“The Time Has Come”—Adam Faith
Every Sunday afternoon, me and Tommy used to sit cross-legged on the bright orange wall-to-wall carpet and watch the three o’clock film on the telly. Actually, first we’d watch the programme that showed the highlights of the best of Saturday’s football matches, and then we’d watch the three o’clock film. Mam would be lying on the settee resting. I’m tired, so you two please behave yourselves. After the film we’d go out and play football, as we had no interest in Songs of Praise, or any religious programmes. Because it was just the two of us, we’d play shots-in with jumpers for goalposts, and if the ball went anywhere near a jumper, we’d always claim it was a goal, arguing that if it had been a real goalpost, it would have gone “in-off.”
The film I remember the most was called What a Whopper, and it starred somebody I’d never heard of called Adam Faith. Mam slept through it, but me and Tommy both liked it, and I loved one of the songs even more than I liked the film. I was about nine, and I decided that I wanted the record, but this was going to be tricky as me and Tommy didn’t get pocket money or anything like that, and so nicking it was most likely going to be the only option. On Saturday mornings I played football for an Under-10 side that met up in the city centre. I’d become accustomed to getting off the bus a stop early and then making a detour through the open market. Not the covered market, for that was always just setting up, and it was like Aladdin’s cave in there with a game row, a fish row, a butcher’s row, and even a pets row, which was actually my favourite. If, for some reason, I wanted to explore the covered market, I’d do that on the way home, but the open market was always set up before the covered one, and so I fell into the habit of pottering around there, and soon made myself familiar with nearly every stall, particularly the record shop that sold 45s with the centre bits missing. Thinking back, I reckon they must have been rejects from a jukebox or something, but they seemed okay to me, and I learned to idly flick through a few racks, and then, when the bloke wasn’t looking, I’d slip one or two 45s inside my jacket and trap them against my side by tucking in my elbow, but not so that it looked like I’d broken my arm or anything. I’d carry on looking for a while, and then casually lean down and pick up my kit bag and saunter off out of the market and in the direction of the team bus. I must have been quite good at this thieving because I never got caught. One morning I was looking through the records, and in amongst all the stuff by Blue Mink and Herman’s Hermits and The Small Faces, I saw “The Time Has Come” by Adam Faith, and I remembered it from the film.
That afternoon our Tommy was late back from his own Saturday game even though it was only around the corner, but by the time he walked into the flat and slung his bag down on the floor, I’d played the record a thousand times. Here, Tommy, you’ll never guess what I’ve got. The zip on his jacket was broken, and he tended to hold it together with one hand as he walked. He let go of his jacket and slumped himself down on the settee and gave me that slack-jawed, come on, impress me look, so I played it again. His face didn’t change a bit. Well, I said, don’t you know what it is? He stood and picked up his bag. It’s from that film, isn’t it? The truth is, our Tommy must have been only seven, but he was pretty much obsessed with football. Pop music meant nothing to him. What a Whopper. I told him the title of the film, but he shrugged and said he was starving and asked what we were having for tea. It seemed like he was always starving, which didn’t make any sense as Mam always wrapped us both some dinner money in pieces of paper and left it for us on the kitchen table. I’d asked him a few times if he was being bullied, but he just shook his head and clammed up, so I didn’t push it. Well, what’s for tea? He knew full well that we were having either beans on toast or spaghetti hoops on toast, depending on what was in the cupboard. I let the song finish and then went into the kitchen and started to make our tea, which was my job when Mam had to work Saturdays at the library.
When Mam eventually came back, I put the song on again. And then a second time. By now Tommy was downstairs and kicking a ball up against the garages, so it was only me and Mam in the flat. I started to play the record a third time, and she shouted from her bedroom. Wasn’t there anything on the telly? I took the 45 off the turntable before it finished, and then I turned on the telly. The science teacher at school, Mr. Thompson, had just got a colour set, and he was always going on about how great it was to watch football in colour. I knew we wouldn’t be getting a colour telly anytime soon, so there was no point in dreaming. About anything.
“Those Were the Days”—Mary Hopkin
Mam started to get into the habit of coming back from her job at the library and then going straight into her bedroom and taking off her work clothes. When she came out again, we’d still be sitting in front of the telly, watching whatever was on, and she always made the same joke about us getting square eyes. Sometimes she’d be done up if she was going out for a drink with that smug prat Derek Evans, but if she was stopping in, she’d just pour herself a drink and work on her stories at the kitchen table, and when she finished, she’d join us in front of the goggle box. We all liked Hughie Green and Opportunity Knocks. I remember Mary Hopkin with her long blond hair and that squeaky voice that she had. Me and Tommy were taken with her, probably because she seemed to win every week, but eventually we were desperate for somebody else to win. Anybody.
Our Tommy didn’t have homework, but I was swotting for my Eleven plus and hoping to pass it and then be accepted at the grammar school in town, so I always had plenty to be getting on with. Tommy, on the other hand, wasn’t the slightest bit interested in school as everyone knew that by the time they got to his year they were going to scrap the Eleven plus, so he wasn’t even going to have to bother trying. He’d be going to John Wardle’s Secondary Modern, which was the nearest school to our estate, and the hellhole I was dead keen to avoid. At John Wardle’s there was no such thing as a fair fight, and if you turned your back on the wrong kid, you were likely to get bricked. Apparently there was a small chance that if I got in, Tommy might join me at the grammar school in town because if you had a brother that was already going there, then they could put you on a waiting list. But our Tommy didn’t seem too fussed about where he might end up. I was a bit torn. A part of me liked the idea of us both going to the grammar school in town, but another part of me was ready for a bit of separation.
At night, after Mam had told us that it was time to go to bed, we’d lay in the dark and talk for a while before falling asleep. Usually about things like whether we’d be able to go to the feast when it came to the moor this year, or I’d tell him what it was like at the new Olympic-size baths where our school had started to take us older boys for swimming, or I’d ask him if he thought we’d ever live in a bought house — either a bungalow or a semi — without us having to win the pools or something. I’d nearly always finish by asking Tommy if he could imagine what it might be like to freewheel down a steep slope on a bike, but I’d never give him a chance to answer. I bet it’s champion, I’d say. Owning a bike was my new obsession, but Tommy always wanted to talk about the same thing. How come our dad never came to see us? Didn’t he care for us anymore? Sometimes I’d get angry and ask him how the chuff was I supposed to know? It’s not like I can read minds, you know. Tommy would go quiet and say that he needed new football boots with screw-in studs, not the moulded plastic Gola boots that he’d been playing in for ages now. They were too small, and they pinched his feet, and people laughed at him for not having screw-ins as he was the best player in the school and if anybody should have them, he should. Last Christmas he wrote a letter to Dad and he gave it to Mam, who said she’d post it to him. In the letter he asked for a pair of new boots, but he never heard back from Dad, and Mam didn’t say anything. I’d given up believing in him ages ago, but his disappearance really seemed to get to our Tommy. There was a boy in my house at school who liked to tell everyone that his dad had left them and gone to Australia. I was a bit jealous as he seemed to me to be really lucky, for unlike us, there was a definite end to the story of his dad. According to Steve Pamphlet, his dad had gone down under to Australia, where there was sunshine all the time and everyone had loads of money and big houses. He said that his dad had told him that Australians didn’t allow Jimmy Jamaicas into the country to steal your jobs, and Aussies didn’t take cheek from anybody, including the bosses, and in Australia things were so good that there was no need to even think about buying anything on the never-never. Steve Pamphlet always started off talking about himself by confidently bringing up Australia and his dad, and it occurred to me that maybe I should try something like this. I could tell people that my dad’s in America, or even in jail. That would be different.