t day. Cy smocks and s covered co drive tes into t- place early in terrific radesmen’s vans o get to do tle sing and ticks. t a bull to market. Even at t age it struck me t most of tes t only ed to get to talls in peace, but a bull  ourn out and c. Sometimes some terrified brute, generally a o break loose and creet, and to be in tand in ting, ‘oo! oo!’ to ic effect on an animal and certainly it did frighem.

    o tually Fattle business  afford to give long credits. Mostly ty class of business, poultry food and fodder for tradesmen’s ingy old bastard o stand tting to  in an absent-minded manner, after  buying anyt t, and unlike t s in it. All ting sergeant used to be in turday nigo times next morning you’d see  saken too drunk to see and found in t it  y pounds to get out of it. People used to stand in t, almost as if it ed for a soldier! Just t! A fine young fello!’ It just sing for a soldier, in t equivalent of a girl’s going on treets. ttitude to to tions t ts are traigo  at time triots, stuck Union Jacks in t as an article of fait ten in battle and never could be. At t time everyone, even ts, used to sing sentimental songs about ttlefield far ao die ‘and, but it produced a queer picture in my mind to t any rate times  to ts. Old Bre so fed up er  totitude to rue-blue Englis Vicky  queen t ever lived and foreigners , but at time nobody ever t of paying a tax, not even a dog-licence, if t.

    Before and after tituency. During tion oo young to grasp  , I only kne I ive because I liked treamers better t because of a drunken man side tement nobody took any notice of  sun  dried it ime tion came along I and it, more or less, and time I ive candidate o a pond full of duckook politics seriously in to begin storing up rotten eggs ion.

    Very early in life, tle boot-sreets off treet, and also did some cobbling. It ended to get smaller, ter greatly because Uncle Ezekiel  married. y years older at least, and for teen years or so t I kneall, e est ledoraigion from bending over t, I suppose—after ury Liberal, t not only used to ask you one said in ‘78 but could tell you tuck to t o as ‘ts  fling it too far for me. , ious kind of voice, coming back at e man’s burden and our dooty to treated someter Uncle Ezekiel gave it out t tle Englander terms. trocity stories started. Fatales ackled Uncle Ezekiel about it. Little Englander or no, surely  t rigo tcs, even if t Uncle Ezekiel just laug it all   t is grabbing   five—to illustrate. ‘tell you! Same as I miger  let go of me, and I ure of myself flying t.

    Fate different from Uncle Ezekiel. I don’t knos, t my grandfate in life o   didn’t really suit Fat and ingly  on Sunday and very occasionally on   of ies and must y  little man, aly-looking because of t nose, a ratacacles, and butter-coloured   most of it and it tered ed at alton Grammar Scter-off tradesmen sent to boast t o scaugo read by a talloer ed man to quote Carlyle and Spencer by t of mind, aken to ‘book-learning’, as , and  good. On Sunday afternoons, time tle doo   te paper . I can see ternoon—summer, of course, al pork and greens still floating in tarting off to read test murder but gradually falling asleep acles,  feeling of summer all round you, tarling cooing some tableclotent. After tea, as alk in a ruminative kind of  tuff y, and tice t to turns up in t once in taken out ter, alive but bleace by tric juice. Fat sceptical of tory, and of til 1909 no one in Lo o fly. trine  if God  us to fly  orting t if God  us to ride  even  believe in the new flying machines.

    It ernoons, and per t, t Faturned o suc otimes  really suc to do, but o be al beruggling about y little cubby-er in tebook ump of pencil.  man and a very obliging man, very anxious to provide good stuff and s o get on in business.  tmaster, for instance, or station- master of a country station. But  eiterprise to borroion to t ic of  treak of imagination ion of a neure for cage-birds (Boure it  o Uncle Ezekiel. Uncle Ezekiel  of a bird-fancier and ities of goldfinctle s ion in t. In tiny plot of ground in  ty kinds of ting, and o dry to be an advertisement for Boure. Certainly, unlike most bullfincurned black.

    Mot ever since I remember  it’s from  I in my pituitary deficiency, or  is t makes you get fat.

    S taller tendency to  except on Sundays I never remember  an apron. It ion, but not a very big one, to say t I never remember  cooking. o see eristic attitude. It seems to you t tly t as ump of pencil ly cable,  a lump of dough.

    You knoc beam across tone floor and cellars underneat seemed to me one sink  an iron pump, a dresser covering one ic range ook God kno table rolling out a  in beetle-traps (ed o table to try and cadge a bit of food. Mot ing bet t along  going to  you off a trip of candied peel.

    I used to like to cry. tion in cands. atco cook, I mean—rolling doug a peculiar, solemn, indraisfied kind of air, like a priestess celebrating a sacred rite. And in ’s exactly led s  to do.  sood. Except t of gossip tside  really exist for o read novelettes as ime I en years old. Sainly couldn’t old you  of England, and I doubt o tbreak of t ar sold you  ern countries  ing guard over to t. I can almost ting t! t t s a eunuc in reality s must  as private as ts . S into t beo t tomer. S , and until to flour s knos.   t s very mucy. o look after t if srying to seton for himself.

    So far as t, ours  like clock ural process. You kne breakfast able tomorroo bed at nine and got up at five, and s it vaguely  of decadent and foreign and aristocratic—to keep later  mind paying Katie Simmons to take Joe and me out for e to  ick. Enormous meals—boiled beef and dumplings, roast beef and Yorkston and capers, pig’s ted dog, and jam roly-poly—er. t bringing up cill  fast. In till t to bed on bread and er, and certainly you o be sent aable if you made too mucing, or c ice t mucing ‘Spare too art. o’ give Joe a good o tell us stories, ful to give rap, but not. By time Joe rong for Moto get er t th him.

    At t time it ill t proper for parents to say ‘don’t’ to ten ing t  of’  ealing apples, or robbing a bird’s nest. In some families tually took place. Old Lovegrove, t  lumps aged sixteen and fifteen, smoking in t you could  all over toole apples, robbed birds’ nests, and learned to smoke sooner or later, but till knocking around t created rougically everyto Mot a boy ever s to do rees apults and squailers, and even fis Nailer, ts, and Jackie ts special recognized mettacking you. , bats got into your  into your ears, sossed you, and snakes ‘stung’. All snakes stung, according to Moted to t t t sting but bit, sold me not to ansoads, frogs, and neung. All insects stung, except flies and blackbeetles. Practically all kinds of food, except t meals, atoes  ter a meal you died of cramp, if you cut yourself bet lockja s. Nearly everyt te in tard seed and Karsry spice. Ss ing betain kinds of eating bet Moto let us eat tuff t op, and o gorge ourselves  till ain t erious virtues. Ra everytocking tied round your neck . Sulper acted as a tonic, and old Nailer’s boer year, never dissolving.

    e used to ea at six. By four Motea and ‘read . As a matter of fact s often read t on Sundays. t  t tors of t people don’t really mind e and  of tside Loed. Murders errible fascination for en said, s didn’t knoing ts, burying t floors, t time o dra dated from tters for s, most of treet didn’t  Mot safe be Jack t t er,  ting  I’d do to t man if I got  of t little American doctor  by taking all t and co tly) tears actually came into her eyes.

    But  of tter of fact it still exists, t’s been a bit cro by treamlined   a copy only t’s c less t till tories t go on for six mont all comes rigo follos, and t’s c and trations t o look like an egg-timer and noting  of ting in t on ttle pot of strong tea steeadily from cover to cover, rigories, ts, to correspondents. ed , and some imes t of ttles on summer afternoons,  about a quarter to six sremendous start, glance at telpiece, and t into a steea o be late. But tea e.

    In till 1909, to be exact—Fatill afford an errand boy, and o leave to o tea op cutting slices of bread for a moment and say, ‘If you’ll give us grace, Fat our s, ly, ‘F  to receive—Lord make us truly ter on,  oday, Joe’, and Joe  out. Mot o be someone of the male sex.

    ttles buzzing on summer afternoons. Ours  a sanitary o ained five ainly can’t en y  bins. And all s in tles in ting and crickets someo object to in blackbeetles. t of tc ts and insects. treet beie Simmons lived,  it o say t you didn’t even kno.

    t blue flies used to come sailing into t longingly on t. ‘Drat to say, but t of God and apart from meat-covers and fly-papers you couldn’t do muc ttle  t tbins is also a pretty early memory. cone floor and tle-traps and teel fender and to tles buzzing and smell tbin, and also old Nailer, en to, a bluebottle or a bombing plane?