BETTY'S SHOP

Betty was the envy of the catty, neighbour women: a local, working
girl, she had "married up" (and "changed to Catholic") to a pleasant
man, who had decided to go into (small) business with money inherited
from a dead grandmother. As a result, Betty was "gentry" (merely,
middle class) and lived in the gentry part of town, where they were
never quite accepted by the local "old rich."

Betty's shop sold newsagents, tobacco items, sweets, ices, soft drinks
and some "luxary" items like nylon stockings and big, Mother's Day type
boxes of chocolates.

Betty was revered and treated in awe by the local people for one thing:
she knew about banks. To my later embarassment, neither my parents nor
myself (until my senior university year) had a bank or bank account.
Working-class people got paid, spent their money weekly and had little
savings. So when an occasional check (e.g., from government or
university, etc.) came to us, we took it to Betty, signed on the back,
saw it stamped and then got paid, in pound notes, right out of the
till.

Betty held a sway of terror over the neighbourhood, for in order to
"while away" her long, boring hours, she had honed to a fine edge her
gift for humour, cynical observation and glinting remarks. Within a
micro-second, she could beam into the achilles heel of sensitive,
adolescent girls -- their acne, clothes, make up, lastest boyfriends,
first mascara, false bra or promiscuity. Sometimes she went overboard
and would hold a blushing person up to an half hour of --spectacle,
attention, ridicule-- while everyone around grinned or fumed to be
served.

It got so bad that some young people were afraid--no, terrified!--to
enter her shop and would send in available, local children for the
purchase. But even that didn't fool her, and she would hoot "Is that
for wee Mary Smith that I see lurking outside, behind the
pillar?"

Even I was terrified, but I had a trump card to play. When the going
got hot, I'd ask: "How's James doing?" James, her son, was my
contemporary, who kept flunking the same college exams that I was
breezing thro' in style. So she treated me like a "pro" and,
reasonably, left off the brass knuckles when she "played" with me.