ME AS FRANK SPENCER...

It’s Raining Outside…

The Ridgeway’s sodden pavements

Reflected the street-lamps’ grudging light

Adjacent to a grimy cemetery wall,

As I trudged through the black side-passage

Between rented houses, and into the squall…

The wrought iron garden gate leaned

Untethered against its weathered post,

From its own hinges roughly wrenched;

Realising humour in this unusual situation,

I wrestled with the gate, hands clenched…

I manoeuvred it along the gloom of the passage,

Past the wooden gate at the rear,

Then manhandled it onto the kitchen floor;

I propped it against a wall in the lounge,

After twisting it through an adjoining door…

The bloke in the corner, fag hanging from mouth,

Gawped in obvious disbelief:

“What the bloody hell have you brought that in here for?” 

I heard him demanding of me,

With a despairing, rasping, frustrated roar…

I simply referred to what I’d seen on TV,

When Frank Spencer did much the same

And Betty’s mother, his action decried;

I imitated his voice, before walking out:

“Well it’s rainin’ outside…”

Pete Ray

January 2016

‘Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em’ had featured a moment when Frank Spencer had found a garden gate off its hinges, if I recall correctly, and he took it to the front door of girlfriend Betty’s house. Her mum, in exasperation, demanded to know why he wanted to hand her the gate and he, indignant, replied that it was raining outside… 

I liked that.

And my opportunity came, as I left 347 The Ridgeway, Erdington, in Birmingham, on my way to catch a bus home…

The mimicking of Frank carried on at school, where I call the register in his voice.

See? School can be fun…

Staff v Girls netball team: me as Frank Spencer...

Me as Santa (sorry kids...) with future mother-in-law, right and the guy on the left, who yelled at me for taking the gate into his house and he would have been my father-in-law, had he not sadly passed away in 1974...