The Agnes: Prologue and King Themba
The whole book, The Agnes, by Andrew Harding, is published on Kindle at
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PROLOGUE
[A Visitor’s Guide to Warburton, Warburton
City Council, 1958 Edition, page 15]
Departing the city’s
civic centre and moving West of Church Street, the visitor is advised to
proceed along Curtin Way two blocks to Webster Street, turning left past The
Warfleda, a public house named after Warburton’s most prominent resident in
Saxon times, Queen Warfleda. She is mainly known for allegedly riding her white
horse naked through the city in some form of vivid protest. Webster Street dates from the mid-to-late
19th century, and its most notable building, worthy of a brief stop, if only
for its famous café, is the Agnes Ward Centre (known colloquially as “The
Agnes”). This traditional Warburton-style redbrick building was once “The Arts
and Crafts Society of Warburton”, which words are quaintly etched in stone
between the ground and first floor. Across the typical Norman-style arch over
the front door will be seen a sign in grey lettering, “AGNES WARD CENTRE”.
Enter this door for the café/ lounge on the left. The building is more
extensive than its street-front suggests, and includes a large lounge, a youth
club, a library, classrooms, a gymnasium, a snooker room (facilities which are
occasionally available for public use), and upstairs accommodation for thirty
men, while its Annexe houses thirty women. This hostel is run by the Agnes Ward
Trust, which the visitor will recall also endowed the city clock in Church
Street, while a statue of Agnes Ward herself may be seen in the botanic
gardens. Agnes Ward was the most eminent person in Warburton in the second half
of the nineteenth century. She was the widow of one Jacob Ward, who expired in
1865 at the age of 47, a victim of consumption, but by that time an
industrialist of considerable renown who had made a fortune from
industrialising England’s insatiable desire for heavy machinery. The visitor will
no doubt be aware that Warburton in its heyday was an engine of what may
without undue exaggeration be called Mercia’s enormous contribution to the
industrial revolution. Agnes Ward devoted herself and her husband’s fortune,
which she curated with what Eric Macaulay has referred to in his History of
Warburton as “remarkable intelligence and foresight”, to good works, including
the Arts and Crafts Society. Agnes Ward died in 1899, but the Trust she
established was able in 1923 to open the Agnes Ward Centre as a place for what
was called in the trust document “the betterment of the working classes, both
male and female”. By 1937 The Agnes Ward Centre had come to take its present
form of two hostels, one male, one female, and a youth and community centre with
sports and what were referred to as “improving activities” such as night
classes. The Warburton Tenants’ Advice Bureau also occupies part of the ground
floor. The building is thus not simply part of Warburton’s architectural
heritage, but an important social resource and a pleasing example of 19th
century philanthropy and its contemporary legacy.
****
What the Guide does not
tell you is that The Agnes was, during my early growing years, the most
important building in my life.
The building was in fact better
described as run down rather than old. The windows were surrounded with flaking
white paint and on the exterior there seemed to be dark corners everywhere,
hardly illuminated by the sunlight coming at an oblique angle, or by desultory
street lighting at night. Railings accompanied the worn steps down to a
basement, and up to the main door, which was painted dark green. There always
seemed to be a faint smell of carbolic soap in that area, which I supposed was
because of incessant cleaning of the steps and the reception area by old Jake,
the caretaker.
I came to know a great
deal about The Agnes and its inhabitants, and The Agnes came to know a great
deal about me. My parents both worked there. Dad managed the male hostel and
was responsible for the Tenants’ Advice Bureau, which was separate – a kind of
social enterprise, I think you would call it, but also supported by the Trust.
Mum managed the female hostel in the Annexe as well as the accounts for the
whole Centre. I spent a lot of my time there with my friends, whom I will
shortly introduce.
For those who don’t know
it, I should first tell you a little about my city. Warburton, where The Agnes
is located, is a medium-sized city, part of the conurbation that these days is
called Mercia Metropolitan County, in the English Midlands. It is an important
railway junction with connections in all directions, about three hours from
London.
I can’t actually say I am
that proud of my city. It is very old, dingy and generally wet. Its buildings
are a bit nondescript and blackened by, I suppose, years of pollution. The
newer ones are rather unimpressive. But after all, it is where I have always
lived and gone to school. It is in my opinion full of argumentative,
materialistic people of no vision, and sometimes limited goodwill, about whom
you might also say there are a few good points. They can be very loyal in
friendship, for example, and they have a long tradition of emphasis on
education. My friend Eddy (his name is actually Edison Ward and he is the
great-great grandson of Agnes, blessed in memory) says they are called Mercians
because they are all mercenary. This seems to be true, although I can think of
many exceptions. But they are after all my people, the people I have grown up
amongst, and who have loved, protected, educated, fed and entertained me, as
well as repelled me and annoyed me to the point of frustration. I have
certainly learned a lot from them, anyway.
One thing about Warburton
that’s well known is that it has a mixed bag of people of all races, religions
and colours, and the joke is, ‘you can always tell a Warbie by the shamrock in
his turban’. So Warburton has also accommodated (I don’t say exactly welcomed)
over the years many different types of people. Originally Saxon, it took in
Danes and Jutes, then Welsh and Irish. More recently West Indians, Sikhs,
Indians, and Pakistanis for example, have made Warburton their home. Warbies
have always been a bit weird in my opinion, even though I count myself as a
Warbie. Which other city, after all, has a stark-naked queen on a white horse
as its iconic founder? Apart from all this, I suppose our excellent football
team (also called ‘The Warbies’) and our grammar school, The Bishop Herbert
School, which is my school, and Warburton University, are our main claim to
fame. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, but a ‘Warbie Cheese’ is a kind of pasty, which
by the grace of heaven is apparently only found in this city. Frankly, it’s
awful, but visitors feel obliged to eat one for lunch at The Warfleda, with a
pint of Piper’s Ale. The naked queen on her white horse is shown on its sign,
which creaks scarily at night. For some reason our school song says we boys all
owe allegiance to our Queen Warfleda, and we are all her sons. But, really,
that is a bit silly, as she died in 872, according to the Saxon Chronicles. You
will gather my school is a boys’ school, more’s the pity. Eddy says that’s
because otherwise the girls would probably all get pregnant. Girls, like Lucy,
go to Warburton Girls’ High. I’ll tell you more about her later.
Apart from The Agnes and
my school, the other most important building in my life is naturally my home
with Mum and Dad, and Rebecca, my sister, which is only about two hundred yards
from The Agnes, facing the end of Webster Street. I have lived in that house
all my life. Because of this location near to The Agnes, I am able to hang
around there as long as I like, and sometimes I even go back there after dinner
and finish my homework in the library or chat with the hostellites.
Mum and Dad are loving
and, I would say, at least as far as they are able, attentive parents to
Rebecca and me. Rebecca is about seven years older than me and at university.
She is a brilliant scholar and we are all very proud of her. Unfortunately, I
don’t think I will be following in her footsteps, as I am much keener on sports
than learning stuff like Ancient Greek. Both Mum and Dad have rather demanding
jobs that seem to take up many more than what I imagine are their contracted
hours, with numerous crises and emergencies interrupting a normal family life.
There is often a fight, or a hospitalisation, or a flooded bathroom, or a
police visit, or something of the kind. For this reason, I am in the unusual
position, actually the envy of my school friends, who mainly live in
Warburton’s leafy suburbs with rather over-controlling parents, of both being
well looked after and at the same time having relatively light supervision of
what I am doing, or when or where or with whom I am doing it. Pretty cool,
isn’t it?
School keeps me very busy
with classes, homework and sports, which I like (the sports, that is, mainly,
but definitely not the homework). However, as I reached eleven years old, I
came to spend more and more time at The Agnes, and since then I have done more
of my (admittedly rather perfunctory) homework there, in the lounge or the
library, than at home.
I think, by the way, I
forgot to tell you that my name is James Emmett, but everybody calls me Jimmy.
Except some of my teachers and Rebecca, who calls me James, and doesn’t like to
be called Becky.
I suppose at first it was
the attractions of a comfortable sofa in the lounge, and the tea and evil
cupcakes with which Mrs Hammond, the cook, plied me. Mrs Hammond is a round and
motherly woman with an incomprehensible Glaswegian accent, a bit inclined to
hysteria perhaps, but the thing is she is quite fond of me, and I am fond of
her cupcakes. She cooks breakfast and dinner for the hostellites and anybody
else who stops by. Her fish and chips are more highly to be recommended than a
Warbie cheese any day. The café is separated from the lounge by a partition
wall with a swing door, so you can take your tea and one of Mrs Hammond’s
cupcakes, or whatever, into the lounge without putting it down.
The Agnes attracts hostel
residents internationally, as well as from other parts of the British Isles.
There friendships are made, projects are planned, and what Dad calls “life’s
critical pathways” are determined. Most people only stay for a year or two, but
some are what Rosie calls “part of the furniture” – I suppose she herself is an
example, because Rosie is one of The Agnes’s long-termers. Or at least she was
until she moved to a nearby apartment. And so was Ravi, until he left. He was
what they called a perpetual student, but now he is an engineer. Rosie is my
special friend and she’s a social worker. I love her, but I am not in love with
her, if you get my meaning. To me Rosie is a special girl – or actually a woman
who is nearly twice my age. She’s a blousy, plump, funny Australian with long
yellow hair, who is always especially attentive to me, and this is very
pleasing, given my sister’s increasingly long absences at university. (Anyway,
Rebecca is not exactly what you would call fun, clever as she is, unless you
find Aristotle fun.) Rosie was a trainee social worker with the city council,
and is now a fully trained one. She is what you’d call the beating heart of The
Agnes, without whom I reckon nothing would be quite the same. Even though she
moved out she is very sociable and still prefers to spend time at The Agnes.
Actually, to be honest she fills it with cigarette smoke. She is also a big
help to Mum in solving problems. In fact, I’d describe Rosie as an amazing
problem-solver, except that she’s no good at chess. That kind of problem she
leaves to me. So, I suppose Rosie has mothered and sistered me a lot. People
might find that a bit strange. But I don’t care. I think of Rosie as like my
second Mum.
Apart from the comforts
of the lounge, I found I could read books from the library, play games
requiring at least one partner, such as snooker, table tennis, or chess, and
even watch TV, when Ravi or Kwokkie was able to get it working, that is.
Kwokkie was another long-termer. He is a Chinese guy from Hong Kong, and was
qualifying as a lawyer, so he advised people in the Tenants’ Advice Centre.
Sometimes there is five-a-side football or basketball or badminton in the gym.
More than that there is to me just a sense of things happening, and interesting
people coming and going, which makes it more attractive than my own quiet room
at home, where I would normally otherwise be waiting for my parents to return.
The Agnes is after all my parents’ workplace, so it feels as though one of them
at least would normally be near at hand if need be.
I found that as I sat
there in the lounge people would pass through, talking about lots of things
which I didn’t really understand but felt I should. Politics, international
affairs, and such like, about which I have learned a lot. As it turned out, The
Agnes has given me more education than I could possibly have bargained for. Not
all of it, to be honest, would actually survive Mum and Dad’s closest scrutiny,
but what I mean is education in life, what I came to call The Knowledge, with a
capital T and a capital K. I have made some great friends, like Rosie, Kwokkie,
and Ravi, and there always seems to be something exciting or interesting going
on, and somebody good to talk to.
The hostellites mainly
consist of students at the local Mercia Police Academy, or the Warburton
Teacher Training College, or Warburton University. Some will be doing
apprenticeships or holding junior positions with local companies. As a result
of my regular visits in the afternoons or evenings, I became some kind of a
mascot, or at least I was until I got a bit older. I suppose I was, to them, at
the beginning at least, a smart kid, cheeky in a cute way, and for those from
non-English-speaking places, a good source of inconsequential English conversation.
I think I must speak very clearly, because Kem, who is a scientist from Ghana,
drew Ravi’s attention to my speech - “This boy, Ravi, his English is so
p-p-p-p-p!”, he said. Ravi is from India, and speaks excellent English but with
a funny accent. He taught me to form complete paragraphs, and avoid what he
calls “that poisonous local Mercian slang - how I do hate it”. I know what he
means. For example, when Mercians say “anything” it comes out as “anythingg”,
or “anythink” if it is before a vowel, which is quite funny. He regaled me with
astonishing stories about India – its transport systems, its rivers, its
religious rituals, its variety and ungovernability. Kwokkie is very studious,
and likes to explain the mysteries of Chinese history and civilisation, such as
about Confucius and the Chinese emperors. So I know a lot about the world. At
the same time perhaps in a way I know nothing. At least I did know nothing
until I myself became part of the furniture at The Agnes.
You see, The Agnes is far
more than a place of interest. It has been my family, school, social and sports
club, café haunt, and many other things all rolled into one. Rosie calls it
“The University of Life. I have already graduated from it, darlin’. I am a true
alumna, and I am now one of the faculty”, she announced one day from behind a
cloud of smoke. At The Agnes I was very soon by the age of eleven growing apace
in knowledge and sophistication just by associating with these inhabitants and
imbibing the atmosphere.
Yet
with all these friends and others to entertain, instruct, and amuse me, nothing
was so remarkable to me as the arrival of the amazing King Themba.
1
KING THEMBA
“Hello, sir, I will just
find somebody to help you, if you don’t mind waiting”.
“OK, that’s fine, kid,
thanks. I got time.”
He sank down into the
chair as though he was exhausted by a long journey. He had, I discovered later,
just arrived from Johannesburg. He was very large and very wet.
Themba was duly checked
in and emerged an hour or two later. He made a very impressive figure, I must
say. Themba was a huge man. He seemed to me about seven feet tall, but I
suppose he would have been maybe about six foot four or five. He was very
powerfully built, with enormous shoulders and biceps that seemed about to burst
his shirt sleeves. His skin was shiny and very black, and his head completely
shaved, with sticky-out ears. A small fuzzy beard adorned his chin. His face
was, I would say, more noble than handsome, and gave the impression of somebody
of considerable intelligence and experience. There was something really quite
sad in his eyes, but they would light up at the slightest provocation or any
suggestion of humour or some interesting controversy. His conversation, begun
on that wet wintry night, was always lively and playful. I was quite intrigued,
bewitched in fact by Themba, and wanted to ensure he was my friend before
anybody else could claim the title. So I made bold to show him round The Agnes
myself. He was tired, but his eyes opened wide at every new discovery. “Oooh,
that ees nice!”, he responded to the coffee machine, the gym, the library, the
snooker room. “I think I am goin’ to be very 'appy 'eah”, he concluded, as I
fixed him a cup of cocoa and we sat down in the lounge, waiting for Dad, who
was seeing to some crisis or other, to come and greet him.
“And so”, he asked
mock-sternly in his broad, throaty South African accent, his eyebrows raised
impossibly high, “who exactly ah you, precocious yong man?”
“Oh, sorry, sir, I am
Jimmy Emmett”, I replied. “I’m the boss’s son. I’m happy to meet you Mr Themba,
but I’m really not whatever you said I was, when you get to know me that is.”
His mighty laugh filled
the corridors. Heads turned.
Themba was, I gathered
later, from a well-known family in South Africa, and was in Warburton to learn
about journalism with the Warburton Tribune. I was not properly aware until
later, when Themba informed me, about South Africa’s terrible apartheid regime,
but it seems Themba had managed to come to England only because his family was
able to afford it, and, as I also later learned, his intention was to learn
skills that he could use to oppose the regime in South Africa as strongly and
effectively as he could. But at the time, although he seemed a lot older than
myself, he was I think about twenty-six years old. He seemed rather older than
that because he had a kind of regal bearing, suggesting somebody proud and confident,
strong and very masculine. For this reason, I came to refer to him as “The
King”. All of these things he in fact was, and, as I discovered, a lot more
besides. He was a complex character, by my reckoning, but definitely a large
one in all senses. To me he was King Themba. And that became a joke.
Themba was naturally very
outgoing and friendly, and settled in quickly. I began to spend a lot of time
with him, and sensed his fondness for me. Despite the large difference in years
between us, as with Rosie, he was really my friend, and had a way of treating
me as though I deserved the respect accorded to an equal, even though I was far
from that. Themba, I learned, was a man of scrupulous attention to what he
called “moral principles”, and to the English language. He also took everyone
seriously, even, it seemed, a cheeky eleven-year-old boy. Like Rosie, he
appeared to think I needed some special attention, and he would question me for
hours about all kinds of things – my family, school, life in England, the Agnes
Ward Trust, sports, and so on. While showing much respect to me as though I was
a highly educated person with well-formed opinions, which I clearly wasn’t, he
assumed an avuncular role in relation to my homework and my use of language.
Admittedly these were not exactly excellent in the first place. Condescension
this was not. He was unremitting in his critique of my homework, as though I
ought to be doing better than I was.
“What on airth is this
non-sense?”, he would laugh, clutching me by the back of the neck, reading my
English precis. “Do it … ay-gain. And this time get it complett-ly right!” He
would then check the result, and if it was still not perfect, he would ask me
to do it a third time, before letting me go. He was similarly unremitting in
his critique of his own journalism, and would ask my opinion on it as if I were
his editor or his colleague. I think his pieces had already in fact been filed
with the Tribune office against punishing deadlines, and this show of
meticulousness was really for my benefit, rather than his. Occasionally I would
find fault with his use of a word or his punctuation, and he would nod gravely,
making his correction with a flourish and beaming, if unwarranted, gratitude.
As became quickly
apparent, Themba was also a remarkable sportsman. He was a superb heavyweight
boxer who joined the boxing gym in Curtin Way, where I occasionally accompanied
him, just to watch. He sparred with the best in town, flooring all the
opponents that I saw, that is the ones bold enough to challenge him. He would
tie a red cloth around his head, which was odd, I reckoned, for a man with a
shaved head, and he looked terrifying in action. Any blows he received never
seemed to wind or hurt him, but blows delivered were drastic and often, if they
didn’t just knock his opponent flat, drew blood around the eyes or nose. He
played rugby as a forward, and quickly made a local league team. He could throw
the javelin or discus or hammer immense distances, and he could hit sixes and
bowl fast when playing cricket in summer. A cricket ball looked like a
ball-bearing in his huge hand, and a discus like a small plate. Boxing, though,
was by far his favourite. He also spent much time lifting weights in the gym at
the back of The Agnes, inside in winter, outside in summer. I talked to him as
he panted and heaved, lifting weights under the elm tree, the sweat descending
his enormous muscular frame in rivulets. He would often laugh heartily at my
questions and observations. “Oh, Jimmy, my boy, you have eh great deal to
lairn, yong man”, he intoned on many occasions, with great amusement at my
rather childish remarks. And it seemed he had assumed the job of teaching me
that great deal.
There was apparently
nothing Themba could not do, and this induced in me a sense that moved from
admiration to near hopelessness. I could never, I reflected, be as strong, as
wise, as knowledgeable, or simply as effective in the way Themba always was,
however hard I tried. He was my standard in all things. It seemed that, whenever
there was anything difficult to do, Themba was first in line to sort it out. If
it was the awkward task of taking down an old chandelier in the lounge, he had
it figured out and done without any damage in a few minutes. If it was a
suspicion of rats in the attic, he had that sorted within a day, almost scaring
poor Mrs Hammond to death by presenting her with two dead rats, as if for
cooking - he enjoyed a practical joke. He easily sorted out awkward kids in the
youth club, of which he sometimes took charge. They were all terrified of him.
And if it was a nuisance drunk at reception, the fellow was sent packing before
anyone in authority even noticed. One miscreant, a grown man, was delivered to
the police like a noxious wet rag, held off the ground by his collar. “This,
officah, I believe, is fah you”.
Trying to find a chink in
his armour, I started to wonder eventually if Themba had any weaknesses. In
fact, I calculated, I could identify two.
The first was that he had
what you could call a long-burning fuse, but one whose detonation would be
deafening. He was, I have to concede, basically a patient and tolerant person
in the face of many of life’s difficulties. Of this there can be no doubt. He
experienced racism routinely, and rebuffs more than deserved, and assumptions
that he was far less than he was, on a daily basis, yet never showed any real
sign of distress. But when pushed too far he would explode with a rage that was
truly frightening. Faced with persistent or obnoxious racism, or especially dense
bureaucratic obstinacy, or obvious moral failure, he would swell with anger,
the veins standing out on his enormous forehead, deploy a stentorian voice, and
if need be would come with fists flying. I saw this happen notably on a couple
occasions, and shrank into a corner to avoid being inadvertently crushed by the
fallout from his anger. But whenever this occurred, I noticed, Themba was
always in the right, as far as I could see, and he never apologised for these
admittedly rare outbursts of rage.
The other weakness was
women. Being an impressively masculine figure, he enjoyed no shortage of female
interest. But his girlfriends came and went, and he never stayed with one for
more than a couple of months. I could hear him cooing gently to one of them for
ages on the phone. “Ooooh, how are yoooou, Gisele? I didn’t see you since at
least three days ay-go”. Or I saw him charming a Melissa or a Trina or a Betty
over coffee in the cafe. But the relationship would never last, and Themba
didn’t ever appear to be upset when the inevitable break came. I assume he was
always the one who lost interest. When he saw ‘The King and I’ on TV, he
laughed with uproarious approval when Yul Brynner as the King said that
“blossom must not ever fly from bee to bee to bee”.
Kwokkie and Ravi were
especially scurrilous in relating Themba’s “conquests”. I have to admit that I
often actively assisted Themba by assuming my role of mascot, amusing his new
girlfriend while praising Themba to the skies in an ironic way as the greatest
man I knew, and did you know he is actually King of the Zulu? In fact, if I had
considered it, he was exactly the greatest man I knew, but I pretended
exaggeration. I would however sometimes challenge him. “Themba, that girl
Melissa was so nice, the one with the earrings, why did you let her go?” This
was greeted with a shrug of the huge shoulders, and a clear desire to change
the topic of conversation. I would point out, however, in Themba’s defence,
that these two weaknesses of his never came into collision with each other. His
rages were over principles, never over his own fortune or relationships as
such. But in defending a principle he was a warrior. Enduring many personal
racist slights with ease, he was always incensed by racism itself.
As Themba became
entrenched in his work at the Tribune and as a notable resident at The Agnes,
our friendship was unwavering, and in fact deepened. I became friends with Eddy
at that point, and introduced him to Themba. Eddy was our class leader, always
top of the class. He seemed more like thirteen than eleven, and was well
developed physically and socially, happy to display the vein standing out on
his forearm, and mention his girlfriend, Fiona. Eddy was also the grandson of
the Chairman of the Agnes Ward Trustees, and actually as I said a descendant of
the blessed Agnes herself. Themba and Eddy liked each other too, and he would
take us both for bus rides at the weekend to outlying places of historical or
natural interest, thus educating himself as well as us. We were frowned on by
middle-aged ladies, clutching their handbags tightly on buses. They clearly
thought this group of two white boys and one extremely large back man was not
in the right course of things in a respectable place like Mercia.
After a few months Themba
had acquired a certain reputation around The Agnes and in the city, due mainly
to his journalism, which was regarded as cutting edge in some quarters and
outrageously impudent in others. In one instance he attacked my own school as
"a bastion of racism", complaining that the Bishop Herbert School had
499 white boys and only one non-white boy (my friend Gurdip, in fact), which
did not at all reflect the population of Warburton. This was without doubt
true, but it did not go down well with the school governors or the city
fathers. In fact, they were incensed and complaints were made against him. I am
glad to say that the Tribune ignored demands that Themba be sacked, and Themba
used the occasion to make another sally against "Warburton’s endemic racism".
On another occasion he lambasted the city council for its cuts to services he
argued were essential for ethnic minorities. Even when he was clearly right, it
was said it was not for him to say such things. It was as if, being Themba, you
couldn’t be allowed to win under any circumstances.
Themba also reported to
us all at The Agnes one day the developments in his beloved native South
Africa, on which he gave a disturbing address. Themba had been deeply
distraught when the Sharpeville incident occurred in 1960, and left South
Africa as soon as he could after that. A man I regarded as made of flint had
tears rolling down his face as he explained what had happened at Sharpeville
and what it meant to him. By this time he had graduated to being a fulltime journalist
on The Tribune, and in left-wing circles, whose epicentre, you might say, was
often The Agnes itself, Themba was regarded as a fearless warrior of heroic
stature. King Themba.
Dad joked about him. “One
day, Themba, you will either be President or go to jail for a long time.”
“Or mebbe both”, added
Themba, laughing with his whole frame shaking in amusement.
This puzzled me, because
I did not then understand why anybody would put Themba in jail. To me Themba
was perfectly admirable, an ideal I could not even aspire to, and certainly
could not criticise. More than that, I trusted Themba implicitly, because he
always protected my back. If I defaulted on homework, Mum was treated to an
excuse on my behalf, as if Themba himself was responsible. If I was late back,
Themba would call and apologise – “It is my fault Jimmy was late back, Mrs
Emmett, we missed the bus. I am so sorry. It won’t happen ay-gain”.
****
A few months after
Themba’s arrival, as a result of some planning, over Mrs Hammond’s tea and cupcakes,
by Rosie, Themba, Kem, and Dad, The Agnes started evening classes in English
for non-English-speaking migrants. Themba was tireless in organising this and
sought my help (I was very much flattered) in conversing in English with
Pakistani, Indian and African kids, many of whom were the same age as me, or
younger. We would talk to the kids until quite late at night and their grateful
families would come to collect them. These evenings were enormous fun and I
found I was able to amuse the kids as well as learn something about their
various cultural backgrounds. Themba was delighted with our progress, and
became the main organiser of these evenings. We laughed, we talked, we drank
Vimto, and ate Mrs Hammond’s calorie-swamped cupcakes as an occasional treat.
Kem, a tall, slim and very expressive young man, was like a stand-up comedian,
always hilariously funny, taking off well-known figures, including Dad, Rosie,
and Themba himself, whom he portrayed as Themba, King of the Zulu. We were
often in stitches at his impressions. Rosie would hug me in sheer glee as Kem
imitated her Aussie accent, her intense chain-smoking, and her loose language.
At the same time, we
lived in a part of the city that was, as I explained, well-known for its ethnic
mixedness, and at around that time ugly racial tensions began to emerge.
Instances of police action involving attacks on migrant communities were on the
rise. One of Mum’s girls from the Annexe, who was Pakistani, was accosted by
thugs and raped in a back alley in a very distressing and much discussed
incident. Nothing like that had ever occurred in the area before. Themba and my
father addressed the city council on this trend of events. The Chairman of
Trustees, Eddy’s grandfather, Sir Reg Ward, was deeply concerned and was
interviewed on the BBC concerning “racial tensions in Warburton”. Dad said we
should all beware, although I didn’t really know at the time exactly how to
beware, or of what.
One chilly, wet night we
finished the classes late and I left The Agnes to walk home, a distance of only
about two hundred yards. Turning right out of The Agnes I saw part of the road
was bathed in a jaundiced light revealing a heavy drizzle. I pulled my coat
collar up and my school cap down and continued on my way home. On the other
side of the road in semi-darkness I noticed a huddled group of older boys. One
of them looked round at me as I passed. I recognised him as Decker, a boy who
had been in The Agnes before, and was quite well known. After a few seconds he
called out to me. I didn’t quite hear what he said, but I didn’t like the look
of these boys, who seemed too much like the skinheads I had seen hanging around
the city centre, apparently looking for some sort of trouble. I ignored them.
Then I heard them crossing the road. They were after me. I quickened my step
but they soon caught up with me. My collar was jerked round to face the group.
They looked in an ugly mood. They were skinheads with chains, dirty jeans, and
leather jackets. They were around sixteen years old. I was frightened to see
Decker was sporting a flick-knife.
“’Ey, where yow off ter,
rabbit?”. A strong Mercian accent. It was Decker. “This kid ‘ere, he’s a
black-lover, he is. Let’s teach ‘im a lesson, lads.”
“Look, I am just minding
my own business, Deck. What do you want?” I tried to appear unruffled, using
Decker’s nickname to make it as if some kind of social norms were operating.
“Oh, nah then, young
Jimmy’s minding ‘is own business, lads”, he jeered. “Well, it ay the kind of
business yow can ger away with, sonny Jim. We don’t approve of you, sonny Jim.
Yow’m a black-lover ain’t’cha, sonny Jim?”. He joshed me, and I fell back
against the wall, almost losing my footing.
The abuse continued as
the boys kept pushing me around and jeering at me. I just recall, “Black ‘is
balls fer ‘im, tharr’ll learn him”, from another skin behind Decker. A third
and a fourth boy laughed.
And with that landed the
first blow - to my ribs on the right side of my diaphragm, taking my breath
away completely and doubling me up, just as a second blow hit me in the left
eye, my head knocked back and my cap sent flying.
The third blow from
Decker advanced towards my chin, but never landed. What followed all seemed to
happen in slow motion. All I was aware of was a large black fist appearing from
the right of my vision. It hit Decker square in the mouth and I saw a couple of
teeth spinning and a spurt of blood, as he staggered backwards into the gutter.
In a second Decker’s arm was pinned behind his back, his hand twisted and relieved
of the flick-knife, which fell in the gutter. “Fokk me! Fokkin’ black bastard!”
“Shut your disgostin’ mouth, kid, or you will get more of the same!”, said
Themba calmly, menacingly. “Next time, man, you can just pick on someone yah
own size.” The other boys gathered round Decker as if protecting him. Decker
held his mouth while blood seeped between his fingers.
“Fokk me, yer bastard!”,
he repeated. Decker didn’t have much vocabulary, and most of what he had was
foul, even in normal times.
“Now off with you boys,
back 'oom, and don’t you come near here ay-gain, hear, or you will have me to
ansah to.”
“And who the fokk are
you, yer black bugger?’”
“My name is Themba.
Remember that name. I’ll be waitin’ fah you.” The boys were clearly considering
whether five of them could take on Themba. Such was Themba’s size and authority
that they wisely decided against, and slunk off down the street. I retrieved my
cap from the pavement, a clutch of pain as I bent down.
Themba, watching the
skins retreat, picked up the knife, examined it carefully, and turned slowly to
address me. “Are you OK, Jimmy?”
“Yes, Themba, I am OK.
It’s just my ribs hurt. Thanks for dealing with them. I was really scared. That
Decker had a knife. I don’t know why they wanted to pick on me.”
“That is somethin’ we’ll
look into later, Jimmy. Let me take a look what’s gone on 'eah.” He held my
head up under the street lamp, clucking his disapproval. “We’ll get that fixed
first. Then your ribs. Don’t worry. It was a good job I followed you. They are
not exactly nice, ah they? But I thought somethin’ like this was goin’ to
‘appen. Now we get you 'oom straight ay-way.”
Themba picked me up and
carried me, as if I was a small pile of laundry, a hundred yards to my home. My
parents were horrified and Mum was, by the standards of her normally
crisis-immune demeanour, beside herself. She washed my face carefully, and my
ribs were felt gingerly and then bandaged. I saw that Themba’s fist was quite
badly bruised but he said nothing. He looked quiet and sad, rather than angry
or worried.
“This is very serious,
Themba”, said Dad, “I am going to report it to the police. We know who did
this. We have to stop these damn thugs. I can see this just going from bad to
worse.”
“It is already worse, Mr
Emmett. It is already like my 'oom town in Soweto.” Themba carried me upstairs
and placed me carefully on my bed. “Don’t worry none, Jimmy, I won’t let
anybody 'airt you.”
“I know that, Themba.
Thanks, friend. You saved me.”
Themba and Dad could be
heard talking downstairs. I slept, but my sleep was a very troubled one. I was
very much shaken, but I thanked heaven for Themba, and wondered what would have
happened to me if he had not been there to protect me.
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