21 Rock Island Line

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

A WIDOW WOMAN Part 21

In 1956 Roger Simpson was given a used but decent guitar for his birthday. He’d mentioned from time to time that his friends were very musical and it would be a really good idea if he learned a musical instrument now that he’d left school. He could knock out a few tunes on the recorder he’d had at school, but recorder music didn’t make it into the hit parade these days, and at the back of his mind he was ambitious.

As mentioned, he’d left school and was working for the council, doing housing repairs after having completed a short course at the local college. But he kept in touch with some of his old school friends and when he wasn’t chasing Amy Forthright a small group of them decided to form a skiffle group.

It was the kind of thing lads did back in the mid fifties and as good fortune would have it Jane had a largely unused shed at the bottom of her garden. They could do whatever it was teenage skiffle players wanted to do in there, without being too much of a nuisance to the neighbours.

This might have petered out pretty quickly had not the Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group put in an appearance in Brumpton in order to promote their first hit record, Rock Island Line, and as the song demanded no more than the average skiffle song in those much simpler days Roger and his friends soon found themselves able to come out with a fair rendition of it, even squeezing in all the words when the song sped up to breakneck speed. And, true to the nature of the genre, although Roger did have a proper guitar, the rest of the instruments were anything but real instruments. A tea chest with attached broom handle and cord became a bass and a collection of pans and boxes became percussion. But no matter, that the instruments were odd, they sounded all right.

So all right, in fact, that Betty took Ian round to see what he thought, and because Roger was the prettiest girl in the Universe’s brother he thought they were great, and told her so. He could obviously think nothing else and was too young to realise that obsession can take control of opinion, especially when a pretty lass is involved.

With confidence boosted by this praise, they called themselves the Roger Simpson Skiffle Group and actually had a public performance in the Red Lion, a newish pub within walking and carrying-instruments distance of Empire Road.

Their repertoire, though, was fairly limited and their very first audience became restless at the third rendition of Rock Island Line and the landlord began a hearty applause to bring it to a close, and when the last chord had faded and in a voice louder than Roger’s singing voice he thanked them for their efforts and wished them well as they would almost certainly achieve great heights in the exciting new world of rhythmic music that lay ahead of them.

And that would have been that had not Police Constable (retired) Gyles Gibbs not been in the audience.

“You make a fair sound, lad,” he said to Roger as he packed his guitar away, “that modern music is my cup of tea, you know. It’s got heart in it, got the spirit of a simple life lived by simple folk in it.”

“Thank you sir,” replied Roger, intending to limit the conversation to that short paragraph of praise because the ex-policeman was an elderly (to Roger) man and therefore had nothing to do with the youth of a vibrant mid-1950s world.

“I met your mother, you know,” continued Gyles, unwilling to allow this boy to dictate the length of anything as vital as a personal conversation, and as he’d imbibed two pints (his usual maximum) of good beer he was in a talkative mood. “I met her over that Cornwallis affair a year or two back.”

“Never heard of it,” retorted Roger shortly.

“Headmaster of the school down Swanspottle Road? Where your mum got a kitchen job?”

“Oh, there? She only lasted a day. Said she didn’t like the cook, I think it was.”

“She never mentioned the Cornwallis fellow and his sleazy ways? Probably best that she didn’t. Anyway, he was fired, and so was the cook for aiding and abetting him. She probably knows. It was in the Advertiser.”

“We don’t take it. Must go.” replied Roger shortly, “I’ll tell my mum if you like. What did you say your name was?”

“She’ll remember PC Gibbs,” murmured the older man, “you can remind her if you like. A fair woman, is your mum, a decent soul if ever there was one.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Roger, a tad more politely now he knew he was talking to a police constable, “we must go. Only allowed in to play, and can’t hang around seeing as we’re under age.” And he, with his friends who had a motley selection of artefacts that doubled as musical instruments in awkwardly shaped packages hanging from them made their way out of the Red Lion.

“Decent lad that,” he mumbled to himself as he made absolutely sure he had drained the last drop from his glass.

“Bloody row,” grumbled one old timer.

“I don’t know what kids are coming to these days, liking that kind of din,” added a second.

Gyles shook his head, decided that for once he could break the rule of two and order a third pint, and made his way to the bar.

It was while he was about half way down that third pint of what he decided was excellent beer that he made a decision, and it was possible that it could be the most important decision of his life … if he played his cards right, that is.

He may have been slightly fuelled by the excellence of the beer he had drunk, or it’s quite possible that the thought of a lonely hour or two before bed time was something not worth looking forward to, but he found himself ambling towards Empire Road. His own wife hd passed away some time ago, and he was finding it very hard to adapt to life without her.

He knew when he got there because, faintly on the breeze the sounds of Rock Island Line came drifting towards him, and the voice belonged to the lad of the woman he wanted, suddenly to see.

But he wasn’t the only one.

Coming the other way up the road, and incredibly sober, walked the vicar from the nearby church. He had a serious expression etched onto his face and what looked like a dried egg stain down his black clerical shirt.

“Scruffy bugger,” grunted Gyles to himself, and was taken quite by surprise when he and the man of God collided as they both, simultaneously, tried to walk through the gate.