An unremarkable thing occurred one night in 1915. My father went out on the booze.
What makes the event memorable was not the fact that my mother was seven months pregnant at the time, nor the fact that along with him went two cronies, Harry Lievesley, who kept the Speedwell Inn at Stavely, and Fred Bradley from the Garibaldi Inn at Stonegravels. The importance lies in the fact that when he arrived back at the Queens Hotel he was the worse for drink and the better off by a shining shilling, which he clutched in his fist.
The old man frequently came home with money in his hand, won on some bizarre bet or other. But this shilling was different. It had been handed to him, we were led to understand, by a representative of no less a personage than His Majesty King George V. Or, as father put it: 'I've been and joined Kitchener's ruddy army!'
He had too. And a matter of days later we waved goodbye to him for more than three years.
So there we were, left to look after the pub. My mother, myself and my Uncle Maurice. Uncle Maurice, my father's brother, lived with us for many years. He was a hunchback, damaged when he was a child, and my father had faithfully promised his mother that after her death he would make sure that Maurice was looked after.
Uncle Maurice was very good with figures and so, as my father's betting operations expanded, they were entrusted to him. We took illegal 3d bets both in the pub and in a tiny office in the building next door. The local miners, like most small punters, had a penchant for complex bets; it was a good job Uncle Maurice knew his onions. We also published a fixed-odds list every week on football. From time to time I would sit in the office writing down bets which had been taken over the telephone and more often than not I would be roped in on Saturday nights to help Uncle Maurice check through the coupons.
Another form of betting - and one with much more panache about it, to my mind - used to take place in the billiard-room. Apart from the frequent money matches that went on, games would sometimes take place in which, the players having paid into a pool, a stack of golden sovereigns were balanced on a cork in the centre of the table. The game was played with a red, and a white cue ball. The simple object was to play on to the red so that it hit a cushion rail and rebounded to knock over the sovereigns. Such games went on for hours, though I was never allowed to participate.
Between betting slips, football coupons, the billiard-room, Ernest Rudge's and school I often helped out as a waiter. I served many a bottle of whisky for 3/6d, with a siphon of soda free. And if anyone wanted to splash out further they could have a Bulldog cigar for 2d. Meanwhile in the public bar Wills Woodbines were on sale at 1d for five.
What a life for a youngster to be brought up in! But it did not last for very long after my father's abrupt departure.
He was posted to East Africa where, by an odd chance, he met up with our local GP, Dr Taylor, who was in the Medical Corps. Though the good doctor was an officer and pop was a humble sergeant, Dr Taylor insisted on their dining together from time to time. And, of course, drinking together. Before the war, in Whittington Moor, scarcely a day went by without Dr Taylor popping in to the Queens for reasons other than professional ones. For my father, East Africa was a home from home.
He was never given any leave, so never came back to his real home - where things were not quite so rosy. It turned out that the brewery had an inflexible rule: that their pub tenants had to be man and wife. Mother had to leave the pub (and the cinema, of course) encumbered with four young children - Gladys, Doris, Fred and the new baby, Evelyn - apart from Uncle Maurice and myself.
We all moved to a rented semi in King Street, Whittington Moor. But it was not long before my mother, resilient and resourceful as ever, was scouting round for an opportunity to make some money, and eventually we moved instead to a rented shop at the top of King Street, at the junction with the main road from Chesterfield to Sheffield. She came to an arrangement with the old man's butcher friend Tommy Fletcher whereby he would let her have meat at a special price which she could then re-sell. The shop was, therefore, a meat shop whilst not actually being a butcher's.
Meanwhile Uncle Maurice struggled on as best he could with the football coupons. But I am afraid they were not very successful. We were not the only people in the field and we had only a long list and a short list, which meant that the odds did not particularly favour us. We would look anxiously in the Saturday sporting paper to check the results; if the home teams had had the upper hand we were in bad trouble that night. The big fixed-odds bookmakers, on the other hand, had all manner of attractive looking lists - the Big Four, the Super Six and so on - and it was on these that they made the bulk of their profits.
It was up to me to help fill the family purse. So, like many another boy of my age during the First World War, I left school to go to work. And, at this juncture, I was taken still further under the beneficent wing of Ernest Rudge. He employed me in his Chesterfield billiard-saloon where I helped in a number of small ways - such as taking the money from customers and brushing the tables. (I could not help iron the cloths; I was not big enough!) Moreover, this employment enabled me to get in a fair amount of extra practice by playing with the customers. I made quite a few shillings this way which were very welcome back home.
On one occasion four young fellows from Manchester were in the area doing a pretty good itinerant trade in producing enlargements from pictures of fathers or sons who were away in the forces. Their governor, Teddy Carr, went on to become general manager of Rank's overseas film company - though later he did not like to be reminded of those early days. Every night they were in our billiard-hall playing a variety of locals and usually winning. One of them in particular was a useful-looking player. His name was Ike Lewis. They all knew I was just fifteen years old, but they had watched my game and one evening they talked me into playing Lewis at snooker for £2 - but giving Lewis two blacks start. I did not possess £2 but that night I did my own bit of talking to borrow the cash from my mother.
I did not want Ernest to know what I was doing, though. So the following evening I waited until he had left the hall before taking on Lewis. Happily I won. But, clearly not willing to give me best, Lewis challenged me to a further game, at the end of which I again relieved his pocket of £2. Finally I agreed to play one more game in which I gave him three blacks start, this time for £3. This cash also I took off him. When I got home I handed the £2 back to mother and shortly afterwards bought a bicycle with the rest of the winnings. A very good evening's work for a youngster.
Not long after this, off to the trenches went the manager of one of Ernest's newer billiard-halls, an offshoot of the embryonic Rudge empire comprising five tables in a room over the top of a grocer's shop in Hasland, a mining area about two and a half miles from Chesterfield. Ernest decided to put me in charge, which delighted me. Less delightful, however, was the journey to and from Whittington Moor - a round trip of eight miles. I was glad I had my bike.
The miners around Hasland were no different from their fellows in Whittington Moor and Chesterfield; they were great gamblers, almost to a man. Their favourite game, especially at the weekend when they had got their pay, was Pink Pool. In this the pink ball was placed in the centre spot and each player was allocated a ball - red, yellow, green, brown, blue, black and white. Whoever drew the white put it on the red billiard spot. The game began by the player who drew the red playing on to the white, followed by the yellow playing on to the red, the green on to the yellow and so forth in the normal rotation of snooker colours. The intention of each participant was to pocket the ball he was 'on'. If he did so he would then endeavour to pocket the pink and if he succeeded here also, he would then try to pocket the ball nearest to his. If again successful he would have another go at the pink, which had been re-potted, and so on. Each time a player's ball was potted he would pay the agreed forfeit to the cueist and every time the pink was sunk every one of the players forked out. It was a game which could continue ad infinitum, and often did.
Some of the lads were rather wary of letting me join in. And on the occasion when they did relent, it was only on condition that I played left-handed! It was this experience that enabled me in later years to play shots left-handed. I never liked using the rest - frankly, I was just no good with it - so my ability to play left-handed was a great asset. The finest left-handed player I have ever seen is my brother Fred. And he too perfected his style by being allowed to play only left-handed in his youth when his prowess became too much for the local billiard-hall customers.
Not long ago I was reminded by my last remaining aunt of a letter which my father wrote to her while stationed in Mombassa. Probably it is the only one of my father's letters to survive. In it he wrote: 'God speed the day when through the clouds of this great war and human sacrifice we shall sweep into a new and peaceful world.' It was a hope expressed in various ways by many men; and many men were to find that the realities of the post-war period fell short of their hopes. In my father's case, on his return from East Africa in 1919, he went into the cinema business. He bought a financial interest in the Lyceum at Whittington Moor - though where the funds came from I never knew - and became its manager. Ernest Rudge was also expanding into the area, opening a small billiard-hall at Whittington Moor, and this he sent me to manage. This suited me down to the ground since it was practically on my own doorstep. I must admit that the attractions of cycling over to Hasland in all weathers were palling rather, for by then I had reached the staid old age of eighteen. The exercise certainly kept me fit but it was not much fun cycling home across country at dead of night. Nor did the wartime blackout help much; I came a cropper several times though getting a wheel stuck in a tram line.
In those early post-war days my father used to make a weekly trip to Nottingham to meet the people who rented the films in the Midlands and to make his bookings for the Lyceum. There were plenty of arguments about how much the films would cost him, but these were liberally intermingled with much eating and drinking, and a jolly good time was had by all.
On one particular occasion one of his contacts suggested that instead of pop going to Nottingham he and his associates should come up to Chesterfield for a day to do their business. At the same time it was suggested that they pull a fast one, with my father's connivance, at the expense of some local. My father would line up someone who fancied himself at billiards and snooker and they would bring along their pal Jack McGlynn to take him on for a few pounds - the point being that Jack was an excellent player who, in 1922 and 1925, won the English Amateur Snooker Championship.
My father agreed. 'Yes, we'll have a terrific day and you can make yourselves a few pounds betting on Jack. You certainly don't have to worry about the result!'
The prospect of hustling the hapless Chesterfield hopeful greatly entertained everyone and they all promised to turn up on the appointed day. 'Well,' said pop in his machiavellian way, 'I don't know any fancied players off-hand, but I'll make some inquiries and see you at the station next Friday.' And so they all went on their way, rubbing their hands in anticipation. Father, of course, had a card of his own to play to beat their trump.
It was me. He gave me my detailed instructions the next Thursday evening. I was to go to the Colin Campbell Hotel the following day to leave my cue in the rack and my set of balls in their billiard-room cupboard. I myself had to be in the room at two o'clock because father would be bringing his friends there after a good lunch.
Shortly after two, the party rolled in, my father and about half a dozen others. I stayed where I was, leaving theatricals to pop. He walked over to me and pointed across to Jack McGlynn. 'This,' he said, 'is the gentleman you are going to play.' We looked each other up and down and got on with it, my father nobly deciding to back the local lad while all the others backed Jack.
The game was snooker, of which I had not played a great deal at the time. Jack, on the other hand, was expert at the game. But early on it was not difficult to detect that he was ill at ease. After I had won the first two games quite easily Jack announced that the cues were not to his liking and that the table was too slow. He then turned to my father and said, 'I'll play him 250 up at billiards. But we must play with ivory balls.'
This was right up my street. We located the ivories and off we went again. It was not very long before I had run out winner by a comfortable margin over the demoralised Jack. At this point my father led me over to the corner where the shattered film men were sitting. 'Now, chaps,' he said with a broad grin. 'let me introduce you. This is my son Joe.'
The howls of disbelief and gnashing of teeth were quickly quelled when pop said: 'I know you're all good sports. You came to take on a local mug and the tables have been turned. But don't worry, the money I've won will be spent on your entertainment for the rest of the day.' Cheers all round.
I must say I was pretty relieved when it was all over. With such a worthy opponent I could not presume with any certainty that I would win. Looking back on the contest at the Colin Campbell Hotel I think it was not so much a question of my superior skills but that Jack was genuinely thrown by the quality of the table. I could adapt much better, being accustomed to playing on bad tables in billiard-halls.
A similar bit of fun occurred some time later when my father himself opened a billiard-hall behind the Lyceum. My Uncle Maurice was appointed manager and I played a good deal there - as did my brother Fred a few years later. At the cinema, my father occasionally used to put on a special attraction to supplement the films and tempt inside the paying customers. One such side-show was a lasso-throwing cowboy, or someone purporting to be a cowboy, who for publicity purposes walked around all day in his outfit. For all I know, in the true spirit of the West, he slept in it too.
The cowboy was also a billiards enthusiast and would call in at the adjacent hall every day, talking loudly to draw attention to himself; he was certainly a dedicated showman. One day he asked Uncle Maurice if he could find him an opponent for 100 up. 'All right,' said Uncle Maurice, 'this young man will give you a game.' Me again. The cowboy broke off and tried to screw in off the red, but he made a complete hash of the stroke and missed completely. He did, however, leave the balls nicely placed for me. I carried on to make the 100 unfinished.
For a joke I walked quietly away, put my cue in the rack, thanked the cowboy for the game and went off. The cowboy gazed after me, then went over to a group of locals who had been watching the game. 'Say,' he said, 'that youngster can shoot pretty good.'
'Don't be daft,' said one, with a poker face. 'There's half a dozen lads round here can give him a good start.'