Page 1
The Filling-station
When I was
four months old,
my mother died suddenly
and my father
was left to look after me
all by himself.
This is how I looked
at the time.
I had no brothers or sisters.
So all through my boyhood,
from the age
of four months onward,
there were just
the two of us,
my father and me.
Page 2
We lived
in an old
gypsy caravan
behind
a filling-station.
My father
owned the filling-station
and the caravan
and a small field
behind,
but that
was about all
he owned
in the world.
It was
a very small
filling-station
on a small
country road
surrounded
by fields
and woody hills.
While I was
still a baby,
my father
washed me
and fed me
and changed
my diapers (nappies)
and did all
the millions
of other things
a mother
normally does
for her child.
That is not
an easy task
for a man,
especially
when
he has to
earn his living
at the same time
by repairing
motor-car
engines
and serving customers
with gasoline (petrol).
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But my father
didn’t seem
to mind.
I think
that
all the love
he had felt
for my mother
when she was alive
he now
lavished upon me.
During
my early years,
I never had
a moment’s
unhappiness
or illness
and here I am
on my fifth birthday.
I was now
a scruffy little boy
as you can see,
with grease
and oil
all over me,
but that was
because
I spent all day
in the workshop
helping my father
with the cars.
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The filling-station itself
had only two pumps.
There was
a wooden shed
behind the pumps
that served
as an office.
There was nothing
in the office
except
an old table
and
a cash register
to put the money into.
It was
one of those
where you
pressed a button
and a bell rang
and the drawer
shot out
with a terrific
bang.
I used to
love
that.
The square
brick building
to the right
of the office
was the workshop.
My father built that himself
with loving care,
and it was
the only
really solid thing
in the place.
‘We are engineers,
you and I,’
he used to say
to me.
‘We earn our living
by repairing
engines
and we can’t do good work
in a rotten workshop.’
It was
a fine workshop,
big enough
to take one car
comfortably
and leave
plenty of room
round the sides
for working.
It had
a telephone
so that customers
could arrange
to bring
their cars
in for repair.
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The caravan
was our house
and our home.
It was a real
old gypsy wagon
with big wheels
and fine patterns
painted
all over it
in yellow
and red
and blue.
My father said
it was
at least
a hundred and fifty
years old.
Many gypsy children,
he said,
had been born
in it
and had
grown up
within
its wooden walls.
With a horse
to pull it,
the old caravan
must have wandered
for thousands of miles
along the roads
and lanes
of England.
But now
its wanderings
were over,
and because
the wooden spokes
in the wheels
were beginning
to rot,
my father
had propped it up
underneath
with bricks.
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There was only
one room
in the caravan
and it wasn’t
much bigger
than
a fair-sized
modern
bathroom.
It was
a narrow room,
the shape
of the caravan
itself,
and against
the back wall
were two
bunk beds,
one above
the other.
The top one
was my father’s,
the bottom one
mine.
Although we had
electric lights
in the workshop,
we were not allowed
to have them
in the caravan.
The electricity people
said it was unsafe
to put wires into something
as old and rickety as that.
So we got
our heat and light
in much the same way
as the gypsies had done
years ago.
There was
a wood-burning stove
with a chimney
that went up
through the roof,
and this
kept us warm
in winter.
There was
a paraffin burner
on which
to boil a kettle
or cook a stew,
and there was
a paraffin lamp
hanging
from the ceiling.
When I needed
a bath,
my father
would heat a kettle of water
and pour it into a basin.
Then
he would strip me naked
and scrub me all over,
standing up.
This, I think,
got me just as clean
as if I were washed
in a bath –
probably cleaner
because I didn’t
finish up sitting in
my own dirty water.
For furniture,
we had two chairs
and a small table,
and those,
apart from a tiny
chest of drawers,
were all the home comforts
we possessed.
They were all
we needed.
The lavatory
was a funny
little wooden hut
standing in the field
some way
behind the caravan.
It was fine
in summertime,
but I can tell you
that sitting
out there
on a snowy day
in winter
was like
sitting
in a fridge.
Immediately
behind the caravan
was an old
apple tree.
It bore
lovely apples
that
ripened
in the middle
of September
and you
could go on picking them
for the next
four
or five
weeks.
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Some of the boughs
of the tree
hung right over
the caravan
and
when the wind
blew
the apples down
in the night
they often landed
on our roof.
I would
hear them going
thump… thump… thump…
above my head
as I lay
in my bunk,
but those noises
never
frightened me
because
I knew
exactly what
was making
them.
I really loved
living
in that
gypsy caravan.
I loved it
especially
in the evenings
when I was
tucked up
in my bunk
and my father
was telling
me
stories.
The paraffin lamp
was turned low,
and I could see
lumps of wood
glowing red-hot
in the old stove
and wonderful
it was
to be lying there
snug and warm
in my bunk
in that little room.
Most wonderful
of all
was the feeling
that
when I went to sleep,
my father
would still be there,
very close to me,
sitting in his chair
by the fire,
or lying in the bunk
above my own.