Annie Gread

Annie Gread was a coalman, or rather a coalwoman, a rare sight when I was a lad. In those days houses burnt coal in an open fire, the hearth used to be my favourite place to sit during the long winter months, and of course it was the warmest place in the house. There was an old brass box at the side of the fireplace and I used to lean on that and watch our five-inch TV set. Well the screen was five-inch but the actual TV took up half the room and you needed a degree in Physics to work the thing. It had more knobs and dials than the space shuttle and I don’t think a night went by without having to reposition the Ariel, which drove my Father round the bend.

The coal was always delivered on a Friday. Annie who was a big woman and had arms like Popeye and smoked a pipe too, she would knock on the front door with her secret coalman's knock. Then she would hoist a hundredweight bag of coal onto her back from the lorry and carry it around to the rear of the house, where it would be dumped very noisily through the hole in the shed wall. She used to wear a big square of leather full of metal studs on her back, and an old coal sack like a hood on her head to stop the coal dust from going down her neck. It was a hard job even for a man, but she used to throw those bags of coal around like most women throw ex husbands.

I would wait by the lorry for her to return with the empty sack. She always asked me what song I had learned that week, and if I sang it for her she would give me a penny chocolate bar. It must have been a strange sight this huge woman as black as the hobs of hell wagging her finger in time with the wailing’s of a small boy. She used to call me bonny, I thought it was because she couldn’t remember my name, but my Mother told me it was because of my eyes.

She stayed single for a long time, well she wasn’t what you would call model material, but in middle age she met and married a chap and was I believe very happy for a year until he was crushed by a lorry at work and killed. They had no children so Annie was alone again; I lost track of her after this.

Some years later I was visiting an aunt who was in a retirement home; she pointed out her friend Annie to me, a fragile old lady who was sat in a chair staring into space. “She tells everyone she used to be a coalman,” My Aunt winked. “ But the poor little thing can just about hold her knitting, I think she is confused” It was time for my Aunts nap, so leaving her to nod off I approached the little old lady and asked her if she would like to chat. “Its up to you” she said “I don’t care one way or the other, makes no difference to me if I do or I don’t” I asked her about her days working as a coalman and if she had worked in Gorton, specifically Roseberry Street. She said she had and what was it to me. I asked her if she remembered me, “I’m David” I said, “I lived at number twenty four and I used to sing for you, for a penny chocolate bar”

She pulled back squinting at me, then her shoulders fell and she lowered her head, when she looked at me again her eyes were full of tears, “Are you Bonny, little Bonny” I told her I was although not so little now. “You used to sing for me you did” She kept saying it over and over and for a moment I thought I had upset her. “I told my Harold about you, I told him how you used to sing for me” I didn’t ask who Harold was not wishing to upset her any more than I already had, But a big smile spread across her face and she started to chuckle. “You’re a big feller now, a lot bigger than I remember you” I laughed “and you’re a lot smaller” I said, wishing I hadn’t.
We talked for a while, and then she asked me if I remembered her favourite song, the song she asked me to sing for her if I hadn’t learned a new one, that way I always got my chocolate. I couldn’t remember, but she did. Scarlet ribbons, It’s a song guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes, although it didn’t mean much to me as a kid, I used to sing it to my Daughter when she was a tot, to get her to sleep.

“Sing it for me now” She said, “Oh no I couldn’t, I don’t think I can remember it” I protested. If you have ever been in the position of having to let down a child or an old person when they really want something, then you will probably understand why I found myself in the day room of a retirement home holding an old ladies hand and singing a lullaby.
As I sang she cried, and held my hand in a vice like grip, Up to the second verse I had kept my composure, but when the six or seven other old people in the room joined in singing it was too much. Tears rolled down my face but I kept on singing. When I had finished she smiled, picked up her bag and rummaged around in it until she found what she wanted, a menthol eucalyptus sweet, she offered it to me saying “I haven’t got any chocolate, will this do Bonny”

That was it, I made my excuses and left, as I walked through the day room door I heard her say to the others “I told you I was a bleeding coalman didn’t I”