Death Only Needs To Win Once

FOREWORD

By rights I should have been dead a long time ago! So many things have happened to me over the years that could have culminated in my death, I should have been a goner many moons since. It makes me think that, like our feline friends, I must have nine lives, or maybe even more. The circumstances surrounding all the occasions that might have resulted in my dying have been varied and unusual to say the least.

In the pages ahead I will relate some of my life history, [mostly about my early years, when most of the dangerous situations happened] during which I will attempt to explain how each of these events evolved and how I ended up still here today. At the time of writing this, my age is 72 and it seems that it all started to go “RIGHT” from the age of 2 years.

There have been many books written about the pre World War 2 years and the war years themselves. This particular narrative is focused on some of the many problems which I myself encountered, during those years and beyond, along with some background information, and hence, it might not be as lengthy as some other renderings about that period. I hope the reader, after reading my story, will have a fair idea of some of the difficulties and dangers we faced as kids growing up in England during that era, although my story reaches far beyond my early days and into my retirement years.

Of the seven occasions when I consider that I had my lucky escapes from death, four of them happened by the time I was ten years old, one when I was sixteen, and the other two much later, during adulthood, while we were living in Canada, the latter of which happened when I was 65 years of age, [while on holiday in England].

In putting this story together I have been working from memory alone as there is nothing written down, particularly from my younger years, to clarify the details. I have had some help from my brother Charlie, as he is two years older than I, and he was able to remember more details than I could. Also, my elder sister Betty has been able to fill in some gaps for me. For this I thank them both.

We were a poor working class family, living in squalid conditions in down town Liverpool, England in the 1930’s. I was born on 13th March 1935, and had a brother who was two years older, a sister who was 7, and of course my mother and father. The house we lived in was somewhat run - down and as we were a rather poor family we couldn’t have afforded most of the amenities that most people take for granted today, even if they had been available in those days. There was an infestation of cockroaches in most houses in each street and the district itself had lots of rats in the area. Whenever we came home after dark and the gas light in the living room was lit, the cockroaches could be seen scurrying off to the darker corners of the room. As our coal supply was kept under the stairs, it should not be too surprising that they seemed to make their ‘home’ there. It was just something that we had to live with and accept. Instead of a stove, all we had was a gas ring which sat upon our kitchen table. It was on this that we had to do most of our cooking. Our only source of heat in the house was a coal fireplace in the living room. Of course, there was an oven next to the fireplace which got it’s heat from the fire. Some baking etc. could be done in this oven. For lighting, there was only the gas light in the ceiling of the living room, complete with a gas mantle. At bedtime we would have to carry a lighted candle [usually on a saucer] to see our way upstairs, and so that we could have some light up there. Outside, at the rear of the house, there was a back yard which had an out-house containing a toilet. In the winter months a lighted candle would have to be left in there in an attempt to stop the pipes from freezing, even though the pipes were heavily lagged. Attached to the outside wall of the outhouse there was a big sink which had just a cold water tap. This tap was the only source of water for our household. [Provided through ‘lead’ piping] Times were very hard in those days and money was not easy to come by. My father used to get temporary work whenever possible, and we could barely eke out an existence. Should there be a spell of no work, there was always a miserly money lender who lived nearby who would lend families the princely sum of five shillings, which had to be repaid at tuppence [two pence] per week for about a year or so. If a loan of five shillings was paid back for 52 weeks at that rate, the interest for the year would have amounted to just over 73%, so you can see how moneylenders got rich off the backs of the poor, [Reminds me of Scrooge].

This was the sort of background of our existence during the pre World War 2 years and there were many families living in these sorts of conditions in downtown Liverpool during that period.

I was just two years old, when, one day my mother had a pan of water heating on the gas ring on the kitchen table, probably to make a pot of tea. As inquisitive kids do, I had to reach up to find out if I could see what was in the pan. I managed somehow to pull the pan off the gas ring, which caused the pan to tip over. The entire contents, which was now boiling water, emptied out and onto the top of my head.

The memory of that incident is imprinted on my brain, but what happened after that I cannot recall. I understand that I was rushed to the hospital, probably being carried in the old pram which had been used for me when I was a baby. The old Royal Hospital was approximately ten or fifteen minutes walk from where we lived. Of course nobody had telephones in those times, nor did anyone have a car. So we had to make our own way to the Hospital or to a doctor, either by using the tram-car or by walking. If there had been any such thing as a taxi available, we could not have afforded it any way. In an emergency like this one, we were lucky to have been as close to the Hospital as we were; otherwise I might have died from the shock before help could be reached. What I do remember is that after my initial visit and treatment, I had to be taken to the out patient’s clinic every day [walking of course] for about six weeks for the dressing on my head to be changed. The severe scalding had caused me to lose all the hair on my head and my scalp was just one big scab. There were two different treatments which I had on alternate days. One was from a bottle of clear liquid (probably an alcoholic base of some kind) which really stung my head and made me cry, while the other one was from a jar of a yellow coloured ointment which was very soothing and cool to my head. Each day as we walked to the Hospital, I used to say to my mother “Tell them I don’t want the bottle, I want the egg.” The yellow ointment must have reminded me of egg yolks.

After my head had fully healed, all my hair grew back. The doctor who had been treating me was most surprised to see that I had regained my hair, because, originally he thought that it would not grow back because of the severity of the injury. It had also retained its black colour and as it happens I still have a good head of hair today [age 72], but it is now white in colour. I was also lucky that I had not sustained any damage to my eyes.

As it was possible that I could have died from the shock, I consider this incident to have been my first lucky escape from death.