Once I'd made my toast I watched some more
"Peep Show" which again featured a nudey Olivia Coleman, which
was something of a result for those who like that sort of thing (the beasts!).
As I watched telly and
got dressed and walked off to find my car I was amazed by the bin men. They
were being quiet today. No bellowing up the street. No hurling bins around.
What was that all about?
I found my car and
drove off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the air strikes
that the Americans had launched at the Houthi rebels in Yemen overnight. Having
been terrorising international shipping for weeks, the Americans have given
them a bit of a slap. The Americans mainly, with a bit of help from a gaggle of
allies including the United Kingdom. Was this a good idea? There were no end of
windbags lining up to be interviewed on the matter, and as many opinions were
aired as there were windbags to air them.
One thing became very
clear though; the Houthi rebels who got bombed were just pawns in some
international power struggle in which those with weapons far too powerful to be
unleased get the little people to fight their squabbles for them.
And there was talk
about the state of the UK
footpath network. Fed up with the likes of me going for walks in the
countryside, landowners aren't keeping the rights of way as clear as they might
be. This was something with which I was very familiar as a lad when going
hiking with the Boys Brigade nearly fifty years ago; why has this only become
news now?
I got to work and found
myself embroiled in a squabble on Facebook. Someone who openly admitted he'd
never been to Dog Club had taken exception to the insurers not wanting banned
breeds along, and seemed to think I should be taking a stand against the insurers.
Someone who runs a local dog training business (who'd also never been along)
then joined in with him and got rather personal and abusive (then had the
good grace to delete what she'd posted). Neither seemed to realise they
were trying to fight with the wrong people.
In between squabbling
on Facebook I spent much of today thinking about the summers of 1980 and 1981.
Early on one May bank holiday morning in 1980 I marched into the Harbour
restaurant on Hastings sea front and asked to speak to the manager. A chubby
little Italian fellow waddled up from the kitchen and I asked him if he had any
vacancies. He said (in a very thick almost incomprehensible Italian accent)
that bank holidays were always busy and he would give me a day’s work. I worked
for him for every day that I wasn’t in school from then until October of that
year, and again from the next Easter through till when I took up professional
blood testing.
That chubby little
Italian fellow introduced himself as “Boss”; and that is how he was
known to everyone.
He drove a brand new
car which (parked on Hastings sea front) was covered in seagull poo.
He had a wad of bank
notes in his pocket which was never less than an inch thick from which he paid
everyone’s wages and every bill.
He insisted the kitchen
staff sang the meow mix
song (*very* loudly) every time a customer ordered gateau (as
“gatto” is Italian for “cat”)
He would have the
kitchen staff compete to see who could shout the phrase “F…ing Hell!” loudest
and with most passion up the lift shaft which sent food from the kitchen to the
restaurant.
He taught all us young
lads to cook because (as he said) “boys are focking useless and if I
don’t teach you, you will starve to death”. He used the work “focking”
a lot (spelt with an "o" and in a very thick Italian accent)
and was the first adult I ever knew to swear regularly.
When we were quiet at
work he would send me to his house to do gardening where I learned to use a
chain saw.
He was incredibly
well-read and very wise. He would often offer advice and wisdom at which I and
all the other lads would laugh. I wish I’d listened to him; I would have
learned so much.
He would regularly go
to concerts of classical music with one of the orthopaedic surgeons from the
local hospital.
He was devoted to his
wife - an equally chubby Italian woman known to all as "Missus".
When I got the job as a
trainee professional blood tester he was the only person who advised against
it. When I told him what the job entailed and the pay he told me that I would
neither be rich or poor. He told me I would be comfortable, and that being comfortable
was the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.
He died late last year;
despite being a chubby fellow he lived to be ninety. Today was his funeral. I
considered asking for the day off and going along, but the funeral was in the
church where my father-in-law had had his funeral. The priest there was clearly
just reading a script and got so many personal and family details wrong. I
couldn't take that priest seriously again.
And how many of Boss’s contemporaries would be left. Would anyone from the restaurant from 1980 or 1981 be along? Would I recognise them if they were? It would have been good to have caught up with his son and daughter, but I’ve not seen Marco or Gloria since 1981. And would they remember me after all these years? And would they want me crawling out of the woodwork after so long?
Ironically one of my most vivid memories of Boss was of him
unblocking one of the restaurant’s sinks. He was plunging away like a thing
possessed whilst grumbling about the “focking plogol” (as he called
plugholes). As the afternoon wore on “er indoors TM” messaged to
say the kitchen sink’s plughole was bunged up.
I came home via Pembury’s B&Q. Our plughole has had the
dangerous chemicals in it for a couple of hours now but not a lot seems to be
happening. Perhaps I should have done what Boss used to do. He never unblocked
a sink with proper sink unblocking chemicals; he always used “bilich” (as
he would call “bleach”).
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