Our Granddad Joe Powell

 

Joe, my Grandfather, was a laborer. He lived at 48 Bacchus Road, Winson Green. He liked to drink beer. He was an imposing five foot eight man when sober, who became somewhat smaller when inebriated. At weekends he wore his dark blue serge suit, with matching waistcoat, and a hunter fob watch stuffed into the slit of his waistcoat. Medallions from darts and domino clubs dangled from his gold watch chain. On one end of his body, shiny black boots with pointed toes were fitted.  The other end of his body was adorned with a carefully brushed black bowler hat, perched squarely on his severely cropped white head; if he was sober.

At work or at play, he carried a walking stick, even before he needed it to walk with, he carried it. When he had the money, usually on payday, he would smoke a pipe. He would cut shreds from a hard black plug of tobacco called 'twist' with a brown handled pocket knife, and stuff them into a curly burnt brown pipe. Ignition rarely happened in my presence, for as soon as he had applied a match, selected from a large box of Swan Vestas, he would poke a gnarled finger into the bowl of the pipe, and kill the flame. This was a procedure that never failed to interest me as a young boy. If by some strange stroke of fate he succeeded in lighting his coronary instrument, his large white head quickly became enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, as he eagerly puffed away.  Gran and I tacitly agreed that this was better than looking at him.

I spent a lot of time with Gran, so I learned at an early age that Joe had no consideration for Gran whatsoever. He ignored the fact that every day in Gran’s life was a working day. He had a foundry job to justify his existence, but I never saw him turn the mangle in the brew house or help Gran in any other way. Each day of Gran’s life was defined by chores – washing, ironing, baking, cooking (which was different to baking) and cleaning. Gran wore a particular black dress for wash day, and a hessian sack tied around it, for greater protection.

On cleaning day we Zebo’d the black grate to a dull shine, and we polished the copper kettles until they reflected gremlin-like images of ourselves. We scrubbed the top of the kitchen table, using smelly yellow soap and a tired, almost hairless scrubbing brush. Then we washed the table down and mopped up with an old mutton cloth. The slops on the floor were also wiped up.  We dusted and tidied up the rooms, except for the sacred 'front room' which was only used at Christmas and funerals.  Then as though by a pre-arranged signal, Joe would burst through the door, flop into his chair in his dirty foundry clothes and instantly destroy our work.  And if he had run out of ‘twist’, he’d send Gran to the shop to get some – but not the shop right across the road, the other one, several streets away, where ‘twist’ was 2 pence cheaper.

They didn't speak much, my grandparents; one might wonder how they ever got round to making five children, six if you count the one that died.  But maybe talking wasn’t important for that.