www.albiestales.co.uk part two

AS ALBIE LEFT the Norwich School of Art at the start of the long summer vacation in 1958, he vowed to change his ways – enough of all this tomfoolery, he told himself, he would try harder, much harder, in future. But first, putting all thoughts of the Art School out of his head, he decided to ‘chill out’ as usual – and enjoy the long holiday that lay ahead!

“Start off as you mean to go on!” he said to himself, pulling up the bedclothes around his neck. “After all, I am on holiday, so there’s no point in scrapping up!”

The second week of his holiday began much like the first: he stayed in bed until quite late in the morning, only getting up when lunch was on the table, and then spent the rest of his day aimlessly strumming his guitar, or listening to Elvis on his Dansette record player.

Albie’s mother, who worked part-time in the Drapery department at Sheringham Co-op, was getting quite fed up at taking him breakfast in bed every morning, and still finding him languishing beneath the bedclothes on her return at lunchtime.

“Mu-um,” he called, hearing her coming in through the back door, “wha’s for lunch?”

“I’ll give you lunch!” she snapped, flying up the stairs and bursting into his bedroom. “Dun’t yew know what time o’ day it is?”

“I guess I musta dropped off again,” the lad replied, rubbing away the mock sleep from his eyes. “Sorry, I’ll get up in a minute...”

“You’ll git up now,” his mother replied, pulling back the sheets, “I won’t have you stinkin’ in bed all day - tha’s about time you did something wi’ your life!”

Reluctantly, Albie slid out of bed, put on his slippers and made to go downstairs.

“An’ I’m not hevin’ you downstairs lookin’ like that,” his mother said, getting a clean shirt out of wardrobe, “you’re allus the same every time you’re on holiday – bored out of your mind!”

“And another thing,” she continued, handing her son a pair of freshly-laundered socks, “change your socks, will ya! You’ve had that pair on for the best part of a week!”

“Tha’s time you changed your ways, just you wait ’til your father gits home, he’ll hev suffin’ to say, he will an’orl!”

Shortly after one o’ clock, Albie’s father, having shut up the Co-op for the morning, came home for his lunch. Opening the back door, he hardly had time to step into the kitchen before his wife began telling of their son’s behaviour.

“For goodness sake, Gladys,” said Albie’s dad, closing the back door behind him, “you could let me get my coat off first!”

“That boy’s allus the same, whenever he’s on holiday,” she continued, “if he dun’t stay in bed all mornin’ he’s allus followin’ me around, or gittin’ under my feet, or playin’ that blessed guitar upsettin’ the neighbours!”

“But, I am on holiday,” pleaded Albie, “anyway, wha’s there t’do in this dump – it’s so-oo boring!”

His parents, not best pleased by his attitude, quickly came up with a solution, one which he’d heard many times before.

“You’d best find yourself a job,” they told him, “for the summer months at least – tha’s if you watta go back to that there Art School ever again!”

ALBIE GETS PICKING

Reluctantly, Albie was forced to accept their suggestion and decided to look for a job, but nothing too strenuous, just a little something to get him out of the house for a few hours a day, preferably after he’d had his traditional ‘lay-in’!

“They’re takin’ on fruit-pickers at a farm in Bodham,” Albie’s father told him one morning, “there’ll be lots of other students there as well – you should go!”

So, getting on his bike, Albie cycled to Upper Sheringham and, just past the entrance to Sheringham Park on the Holt Road, he saw a field full of fruit pickers all hard at work, on their hands and knees, gathering blackcurrants.

“Looks easy enough,” he said to himself and, leaving his bike propped up against the hedge, he made his way through the rows of blackcurrant bushes towards a ramshackle wooden shed that doubled as the farm office.

“Here’s a punnet,” said the woman in the office, handing him a container, “do you fill that, then bring it back here for weighin’ when yar done!”

“What about gettin’ paid?” asked Albie, “how much do I get?”

“I dun’t pay you here,” she replied, growing impatient by his questioning, “you’ll git a brass token for every full punnet – an’ you hatta cash’em in at the farm on Friday!”

What a lot of hassle, he thought, but decided to give it a go.

Walking along the row of blackcurrants, like some vast army lined up for inspection, many young students were busily picking the fruit and chattering away to each other. Albie noticed that most of them spoke a language unknown to him, and, although he tried to strike up a conversation with them, they just seemed to ignore him!

“Tha’s no use on ya talkin’ ter them,” said one of the farm workers, collecting boxes of blackcurrants and stacking them on a trailer, “they’re nourthin’ but a load o’ furriners, what gabble furrin squit – do yew listen ter them haller!”

The farm worker then told Albie the students, from all over the world, came every summer to work in the fruit fields, living in wooden huts on the farm.

“Carn’t mearke no sense outta what they say, I carn’t,” laughed the man, “I dun’t know why they carn’t talk English loike the rest on us, dew yew, Bor?” With that, he started up his tractor and drove off to his farm down the road.

Selecting a nice sunny spot in the field, with heavily-laden bushes weighed down by juicy plump blackcurrants just begging to be picked, Albie bent down and started work. He soon found it was not quite so easy as he’d first thought as, try as he might, whenever he grabbed a handful of the shiny blackcurrants they burst in his fingers, coating his hands with gooey, sweet-smelling juice!

“Uurghh...” he muttered to himself, wiping blackcurrant juice off with his handkerchief. “These are so squidgy and sorft...”

The student on his left, a petite, dark-haired girl, noticing his predicament, moved closer to offer some words of advice.

SOME ENTENTE-CORDIALE FOR ALBIE!

[1] “Ici – ” she laughed, pushing him away and gently plucking a little stalk of fruit off the bush, “vous me permettre de montrer comment le faire!”

[2] “Cela est facile, n’est-ce pas ? ” she continued, dropping a handful of fruit in his punnet.

Albie tried to pick the fruit as the girl had shown him, but he couldn’t quite get the knack of it.

[3] “Comprenez-vous, mon ami?” she asked, smiling at him with the largest, deepest brown eyes he’d ever seen.

However, picking the fruit as she’d had shown him, Albie’s punnet was soon full of perfectly-picked stalks of blackcurrants, with some squashed fruit hidden underneath, of course!

Taking the punnet to the wooden hut to be weighed, he joined the queue of other students, who all seemed to receive several brass tokens for their morning’s work.

“Wha’s orl this, then?” declared the woman as she took Albie’s punnet from him. “These here currants, they’re hooly squorshed! They en’t no good to us – tearke ’em away, an’ dun’t yew bother comin’ back agin, neither!”

Albie was quite upset, as he’d tried his very best, and wanted to tell her so, but she was having none of it!

“Next!” she shouted, as Albie’s fellow fruit-picker presented her punnet for weighing. “One token,” said the woman. “Next!”

Deciding he’d had enough fruit-picking for one morning, Albie sat down on a grassy bank, under the shade of a tree and began commiserating with himself. Was it really worth it, he asked himself? Wouldn’t it have been better to have stayed in bed?

Just then, the young lady from foreign parts – he was later to discover came from France – sat down beside him.

[4] “Je suis Nicole – mais vous pouvez m’appeler Nikki!” she said, chewing on a blade of grass. “Quel est votre nom?”

“I hen’t the faintest idea what yew’re gorn on about,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders – almost in a Gallic way. “But in case you’re wonderin’, my nearme’s Al-bie, orl right? Wha’s yours?”

“Ah,” she replied, El Bee, non?”

“Yes,” said Albie, “moi Albie, oui?” Deciding it was about time to put some of his ‘basic’ French to the test.

[5] “Vous semblez si perdu et impuissant,” Nicole said, seeing how lonely he seemed. “Etes-vous seul – ou avoir vous êtes fourni avec un ami?”

Trying so hard to remember even the basics of the foreign language, he replied: “Non, I hen’t got no amies I can think of.”

Nicole pouted, in a sensual, typically-French sort-of-way, finding it impossible to understand this Norfolk born-and-bred boy, however, eager to promote some entente-cordiale, she was not about to give up yet.

[6] “J’aimerais obtenir pour vous savoir vraiment,” she said, moving closer to him. “Je vous aime beaucoup, mais vous m’aimez?”

Albie just didn’t have a clue what Nicole was saying, as the limit of his French was confined to asking directions to the chemin de fer, but he quite liked her and plucked up courage to say so, choosing his words carefully.

“I think you’re trays bee-ann,” he declared, “voolee-voo go for a walk on the promenade with moi?”

[7] “Oh, El Bee, mon chéri,” Nicole breathed huskily, innocently undoing the top button of her blouse. “Le soleil n’est-il pas chaud?”

“I’d rather not tearke orf my shirt, if ya dun’t mind,” replied Albie shyly, “my mother warned me... not to git sun-strook!”

[8] “Oh! – vous l’Anglais,” Nicole yelled, leaping up and storming off in disgust, “Je ne peux pas comprendre un mot que vous dites!”

“I’m so sorry, Nikki,” said Albie, catching up with her and trying his best home-spun diplomacy, “I just can’t understand a word you say – but I really do like you!”

A few minutes later, under the shade of the old oak tree, Anglo-French entente-cordiale took an unexpected turn for the better...

... “Ooo-la-la, El Bee, mon chéri!..”

NEXT: Up to his old tricks again, Albie upsets the boot and shoe boys!

SOME OF ALBIE’S FAVOURITE WEBSITES A Norfolk Entertainer A Moment in Time Enjoy North Norfolk Enjoy Norwich Flint Holiday Cottages Norfolk Churches Norfolk Dialect Norfolk Village Signs Norwich City Hall and the Lions Picture Norfolk Remember Norfolk Sculthorpe Spyplanes

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