Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
Me and Bobby Magee - A driver's lament
By
John Williams
My mother used to kid me about some of the jobs she'd seen people perform. There was the guy who wiped the sweat from the horses on the merry go round; the woman who chewed food for gummy men and the man in the old market who carried lame ducks to do their number two's.
I know that those particular jobs were fictitious, but of late I've discovered that the employment category of 'Garbage work' is very much alive.
Since my career in teaching culminated in redundancy, stroke retirement, I have been forced to rouse myself occasionally to earn extra pocket money, as I recently purchased a jacket with an extra pocket.
Over the past two years I have had three jobs, all of which are competing for the annual award presented by the Spanish confederation of Microbiology, the body responsible for investigating outbreaks of Montezuma's revenge, and which goes under the exalted title of,
Numero uno crappo jobbo
One of the least likely contenders was the job I had with an outfit that operated a helpline and which offered information about sexually transmitted diseases, with drug and alcohol abuse thrown in for good measure.
It was a serious proposition and the training, carried out by highly competent tutors, was intensive and very informative. Within days I was conversant with such things as protease inhibitors, retro viruses and the viablity or otherwise of methadone programmes. I already knew quite a bit about the booze.
The helpline operation was housed in a beautifully appointed office replete with stained glass windows, and it seemed to me to represent the holy of holies where we acolytes reverently observed the high priests of tele-communications conduct their rituals. They were a law unto themselves and I was slightly in awe of them.
They had access to a fridge where they kept their own food, enshrined inside genuine tupperware sandwich boxes, all neatly labelled in a sacred script; bearing legends such as SIMON'S YOGHURT.
I had to be content with a mass produced label bearing the profane logo, SKI. To this day I don't have any idea what that particular acronym stands for.
The priests maintained an aloof distance between themselves and us novices, and spoke in hushed tones whenever we entered the refectory, but then it was only to be expected because they controlled all of the arcane mysteries of their profession. The fact that their wage was only slightly better than the national average was neither here nor there. A vocation is after all a vocation
However, the job itself was fraught with anxiety as we had a narrow remit that only allowed us to direct people to specific agencies and were told that we were never under any circumstance to prompt people or offer ad hoc advice.
The reality was that the priests were conducting their ceremonies according to their own rites and quite ignoring protocols. One day I was sitting listening in to a fellow who obviously fancied himself as the Solomon of sex drugs and rock and roll.
I think the woman had made a straightforward query as to whether or not not she should confront her ten year old son about the cannabis she had found in his wardrobe. Now Solomon should have simply referred to any one of the multiple agencies that specialised in that kind of thing, thereby observing his remit and adhering to the principle that calls should be kept to a minimum as each call was debited to the company.
Instead, the sage launched into a lengthy impression of grandpa Walton, giving her advice on subjects as diverse as the difference between grass and hash and he stopped just short of recommending an introductory pamphlet on bongs for beginners.
I wondered to myself why they were making such a fuss over ten kilos of Moroccan. It's garbage at the best of times.
My few stints on the helplines are memorable only for the fact that I always seemed to cop for the times when schools were letting out. Consequently I got all the adolescent prank calls.
I vividly remember one young girl who, in a reedy voice, beseeched me to help her as she had both her hands stuck inside her vagina. Refraining from asking the obvious, namely how was she able to hold the phone, I simply did as I had been instructed and told her she was guilty of making an inappropriate call and hung up.
One day I went in to work to find everyone in the place sunk in deep depression. It transpired that the company had lost all of their government contracts and so the priests and priestesses were being thrown to the wolves, who had been hanging about in nearby Assyria for just such a moment.
I'm afraid that even though it meant that I was back in the shit job market I laughed like a drain.
The next job was an attempt to make a decent fist of a venture that I had abandoned one hot day in the summer of '97. Market research. You know the game, knocking on doors to ask people ridiculous questions about their ability or otherwise to tell butter from I can't believe it's not butter. I can't believe it matters a jot but the money seemed reasonable.
In those days I hadn't learned to drive and so by the time I had staggered with my shoulder satchel and assorted booklets all the way from Freshfield station to my long distant target area I looked like a cross between Postman Pat and The Fugitive.
I swore that day I would never do it again without transport. So it was that I, in possession of a shiny new driving licence, thought I would give it another go.
I answered an ad calling for 'researchers' and was invited to a two day training session on the Wirral. It was conducted in a hotel and so the lectures were interspersed with good food and coffee and I was feeling vaguely cheered.
We were sent home and told to conduct a mock interview with six people in our own locale and that is where my doubts began.
The interview concerned a fictitious television company and my task was to elicit from the interviewees their viewing habits.
I knocked on sixteen doors in one road before I found anyone who was prepared to admit he watched the damn thing! I felt sorry for the other residents because it was obvious they were under siege from the vandals who had climbed onto their roofs and installed bloody ariels!
When I returned to the hotel the next day a late entrant had arrived. He was about six foot six in height and lumbered around the room with the shambling gait of a vallium addicted grizzly bear. He was also possessed of a face that looked as if it had been hastily constructed by a first year apprentice at the Hammer film studio. I couldn't help thinking that if he'd knocked on my door I would have been calling for an armed response unit.
I suppose his presence was an indication of the desperation of the company who must have had a higher turnover than the firm that built the great wall of China.
As if divining my thoughts the person in charge of the training asserted that there were people who had been employed by them for years and that one interviewer had been on their books for thirty two years. I can only think that she was still stuck in the same street, and still asking people what they thought of crystal radios!
I didn't return the next day as I realised that I had been deluding myself by thinking a car would make a difference. If I'd been driving a Rolls Bentley I would still have been unable to take the rejection on the doorstep any better.
Hope springs eternal...which in the original Latin reads 'There's one born every minute'. As a fool I have been re-born more times than a Buddhist on speed.
I had seen an ad for self employed couriers. it entailed dropping off parcels to people who had ordered goods from catalogues. Now I did know one thing and that was that people are usually very welcoming to the bearers of such items and so I decided to give it a whirl.
I thought my interview was a bit strange because when the manager called me in to his office he indicated that he hadn't looked at my application and was surprised to see teaching as one of my professions. I thought, Christ, as long as I hadn't actually turned up carrying a dripping axe I must be on!
I was asked to go for a training session. More training! Muhammed Ali didn't do this much training!
In the event it wasn't so much a training session as a morale booster. Again I was regaled with stories of people who loved the job so much that some of them left their wives for the allure of a parcel. Indeed, it is true many of the drivers had been happily engaged in the job for years. After all, there is something attractive about being one's own boss on the open road.
To be fair the managers did point out that the first few weeks would be chaotic as I came to terms with the considerable paper work and the travails of finding the right houses but that within a short space of time I would have the job down to a few hours a day, which suited me fine as I could fit it in my normal life
Chaotic, it made rioting seem organised! On my first day I started out at nine o'clock in the morning and spent the next twelve hours driving in and out of the same housing estates at least five times as I kept losing track of the streets.
As many of the streets were cul de sacs I spent more time driving in reverse than forward. I grew more and more dishevelled. Worse, the constant struggle to get in and out of the low seat and then walking up and down streets looking for someone to take in the parcels for absent householders was wreaking havoc on my muscles and I wondered if the symptoms of my minor stroke was going to be excacerbated by my unaccustomed labours.
At eight o'clock that evening I staggered into my home looking so distressed that my boys were actually polite to me.
I sank gratefully into a hot bath to ease the ache of muscles that hadn't been so abused since I worked in the Kibbutz chicken farm where the strain of carrying three live chickens in each hand for hours on end meant that I was only ever one peck from a hernia!
The next four days were a nightmarish blur of aches and frustration as at one stage my sodding papers blew all over the street. On Friday I was so exhausted that I practically crawled up my back garden. It was only when I came face to face with Whiskas that I realised I was trying to get through the cat flap. Okay, I exaggerate, but man I was done in!
On the following Monday I began to realise that I had drawn the short straw because my route was a nightmare that would neither end nor, in terms of time, get any shorter. On the Wednesday I broached the subject with one of the managers and my suspicions were confirmed because he agreed that the route had changed dramatically since it had first been set up, as traffic calming measures and the blocking off of streets had rendered the area unrecognisable from the original layout.
It was fortunate for me that I had that morning received notification that I had been accepted for a job in education. So I took out at my identifaction tag and sang to the chief clerk,
"Oh take this badge off of me I can't wear it anymore!"
He just smiled understandingly.
Every cloud, however, has a silver lining and mine came in the unlikely shape of a road side eaterie called JackyMundo's. I had seen it every day on my way to hell and wondered about the validity of the sign that read,
JackyMundo's world famous Curries and Pizzas/p>
Now you don't often see such intriguing claims on industrial estates and so on my final day I decided to try the fare. There were no windows through which I could glimpse the interior but I was determined to try it out and so I walked in through the door.
The interior is a monument to hygiene and stainless steel, and the ovens shone so brightly that I began to see the wisdom of not having windows as the reflected glare could have caused a serious traffic accident.
I asked the man in charge, a genial silver haired person dressed in spotless white shirt and trousers, if he was JackyMundo.
He smiled broadly and pointed to one of the many brochures in view and said, indicating a photograph of two very small and smiling boys holding pizzas and curry dishes, and said proudly,
"That's Jacky and that's Mundo. They're my grandchildren."
Just then a woman approached him and addressed him as Jacky. I shot him a quizzical glance and he was just about to explain when two young women walked in. One was of Indian origin and I asked her if the curry was worthy of its world wide reputation.
Smilingly she informed me that the food was so good that her employers often did their office catering with Jacky's creations. That was impressive and so when Jacky came back to the counter I ordered Southern fried chicken.
I was informed that it would take at least ten minutes as he was always concerned that it was cooked through. I made a mental comparison with some of the Kebab joints I'd been in where meat was sometimes served so lukewarm it was clucking.
The young ladies ordered Pizzas, Lasagnes and a vast amount of cheesecake. The meals were cooked to perfection by Claire, Jacky's attractive teenage daughter, who apparently takes care of the Italian side of things, while an Indian chef provies the Asian know how.
When the other customers left and my chicken was still undergoing its volcanic immersion, I got into a conversation with Jacky who is friendliness personified.
I asked him how long he had been open and when he said he'd been at that spot for a year I felt entitled to ask how he achieved his world wide fame. His face creased with laughter as he told me that on his last holiday to Spain he'd been approched by a man who had exclaimed,
"You're the feller who runs JackyMundo's!"
And that is how the legend of JackyMundo's world famous curries and Pizzas was born.
Jacky explained that most of his trade was delivered to homes and indicated the neatly piled heaps of shining satchels which were designed to carry the food. The food was conveyed by couriers carrying curry!
I waited to get home before sampling my southern fried chicken and found it pleasantly spiced. I was surprised to find that my two portions consisted of a thigh and a whole chicken breast cooked to white perfection.
Thanks Jacky, for making my last days on the Knowsley Industrial estate memorable for something more than aches and pains.
Truly, JackyMundo is famous throughout le monde!