Tuesday 26 January 2016


 Last Walk of an Unknown Hero




Here Is the Six oclock News.The words reverberated in his brain and the picture of the Houses of Parliament beside the Thames appeared, just before the newsreader gave a thin smile into the camera.

     He sat upright in his chair as he heard the broadcast, a habit from whenever authority spoke, a half empty bottle in his hand. The thoughts that kept him awake or had awakened him from sleep these past few days, still hung on his body like a dull, dense mist. The news programmes had never affected him that much, until now. The house, the goods, and everything he'd laboured for seemed to strangle him now with the weight of a millstone. The pain of failure worse than any physical injury he'd ever suffered. Drink had never played much of a part in his life before, army discipline saw to that. But he'd heard it said beer could drown the hurt inside his gut and deaden the endless question.

     “Why?

     The voice inside the box faded into drunken stupor as his frame slumped back down into the crumpled cushions beneath him.

     “The Prime Minister has insisted that the Working Age Directive is necessary to allow young people who are out of work, to find work. The last three words were emphasized. Members of the House recognise the need to introduce compulsory retirement at 55...

     He could barely register the words as they moved through the darkening haze, enveloping his thoughts. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of the bottle again and lifted it towards his mouth, closed his eyes and poured the stale liquid down his throat. The TV panel began to discuss the pros and cons of a decision to regulate working ages so that teens, and those in their early twenties, could be employed. Through half closed eyes, he could just see that his room was a mess and, for the first time in his life, he couldn't have cared less.
Bastards.
 All through his national service, tidiness had been a habit. All through his working life, attention to detail had been his trade mark. He flung the bottle across the room, hitting the wall and smashing into a thousand pieces, leaving a stain that crept like cancer across the carpet. Eventually, sleep came to rescue him from the living nightmare, but not the one in his dream, which one had reoccurred over the last few weeks, ever since the newspapers began to carry editorials about the government plans to reorganize labour.

     London's burning...all of it.

     In the midst of a crimson sky, the horizon was being obliterated by black smoke as the voluminous flames rose from the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. It seemed as if the devil's fingers had wrapped themselves around the stars and snuffed out the light from the moon. Dawn had not even broken yet, so flames appeared to rise up from the depths of Hell itself. Sirens split the morning wide open as engines sped to points all around the capital, too many to cover, the crews prioritizing their targets as the riots spread from location to location. Red flashing lights atop the stationary wagons mirrored the frenetic activity of the operators on the ground, as flumes of water were sprayed madly upwards towards the burning embers of Downing Street.  The political and financial centres of the world's economic hub were collapsing It was useless, every rooftop had buckled, metal frames were melting and burning pieces of paper were falling to earth.

     The fires spread. The whole of the city must have been alight by now and what would have been dawn on any other day was now as dark as midnight. Across the city the fires rampaged, jumping from street to street and catching hold of any piece of timber not battened down. The gale-force winds twisted the smoke into huge pillars of black, acrid poison that lifted anything in its path aside and hurled it into oblivion. Even girders were wrenched from the debris of the collapsed houses. In a final assault on everything that had been built through the centuries, London, the city of his birth, the city of the proud and skilled craftsman, was being dismantled by accountants, solicitors, career politicians and the local people, and reduced to rubble. It was like a nightmare from the war.

Last Day..


     His door opened. He stood motionless for a moment, his small wiry frame hadn't changed much since the army days. But, an old manall of a sudden, he stepped out into the street and took a look along the road, his eyes straining now to recognise the long blurred memories of a distant childhood. Growing up amongst the entryways and alleyways of a once-friendly community, he struggled to retain a glimpse of the faces from a past long gone. There were no tears, just an empty stare from eyes that had lost all spark of energy, all sense of life. In one last farewell to happier times his hands moved up to the green army beret on his head, a habit he'd kept from the war, smartness, tidiness, a sense of pride: Thats what he conveyed. In a rote action he tilted it to one side and smoothed it over his forehead, allowing himself one last look, then took his first step to his last walk. Newspaper pages, crumpled with yesterday's tragedies, blew like tumble weeds along the avenue between the terraced houses, now littered with broken glass and decorated with boarded-up doorways. Even the graffiti painted on the grime covered walls wasn't there for any artistic statement, but a comment on the decline of a once-proud nation. Weeds grew up through the pavement and fought for territory with the mattresses and old cookers rotting and rusting in front of doors dangling on just a hinge, barely upright.

     He turned left. Either direction would take him to his work place; it was a habit he'd followed since joining the firm as a youth. The wind, normally chilled this time of year, smelled of decaying history. He hunched his shoulders a little higher and turned the coat lapels up to offer some protection against the cold. A working man's steps took him briskly past his youth. The places where he and his pals had sat in the gutter pulling at the pebbles torn loose from the road were freshly tarmacked over, and cars parked at the kerbside meant street football had died many years before. Here were the stadiums where the ball had sailed into the top corner of an imaginary net on an imaginary football ground, the shot taken by a real boy. But youth had gone now, replaced by empty houses and broken dreams. Ahead, he saw the shelter where he'd caught the bus every morning of his working life, remembering that it was more than a stop off. It had been a meeting point of mates and colleagues all employed in a skilled profession, the manufacture of engines that ran the economic growth of post-war England. No more, though. The old manrecognised few of the faces now, his mates had been replaced by shadows of teenage snarls, cigarettes hanging from their mouths and gadgets blasting out the latest praise of thuggery and violence. With their hands in their pockets and hoods pulled over their heads, he didn't recognise their world, the world of gimme.His arrival was invisible, no one nodded a welcome. He was just an old manin their world, in their eyes. As the bus approached, time stood still for all of them, grotesque statues of indifference and indolence, working only to fuel their weekend beer habit, only as a condition of keeping their benefit money. Ever since that announcement on the television he felt forced into the ignominy of joining them.

     As the wooden doors swung open into the workshop, he realised he loved it here, always had. Walking through those doors meant he was somebody; he was a skilled man amongst other skilled men. The clean lines of the bays, the quiet lull that preceded the day's activity, came always with the promise of machines stirring to life. Those sounds, that energy had kept him going through the birth of his sons and the death of his wife. Still, the thought of that death bit deep into his soul, six months of hell in an empty house, his sons too far away to help, not that he'd have asked for it anyway.



Frank.The call of his name brought him back.

He turned. The foreman was at his side, a small, slightly stooped man, just a little older than himself.

Frank, go up to the office, they need to talk to you.” He’d heard the words many times over the years, but they’d been delivered with a smile, some young management recruit would have screwed up a time sheet, or a drawing of a machine cast and needed an expert to help sort it out. Not this time. This time his foreman couldn’t bring himself to look into his eyes.

     He barely heard the words, even though he'd not yet fired up his machine. This time though, he knew it was something entirely different.

Mr. Davies to the manager's office.The secretary's voice cut through the air from speakers above his head and echoed around the factory walls. Fleetingly the image of that same secretary came to him. When she walked past the bays he'd never disrespected her, never whistled or made lewd remarks like some of the men. She could have been the same age as some of their daughters. Yet here she was announcing his demise to the whole factory.

     As he walked past the numbered work bays the familiar sounds of his engineering life began to mix together and shatter the numbed silence. The siren for the start of the day came like the air raid sirens hes heard on duty in 1940. But this wasnt 1940. This was 1968. Like a highly-orchestrated  symphony the high pitched squeal of turning machines and deep gashing growl of planes gouging slots into metal beds was music most familiar. He grimaced as the sparks flew from grinding machines being worked to within thousandths of an inch. For all his working years, from apprentice to skilled man, he'd loved the sight and sound of this walk through the factory. For all these years it had defined him, meant he was somebody. But not today. Today, nobody caught his eye, nobody stopped him for a chat or shouted his name above the din, and everybody knew where he was going. The metal stairs up to the Floor Manager's office resonated to the sound of his steel capped shoes and the metal door to the office opened with the same strained stiffness it always had, it just hadn't bothered him before.

Frank, come in, sit down.The manager's familiar voice greeted him.

I'll stand,he replied, more forcefully than he'd ever dared speak to authority before.

I understand. The words were wrapped in a sigh. Frank. You know we'd keep you if we could; keeping skilled men is what we're all about.

Let's get on with it. When do I finish?

We have to give you a fortnights notice Frank. We'll take care of all the details....
The haze came down again, the words lost as he turned and walked back down the steps to the shop floor. The union steward stepped between him and the door and tried to intervene, but he'd never had much to do with unions and brushed passed him.

     That was it, the end of a life of service. Anger passed fleetingly across his drawn forehead, not settling long enough to leave an imprint though, his army training had taught him not to show emotion in front of men.  All his life he'd struggled against the threat of poverty, not then, nor now would he let it beat him. He lifted his head and stepped back onto the shop floor, back into the world that was most familiar to him. He was a Labour man since he'd cast his first vote, and now they'd betrayed him. He didn't stay beyond picking up his sandwich box and beret. The wooden door swung open one more time as the sun rose above the roof tops around the plant. It occurred to him that this was the first time he'd seen it rising like this in many years. By now he'd normally have been at his machine for at least half an hour and the sun was always going down when the shift finished. He placed the beret onto his head and smoothed it into place. Without turning back he walked away, no one called him back, and no one noticed he'd gone.



     Through all the turmoil, The Thames lapped religiously against its muddy shores, marking time with the tides, impervious to change and erosion. Lap, lap, lap, it drummed out its rhythm, oblivious to the desperate times now reflected on its surface. The great waterway, the place he'd come to as a boy, was no longer dark and cold, but a mirror to the flaming dance of hell that had gone on in his mind.

     Above the river a gentle breeze pushed the tide up towards Parliament. Early morning was still lingering above the offices of huge conglomerates, bouncing off the glass exteriors that rose skyward attempting to touch the wisps of white clouds. Every so often a bird danced across the skyline and etched a dark silhouette against the pale dawn. The streets were waking now with traders and salesmen racing against time to beat the rush hour traffic. He walked at a brisk pace, a habit from his army days, his arms swinging smartly in a strong, steady stride. A car had never stood outside the house, if he couldn't walk or catch a bus somewhere, he didn't go. He was a young man” again,

Mornin.The voice came from the shop door in front of him. It was a stranger's voice and for the first time in his life he ignored another man's greeting. It was well known that no one had a bad word to say against him, and he'd never as much as sworn in front of friends. He strode on; his head was clear now. The flames of anger that had been torturing him, the destruction of his life, and the memories that had tormented him disappeared. The steady tapping of his work shoes on the concrete once again rapped out the rhythm of his walk, the beat of his life. He crossed the road and set foot on the grass verge lining the riverbank, never missing a step. In a few hours' time a thousand other footsteps would leave their mark on the earth and cover all trace of his existence. The footsteps of people who would never know his name, never know he was my hero.

Without faltering or looking back, without deviating from his fate or ever showing fear, my father, my hero, simply walked into the Thames.

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