THE FUSE BOX IN THE COAL CUPBOARD

Tess Leyton came back to Northfleet after an absence from the area of seven years and rented the Finches’ old house just a few doors away from us. She brought with her a brand new husband called Bill, an impossibly handsome teenage son called Ramon, named for a cinema heartthrob of the nineteen thirties, and a small daughter called Junie. She was also proudly accompanied by a breeding pair of canaries because she was seriously contemplating going into the cage bird business. We had not quite decided upon the acquisition of the budgerigar called Ricky that we eventually owned for several years and so a canary was being earnestly considered because of the anticipated beauty of its song. My mother was confident she might learn a great deal from Tess Leyton because investing in a bird and a cage was of necessity an expensive business in those days and we were a family that did not have money to burn as I have probably explained previously.

Tess immediately renewed her acquaintance with us saying that she and my mother were Old Mates. My mother, not accustomed to people seeking her friendship, was flattered by the attention though she said that back in 1944 they hadn’t been particularly close and one of the reasons for that was that Tess had then lived in Shepherd Street. It might only have been a hop, skip and a jump away but wartime was wartime when all was said and done and Doodlebugs were known to be unpredictable. What’s more in those days Tess had been considered somewhat Blousy and some locals, like Grace Bennett of Buckingham Road even referred to her as a Slummock and a Proper Two Ton Tessie which wasn’t altogether congenial. But then Grace always had a sharp tongue and it didn’t do to get on the wrong side of her. To be fair Tess Leyton could never have been described as a small woman and was always loud and opinionated. Before painting her too black though there was the tragedy of her Little Nova, the previous small daughter, to be considered. That poor little mite had been lost following an accident involving boisterous play on top of an Anderson shelter which might never have happened if the shelter had been properly installed in the first place and not just thrown up half baked.

Little Nova had been named for Nova Pilbeam, a well-known actress of the nineteen thirties. We wondered who Little Junie had been named for but it seemed rude to ask and Tess did not venture to tell us right away. What she did tell us, however, was that Little Junie was precious and that they had almost Lost her at birth, she was also delicate and Dr Outred was very keen indeed to keep a special eye on her. My mother seemed to debate as to whether or not to reveal that I was also delicate and decided not to for which I was grateful. Eventually we were to learn that Little Junie had been named in honour of June Allyson, an up and coming American actress that the rest of us had barely heard of. Tess was an avid film fan and went to the Majestic in Gravesend with her Bill every Saturday evening without fail. Occasionally when her Ramon was not available for watching Little Junie, she would come along to our house and share a bed with my brother until her parents returned.

Back in the Shepherd Street days of World War Two when Grace Bennett said there had been talk that Tess had at times been no better than she ought to have been, she was not a Leyton at all and I’m not even sure if I ever knew what her name once was but I did know that her original husband was called Ron and he had met with a nasty accident when his old push bike with the basket on the front collided with a 496 bus in the blackout. The basket had been piled high with purloined paper from Bowaters where he was doing essential war work because of his eyesight. Sad though the accident was my mother had never really taken to Ron and that might have had something to do with him not having received his Calling Up papers. She always found such situations challenging. Old Mrs Bassant next door said if his sight had been better he might have actually seen the bus and he should have been issued with proper cycling glasses in the first instance if the work was so essential.

With Ron now completely out of the picture, when Bill appeared on the scene with the return of Tess and her canaries, my mother found him much easier to take to in the early time of their acquaintance. However, even this scant regard was to diminish following my father’s death and that unfortunate development was one hundred per cent due to the fuse box in the coal cupboard.
Each small dwelling in our York Road terrace, and also those similar that surrounded us was blessed with the convenience of electric light and the necessary fuse box lived adjacent to the coal in the cupboard under the stairs. Before the dawn of electricity in the area lighting came in the form of gas lamps attached to the walls, supplemented at times with conveniently mobile paraffin lamps. I can’t remember, and perhaps I never actually knew when the gas lighting became totally obsolete and when I was very small I clearly recall the wall lamps still being lit in my bedroom from time to time.

Both gas and electricity supplies were fed with coins into the mysterious slot meters that lived among our coats and scarves at the bottom of the steep narrow stairs leading to the floor above. Gas had been installed throughout the country at the turn of the twentieth century and by the 1920s there were more than seven million users with average families spending between one and two pounds per annum on the commodity. Our gas meter had a very Edwardian look about it, was only slightly threatening and was regularly and confidently fed with dull, dark pennies. For years I had been allowed to drag a chair underneath with a coin in my hand and, feeling important and grown up, operate the lever when the supply inconveniently expired during the roasting of the Sunday dinner. The copper coins dropping into the receptacle gave a satisfying clank which grew more muted as the meter filled. Even though its odour was disagreeable and the lighting of the rings of the stove in the corner of the scullery was exhilarating even to watch, in its entirety the miracle of gas was familiar. I knew that middle aged women who lived on their Nerves or had husbands who Drank sometimes chose to end their lives by uncomfortably placing their heads in ovens, often without even a cushion to support them, but nevertheless I had few qualms regarding its danger. This was only because electricity was said to be much more perilous. It was certainly much more costly.

The spread of electricity had been slow to proliferate through English towns and villages, particularly so in unambiguously working class streets and terraces such as ours. When it did come to York Road the small and sleek, much more modern and important looking meter sitting alongside that of the gas company demanded one shilling pieces. This was to my mother’s mind an eye-watering expense and therefore leaving lights on by accident when exiting the house was an ofence that would not be forgotten for days and she was open mouthed in amazement when my newly engaged cousin Margaret announced that what she wanted more than anything as a wedding present was an electric bar heater. Quite apart from the infinitely lower cost of gas, in our house we came to feel that whatever its shortcomings, it was a much more convenient energy source. This feeling became ever more entrenched and this was largely because its delivery did not depend upon fuses of any kind. Fuses were what was categorically wrong with electricity although we had not quite realized this whilst my father was still alive. This only proves that what looms large and significant in anyone’s life depends entirely on their current circumstances.

For instance Pearl Banfield from number six, once she started Going Steady with someone called Graham at the age of seventeen said that the local electricity supply was definitely the thing she found most abhorrent about living in York Road. What had previously been insufferable to her and where she had my total support, was the outside lavatory but now her engagement was looming her attitude had changed. This was because now that they were Serious, Graham was allowed to visit on Saturday evenings and sit with her in the front room. The humiliation of the lights suddenly going out and everyone rummaging in pockets and purses for a shilling piece was embarrassing in the extreme Pearl declared. It did not happen at Graham’s house where electricity was delivered effortlessly followed by a monthly bill which his mother ensured was paid regularly. Pearl lived in fear of the extinguishing of the Saturday evening lights, just as she had once lived in fear of Graham needing to use the toilet.

My mother became equally preoccupied with possible interruptions to the supply and for her it was not the fact that there might be a paucity of one shilling pieces because she now took the precaution of having one or two at hand, but rather because a Fuse might need to be Mended and that was most definitely a man’s job. After December 1951, with my father no longer present and my brother still much too young to be considered male enough for the job, we would of necessity remain without avant garde lighting until an Uncle or older cousin dropped by to visit. I never thought this was too much of a calamity as we still had the illumination of gas available to us but she was distraught to be without the comfort of the wireless, unable to do the weekly ironing and as the years went by, unable to watch the ten inch television set.

On a couple of occasions Mary Newberry who eventually replaced Old Mrs Bassant next door promised to send her Charlie in after work but obviously forgot all about it and had to be reminded twice because she was a silly cow if ever there was one - and even when he did turn up he said he needed the right kind of fuse wire and a special trip had to be made over to Woolworths next day. All this caused a great deal of stress so once a friendship had been re-established with Tess Layton and innumerable afternoons had been spent with her drinking Mazawattee tea and dunking Nice biscuits, a tentative request was made that her Bill might come along and deal with the fuse problem. Tess said he would be only too pleased to help out because if there was one thing you could say about her Bill, it was that he was obliging. Everyone said so! He turned up as promised just after five o’clock, even armed with fuse wire and was delighted to find that we had stocked up and had several different thicknesses of wire wound efficiently around a card just waiting to be deployed. There was nothing worse, Bill said, than using the wrong wire because you didn’t want to overload the circuit did you? And of course we didn’t want to do that under any circumstances.

Bill Leyton most willingly, with very good grace, did mend the fuse and executed the task in just a few minutes, refusing a cup of tea and even saying that he was only too glad to be of assistance. So all would have been well had it not been for my mother, overcome with gratitude after several power-less days pressing a two shilling piece into his hand urging him to treat himself to a pint at The Prince Albert in Shepherd Street. To be fair he initially vehemently declined to avail himself of this unexpected pint and she, just as resolutely insisted that he should do so and so after a small tussle he pocketed the florin and thanked her very much.

This was undoubtedly a faux pas extraordinaire although I was seriously perplexed as to why at the time. My mother’s indignation was extreme as she both rebuked herself for the folly of the request for help and berated the now long gone recipient of the reward to all who would listen. My small brother and I were harangued over hours and asked what kind of man takes a couple of bob from a widowed neighbour? Did he really think she had money to throw away on the likes of him? Mending a fuse was a doddle after all for a man like him. It took the biscuit, it really did. Did he think she had money to burn? Would she be scrubbing her knuckles to the bone around at the Lovell’s every Monday morning in all weathers if she could afford handouts for what rightly should have been a favour?

My grandmother and aunts were similarly addressed because when you considered the fact that he was happy to take her money, bold as brass in fact you had to ask yourself what decent man would lower himself like that. What about all the tea that lazy slummock of a wife of his could knock back? Not to mention the biscuits! Yet when you dropped by her place you’d find the milk would only ever be sterilized and the biscuits never ever Bourbon or Custard Creams.

When she told Grace Bennett the criticism which had now turned into a barrage of abuse, was of course strictly between the two of them but you could have knocked my mother down with a feather when he actually put his hand out to take that couple of bob from her. Quick as a flash he was – couldn’t wait to pocket it! She was never going to stoop to ask him again and next time she ran across Tess she would clean her something rotten. And Grace said well she herself had never taken to Tess Leyton and hadn’t she always said that Blousy Cow was not to be trusted? You only had to think back to the first husband and the stolen goods and then there was the pair of them always out on a Friday night gallivanting and those poor kiddies left to fend for themselves. Grace was only glad my mother had finally seen the light because she wouldn’t be told would she?

Of course the matter of the pocketed florin was never brought up with Tess Leyton because if there was one thing that my mother lacked it was moral fortitude or what we would now refer to as backbone. Furthermore the next time the fuse needed attention, after almost a week without power, and no convenient visits from teenage cousins she did in fact ask for Bill Leyton’s help once again. And once again she firmly pushed a two shilling piece in his direction, only this time with pursed lips and a raised chin. And once again after an initial refusal he pocketed it at which she bridled a little and folded her arms disapprovingly as she thanked him very much for his help in a voice that was imperceptibly too loud.

She was thus destined to continue to feel affronted but as far as was possible she spent less time drinking Mazawattee tea with Tess Leyton. It was around that time that the decision to buy Ricky the budgie was made and in any case the canary breeding idea came to nothing in the end – like all that woman’s tomfool notions!