Rudd Lads Don't Move

Rudd lads don't move. That's what they always said. Never. You ask
half the women here. If you married a Rudd lad you came to live in
Rudd. Everybody knows that. The Rudd lads don't move. Unless they
emigrate.

I blamed Sally at first when he left. Said that it was all the fault of
her and her stupid slogans. That's all they ever talked about over at
Cooper and Roes's while they were sat in front of their machines
stitching away. The bloody slogan competitions. "Such a tasty rasher -
no wonder it's a smasher". "In Seville they're brill, in Kuwait they're
great, in Mexico they're fantastico". Yes dear. You get it off in the
post straight away.

Never won a thing in her life. And now Andrew's in advertising. In
London.

A loaf of bread and an egg custard please love.

Used to be a family shop this did. He was a character, was old man
Horspool. And the hardest working daughters you could imagine. Baking
all night and Clara coming round every day with a big straw bread
basket in her hand, with her long hair plaited like headphones. And she
had her own shop too, just a corridor really with a big wooden counter
with a big slab of butter and a big slab of cheese and the odd tin of
stuff. No Measurements Shop it was called. If you asked for half a
pound of butter they'd just chop it and say there you are - straight in
the grease proof paper. Mind you if you got the other one you ended up
paying for a bit of her thumb as well, she made sure of that. You could
see it plain as day. But you couldn't really say anything all things
considered.

Thanks a lot.

Morning, day and night those girls delivered; even on Christmas, when
you used to take your turkeys round to the bakehouse oven with the big
old wrought iron doors. And it was the place to go was Clara's shop if
you had a taste for the gossip. There was some that were addicted.
They'd just sit on a wooden stool and stay there all morning. You'd see
them through the window, their mouths opening and closing, opening and
closing; like goldfish.

Cheers.

It's his birthday today. I'm making him a weather vane. The Hunchback
of Notre Dame. They did a production of it at school and he had the
main part; bouncing round his room night after night with a daft voice.
Nobody's ever let him forget about it.

And I'm not really sure whether to give it a lick of galvanising paint
or go the whole hog and powder coat it.

Mind you it obviously ran in the family because Sally's dad was a
hunchback. He used to deliver work from the factories round to the
women in the village, stitching jobs and drawing the threads. Mr May,
the man with the sack. Or Quasimodo to us kids. He wasn't really a
hunchback, it was just the size and weight of the bag over his
shoulder. Although he definitely had a touch of the Charles Laughton
about him.

Twenty three years ago today he was born. And about this time too.
Sally and I were just bursting with it.

And it flies, it really does. It absolutely flies.

This is where I started, here on the Green. With Granddad making the
horse shoes that he bragged were more comfortable then the Princess of
Persia's finest feather slippers and Dad the best temperer in the area.
When I was a nipper I'd come down here to get some crisps from the
crisp factory and I'd see the pair of them. Granddad standing in front
of the anvil while dad bowled along the big iron wheels that had been
made for the carts for all the different family farms. And on a wet
winters day, the shop could be full of horses steaming the place
up.

And then it was Dad and me. Following in fathers footsteps. Making
shoes and hooks and harrows and harnesses for the farms, before doing
railings and gates and the drills and tools for the council. He never
did let on why his tempering was better than mine; watching the colours
come up and listening to the sound of the hiss as you quench it. He
always said that I'd have to work that one out for myself.

All that time together and so little conversation really.

And it was here that Sally knocked me off of the greasy pole on our
first date. I'd seen her that afternoon while I was in the offices as
Cooper and Roe, getting the specifications with my dad for some
railings they wanted making. There was this scream and she was brought
in with a needle through her hand. White as a sheet she was, with these
great big green eyes all welling up with tears.

She still knocked me off. Within seconds.

And fifteen years later we were stood in the same spot watching our son
parade down through the village with the scout band to open the Wakes,
playing the cornet that his grandfather used to play when the silver
band lead the procession. With the vicar that married us climbing onto
the dodgem rink to deliver his speech. Every year the same and you
always wanted him to do it with the cars going round, leaping from
dodgem to dodgem like the fairground men.

I can still remember watching the fire as though it were yesterday. He
normally kept his instrument at home, but that night he'd stored it in
the wooden hut along with most of the others. I was expecting some kind
of noise to come out from that flaming hut, some kind of squealing, or
maybe a dirge. And we all just stood there, knowing that something
important was coming to an end. Just stood there, quietly, watching the
silver burn.

She says that it's good that he's moved on, that that's what life's
about. And if we'd had a daughter she wouldn't want to think that she
was going to spend half her life just doing the same as she and her
mother did. She's probably right. And so it's just the two of us again
now.

Twenty five years next month we've been married. Everybody said that if
anybody was going to lose his head to Sally May it would be me. John
the Blacksmith.

There were some envious men around when I slipped that ring on her
finger. She was the one that quite a few had set their sights on, ever
since she'd been chosen as the Gala Queen. And she looked great,
sitting on this pink shell thing on the back of a lorry as the parade
went up to open the fete at the top rec. Wandering around in her frock
and sash, while the mini football match went on and I came last in the
space hopper race.

She danced with each and every one of the local councillors when she
was crowned, and it was the kind of dancing that made your heart go
fast. It upset a few of the wives that did. It was like watching
starving men at a feast.

'You do something to me
Something that simply mystifies me
Tell me why should it be
You have the power to hypnotise me'

I've always been convinced that I know the night that Andrew was
conceived. When I got back from work there was a note telling me to go
upstairs. And Sally was there, sitting on the bed. I've not got any
veils, she said, so these will have to do. I sneaked them out when
nobody was looking. And then she put on Marlene Dietriech.

And did the dance of the seven knickers.

She fell over three times, but it did the job alright. And anyway I
wasn't counting. Not that anyway.

I'm sure that was the night.

No, hang on, she did win something you know. 'I can spread it on
thicker, without affecting my ticker', that was it. She won a weekend
break for two at Henlow Grange Health Farm for that one. Moved my
grandfathers certificate of Membership for The Worshipful Company of
Farriers from above dad's chimney hood so that she could display her
winning entry.

She took her mother with her. The inimitable Mrs May, with the Terry
Hennessey toenail. Just after Forest had won the FA cup that happened.
He stood on her toe in the chemist and it never grew back properly. New
Years Eve is never the same unless she starts cackling on about the
finest full back they ever had and thumps her foot on the table at
Tillo's.

There used to be three spinsters who lived over there, with the old
Scrooge bonnets. I don't think they ever set a foot outside of the
village in their lives. You'd see them go down the street at twenty
past two every afternoon and they'd always be back at half past three.
On wash day they used to hang their bloomers out on the line in exactly
the same place, in exactly the same order. And all the lights would be
turned off, every night, at ten o clock. You could set your watch by
them.

Apparently one of them wasn't feeling too well one afternoon and went
for a lie down, and when the sister that shared the bed with her came
in and realised that her sister was on the wrong side of the bed, she
pushed her over to the other side. And she fell out and stayed there,
on the floor, having a stroke. Mary's mum ended up having to get an
ambulance for her.

It's a hotel now. People coming and going.

I took Andrew for a haircut on his first birthday. Just the pair of us
at Alf Cockers. And I had mine done too. He sat on my lap and hardly
moved his head at all. I was ever so proud of him. And just before I
got up to go I looked down and saw bits of his hair and bits of my hair
all mingled together on the floor. I'll never forget that.

He looks like me they say. And you can tell he's his father's son by
his stride. But there's a big difference. I walk with my head tilted
up, looking amongst the chimneys and rooftops. Sally says that I live
half my life above eye level. But it's my gallery up there, because
weather vanes were my speciality. Dad could never get the hang of
those. You've got to get the mass on one side to catch the wind you
see. Which is why your cockerel works with it's big tail.

And I'm very pleased with my new one. The hump should do the job
fine.

I wonder if Andrew walks around London with his head tilted up. He
should do; he'd see some wonderful things.

Apparently he's going great guns. And it's the thing to be in because
it's everywhere.
It won't be long before they have advertising on coffin lids as far as
I can see.

The craft is in the branding now, not the product, is what Andrew tells
me. And maybe he's right. You rarely see a blacksmith that's come up
through the trade. They've got spark guards up in front of the forge
and have to weld everything on separately, and everything's mass
produced and cut out with laser.

"What's your line of work?" they used to ask you. And that's what it
was. A line, stretching backwards and forwards and drawing us all in.
Your trade was part of you. It won't be long now before the village is
without a blacksmith for the first time in centuries.

You want to celebrate really don't you, on a day like this. But it's
difficult if he's not here. We'll speak on the phone I suppose, but I'm
not too good at all that. Maybe Sally will remember how it all started
and come home with a glint in her eye. But I'll probably just end up
having a pint or two at Tillo's with some of the lads. Because we're
still all here, reminding ourselves of the games of football and the
hedge hopping, when we used to all run into a hedge and see how far we
were thrown back. Rudd lads through and through everyone of us.

And one or two of their boys have stayed here. One or two.