"Mr. Lilburn is dead!"

A true memory 56 years ago. Just after World War two when men were men and women were heros.

 

I could only have been about seven years of age. I know this because I recall my family, at the time, lived in small prefabricated houses in South Gosforth.  At that time Gosforth was in Northumberland. Our tiny houses were built shortly after the second world war on disused railway or coalmining land. This was a poor area bolted on to the affluent town of Gosforth.   Most Gosforth residents were wealthy who worked daily in the bustling, merry town of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

 

Why this memory of the incident I shall relate has remained so vivid I cannot be sure.  For certain, at the time, I had little knowledge or hindsight to draw on.  I have plenty now I am sixty three years old. This was one of my earliest memories.  A memory  I will retain forever.

 

I suppose the time was about midday and the weather was crisp yet sunny. The month could have been frosty November.  I was walking across the Gosforth Central Park with my Mother. This was unusual! The park is located just behind the affluent Gosforth High Street. We normally shopped at Cooperative Stores nearer home. I suspect my Mother was going to pay a regular bill.  Perhaps she was paying the wireless rental bill then called Rediffusion. The office where that was paid was on the High Street.

 

We walked over the park grass where the South Northumberland Tennis Club served the gentry and where Gosforth Bowling Club stood majestically. This park, though often visited, was not our playground. Our playgrounds were our streets, nearby scrub lands and railway tracks.

 

My Mother, I remember, stood tall above me.  She was still young, though even then, her hair was greying . She strode strongly and wore a navy blue overcoat with a waist belt. This was tight and clipped in a buckle.

 

I guess now that is must have been about one hundred yards away when the old man first came into sight.  He walked with a stick. On his head was a grey trilby hat and around him a long brown overcoat.  A trilby hat signified that this man was middle class. The working class men favoured, in those days, the cheese-cutter cap. The majority of men wore hats or caps.

 

The old man walked stiffly! Then in a moment I saw his body stoop forward, sharply from the waist.  His stiff walk switched into a stagger and his steps quickened as he tried to maintain his balance. Quicker and quicker he tottered and his knees bent ground wards.  For one moment he looked as though he was running down a short flight of stairs and then his body crashed onto the grass.

 

"Run Quick!" said my Mother who ran off towards the old man with an agility and speed I had never seen before. Together we sprinted to the old man, rapidly going to his aid.  As we neared him he vomited a clear green-yellow liquid which splashed over his coat. His trilby hat wheeled some distance away.  I do not know why but without any request to do so, I ran and recovered the trilby hat. I then returned to the scene as swiftly as I could.

 

By then my Mother was cradling the old man's head.  She talked to him comforting words, such warm, reassuring words, kind words. The man vomited again, this time over my Mother's arms. "Sorry Hinny! Sorry Hinny!" said the old man looking appalled, humiliated at the mess he had made.

 

"Divent worry pet, it's nowt!" replied my Mother who held the man tighter.  She looked at me and said "Keep him warm." The old man's coat had not been buttoned and it had fallen open. I pulled the coat back across his body and Mother fastened the buttons.

 

At this moment a wealthy looking lady appeared beside us and stood to watch the sight.

"He's been sick, is he drunk?"  Mother looked at the lady and flushed with anger.

"It's bile, bile," said my Mother. "Get an ambulance, now, be quick." She looked at me, trilby hat clutched tight in my hand.  Realizing that I had never made a phone call in my life Mam turned to the rich looking lady. "Ring 999 now, quick."   Then  the gravity of the situation dawned on her. The rich lady sped off to the phone box not more than one minute away.

 

My Mother asked the old man his name and address. "Lilburn, Lilburn,"  he replied  he gestured to his inside pocket.  There we withdrew some correspondence with his name and address on it.  All the time my Mother talked to him, reassuring him.  She removed his false teeth at a particular moment when the old man sank backwards, as if surrendering to an overwhelming forced.  My childish eyes witnessed his skin yellow and a purple colour rise in his lips. His eyes half closed and the skin around his sockets darkened.

 

It was not long before the white ambulance arrived with two male attendants. They wore military type uniforms and caps. They snapped into a well practised drill and placed Mr. Lilburn on a trolley on wheels, covering him up with a blood red blanket. It was then I placed the trilby hat gently over Mr Lilburn's chest.

 

"Do you know who he is?" asked one of the ambulance men.  Mam gave them the correspondence that revealed Mr. Lilburn's name and address. They were pleased these details had been found.  We put his false teeth in his rain coat pocket.  Mam, myself and the rich lady followed the wheeled trolley to the rear of the ambulance. The ambulancemen lifted Mr Lilburn a good distance up and then into the ambulance. Mr Lilburn lay  feet towards us.  Just before the rear doors were closed he struggled up on one elbow." Thank you. Thank you!" he croaked with huge difficulty.  He seemed to be talking to me.  Then he slumped back onto the trolley bed.

 

Later that night my Father came home and my Mother recalled the incident to him. I listened carefully and at one point Dad said. "How did he do?" Golly he was talking about me. Mam said "He did very well." I turned red feeling my first ever burst of pride. Dad nodded approvingly, although what I had done was minimal even negligible. It was Mam who was the hero. This was the first time I felt proud of my Mother, who showed such command and tenderness during the situation.

 

With hindsight I know Dad really meant. "Did he let us down?"

 

I think it was the next day when I said to my Mother "I wonder what happened to Mr Lilburn Mam?" "Oh pet, Mr Lilburn is dead!"  Mother said this softly holding me with her gaze.  She had contacted the hospital and found out.  For the first time in my life I felt a sadness.  Sadness for a man who I had met only once,  for a such a short and unusual time, the minutes before he died. 

 

A man whose last memories would recall that wonderful woman who ran to him when he was in extremis, the woman who held him close as he vomited, the woman who soothed him as death called.  My Mother!

 

As I have said now I do have hindsight.  Knowing now that my Mother served in the British Army during the war; knowing she walked through blitz in London as bombs fell.  Then after the war she worked, almost for the rest of her life, as a nurse in Northumbrian and Newcastle Mental Hospitals. She had seen death and worked among the dead regularly. She scrimped and saved to provided the very best she could afford for my brother and myself. She worked every night and looked after us during the day.  My Mother was one of a special war time generation.  This little story is a short tribute to her.  That remarkable and irreplacable Mother of mine.

Author's Note

Another true story I am glad others will have this snapshot of my Mother!

Reviews

[Cherrie Palmer]

this was a perfect snapshot I am so glad you captured this moment with pen. I loved it. It is moments like this that color a childs life forever, making them (demanding from them) to be more.

[Lola Nation]

Absolutely beautiful, telling and sacred. She sounds like a proper and wonderful woman - just the perfect nurse at that perfect time. Imagine had she not been there?

[little mermaid]

They would be so proud of you now Ron! This is such a heart warming story. Your poems and stories are always worth reading, with you having so much experience of life to draw on, your self depricating humour and the pathos you can often weave into your work. Worth waiting for. Thank you so much for sharing.