Queuing

We humans spend quite a deal of time waiting, don’t we? I looked ‘queue’ up in the dictionary, being a smart arse, and found that a queue can mean one of three things: a hanging plaited tail of hair or pigtail; a line of persons or vehicles waiting their turn; or something to join or stand in.

I often did the latter as a boy, stood waiting my turn for something in a queue. I’d usually find a large lady to stand by, thankful that her frame kept most of the cold wind off me as I waited. By standing at an angle I was able to hear most of the conversations of those around her. I’d already served my apprenticeship in such matters, queuing with our family’s war time ration books for meat, sweets or whatever was going. Keep your ears open as you stand in line and you learn a lot about life and how to deal with its problems.

The first thing I learned was to look gormless. My best mate, Ted Watson, said I was a natural at it; then ‘ee always was a cheeky beggar. If you look as if you’re interested or eavesdropping, then you’d more likely as not get a cuff around your ear ‘ole or up kick up the pants. So I’d play it safe with my gormless look—mouth slightly open, dribbling a bit at the mouth (not the nose, because nostril dribbling gets you nowhere. It renders all around you speechless, and folk prefer not to talk when there’s a nostril-dribbler close by. They concentrate on humming to themselves, or moving to another queue, and in wartime England you had to be desperate to do that.)

So I usually managed to be nicely ignored as talk moved from one subject to the next, accompanied by body movements and gesturing appropriate to the topic. That really was entertaining, and was one of the reasons I didn’t mind queuing for whatever was on offer that day. There was also the business of being mothered to get through. Seldom had a day’s queuing gone by without one of the large-framed women taking it into their head to mother me, and with my gormless look I probably looked as if I needed it. I had my cheeks patted and tweaked, my hair ruffled, my coat pulled closer, and then my hair tidied back into shape again. And I’ve been hugged, several times by complete strangers, but always in an open motherly way. I’ve been pressed warmly against most bust-cup sizes, and a few hefty Queen Boadicea types required a readjustment of my spectacles, a tidy up of my hair and several minutes’ pause to get my breath back before I could resume my listening.

I’d heard about quite a few women’s problems long before I heard the word ‘puberty’; much of it was non compos mentis of course. The compos mentis bit came later for me; a complicated time full of deep sighings, clumsy feet and drifting between clouds five and six.

Here are some of the things that I heard as I queued:

• I heard that some of the women had ‘very close veins’ which was caused by having too many children;

• Poor Elsie’s husband was not able to constrain himself after a double portion of her apple dumplings. I didn’t catch what he got up to but all the ladies enjoyed a good chest-coughing, throat-clearing laugh;

• Joe’s 'prosperous gland' was doing things it shouldn’t; while Joe was taken down to the ‘ospital on one of those wheel-barrow things; ‘ees alright now, more’s the pity;

• Nora has been getting all hot and bothered sometimes with her heart ‘palpitrating’;

• Edna’s mother-in-law-in-the-best-room-upstairs ‘as gone nearly ‘inconsistent’, and it was ‘ell, what with Edna’s swollen ankles and having to run outside to the outdoor privy to empty all the bed pans if the mother-in-law got to them in time;

• Then Florie’s brother, Fred, had trouble down below and had to have something removed. (I couldn’t make out what it was because Florie mouthed the word instead of saying it. They did that a lot in those days if the thing they were talking about was anything remotely connected with sex. Sentences could have several of these ‘mouthings’ and it was a kind of code requiring a decoder which I had not at that time acquired. It made for some hilarious moments as far as I was concerned. I’d go home and repeat some of them to my eldest sister, Hilda, who collapsed with laughter at my attempts to repeat the message.)

• Edith could not afford a full perm, so she was going to have her ends done instead; it was her birthday and Joe was paying. (Beauty treatments were not up to today’s level of Hollywood type incredibility but the beginnings were there.) This was followed by a sharp intake of breath by a woman who was a cross between Nora Batty and Ena Sharples: ‘Not by Bill Wharmby with the funny eye, I ‘ope!’ and then the following words shot out like a machine-gun burst: ‘Don’t let him touch you, Edith! He’s not to be trusted. Let him get you in his front room, surrounded by his brass curling tongs, hair-dryer and perfumed hair-set lotions bought in bulk from Walter’s Emporium and who knows what he’ll get up to as you drift off for a couple of winks. No! Don’t go anywhere near Bill Wharmby; just ask the midwife Elsie Trotter how many little so and sos she’s delivered that have got the Wharmby smile. Stay away Edith!’

Bill Wharmby sounded a real bad ‘un. I'd heard enough for the time being anyway, but I could hardly wait to hear the next instalment; neither could my sister Hilda.

And now what about you? It could be quite enlightening to stand in a queue and just listen sometime, don’t you think?

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)