The Serial: Georgie Day35

The overall winner would count out their haul of Swan Vestas or Bluebell matches like a high roller playing the tables in Monte Carlo

Consequently, objects placed on the sideboard ran a serious risk of being knocked over by an outstretched bat as one player would try to defend a diagonal smash in that direction. Over the years we damaged numerous ornaments, clocks, framed photos and trinkets. My most shameful moment came one winter’s evening when I swiped wildly to return Joe’s searing volley and cleanly removed the Madonna’s head from a decorated bottle of Lourdes water. Mum was not best pleased. Nor was my dear big brother the night I swatted backhand at a smash from Dad down my left-hand side and connected fully with the top of Joe’s head as he sat on the settee watching The Avengers.

Add to that the black eye Mum got from the ball when Dad accidentally whacked it straight at her and the chip Joe took out of the table when he mistimed a low service return and it is easy to understand why our table-tennis evenings weren’t always the family bonding sessions they were meant to be. Game fun Our other favourite indoor pastime was Bagatelle. Now this game really was fun. The board was about 3ft long by 2ft wide, had little legs at the far end to create the requisite slope and a pull-back spring-loaded launcher that fired a ball bearing (or a marble if we lost the ball bearing) up the channel and out into the scoring zone.

This forerunner of pinball had little nails hammered into the board, to send the balls off in different directions and at different angles. On each turn there were three possibilities. The ball could enter one of several cages that awarded different scores, it could drop into a recess in the floor of the board which also carried a score, or it could score zero by falling all the way to the bottom without landing in either.

We tried endlessly to drop the ball into the cage with the maximum 150 which was tucked away in an almost inaccessible place near the bottom.

Needless to say, we didn’t succeed very often but it was fun trying.

Other evenings were often dedicated to a family game of cards as well.

Mum called them the devil’s cards as they frequently led to quarrels at the end of the evening. We were all ever so competitive.

Learning to be a good loser was really, really hard for me and storming off to the bedroom so no one could see the tears in my eyes was a typical ending to an evening of good, clean fun with Mum, Dad and Joe.

We played loads of different card games such as nine-card brag, whist, gin rummy, switch and lots more but our favourite was definitely Newmarket, or horsey-horsey as Auntie Mary called it.

There were two ways of winning the “pot” in the game of Newmarket.

You either had to be the first to play all the cards in your hand or you had to have played the king of the suit of the secret card placed face-down during every deal.

Winning both in one hand was brilliant, especially if the secret card had rolled over a couple of times, allowing you to scoop two or three or even four times the normal cache of matchsticks. It was always matchsticks, not money. Mum wasn’t keen on the gambling aspect of the game, even though she backed the horses every time the Grand National came round.

And yet we played the games as if each match was a gold ingot of incredible value.

The overall winner would count out their haul of Swan Vestas or Bluebell matches like a high roller playing the tables in Monte Carlo. We all hated not to win. Indoor sports Then one day other indoor sports entered our lives. This is how it happened.

At about teatime a Corporation double-decker bus pulled up right outside our block, though we weren’t on a bus route.

I was astonished to see my Dad jump down from the driver’s cabin and make his way round to the entrance platform at the rear, disappearing inside into the lower deck.

Within seconds all the little kids from the immediate flats were milling around the bus, asking if they could get on board.

Dad must have said OK because several of them leapt on to the platform and dashed up the stairs to the top deck, filling the front seats and pretending they were driving.

I opened the living room window to get a clearer view and could hear the bell being rung over and over again but, surprisingly, there were no complaints from either Dad or his conductor.

When both of them came back into view they were carrying on their shoulders what looked like a long thick tube wrapped in plastic.

They disappeared down the stairs and into the close, so I ran to open the front door, keen to find out what they were bringing.

As Dad reached the top of the stairs he shooed me out of the way and snaked his way into the lobby with Charlie the conductor still bringing up the rear.

The two of them eventually eased the heavy object to the floor, hands were shaken and with a wave they both set off back downstairs.

I went through to the living room window to watch them get back on the bus after chasing away the local ragamuffins and off they drove noisily as Dad crashed through the uncooperative low gears. Big reveal Back inside, Mum set to work on the plastic wrapping with the big pinking shears, gradually revealing a dark blue carpet.

How classy was that? We were going to have our own carpet, our very first. The high life was reaching the edges of old Dundee.

It would be cheerio to the cold linoleum which floored the entire flat. I was unbelievably proud. But I wondered why our carpet had been delivered in a Corporation bus and not a carpet van.

Mum suggested that maybe all the carpet vans had been busy and she quickly changed the subject to the question of whether or not I had finished my homework.

She knew I had, because I always did my homework quickly as soon as I got home from school.

Perhaps she was remembering my proclivity to tell too much to other people…

During tea that evening my parents talked about nothing else, discussing where the carpet should be laid, how many rooms it might cover and what to do about underlay.

The latter point was quickly cleared up by Mum.

She said there’d be nothing better than layers of newspaper to cushion, soundproof and stop the carpet’s foam back from sticking to the linoleum, which was to be left in place.

The Dundee Courier & Advertiser would serve yet another purpose in the local community. (More tomorrow)