Another Cumberland Character

First posted January 2009

My blog about Tommy Cooper of the Cumberland Arms elicited this email from my old friend Cavalier Bess, and memories of another old regular …

“Hi Brenda

Loved the blog about Tommy Cooper and the Cumberland Arms.  Can’t say as I remember him in particular, but I can remember the late 70’s early 80’s when the whole area was as rough as a badger’s backside and yet one could go into the Cumberland for a drink and feel perfectly safe.

Apart from being the haunt of morris dancers, in those days it was also the local habituated by Fenwicks – the roundhead regiment based at the polytechnic in opposition to Tyldesleys who were the cavaliers at the university – in the days when these things were more defined.  However, although mortal enemies on the battlefield, in the Cumberland they would always look out for a fellow re-enacter, particularly “Dirty Old Bill”, who although he revelled in his moniker, was dirty in neither the physical nor moral sense.  I never worked out how he came to be a member of what was then ostensibly a student society, except that Bill was Bill and an evening in his company was always entertaining.  In the days when history wasn’t the layman’s hobby it is today, he knew a lot about the English Civil War.  I think Fenwicks used him to over-awe new recruits.

Apart from sleeping there, he seemed to spend most of his time in the Cumberland, generally in the same seat by the door, smoking a roll up, so that he could see who was coming and going.  He was another one who didn’t heed his doctor’s warning to stop drinking and smoking – he was of the opinion that if he couldn’t have a drink and a fag, life wasn’t worth living anyway.

Bess”

I got to know Bill in the 80s when (she who is now) the Squire and I shared a flat in Heaton and we all used to frequent the Ship Inn, under Byker Bridge.  (It was run at the time by a lovely couple Win and John – but that’s another story)  He was a small stocky bearded ex-mariner who, like many short men, made up for in character what he lacked in height.  (Mother, God rest her soul, always warned me against short men saying “They’re always trying to make up for it:  Napoleon was short; so was Hitler.”)  His daughter is about our age so he was, literally, old enough to be our father but that made no difference to our friendship.

In the summer of ’84 Squire somehow persuaded me to go on a Sallyport Sword canal holiday to Shropshire.  Two sixteen foot barges holding as many sword/morris dancers and/or civil war re-enactors including Bill – who shared the stern cabin with Squire and me.  His behaviour throughout was exemplary, and we felt more comfortable with him than any of the younger men.   

I think the phrase that best describes Bill and women was “all mouth and trousers”.

Squire and I used to go down the Ship most winter nights in the early 80s as buying halves of Castle Eden was cheaper than feeding the gas metre.  We could certainly be found there most Friday evenings marking the start of the weekend.

One Saturday morning Bill 'phoned our flat sounding most worried.

"Did I say or do anything I shouldn't have last night?"

"No, you were the same as usual, or at least no worse.  Why?"

“Well me cold got on me chest yesterday and I dosed me-self with hot whisky toddies from - ooh about lunchtime.  Then me daughter came around and insisted I had a tablespoon of Benylin in hot water.  So of course by the time I got to the Ship I was as high as a kite.  And then I must have had a few pints of Castle Eden – and I don’t remember much after that apart from seeing you and herself.”

The sight of the Squire and me seems to have sent Bill off into some sort of erotic reverie.  He had woken up with a bad head and a vague memory of the night before.  Unable to separate reality from the whisky, Benylin and ale fuelled fantasy he was awfully worried about what he may have done.  So had rung up to apologise, just in case.  I was happy to reassure him that he’d been much the same as usual – if a little absent and glakey. 

Bill never actually told me what he thought he'd done or said, but was hugely relieved to find out he hadn't.

Which I think is the mark of a gentleman.

Bill passed away in 1994 and Sallyport Sword danced in his honour at his funeral at the West End Crematorium.