Writing for Fun
December 2017
Mistletoe - Jeff Kebbell
The tradition of hanging Mistletoe in the house goes back to the time of the ancient Druids. It is supposed to possess mystical powers which bring good luck to the household and ward off evil spirits. It was also used as a sign of love and friendship in Norse mythology and that’s where the custom of kissing under the mistletoe comes from. Despite opposition from the Church, York Minster Church used to hold a special mistletoe service in the winter where wrongdoers in the City of York could come and be pardoned.
But I digress . . .
Uncle Bill was built like the proverbial brick toilet, not particularly tall but thick set, his bent nose and ears confirming before the Second World War that he had fought as a professional boxer as well as his day job as a docker. A commando during the war and transferred to the S.O.E. explained the Military Medal and Bar he was entitled to. When I asked him about some of his adventures he became very reticent. He said, ‘Jeff, I did what I was told to do and I killed a lot of men – men with wives and children. I’m not proud of what I did and I don’t want to talk about it. I would forget it, if I could. Here you are, keep the medals for me.’ Despite my protests he would not take them back and they are my proudest possession.
Most evenings found Uncle Bill sitting in the Public Bar of the Seven Sisters Pub at the bottom of my road. When I wasn’t studying I would join him and his friends, although only seventeen; age laws weren’t so strict.
Now Bill loved the barmaid named Doll. She had married a man who had avoided the War draft and who gave her a bad time. Eventually he left and Doll got a divorce on the grounds of desertion. Now, when Bill could summon up courage to ask her, Doll was free and she loved him as much as he loved her.
‘Hello Doll.’
‘Hello Bill,’ was the sum of their courting.
‘What’s the matter with you two?’ the regulars cried. ‘Make an honest woman of her, Bill.’ Cupid had many supporters in the Seven Sisters. However, the devil had other ideas, one in the shape of Ronnie Stone, a man who had bullied me and others at school and now had a gang of worthless individuals who lived by stealing, blackmail and other unsavoury methods of making money, was to intervene.
One night, a harmless poor old man we knew as George was sitting quietly drinking a half pint which actually Uncle Bill had bought. He was approached by Ronnie Stone who was holding a pint of beer. ‘Here you are, mate,’ said Ronnie Stone – a pint of beer for you.’
‘That’s odd,’ said Uncle Bill, ‘have I misjudged him?’
‘No, Uncle, when George has thanked him for the beer, Stone will say, ‘I always buy a man with a broken arm a beer,’ and when George says, ‘But I haven’t got a broken arm, he will say, ‘Well, you will have, if you don’t buy me and my mates a pint each.’
‘I see,’ said Bill. ‘Excuse me a minute.’ He put down his beer and walked over to the four or five louts around George. He went up to Ronnie Stone and past him and backed up until their bottoms were nearly touching and reached back and grabbed his trousers. He then walked to the swing doors dragging Stone behind him who lost his balance and couldn’t get hold of Bill. Pushing the swing doors open by his weight, he disappeared outside with his victim. A few moments later one could hear the sounds of fists on flesh and then Uncle Bill came back, saying to George as he passed him, ‘Enjoy your beer, mate.’
‘Thanks,’ said George. Uncle Bill sat down and resumed his drink.
A couple of days later, I saw Stone and he said, ‘I’ll get your Uncle for that.’
I replied, ‘He was just giving you a friendly warning, Ronnie. I wouldn’t take it any further, he’s killed a lot of men and he won’t lose any sleep over you.’
Friday night, Uncle Bill and I were walking to the Seven Sisters. He had a sprig of mistletoe clenched in his left hand which he was going to hold over Doll’s head when he proposed. A pall of black smoke appeared at the end of the street. We started running to where the pub was engulfed in flames.
‘Where’s Doll?’ said Bill.
‘She didn’t get out,’ shouted a regular. I tried to stop Uncle Bill but he shrugged me aside and ran at the doors. For a second he was surrounded by a halo of fire then he was gone inside shouting ‘Doll, Doll!’
Later, when the fire was out and the firemen could get in, they told me that they found Uncle Bill and Doll in a corner by the bar. She had died through smoke inhalation but her body was unmarked. Bill had bent over her and protected her from the falling ceiling and roof, his back was burnt through to the spine.
Uncle Bill and Doll, who had no relatives, were buried together. A platoon of soldiers appeared from Hereford and carried the coffins, a burial with military honours.
The firefighters gave me a piece of mistletoe they had found clutched in Uncle Bill’s hand. I took the berries and put them in a split in the bark of an apple tree that grew in the garden. Surprisingly one of them took root and every year in our house a sprig of mistletoe is hung up and we drink to Uncle Bill.