IT’S 1961 and my parents buy me a fabulous Christmas surprise.
I unwrap it to find the most authentic looking machine-gun imaginable. It comes with a tripod and batteries, and when you press the triggers with both thumbs, the red tip of the barrel flashes and moves in and out, with a rat-tat-tat-tat sound.
So, after breakfast, I spend an hour or so, lying on my stomach, by the front door, mowing down any sneaky Nazi who strays into the no-man’s-land of Harvey Street.
“Put wood int oyle,” shouts my father, as the infiltrating winter air converts his breath into mist. “It’s blooming freezing in here!”
“Aw da-ad! There’s still some Germans left alive. They’ll capture us soon unless...”
“Private Steele!” bellows my mother, sounding just like Peggy Mount. “Proper soldiers never question orders. Now bring that machine-gun inside and nip to the Top-Shop for some Ben Shaw’s lemonade – it should be open at 12. And that’s an order!”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” I answer dutifully, as I snatch the money and dodge my way to the shop like a commando on a raid.
This Xmas Day is the easiest my mam and dad have ever experienced as parents. I run every errand without a hint of insubordination; every chore is accomplished immediately without having to ask twice; every visit to the toilet is followed by military-standard hand-washing. My mam even sets me off peeling spuds for Xmas dinner, but my role is abandoned when the giant potato, I practise on, is whittled down to the size of a hazelnut.
I contemplate dinner: “Soldiers don’t have to eat russels sprouts do they, Mam?”
Dad interrupts: “They’re Brussels sprouts. And of course they do. How do you think your Uncle Ron got to fight for his country? By eating his greens.”
I see the hint of a smile flash across my dad’s face as he buries his head back into his new history book.
“What’re you laughing at, dad?”
“Oh, it’s just a joke that my, erm, mate told at work.”
“Tell me what it was, dad.”
“What it was? Oh, erm, I’ve forgotten it now. But it was so funny,” he replies, chuckling.
At Xmas dinner I sigh at the thought of forcing myself to eat sprouts that smell like dog-poo and are likely to make me retch, but if I want to be a soldier...
On Boxing Day morning I’m washing my face at the sink when I spot my mam watching me. “It’s alright, mam, I know you must wash your neck and ears when you’re in the army. I’m not daft.”
“Whooo, I know you’re not, Sweetheart. You’re my little soldier.”
By the early afternoon, the batteries in my machine-gun are as flat as a busted tyre and my enthusiasm for soldiering feels similar. Besides, I can’t maintain this errand-running, ear-washing, neck-scrubbing, sprout-eating routine.
I’d prefer to be a skinny, sweaty footballer.
Now fast-forward to 2025 because I’ve just received an Xmas surprise that’s a million times more thrilling than a toy gun for a seven-year-old. For many years I’ve been trying to contact an old friend from my days as an apprentice footballer at Oakwell. Graham Collingwood was as tough as Pat Howard, as witty as Eric Morecambe and as clever a footballer as John Bettany. We, and a few other apprentices, got on really well.
I hoped to be able to make contact with him in 2016 when I entertained at the birthday party of former darts world champion, Dennis ‘The Menace’ Priestley. Everyone there knew Graham Collingwood but said he’d disappeared off the radar when he moved abroad.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I met up with South Elmsall artist, Gary Kendall, who gave me Graham’s email address. He now lives in Pennsylvania, USA, and we’re back in touch.
How things have changed in one lifetime. Buying a child a toy machine-gun today would be considered very bad taste, but improvements in technology mean I can reconnect with a long-lost friend, on the other side of the world, in an instant.
However, some things never change – I still detest Brussels sprouts.
