A bunch of fives

Talk about the past catching up with you.

At a local market, an ancient and frail gentleman called me to the counter. Leaning close and staring intently, he said "Ha!I thought it was you, you little tw*t" ponting upwards to his signage.

Ah. "Hello, Mr. W."

Forty five years ago, our family shared a large back yard two other families. One was a butchers. I'd earn a bit of pocket money or a few sausages by keeping 'back of shop' clean, double checking the accounts and invoices, that sort of thing.

In those days most stuff was made in shop. Curing, boiling, slicing, sausages, dripping.

The dripping was made by boiling up fat in a very large copper on the range. One of my jobs was to keep the heat steady. So I'd sneakily put my feet up reading Tiger and Jag, (Roy of the Rovers - anyone remember that?) passing stuff to front of shop when yelled at.

Sudddenly, it was very busy. I was trying to juggle what seemed about eight things at once. Scrubbing the back block with Lifeboy, keep an eye on the dripping, making a terrible job of twisting the beef and tomato, traying up the bacon, but most importantly, trying desperately to keep track of a backstory in Football Family Robinson.

After what seemed to be fiftieth shout from the front of "Oy, Boy!" I lost it. The Lifeboy went in the dripping.

I walked out into the yard and waited, arms crossed and smirking. As a nipper with a keen interest in chemistry, I knew exactly what was going to happen. "Boy! BOY!"

Huh. 'Boy' indeed. "BOY! OH MY F*CKING GOD".

Amid muffled screams of horror, a thick, foul, choking and pervasive mist rolled out of the back door, obscuring everything in it's path. Behind that followed the most greasy, green tinged two foot high, frothing fog of the most disgusting smelling, slimey Ginourmous bubbles you have ever seen.

It was wild.

The Butcher staggered out, frothing and retching. "What?" I asked. "I think I left my comics in there" Well, 7d was a lot of money for a comic. One look at his face as he straightened up, and discretion got the better of valour and I legged it. And I mean, I was gone, man, outta there.

Needless to say, I wasn't popular in the area for a couple of weeks. You don't deprive steel workers of their morning bacon, or the local ladies of their natter in the queue. Or your parents of a bit of extra 'skirt' for Sunday dinner.

Forty five years later, I'm eye to eye with my tormenter. "Boy, make yourself useful" passing me some stuffed casings to twist. Handing them back to me expertly wrapped he grinned.

"Now, bugger off Boy".

Nice to find I can still twist a mean bunch of bangers.