Life at Jarrolds

ALBIE BECOMES A UNION MAN!

ONE DAY IN JUNE, that wuz the seventeenth if I recollect it rightly, two blooks swanned into Jarrolds an’ told me I hatta join their Union an’ they weren’t gorn t’ tearke ‘noo’ fur an answer.

I tell ya, I wun’t best pleased I wun’t as, arter all, I’d bin slaving away at work for the past three year – so why do I hatta bother wi’ Unions now I ask you!

Albie’s Union card, presented to him after he’s paid his entrance fee!

Anyway, they wuz adamant and say I hatta be one o’ them in order to do my job prop’ly and if I din’t I coon’t.

The fust blook he wuz hoolly smaart in his pinstriped suit an’ shirt t’match. An’ his shoes wuz so shiny you could see yar fearce in ’em, an’, looking at mine, that musta bin hoolly savvidge, ’corse I wun’t in the best o’ moods that day.

For starters, my mawther hed given me the push an’ then things went frum bad to wuss, endin’ up alonga me hackin inta my finger wi’ a knife! Blarst that hoolly throbbed that did an’orl!

But I digress, as they say!

Well, seem like I wuz too smaart fur that there fust blook, who spouted on about bein’ he a ‘Braanch Seckrytree’ of suffin’ or other.

Then he told me, in no uncertain terms, he din’t want me, howsumever, the other blook snapped me up suffin’ farst, so I reckun I musta bin too good fur ole smarty pants!

That second fella, who wuz another o’ them there Braanch Seckrytree, said his nearme wuz Bill, an’ led me to believe he wuz suffin t’do wi’ the local butchers – but, there agin, that coulda bin his sarnearme ’corse I wuz gittin’ all flummoxed an‘ hot under the collar.

But he wuz orl right, wuz Bill, a man arter me own heart though, as I wuz to find out learter, he wuz arter me money an’orl. Hed a rummun word furrit, he did, suffin like ‘subsecripshuns’, or ‘subs’ fur short! I hatta pay suffin’ now, he told me, sorta like a down payment on the ‘never never’. Then, when I git me Union card in a week or two, I hatta pay me subs weekly for ever an’ ever!

Frum that day on, Bill told me, I hatta count myself lucky to be a member of the Union, the Norridge Tipo-Giraffical Society and proud to be a man amongst men, the Brotherhood of Printers with ink in their veins instead o’ blood.

I wuz now a Tipo-Giraffical Designer, he told me, an’ not an Graphic Artist ennymore! But I liked drawin’ an’ paintin’, I told him, arter all I useter be an Art Student din’t I?

Bill then went on t’ tell me I’d hatta git useter bein’ a ‘Tipo-Girafficer’ – like it or lump it – otherwise he’d report me to the ‘Father-of-the-Chapel’. I told him I din’t go in fur enny o’ that sorta thing ennymore, as I’d signed the release form when I wuz drummed outta the chapel choir fur ‘singing the blues’!

But he wun’t hear onnit, neither would ole smarty pants, an’ buth onnem told me to count my blessings an’ know which side my bread wuz buttered.

I hatta tell ya, I wun’t too sure what he meant by that as bein’ a lapsed Methodist I din’t think I hed many blessins a-comin’ my way, an’ as fur bread ’n’ butter, my mum allus use Stork in our house! So, I told ’em so wi’ a laugh, but they wun’t very amused an’ gev me such a savvidge look!

You’re in, and in you stay, they told me, like it or lump it, and wha’s more I hatta start goin’ to the chapel agin, or so they said!

Now, where on arth did I leave my hymn book?

This article was destined never to appear in the 1963 Jarrold Magazine – fortunately for all concerned!