Morning in the Streets

CHURCH BELLS RING

CLOCK CHIMES

HARMONICA PLAYS

We went to Shrewsbury yesterday with the Bootle Evening Townswomen's Guild

and the countryside was magnificent. Oh, it was beautiful.

There was every shade of green. You couldn't...

I didn't know there were so many shades of green.

And the little lambs.

Now it seems to me that nobody can really afford to run

a stately home nowadays. We may as well have some stately cottages.

But I go farther than that. I say what we need now are not so much stately homes but stately mines.

Stately mines - that's one of my favourite phrases, stately mines.

Maybe a lot of it is because they've no father, it might be that.

Still he's the only one in the family that's ever done it.

What was the last lot he did? Was it £3 he stole and spent it?

And I mean, he'd no need to do it. He gets... He goes to the pictures,

he gets sweets and they get plenty of fruit, don't you?

They're kept short of nothing.

I got a TV put in for them.

There's nothing more I can give them.

ENGINE REVS

I was going on the road one day, just on my own solitary tinpot way,

when suddenly round the corner come the Flying Squad.

The usual chatter.

They turned round and said, "Well, give an account your movements."

I said, "I've been to London, Sheffield, Nottingham,

"Seacombe, Liverpool, Brighton, Huddersfield, Halifax, Barnsley, Wakefield, Normanton and Pontefract.

"Cleckheaton, Dumfries, Falkirk, Dundee, Shannon, Dumbarton in Scotland, Merthyr Tydfil,

"Cardiff City, Wrexham and Bristol and Wales." He says, "Hold on a bit, lad. I've had enough."

He were puzzled were the detective.

Take it by and large. Surely, we're a better people today.

This town's a better city today.

No, the world...

The world just goes on. The mass of people,

I don't think they're much interested in anything outside their own lives.

I think if I got a job and settled down,

get myself tidied up, some nice clothes,

I think my wife would have me back tomorrow.

I was talking to a fella the other week. He'd just come from Africa.

He'd been away on a ship.

And, he tells me there were over six million huts to let in Africa,

there's that many Africans over here.

And he said, "I've dreamed about going to New Zealand", he said, "And I'm going."

And I've called him for everything. I said I'd never speak to him again,

simply because, like, with my hubby, being so ill,

the boy was his sun, moon and stars.

But I'm proud of him now

and I say if anybody emigrates, it takes guts to do it.

SHIP HORN BLOWS

And that's why I wouldn't go to New Zealand,

because I don't think I've got the guts to do it!

SHE LAUGHS

ALARM CLOCK RINGS

Why should a man work

when he has the health and strength to lie in bed?

Johnny!

Johnny!

Come on, it's half past seven!

Give Jimmy and Bernard a shout.

Jean! Come on now. I'll not shout you again.

Do you hear me?

RADIO: 'Perhaps just time for this message or perhaps two.

'Here's the first.

'It's about an accident at Kilburn, London last Thursday night

'when an elderly woman was knocked down by a car and received fatal injuries.'

# I loved you as I never loved before,

# When first I met you on the village green

# Oh, come to me My dream of love is o'er

# I love you as I loved you

# When you were swe-e-e-et

# When you were swe-e-e-et sixteen. #

Come on, you. You're not half finished yet.

You knew you were late when I shouted you this morning.

I've overslept a bit meself.

Now look it's quarter to eight by the right time.

That clock's not fast this morning, you know.

Oh, Bernard. Come on, son. Hurry up.

You know you've about a quarter of an hour's walk to school.

-Johnny, do you want any more before you go?

-No, thank you.

-Are you sure?

# I like an apple and I like a pear

# And I like a sailor with nice curly hair

# Oh, gee, I love him I can't deny it

# I'll be with him wherever he goes

# He stands on the corner and whistles me out

# He shouts, "Yooee, yooee, Are you coming out?"

# Oh, gee, I love him I can't deny it

# I'll be with him wherever he goes

# He bought me a shawl of red, white and blue

# And when we got married, he tore it in two

# Oh, gee, I love him I can't deny it

# I'll be with him wherever he goes. #

HARMONICA TAKES OVER MELODY

Oh, you've no idea how we lived.

Five of us in one bed.

Five of us and my mother used to be trying to cover us, you know.

And she'd have our coats on us, you know.

And the night man'd come and knock at the door.

And if that man found three of us in that bed, my mother was brought to the court

and fined five shillings and you would have to go out in the back yard in the shivering cold,

and sit in the lavatory till he went.

The good old days(!)

There was no good old days. Cursed.

CHURCH BELLS RING

I fully think meself that education is a finest thing that ever a man could have.

I've often said if his brains were my talent, we'd go a long way,

if you follow my meaning.

# Take her by the lily-white hand

# Take her by the water

# Give her a kiss and make her cry

# She's the old man's daughter. #

# GIRLS: A rosy apple or a pear

# A bunch of roses she can wear

# A lily-white diamond by her side

# Choose the one to be your bride

# Take her by the lily-white hand... #

# Here we go round the mountain

# One by one Here we go round the mountain

# Two by two Here we go round the mountain

# Three by three To buy some sugar candy

# Do a little dancing one by one

# Do a little dancing two by two

# Do a little dancing three by three

# To buy some sugar candy

# Here we go dancing one by one

# Here we go dancing two by two

# Here we go dancing three by three... #

# Eachy peachy pear plum Pick out your very best chum

# And do not pick yourself. #

-I'll have Fuzzy!

-I'll have Jimbo!

I've have Berno!

THEY SHOUT

# ALL: A bunch of roses she can wear

# A lily-white diamond by her side,

# Choose the one to be your bride

# Take her by the lily-white hand

# Take her by the water

# Give her a kiss and make her cry

# She's the old man's daughter. #

VIOLINS PLAYS THE MELODY

None of these go in their bare feet like I went over the snow.

Oh, no. It's a better world than it was. I'm sure of that.

On a Christmas morning, there was a van used to come round.

Used to call it Father Christmas.

I don't know whether Methodists or Wesleyans, I can't tell you which.

Belonged to Central Hall - I think they were Quakers or something.

They used to come round on a Christmas morning with a van

and they'd give each little child a little underwear

and a little pinny and a doll.

And that's all them children ever got. There was no Santa Claus and no stockings.

SHIP HORN BLOWS

You don't think I can live on the dole at £2 a week, do you?

And pay a bit fat Irish landlady £3.10s board and lodge!

Where's me beer money and cigarette money coming from?

Where's MY harem(?!)

I think we'll all be standing on a corner again before long bumming a fag.

But you can see the sky through it! Sky, yes, the sky - right through!

We've no electric light whatever and the Town Hall tell me I must pay for it meself.

My chimney stack was demolished on the 5th November, 1957.

I've got cats here. I've got two cats - a big one and a kitten.

The big one's run out with fright and left me with the little one and that's no good.

The big one won't stay. It goes out.

Even the cats are afraid to stay in the bloody house and yet we've got to stay here!

And the cockroaches, well, till lately they've been eating us alive.

Go see next door but one and look up to the roof.

You'll see a big manhole in the roof, where they had to go for the policeman the other night

to get the baby out, because the ceiling was falling on it, killing it.

Do you see that cat?

Well, a damn lad's done that to his ear.

Only yesterday the roof, it teemed in and teemed in.

I'm just weary and fed up with it.

There's just me and my sister, two on our own.

I'm 61 and she's 57 and I think it's downright shame

that we should live under these conditions.

I asked him like about a job and they were draining and that with pipes and that, you know.

He says, "What can you do?" I says, "Night watching."

He says, "Can you wheel a barrow?" I said, "Yes."

He said, "Can you go back of the mixer and use a shovel?"

I said, "I think I can."

He said, "What are you by trade?" I says, "I'm a labourer."

So, after he'd weighed me up from top to toe, Mr Finnegan turned round,

he says, "As much as I admire your pluck,

"you're too light for heavy work and you're too heavy for light work."

I says, "I'm neither use nor ornament", so I walked out then.

That's one of my best pastimes at the public library -

get in there and see the old cronies, the one-time empire-builders,

trying to do the same as me - live on less than £3 a week.

I must speak the truth. I wasn't satisfied with my...

condition in life.

I wasn't satisfied with my own class really.

I wanted to be in a class a little higher intellectually.

The class I belong is the, er...higher working class.

The lower working class, well, they are the animal class, actually.

Absolutely. They talk on nothing. They are absolutely illiterate.

Drink, drink, drink.

RADIO: 'The members of the Cabinet, the leader of the opposition, the leader of the Liberal party

'and the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker, the High Commissioners,

'the representative of the Services, they stand before the Cenotaph.

'We await the notes of Big Ben to announce the silence.'

He'd gone to work on a Tuesday morning and a big envelope came.

So I opened this envelope which I shouldn't have done, but I did do.

And it was his papers to report to Ashton under Lyne.

So I said to the eldest son, I said, "Don't go to school this morning. You better take this letter."

And he said, "Oh, I'm not missing school."

I said, "You'll do as you're told! You'll take this letter down to the warehouse and ask for your father."

So he went. So he come back. I said, "How did you go on?"

"Oh," he said, "It's his mobilisation papers. Me dadda's going away to the war.

"He says he'll be home soon."

But he didn't come home soon. They all landed into Tommy Ducks round the corner.

So I tell you about half past one, they rolled in - six of them - with a great big gallon jar of beer, drunk.

So of course I didn't know the taste of drink. I said, "You have come home in a nice state!"

So one of them said, "Never mind, Ma", he says. "We'll not see you for a long time after," he said.

"LAST POST" PLAYS

Well, anyway I tell you, he had a few hours sleep and they all went home

and at night time, they come again and they adjourned to a singing room here.

So I said, "Oh, don't go out and get any more drink. You've had enough today

"and you know very well you've got to go away tonight."

"Oh," he says, "We'll get there some road or other." Well, anyhow they went,

and they took bottles of beer with them to the station

and he said, "Now, Mary, if you have a little girl, call it Margaret,

"and if it's a little boy, call it Steven."

I said, "All right." So he kissed us and he went away.

And we never seen him after. He was killed at... I got notice to say he'd been killed.

It was four days past, but he was killed it seems on the 12th...

March. Neuve Chapelle.

So, there you are.

RADIO: 'The wind stirs the leaves and the flags of the Cenotaph

'as slowly these tributes grow

'at the very foot of the Cenotaph.

'There are many wreaths to be laid this morning.'

BUGLE PLAYS

So Madge said to me she thought the budgie was egg bound.

And I said, "Well, we'll have to do something about it, because it'll die if you don't."

I said, "Have you got a book on budgies?" She said, "No."

So she sent the boy out to buy a book and we did what we could for it.

So, she rang me up the next day and told me there was no eggs.

Rang me up the next day - no eggs.

So I said to her, "You'd better take it to the university and have it seen to there."

She said, "I can't do that. It says in the budgie book,

"you've got to keep them in the one heat. If I take it out in the cold, it'll get pneumonia and die."

So, anyway she got a vet in to have a look at it and Shep the dog followed her in.

And he goes to the cage to get the budgie out, opens the cage, the budgie flies out,

alights on the mat, the dog jumps on it and no budgie.

He picks it up, the vet, looks at it, he says, "This budgie's not egg bound," he says.

"It's got a tumour." And with that, he just threw it in the fire.

So Madge says, "Good heavens, my lads'll go mad. What did you do that for?"

He said, "Well, cremation is the most hygienic thing, madam. That will be 7/6d."

THEY LAUGH

Oh, give the flaming thing here, Dan! He gets on me nerves with it at times that thing,

going on with himself instead of being a good boy.

I was telling you about this new job I've been after, you see.

She asked me, would I do the carpets?

I told her I didn't want to do the carpets. I'd already done the big one in the parlour.

She didn't say to me she wanted any carpets.

What she wanted to know was why I'd left my other place.

So I told her it was over the c...

RASPING BUGLE NOTE

The landlord came up and he said, "Is your sister still living here?"

I said, "Yes. You can't put her out..."

BUGLE NOTE

So I started to speak to her and I said, "I suppose you're wondering why

"I'm reading my bible in here." She said, "Well, it did seem a bit..."

BUGLE NOTE

You won't carry the can back, I've got to carry the can. But I'm not carrying the can for no...

BUGLE NOTE

Talk, talk, talk.

I love to listen to it. Go round in the mornings,

down the street, yap, yap, yap.

'People say to me, big-hearted Vera...'

-'You won't carry the can back...'

-'I've taken the delight all my life...'

-'I'm not carrying...'

-'Talk, talk - I love to listen to it.'

-'The landlord came...'

BUGLE NOTE

The old attitude of everybody was you were finished.

You were too old. Go, go, go.

I would have liked to worked on, but they threw me out, because I was old.

It's a sin to grow old, you know.

We had an old lady here and...she...

Everybody would run and get her a cup of tea and they'd wait on her

and do all those little things, but she'd always say, "Nobody wants me."

I mean if you take that attitude, you can't expect anyone to want you, can you?

I could take a £1 out this morning, lay it out and I wouldn't see anything for it.

Look at the price of your butter.

We got the best butter when I was a girl at 8d a pound,

and the best roll of bacon at 6d. 24 eggs for a shilling.

Two pound of sugar...

..a pound of margarine...

..and I think I'll take a pound of cooking fat, I'm a bit short.

How long have people been having good material things, how long?

They haven't had it above, what, 20, 30 years?

This release from sheer anxiety about where the next meal was coming from.

If, when the pressure is lifted, they should go a bit daft for ten minutes, who's to blame?

And who's to wonder at it?

I'd been carrying about munitions and water.

Dead and wounded were lying about.

And as I lay there, a voice alongside me said,

"Look, Murphy. There's a little buttercup."

I said, "Well, what about it?"

"That must be the good seed falling on the good ground.

"We must be the bad seed falling on the rocks."

My dad used to go away to sea, right.

He was very hard on my mother, you know.

He used to give her beatings for nothing.

She was a very hard-working woman.

And, um...when he came home from sea, all the money would go over the counter.

And then, of course my mother died on Christmas Eve.

She left me, 14, the little baby, 12 months old,

and another one, four.

Me dad stayed with us eight weeks,

and then he got a ship and went away and left us.

So, of course he died after, you know.

Then I had more trouble on me plate, like.

Me husband never, ever got much work

and I had to work all me life.

But thank God, God's been very good to me and His Holy Mother.

It's a bit of a lousy life, taking it all round from top to toe.

I was a big baby and I was a fat little girl,

a fat schoolgirl, a fat young woman, and now I'm a fat old woman.

SHE LAUGHS

Happy days.

We're all part of a great mass.

This great mass is just split up into little bits. We're the little bits.

I'm part of you, you're part of me.

GIRLS SING

The agony of our time

is this overhanging threat.

What can you say about that? The overhanging threat of the atomic bomb.

# Goodbye, Betty, while you're away

# Send me a letter to tell me when you're better

# Goodbye, Betty, while you're away

# And don't forget your old pal, Anne

# Goodbye, Anne, while you're away

# Send me a letter to tell me when you're better

# Goodbye, Anne, while you're away

# And don't forget your old pal, Pat

# Goodbye, Pat, while you're away

# Send me a letter to tell me when you're better

# Goodbye, Pat, while you're away

# And don't forget your old pal, Nora. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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