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| the centre of the universe | |
| Written by arablethecrocket | ||||||||||||
| 09 September 2007 | ||||||||||||
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Yes this is a re-hash of one of my old stories but it was modified for a reason and afterwords I felt it was so much better than my original version.
The Centre of the universe
by Alan Crook
I am certain that my former English teacher used to stay awake at night and think of ridiculous subjects on which we would be required to write an essay. He was a strange all powerful man, very tall and always well dressed and always sporting a bow tie. We, as mere fourteen year olds, shrunk back into the depths of our shells in order to avoid conflict with him. He was after all, powerful in height as well as powerful in his command of the English tongue. Many was the occasion when at least one unfortunate soul found himself reduced to stammering some pathetic excuse for his literary performance. Needless to say, when he stooped to the intolerable depths of ordering us to write about our garden shed I rebelled. I was a high testosterone teenager conscious of his seemingly dour attempt at inspiration and complained as much in my essay. What can I write about a garden shed? It’s eight foot long six foot wide and six foot six tall with a window in one side. That’s it, what more can I say? Oh I nearly forgot, the really stimulating conversation stopper is that it is painted green with blue facia boards. My dad went on holiday to the nether regions of Hastings once and spent his days in a beach hut that was the same colour plan. Dad was lost to the desire of owning such a colour scheme from those days onward. Fancy he had been torpedoed during the war, shot twice, spent six months in a prisoner of war camp, and his only real desire in life was to have a green and blue shed. He tried to inflict his colour sense on the rest of humanity by painting our house this way but that would have started a third world war and mum was in charge of the troops so he backed down. To fulfil his erstwhile desire he painted the shed instead. That is definitely it, after all what else can you write about a garden shed? It’s not even in an interesting position in the garden. It isn’t at the bottom, nor at the top. It sort of lumbers around midway down one side of the fence. It’s a bit like the child’s song : Half way down the stairs is the stair were I sit. There isn’t any other stair quite like it. It’s not at the bottom it’s not at the top, But this is the stair were I always stop. It lives were it lives because the usual place for a shed (at the bottom of the garden) is already occupied by another shed. At least it pretends to be a shed. A more apt description would be a monument to lost causes. It suffers absolutely zero maintenance. The roof sags and the door was left opened before my dad went school in his childhood and has remained open ever since. It just wails its life away in the bottom corner whilst its gaudy neighbour hovers in the distance waiting to occupy the same spot when the great shed maker calls it home. The strange fact is we’re the accidental owners of a second shed. We didn’t have a surfeit of property looking for a hiding hole, we weren’t filled with a desire to expand our property empire. We didn’t even go searching for a shed, it searched for us. Its main claim to fame was the fact that it was going cheap. (More to the point it was free to who ever chose to take it down). The chances of our finances stretching to the heady heights of owning two properties were pretty slim ordinarily. Mr. Walsh from up the road wasted no time in knocking on our door to inform us of his getting a new shed, “Oh it’s sixteen feet by twelve, I need it for my new office you know?” He always did his best to lord it over my dad, tried hard to impress him on the one hand and yet make him feel grateful at the same time. My dad has the kindly nature that can only see the good in folk, so he just took him at face value. Mr. Walsh is one of those people who comes home from work all pompous and stressed out whilst my dad has a more laid back approach. Mr Walsh feels grand and superior because he’s so bothered, my dad can’t give a monkey’s uncle about the rat race. Lets face it what Mr. Walsh really wanted to know was if us lesser mortals could make use of his cast offs. Of course he didn’t put it like that, but that’s what it boiled down to. My dad being gullible, green and lets face it a tiny bit greedy, grabbed the chance with open arms, and arranged life so that we could do the honours on a Saturday. Saturday is a cruel day, invented for dads to inflict their offspring with ridiculous tasks like cleaning the bikes or digging the garden or doing home work or any other task that normally completes itself by magic during the weekdays. Saturday should be for climbing trees and playing about in the fields. It should be for falling into rivers, or burying ourselves in haystacks. It definitely is not for moving sheds. (In this present enlightened age my dad would have found himself accosted by a myriad of social workers and tossed in gaol with only bread and water for such irresponsible usage of child labour.) As it was this shed was free and you don’t bottle out when things are going free. On the fateful morning in question, we assembled as an army of three, my brother, my dad and, sorely missing my cricket, I propped up the rear. Mrs. Walsh spent a fearful and timorous morning pleading for the safety of this plant or that bush. She even made a point of bringing out a cup of tea in her best china, and then spent even more timorous moments worrying for its safe return. The shed put up quite a fight. It wasn’t going to move to those horrible folk down the road without some sort of rebellion. It wasn’t about to leave the painted once a year and glass cleaning empire of yore and move to the desolate regions of abandonment four houses away. We fought, bashed, dragged and suffered the consequences. In the end we won. At least we had the shed vertical, as to whether this constitutes a victory is debateable. Dad had several areas covered with plasters, my brother was walking with a limp, I nursed several spots that had gone un-noticed until this point in my life. Our knowledge of the English language had expanded considerably but yes I would stick my neck out and say we won. Dad wasted barely seconds in getting the paint brush out. “No time like the present!” he said. Which translated meant “lets get my mark on the shed before mum gets home!” Out came the green and blue, out came the sun, out came the shed. Literally it seemed to smile, it had been elevated from the ranks of ordinariness to wiz bang look at me in a few short brush strokes. It was so ridiculous that even my mum, my twin set and pearls mum, had to like it. Despite scientific evidence to the contrary our shed is the centre of the universe. My mother thinks of it more as a black hole that swallows all matter or in her case all that doesn't matter. We boys see it as a camp, as a place for stuff, as a safety zone for things that might get thrown out if they get left indoors. The gremlins see it as a place deposit things that other folk have no use for. Come to that we fought our way around a green plastic tractor for six months before anyone bothered to ask who it belonged to. The undisputed king of the centre of the universe is my dad. To him the shed is the home of Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, John Coltrane, Charley Parker, and the test match. I have often come home from school to find my dad after an early shift lost in a cloud of pipe smoke and Jazz from his old gramophone in the shed. There is no doubt that they are in love my dad and the shed. It was consummated with the addition of several coats of paint and a general air of this is where I like to be. Our shed at the bottom of the garden sulks now, and casts nasty looks at the green and blue splendour of its upstart rival. We actually use the shed at the bottom of the garden now. For some reason the out door storage has been re-arranged. Bicycles that were propped against the back wall have been stored in the bottom of the garden shed. Along with the razzmatazz of our new shed came a clean up of the jungle. My mother has dived into garden design books which meant my dad and us boys have had to roll up our sleeves once again. Dad and boys throw the plants in, mum digs them up and then PLANTS them. We live in fear of my mother watching gardeners world on television. The moment the music strikes up we disappear. We can hear the distant calls of “Ooh look that’s nice!” or “Do you think that would be nice in this spot?” but we boys have found refuge in distant deafness. It hasn’t stopped the onslaught. Daily we find a new plant being nursed to life. My mother has perfected the art of scrounging cuttings and left over plants. Most mornings start with a roll call of the plants that need a bit of this or that. Usually its that, and that always has to be brought from the shop on the way home and lugged along with heavy school bags. My mother is impervious to heavy weights usually because we boys have to manage them for her. I think we brothers are neglected. Our dad is a shed-a-holic our mother is a garden-a-holic. The designs emanate from the shed and in turn the shed shows off the glory of the plants. Perhaps we should move into the shed at least that way our dad will have to squeeze past us and then we may get a mention in dispatches. Till that day we will have to make do with the solace of listening to jazz with our nutcase dad and digging the garden for our nutcase mum. The shed has rubbed off on us boys. It has gone as far as to the extent that we have sidetracked our pop era and been swallowed by the Jazz bug. I know that this is true because I wander to school whistling snippets of Jazz or Big Band and my brother goes to work in the same mode. Most of our possessions are painted green and blue and we find that the best defence to the aggravation of being a teenager lays in being laid back in the same way as our father. Or at least my brother has, I’m still an apprentice to the art. We’ve had the shed for a year now and it has won a place in the hearts of many a person who has visited us over that year. Wives turn up and deposit their husbands in the shed. Whilst mum plies the wife with tea and crumpets dad plies the husband with beer and Jazz. It has truly blended into our lives. Even the flowers and borders having a nodding relationship with it. I am not sure whether my mum has planned it this way but anything that grows near to the shed has a green or blue adorning it somewhere, and the effect is spreading. Being the centre of the universe has several advantages not least of which is that is a magnate for a whole crowd of cricketing personnel. I suppose it helps that my dad is a cricket umpire, and probably the most laid back umpire at that, but to have the captain of the England team sitting in our humble three bedroom house in the heart of Worthing suburbia is a little surreal. His first appearance has been followed by no lesser personage than Garry Sobers, his whole reason for being in our garden was Jazz and beer. Cricket was a banned subject. Likewise with Fred Truman, Larry Constantine and all the cricket scene we very rarely speak about the game. The South Downs,(and in Fred’s case Yorkshire) Jazz, silly jokes but no cricket. The only jazz person to lighten the door of our shed has been Terry Lightfoot and he came because he liked cricket. For that matter he is the only person I know who has discussed cricket in our shed. Even when the test match is on we only shout and holler at the radio. We never go further and express an opinion. To express an opinion on cricket is like trying to tell Shakespeare how to write a play. What my dad doesn’t know about cricket he makes up and we ignoramuses know no better. We have had parties in the garden that centre on the shed, music from the shed, we have even repaired a bicycle in there but there isn’t an awful lot you can write about a garden shed. Let’s face it Mr. English teacher you have really fallen short with this choice of subject. Can I propose an interesting subject next time, like how to get across the Sahara with just a flask of coffee and a jam butty, or even how to wrestle polar bears whilst wearing swimming trunks, something that has substance to it not just a garden shed. As so many people have asked me since writing this tale I feel that I should say that we no longer have the shed, it burnt down. Even there lies a tale to be told. The truth is it lasted for many more years and always the same colour. My dad never tired of listening to Jazz, nor smoking his pipe and drinking beer and entertaining a whole variety of people and personalities. The only improvement as such was when we ran electric power to the shed, then dad had a fridge installed and a proper music system, but the essence of the place remained the same until the day he died. Mum carried on buying plants and slotting them here and there in a higgledy piggledy fashion that resulted in an almost obscene riot of colour. She carried on buying even though she insisted there was no more room for such expenditure. The shed still figured in her designs. The shed at the bottom of the garden outlived dad and the gaudy upstart. Even we boys were sad to see it go in the end despite the fact that we had all but ignored it for its entire existence. In one way at least it proved to be more interesting after its demise than it was during its being vertical. In a fit of being daft my brother and I tried to close the door. We succeeded but we had barely walked ten yards when the shed fell down. In one scruffy corner at what was the back we found a tin under the floor. In the tin where six cupboard knobs wrapped in newspaper. The newspaper was dated 3rd of October 1910. I can’t say we boys suffered the effect of absentee parenthood. I can say we loved every minute of their collective eccentricities. I learned to cook my brother learnt to shop, my parents learnt to let us. The shed was, indirectly, the cause of the only heated words I ever knew my parents to have. Generally speaking our dad was the water and our mum was the fire. They harmonised very well and worked as a team in most situations. Once, however, our mother roared to the point when no amount of water would dull the flame. To say the shed was the catalyst would be a little harsh but the fact is, it did do its bit. We weren't car owners but dad had a list of folk who would recommend this place or that to visit. One day the recommend came with an offer of the car to get us there. Dad grabbed it with both hands, but on the day in question the world collapsed and we found ourselves all dressed up with no were to go. Dad, when it comes to social events, is not the brightest light in the room. "Never mind" says he "We'll go on a mystery tour!" We sat for the next two hours in traffic jams, long and winding roads, a sing song or two and by the time we reached Bexhill we boys had a pretty good idea of where we were going. Mum who’s geographical knowledge extends as far as the shops in Worthing or Brighton lived in a little world of her own. Mum just gazed in wonder at the new sights unfolding. The traffic was barely as bad as today’s crush; but my dad was far from a confident driver. He managed to lead a huge tail back of traffic has he struggled along at about forty miles an hour. He sat with his nose all but glued to the windscreen. His knuckles were white from gripping the wheel. What with that and mum’s navigation the whole experience would have been better carried out at sea. We reached Hastings as the sun decided it had had enough for the day. The bright yellow ball wrapped itself up and let the clouds take over. All the sensible folk took the hint as well but dad didn't subscribe to common sense at this stage. We parked up. We wrapped up. We raised the umbrella and braced ourselves. We didn't brace ourselves enough. Dad's idea of a mystery tour had led us to the beach hut that inspired his colour scheme. As we stood there I could feel the volcano raising.Our mother had visions of a nice garden or a lovely house or even a beautiful view but a scruffy beach hut on a raging bull of an afternoon did not press any of the right buttons, regardless of its colour scheme. Her gasket blew and even the wind shrank back. Dad looked suitably crestfallen. My brother and I had managed to reach a safe distance but poor old dad suffered the full flow. We made it back to the car, but it would have been warmer to sit on the roof as we drove along.
We had never known our parents to have a disagreement before. Mum had actually bashed dad with her handbag. We longed for salvation from any direction and we didn't care which. Pour enough water on the flames and eventually it will die.
Poor old dad presented such a pathetic figure that mum caved in and we began to see the funny side of it all. Eventually we fell out of the car in a whole cacophony of laughing. We were at the outside of a hotel on the sea front at Eastbourne. I couldn’t believe that my dad didn’t plan it, but the whole of the West Indies cricket team were staying in the hotel and what’s more they were in the foyer signing autographs. One of the players looked up and saw my dad. From there on it was as if my dad was the celebrity and they were the fans. We had seen most of them at one time or another in the shed but we had never met the whole team on mass. We spent the rest of what by then was the evening, dining at the expense of the West Indies Cricket board. For the first time in my life I actually heard my dad discussing cricket. I was astounded at his knowledge of the game and his authority over the players. What’s more I was astounded at the reverence with which the players held my dad. The man we were sharing the evening with was a completely different dad to the dad who smoked a pipe and listened to jazz. The team were playing at Hove the following day so to our relief one of the players (later to be captain of the most successful West Indies team ever) drove us home and stayed in our house. Also to our relief, we only ever referred to the day out with a smile on our faces. All was forgiven about the Beach hut and mum never carried out her threat to paint our shed pink There was another accidental addition to our masculine gang in the latter years; her name was Millie. She was a miniature Chihuahua with yellow and bronze hair. The extraordinary thing was she loved jazz. We didn’t actually own her, she belonged to worrying Mrs. Walsh. To Mrs.Walsh she was Millicent. But to a shed full of masculinity she was Millie. Millie joined her owner as she came for coffee one morning. My dad came home from an over night shift and was relaxing in the sunshine just outside the shed. Millie heard the music and crept out in an unobserved moment. Mrs Walsh found them (my dad and the dog) both asleep in a deck chair whilst the music swung in the back ground. When she tried to lift Millie from my dad’s lap chaos broke out. The dog would not go. It fought and snapped and buried itself further into my dad. Eventually they were prized apart, but if ever Millie went missing Mrs Walsh knew were she would be. In the end the dog would actually wait for my dad to come home. It seemed to know which shift he was doing and at the given time would appear outside the shed door. Once inside she would find her way to dads lap and the two of them would listen together. She didn’t like the test match it was just the jazz. When the test match was on she would fidget but jazz would herald a snooze. I felt sorry for Mrs Walsh in a way. She bought the dog to impress her high class friends and yet when they came the dog smelt of pipe smoke and would shun their company. She only had eyes for my dad. Her friends wondered why Mrs. Walsh had taken to playing the same record of Nat King Cole when they visited, it was the only way the dog would share their company. This situation went on for twelve years and when Millie died my dad was very sad indeed. We bought him another miniature Chihuahua, but we were very apprehensive. Ordinarily we expect a second dog to be the same but different. Jennifer was exactly the same and whether you care to believe it or not, she liked jazz as well Dad and the shed were a big part of my life but sadly they both died in a short period of time. He died after umpiring his first game of the cricket season in 1982. Dad came home and sat down and never got up again it was a quick as that. Somehow he knew the day was coming and he left instructions that we were to enjoy a barbeque with music from his shed at his funeral. The party was great and not over shadowed in any way by sadness. My mother danced with the captain of Lancashire county cricket club. My brother’s wife, who always thought my dad was just a silly old nutcase who had fantasy spasms about his cricketing past, was in awe of the famous personages dotting our lawn. I found myself talking to rock stars from my teenage years and a man who would go on to be prime-minister. All did their bit and tossed various bits on the barbeque drank and served drinks, there was absolutely no protocol given and none expected. When the hubbub had died my mother had a little weep and tucked herself to bed. My brother and I cleaned away the debris and just pushed the barbeque into the shed. Unfortunately we didn’t realise it wasn’t quite out. When we woke in the morning the shed wasn’t quite out either. The strangest thing is, we all as one thought how fitting. It just seemed right that the shed should join my dad. Our only regret was that we didn’t think of that measure when the party was still in full swing.
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