To Mangle or Not To Mangle That WAS The Question.......

Ok............ something weird flashed into me head today, a set of coincidents.... always a sign to me.....

Last night I watched that telly programme 'My Name Is Earl' its well funny, its about this bloke that decides to put right all the things he has done wrong to people in his past..... its one of me favourite funny programmes......

Anyways I didnt think much more of it UNTIL this morning........ I was dropping nippers off at school when I heard someone shout 'Oye Martin'...... with in seconds I had a flashback and was transformed back in life more then 40 years......... it was real strange (I expect me nut nurse friend would have a field day with me and me mind lol)....

Martin..... Martin....... Martin Bennyworth, well I never, after all these years, Jebus do I owe you an apology..... yep I do big time.....

Martin lived at the top of our road, he was an only child and quite spoilt by our standards, but it was not that he was spoilt it was that he was a smug up his own arse kid.......

Everyday dead on 6pm an ice-cream van would ding and stop at the top of our road..... Martin ALWAYS had a lolly off the van, something that I could only dream of.... I would watch the kids queue up and hand over their money and rip the wrapper off their goodies and lick and lick....... I use to say, when I was grown I would buy my own van and eat lollies all day LMFAO

Anyways, I was about 8 and me older brother was about 10..... and this one day, Martin not only bought his daily lolly from the van, but he bought a double chocolate Walls Feast.... now back in those days that was like the bestest money could buy........ he well gloated at me and me brother and was really teasing us and saying not nice things........

Soooooooo me brother turns to me and just said 'The Mangle' and shame upon me I just nodded...... even knowing it was wrong and we was old enough to know better........ but you see, it was NOT that Martin had the lolly, good on him, but it was the teasing and the smug words...... he had sealed his own fate LOL

The following day when we got in from school me mum was not in....... so it was a good mangle day.... we was never allowed kids home to play, but mum was out and so me brother went and called to see if Martin wanted to come play at our house, so for him it was a novelty and he jumped at the chance........ we use to play with him out the front and would win all his marbles off him, ok we did cheat, but still, we was kids.......... anyways...... me brother comes in with Martin....... not in the house, but around the back gate........ well, in those days we didnt have a washing machine or a clothes spinner or new fangled stuff like in Martins house....... me mum use to have this big copper boiler where she would boil up the clothes and sheets etc and then scrub them in the big kitchen sink, and it was then my job to put all the washing through the mangle, which squeezed most of the water out, and then it would dry quicker on the line......

Whilst me brother was getting Martin, I climbed over MrEarls (yep, another coincident) fence, he was the bloke that lived next door, and I nicked a handful of his blackcurrents of his bush and climbed back over into our garden, I then squashed the blackcurrants through the mangle BIG MISTAKE in the end LOL.....our mangle was out the back in the cold scullery.....

So Paul me brother comes back with Martin and he says, lets play the mangle game...... mums not in we can squash what we like through the mangle...... Martins eyes lit up, he had all mod cons in his house so to him this was fun....... 'oh he said' when we stood next to the mangle with grasshopper in hand..... 'whats all that red stuff' - oh its blood me brother says - whose blood says Martin - oh its the blood of that kevin in the next street, he wouldnt buy us an ice-lolly so we put his fingers through the mangle, and if you dont buy us a lolly from the van we are gonna put your fingers through the mangle and then your head, and your brain will pop and your brains will drip into the bucket and your mum will be sad - (hanging head in shame now at this point :( ) - so I says.... yep its true..... (there I was a part of the evilness with just those few words) - so me brother grabs Martins hand and pushes his fingers towards the mangle as I turn the big handle....... lucky for Martin the rollers had been set wide apart to fit the thick blankets that had been mangled the day before.....

So Martins fingers didnt get squashed and crushed but he did cry, then he punched me in the side of the head, so me brother jumped on him and punched him, just as me mum walked in the back gate........

Jebus, we brother dobbed me in to me dad when he came in from work, he said it was all my doing, now me brother knew me dad used any excuse to give me the beating of me life, and sure enough thats what I got that day....... beat me to within an inch of me life...... couldnt go to school for well over a week, and wasnt allowed out the house incase someone saw me........

The following week, when I was out the front playing, I heard the ice-cream van ding its tune, and Martin was in the queue....as was my brother, cos he was now allowed an ice-cream for being a good boy LMFAO...... Martin walks up to me as Im sitting on the gate and hands me a lolly and just says 'sorry' I remember looking at him and taking the ice-lolly and saying 'sorry' ... it was like he understood me far better then I understood meself or me brother for that fact.......

Sooooooo MARTIN 40 something years late........ but I truely am sorry for the mangle and the blackcurrants and the squashing of your fingers...... I hope it didnt affect your life in such as way as you couldnt eat blackcurrant pies or bite ya finger nails...... I TRUELY AM SORRY........ :)

Enough Twaddle for one day..

x