Читать книгу The Goalkeeper’s History of Britain онлайн

2 страница из 128

A few doors down from us, all that remained of number 25 was a gap in the terrace. The 8 foot drop into what had been its basement was barred only by a few lengths of scaffold board and pole. The blind man on his way back home from work had no problem tapping his way past, but you wondered about the various male members of the Bray family who lived further down. On Saturday nights, they reeled and stumbled on their way home from post-licensing hours sessions in the York public house at the top of Duncan Street near the Angel. They shouted abuse at their wives, who attempted to remain a discreet distance in front of them.

Our street ran down from Colebrooke Row, which curved the quarter mile between City Road and Islington Green. Some Colebrooke Row houses had no railings around them, only stubs of iron a couple of inches long. My mum said they had been removed as soon as the war began, to be made into guns and ammunition. Both corners of Colebrooke Row and the street at our back, Gerrard Road, were wartime bombsites, used for bonfires on Guy Fawkes’ night. The stretch of waste ground where the barrage balloon had flown was right opposite the bombsites but never used for the occasion. This was possibly out of respect for the priest and nuns of St John’s, the red-brick Catholic church behind it, though no one openly made the religious connection. Irish and Italian families in the area threw rubbish and bits of unwanted furniture on the bonfires like everyone else.