When I was younger, it seemed we often had to fit in with whatever my parents were doing. We did have nice holidays and other day trips out, but a lot of the time we just tagged along with the hum-drum of adult existence. With mam it seemed the perennial trip to the local shops, lugging back Fine Fare shopping bags that cut into tender fingers. With dad we seemed to bounce along in the back of the car to any number of tedium-defining places, the like of which probably inspired a young JM Barrie to dream up Peter Pan in the hope of avoiding such monotony in later life; DIY shops, plant nurseries, tyre dealers and the worst, because its cosmopolitan name Swiss Cottage always conned us with false expectation, the seed wholesalers. But because we were kids and they were out parents, we just went along.
The only place of this functional ilk that I ever truly enjoyed visiting was the Tip. Nowadays we would call it the Household Recycling Centre, or something similar, but in my day it was known simply as the Tip. It was situated on the edge of town by the ring road and could be seen (and smelled) for miles around because of its huge incinerator stack. I still get the same sort of sensation now when I am close to an impressive industrial site, a power station for example, of the scale and the sense of childhood foreboding mixed with excitement. The gigantic rectangular incinerator block was on the far side of the Tip and only accessible if you drove a reptilian excavator with huge metal studs on barrel wheels.
Equally fascinating to me was the arrangement of the public disposal sections, quite haphazard and completely at the discretion of the tip foreman, Old Potter. Old Potter, as my dad had once explained, was the gaffer, and if he told you to put scrap wood in with the old fridges, you did it. Old Potter would have a reason, and it wasn’t our responsibility to question it. He also had an artistic side too because the centre piece of the public area was a 20ft high (and growing) sculpture made from the tubular metal remnants of a town’s cast-offs, the like of which can be seen in many university quadrangles still today.
The first time I ever saw Young Potter was in a concrete bunker, ten feet below ground level, fishing out bicycle parts and seemingly unaware of the tippers that were unloading debris around him. Young Potter, probably only in his twenties then, although he looked older to us kids with his grimy face and unkempt hair, was just as permanent a fixture at the Tip as his father. During each visit, four or five times a year, we looked forward with a macabre anticipation to see where Young Potter was working. What we really wanted was to catch him striding around the site in his long dark coat, shoulders stooped, carrying the latest second-hand find or thrashing around in one of the bunkers like an animal. However most of the time we had to settle for a glimpse of him, set back behind the door of the steel container hut, that his old man called an office.
I once had a sharp rebuke from my own dad for perpetuating a story I’d heard at school, that Young Potter was in fact a psychopathic murderer, and had done away with his mother during his teens. Dad said that the story in truth was his mother had actually died in childbirth.
“Just because the young lad’s a bit soft in the head, doesn’t mean you can start tormenting him, or making up tales.”
A visit to the Tip on a dry day often meant you got the chance to view Young Potter’s handiwork. Perhaps he’d not had much of a childhood, what with his mother not being around, because toys seemed to be his favourites, and along the side of the cabin you might catch the sight of a lovingly restored dumper truck, a clockwork train or a baby doll whose eyes where able to shut for the first time in years.
When I was a bit older, probably top juniors, I can remember one of the lads announcing in class one Monday morning that he knew where Old Potter lived because he’d seen him the previous afternoon coming out of a front door further down the same street as his Grandma’s. We got talking and as a result, even those who didn’t know about the Tip of the Potters, were drawn in by the tale of the killer son and the strange family habits, so much so that the following weekend we arranged a somewhat adventurous bike ride across the town to check out the house. It must have been the longest ride I’d been on at that age, and I can still remember the fear of cycling through town along the main arterial roads, and the traffic that buffeted us about.
The Potter street was reached eventually, a long terrace near the football ground, with its criss-crossing side streets along its length, a maze for someone like me from the other end. We got off our bikes and walked the last few yards, and because I’d been the apparent authority on the family during class, I was volunteered to go up to the house.
It was at this point that we all realised that we didn’t actually have a plan, or know what we wanted the outcome of our urban expedition to be. I told my mates that it was stupid to just go and knock on the door, but that I would try the back to see if I could see if anyone was home. The long terraced row had an entry through to the rear after every sixth house and I nervously pattered down the one nearest to the Potters. It took a few moments to work out exactly which house I was after and I then stood for a while watching from the back yard before plucking up courage to go on up to the window.
As I edged closer I knew that I was staring into the right place because on the inside sill sat a row of dolls of all shapes and sizes, cleaner and much more spruce than the room beyond, their hair set in identical tight bunches tied with pink ribbon. At the end stood a stack of shoe boxes, the top few unrecognisable due to the care which gone into modifying them, lining them with tissue paper and wrapped in the same pink ribbon. Cupping my hands to the glass I could see further toys in the room beyond, each thoroughly restored, enclosed in their ‘new’ packaging. I began to lose myself in the trove before me, when suddenly a noiseless figure appeared on the far side of the glass, a cocked hairy face staring at mine, just three inches away. I jumped back, rolled over backwards, scuffing my elbow, and ran straight up the entry at break-neck speed. My hollowed expression was enough information for my mates and we only stopped to talk once we’d pedalled breathlessly right through town.
Later that year my little sister took ill. Not life threatening, but two days before Christmas her chest infection warranted a hospital stay in order for the doctors to give her a high-dose blast of penicillin. So that ‘Santa would find us all’ I had to spend Christmas Eve on a camp bed alongside my sister in the children’s ward and we woke to an exciting morning of presents and high profile visitors; I felt quite guilty that I was getting lots of attention despite being the picture of health. By lunchtime my sister was deemed well enough herself to go home, but just before we left we shared in the ward’s final treat of the day.
One of the nurses had found another sack of presents out in the main corridor and excitedly brought it in for distribution. The sack itself was dirty and bore the name of a local grain storehouse, but the toys inside were immaculate. Each one was set into a covered box, wrapped in either blue or pink ribbon, and given out to eager hands. It was the sight of the dolls that left me agog, unmistakable in their new clothes and pineapple bunches.
I couldn’t wait to tell my dad what I knew.
“Dad, I know where those toys came from.”
We were leaving the hospital and he gave me a broad grin.
“Mmm, Santa.”
“No. I really know. I know who made them.”
He looked at me inquisitively for a second. “Mmm, second hand Santa.” And he then put his fingers to his lips for the benefit of my sister.
That’s where the story should end really, on a happy note like that. Later at home dad told me that it was an open secret that Young Potter made toys for sick children and left them there at the hospital each Christmas, with the staff playing along for everyone’s benefit. But unfortunately it didn’t end satisfactorily, and not just because a young boy had to grow up, his innocence gradually fading.
About ten years on and I seem to recall the Tip being closed, to make way for housing, and the refuse facility was dispersed into smaller centre, all purpose-built and uniform. It was probably a good time for Old Potter to retire, and it wouldn’t have caused any further discussion were it not for his son, who clearly didn’t have the independent means for support. Going to the match one day I passed the terraced house, concerned that it had been given a complete facelift; all new windows, a clear indication of different inhabitants.
When I questioned dad he said that Old Potter had unfortunately passed away just weeks into retirement, and that the son had gone down south somewhere to live with a sister, or so he’d heard. I told him that I hoped he would be able to find a suitable children’s hospital to serve wherever he settled.
Dad looked at me kindly and told me how Young Potter had actually been barred from our hospital more recently anyway; we were emerging into the age of CCTV and enlightenment and unfortunately the hospital management couldn’t justify the man-child’s good deeds any more. I guess I was in my late teens then, but it saddened me deeply.
So a story that began thirty years ago has come back to mind once more. I have occasionally wondered as to the fate of Young Potter and how society may have served him into middle age and beyond. I would be lying if I said he had been a significant figure in my life. Of course he hadn’t but at an impressionable age I learnt a few key principles that I have since tried to instil into my children, notions of acceptance as well as seeing beyond the superficial.
Earlier, I was browsing the news on the web, and amongst the ‘most read’ articles from around the country was a story from Hampshire; it was the title Second Hand Santa that drew me. Apparently there’s a village there that regularly donates essential goods to the people of Romania, and yesterday, after a lorry load of supplies had been packed and the driver had left the tail-gate doors open momentarily, an extra shipment was placed anonymously in the back.
The accompanying photograph showed a number of rough sacks, one of which had been opened, and there lined up in the back of the trailer was a set of boxes, all about shoe size and covered in tissue paper and ribbon. The bunches in the hair of the dolls that sat in these boxes was unmistakable.
THE END