A lot of the great capital cities in the world have a river running through them; I hasten to add that one of my favourite cities, Los Angeles – yes I know it's fashionable to hate it and it's not a capital – has The Los Angeles River which is usually dry. Well you know that from the scenes in Grease where Travolta and a few of his mates raced their hot rods.
In real life, of course, kids play down there in the dry but when a storm comes, and when it rains it really rains in LA, some of those kids end up under six feet of water and are swept away. I've lost count of the number of live rescues I've seen on TV.
Of the capital cities, I think firstly, of course, of Dublin where The River Liffey runs between the north and the south side; it's the same in London with the River Thames separating the north from the south but because they named New York twice (as in the words of the song) they have two rivers: The East River and The Hudson River – Paris has the River Seine, Rome The Tiber and so on.
A lot of those cities are proud of their rivers especially the Dubs who swear that the Guinness is made from Liffey Water.
A friend of mine recently sent a link to a video about Birmingham; it's on You Tube and it's called More Canals than Venice. First of all when I lived in Birmingham I never went near the canal; I'll explain later but it has always amazed me that a lot of Brummies carry this information; that Birmingham has more canals than Venice and the other thing they usually follow up with is that Venice smells.
There is nothing wrong with Birmingham, it's a fine place with a good football team (Aston Villa) but why the perpetual comparison to Venice. Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
It is one of the most visited cities because of its architecture and large collection of renaissance art and to cap it all one of my favourite films was shot there – Don't Look Now (above) by Nicholas Roeg.
So I am going to stop there, hoping I haven't offended the good people of Birmingham, with the comparisons because the people of Venice don't care how much canal water is in Birmingham and, even though the beautiful city only has a wooden base, I bet the people of Venice wished there were no canals there at all.
When I was a boy, I had a friend called Michael Holmes; we went to Clifton Road School in Balsall Heath, which is a neighbourhood in Birmingham. We were in the same class when we both went up a year and into Mr Hennessey's class. I know his first name it was Fred; he was 5'3” tall, a Yorkshire man and a Communist; so there we have straight away three things against him!!! Sorry Yorkshire folk, my little joke.
How would I know him to be a communist? Well I didn't; it only comes clear to me now. I think I have written about him before on here so forgive me if you remember.
The first thing he showed us eight year old kids on the first day was his cane; it was a short cane with a knob on one end; he said “don't worry I won't be hitting you with the knob end; that's for me to hold.”
Then he swished it.
You could feel the sting of it as the little fella swung it through the air; he was in his element; he was in charge of some people smaller than he was – although there was one girl, Lavinia Smith who was taller and she pushed him one day and he nearly fell over.
“If I give you the stick” he said “there's no good complaining to your moms and dads and trying to take me to court – it won't work; it's been tried before. The courts always come down on the side of the school master.”
He did give the cane on occasions to my fellow eight year olds and it was not pleasant to watch. Some of the kids, even at 8, just sneered at him after the smack. A shock would come over the whole class room followed by silence; the little man had won again!!
One day in the art class he told us to draw a picture; I did and it was of a house – two windows downstairs and two windows up; you know the one – with a door in the middle.
Walking up the path I drew the postman. He had just delivered letters to the house and he had a broad smile on his face.
Hennessey hovered close by then picked up my picture and took it out front; I thought it was because it was good - but no!
“Put your brushes down” he said “look at this!”
He held up my painting for all to see.
“Look at this” he said pointing at the mail bag of my postman “ US Mail!”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“US Mail!!! This is not America, young man – it should say Royal Mail – or the GPO – but not US Mail. We're not Americans, you know, and we never will be – you'll see!! You'll see when the Russians come, you'll see then; then we'll see about the US Mail.” And he really articulated the US Mail and because of his Yorkshire accent it sound like a US Meal!!
Then he tore up my painting, took it over to the waste paper basket, which was right by his stick, screwed it up and dumped it.
I looked at that stick and so did he,
I was eight years old and he was 5'3”.
Sorry about my little couplet; I couldn't resist.
He didn't hit me. I played in the playground with Michael but can you imagine why I might think now that he was a communist?
He was wrong though wasn't he; the Americans did take over with their butchery of the English language, their Starbucks, Amazon, Google and McDonalds but we love them don't we?
Hennessy died young – maybe of bitterness – who knows; but that was later.
Michael came to my house to play on occasions; we lived on the Moseley Road in a little lane or alley called South View Terrance – you remember me telling you this – and on the first day he came, my mother asked him in. It was only a tiny place but I remember him pausing as he crossed over the threshold - “come in son” my mother said.
He saw that in the minuscule kitchen, my mother had fitted a Hoover Washing Machine and on the floor in the sitting room we had carpets; he looked very closely at these and there was something about Michael's reaction which told me he didn't have these things where he lived. I never got to find out exactly where that was so I never pushed it.
He had come straight from school in the days before I became a latch key kid; my mother gave us refreshments, we played for a bit and off he went.
One day we had a new girl come to our class called Ann; Hennessey looked at the class and said “we have a new girl who has just started” - as if we hadn't noticed. He said “Ann – if you want to go to the lavatory just go.”
With that Michael jumped up out of his seat and disappeared through the door; Hennessey shouted after him “where do you think you're going?”
He thought Hennessey had said 'and if you want to go to the lavatory . . .” and ran out; it made me laugh as I thought he said 'and' too.
A week or two later Michael didn't come to school; nobody missed him, I don't suppose they'd have missed me if I hadn't come in - “gone back to Ireland” they would say.
We were always going to Ireland at that age.
Then one day, one of the kids in the playground said “Do you know why Michael Holmes hasn't been to school? He fell in the canal and drowned.”
And it was true – he died a week after his mother and that's all I ever knew.
So when I hear about the canal in Birmingham, I think about Michael and I sometimes wonder what he would have been like; how he would have grown. He was the very first friend I had who died. I told my parents and they remembered him - “poor little fella” my mother said.
I was in Birmingham two years ago at a reunion; I couldn't find the way to the venue so parked at a place called The Mail Box and caught a cab. On the way back, a doorman called a cab for me and asked me where I was going; when I told him he said “That's ten minutes walk along the canal”
I looked in the direction of where I would go and it was pitch black; not for me, I thought and caught the cab.
Maybe I would have seen the spirit of Michael rising from the evening darkness; the little boy in scruffy short trousers who jumped at the chance of going to the lavatory just to get an extra five minutes out of class.
