THE LIFE OF RILEY
BY FRANK RILEY ©

BOOK ONE - SPIKE ISLAND

Chapter Thirteen: Signatures

John Mason, who, as you are aware, was born in the preceding chapter, is probably now in adult life a Harley Street doctor, or a nuclear physicist. Or perhaps he became a missionary in the dark jungles of the Amazon. Whatever he is now, that is, if he still resides on this planet, his early years did not show a great deal of promise.

The same could be said for all of us who lived on the island, but John showed a remarkable paucity of the condition we call gorm. Less than most was he endowed with that indefinable quality. But it must be said at the outset that he had a heart of gold, feet of lead perhaps, but his heart was in the right place.

Like all of us in those times he was painfully thin; a greasy chip would have had more fat. He was so thin, in fact, that he had grown some extra bones to make up the slack. He was also very short-sighted and had to wear National Health glasses, the kind which in later years were made famous by all the illustrious fashion houses. The frames were made of electrical wire and the lens were shaped from the bottoms of lemonade bottles. To make matters worse he was obliged to wear a patch made from sticking-plasters over one of the lens. Such a sorry spectacle he was as he roamed around the island with his head tilted and his bad eye (the other one was worse) squinting in order to steer a safe course from point to point.

There was about him, however, one remarkable fact: he didn't know he was disadvantaged. He was as tough as teak. If you gave him a friendly beating-up, which all kids bestow upon each other, he would invariably come up laughing and carry on almost as though nothing had happened. Which, if you were trying to be the tough-guy on that particular occasion, could be pretty discouraging.

On numerous occasions he somehow managed to fall off the wall at the back of our houses, or in between the two bomb-shelters, only to come up cursing as he rubbed his bruised body in the appropriate places.

He was one of the most accomplished cursers I've ever been privileged to hear. There was one phrase, quite unprintable, he used to come out with on special occasions; it had something to do with procreation in Hades, and it was uttered vehemently in the flattest, broadest accent you are ever likely to hear. There he would fall and there he would invoke the primeval urge to be acted out in the place of the damned.

John was one of a kind. He had the look of an absent-minded professor about him, somewhat short of the wherewithal in the grey matter, alas, but he did indeed have that professorial manner. Apart from his propensity for falling off buildings, which in itself was considerable, he had an amazing capacity for attracting a wide range of other disasters.

If the ice was ten feet thick in the canal, John unerringly could find a weak spot; like a seal in reverse. If he was searching for winkles in the mud-banks of the river you could bet on it he would get his wellies stuck just as the tide was coming in. If he was aiming a catapult you could be sure that when he released the elastic the missile in the pouch would destroy his thumb. If ever luck fell his way it would bounce in front of him and carry on its trajectory to someone else. It was the way of things with him. All sorts of calamities befell him. But it never seemed to daunt him. He was probably the most philosophical lad I ever knew.

Amidst all those disasters, where he died a thousand times, and bumped into walls, and tripped over mushrooms, there happened an event which remains forever in my memory.

It took place in the winter-time when the snow lay all around, very crisp and very even. There were four of us that day: Mike and I, and John and Peter. We were in an educational mode wherein names and addresses and movie stars' names were being walked out with our footprints in the crunchy snow. Clark Grable, Jon Wain, Tirone Powah, were all spelled out in minute detail. Such a time we were having.

Then Peter discovered, of necessity, since he was burstin' to go, that if you pitched your pecker properly and placed it in position perfectly you could really write so neatly. The teacher would be proud.

Well, now, John took a great interest in this new science and decided thereupon to try it out for himself. But it was cold. His ink was not quite ready to flow sweetly over the pristine page. To help him out we all pis.. pitched in and began to carve famous names in the snow. What a great time we were having. And so uplifting! Unfortunately, John still could not get his pen to work. We talked of waterfalls and rain forests, rivers and fast-flowing streams. Nothing would suggest itself to him. But John was determined. The small matter of a clogged writing implement was not about to defeat him.

He shook it violently - nothing happened. He pointed it like a water-diviner in the midst of a drought. Not a drop! What on earth could we do for him?

As a last resort he squeezed it like a tube of toothpaste and looked into the aperture through his one good eye. All of a sudden the desired liquid burst forth in a torrent and drenched his face, smearing the lens, patched and un-patched, and causing him to recoil in horror. At first, we were stunned into silence, but after the first shock had passed John began one of his legendary evocations and we three collapsed in the snow with laughter. "#!?&)(~ %$+@" he said, and grumped around like an old war veteran. We had lost all semblance of control. We howled and gasped and held our tummies in agony as the laughter swept over us.

But John had the last laugh. He still had enough ink to write his favourite star's name, well, almost... his pen dried up after he had written: Bob Hop!

The Rileys lived in the left-hand lock cottage at Widnes. Harry Arnold took the photograph in 1962, a decade of winters after the events related above, but doubtless there were still young boys around up to the same tricks.

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