GET off your horse and drink your milk – yee-haw!
Okay, I get it. The world has moved on, and some. Kids nowadays have much more engaging things to be getting on with than playing silly cowboy games. At least in their eyes, anyway.
In the view of those who grew up with weekly televisual feasts such as Bonanza, The Virginian and High Chaparral, however, the opinion collapses as quick as a misguided varmint, beaten to the draw by a ruthless gunslinger.
That stated, I’d be first to concede that many aspects of our favourite Wild West fixations haven’t aged well. Indeed, they’re nothing short of hilarious when viewed retrospectively. Galloping horses for one. Legs going like bees’ wings, a pursuing posse or full-blooded cavalry charge would leave Lewis Hamilton’s F1 Ferrari struggling to keep pace.
Colt 45s, Winchester repeating rifles and bows and arrows never ran dry, and cow-hands swilled whisky like it was going out of fashion. In the skies, the remains of jet plane contrails were regularly visible – almost as funny as the sight of women with a third leg affixed to create the illusion of riding side saddle.
As for saloon brawls, well… chairs and bar stools disintegrated so expeditiously they must have been constructed from balsa. Sugar bottles and windows added to the botched realism, as did bright red goo for blood - and when blows were exchanged, it was alongside sound effects reminiscent of colliding snooker balls.
It was the same at the pictures, albeit filmed in magnificent, sun-drenched Technicolour, as opposed to black and white DER-rented TV sets. Shane. The Magnificent Seven. Shenandoah and How the West Was Won. We’d head out straight afterwards, charging around, humming the tune to My Darling Clementine while replaying the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral.
We’d be dressed identically. Hopalong Cassidy-style black Blackpool Stetsons bought on last year’s club trip, conspicuous with tassels around the rim and a gold Sheriff’s badge, glued to the front. Plastic waistcoats were also standard, watching over a pair of menacing-looking six-shooters and bullet-laden holster.
Bang-bang cap guns would be going off left, right and centre, impregnating the air with the addictive smell of kids’ cordite. Arguments and remonstrations would constantly be raging; who were goodies; who were baddies; who was shot and who wasn’t?
Disappearing downhill, we’d take pot shots at unsuspecting passers-by going about their business. Whenever a car appeared, invariably a spluttering Ford Anglia or Moggie 1000, it became the Wells Fargo stage in our mind’s eye and we’d immediately pepper the driver with a hail of make-believe lead. He must only have ever been wounded, though, because he always kept going, cornering the High Street, overtaking a couple of Trackie buses and a Co-op milk float in his desperation to escape.
Bang! Bang! Billy Clanton clasped a hand against his chest, collapsing to his knees, rolling over like an overacting extra in They Died With Their Boots On. Ike Clanton raised his arms in surrender. Quickly surrounding the infamous outlaw, we made ready to let him have it.
Then the ice-cream van appeared, dashing gallantly to the rescue like the heroic 7th cavalry. Oranges and lemons suddenly became an unlikely backdrop to the carnage, gate-crashing the noise of continuous gunfire as we hotfooted it back up the street.
Wyatt Earp, brothers Morgan and Virgil, plus Doc Holliday, Ike and Billy – risen from the dead now – gathered en masse at the serving hatch, thundering generator smelling almost as sweet as the aroma of freshly whipped ice-cream, intermingled with the scent of strawberry and chocolate sauce bottles.
Penniless as usual, Skint Eastwoods to a man, we cocked our pistols, declaring a bank robbery-style hold up, demanding a free 99 apiece. Feigning terror, the lady driver jokingly asked if we wanted crunched nuts? The hearty response? Do you want your bleeps blowing off?
Leaping on imaginary horses, make believe arrows and bullet holes in our hats, we got the hell out of Dodge, the Lone Ranger and Tonto now; The Rifleman, Little Joe, Big John Cannon and Manolito.
No doubt about it – it was hard being a cowboy in Barnsley.
