Juggler tells stories and smokes cigarettes. Winnie sips at a half-pint of stout, and he keeps looking at her: her dark bobbed hair as black as her drink, the down-angled eyes, the smartness. She enjoys his interest. If she had imagined the man she would marry it would surely not have been a man like this – a comic and a livewire so different to herself – and yet, she likes him. She likes being with someone who is well dressed, and who knows all the other men in the pub, and she likes the daftness that is in such contrast to her disciplined home.
He is keen, too keen she thinks, and she breaks it off. Harry (he has told her to call him that) says he doesn’t care, but her sudden withdrawal piques his interest. In the meantime, he keeps up his singing, comedy and drumming with bands, arriving home at midnight then rising at four for his shift. A range of abilities keeps you in work, he says. He works three or four nights a week, carrying his drums on the buses. Travelling home late at night, he sits among the tired, blackened miners and mill lasses, backchatting when someone recognises him, ignoring conductors who chuckle at his baggage, and otherwise shutting his eyes, clinging to the drum cases, and rehearsing his lyrics and gags.
His only enemy is a Bolton-upon-Dearne policeman known as Dog Uller. Policemen, regarded with suspicious hostility by some people in the Dearne since the 1926 lockout, either redeem themselves with blind eyes and words to the wise, or they persecute. Dog Uller, in his late twenties, fat and officious, persecutes. He tells anyone who will listen that his beat is so safe, his public so cowed, that he can leave his gold watch on the wall outside the Collingwood Arms and no one will take it. He drinks in the Collingwood and it is in the pub’s tap room that Harry, also a regular, commits a misdemeanour against the policeman that reaches the ears of Walter.
‘Now then, Dog,’ says Harry one evening not long after Winnie breaks off from him, his hand locked on a straight glass of Barnsley Bitter. ‘Anybody pinched thy watch?’
‘Shut it, Hollingworth.’
Dog Uller is not a man to banter in the bar. Everyone is laughing. Everyone knows the gold watch brag, and thinks it absurd. Harry makes a show of looking at his wristwatch.
‘I tell you this, Hollingworth,’ says Uller, putting down his drink and turning to stand square on to Harry. ‘You’re a peril with them damned drums. If I see you on t’ bus wi’ em, I shall do you, and no mistaking.’
‘Tha couldn’t catch me.’
Laughter.
‘Give over. I don’t know what you think you’re on with. Drums?’ – Uller says ‘drums’ as if no such things exist – ‘You can’t play tiddlywinks, you, never mind drums .’
Harry winks at some of the men in the bar.
‘Mind you your father were t’ same, wi’ that accardigan. He couldn’t play that to save his life. The Juggler –’ He says this as if ‘Juggler’ was the most shameful name a man could have.
Harry blinks, and glances down.
‘Don’t you do comedy and all?’ Uller feels himself climbing now, coming back, dominating as he likes to. ‘Come on. Tell us a bloody joke.’
‘I’ll give thee some comedy,’ says Harry. ‘Does tha know t’ “ Laughing Policeman” ?’
He sticks his pint on the bartop, swings back his right arm, and punches Dog Uller in the nose. The police officer staggers sideways and says, ‘You bloody swine.’
Uller lunges and grabs Harry’s arms, but Harry dodges. Men around him eddy and regroup, make to hold him, but his fist smacks into Uller’s face again. Uller steps backwards, stumbles, and is down in a clatter with Harry on top, knees pinning Uller down. The men try to haul Harry off. One pulls out Uller’s whistle and blows it, another grabs Harry and gets him out of the pub, which now empties as if it were burning.
Dog Uller does not press charges, in order, public opinion assumes, to avoid embarrassment. Harry never
He is keen, too keen she thinks, and she breaks it off. Harry (he has told her to call him that) says he doesn’t care, but her sudden withdrawal piques his interest. In the meantime, he keeps up his singing, comedy and drumming with bands, arriving home at midnight then rising at four for his shift. A range of abilities keeps you in work, he says. He works three or four nights a week, carrying his drums on the buses. Travelling home late at night, he sits among the tired, blackened miners and mill lasses, backchatting when someone recognises him, ignoring conductors who chuckle at his baggage, and otherwise shutting his eyes, clinging to the drum cases, and rehearsing his lyrics and gags.
His only enemy is a Bolton-upon-Dearne policeman known as Dog Uller. Policemen, regarded with suspicious hostility by some people in the Dearne since the 1926 lockout, either redeem themselves with blind eyes and words to the wise, or they persecute. Dog Uller, in his late twenties, fat and officious, persecutes. He tells anyone who will listen that his beat is so safe, his public so cowed, that he can leave his gold watch on the wall outside the Collingwood Arms and no one will take it. He drinks in the Collingwood and it is in the pub’s tap room that Harry, also a regular, commits a misdemeanour against the policeman that reaches the ears of Walter.
‘Now then, Dog,’ says Harry one evening not long after Winnie breaks off from him, his hand locked on a straight glass of Barnsley Bitter. ‘Anybody pinched thy watch?’
‘Shut it, Hollingworth.’
Dog Uller is not a man to banter in the bar. Everyone is laughing. Everyone knows the gold watch brag, and thinks it absurd. Harry makes a show of looking at his wristwatch.
‘I tell you this, Hollingworth,’ says Uller, putting down his drink and turning to stand square on to Harry. ‘You’re a peril with them damned drums. If I see you on t’ bus wi’ em, I shall do you, and no mistaking.’
‘Tha couldn’t catch me.’
Laughter.
‘Give over. I don’t know what you think you’re on with. Drums?’ – Uller says ‘drums’ as if no such things exist – ‘You can’t play tiddlywinks, you, never mind drums .’
Harry winks at some of the men in the bar.
‘Mind you your father were t’ same, wi’ that accardigan. He couldn’t play that to save his life. The Juggler –’ He says this as if ‘Juggler’ was the most shameful name a man could have.
Harry blinks, and glances down.
‘Don’t you do comedy and all?’ Uller feels himself climbing now, coming back, dominating as he likes to. ‘Come on. Tell us a bloody joke.’
‘I’ll give thee some comedy,’ says Harry. ‘Does tha know t’ “ Laughing Policeman” ?’
He sticks his pint on the bartop, swings back his right arm, and punches Dog Uller in the nose. The police officer staggers sideways and says, ‘You bloody swine.’
Uller lunges and grabs Harry’s arms, but Harry dodges. Men around him eddy and regroup, make to hold him, but his fist smacks into Uller’s face again. Uller steps backwards, stumbles, and is down in a clatter with Harry on top, knees pinning Uller down. The men try to haul Harry off. One pulls out Uller’s whistle and blows it, another grabs Harry and gets him out of the pub, which now empties as if it were burning.
Dog Uller does not press charges, in order, public opinion assumes, to avoid embarrassment. Harry never
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