Eddie My Love

He was the first in the gang to die.

'Players of the Keighley Amateur Dramatics Society, 1955'. Row upon row
of smiling faces. Study each one careful. That's Eddie- my elder
brother by four year- stood next to Joe and Freddy Pie on the back row.
Like
me, some of these folk're pensioners now. They've lived a life; they've
children; grandchildren. If the Lord came an took 'em tomorrow they
couldn't complain. Eddie never even made it to twenty.

The whole of Eddie's short life's captured in the
pages of this scrapbook. It's full of letters,
pictures of his heroes, playing cards, snapshots of him and his
friends. Eddie reckoned photographs were "electrifying" if you look at
them and think 'these
people are about to be hit by sudden change'. Happen they'll fall in
love, or get knocked down, or find out a terrible secret, or discover
their test results're positive, who knows. They certainly don't. Not at
the second the picture was taken. Eddie reckoned photos
were magic, "like looking back in time." Joe took most of these
photographs. He worshipped Eddie with his camera.

These pages are full of memories: Eddie as a little boy, posing in a
Stetson. You can almost hear the ghost of children's laughter, as if
it's been pressed like a flower between the pages for forty-five
year.

Every turn of the page makes the stabbing in my heart keener. These
here are Eddie and Joe pulling faces in a coin-in-the-slot booth. They
were so vain- 'specially Eddie. THE ONLY GREASERS THIS SIDE OF
THE
PENNINES printed below in his neat hand.

I can smell his cologne as I turn the page. This is Eddie leaning
against the bonnet of his car- a wreck of an old black Lincoln. He's
posing with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He's
trying to look moody but, if you look close, you can see he's
about to break into a grin. I remember this being taken by Joe on a
sunny afternoon. There was a water shortage and we got in trouble for
spraying each other with the garden hose. Eddie was crooning along
and
laughing to the Teen Queens on the car radio,

"Eddie my love, I love you so-o
How I long for you, you'll never kno-ow
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long&;#8230;&;#8230;"

Here's Eddie and Joe in the sea at Blackpool, on that day out to the
Floral Dance Hall. They're laughing and splashing with their wet hair
plastered to their faces.

See that kiddie? That's me, sat next to Eddie at the kitchen table with
mam fussing in the background. It was Christmas time, 1956. Eddie dyed
his hair black to look more like Tony Curtis and Elvis Presley. I did
it to look more like Eddie.

This here is a programme for the production of 'Glass Menagerie' at
Keighley Playhouse. Eddie played Tom. He's underlined his name in ink
on all the reviews; 'Edward Fox's performance was breathtaking.' He
weren't
like the other lads. He reckoned acting was his escape out of Keighley.
"There'd be nothin' worse than rotting away in this dump of a town." He
was going to be a movie star.

This is Eddie with his arms draped around a couple of girls and Joe
lurking around in the background. Every girl in town was in love with
my big brother Eddie. Even Bonnie Black. Her pa brought his business up
here
from Tottenham to avoid bombing in the war. Half of Keighley were
employed in Peter Black's mill, including Eddie and me mam.

Bonnie Black had every guy in town lusting after her, 'cept our Eddie.
He used to call her 'the devil in nylon hose.' She pursued him with a
vengeance. He used to say, "that little girl reckons just 'cause she's
pretty and her daddy's rich se can get owt she wants."

She stalked Eddie that summer. It caused friction between him and Joe,
I heard them arguing behind a closed door sometime toward the
end.

I know some folks're morbid and they like hearing about other people's
misery. If you're that type, then tough. I'm not going to indulge you.
All I'll do is show you this cutting from the Keighley News, 23rd
September '57. A faded black and white picture of fire fighters
struggling to control the blaze at Peter Black's mill. 'The huge
five-storey building was a
blazing inferno within seconds&;#8230;.. A chance
spark&;#8230;..A tragedy waiting to happen&;#8230;.. Timber
floors impregnated with oil&;#8230; Eight workers died after trying
to escape down a wooden fire escape only to find a locked door at the
bottom.'

Not one day's gone by I haven't pined for Eddie.

Here's Eddie immortalised in black and white: sat at the wheel of his
car, gazing into the middle-distance. Here he is on his bed, staring at
the ceiling with a book lying open across his chest and a cigarette
dangling from his fingers. And here, with collar of his overcoat turned
right up, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, walking away down North
Street in the pouring rain. These are the last pictures. He didn't live
long enough to see them developed.

Here's Eddie secret. I didn't see it at the time but now I'm looking
with an old man's eyes. Turn back a few pages. Eddie and Joe in the
sea. Look closer, at their eyes. See how they're holding hands just
below the surface of the water.

"Eddie my love, I'm sinking fast
The very next breath might be the last
Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

You left me last September, to return to me before long
Now all I do is cry myself to sleep
Eddie, since you've been gone."