I'm Going To Live Forever by Peter Knowles
A selection of short stories from my childhood

My name is Peter Knowles I am the webmaster here at "The Knowles Family Tree website".
I'm using this page to publish some of my short story writing.
So please forgive me for this undoubted piece of self indulgence.

Dedication

For my Kids. If they hadn’t pestered me. I would never have written a thing.



Ouch!, That Smarts

I was born in the late 1940’s into a family that already had two girls, making me the eldest Son, I had to wait another ten years before I got a younger brother to play with.
I think my parents must have remembered how ‘IT’ works!, (think about it).
Being brought up with two girls for ten years must have left its mark on me, for it seems to me that I was always the one to get picked on whenever anything happened.
My dad had a piece of pit belting, not a belt to hold up his trousers, a piece of conveyor belt about two inches wide and two feet long that he used to punish us with, well punish me with. I mean, I never recall my sisters being smacked and anyway, I was always told that in our family “males do not hit females”.
So I was the one who got the belt on his backside and when my dad said “ I’ll leather thy arse till tha can’t sit darn for a week”, he meant it. I couldn’t sit down for a fortnight never mind a week.
I suppose in this day and age, the 21st century, my dad would have been done for cruelty and would have had the social services on his back but in those days it was normal, it was called discipline.
Sometimes it didn’t matter if I had done anything wrong or not, for instance, I once ran an errand to the shop for my mother, I got what she wanted, came home and thought no more about it.
A short time later a neighbour knocked on our door and told my dad that the shopkeeper wanted to see him and that I should go to the shop with him because a bottle of pop had been stolen.
I didn’t know anything about it but my dad went mad and gave me the biggest beating of my life, even my mother and sisters stood there and cried for me. Dad then dragged me through the streets to the shop to see the shopkeeper and when we arrived, he told my dad that I was not the boy he had seen steal the pop, so there I was, innocent, but I had already had the beating for something I hadn’t done, did my dad say he was sorry?. No, he didn’t have to, you see, he was my dad, the boss, and I loved him.
Mind you, I wasn’t always innocent, I did sometimes get into trouble and deserve a beating, but I hated that piece of pit belting, it haunted me all my childhood. I don’t suppose it did me any harm but then again did it do me any good.
In fact, when I grew up and my dad moved from the house we lived in to go into a retirement home, my brother and myself cleared out the old house and my brother found the pit belting in a cupboard after all those years, I often wonder why dad kept it. Anyway, we had a laugh about who got the most beatings with it. Strange it wasn’t funny at the time, we then took it into the backyard and gave it a ceremonial burial.
So to all you gardeners out there, if you dig up a piece of pit belting, then for gods sake don’t take it out on your kids.

Sunday At Grandma’s House

As a boy I used to like to visit my grandma. (my dads mother). She live in a small village about ten miles from our house, her husband (my grandad) died years before I was born.
I would ride to her house on my bike, do a few odd jobs for her and I knew that she would give me loads of sweets, sometimes enough to fill the saddle bag on my bike. When I look back on that now, I think, “What a rotten kid I must have been”, visiting my poor widowed grandmother just to get a few sweets.
I was told that when I got home, I was to give them to my mother so she could share them out between me and my sisters. No way was I going to do that, they were mine. In fact quite a few got eaten before I even got anywhere near home and the rest I would hide and keep for myself .
Oh no, there I was in trouble again.

Sunday afternoons were always spent at my other grandparents house, they had a gift shop on the other side of town from where we lived.
I always remember that shop with its, what seemed like acres of glass counters which I was hardly tall enough to see over. The counters and shelves were full of all manner of things which I was not allowed to touch, and guess what, I never did. I think the reason for this was because I was terrified of that shop, it being Sunday, the shop was always a dark and foreboding place with all the window blinds closed, so I hurried straight through into the living room at the rear.
We were always dressed in our Sunday best because before we had tea of salmon sandwiches, (I hate that stuff), buns, jelly and trifle, ( I like that stuff), we had to go upstairs to grandads photographic studio and have our pictures taken. There are just so many times in a boys life, when he agrees to have his photo taken. Come on grandad, not again, it was only a week ago, I’ve not changed that much. That was the only time we were allowed upstairs.
After tea we were allowed to play in the back yard but on no account must we get dirty. Come on lets get real here, I’m a boy, boys are suppose to get dirty, aren’t they?. So true to form, I’ am covered from head to foot in muck, and my sisters are running back into the house to tell on me because they’re not dirty are they?. Oh no, of course not, girls don’t get dirty when they play outside do they?, it must be one of life’s great mysteries eh!
So into the house I would go, and granny would drag me to one side so my mother would not see me, pull her hankie out of her apron pocket, spit on it and try to rub the muck off my face with such force it felt like she was trying to pull my head off.
Why do granny’s spit on hankies then rub it all over your face?.

Lost In Woollies

On Saturday mornings I was always dragged off by my mother to go shopping to the nearest town. Why me?. Girls go shopping, not boys. We would travel by bus, rain, snow, or blow, there we would be waiting at the bus stop. I always hoped it would be a single decker bus, because on a double decker we had to sit downstairs, upstairs was always full of men, and this was, I felt, embarrassing for me, I’m male, boys and men ride upstairs, my favourite seat was at the front upstairs above the driver, it felt like I was driving the bus. Sitting behind the driver on a single decker didn’t seem the same somehow.
Funny that, because when I grew up I became a bus driver. If it was a single decker then it wasn’t so bad because there was no upstairs, but inevitably the bus was always a double decker and it was always full. More humiliation having to sit on my mothers knee, to make room so someone else could sit down. I hated shopping trips.
Upon arrival in town the shopping began, you know the sort of thing, dozens of mothers dragging dozens of screaming kids around. I always feel sorry now when I see kids being dragged around shops by their mothers, your only three feet nothing tall, you can’t see where your going in crowds, everyone is taller than you and why do mothers always slap a child who is tired and crying, saying “Shut up or I will smack you”.
What’s the point in slapping a child who is already crying, it only makes them cry more.
Shopping always included a visit to Woolworth's, with its large counters that adults could only just see over, never mind a child, it was like walking down an endless corridor for me, up on the ceiling were wires which stretched from one end of the shop to the other and when you paid for your goods, the assistant put the money into a canister on the wires, pulled a string and the canister shot off across the shop, then flew back the other way with your change in it. Now this was a great source of amusement for me. I could have watched it all day, the trouble was, I tried to and that’s when I would lose my mother.
Off she would go, doing her shopping and there I would stay watching the canisters fly by, I would then notice she had gone, try to find her, counters too big, can’t see over them, run around them, still no mum, shout “Mum”, everyone looked at me, still no mum , panic, burst into tears, scream “MUM!”, sobbing, “I’ve lost my mum”.
Someone shouts “Anyone lost a little boy”. Mum would appear (SLAP) (ouch!).
“Don’t you ever wander off again” she would say. Me wander off, I thought she was the one who wandered off from me. Oh! why do mothers slap crying kids.
The same thing happened every Saturday in town. I was glad when the Co-op opened a new supermarket on the estate where we lived. I still had to go shopping with her but at least I stopped getting lost in Woollies. I really did love those flying canisters.

We’re all going to Blackpool

Holidays were always spent at Blackpool, every year the same week, the last week in August, funnily enough I don’t seem to be able to remember anything about the actual holidays, except the going to and the coming home . We always went by train, which for me was the best part of the holiday, the carriages had separate compartments and of course in those days was always pulled by a steam engine.
The thing I liked to do was stand in the doorway with the window open, so I could see the engine ahead of us as the train went around corners. Avid train spotter in those days I was, just how sad can you get, look we all did it, even collected car numbers a one time.
Always mindful of the notice above the door, “Do Not Lean Out Of The Window”, scared to death I was going to get my head chopped off by a train coming the other way, I never ever really leaned out, just sort of peeped around the edge of the window frame.
The only problem with riding behind a steam engine with the window open is you get covered in muck and soot so by the time we got to Blackpool, I looked absolutely scruffy, so out came mums hanky, quick spit and there she was trying to rub my face off. think she learned that one from my granny.

The Perfect Way To Cheat at School

My schooling was pretty normal. I started at the infants aged five, then to junior school at age eight, which came as quite a shock, there were girls at junior school. Didn’t like girls, my sisters were girls and they got away with murder, never got into trouble and always think they know better than boys, well that’s what I thought, do you think I was leaning about life, a few years later I found out that girls were the best thing since sliced bread, but that’s another story. So lets just say for now. been there, done that and bloody well enjoyed it.
While at junior school, I once came home at break time by mistake, I had just lost track of all time, I honestly thought it was lunch time, as I always went home for lunch. Anyway I arrived home and there was my dad in the kitchen getting ready for work and that’s when I realised what time it really was. Oh no, in trouble again.
Of course dad thought I was playing truant from school and before I had a chance to explain, I got the pit belt on my arse and sent straight back to school. So I had run home, got a beating, run all the way back to school and I wasn’t even late back.
Mind you, you would run fast too if your arse was smarting like mine was that day. The other amazing thing about it was that no one at school had even missed me. I remember thinking at least dad will be at work when it really is time to go home.
At the age of eleven, I, like all kids of that age sat the eleven plus exam to decide if I was brainy enough to go to grammar school or dumb enough to go to the local secondary modern.
Now there’s a con if ever I saw one, there were only about 100 places each year at grammar school and about 1000 kids taking the eleven plus. Talk about picking the cream of the crop and ditching the others, thank god that system is now defunct. I don’t remember at the time anyone telling me how important it was for me to pass this exam and go to grammar school, it wasn’t that I was thick, its just that I only did the bare minimum of work at school. You know what I mean, just enough as not to get into trouble and not enough to get me noticed, and to me, this exam was just like doing any other test, like the one’s we did every week at school, so needless to say, I failed. Also it was probably something to do with the fact that I was just realising that girls were better than train spotting and sat across from me at the next desk, was the most beautiful girl in the world, Pamela.. Long blond hair, tied in a pony tail and the deepest blue eyes you have ever seen.
Now Pamela’s problem was she was destined to be the original dumb blond, she didn’t know what day it was unless someone told her, but she knew how to cheat. She wrote the answers to the questions on the top of her leg, knowing that ‘Sir’ would not dare to ask her to lift up her skirt if he found her cheating. How on earth she knew what the questions were going to be in order for her to have the correct answers, is still a mystery to this Day, but she did have a big sister who had sat her eleven plus the year before, could they be the same questions? must have been because Pamela passed and went onto the girls High School.
This could be the reason I failed mine, you see, every time Pamela lifted her skirt to look at the answers, I got an eyeful of next weeks washing. Oh, to hell with the eleven plus, I was in love.
All through senior school I saw Pamela now and again, but she didn’t want to know me. Stuck up little tart, just because she went to a posh school, and anyway my love interests lay elsewhere.

Years later she was killed riding pillion on the back of her boyfriends motorbike, she was still only sixteen, what a waste of such a young life.

Now here’s a secret I’ve never told anyone. I actually went to her funeral, I wasn’t invited, I just took it upon myself to turn up, I didn’t stand with the family at the grave side, but stood the other side of the cemetery leaning against the wall until everyone had gone.
After the service and before the grave diggers filled in the grave, I stood looking down into the grave at her coffin and cried my bloody eyes out.

Night Night, God bless you Pam, wherever you are.

The Runaway Train and The Village Bike

My best mate Peapod, his real name was Peter but his mother called him Peapod, so everyone else just followed suit, he used to hate it. You know the sort of kid I mean, short, skinny, buck teeth and glasses which were held together with sticking plaster on the corner and across the bridge of the nose, (his glasses I mean, not his teeth). He always seemed to have a permanent black eye, or was it because his mother didn’t spit on her hankie, like mine did.
He and his sister Rita were twins, she didn’t look like him, thank god, in fact they were so unlike each other that if these two were twins, then they must have had different fathers.
We were all the same age, them being five days older then me, and we went all the way through school together, always in the same class.
Rita was a bit of a pain in the arse, but Peapod was ordered by his mother to look after her, so everywhere we went, so did she, a right little dare devil tomboy she was, she could fight better then any lad, which probably accounts for Peapod’s permanent black eye, most of the time she was the one looking after him. Didn’t she have any girl friends to play with.
Our favourite place to play was the local colliery (pit), we weren’t supposed to be there but it was fun, sliding down the side of the slag heap on pieces of old tin, we could get up some right speed, but hoped we didn’t land in the slurry pond at the bottom, or hit the railway tracks where there was always a rake of fully loaded coal wagons, usually about twenty to thirty of them waiting to be picked up.
One day, me and Peapod were climbing on these, you know as kids do, and Rita was walking down the side of the row of wagons hitting each one with an iron bar as she went, we soon found out why, when they started to move, she had only released the brakes. The railway track ran around the slag heap, through the pit yard then turned sharp left towards a level crossing, across the main road outside the pit and from there down a very steep hill into the railway depot, towards the engine sheds, the station and the east coast main railway line.
Rita ran up the grass bank, I jumped off the top of the wagons but Peapod too scared to jump, just sat there screaming his bloody head off. The wagons picked up speed and as the last one passed us, me and Rita started to run after them, don’t know what we were thinking of, there was no way we were going to stop them or rescue Peapod. Around the bend they went, towards the pit yard, with Peapod still screaming and hanging on for dear life. Workmen came out of the buildings and watched in amazement as Peapod, realising he was the centre of attraction, stood up, bold as brass, dropped his trousers and mooned at them, while giving them the two fingered salute. At this point, we stopped chasing and ran across the field towards the level crossing, well we didn’t want to get caught did we.
The wagons crashed through the level crossing gates, they were going like a bat out of hell, the gates were open for road traffic, and thank god there were no cars crossing at the time. They picked up more speed as they started to go down the hill and Peapod, who must have realised that no one was going to rescue him, jumped.
He rolled over on the ground a few times and then lay still, we ran up to him, thinking he must be dead, he wasn’t, he said just one word “bastards”. I was trying to act all concerned, while laughing myself silly, after all my best mate had just nearly been killed, he did have a few cuts and bruises, and a broken arm, but we told his mum he had fallen off his bike, that was our story and we were sticking to it. Rita, on the other hand, told him “to get up and stop being a wimp”. Someone shouted, “ You lot, come here”. It was some of the workmen who had been in the yard. Don’t be daft, we dragged Peapod up off the ground and we were off like a rocket, legging it across the fields. Now I suppose you would like to know the outcome of the runaway wagons, well we didn’t hang about to find out, but we did hear a few days later that the workmen had phoned the signalman and he had switched the ‘Catch Point’ and the wagons had been derailed at the bottom of the hill. So apart from the crossing gates, twenty to thirty wrecked wagons, about 5,000 tons of coal, oh and Peapod’s broken arm, no harm done then eh!. We laid low for awhile, thinking the police would be knocking on our doors. But apparently no one could give a description of us, except that it was two boys and a girl who were the colour of the fire back, or in other words, too mucky to be recognised.
At the age of 13, I fell in love again, and you’ll never guess who with, yep, your right, Rita. She had grown into a dolly bird, still only 13 with the body of an 18 year old. Going out with your best mates sister is not recommended, you see, by now he was her protector and no one was going to get near her, well, that’s what he though. She was as randy as a fiddler’s bitch, she just couldn’t get enough of it. In the village, where we lived she was known as the ‘Bike’, apparently everyone had had a ride. She ended up pregnant at 15 and refused to name the father, everyone thought it was me, but both me and Rita knew I wasn’t.

So how did I turn out

What kind of man do I think I Am. Well here are a few things. My hopes, fears and beliefs. I don’t fear much in life, I have always been able to stand my ground, I don’t mean fighting, but if I have to I will, even if I sometimes come off the worse. I suppose I am the type of person who wouldn’t wish anything on anyone, that I wouldn’t wish for myself. The type of person who catches a spider and lets it go in a safe place, instead of killing it, I suppose it has as much right to life as I have. My one real fear is the same as any family man, is that none of my children or my wife die before me, that is the only thing I don’t think I could cope with, and hope, I never have to. I do not fear death, I never have, we all have to die sometime and I believe that once you’re dead, you’re dead, that’s it, the end, I don’t believe in any kind of god or after life, I do not attend any church and have never done in my life. religion is the invention of man to combat his fear of death and for those people who do believe in god then so be it, if it makes them feel better about dying.
But surely the best thing about being dead is that you are the only one who does not know you are dead and anyway. (Hence the Title of this Story) I'm going to live Forever
Well in a way I am, in the minds of my descendents every time they read this. What do I think about the future, anything is possible, if you can imagine it then one day it will be possible. You lucky people.

So you have read my scribbling’s and by now Your thinking “this mans crazy”. Well think about this, in 1899 when my grandfather was born, if someone has told him that in 1969, a man would walk on the moon and that he would be able to watch it happen on a box (TV) in his own living room, he too would have called you crazy.
So here’s to all the crazy people in the world.


Something Else To Think about

The next time your feeling unimportant, try a little arithmetic, based on the fact that it took 2 people (your parents) to get you here.
Each of them had 2 parents, so in the generation prior to your parents, there were 4 people contributing to you.
You are the product of 8 great grand parents, 16 great great grand parents, 32 great great great grand parents and so on.
Keep multiplying by two and you’ll discover that around five hundred years ago or about twenty generations, there were 1,048,576 people on this planet beginning the production of you.


Please do not publish any of this work without my prior permission. Thank you.
The above stories are available for sale in a Booklet

Price £4.99 (free UK p&p)

If you have any comments about my little stories,then let my know here
or why not buy my novel "Sargeant, Sergeant" a book about the antics and lifes of soldiers.
(for more information click on picture)


Price £9.99 (free UK p&p)

Knowles Family Tree   P.K.Trading - Used/Secondhand Books   P.K.Books - New Books,Gifts & Gadgets for all the Family