Friends
After this I spent many weekends I was in St Bees at the Whiteheads’, Chris's home, who I have mentioned before. They were a family of three boys, Chris being the youngest, and three girls. All more or less unemployed other than Chris, who like me was serving an apprenticeship. It was during the slump period and they would be glad of the few shillings I could give them.
Chris Whitehead, one of my best friends, died aged 21 of "stone dust". He was then working as a full stone mason on Liverpool Cathedral.
I remember watching him carve a laurel wreath on the War Memorial on the bridge in St Bees one afternoon, beautifully done in an hour or so. It will still be there on the pillar of sandstone which forms the seat end.
There were for many years fewer of us boys always together. Chris the stone mason, William Marsden a painter and decorator, John Wilson who didn't have a trade but worked mostly at market gardening for one Isaac Mawson, and myself. Of the four friends I was the youngest and by a good bit the tallest and had the edge on them all at most field sports.
Chris was first to go and W. Marsden died not many years afterwards, of consumption. John Wilson went to Australia and is still there, and I believe has done well. One day I will meet him again. John's father and mine were friends all their life.
He played the cornet in the band and was taught the same time as me. He played a little better then did I, until he had an accident in the church belfry. It happened quite suddenly but could have cost him his life.
He was being taught to ring the bells or at least one of them, number two I believe. I could already ring and so could William Marsden. We sat watching whilst Jim Walker, an older person, stood by John directing him.
To ring a bell is quite simple and it needs only to be kept swinging evenly, when it is quite easy to control and can be stopped almost on any stroke. The thing that usually happens with learners is a little too strong a pull, which makes the bell bump on the stop and come back quicker than is expected on the next stroke, and when you try to pull the thing over for the next stroke, you find the bell has struck again and is already coming on to the next stroke. This means that the bell rope is already travelling upwards and pulls through your hands and you have missed a pull, and the rope is slack on the floor.
Now the bell which should swing circle on each pull is beginning to run down. The cure or method of getting it back onto the full swing is to leave go of the "sally" (that is the bit of plush woven into the rope eight or so feet from the end, for a hand grip) and by pulling hard on the tail end of the rope as the bell swings, it will soon come back onto a full swing. John was being allowed to do this himself for the first time.
One has to be careful to allow the slack rope to fall free each time the bell comes round. One is apt to lean forward as one pulls in a downward direction, which is what John did. The slack rope coiled around the back of his neck and in his mouth and when the bell swung back it was just the fact that the rope had missed going under his chin which saved him from being hanged. He lost two front teeth which were thrown right across the belfry.
This ended his cornet playing, but he took up euphonium and was quite good at that. It also stopped his bell ringing.
W. Marsden and I both rang the bells for a number of years. Billie's brother and father were also bell ringers. His father was captain and still rings. There are eight bells at St Bees, in a belfry in the tower. The church or part of it is very old. The west door being Norman, and I believe most of the west wall. The rest was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries and rebuilt afterwards.
Most of us boys were good swimmers (other than John Wilson who wouldn't learn). I have swam the length of our beach a number of times and that must be getting on for a mile.
I remember John Wilson was a great climber of trees, and I shall never forget him climbing for rook eggs up those huge elm trees (or are they beech) in the Priory. No tree was too difficult or too high, and he had no fear of heights.
He and I were good shots with catapults and would hit a small bottle at thirty yards or so, eight times out of ten. Before I left school we used to go shooting together, either his father's 12-bore or my father's. There was a great deal to shoot, rabbits and hares and ducks now and again. We took turns with the gun shot for shot, hit or miss. We walked for many miles over St Bees moor with a gun and a dog. We shot very little, but the pleasure of anticipation was always there and that was sufficient to keep both of us keen.
He played a mouth organ wonderfully well, and nearly always carried one in his pocket. Often during the long winter nights during that period of severe unemployment we walked to Whitehaven and round by Hensingham and Bigrigg back home. Not a penny between us, but walking and singing to John's playing. I suppose that walk would be fourteen or fifteen miles. Sometimes we walked to Whitehaven and back by Kells and Sandwith, about ten miles. This of course was when I was about seventeen.
Perhaps John Wilson was my truest friend, although the four of us were inseparable, almost, for all the years until Chris first left home and then myself. John I think could have been my choice if I had to choose.