In a Pear Tree

9 Adelaide Grove,

East Cowes, Isle of Wight

August 1955

Sometimes during the long hot summer weekend afternoons in August, I could be found at Tics in Adelaide Grove. It was an opportunity to go and visit my father who, in turn spent his time with Tic, his father, and therefore we passed like ships in the night. My father and Tic spent most of the weekend patiently awaiting the return of Tic’s racing pigeons as they returned home from France or Spain.

The birds had been released earlier that same day and Tic would estimate that they could fly approximately at an average of sixty-five miles per hour and sometimes if the wind was blowing in the right direction and they were able to fly high enough they could reach even faster speeds. Unfortunately, high winds or storms would often blow the pigeons far off course over the channel exhausting them or worse they would fall prey to hawks or large sea birds.

I would grow quickly bored of constantly craning my neck searching the skyline awaiting the first sight of a returning bird. I was always much happier to wander away into the garden or search the contents of Tic’s old shed which was always full of stored apples, tied hanging strings of onions and most other garden produce. There was also a weird collection of old military relics, tin helmets, large brass cannon shells and gas masks, I once found an old rusty bayonet. I also loved to climb the many tall old fruit trees which edged the raggedy pathway that led for two hundred yards or so to the very top of the garden where Tic housed chickens and his highly prized pigeons. The long line of old apple, plum and pear trees, many of which had never seen a pruning saw, were nonetheless almost always adorned heavily with fruit. There was one particular tree, a special tree, that was my most favourite to climb, a Williams Pear tree. I had been told by Tic that it was even older than him. It was ideal for climbing and particularly if you wanted to be alone or intended to hide away from the world. Its trunk was dried and gnarled with a spreading thicket of branches and at this time of year it was always heavily ladened with golden, fat juicy pears.

With my legs dangling over the main branch, I took my position in the pear tree and could clearly hear the rattle of corn being shaken in a tin, the corn rattle music was to entice the exhausted racing pigeon down to the loft. Once safely down the bird would, as quickly as possible, have its racing ring removed and in turn that would be placed into the locked time box recorder.

It was another racing Saturday on a very hot afternoon, the sky a clear azure blue. Both Tic and my father were fractious to say the least, frustrated by Tic’s champion Red Checker who had returned in a very good time but decided to tease them both. No matter how much they would coo and rattle the corn tin she was happier it seemed, flying in flashes of iridescence circling high above their heads.

‘Its’ still a bloody good time if she comes down even now,’ said my father checking his watch, ‘poor little bugger, coming all the way here from Bordeaux, you’d think she’d be ready for a good feed.’ Tic nodded, hissing an almost indecipherable whispered agreement. Both men continued to coo and rattle, occasionally looking up and squinting into the sun for a glimpse of the next bird to come spiralling down. Once down, hopefully alighting onto the small platform in the front of the loft to begin pecking greedily at the scattered corn tempter immediately in front of the bird’s entrance to the loft, a system of one-way curtains of tiny vertical bars. What idiosyncrasies or skills one needed to adopt to ensure the speedy official timing of a reluctant champion homing pigeon was being both demonstrated and passionately discussed loudly by Tic and my father.

Breathing heavily and sweeping the sweat from her brow through her silver hair Grandmother Hilda had walked slowly over from the other side of the garden, closer to where I was sat above in the pear tree. She was moving through the canes of fruit as loud expletives rent the air as she flicked away warring wasps, which had been particularly bothersome this summer more so than most other years. The perfume of loganberries purple plump and sweeter than honey imbued the summer air rising and mingling with the sweetness of the ripe pears. Grandmother Hilda placed the loganberries carefully into a large wicker basket that already contained raspberries and green figs. From my position in the tree, I could hear her huffing and puffing, determined in her husbandry of fruit harvesting, as now she straddled over large green leaves as she pulled at the long tender pink stalks of rhubarb.

My dreamlike state of mind was abruptly aware of my father’s voice loudly alerting Tic to the fact that the Miele cock was overhead, immediately followed by yet another two homecoming birds. All this excitement was followed by a raucous chorus of cooing and a rattling clash of corn tins. Despite all that was happening I heard my father was calling out my name loudly from where he was stood with Tic at the pigeon loft. The very next moment he was standing beneath the pear tree in which I was sat, asking Grandmother Hilda if she knew where I was. ‘I never ever see the little sod for bloody weeks and then when you need the little bugger he’s nowhere to be bloody found,’ sighed my father ruefully to Grandmother Hilda. ‘Last time I saw your nipper he was nosing about in our shed again, if Tic catches him he’ll clip his bloody ear and no mistake,’ said Hilda stingingly as she slashed the air against another insistent wasp. ‘I’m going down home with this basket, if I see him, I’ll tell him you wants him, probably still in our bloody shed poking about,’ shouted Hilda calling back to my father as she continued to hiss dismissive expletives at the wasps that were intent on exploiting her summer basket of freshly picked fruit. ‘Bugger’s always disappearing when you need him, if you see him tell him I want him to nip over the road for some fags and a bottle of Mews and Langton from Miss Fry’s fridge for Tic’, shouted back my father. ‘When you find the little bugger tell him to hurry up about it and to take that ten bob note on the sideboard down home,’ he shouted, and as an afterthought, ‘and tell not to lose the bloody change.’

I could see my father’s head, his blonde curls glinting golden in the bright sunshine save that is for a pink shining balding pate which was glistening immediately below me. To this day I shall never know what it was that possessed me but as my father stood, his hands upon his hips, as he shouted out his instructions to Grandmother Hilda, I called out my fathers name.

I hadn’t deliberately picked the fattest yellow over ripe pear, which unbeknownst to me was full of feasting wasps happily feeding within, it was just the first pear to come to hand. I saw the pink patch shining up at me, a target through the gold of his curls and dropped the pear and all of its busy contents. It fell soundlessly through the warm air travelling the short distance liken to a bomb upon a target, exploding on impact upon my father’s head. The heavy wet sound of the bursting pear, a splat that sent sticky juices and angry wasps flying in all directions was closely followed my father crying out as though he’d been struck on his head by a cricket ball. Shouting out loudly he grasped and held onto his head running in half crazed circles around the old pear tree repeatedly, closely followed by a growing number of very incensed wasps.

What followed over that long hot lazy August afternoon in Tics garden was a blur, most of the detail, thankfully, lost to the annals of memory and time. Suffice to say that for the greater part of that afternoon and into the early evening I had locked myself in the outside yard lavatory, better described as a midden. Despite the stench I refused to open the door, afraid to face my father until his wrath had completely subsided. I eventually plucked up the courage to pull the slide bolt and open the door of the reeking hellhole and face my father who had been patiently waiting close by. I recall a short but earnest discussion with my him together with the hot stinging tingle radiating from my backside as I walked slowly home that evening to Kent House where my mother was awaiting me.

How did such a moment of sheer madness ever happen? It is a question I am unable to answer, the whole episode to this day remains a complete and utter mystery.

My blood still runs cold even now when my memory journeys back to that rash moment. It has been many a long year since I was sat with my legs a dangling down over the branches of the old pear tree in Tic’s garden in East Cowes.

Dusk was deciding the close of day, all was at peace once again, the wasps tired of their aggressive pursuit had retired to their nest. Tic’s pigeons had all safely returned, save one rebellious champion Red Checker who was happy to remain perched on the highest pinnacle of Grange Road School.