Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance

If I had to choose only one between hot and cold, it would have to be cold.  My time on this planet has literally revolved around the loss of heat or even better still the conservation of said thermal dynamic, but purely from a personal perspective you understand.

As a small child I grew up with the comparative comfort of a home, a bed and even the good old fashioned hot water bottle.  On those winter days when the sparkling winter sun tried it’s best to deceive me to venture out and play in the frost-bound crystal-clear air I could always retreat to the warmth and comfort of my home.  True, being warm was a matter of my mother burning screwed-up balls of the now discontinued Sunday tabloid she hated so much and was my father’s weekly pilgrimage along with his purchase of 10 Woodbines.  We never had central heating and even when we moved from a drafty old, rented house to a 3 Bed Terrace it was the occasional treat of a coal fire that warmed the one living room.

I clearly remember planting seed potatoes in the garden at the back of our council house in Chelmsford.  My father was still recovering from a period of mental health and subsequently took over the garden later that year, but for then I practiced what I had been taught in Gardening lessons at school. That Sunday afternoon in late March 1970 was almost as cold as the winter that it followed.  I entered the house with fingers I could no longer feel, but even with the fire unlit it was a relief to feel the tingling rush of blood as the circulation returned to the numbed digits that had struggled to complete the planting of le Pomme de Terres. 

A year earlier and in the grip of winter I had set out as a young paper boy to do my daily round ‘2^nd Swiss’ ( the avenue not the country).  Even with woollen gloves I began to cry with pain as the cold bit into my barely covered fingers and hands.  My calves ached and my toes hurt as they struggled to keep my moving along the dark, frozen pavements.  I had 60 drops and despite having 10 to do, limped home crying to my mum who as usual was up doing ‘mum’ stuff. Out came the rolled up newspapers and after about 15 minutes, and with the moral support of mum ventured out to finish the round.

I was barely aware of homelessness back then.  It didn’t really get mentioned at school and I was far away from being abandoned and homeless.  Despite home being the odd marital war zone for my parents I could and always was able to come in from the cold.