Scuffles…
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| COMBROOK GREEN RECENTLY... |
It happened on Combrook Green,
Landscaped amongst council owned homes
On Shard End estate and I was around ten, I guess.
It was Ronald Whitehouse
Who told me as we returned to school from lunch
One day, his understanding, his hunch,
Yet something which caused me such lasting stress:
If there was a cloud formation
That took the shape and form
Of the British Isles, he had said,
Then it was certain to be
The end of the world and we would all be dead…
I spoke to Ronald only one more time,
Before, for some reason on Combrook Green,
We raised fisted hands towards each other once,
A fleeting disagreement I suppose, yet totally unseen…
I only ever raised my hands in scuffle mode one more time,
In the old yard at my grammar school,
When Horsman irritated me and I flung out by my fists,
A fleeting conflict I suppose, at fourteen and being such a fool…
Pete Ray
December 2019
The only two incidents of scuffling in my life…
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| YEAR 6 AT HILLSTONE SCHOOL, 1961-62. I AM 2ND FROM LEFT, BACK ROW. RONALD IS NOT IN THE PICTURE... |
Ronald Whitehouse and I would sometimes be walking from our houses back to school after eating lunch at home. We never spoke again after the pushing and shoving.
Shard End was a large early 1950s housing estate in Birmingham. My school was Hillstone Primary…
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| I'M THE MASKED EXECUTIONER... |
Horsman? No idea why we quarrelled. It was a rarity for me…
A few moments of anger and then we were apart and never spoke again…
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| MY BUS... |
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| A BALL IN THE GARDEN, SHARD END. IT'S ALL I NEEDED... |
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| WITH MUM AT MY TEACHER'S WEDDING, CASTLE BROMWICH CHURCH... |
The secondary school was King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston…
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| K.E.G.S. ASTON'S OLD SCHOOL YARD... |
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| ONE OF THE RUGBY TEAMS. I'M SEATED ON THE YARD, TO THE RIGHT... |
The image of a cloud forming the shape of the British Isles worried and haunted me for years afterwards…
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