The Last Time I Saw

Easter 1970, when I left school, was the last I saw of many Upbury faces. The few that I did see were mainly at work and on the social scene. Though I returned to hometown Bolton in the summer of 1975, these memories came with me.  Here then, just for fun, is the last time I saw…

Paul Obee; Martin Waterman; Peter Rowswell; Robert Harding; Chris Holmes; Jinder Bahia: Collingwood, the dockyard apprentice training centre 1970-72.

Peter Burtenshaw: Collingwood 1970-72, occasional sightings later, once or twice socially.

Diane Clark: Though I kept out of the way when Upbury paid a visit to Collingwood in 1971, Diane was the talk of the place for the mischievous way she slid a ring magnet up and down a steel tube.

John Greenland: Collingwood 1970-72 and socially, till 1975.

Martyn Hooper: Collingwood 70-72 and in the Dockyard till 1974. Martyn, another apprentice and I once had a submarine to ourselves between Christmas and New Year. Bloody miserable it was too, even with the radio on all day. We’d used up our holiday entitlement and everybody else was on leave.

Brian Lack: Collingwood 1970-72 and occasional sightings later.

Raymond Wright: Collingwood 1970/72. Socially: a couple of trips to see Manchester United.

~

Eddie Adams: The Flying Saucer, Hempstead. 1974/75

Stephen Austin: In a fast food place at the bottom of Napier Road/Livingstone Circus, 1974.

Jim Barker; Neil Bassadona; Jeremy Sharman: Occasional sightings on the social circuit till 1975.

Clive Boothroyd & Jamie Montgomery: roaring along Beechings Way on a big motorbike, legs out, Easy Rider style, around 1972/73.

Alan Botten & Paul Grigg: Seen playing football on a Civil Service pitch, Watling Street, approx 1972.

John Busby: The Man of Kent, Jeffrey Street, 1973.

Jeremy Brougham: Brompton High Street, May 1970. Amazingly, there was no trace of Jeremy’s once plummy tones as he gave me the full cor blimey guv’nor act.

Geoff Bray: Old Trafford 1972. See The Geoff Bray story.

Mister Carroll: At Gillingham matches, up until 1975.

Valerie Farrow: Classic cinema 1971. See The Ladykiller story.

Kevin Garlick: Socially till 1975, and a meet up many years later.

Martin Garlick: Socially till 1975.

Alan Greenstreet: On a wonderfully boozy night in The Rising Sun, 1974.

Kay Higgins: As the wife of one of the regulars, Kay was occasionally sighted at the Brickmakers Arms (no, not with a rolling pin and a burnt dinner).

Susan Johnson: At pub on the Lower Rainham Road, approx 1974.

Graham Knight: In various games for the Gills, notably a match where he scored an early goal at the Rainham End that turned out to be the winner.

Brian Lodge: Outside his home at the Fleur-de-lis pub, around 1972/74. I was shocked to see him wearing a Gillingham scarf. From being a typical fat kid with no interest in football at school, he’d become an ardent Gills fan and had just arrived home from a night match at Charlton.

Mick McCathy: Delivering coal around 1970.

Paul Parker: Paul left Gillingham in 1970. Thirty years would pass before we’d meet up, roll back the clock and be young boys again.

Lynda Parkhouse: Working behind the counter at Barnaby Recordings, the record shop near the train station, 1974.

Richard Pascall: See ‘The Apprentice.’

Lesley Ring: Working at the Trustee Savings Bank, opposite the train station, around 69/70.

Mister Rye: The Viscount Hardinge, July 1970.

Jennifer Sanders: In a dockyard office, while I was doing a stint on the ‘yard maintenance section around 1973.

Stanley Slaughter: Looked like he had the world on his shoulders as he walked across Eastcourt Green, 1972/73. Though he said hello as he passed, he had a black eye and was clearly in no mood to stop to talk.

Philip Spice: Working in a dockyard stores, around 1973.

Jane Taylor: At Medway and Maidstone College, 1972. I said hello, she said nothing, though she did give me a lovely sneer.

Kim Weobley: At the Old Anchorians Rugby Club at the bottom of Featherby Road, 1974. Sitting on a bar stool late at night, alarm bells rang when I realised I was being clocked by a burly bloke with a black beard. I feared the worst when he sidled over. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ said Blackbeard. It was Kim. Phew!

~

Clive Ward: though Clive was another that attended Collingwood, 1970-72, I last remember seeing him after a Gillingham v Millwall League Cup tie, on September 5^th 1972: Going to see Gillingham v Millwall on a Tuesday night was not a good idea. Taking my eleven year old brother with me wasn’t a good idea either.

Though we’d seen no sign of trouble, a sense of foreboding on arrival prompted a decision to opt for the safety of the main stand. A good move, it turned out, as there was mayhem on the terraces with an endless stream of Millwall supporters being marched away by the police.

On a night when football was merely a side show, Millwall were 2-0 up and coasting with five minutes left. Anticipating further trouble after the game my little brother and I left early, only to find our way home barred by a bunch of yobs. When we crossed the road, so did they.

Shit

Smelling danger we turned back.

‘How many of them have been arrested?’ I asked a policeman near the players’ entrance.

‘Four or five,’ he said.

A sickener, as it meant dozens of them had been ejected from the ground to terrorise the local population.

Walking in the opposite direction wasn’t going to get us home, but survival was uppermost. Our next objective – to circle around the town end of the ground – was dashed by suspicious activity ahead. Bermondsey’s finest had all bases covered, it seemed, until I noticed what appeared to be a footpath running behind the houses facing the ground. That footpath, adjacent to a railway line, was a God send that took us out of immediate danger but further from home. At some point we needed to double back. A left turn would put us back in the war zone so we took the next right, which put us on course for lower Gillingham and the Strand.

Oh no

In front of us was a level crossing, where youths were strung out along the footbridge.

‘Lynch!’

What a relief; the person calling my name was old friend Clive Ward, who was with his brother and other Twydall lads. They scrambled down from the bridge with a sorry tale to tell. Having entered the ground shortly before kick off they’d approached the massed ranks at the Rainham End with a chant of ‘Gilling-ham,’ not realising that the blue and white scarves in the home end were those of the visiting army. As the enraged Millwall fans surged towards them and the terrible truth dawned, Clive and his pals turned and fled. They only got away by scrambling over a wall, where Clive was helped on his way by a Millwall supporter that leapt up and thumped him on the lughole.

‘Then you haven’t seen the game?’

‘No, we legged it down here. We’ve been here ever since.’

I shouldn’t have laughed but I did, at the thought of Clive paying his admission money just to get a thick ear. Then it was my turn to tell a tale. Once finished, the decision to stay clear of the ground was unanimous. We all got home safely in the end, albeit by an unfamiliar route that circled around Woodlands cemetery.

~

Peter Ward: Twydall Green, near the post office, around 1973/74.

John Weir: On Napier Road, 1974.

Kay Vellam: Socially, 1973-74

~

Last but not least… 1974; No longer the shy ugly duckling, I’d blossomed into a big ugly duck. One Saturday night at the Rainham Mark Social Club my mate John and I were full of confidence and Heineken when we zoomed in on a couple of girls dancing together on the dance floor. Splitting them up wasn’t a problem but communication proved difficult when mine said something like ‘Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas très bien anglais.’

Bloody hell, they’re French birds

‘Bonjour!’ I said, as I pranced about like Biffo the bear and searched for something else to say. The bit of French I knew was useless. Asking her where the baker’s was or telling her I arrive at school at half past eight wasn’t going to get me anywhere. The language of love is universal they say, and so is the look on a girl’s face that let’s a boy know he’s flogging a dead horse. Sod it, I thought, I’ll try my luck with the other one. I tapped John on the shoulder and told him to swap over.

‘What ?’

‘Swap over!’

As un coeur faible never won a fair lady, I smiled as I introduced myself to the other bird, a lovely little thing with a slim figure.

‘Je suis Gérard,’ I said.

‘Je suis Elaine,’ she replied, with a big beautiful smile.

‘Je suis très beau, n'est pas?’

Elaine giggled as she danced.

That’s better. I’m in here

‘Je suis très intelligent,’ I said, pushing my luck.

Elaine cracked up. Unable to dance for laughing, she said something I couldn’t hear above the music.

‘Pardon,’ I asked, in my best French accent.

She leaned in close. ‘You don’t remember me, do you ?’

For a moment I was confused. Where had I met an English-speaking French bird before ?

‘I was on your dinner table at school!’

‘What?!’

This was Eileen Hunt, the one time flat chested, quiet as a mouse little first year that sat at the end of my dinner table in my final year at Upbury. Jesus, no wonder I hadn’t recognised her. The other girl was a French student on an exchange trip.

Making a berk of myself didn’t do any harm. Eileen and I went out together a couple of times but that’s all it ever could be, once I learned her family and mine were close friends. At nineteen I wasn’t big on honourable intentions, but I had a very healthy respect for the dangers of playing with fire.