I was a wag - mentioned earlier - and Graham asked me to write a little Brum story - well I wrote this for the wag site and now I'll re-print it here:
Gertie Hill! Two words that would strike terror into the heart of any wag working the late shift at Selly Oak; the shift was 12.12 till 8.25 - now aren’t those the strangest of strange hours? I mean what was the matter with 12-00 till 8.15 or even 8.13 if they had to be so precise but that was in 1961, before The Beatles, when one of the Inspectors of Messengers – a certain Mister Drinkwater – would call the wags to attention at the commencement of duty; needless to say he didn’t last very long.
But I digress: Gertie Hill was a gentle old lady who was one of the telegraphists who would whip us out when the Postman Higher Grade (our supervisor) went home at around six; the others were George, who seemed to have loads of kids, Tinkerbell Jackson and Katie McCullough - the Bridget Bardot of Belfast; oh Katie McCullough had all the wags dreaming about her and she even dated the dark horse Johnny Rees but there again he did have a slight resemblance to Elvis.
Gertie had a saying ‘I tell you why’ which even now, every time I hear it, I want to say ‘because I have a TMO.’ She would come up to us late at night, when we thought we were going home and say ‘I want you to go to Northfield; I tell you why;’ and we all knew why and it was because she had a TMO – a telegraph money order.
Even now my wife will ask me to do something and say ‘I’ll tell you why’ and I will ask ‘because you’ve got a TMO?’ Of course she’s learned not to say it any more and on the odd times that I forget myself and say it she says it – she knows what a TMO is because she used to be a telegraphist at head office.
So off we would go to Northfield or Edgbaston or some other place miles away from the office with the TMO and come back to find the big gate locked; in the day time we would go up the drive, off Bristol Road, and ride straight into the yard but when Gertie was on duty she would lock the big gate. She did this for security purposes and from this lofty age it’s quite understandable but back then, when we would wait outside the door, ringing the bell, dying for a pee and waiting for Gertie to hear us, we didn’t understand.
She would eventually get off the phone or come away from the telegraph machine and let us in. Then we had to go and open the big gate, ride our bikes in and close the big date again.
But we were naughty boys let’s face it; those bantams had metal foot rests which sparks would fly from if we scraped them on the ground as we went around corners and this we did constantly especially if girls were looking at us.
I used to do a little trick at night in the yard when I would lean the foot rest on the floor and open the throttle; this would cause the bike to spin around in circles and the sparks to fly and together with the headlight spinning around like an air raid searchlight in the darkness and the high revs would bring Gertie running into the yard wondering what was going on; of course I deserved to come a cropper and I didn’t but I have to confess I thought it was great fun.
I don’t know where Gertie is now, don’t know whether she’s alive or dead, but she certainly was a character and when I think about it she was probably about the same age then as I am now but even if that is true I have to say if there is one thing I would like to do it would be to get on to one of those bantams, lean it onto the foot rest and spin it around in the darkness like I used to do – I’ll tell you why ………….
