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Mike Kiernan's Local and General History Site
Stories
Writing is something I have had an interest in for some time. Long before we had a computer, or even a typewriter, I would scribble something down on a piece of paper, only to throw it away. Sometimes it might be a few lines of poetry, like one time when I went through a phase of finding full boxes of matches. I would come across a box in the street, give it a kick and if it rattled I'd pick it up and invariably it would be nearly full and it got me wondering, who was throwing them away, or losing them? So I wrote a poem about it, which started "I keep finding boxes of matches". But I ended up throwing it away and I regret having not kept it.
Nowadays, I tend to save things and there will be more stuff going on this site as and when I find it again. I have a couple of poems which I will put on another page. One of them came about from a story of eight characters who were barred out of the pub next door. I took the story at face value and wrote an amusing poem about it.
Sometimes though, my stories are about characters whom I meet and sometimes associate with. Some time ago, I wrote the following piece about a local character called 'H' and for reasons which will become apparent, I called it 'H' And The Magic Tree. It may sound similar to the Harry Potter titles, or 'James and the Magic Peach', but believe me, it is totally different.
When I write about characters, I try and tell the story in the way that they speak it, that way the character of the person comes across. When 'H' tells his stories, he doesn't mince his words and much of what he says is laced with profanities, although nothing which is too offensive or lewd and in the context of the stories it comes across in a humorous manner. Conversely, in the more tragic parts of the narrative, the profanities add something to the scene.
I wrote this piece some time ago and I was relatively inexperienced at putting pieces together, so I have done a bit of editing to make it more readable. I hope you enjoy it.
‘H’ And The Magic Tree
Go in any pub in the north of England and you will meet characters. Some, you might like, some you might not. But as the old saying goes, ‘never judge a book by its cover’; for some of those people have led interesting lives. Take our hero ‘H’ for example. Real name Harry Thompson. If you met him for the first time, you might take an instant dislike to the man. But if you took the time to get to know him and sit and listen for a while, you will find he has a story to tell. Not a story of heroism, or a life of fame and fortune, or great deeds, but one set against a background of growing up in one of the so-called ‘rough’ areas of Manchester, in the mean streets of Gorton.
Born the last of 9 children, living in a cramped 2-up and 2-down slum dwelling in a cobbled-stone street, where you had to be tough to survive. It was the time of teddy-boys, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Marylyn Monroe, black & white T.V., coal fires, rag and bone men, large families, tick-books, heavy drinking and poverty.
Ten short years after men came back from the horrors of war, with promises of a return to ‘homes fit for heroes’ ringing in their ears; promises had yet to be fulfilled, for many living in the old slum streets. This, then, was the non-too-promising world into which young Harry Thompson was born.
In nearby Gorton Lane, men found employment at engineering firms like Beyer-Peacock, builders of the mighty Beyer-Garrett steam locomotives, which once plied the Empire in South Africa and India.
Beyer-Garrett Steam Engine, built in Gorton
These were giant steam engines, of radical design, capable of hauling heavy loads of freight over great distances, examples of which are still in main-line operation to this day, kept running by sheer enthusiasm and determination, perhaps. Engines like these are still beimg built in China and I wonder sometimes about decisions taken to get rid of steam power entirely, for it served us well in the past.
Not places for the faint-hearted these foundries. These were hard men, doing hard, heavy, hot, grimy work, men with lined faces, full of character. And when their shift was finished they were off to one of the local hostelries, such as the ‘Vulcan’, or the ‘Steelworks Tavern’, for a hard-earned drink, with a raging thirst, only satisfied by foaming jugs of ale and banging on the door if it wasn’t open on time. Men like Billy Thompson, Harry’s father, well loved and respected and sadly missed.
Picture the scene. March 14th, 1954. Hazy sunlight penetrates the fog in Sycamore Street, Gorton. Gorton, in the days when cotton was king, was once a desirable place to live for the gentry, mill-owners and businessmen of the Victorian era, now long since seen better days. Living in their big houses on the main road, whilst their workers lived in hovels, with stone-paved floors and blackleaded firegrates.
Children slept five to a bed, nose-to-tail, freezing in winter, with coats instead of blankets. In the yard, the ubiquitous tin bath, hung on a nail and in the corner, an old mangle. In the kitchen, damp clothes hung from a rack; an ingenious contraption comprising of cast iron brackets shaped like coathangers, with holes in, through which were threaded wooden poles, on which the clothes hung. The whole thing hung from the ceiling on pulleys, the rope being secured to a bracket, fastened to the wall and could be raised or lowered when needed, which, in rainy Manchester, was quite often. With so many children, the rack was in constant use. Although, up to the 50s, things had improved slightly, many dwellings had a tiled fireplace, proper gas cooker and electricity, little else had changed.
In the cobble-stoned streets, still wet from overnight rain, now thankfully stopped, raggy-arsed, bare-footed children play; whip and top, a skipping rope from a banana box, or a bogie. A bogie, sometimes called a ‘ragger’. A cart, made out of planks of wood and wheels off a ‘basinette' , -an old pram, the big wheels on the back and the small wheels on the front and for steering, a plank across, fixed with a pivot, a nut and bolt through a hole, made with a red-hot poker out of the coal fire and on the front, a piece of string, with a kid pulling and at the back, another kid with a stick, pushing and another, whose turn it was, in the seat. Sometimes elaborate contraptions these, depending on the ingenuity of the maker, the pram hood being added over the seat, for shelter.
A horse and cart are coming down the street, the driver blaring away on a trumpet. Not musically, you understand, but a raucous sound, to attract attention, interspersed with cries of ‘RAG BONE’!!! The rag and bone man has arrived. People bring out their old rags, which were once their best clothes and trade them for a balloon on a stick, or a bow and arrow made from a piece of cane, or a few pots, substandard, but good enough for Gorton folk to eat their dinners off. All pretentions and airs and graces have long gone, yet people still had pride.
The horse leaves a pile of steaming shit in the cobbled street. Suddenly, ravenous dogs appear from nowhere and unbelievably, start to consume the effluent!. So starving must they be, their owners unable to afford to keep them, so they abandoned them to roam in troublesome packs.
In a doorway, an old woman is ‘donkey-stoning’ the step. An age-old ritual involving rubbing the threshold of the dwelling with a sand coloured brick, another product from the rag and bone man’s cart or the corner shop. People may have been poor, but some were houseproud and the donkey-stone finished off the step beautifully, with dire warnings of the consequences, for the first person to set foot on it ! Although firmly part of the past of Northern folk, it has been immortalised by having a pub named after it at Manchester Airport. What image it conjures up for visitors to these shores passing through the airport, one can only guess.
At number 2, Sycamore Street, a drama of a different kid is being played out. A child is being born to already impoverished parents. Young Harry Thompson heaves his way into the world.
GROWING UP
In the tough streets of Gorton, a kid had to grow up fast. This often involved getting into ‘scrapes’. It wasn’t long before ‘H’ had his first fight. Here he takes over the story:
I was in the shithouse and I heard a noise on the roof. Now in those days, coming up to bonfire night, all the wood for the bonfire was stored on the shithouse roof, ready for the big day. I went outside and there on the roof, was Ray Riley from next door, pinching our wood ! so I punched his lights out ! His brother, Dave, came out and knocked me off the shithouse roof, straight into the coal bunker !
Sycamore Street, Gorton. (No. 2 is the 1st house on the right)
Me and Ray Riley weren’t, always at ‘loggerheads’ though. One day, we were sat on the shithouse roof and me brother, Billy, came down the back entry on his Vespa scooter. Now he used to rev it up in the yard and me dad hated it. Now Billy had made a ramp outside the back gate and he used to run the Vespa up the ramp, knock the back gate open and shoot through. But the old feller got so pissed off with him revving it up, he decided to sort him out. So there’s me and Riley on the shithouse roof and Billy came down the entry as usual and he revved the Vespa up and went to run up the ramp, to punch through the gate, but he hit the gate and the scooter stopped dead in its tracks and he went flying over it !,’cos. the old feller had propped the gate shut ! And all the front end of the Vespa was bashed in ! He was a mad bastard the old feller !
I remember one time me and the old feller were both pissed up and I decided I was going to punch his lights out. I must have been about 15 at the time, but the wily old bastard knew every trick in the book and we went in the yard and before I even got a punch in, he hit me over the head with the rabbit hutch, which was made out of an old orange crate ! I wouldn’t mind, but the rabbit was still in it ! I never saw it coming, he knocked me clean out, the bastard ! an’ me ma was doin’ ‘er fruit ! “Yer’ve killed ‘im yer daft bugger !” The rabbit pissed off and got clean away and we never saw it again. Me sister was right upset ! I had to put me hand in me pocket to buy a new rabbit !
You will have gathered by now, dear reader, that ‘political correctness’ is not high on ‘H’s agenda, not least in his use of ‘terms of endearment’ or nicknames. Yet he is not an unintelligent man. Indeed, one of his most frequently-used mottoes is ‘upstairs for thinking, down for dancing’, as he points one finger upwards and then down. Perhaps one of his most endearing qualities is, as he would say, “ I speak me mind, me.” In his book, ‘a spade is a spade’, but then he comes from a time and a place where ‘buzzwords’ like political correctness, were unheard of. Here, he recalls some of his other ‘associates’ !
We used to pal about with a lad called ‘Porky’ O’ Gara. We called him ‘Porky’ ‘cos he was a fat bastard ! He looked like a sumo wrestler ! His legs were small and his head looked like it didn’t fit his body ! and he was always in the chippy ! With him being so fat and all, he used to sweat a lot. The old feller used to say “He’s as sweaty as a glassblower’s arse !” He eventually finished up living up Hattersley.
Now Porky’s dad had a corner shop, but there was another shop nearby, called Percy’s and the old feller used to go there for his ‘guinea pigs’ (cigs-cigarettes) More often than not he’d put them on the tick-book and settle up on a Friday. But sometimes he’d land home with bars of chocolate for us, ‘course we loved it ! But what we didn’t know was how he came by these bars of chocolate. Then, one time, I was in there with him and he was getting his ‘guinea pigs’, as usual.
Now, in those days, corner shops had a bell over the door and as you opened the door, it operated a catch and the bell would go off ‘ding’. But what the old feller would do, was open the door slightly and reach in to stop the bell from ringing ! So in we went, up to the counter and he grabbed a handful of chocky bars and stuffed them in his jacket ! Then Percy eventually arrived. “Five ‘Parkies’ (Park Drive cigarettes) please” said the old feller and he paid for them and walked out all innocent like ! Now this went on a few times, but Percy must have cottoned on to what was going on, because his chocolate bars were disappearing rapidly ! He must have suspected who was doing it but couldn’t prove it. So from then on, he started ‘owling’. Anyway, he must have clocked what the old feller was up to, because he came in, up to his old tricks as usual and Percy pulled him up about it.” What have you got in your jacket ?” he said. “What the f---‘s it got to do with you” said the old feller. “ I’m callin’ the police !” “ Call ‘oo the ‘ell yer like !” and he was off like a shot and I legged it as well !
Now the cops were looking all over Gorton for the old feller, in all his usual haunts, but he wasn’t in any of them. He’d gone to the Lake Hotel at Belle Vue and they eventually caught up with him there. The next thing we knew, the cops were knocking on our door. “Mrs Thompson, we’ve got yer ‘usband locked up and we’ve locked yer son up as well !” The cops knew the old feller had one of his lads with him, (me), but they picked our Dave up and locked him up, cos there were that many of us, they didn’t know which one of us it was !
Another time, me and a lad called Johnny Garton, hatched a plot to pinch the ‘irish jigs’ (cigs/ Cigarettes) from Percy’s. I said to him “you run in and dive over the counter and I’ll hold yer legs, then grab the cigs and we’ll leg it.” But the plot was foiled ‘cos Johnny was too small and he couldn’t reach the ‘guinea pigs’ and I heard Percy coming, so I fired Johnny over the counter and ran off as fast as my legs would carry me, ‘cos I couldn’t let Percy catch me, ‘cos that was where the old feller had his ‘tick’ and if he’d caught me, it would have been the old feller’s ‘tick’ up the swannee and I ‘d have had the old feller’s belt across me arse !
Days of innocence
While ‘H’ and his brothers and sisters were growing up, they were blissfully unaware that, living just a few streets away from them, were two people, who were to become one of the most infamous couples in recent history, child murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who were to go down in history for the vile nature of their crimes. Remembered as the ‘moors murderers’ for their grisly habit of burying their victims on the moors, some of whom have not been found to this day. Even nowadays, whenever the subject is brought up, the same old chilling photographs of the couple are shown on T.V., or in the newspapers.
(Someone recently told me a story about 'H', relating to the previous one. one day, he and an accomplice were on some roof, nicking the lead, when who rolled up in a butcher's van, none other than Brady and Hindley. "Get down off the roof and get in this van", said one of them. Any lesser young lads would have meekly obeyed and you can imagine the consequences. But I can imagine the reaction of 'H' and his pal, perhaps, which involved a pair of fingers lifted skywards, or the verbal equivalent of it. How true this story is, I don't know. I will have to verify it with 'H', next time I see him. But it does sound highly likely. Mike - added March 2006)
Amendment. Last night, (April 4th 2006) I chanced to meet 'H'. He denied that he and his mate were nicking the lead off the roof of the building, which was an old mission. The building was derelict by then and the lead had already gone from the roof. It was old gas pipes they were ripping out!
Moving On
In time, the city fathers in their wisdom, decided something must be done about the dilapidated slum properties, which were now in such poor condition and infested with bugs, that the only option left was to demolish whole areas. Up the road, construction of a new overspill housing estate, Hattersley, began. Hattersley was to be remembered years later for being the place where Hindley and Brady set up home.
In nearby Beswick, and Ardwick, construction began of one of the most notorious mistakes ever committed by city planners. The infamous deck-access flats, which were meant to be like the old streets, but on several levels. Time proved to be their downfall. Poor construction standards meant that after a few short years, water began seeping into the structures, which were forever being patched up and repaired.
With crime and vandalism and the rabbit-warren like nature of the flats, making policing difficult, the decision was taken that, they too, should be demolished.
At the time, when they were brand new, however, they must have been regarded as luxurious, by the people from the cold cramped houses of the old back streets. Here were the homes, at last, promised to the heroes.
Fortunately, the Thompson family never lived in the flats. Eventually, with the houses being demolished all around them, they were moved into a three-bedroomed house, with two toilets, no less, one upstairs and one downstairs outside. After Sycamore Street, here, indeed was luxury.
BILLY’S END
Life can be cruel, sometimes. As I write this story about someone else’s life, I think how lucky I am, not to have lost a loved one. Although I’ve never been hit over the head with a rabbit hutch, myself, I still have , at the time of writing, both parents alive and well, or as well as can be expected. Both of them lifelong smokers, with all the dire warnings of smoking nowadays, they have been blessed with longevity, for better or worse. Actually, we very nearly lost dad when he had an aneurysm whilst driving down the front at Great Yarmouth. Luckily, through the skill of the surgeons at Manchester Royal, he pulled through.
Billy Thompson wasn’t so lucky, however. He contracted cancer of the spine, which at the time was not treatable. Although he knew there was something seriously wrong with him, the doctors, rightly or wrongly, never told him. According to ‘H’, he must have known he was dying, but he wanted to hear it from him.
The old feller turned to me one day and said “Son, am I dying ?” Now he must have known he was dying, but he wanted to hear it from me. Now I was the only one left, all the others had got married and left. I knew he was dying, because the doctor had told me. He had cancer of the spine. I didn’t want to face the question, so I said “Don’t come out with that shit !” let’s go and have a pint ! So we toddled off to the Royal Oak, Cross Lane, Gorton.
I went to the bar and when I came back, he wasn’t there.” Where’s the old feller gone ?” I said. Someone said “He just walked out” I went outside and he was there, his eyes full of tears. He turned to me again. “Son, am I dying ?” He said. The question hit me like a ton of bricks. I had no answer for him. How can you answer a question like that ? Now my dad was a big man. He’d worked all his life, labouring and building and he wasn’t afraid of anything. He’d brought 9 of us up and we wanted for nothing. He’d get up in the morning and make porridge for us all. So to see this man, his eyes full of tears, it broke me up. Although I knew he was dying, I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him. So I said Come on, you old sod !, come and have a pint ! It was then that he knew. He lifted his head and wiped the tears from his face. ”You bugger !” he said. I knew I had to take his mind off it, so I got him playing cards. Now whether or not he’d decided he’d got nothing to lose, at some point in the game, he pinched the ‘kitty’ from under the table !
The last goodbye
I was there, right till the end, when the old feller croaked. Sunday night, 12th February. And I lost my best friend that night. My mother had looked after him right to the end and my brothers and sisters came and took my mother to Bradford Labour Club, to give her a break, leaving me with him. I was the only one not married. My uncle Harry and auntie Alice, who lived in nearby Clayton, came back early from the club and sat by the bedside. When uncle Harry could see that he was going, he shouted me up to bring a mirror (to see if he was breathing) I got upset. I grabbed my dad round the shoulders. “WAKE UP YOU OLD BAG ‘O SHIT !!” I shouted, with tears starting to come in my eyes. I shook him. “Don’t die on me YOU DIRTY OLD BASTARD !!!” This went on for what seemed like minutes, with me calling him all the foul names I could think of. Then I came to realise that he’d gone. He’d died in my arms.
Then a weird thing happened. As I held him tightly, he spoke to me, not from his mouth, because he was dead by then. It was as if he was up on the ceiling, looking down on me “Son,” he said, “Don’t worry about me, I’m off to a better place, look after yourself” It was as if his soul had left his body. “I’ll never forget you.” And he was gone.
When the ambulance came, they wanted to take him out in a bag, but I wouldn’t let them. I wasn’t having him taken out without any dignity. So they took him out in a chair instead, but they had to work quickly before the rigor set in.
There is no doubt that the death of his father had a profound effect on ‘H’. Just the loss of a parent would have been traumatic enough, but to be ‘spoken to’ by a loved one, after the person has died, must have been a strange experience indeed, not least in the manner in which he describes it. One could describe it as a ‘spiritual’ experience. The unbeliever might say that he was ’making it up’. But at the heart of any kind of faith, is the fundamental belief in the continuity of life, after death, in some kind of spiritual sense and this is at the heart of all the world’s great religions.
Later, when his mother was dying of an incurable brain cancer, he was at the hospital, but he could not bring himself to go to the bedside, after what he had experienced with the death of his father, he decided that he couldn’t go through it again and that someone else should be present at the end, so he waited in a side room until it was over.
Amendment - (When I wrote this piece, both my own parents were alive and well. However, my own father passed away on April 1st 2003)
‘H’ AND THE ‘CASE’ OF THE MISSING CHICKEN
Although in his normal conversation, ‘H’ liberally uses profanities, he sometimes uses ‘buzzwords’ or phrases of his own.. ‘Upstairs for thinking, down for dancing’ is one. ‘On the case’ is another and ‘I’m your man !’ At home, for example, his little girl might say to him, Dad, can I have a piece of toast ? To which he’ll reply “Right away sweetie, I’m yer man, yer dad’s on the case.” “Dad, can you fetch my pyjamas ?” “Yer dad’s on the case !”
Now amongst his circle of friends, there is one ‘Cocomo Joe’. Just the other day, he met ‘Cocomo Joe’ in the street and he was ‘out of his tree !’ Many of his associates are like that, around him. But ‘H’ always remains stalwart. It puts me in mind if that piece of prose, ‘If you can keep your head, while all others are losing theirs’ etc.
Now ‘Cocomo Joe’ had been ‘out of his tree’ for several days and while he was away, his son Bradley, had a party. When Joe returned to the house, a chicken had gone missing from the fridge. On meeting ‘H’ in the street, Joe told him about the chicken.” I’ll get on the case,” said ‘H’. Next thing, ‘H’ is on his mobile, ringing Bernie, who is also ‘out of his tree’ and others, to tell them of the ‘case of the missing chicken’. Word has now gone round the village for people to be on the lookout for it !
THE MAGIC TREE
Home time for ‘H’. The bar’s closed, he’s drunk the pub dry and it’s time to be off. But not home to bed. He’ll be up a little while longer with a can of beer or two, with the TV or radio on low. “It’s the only time I get any peace !” he says. Although he likes ‘holding court’, he also likes the pleasure of his own company, with time to sit and think and relax by himself and perhaps listen to a little music. We bid goodnight to the hosts and we’re off out of the door and down the road, over the old canal bridge with its plaque, celebrating its opening date, the canal which used to run under it long since filled in.
A little while further, past the old canalside cottages. Then he stops and turns to me.” Look at this,” he says, “The magic tree” He points to an ordinary-looking tree at the side of the road, set back. Then he walks over to it, disappears behind it, reappearing moments later, clutching a plastic bag, with four cans of beer in it and with a wide grin on his face he says: “There y’are, the magic tree !” Now the ‘joke’ is that the beer cans have come from the magic tree and, of course, we know that cans of beer don’t grow on trees. It is merely the place where he stashes his cans, bought from the off-license, so he can collect them on the way home. But when I was looking for a title for this piece, the ‘magic tree’ seemed to fit perfectly, for it symbolises the demeanour of the man. The magic tree is a metaphor for where people find their happiness and for ‘H’, it is not in the consumption of unspecified amounts of alcohol, but in the sharing of a laugh and a joke with others and also in the manner of the delivery of the subject matter.
“Look at some of these in ‘ere” he says. “Miserable bastards some of ‘em !. They sit there and they’re not happy and all they can do is take the piss !” And I for one have to agree, (although not everyone is the same). But ‘H’ is a man who has found a happiness of sorts and that, to me is what makes for an interesting character. One who brings happiness to others, in the telling of stories from the past, both funny and tragic, of how people used to live in the days of the old back-to back streets, which came to be known as the ’slums’ and that is the strength in the character of the man.
'Diddy' Dave Bell
One local character, who was known to 'H', was David Bell. Better known as 'Diddy'. David, or Dave as he preferred to be known, had many friends in the Reddish and Heaton Chapel community; but he also had others who did not hold him in very high esteem, shall we say.
Now, I was saddened to hear that he had died, but as he himself told me, on many occasions, "I'm living on borrowed time" Dave had emphysema, which is a degenerative lung condition, caused by exposure of the lungs to an irritant. But he also smoked, which in itself was not the cause of the condition, but an aggravating factor. But for whatever reason, he could not, or would not, give up the fags.
At one point, a couple of years ago, he finished up in hospital, with a chest infection. About the same time, someone else of my acquaintance, who also had the same condition, and who also was a smoker, the same age as Diddy, also ended up in hospital, with a chest infection. The infection affected both men very badly, but thanks to the doctors and nurses, both pulled through.
The other guy, after going through the experience, gave up smoking and has on most occasions, avoided any contact with people who were smoking around him. The result is that he is still alive and is still able to work, just about. Now I am a non-smoker, in fact, I'm the only one in our family who never took it up. That's not to say I never tried it, I did and didn't like it and I am thankful for that fact. But I do understand how hard it is for anyone to give up. For someone who has smoked as long as Diddy, it must be very difficult indeed.
But there are other factors involved. My own father smoked most of his life and although he stopped very late in life, he nonetheless lived to age 77. My mother still smokes and she is in her 70s. I also know of at least one other person who is older and who was known to Diddy and who still smokes, so factors about smoking don't neccessarily apply to everyone.
The doctors had repeatedly told Diddy to give up and he did for a time, only to drift back again. Then when he was told of his reduced life expectancy, he must have taken the decision to end his days the way he wanted and he carried on smoking, in the full knowledge of the consequences.
So what can I say about 'Diddy'. I can't say that I knew him well at all. I met him on numerous occasions, at the Grey Horse near Broadstone Mill and he told me in numerous conversations I had with him, about the things he used to get up to in his youth. He also said that there were other things he would not tell me, which might get him into trouble, so I never pressed him further on it.
According to Diddy, when he was born, his mum stuck him in a drawer, expecting him not to survive. But survive he did. Like Harry Thompson, he was a Gorton lad and grew up tough. He got into many scrapes and at one point ended up inside for burglary, where , no doubt, he learned the art of rolling a 'Strangeways special' , a cigarette so thin, because inside, you had to make your 'baccy' last! Diddy did his time and paid his debt to society, but I suspect he always remained a 'rum character'
He became a carpenter, or in his own words, a 'wood butcher' and worked in that trade for many years, on building sites and the like. But on building sites, you do meet some characters and he told me of nights on the town and sleeping on scaffolding on building sites and coming down as the shift was just coming on, bidding everyone 'good morning'!
He also told me of his mam and that she died young, I believe, from cancer. It was obvious to me that he loved his mother very much and he gave me a photograph of her to restore, which had another person on it and he asked me to do it with just her on it, which I duly obliged. It was the only photograph of her he had, he said. I have no doubt that the death of his mother affected him very deeply.
Small people sometimes come in for some 'stick'. I know, because I am only 5' 2" myself. (work that out in metres if you must!) Diddy was small, like me, but he gave as good as he got, he stuck up for himself and wouldn't be pushed around and that's where my respect for him comes from. He also had friends around him who understood where he was coming from and who defended him, perhaps, not that he needed defending!
People are pretty much like dogs. There are many breeds and some are more fierce than others. Maybe Diddy was a 'Jack Russell', (in a previous life!) Often, when I mentioned a particular problem I was dealing with, he would give me the benefit of his 'superior knowledge'. Sometimes, it would irritate me, because I had already, more or less, sussed it out. Nevertheless, he insisted on giving me his more 'knowledgable opinion', But, let's face it, he was a man who had been around, very much, a man of the world! So I did listen to his 'wisdom' on the matter and very often, what he had to say made sense! But often I ignored it. One thing I am sure of, he loved his family. Maybe he had a strange way of showing it, sometimes. But he did.
And such a family he left, for what he lacked in stature, he made up for in procreation!
They say a picture can paint a thousand words and if I were to sum Diddy up, I would not be able to do him justice, not knowing him as well as some of his many friends, but I believe this photograph of him says it all, an old photograph he gave me years ago to restore, with that mischievous look on his face and that glint in his eye, That's Diddy all over!
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