Horace and Ada.

I've written on here before about Horace and Ada; when am I going to write the novel? Who knows – they may be part of a novel. They came in to my mind earlier this week.

It was the centenary of Billie Holiday and when I went in to the bedroom – the radio is always on in there - I heard someone mention it on Woman's Hour. In fact I went in at the end of a song by her, and the song was followed by 'I bet people are clapping all over the country, after that.'

Do people sit at home and clap at the end of songs?

What about when watching television when someone finishes a song?

Really?

No they don't – they can't unless they've gone mad.

You're saying they do – they sit there and clap; well that means you do.

You're mad!

Must be.

As my dad used to say, when we tried it as children 'they can't hear you.'

And he was right.

When I went to the movies in Los Angeles people would applaud at the end.

I always put this down to the fact that people from the film industry, who might be in the film– actors technicians etc – would be in the audience. In fact they were and I would see people like Jeff Goldblume but you know – I wouldn't put it passed the people of the rest of America; the fact that they clap.

But what has this to do with Horace and Ada?

When we were little kids we lived in a very small house – two up and two down and one of those down was a small kitchen which my mother managed to squeeze everything into – fridge, washing machine and any gadget she saw at the Ideal Home Exhibition each year.

If anything like that ever got delivered, by the way, the people delivering would have a long walk as you couldn't get a vehicle near the house and we were about 50 yards (child yards) from the road.

South View Terrace (remember from before?) but there was no view as a factory called Locomotors blocked it. The view would have been of Moseley Road and maybe, Moseley Road Swimming Baths which I wrote about on here a few years ago and that post still gets quite a few hits – not as much as My Teenage Love Story – but I digress.

So back to the small house – well a cottage, really, with a 20 yard (child yard) front garden.

So the man with the delivery would have to walk down the lane, till he reached a wall and after the wall he would only have about – put it this way - he wouldn't be able to spread both arms out as there wouldn't be room.

Unless he was Mickey Rooney – but as far as I know he didn't come.

When our parents went out, they would ask Horace and Ada to come around and sit with us as baby sitters. They liked this as they didn't have a television; they had a radio, which we could always hear, as Horace was very deaf. He had some hearing but had to wear a big hearing aid into both ears. The poor fella was also blind and carried a white stick; in fact he had one fifth of his sight in one eye.

So when they came around to watch the television, Horace would have to sit two or three inches from the screen if he was to see anything at all. I suppose he just saw a flickering light. He would sit slightly to the side so as not to block our view and we would sit on the sofa with Ada.

There seemed to be lots of variety shows on in those days and every time a singer stopped singing, Horace and Ada would clap and cheer. I didn't want to say what my dad would say 'oy! They can't hear you' so we would clap as well.

The other thing we would do was put the lights out so we could only see each other from the television glow and that of the fire.

I have no idea how old Horace and Ada were but to us, and my parents, they were an old man and an old lady. I think their name was Melia but we called them Mealey, and Ada called Horace 'lol. These days he would be called Laugh Out Loud, wouldn't he. He never did, though; laugh out loud, that is.

He must have really loved Ada as she shouted and swore at him from morning till night about the burnt toast he took to her in bed each morning after he'd lit the fire for her. We would hear all this from next door – the shouting and the swearing; maybe that's where the expression fucking Ada came from?

Billie Holiday