It was the habit of the Chairman of the Union branch, who was also the Strike Committee Chairman, to come out of this room, stand on this platform and give us the news of the strike or read out a telegram to us, This he did several times a day. 

One day when we were all standing about in the yard waiting for news of the progress of the strike, he came out of the room and stood on the platform. We all looked up expectantly and immediately it was obvious that he was drunk. He stood there for a couple of minutes swaying and then shouted down to us "Stand firm and solidarity", and then fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom and lay there sleeping. 

He was a big man this Chairman, and was popular and well liked by the men. 

Some 12 months or so after the strike, he was offered a Foreman's job by the Management and he took it. The anger and bitterness of the men hadn’t abated very much and they took this appointment very badly. He was a traitor and they did everything possible to make his life a misery. This attitude of his old comrades was too much for him. 

We watched him shrink visibly and after about 13 months as a Foreman, he died. "They" said it was with a broken heart, whatever that may mean. 

For many years afterwards, you would hear the men talk about others who had played a bad role in the General Strike, with the same viciousness and contempt that Irishmen are able to put into their voices when they talk about the "Black & Tans". 

Looking back I think that 1926 was the nearest thing to Revolution this country has been in my lifetime and I can't help wondering how different the situation would have been if the Government hadn't had the foresight to imprison some of the Left Wing leaders in l925 and to keep them in prison during this confrontation of 1926. 

And so I could go on with many more memories of the 1926 Strike, but that would make a book and that is not what was asked for. 

THE GENERAL STRIKE

B. J. Hill

I left school when 13 years of age to work in a pawn shop for 8/- per week. My job was to obtain the keys from the local police shop in Belle Vue Street, now the British Legion Club, dash to the shop for the manager to open up. There was always a big queue on Monday mornings and woe betide me if we didn't open up at 7am. Pledges such as suits, boots, costumes etc taken out at weekends for one day's sartorial splendour were the first things to be 'popped' and cries of "Hurry up you little so and so. He is waiting for his dinner money" were mild compared to some. It was late in 1918, the Great War was soon to be over and industry was sacking men and women left and right, and my few months at the pawn shop revealed to me the many hardships and poverty unemployment brought. I had three sisters doing war work on the Great Central Railway and my eldest sister got me a job on the railway as I had reached the manly age of 14, celebrated by my mother buying me a new suit, my first pair of long trousers. Talk about walk tall, as I escorted my two other sisters to the Palace Theatre as a treat. They had both lost their husbands, killed at the Dardanelles battle thanks to Churchill and his blundering. So here I was working on a main line signal box for £1.00 for a 48 hour week as a train register boy. You entered all trains and times they passed your section, and I loved every minute of it. The signalman to whom I was attached was a bearded Tom Griffiths, a Methodist lay preacher and city councillor who used to rant and rave about the injustices of the capitalist system, and as I was with him for four years he had me at it - tub thumping.

Bear with me. I am coming to the General Strike and what it did for me. By 1926, I had left the signalbox, for at 20 years of age I became an adult and was made a station porter for £1/15/- per week. I was on the late shift finishing at 11 .30pm and at midnight the General Strike began. What worried me most was the station cat who was about to have her umpteenth lot of kittens and as she was a real station cat, the station was her castle and many a dog has fled yelping during her pregnancies. Also four churns of milk had arrived from Rowsley on the last train, a regular thing to happen but with Kitty locked up in the cosy and warm porter's room, as I locked the station gates, I remember thinking Kitty and her brood will be OK for milk. The pickets were already at the station entrance, watching me lock up, and just as I made to get on my bike I was handed a picket armband and told I would be relieved at 6am the following morning. I was there when the horse-drawn milk float drew up. Now this chap was built like a tank. I told him he couldn't get his milk as we were on strike and the station was locked up. I was expecting the roof to fall in, but all he said was he would come back and as he turned the horse around he said "Give Kitty some milk out of the small churn" He always had a tit-bit for her.

The time, 5 o'clock in the morning of the first day of the General Strike and as the clip-clop of the horses hooves and the rumbling iron rimmed wheels died away, I suddenly realised how still and quiet it had become, no factory hooters, clanging tramcars, it was the stillness of a Sunday morning a hundredfold. As I walked wheeling my bike home, the streets were empty, no shops lit for early trade, it was ghostly, a grave yard, which it was to become, of jobs and hopes, dreams and human endeavours. My heavy tread seemed out of place in such silence, so I mounted my bike for the rest of the way.

When I joined the railway I was told I had a job for life, which I had for the next fifty years. There was a large number of neighbours children of my age. How they envied me my job as one year led to another and still no work. The General Strike affected lives so deeply that the scars are still there after all these years. (Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, was spoken of on the Tele the other evening and the way I went on about the b . . . my family asked me if I was losing my marbles.) I could sing a bit in those days and I used to join the pathetic little groups of Welsh Miners who had to resort to begging in the streets, singing their hearts out in neighbourhoods that had nothing to give. It was nearly two years before I went back on full time. Some of my mates never got back. When the strike was over this was how we had to work: on Sundays with few trains running, sign on, open station for ten minutes before train due, ten minutes later, sign off on duty twenty minutes. This went on until 11pm, when finished, total hours to be paid for: 6 hrs 20mins. for a day lasting from 5.30am until 11pm, a total of 17hrs. 30 mins. And we were glad of it!

Kitty had her kittens. The milk churns had to be emptied in a hole we dug. The students whom I curse the memory of, tried to play trains. What a mess they left with their strike breaking efforts! Because there was little to do when we returned to work, one of the jobs we had to do was tidy up this mess and two of us were sent to clean the very signalbox where I started my railway life. How I loved to polish the levers and instruments, scrub and shine. Two students had manned this place and the sight that greeted us made me vomit, buckets used as toilets, dozens and dozens of beer bottles, empty of course, fouled bedding, stale and rotting food, and a beautiful Atlantic type steam locomotive off the rails and on its side, wrecked. These engines were the pride of all of us. We nicknamed them "Jersey Lillies" after the beautiful Lilly Langtry. This was an unpardonable sin and here I am living through it all again though half a century ago. I don't know if my ramblings are anything like what you want but it has done me good to hammer this out with one finger although I am getting dirty looks from my family as my click-click-clicking is spoiling the TV programmes for them.

BRONCHITIS MK. II

Vivien Leslie 

Ellie stood handless as a relative at a deathbed as she watched them dismantle Bronchitis MK I in a frenzy of spanners and wrenches. It came apart so easily and Ellie saw its metal guts for the first time, spilled out in a tumble of gears and rods and plates and screws at her feet. She thought it disappointing that the source of all its familiar tempers and judders and jerks should turn out to be this heap of cold metal pieces that couldn't muster a shine between them. It was a sorry looking sight now that it was pulled clear of the assembly line and stood in lonely glory in the aisle, with its flaking islands of paint sticking defiantly to sheltered edges, its leads sprawling from its belly like tree roots, leaning on its bent legs now that the support of the neighbouring machine was gone. Ellie knew the history of each patch on its body, the oversized lever that had replaced the original, the cardboard square where the inspection plate had been, and the place where her tools hung, bearing light patches, each the perfect outline of the tool which hung in front of it. The men quickly captured and roped up the snaking leads, levered the whole lot onto a trolley, shovelled the screws and gears onto the sides and suddenly, Bronchitis I was gone.

Ellie turned to the space and picked up a brush. There was only a silhouette in dust left now and she was loath to sweep it away and make the space truly empty. People were looking at her though and she drew the brush across the floor quickly and it was all gone. She went and sat with the girl at the next bench and waited and presently heard trolley wheels again, also a speculative hum advancing down the line, but she did not turn to look even when she felt her arm brushed by a man's back as he worked the new machine into place. The men were talking, advising, warning, taking care with the new machine because it was very expensive and still wrapped in polythene, littered with printed cards saying TAKE GREAT CARE. USE NO HOOKS. FRAGILE, and various other technical instructions. Out of the corner of her eye Ellie saw the power lead wriggle across the floor, bright new flex and a white plug. She shuddered. Then her supervisor was at her side and talking to her.

"The instructress will be down in a minute to start you off. Dou you want to get the feel of it? Sit down at it and look it over?"

As she could not put it off any longer, Ellie rose and nodded and looked at it. It was smaller. The same shape near enough, but neater and sleeker, a glimmering burnished silver thing with sharp square edges and a funny smell. Slowly she sat down and began to examine it. There were no levers, no foot switch, no clicking indicators, nothing to touch except two buttons. ON and OFF. At eye-level a glass square looked at her. Peering into it she saw dimly a black word. NIL. That was it. A hole at either end and two buttons. Ellie's heart sank at its dullness and she sat wishing that her wheezing, rackety Bronchitis I was in front of her and that she was listening and guiding it through its work, coaxing it over its sticking stage and banging on the indicator till it rattled home. The pitch of her longing surprised her; she felt sick.

"Haven't you plugged in yet, Ellie?"

Ellie looked up at the instructress and grimaced. She bent under the machine and pushed the plug into the socket and flicked the switch down. The machine buzzed loudly and Ellie cracked her head on its belly as she jerked up in surprise, Bronchitis I had been silent when switched on. The instructress laughed and helped her into her seat. She stared at it amazed.

"Like bloody Blackpool!" she said, regarding the sudden appearance of coloured lights in some awe. They were everywhere. Beside the two buttons, along the top, inside the glass square which now pronounced NIL in a disapproving red glow, and from inside the machine the buzz was now constant and anxious. When she leaned closer Ellie saw that the machine was studded with glass squares behind which monosyllabic information was offered. SET. MIN. MAX. CUT. LOW. OVER. She shook her head.

"What's all that about?" she asked the instructress.

The instructress handed her a manual opened at a coloured diagram and Ellie scanned the closely printed page in some alarm.

"Am I supposed to learn all that!" she asked indignantly, noting the number of long words and symbols that dotted the page.

"You'll get used to it. It's easier than it looks. A lot of long words to describe simple things as usual. Come on now, Ellie, they wouldn't give us a machine we couldn't work, now would they?"

She was brisk now, anxious to get on with more important things and she appealed to Ellie's pride in an attempt to get started.

"It's easier than the other old crock, all electric and all automatic. You just shove a unit in here, check the indicators, press the ON button and out it comes all done. It stops itself if anything's wrong. You try." she said.

Ellie pushed a unit in and stabbed at the button sulkily. The buzz deepened and the unit appeared at the other end, finished.

"Simple as blinking!" announced the instructress.

Ellie stared at the unit in her hand, it was finished and yet she had heard nothing, no click as it settled into place, no whirr as the air driver descended, no bobble as it jumped out of the machine. It had all been silent except for one little click as NIL rolled over to ONE. And her hands, just a finger used, one prodded finger. Ellie was horrified.

"Oh no! I can't do this all day. I'll go nuts. I want to see the foreman. I'm not doing this." she announced firmly.

In the end there was a discussion on the line. The supervisor, the instructress and Ellie all talking in low voices, Ellie with some fervour, and it was agreed that Ellie would try it for a week and then they would all see how things were. Ellie agreed because she knew she would feel no differently a week hence and the other two agreed because they had been allowed a flat two hours change-over time and they were already ten minutes over that, and a week was a long time. Ellie sat and moodily prodded her button and the units went in and came out in silence and perfection - there was no need for Ellie's hookless tools - no hand repairs - just the glow and hum and complacency of the machine and Ellie's finger. She felt a bitter jealousy stir in her at the completeness of her dethronement, she wished it would burst into flames or blow up or just die on her but it stayed cool and efficient and accurate and disclosed no hint of a fault to Ellie.

She suddenly thought of her library book - a science fiction -about a world where machines did everything and people did things like walking and reading and dancing all day. Their machines had set them loose from work but hers had brought her misery in a few hours. She knew very well that her finger was all that was keeping her in her job and the knowledge came so hard and blunt at her that she said out loud. "It's not fair!" The book was stupid.

She could not bear the futility it forced upon her. In that trial week her fingers began the day loyal to Bronchitis I by reaching out for the lever and the crank, and each day she kicked herself for not remembering when it hurt her so to jerk herself back to its replacement and begin the weary prodding over again. She could not trust it, nor shake off a fretting that took hold of her more and more as the perfect units slid out of the machine and she looked them over for some fault that was never there. With Bronchitis I she had felt things happening, it had been loud and she had come to know the exact moment when each stage was reached even though she could see nothing and did not know precisely how it worked. But the Thing (she called it that, unable to bear christening it with a thoughtful name) remained silent. It had only one other noise than its buzz and this she had discovered when she poked a unit in back to front to see if it was up to a little fight. Then the glass squares had blinked all together and the belly of the thing had emitted a shrill angry whistle at her. Thereafter she poked at least one unit in back to front every day just to hear its indignation, sometimes prolonging the fault until her companions begged her to right it and stop the awful whistle. The fretting continued and so increased that she found herself so wound up that she had to switch it off and sit still for a moment while she forced herself to calm down. She began to fear she was turning out nothing but rejects, that real work had to be more effort, she took boxes and boxes of units to the supervisor pleading with him to look them over for her, and he became annoyed with her and told her to get back to work and stop fussing. She had cried and he had been frightened.

She couldn't sleep for frustration plucking at her muscles. Her husband had wakened, ill-tempered, and snarled at her. "For Christ's sake, lie down and be still!" She nudged him. "Tom, I want to leave the factory. Get another job. "There was a short silence before he mumbled. "We can't afford it." and fell back into sleep noisily. "That's another daft thing about that book. Where'd they get the money from for dancing all day?" she said to herself in the darkness. She laid down and tried to be still.

They all sat together in the tiny office, the supervisor, Ellie, the instructress and the foreman. The foreman had offered cigarettes and was fixing a genial smile into place before he spoke. Ellie looked miserable and the others, concerned.

"Now then, what's the trouble Ellie?"

She shifted in her chair, too miserable to speak and the silence embarrassed them all after a few moments so there was a rush to speak and a tangle of words, then a short polite silence before they all rushed in again. The foreman hauled out his authority.

"I understand the new machine is giving you trouble, rather, causing you some distress, Ellie?" Ellie nodded mutely.

"Don't you understand it? Surely, Mrs Peebles here, showed you how it works. I understood it was automatic. Has it been having teething troubles, anyone?" he asked them all.

"Oh, I showed Ellie but I have to say that she didn't . . well like it from the start. It's really very easy to operate and there's been no stoppage due to the machine." the instructress finished.

"Her work's fine. Target's up of course, with it being so much faster than Bronchitis I . .

"Faster than what . . . !" interrupted the foreman.

"Bronchitis I. My old machine. It was a real machine." Ellie said flatly.

"Compressed air." explained the supervisor. "It wheezed".

"Oh, I see ... well, look Ellie, can you not explain what is wrong. We'd like to help." the foreman asked gently.

Ellie straightened herself in her chair and looked hard at him. He was smiling encouragingly at her. She took a deep breath and spoke slowly, like an advocate assembling facts.

"Bronchitis I and me worked together - we were both important. I had to wind him along and watch him and he had to punch the units. You had to know him - you had to earn the right to work with him, by knowing the job and understanding him. My hands, well, my hands knew the job, they listened to him and knew when he needed a bang on the box. I felt him working. But now, I push the button and the electrics take over. I don't know what I've done. Christ! A monkey could do what I'm doing now and you wouldn't have to pay a monkey. I'm taking home pay for nothing and it's like I was stealing. I've no respect for myself. I used to feel tired at night because I'd worked all day and that meant I'd earned my money. I want off that job . . please." she finished in a low voice and her emotion filled the office as if it were a gas cloud stunning them. Such an appeal was unheard off in these surroundings - human to human, and the three listeners, threw their frantic gazes out of the window while their identical lumpish throats swallowed furiously in the silence.

"Okay, something mechanical, I think. Ellie, we'll work it out today and start you somewhere else tomorrow. We can't get Bronchitis back now, unfortunately. Run along." the foreman said to her departing back.

"Funny sort of girl that, she made me feel ashamed of something for a moment. Silly." he said to the supervisor, trying for their usual masculine conspiracy. "You don't think when they say you can have some new plant that it might interfere with things like this. I remember ordering that machine."

The supervisor faced him frowning.

"Just the same, someone's got to work it, and tomorrow since you let Ellie off from then. What if it happens again?" he asked worriedly.

"It won't. She must have been the sensitive type. Transfer one of your wooden-tops, one of the ones that can't tell left from right properly, someone who's doing something dead simple just now. And we'll take it as it comes after that. Okay?"

Next morning a new girl sat at the machine. The instructress was with her for five minutes and after that the girl prodded the button every twenty seconds throughout the day, fascinated by the glowing lights and the soft buzz of the machine. So pretty after that spitting solder bath, so quiet and dreamy, cushy job this, she thought, wonder why that other girl left it?

Ellie sat two lines up, bent over her hands, flexing the fingers around the unit she held, using them all as she tweaked, prodded, poked, wound and twisted multi-coloured leads into place slowly and with loving care. Eyes, ears and fingers taut, she felt her face uncrease as the pile of completed units grew and she saw already, that her units were recognisable in the pile by the way she twisted her leads, a little tighter and closer than the others. It was like a signature, Ellie's work, something that was hers and she was responsible for. A little way off the supervisor watched her and saw from the smooth arc of her spine that she was engrossed and content. "Daft bitch." he said to himself. 

DEAD DOG STORY

John Small

At half past one every Friday the big game starts. It's called "Catch the Sweeper". All the lads on the brush speck their carts, shovels and brushes ready to slope off to the alehouse. Uncle Jim Doyle, the "Walking Ganger", normally rides round the patches checking everyone is hard at work, but not Fridays. Fridays he is like the leader in the Tour de France, shooting from one beat to another. He is a man possessed with stopping an ebbing tide.

To anyone ignorant in the ways of the Corpy Cleansing Department, the sight of Uncle Jim roaring down streets, knuckles white on handle-bars, face awash in sweat, means nothing. Woollen-hatted heads popping round corners and earnest young men scurrying across streets fail to register in the public's mind. The game is private and personal to us, like. We do have rules which each side accepts; once inside the bar of Fat Anne's, snug behind a pint, waiting your turn on the pool table, you are home or safe. Each one can tell his story or swap with late-comers.

After hiding my cart and limbering up I made my break. From where my patch is it should have been a dead easy getaway. Down entries, along passages I moved like warm lard on a hot day. Just as I got to the main road, not two blocks from Fat Anne's, I heard the squeal of brakes behind me. I knew it was him before I turned.

"And where are you going, Clancy?", he said, as if he didn't know.

"Just going to the toilet, Jim, Why?" I could have bitten my tongue, no one says toilet, do they? A smile the size of an overripe banana came on his lips. Then his hand dipped in his pocket and pulled out a small white calling card.

"Have you seen anyone? Where's the Bug and Manxie? just going to join them were you?", he said.

"I was just going to the toilet, Jim."

I'd said it again. It was the white card I was thinking about - that meant an extra job for someone. He was getting excited. I can always tell. The nostrils of his bulbous nose began moving like concertinas. They have a magnetic appeal to me and my head started going up and down in rhythm with his breathing. He soon realised what I was doing and we had one of those embarrassed silences with his eyes burning into me.

"Before you go back to the yard, get this," he said with a snarl and handed the card over like it was a five-pound back-hander, dead sly like. One push on the pedals and he was gone, mumbling.

"The pride of England's youth, God help us."

He was in a good mood. I was going to put the card in my pocket and go to the alehouse anyway, but something made me look at it. In long hand script it said: Pick up dead dog, 24 Assisi Street, URGENT.

When I looked up he was half way down the road, his head turned back. Written all over his face was, "I've had you." You can't win them all. I knew it would happen sometime. So, after getting my cart I headed for Assisi Street, hoping to God it was a mistake.

The precinct has three avenues of shops all the same size and shape that sell mostly everything under the sun. Just as I was going through it, passing the Betting Office, the Bug and Manxie sneaked out on me. The Bug stroking his Zapata moustache, sidled over.

"Where are you going then, Plum Duff? No ale today?"

He gave Manxie, who had joined him, a dig in the ribs.

"Rumour has it that Uncle Jim is looking for a person to . . . er. do an important job." Manxie said, laughing at the same time.

Then the Bug really started.

"A sort of fella that likes animals. Have you any sawdust in your blood by any chance, Clancy, 'cause I bet you're favourite?"

He put his face on Manxie's shoulder and began to snigger. What can you say? They know everything that happens even before the Boss. I left them holding one another up in pleats of laughter.

24 Assisi Street was a red-bricked house with brown woodwork and a wrought iron fence. A young piece opened the door. She was wearing no make-up, always a sign of class, that.

"I've come for the dog," I said.

Really nice, she said, "Would you go round the back, please?", and then walked back into the hall.

Her little daughter was standing in the back yard. She was aged about four, with big hazel eyes behind long lashes. Tarts in clubs spend hours trying to achieve the same effect. A mop of black curls hung on her shoulders. She looked vulnerable.

The dog was in a lean-to shed wrapped in an old blanket. I was getting more nervous all the time.. Before her mother could usher the girl into the house she asked me, "Where are you taking my Sally, Mister?"

I know it sounds soft but I couldn't leave her without an answer. "I 'm going to take Sally to the cemetery. I've got a nice spot under the tree for her and I'll give her some flowers."

The little girl burst into tears and ran into the house. Her mother followed, after giving me an envelope. I put the shovel under the dog, Sally, and carried her to the cart. Then my problems started. See, Sally was a big dog with long pale hair, the colour of a Labrador. She was never meant to fit in any iron bin. I tried one way, then the other, until the blanket fell off her head. Two black eyes stared out of their sockets and seemed to follow me round. The way things were shaping up I'd have been there until dark. Finally I managed to get the dog's back legs in the bin. All the time I'd been pushing and shoving, strange noises came from the dog's belly. In the end I hit it with me shovel and wedged it in a forward facing position. Then I headed back to the yard. Sally in the lead with vacant eyes.

The only way back to the yard from Assisi Street is through the shopping precinct or around the ring road, which adds ten minutes to the journey. I was in no mood for a trip around the district so I took the short cut, but it still seemed ages before I was at the top of the precinct. It was packed with women holding bags of groceries, the posh ones pulling wicker carts. Things would have been all right only for this old woman wearing a cloche hat. She was as daft as they come. Give the rest of the women their due, they moved over, dead nice like, when they saw me coming. Some jumped into shops and others stood still watching but saying nothing, like. Then outside the butcher's that old woman heads for me. Everyone was watching her. She had a bit of paper in her hand and was going to put it in one of me bins. There are still people like that you know. I had to stop for her. She didn't even notice the dog at first.

"Thank you, son", she said, dropping the paper in the bin.

"All right, Ma," I said, ready to push off smart like. Then she saw the dog.

"That's a very nice dog you've got there. What's her name?"

"Sally," I said.

"Just taking Sally out for a walk, are you?"

"Yeah, sort of, Ma. She's not too good on her dolly pegs these days."

Well, what else could I say. Everyone in the precinct had stopped, even the shop assistants were staring out of the windows.

"Well, Sally, I hope you enjoy your walk," she said. I knew she'd stroke the dog when she pulled her glove off. The wizened hand seemed to take forever to touch Sally. With long determined strokes on the dog's side and finally a good scratch under the ears the old dear stopped.

"She's a very quiet dog, isn't she?" she said.

I didn't half think quick.

"She's a bit old now, can't even close her eyes when she sleeps." The dog's stomach rumbled.

"You should take her to the vet, you know. I have a bit of eye trouble myself."

"More than you know," I thought. With a happy sigh the old dear left. I was glad to see the back of her.

A sound like a bag of wet mortar being dropped came from the fruit shop. Mrs Dixon had fainted. Just as I got to the end of the precinct, her husband, the shop owner, came running after me. He was shouting, "I saw it. I saw it all!!" You'd have thought he'd been robbed the way he went on.

"I'll report you! I can report you," he kept saying. So I called the yard's open phone number out without turning round. He wants to be a councillor and leads all sort of crackpot committees that make beds of nails for Corpy bosses. The best thing is that he sells second grade fruit at top prices and pays bad wages. A typical dyed in the wool, small time Tory.

The two angels of doom were leaning on the wall outside the yard gate. The Bug started, "What was Rin-Tin-Tin's master's name?"

Then it was Manxie's turn.

"How many puppies did Lassie have in her last film?" The Bug said he didn't know and that I was the expert on doggery. More laughs. I told them to get stuffed and walked away. As an afterthought, the Bug said I was sacked. There had been a phone call about me. The Bug never makes mistakes about things like that. Well, if they were going to sack me I'd give them something to remember me by.

"Watch this," I said. Have you ever had a fantasy? You know, when you see the hero in a film crash a car into a wall and then get out and walk away. Other fellas can kill ten men and lay as many women in between. I think Tarzan's the best. He's my hero, swinging from trees and wrestling lions that have no teeth or claws. I made me mind up to give Simpson a nightmare to remember me by.

The container where we empty our carts is facing the office window. That's where I parked mine. First I gave them a cracking Tarzan call to wake them all up in the office. Then I pulled the dog by the collar from the bin and threw it on the floor. It bounded back at me almost right at my throat but I just pulled away in time. It was so real even the Bug and Manxie liked it and egged me on. Then I slipped over and the dog rolled on top of me. What a performance! Uncle Jim had to spoil it. He called "Clancy, get in this office. Now!"

Simpson, the Inspector, was sitting behind the desk. The office smelt of whiskey. He'd been on the bottle again. Uncle Jim stood behind me.

"Well, what have you to say for yourself?" Simpson said, hoping to bait me and get things going his way. I wasn't having any.

"Can I have a new pair of gloves?" I said. "These have blood on them," then I threw them on the desk in front of him. You'd have thought they were live sewer rats the way he jumped up. The best about it was it was only tomato sauce from a broken bottle in the container.

He shouted "Get them off my desk!"

I picked them up.

"Listen, Mr. Bloody Clancy, I've had phone calls from half the shops in the precinct. You've caused murder up there. People from the town office will hear about this."

Just for a laugh I said, "The dog was dead when I picked it up and it was you that wanted it picked up anyway."

He said, "My God! For what you did today, people have been locked up in lunatic asylums for the rest of their lives." He had the pipe out of his mouth and was pointing it at me.

"Don't take it in the wrong spirit, Boss," I said, hoping he'd take the hint about his drinking. His eyes bulged and his ears were glowing red.

"Well, you won't be picking up any more dogs. You're sacked, Clancy!"

"Right!" I said. "I'll see you at the Industrial Tribunal and if I go, someone will go with me."

Uncle Jim stepped forward and asked me to wait outside as Simpson started screaming "Get out!".

I did and outside of the door I heard them talking. Uncle Jim was telling Simpson that the last fella to take the Corpy to a tribunal walked away with two hundred pounds in his pocket, and what would happen if he did the same. The phone rang and Simpson kept saying, "Yes, Yes. Right, Madam. Thank you."

When he put the phone down, Uncle Jim was at him again. "He'll blow you up about the drinking, Stan. He's a head case."

Simpson waited for a minute and then said, "Go and tell him."

Uncle Jim came out and said I was not sacked after all and winked. The woman whose dog it was had just phoned up and thanked the boss, saying how nice I had been when collecting the dog. Then he went back into the office. I followed after the door was closed. Uncle Jim asked Simpson what he was going to do with me as I couldn't go back to the precinct beat. Simpson said, "Well, if he's a lunatic, a head case, I'll do what Napoleon did with them. I'll get a bigger lunatic head case to look after a little lunatic head case."

All Jim said was, "Not Sharkey?"

"That's right," Simpson said. "Now send the lad home."

Outside the gate the Bug and Manxie were waiting for me. They started howling and barking when they walked over. I gave them the rest of the story and how the woman had phoned the boss. "She even gave me this envelope," I said. "Look there's three pounds.

The Bug and Manxie started laughing and the Bug said, "The phone call was from the tart in the Betting Office. I made her do it for you. You don't think anyone gives a monkey's for you. Christ! One born every day!"

Then Manxie put the bite on me, asking could I see my way to lending them a pound each for services rendered! Well I always was a soft touch  

THE MOVERS

Roger Mills

ONE

Sleep curtailed by the thick rude call of the horn, Tadpole leapt straight from his bed. He had been laying in an expectant doze for a while, but when the blast came it was as great a shock as ever. Tadpole had only just managed to pull on his trousers and oversize vest when the horn sounded again, several times, and with a chorus of shouts and abuse to accompany it.

He pulled a shirt around himself and stumbled out the bedroom door. 'O.K., O.K.' he called as he ran barefoot through the passage. He pulled open the front door.

'What you doin' of Tad? Get up here' came a voice.

Another voice: 'For Christ sake 'urry up shortarse. But get some bleedin' clothes on first though. We won't see you otherwise Laughter.

'Sorry' shouted Tadpole 'I overslept. I'll be ready in a second, just give me-'. But the voices were by then talking amongst themselves.

He finished dressing. More clothes than necessary really, but they were jumpers and things which he could peel off as things got hotter during the day.

He pulled on his boots and tied the laces quickly. 'Sod it'. What a time for a lace to break.

Warmer and repaired Tadpole just managed to yank the door open in time for a last frustrated blare of horn.

'About time too' said a voice 'We were just about to go off without you'.

Tadpole hardly ever differentiated between the two voices, surprisingly, because they didn't sound at all alike. Len's voice was deep and demanding, the turgid sea of coughs, splutters and snorts of a burly, grey, yet not totally humourless man in his fifties.

Mickey's voice however came out of his nose, a whine which broke out into a chuckle. A couldn't care less, occasionally threatening, spotty, eighteen year old voice.

Tadpole was thirteen and nobody needed to ask him why he was called Tadpole. His thin body, with the head that seemed just that bit too large, jumped into the cab of the van beside Mickey. Len started the engine and threw the gears into a heavy first. The lorry lurched away from Tadpoles front door, mum and dad still fast asleep inside. They didn't have to be up until after eight.

It was a fresh morning. The side window was wound right down and Tadpole watched his sleeve whipped by the wind back and forth on his wrist. The barely developed arm and fist bristled back at him from the vans side mirror.

They stopped for petrol almost immediately. They all got out, Len to fill her up, Mickey for a piss and Tadpole to once more admire the broad and bold lettering on the vans side. L.M. STONES & Co. REMOVALS. 'The M stands for Maverick' Len had once told him.

'Who did all those words on the side?' Tadpole asked Mickey.

'Dunno. Some bloke with a paint brush'.

'It's perfect. All the letters are perfect, must have been a real craftsman'.

Mickey laughed.

When they all got back in Tadpole was centre, the other two shouting frantically over his head. It's more than just noise in the cab. It's teeth, tongue and tonsils all jogging up and down, conspiring with the din to make whatever you say unintelligible.

They were talking grown up. Dirty.

'Look at her arse'.

'Where?'

'There'.

'Oh yea. Bet she don't go short. Bet she's a goer. Give 'er a wave'.

'Hey, she smiled'.

'Told you, must be a scrubber'.

It was still early morning when they pulled in for breakfast. That's the drill. Get near to the load up point, have breakfast, then straight in the gaff afterwards to hump everything into the van, lunch a bit later on the road, unload and then off home.

'This cafe you reckon?'

'Yea, I reckon. We'll give it a try eh?'.

Morning was the time of day Tadpole liked best. The roads not yet choc-a-bloc and the shopkeepers keys only just in the locks, breath visible out their mouths. Mickey pushed open the cafe door, mornings forever after in Tadpoles mind fused with the promise of frying bacon, popping eggs, exploding sausages, sizzling tomatoes and of course the sniff of two fried slices. Then. the hiss of the giant tea urn, the sudden burst of mighty steam. It was the nearest thing Tadpole had seen to a real railway train. Monster mugs of tea for the workers. Lots of sugar. Len never had less than three teas, he fuelled himself on the stuff.

There were flies treading the sugar in the bowl before them on the table. Tadpole half expected to find rats in the salt, rhinoceros in the pepper.

It was a very tiny cafe that could have been a large cafe if they had got rid of all the 'out of order' pinball machines. The curtains that protected the cafe from the world had never been washed. Tadpole could tell that because he assumed they had once been white.

They were the only three in the cafe until the arrival of a spiky haired youth.

'Wotcha Luigi. I'll have the usual' he called out merrily.

'What's the usual' said Luigi, who wasn't Italian.

'I can't remember' said the boy, who was in the wrong cafe.

It was only a short drive to the house. The van snuck through the thin streets of dockland, the sun obscured by high warehouse walls. The house was one of those flat faced little two up and two downs that open straight out onto the street.

'Stinks around here doesn't it Mickey' said Len 'I don't blame anyone for moving away from here.'

'Bloody right' said Mickey 'Not as if it's really England round here these days anyway. Know what I mean?'.

Len knocked on the chipped front door. It was answered by a boy of about five, clean and smartly dressed. He looked up at Len wide eyed.

A woman’s voice: 'Rickie love. Who's that at the door? Must be the movers Rickie. Go and tell your father Rickie'.

The boy trotted off obediently without saying a word. The three squeezed into the thin passage, stacked high with boxes and crates full of the house's smaller objects.

Thirty, dark haired and chunky, he bounded down the stairs.

'Hello gents. Up bright and early. That's the way to make the money eh?'.

'That's right' said Len 'We like to get things rolling as soon as possible'.

'Coffee' offered the man. He scratched his chest, hairy beneath a fitted shirt and gold medal ion.

'No thanks, as I said, we'd like to get the van loaded up as soon as possible'.

'Sure thing, sure thing. You're the experts eh? Early bird catches the worm eh?'

'Is that the removal men dear' came the woman’s voice again. 'Do tell them to be careful with my chaise-longue. Don't forget the money we had to have it reupholstered. Tell them to be careful with that table too, that's real antique you know?'.

The man shot the movers a grin 'Don't worry about her lads, she worries she does that girl'.

'Don't you worry love' he shouted up. 'These men are experts. They know their job'.

Tadpole realised after just the few jobs that he had done with Len and Mickey that packing the van was the most important part of the whole operation. It was no good just slinging all the stuff in and ending up with a full lorry and half a home full of gear to worry about. It's not a skill acquired overnight either. It's mainly common sense, but that's not a sense that's particularly common, thought Tadpole.

The woman appeared. Bottle blonde and big. 'Looks like the foremans arrived' Mickey whispered down to Tadpole.

'Oh don't you worry about him Missus', said Mickey to the woman 'you’re not paying for him. We only bring skinny along now and again on his school 'olidays to carry out the electric freezers'.

She gave Mickey a funny look too.

The man was giving Rickie piggy backs. 'Look at this place' he said to Len. 'All this furniture is the best, know what I mean? We're only working people but I always make sure we always get the best of everything. We've outgrown this place of course. It's got the lot; damp, woodworm, mice and rot. And as for the area, well we all know what's happened to that don't we?'.

'Oh yes mate' nodded Len. 'Oh yes'. He was humping out a sideboard on his back.

Tables, chairs, sofas, cupboards, beds, mattresses, carpets, stereo systems, fridges, freezers, electric cookers, reproduction paintings, horse brasses, little ornaments, knick knacks, dolls of spanish ladies with light bulbs rammed up their dresses - and a chaise-longue too -were all packed tightly into the van.

They were already in the van with the engine revving when there was a thumping on the cab door. Mickey flung it open. A small shabbily dressed Asian stood waving a piece of card.

Mickey: 'You what Ram Jam - Oh yea - Where's that then? -Oh I dunno about that - Why? Pressure of work mate, pressure of work'.

The Asian: 'Unintelligible.

'What was that all about Mickey?' asked Len as the Asian was shuffling off down the road, chaplinesque.

'Says he wants moving, tonight if you don't mind. Says he's being evicted and he's moving just round the corner. Desperate, he reckons. That's the address there on that piece of card he gave me'. He flung it down on the dashboard. 'I should have told him where to stick it eh?'

They laughed. Tadpole thought it sounded the same way people laughed at him sometimes. They were grown ups. They must be 'in the know'. He pretended to laugh, but he didn't really get the joke.

And they were off, back on the road and looking at girls bums.

The man, the woman and little Rickie pushed off the same time in a shiny new saloon.

'We'll be there ages ahead of you in this pal' said the man. 'Doesn't matter though does it? You know where it is don't you?'

'Thank god they do' thought Tadpole. When Len and Mickey didn't know the way the clients sometimes had to squeeze in the cab while Tadpole had to sit in the back. There were many times when Tadpole had suffered the experience, sometimes with Mickey but mostly by himself. He could never get used to seating himself in and amongst someone elses old furniture. The back doors would be shut and bolted and darkness would reign for an awful minute until his eyes adjusted. It was only when the load was very light that the top half of the swing doors could be left swung open. Then he could see where they had just been and sniff the exhaust deep up into his nostrils. It would seem an age back there even before the engine shook and all hell, heaven and earth broke loose. The piled up and neatly arranged furniture, so stable and still a moment before would begin dancing and shifting. Tadpole would be flung up and down, sideways and inside out. If only Len and Mickey could see him sitting there, straining like some reverse Samson, arms outstretched holding up two pillars of swaying kitchen chairs.

But he wasn't in the back now and save for the risen sun making shapes on his eyes everything was hunky dory.

'You could make a great T.V. series out of his job' said Mickey.

'Eh?' Len screwed his face up, coughed and wheezed a bit.

'Yea, you know, all the things that 'appen, all the foreigners and the jokers we have to move about. Could be a riot'.

'Load of rubbish on telly nowadays, Len exclaimed.

'Yea, not 'alf' replied Mickey. 'How about that bloody thing they had on the other week, two an' half hours of sodding ballet. Load of poofs prancing about in tights'.

'Right. Didn't have that in my day' nodded Len.

'Didn't have telly in your day' ventured Tadpole, his voice barely audible above the motor.

'Exactly, only had wireless. Wouldn't have had all that ballet rubbish on the wireless. Had too much dignity'.

Len put his foot to the floor and the van squeezed out of the lean streets, away from the high walls and towards the motorway. A new house for someone, somewhere, someplace out of sight. Tadpole cast his eye around the houses about him. All houses must be pretty much the same he thought, just four walls and a roof, a front door and a collection of furniture.

He put such thoughts out of his head, settled down for the journey ahead. Time to dream, time to rest his already aching limbs, time to not have to do anything.

TWO

Before they reached the edge of the city and the long, thirsty motorway, Len decided that it was time for another cuppa.

Clean curtains at the windows, napkins on the tables and the menu wasn't written on a blackboard in this one. A cafe nevertheless. It was dinner time by then so chips and beans joined the sausages, egg and bacon. No fried slices but instead buttered bread. No flies in the sugar.

Some people talk sense, some don't, Len don't. No sin in itself Tadpole supposed. Trouble with Len though was that he would talk it to everybody he met. He would talk to anybody, anywhere, about anything.

You know those old women - they carry old plastic bags around with them, maybe have a few dogs on a lead, and they stop still in the middle of the street to talk to imaginary people. Well, Len was talking to one of them. Sixty five with white hair and a rat eaten old coat.

'Some bastards broke into my house the other week. Bastards. Pissed and shit all over the place, ripped things up, messed things around.'

'Did they love? Did they? I know what it's like' comforted Len.

'Even if they had to nick things,' she carried on 'even if they had to nick things, they didn't have to mess the place up'.

'I agree' Len nodded. 'That wouldn't have happened years ago. Not in my day. We had decent burglars then'.

'Yes' echoed the old lady 'decent burglars'.

'In fact you could almost call them honest' he said 'it was just a job to them, not a bloody vocation'.

Mickey looked at Tadpole and started to giggle. 'Just listen to all this old twaddle' he whispered. -

Len never drank alcohol as a rule. After his fourth mug of tea however he seemed to be in the exuberant chatty mood that most people experienced after a few pints. He was soon jabbering uncontrollably to the old lady about the movers.

'Of course' he prattled on 'In my father’s day when he ran the business, the furniture had to be shoved around on a handcart. Those were the bloody days. A long move took an entire day from early morning to well into the night, might have to make a few journeys see? Some firms had a couple of horses to pull the cart, we did after a while too. I had older sisters but seeing as I was the only son I took the business on when the old man died. I had three lorries at one time a few years back and three teams to do the work. I'm down to one now though. I just got fed up with all the form filling part of it. I like to know what's happening and to do all the jobs myself.'

'Bastards' said the old lady. 'Bastards'.

Meal over. They rattled along the motorway. All the time the movers talked and joked. Tadpole's eyes fixed thoughtfully on the tiny cars ahead and he listened to the tales of the road, the silly, loony, sad, rude anecdotes that Len had told for years and made better over the years. Mickey chortled along and sometimes tried to match one of Len's stories.

Out through Essex and easing off the motorway they entered the new town. They cruised slowly looking for the correct street, a detailed little hand-drawn map on the inside of a fag packet their only guide.

'This is it' shouted Mickey triumphant 'Letsbe Avenue' (that wasn't it's real name of course). They edged along the crisp surface of the road, high, taut trees to either side. They saw the shiny new car outside surveying their pastures green (the name of the house was 'Pastures Green').

'What do you think of it then eh? asked the man, little Rickie framed between his legs.

'Very nice' said Len without emotion. 'Very nice. What will you do for work around this way then? His eyebrows knitted.

'I'll be travelling down to London in the car everyday' the man answered.

'Cost a bit, won't it?'

'Oh yea, course. But I'm not short of the readies. I reckon it's bloody worth it anyway to be living amongst your own sort'.

'Mickey sniggered. 'Not 'alf'.

Len opened up the back of the van, the tail board smashing down to earth unapologetically. As they say, Len had muscles on his muscles. He pulled out most of the furniture on his back, mechanically and with calculated strain. Mickey brought in the lighter load and collaborated with Len on big stuff. Tadpole carried out the bits and pieces.

'I'll give you a hand with the stereo system pal' said the man 'I know you're a pro but it did cost nearly a grand you know?'.

'Ricki' chastised the woman 'stop playing with that lad, he's supposed to be working'.

'Look pal' said the man 'them beds aren't round so you can roll them up the stairs you know? Hell of trouble getting sheets for them'.

The woman supervised Len and Mickey’s journey from the van with the dishwasher. 'Bloody heavy' said Mickey 'sure you took the plates out?'.

'Hang on lads' exclaimed the man 'I know that you know all the ropes but you just can't have a teabreak until you've unpacked the kettle can you?'.

'Honestly madam' said Mickey 'It won't matter if I carry your colour telly in upside down. The newsreader's toupe ain't gonna fall off is it?'.

'Come off it son' said the man to Tadpole 'I know I told you to be careful with the L.P. record collection but there’s no need to be funny about it is there? You can take them in more than one at a time'.

Ricki rode his own bike into the house and Tadpole took hold of a long think china vase. A pity really.

'You stupid cripple' shouted the man. Fierce. 'You're a bloody clumsy sod ain't you. The woman just stood with her hand to her brow in a mock faint position. Little Ricki looked fearfully from father to Tadpole and then back again and Mickey let his fag go out.

Tadpole was looking at his feet. They nestled uncomfortably amongst the chunks of smashed vase on the stone pathway. Despite the happy marriage of family and home this particular object had refused to be carried over the threshold.

The man was moving slowly towards Tadpole from the hallway. 'If you worked for me I'd clout you, you bloody good for nothing.’

“Look at you. Can tell from a mile off that you're a bloody liability" A cough signalled the coming of Len. He was lugging a sofa in from the van single handed but seemed to have summed the situation up in one.

'Nobody gets moved without having something broken' he spluttered 'it's just not possible. I'll tell you what, we'll knock a bit off the bill. Don't forget, no matter how bad things seem they could always be worse'.

True, worse things had happened on past jobs that Tadpole had heard hushed whispers about, but the Golders Green Grand Piano tragedy was something Len forbade talk of.

'Still, there’s no point you lot standing about staring is there? Get a brush and pan and sweep that mess up. There's plenty more to shift yet'.

And that was that, anger diffused by Lens breezy yet almost abrasive tones had turned the whole disaster into a minor couldn't-have-happened-otherwise incident.

Smiling, Len crouched down beside Tadpole, whispered 'You are a bleedin' silly sod though aren't you'

The man, the movers, sat around the kitchen table. The woman was making tea and Ricki was annihilating the forces of Rommel’s Africa Corps with an animated 'Action man' in his tiny fist.

Len and the man were nodding in sage-like agreement on the wiseness of the family’s move to the new town while Mickey mopped his gradually darkening brow with a greasy hanky. The woman placed steaming cups of tea in front of the men, and Tadpole.

'Sorry if things got a bit narky a while back' the man was saying. 'You know how things are?'.

'Course' Len replied 'Now in my old man’s day he would quite often get involved with hand to hand combat with the clients. We all say things we don't mean sometimes'.

Ricki spoke 'Mum, are all my friends going to move here as well?'.

'Of course not dear' laughed the woman 'You won't see them again'. The boy looked surprised, then a little tearful.

'It's alright said the woman 'You'll make new friends here in the new town, friends more like yourself'..

The boy nodded in incomprehension.

Len was chortling away with the man. He lifted the cup to his lips, his eyes on the pot, estimating how many more cups he might drain from it.

The man sat with his legs astride a backward chair, eyeing with pride the unpacked and still unpositioned furniture. 'Well, Mrs Jones' he said to the woman 'I reckon they're all going to have trouble keeping up with us in this street. He winked at Tadpole.

Tadpole wasn't listening to the man. He was watching Len’s face. Tadpole saw him grimace and thought for one terrible moment that Len was going to spit all the tea he had in his mouth right out again, all over the table, all over the man and the woman and the whole seated assembly.

He did.

On the journey back home Tadpole was glad that the noise of the engine restricted conversation to a minimum, restricted it to a maximum shout.

'Bloody Hell'. It was Len. 'Bloody effing muck, what was it? And that snotty bloody woman wondered why I spat it all out again. You see the way she looked at me? Her and that bloody ponced up bloke with all the gold bike chain round his neck. "Oh it's Malaysian root tea' ' she says. "It's posh tea" she says. "Not bloody tea at all" I told her, not English tea".

'Ain’t not such thing as English tea' Mickey mumbled. 'It's all -'

'And just who do they think they are anyway' Len carried on 'the bloody royal family? I haven't seen so much furniture outside the ideal home exhibition'.

'No harm in having nice things though, is there Len?' argued Mickey. 'No harm in having a nice house in a nice place'.

'Nothing very nice about them though was there? I could hear all the things that poncy bloke called Tadpole from inside the bloody van. Didn't hear you say anything to defend him'.

'Well' said Mickey head down 'the customers always right ain’t they? And you didn't say nothing neither'.

'Well I can't argue can I'. I'm responsible for you lot. I have to sit on the fence'.

'Well, that’s not right either is it?' said Mickey 'You can't sit on the fence all your life can you? And anyway we call Tadpole names ourselves don't we? Everybody calls Tadpole names. Names don't hurt. Tadpole don't mind. Do you Tadpole?'

'The word 'Pillock' came from somewhere.

Wasn't Lens voice, certainly wasn't Mickeys.

There was a silence that stretched from Essex to Essex Road, the way Len was driving it didn't take very long however.

'What's the bleedin' hurry Len' Mickey asked irritably, eyeing Tadpole with a new found caution.

Len was studying a torn off piece of card he had lifted off the dashboard, was studying the poorly written out address. Was on his way.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE GOOD SAMARITAN?

Jimmy McGovern

I watched the priest from the shield of smiled-at childhood. He arrived at the door and six feet of shining black and white nodded at the door and with his legs slightly apart and hand clasped around a black leather book just in front of his balls, he addressed and squared up to the door. He leaned forward from the waist, legs still straight, and his right arm came up as he leaned and his toilet soaped knuckles rapped coldly on the door and the knock was a knock of decision, expecting no hesitancy, confident of reply, demanding attention. His right arm went down to clasp the book to his flies again as his body straightened and in the seconds before the door opened his neck, just his neck, twisted as he looked up and down the street benevolently. 

Sheepishly Mr Roach opened the door but left his toe behind it so that it opened only slightly and then he said, 'Sorry', to the priest and fumbled about as though he was trying to see what was blocking the door and all the time his grey railwayman's face was pleading at the priest, jabbering to the priest, and hating the priest. The priest beamed silently back, waiting for the man to talk himself nervously silly in the presence of a superior being; patiently waiting for the man to move his silly toe and let him in. 

Mr Roach leaned his left shoulder against the lobby wall and the door edged back a little but his railwayman's waistcoated chest barred the way and, more solid now, he felt his head cooling and so did the big black priest but he beamed silently on. Suddenly, desperately, the railwayman stopped and listened to himself, this gibbering, fawning idiot, senseless at his own front door; and he looked at the priest, the quiet presidential figure, this patronising parasite, and loathed him and anger welled within him-the stark, tearing anger behind which he could hide. 

The priest saw it coming as it had come on rare occasions in the past, and, looking over the man's shoulder, trying to catch a pale wife's eye, he carefully edged his right leg in between the wall and the door. Mr Roach began to ride on zooming rays of rage and, enjoying it now, he looked down mock shocked at the charcoal leg. 'I beg your pardon, Father, but this is my house.' And with outraged dignity he shoved the priest's leg back off the step. The priest's elbow came up next and, this pushed away, a piece of shoulder or wavering thigh and gradually the railwayman was hot again, pushing and shoving at the door as if trying to close the lid of a small box on some monstrous, black, billowing balloon. 

The neighbours were beginning to crawl out now and let their kids go up the street so they could go and get them and get, too, a closer look at the action; in situations like this the advantage is nearly always with the priest-he is used to such goings-on and, being a superior person, he has no sense of shame. Invariably as well the wife comes out and drags the man in and makes the priest a cup of tea and tells him all about the white wine and what it's doing to her feller. On this occasion though Father Delaney came unstuck: Mrs. Roach, upon receipt of three brown envelopes from the kids' school, had just soaked her hair in Lorexane - she wouldn't have come out for Our Lord's sake; and, it being a November evening, Father Delaney had fortified himself with a half-bottle of gin. 

The gin didn't help the priest's ballooning balance and after a particularly hefty push, when he was flapping his arms like a tightrope walker, he thrust into the doorway the only part of his body he could use-a shiny black arse-and the railwayman, a Geronimo in his great rage, gave one final heave and the priest, arms whirling around, was sent crashing head first into the lamp-post from which he rebounded into the gutter. 

The neighbours went clucking around, gathering in their children and they closed their doors silently out of frightened respect. Mr Roach defiantly slammed his door and went back, trembling and fighting with his face, to face his wife. Father Delaney lay bleeding in the gutter, thinking of the parable of the good Samaritan, and wondering why nobody came to his aid: "Oh why, my people, have you forsaken me ?" The thought of the attractions of martyrdom in the streets of Liverpool slowly became apparent to him. His people watched through rubber plants and lace curtains. How could they cross the social chasm and have a superior being dependent on them? Perhaps that teacher up the road might come past soon; he could help him. As long as he takes him home, like; we don't want him coming here tonight   

THEM AND US
June 1957

Mike Rowe

I was sat up in my bedroom sewing away at my denim jeans. The idea was to transform them from navvie's overalls into rocker's drainpipes.

It was about that time that I realised there were THEM and US. THEM were those who were satisfied with life, or, if not satisfied, would be with slight improvements. US, although I personally knew no other US but myself, were those who hated the whole stinking lot. Those out to destroy.

US to me were the Teddy Boys in the papers, who hurled half-bricks through shop windows.

I desperately wanted a Teddy Boy suit, but my parents would. never allow it. I had only just talked them into letting me wear denims. I had to point out to them that none of my mates were wearing short trousers anymore, and that the baggy things my dad wore were a thing of the past for most young people.

I read in the Manchester Evening News (that squalid rag of reaction) of a young lad in Court found guilty of burning down the place where he worked in Stockport. When the judge asked why he did it, before sentencing him, he replied 'I didn't like the place.' He got two years in borstal. He was my hero for ages.

I liked anyone the older people hated: Oswald Mosley, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Chaz Boon (The Biggest Teddy in our School).

I finished off the jeans. I squeezed into them and rushed off out to listen to the older lads swearing, and talking about sex, on the street corner.

The bigger lads would take the piss out of me, but I didn't mind. I cadged the dimps of their cigarettes off them, and sometimes when there were only one or two there, I would get a full ciggy off one of them.

Sometimes I tried to tell dirty jokes that I heard at school to them, but mostly I kept quiet, just soaking in their talk.

At school they used to back-chat teachers that my year were feared of. One of them, Billy Reilly, once stopped a prefect from caning me for being late back from dinner, by threatening to do him over outside school.

I was sure Billy was one of US, but I never dared ask him.

JUBILEE

Mike Rowe

I'd of forgot all about it if it wasn't for Phil and Charlie. They operate the borers on either side of mine. It was during the tea break on Monday when it came to light. Phil says to me. Here Lobby" they call me Lobby because of my limp. He says: "Here Lobby, it's your Silver Jubilee next week, ain't it ?" I said: "You what ?" and Charlie says: "Next week you'll have been with the firm for 25 years". And then I thought: "Bloody hell, he's right. 25 years with the old firm. I suppose that's something to be proud of. It's gone so bloody quick I've hardly noticed. 25 years, bloody hell!"I remember the day I first got the job. I'd had my name down for ages with the personnel office. The lads down at the pub used to pull my leg about it summat awful, when I used to brag that one day I'd be working at Dunkers.

"You'll never get in there." Old Ted used to say. And Albert Foster used to laugh and say that I'd be waiting ages for 'dead man's shoes'. But I got the last laugh on them, when old George Tarbury got sucked into the machine and mangled to death. I got the letter on the Friday, as he got sucked in on the Tuesday. "Can you start on Monday ?" it said. I was on the dole at the time, so I thought "Not half !" And I was down at the personnel office 7.30 sharp on the Monday morning.

It was damn good money here in those days. It's good money now, I think, but it doesn't seem to go as far somehow. It was worth getting a job, and keeping it, in those days. Not like now. You got bugger all on the dole them days. Bloody hell, look at it now ! Them lazy dossers down at the Dog and Crutch get almost as much as I get for working forty hours. And all they do is sit in the vault swilling beer all dinnertime, and then shuffle down to the bookies when the pub shuts. Everything's different now though. The whole bloody country seems to be going to the dogs. What with the trade unions dictating everything, and the Pakistanis flooding the country, and the Chinese buying up all the chip shops. Old Winston would of stopped their gallup if he'd have still been around. Aye, Old Winnie was the best Prime Minister this country ever had. Not like the bugger that came after him, that cross-eyed MacMillan geezer. Old Winnie wouldn't have gone round giving all them darkies independence., like old cross-eyed MacMillan did. Bloody hell, not half he wouldn't ! The bugger gave them independence, and the next thing you knew they were swarming over here snapping up all the plum jobs. Old Winnie would of kept them right out. He'd of restricted their numbers. He understood the ordinary bloke did old Winnie. That was because he was an ordinary bloke himself.

We've had a few darkies in here at Dunkers over the years. I've seem 'em come, and I've seem 'em go. They never stuck it long. The old boring machine is too complex for the average darkie to handle. They can't get used to it. None of them would admit it though. They were proud sods, some of 'em. They'd never admit that they weren't as clever as 'old whitey'. They'd all come up with some lame old excuse for leaving, like "The money's no good" or "The conditions are not up to scratch". Well  I’ve been here 25 years, and Phil and Charlie have been here even longer and we see nothing wrong with the money and conditions. Well, not much anyway.

Aye, I've seen some changes in my twenty five years. I suppose everything changes over the years though. Funny thing, my machine's never changed in all that time and it's still as reliable as ever. Well, nearly.

I've seen a bit of bother in my time too. Like that time when they tried to get the union into the place. Bloody long haired sod it was who tried to get 'em in. A right little shitstirrer he was. Always trying to wind the men up. Always causing discon-bloody-tent. Old Greenie the General Foreman soon had him out on his arse though. The bloody union was taking on summat when they took on old Greenie. He was in that Korean dust up. He fixed the bloody commies over there. And he'd fix 'em over here too, if he got half the chance. They could do with a few like old Greenie up in bloody parliament. Tough as rocking-horse shit he is, and twice as combustible. The union put a bloody picket line outside the gates for a few weeks, after they fired the long-haired 'un and a couple of his shit-stirring mates. But we took no bloody notice of 'em. We let em shout and rant, and stew in their own juice for a few weeks. They soon got fed up of it, and buggered off somewhere else to stir up their shit. That's the way to deal with unions, just ignore the bleeders. They soon sling their hook when they know they're up against someone whose forgot more than they'll ever know about bloody work.

Phil and Charlie are trying to arrange a bit of a do for me in the canteen next Friday. That's if the management will allow it. They've both been at Dunkers longer than me. Charlie's been here since the place opened up in the 'thirties. He started in the loading bay, and then he got a chance of a job on the borer and he snapped it up. It was only a couple of coppers more a week, but it's a trade, isn't it ? Phil's been here since the start of the war. When he heard that war was about to break out he rushed down here and told 'em that he was a skilled vertical borer. It was a reserved occupation at the time. Took a chance he did, but he picked the job up soon enough, without anyone knowing the difference. You can soon pick it up though, if you've anything about you. You can't go so far wrong on a Stevenson & Whipple's vertical. I often wonder how old George managed to get himself sucked into the bugger. Charlie said that one minute he was standing there large as life, next minute he hears a scream and there he is as dead as a doornail. Still I suppose all these things are sent to try us. One man's misfortune is another man's gain.

You don't get operators like Phil and Charlie anymore. I reckon they cracked the bloody mould when they poured them two out. All we seem to get nowadays are young kids. Bits of kids, straight from school. You try to get 'em a good training, but they never seem to stay long enough. When they get to 17, old Greenie sees 'em off. Charlie reckons it's something to do with the management wanting to give the new school leavers a chance.

A lot of people say that I'll be the last fellah to get 25 years in here. They say the place'll be shut down in a year or two. But they've been saying that for years. The Foremen keep telling us that the firm's losing money. But they've been saying that for years too. Charlie says that the firm's been losing money ever since he started here. I reckon they only keep saying it so that they can keep our wage rises down to a minimum.

I'll tell you what's a bloody funny co-incidence though. Me celebrating my 25 years in the same week as her Majesty celebrates hers. Still, when I look back at it, she got crowned the same week as I started here. So that explains it I suppose. Aye, I copped for a day's paid holiday the same week as I started. It fell lucky for me, didn't it ? And now, 25 years later, I'm copping for another day's paid holiday. It makes you feel good inside to be living in a civilised country, doesn't it?

MEMOIRS

Ben Ainley

BEN AINLEY, founder and Editor of VOICES, died following a long illness, shortly after publication of our last issue. For a man who had devoted so much of himself to providing a means of expression for others, we felt that the most fitting tribute would be to let him speak in his own words. The two pieces which follow are taken from a 300-page autobiography written in 1969, during a breathing-space between Ben's retirement and his increasing involvement with Unity of Arts. The two extracts printed here offer some insight both into Ben's ideas on literature and society and into his own tenacity and fighting spirit. And perhaps this helps to explain, for those of us continuing his work, how such a small man could leave such a big hole to be filled.

FROM CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 

I would like to look afresh at the years I have covered in this fragmentary survey of my lifetime. The squalor of Ancoats in my childhood was as real as my own love of its associations. Barefoot children walked the pavements, and many must have cried themselves to sleep many a time because they went to bed hungry. I never suffered hunger, but I have seen old men and women for whom life must have been a heartbreak unless they developed calloused minds. And if the Ancoats I knew has largely disappeared, there are still some ugly lumps in Manchester, dirty, rat-ridden bug-infested, damp with a squalor of surroundings which imparts a squalor to the minds and bodies that grow up there. 

I saw last night a film version of How Green Was My Valley and heard that the film had collected a number of Academy awards. Many years ago I read Llewellyn's book but I remembered nothing of it, even when I saw the film. 

The background of life in a Welsh valley, with its deeply moved miners, singing their heroic or comic hymns and songs, with majestic mountain scenery for their backcloth, and the slagheaps and the huts and cottages for their home, the backbreaking toil of getting coal with the periodic siren blasts that tell of tragedy striking in the mines-this is conveyed in the film, and one sees this aspect of the human scene in its background-luxury, refinement, the arts, good living at one end, and at the other, drinking, chapel-going, hard-headed lads driven from home by unemployment to seek jobs in far-off countries. 

But the presentation of the film-and I pay tribute to its artistry-I was deeply moved by the small events that tug at human feelings-had a hollowness sometimes which hurt me. A parson, a priest of the Methodists who at one time says to the beautiful miner's daughter that he's dedicated to his work and therefore can't indulge himself with love and marriage, and on another that he won't marry her because it would drag her down to his own patched and penny-pinching level. The parson performs a touching miracle in the film-he brings a small boy paralysed by infirmity to walk literally by faith. The parson takes the side of the newly formed Trade Union of miners, but warns them not to reply to injustice by injustice. The injustice they have banded against remains at the end of the story. But the parson leaves the valley in a flurry of self-righteous anger because the people there have joined a character-assassination gossip-mongering directed against the pure girl whom he had himself been unwilling to marry, but who continued to love him through an unhappy marriage with the coal-owner's son, and her subsequent divorce from him. 

The minister of the gospel, presented as a saint and self-sacrificing martyr to his work in the valley, goes out with a set speech in which he denounces hypocrisy, narrow-mindedness, lack of faith in his community. It is true to say that their faults are his failure-but this is presented not as the truth, but only as a further indication of his saintly self-criticism. 

It is films of this kind which really corrupt values, refusing to face honestly one of the many problems they present.

Hardly a year has gone by since I was born in 1901 without a war: tens of millions of people have been killed, and to the cannon and machine gun of my boyhood have been added atomic cannon, atomic bombs (dropped on Japanese towns), flame throwers, napalm, lazydog missiles, blockbuster bombs, chemical and biological weapons which will spread disease more widely than Jehovah's plagues on the wicked Egyptians of bible times. The sum of human misery, the streams of human tears, the throes of human agony, the swollen bellies of starved children, the distended flattened breasts of mothers aged by hunger and want, the bilarzia, scropula, typhoid, trachoma and a thousand tropical diseases-this today, is part of the reality and a large part of the reality of our world. Vietnam, Biafra, these are the latest of the consciously enacted crimes of our society. 

There is enough tragedy in the human condition without the piling up of horror by men who sit in offices, over maps, a thousand or more miles away from where the blow will fall to decide to wipe out a city or blot out the growing crops of a thousand helpless villagers. 

Is the world a better world than it was when I was a boy ? In spite of a whole spectrum of new modes of inflicting death and disease undreamed of in my childhood, I dare to assert that the world is a better world. Cruelty and cowardice, tyranny and injustice, tears and pain still exist, multiply. But there is more conscious revolt against it, less resigned misery, and men are learning to meet their tormentors upright instead of cringing to them.

FROM CHAP