Aunt Elsie and her sugar bowl

A look back at colonialist guilt, youthful accents and the goddess Mrs Vera Hatfield. Warning: contains profanities.

Dear Robert.

Funny to call you that, but you look like a Robert and feel like a Robert. It’s a good name. I like it. I loved the actor Robert Hardy. You’re Robert and you’re hardy, but not maybe Robert Hardy.

My technique in writing Aunt Elsie’s sugar bowl and Pinter’s pauses is to bring out the fun in a sort-of “Talking Heads” mode (à la Alan Bennett, who is from Leeds), and you can see the BBC’s performances of that series, I presume so, anyway, on Youtube. I’ve composed it with a Yorkshire accent in my mind and everyone has been asking me lately “Where did your Scottish accent come from?” I said, “Covid. I was isolated for two years and went back to my roots.” Perhaps that’s right. Covid changed me fundamentally and alienated me from a lot of people, who now won’t say “hello” to me. And it brought me closer to people who matter to me. Maybe I needed Covid. I didn’t catch it though. That’s because I was isolated. You had your girl, she had you; but doesn’t she return from Madrid speaking more Spanish-like and, when you talk to friends from Hungary, don’t you feel more “Hungarianish”? 

I don’t know where my Scottish accent came from. I found it creeping back when I lived in Edinburgh at university and in Glasgow. It was always in my life as half of my parentage. My mother never lost her Scots accent all her life and she would joke that it would get stronger and she’d resort more to dialect and Scots vernacular “with every rotation of the wheels” as we motored back to Glasgow for visits. I sometimes think that it could be her proximity to me now that influences me. I think her father is also close to me, a man I never knew in life - he died before I was born - and yet I feel I know him now in his death and my life as well as if not better than I know anyone I know in this life. I never knew him and yet I know with certainty that he was perfect. That is ludicrous, and yet I cannot shake that conviction, and I believe he is with me at this time in my life.

He was a Scot and my mother was a Scot and perhaps they are the Scottish muses who descend on me when I write, because I speak aloud as I write and it devolves into either Scots or Yorkshire, but never into the plummy English accent I had for so much of my life; and, if I try to force the plummy accent, it comes out false, forced, unnatural and it takes effort. It starts to sound like a Scotsman or a Yorkshireman trying to be plummy.

My German teacher in Tübingen described me as a sprachliches Chamäleon - a linguistic chameleon. I think he’s right. I say things as I hear them. Sometimes I hear things in a Yorkshire accent, and then they come out in a Yorkshire accent. Whose?

I grew up in Leeds and Bradford, so it could be many people, from school or the rugby club or whatever; the butcher. Mr Fearnley. Mr Meek, the greengrocer. Mr Copley - he always asked after doing a short back and sides “D’you want some spray?” I still say it to me’sen as I do the cubicle after a shower. Oh, yes, we always wanted some spray, then he would comb your hair with a neat parting and you’d turn in the chair and mum would be reading Good Housekeeping and look up and nod approvingly and give Mr Copely the five bob the haircut had cost. Mr Bloom the chemist - he was Jewish. Mr Naif, the fish and chip shop man. Mr Naif was a leading light at the cricket club - trophies in his fish and chip shop, where we went of an evening for a fourpenny poke of chips, and sneaked Bulmer’s Woodpecker cider from the grocer’s to have a feast at home. With my brother. Who I loved and still love. Vera Hatfield at the newsagents. She got up at 5 o’clock and didn’t hit her pillow again till gone 10, every day, weekend included, from Morning Star to Sunday supplement. Eric Hatfield was a fat, lazy lump who barely had the energy to shove your 5d change across the counter. But Vera was life - “That’s 1/6 luv, here’s yer change luv, a tanner luv, thanks luv, ta-ra luv.” When the paper boy was ill, she would do the entire rounds herself. Devotion to duty - they talk about the Queen. They should talk about Mrs Vera Hatfield - she was a goddess, not a queen. She sold newspapers and did her duty because she loved her people, just like the Queen did. Shops were all known in those days by the people who ran them, not as corporate chains. 

I have an idea of whose accent I copy, like that chameleon, but it’s also ludicrous. I know I have three guardian angels who are constantly with me. One has been identified as being my mother; one is “my grandfather” - I naturally had two like everyone, but I think this is my mother’s father. The third is an “unknown” male. I think I know who he is but I don’t know his name. In that regard, yes, he is “unknown”, but far from unknown. Odd, that.

In 1980, I worked part of my last summer as a schoolboy at my school as a painter and decorator. We would gather every morning at the janitor’s workshop, where the chief janitor, Keith, and two other men we knew from seeing them around the school would allot tasks to us and issue materials. It was jokey and they teased us and we started our real education of what it’s like to be privileged public schoolboys doing manual work with manual labourers as our bosses. Only as I write that sentence do I realise how fundamentally true it is. Keith’s little colleague swore like a trooper, yes, that phrase again; he said ‘fuck’ and ‘fucking’ and ’shit’ and ‘crap’ in a broad Yorkshire accent; but like many Yorkshiremen who swear, he did so with perfect diction. London tradesmen also swear but you can barely make out what they say. But when a Yorkshireman has a point to make he will "fuckin’ say it, with every syllab-le and “t” perfectly pronouncèd so tha’ you ’ave understood ev’ry lasttt pointtt.” Until I know any better, I think GA no. 3 is that man. If it isn’t, it doesn’t matter. I once said to him, “The joy in a thing well done is to have done it.” He answered, “And not to take three bloody days about it, neither.” He may be urging me now to make up for lost time.

Whatever, perhaps he was with me when I wrote that piece, the one that’s below here. I sound-recorded it so you can read and also hear it again and then maybe you’ll laugh. And perhaps at the end, you’ll cry, like I did.

Ronnie Corbett, whose brother used to have sex with my great uncle, now there’s a secret, would tell a funny story with a fantastic punchline with people laughing as he told it, for 5 or 10 minutes solid. That was his technique. But most jokes aren’t funny at all, until you get to the last line. Most films are about nothing until you get to the final reel. It’s then you get the point. The point I make in this story is really not about the story itself, which nevertheless makes a point about how we view colonialists and especially those who went home. The point is really that he who steals the property of another won’t always bring it back. And we sometimes say, “Why the fuck should he?” And I think that that’s wrong. 

I’ll be in touch. Kösönöm.

Aunt Elsie’s sugar bowl and Pinter’s pauses

First published on 20 September 2022

or

What do you do when the colonialists go home?

Pinter is good at pauses. There are quite few here. Long, Pinter-like.

Pauses.

Suppose you had a home, a house, say. And, after a while, there’s someone in the spare room. You hear them occasionally brushing their teeth, or having a shower. Or watching telly, making some toast. Tea and toast. 

“How did they get here?” you say to yourself …

Did I invite them?

Maybe it’s an old friend, someone from way back. “Come on a visit, the welcome mat is out.” 

They come, and after a week you ask, “Were you planning on moving on?” And they say, “Not yet, no.”

Or maybe they asked.

“It’s cold where we are and I can’t afford the rent and have no where else to go. Could I come in and warm myself by your fire?” “Yes.” After a week you ask, “Were you planning on moving on?” And they say, “No. Not yet.”

Or maybe they broke in.

They jemmy the door, or break a window, and, when you go to see who’s in the shower and ask where they came from, they turn and wipe the soap out of their eyes and say, “I broke in.” 

After a week you ask, “Were you planning on moving on?” And they say, “No. I like it here.”

So, what do you do?

Well, you can wait for them to leave. Or you can physically eject them. Or you can go to court and get an order telling them to leave, and then get a big burly bailiff to chuck them out.

What if they won’t go?

Then, what sometimes works is if you tell them:

“You are a master in another man’s country. It is time that you left and went home.” Sometimes.

Then, they may go. And after that?

There are some people who come invited and bring chattels: a box of chocolates or a bottle of Pinot-Grigio. There are even some who, if they stay a while, will pop out to get some fresh milk for you, order a newspaper to be delivered, that you quite like, and stump up the subscription to Netflix. It’s nice, is Netflix. Not so nice when the person you’re watching it with has their hand on the remote and breaks wind now and again from eating your peanuts.

When they finally go, you may perhaps be sorry to see them go and hesitatingly call after them, “Do write!” Or even, “Call in again, if you’re … passing.”

If you go back, then, to the fridge, it could be there are no eggs left. The bottle of Pinot is empty. No soft cheese, only hard cheese. The floor’s grubby; guests never think to lift a mop.

So, what do you do about it?

Well, you can go to Asda and buy more soft cheese, and a bottle of plonk and half a dozen large eggs. Forget about your ungracious and ungrateful guest. Maybe repair the window they came in by. Thinks … and rue the fact that you never did get round to demanding rent from your lodger.

And then you find they took Aunt Elsie’s silver sugar bowl. It was nice that sugar bowl. Little Queen Anne legs on it, and a matching spoon. Hallmarked too. Not worth much, but a  couple of bob, anyway.

But, you need to pay the bill at Asda, so there’s work to be done, a floor to be mopped and a cauliflower cheese for tonight’s dinner, and it all needs paying for so, let’s get on with our work. Spit, spot, best foot forward!

Wait a minute. That lodger. Maybe they could pay you – then you wouldn’t need to do any work, not for a while. Get them to pay for the cheese and the cauliflower and the Pinot. They blood drank it. 

Wonder what’s on telly. 

Oh. 

They cancelled the Netflix. Hm. Could always read a book, I suppose. 

Should I sue him? Claim … loss of honour. And …  … vacant possession. Could get a couple of thou for that. And maybe get Aunt Elsie’s sugar bowl back. Worth a bob or two, that.

So, what to do?

Mop the floor?

Try and get the sugar bowl back?

Try and work hard enough to afford your own Netflix?

Put it all down to a twist of fate and get on with life?

Reinforce the lock on the window?

Hm, perhaps … even … keep a watch out for them. So you can spit at them – “putt!” – if you ever meet them again, like.

Who the hell did they think they were?!!

Mind you, I did like the Netflix. I like Kevin Spacey, even if no one else does.

And the Pinot …. well, the Pinot wasn’t that great. Cheese was nearly mouldy.

I don’t know what to do. Should I ask a lawyer? I’ll ask a lawyer.

I know! I’ll ask a dozen lawyers, then I’ll be sure to get the right answer.

I asked a dozen lawyers. I asked a dozen clergymen. I asked a dozen philosophers and I asked a dozen friends. 

Some said “Mop the floor and forget it.” 

Some said “Mop the floor with pride and hold your head high! It is your floor and you will mop it yourself! Don’t need no help from nobody.”

“Does that mean I need help or don’t need help?”

“NO HELP! You helpless?!” 

…

…

“No, course not.”

Some said “Call a cleaning company and send the lodger the bill.” 

Some said, “I know where they are now. I’ll go around for you and let their tyres down,” with a Muttley snigger.

Some said, “I’ll buy you a new sugar bowl.” I said, “But it was Aunt Elsie’s.” And they said “I know, but I can’t get you Aunt Elsie’s. Won’t this do?”

The lodger. He should go to prison for doing that. But it would take ages. To get him into prison, I mean. And it would break me and I would have no life left and I would be bitter for the rest of my days.

Some said, “Let me hug you. Fill you with warmth, and make some tea and we’ll watch BBC, and forget Netflix. You’re with friends and they matter much more than your revenge. If you take your revenge on the lodger, perhaps you will lose the few friends you have left.”

So I kept the friends. And I watched BBC.

One day, there was a knock at the door. 

It was the lodger.

He had Aunt Elsie’s sugar bowl in his hand.

Lodgers don’t always come back with the sugar bowl, though.