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Found on the shores of The West Midlands. The Coventry Conch tells the tale of a young girl's experience growing up in Coventry in the 1990's.

Wednesday 21 October 2015

HALLOWEEN



 5.00pm

Me and Jenny are going Trick or Treating, and Mum is helping me to get ready. I want to be a Vampire Witch Cat, so I’m wearing a black bin bag, fangs and fake blood from Londis, and Mum’s drawing my whiskers on with her eyeliner. Nanny Pam’s lent me some cat ears, from a dressing up box in her bedroom. Jenny’s upstairs making her own outfit, because she said she didn’t need any help.

This is the first time I’ve ever been allowed to go Trick or Treating, but I know what it’s like because I’ve seen it on T.V. loads.

5.30pm

Jenny comes downstairs with a big cheesy grin on her face. She is wearing the bridesmaid dress she wore to Aunty Mandy’s wedding, which she has covered in fake blood and green felt tip. She says she’s going as a dead bridesmaid who drowned on the way to a wedding. Mum says she thinks Jenny looks fantastic, but I think she looks a bit O.T.T, which means over the top.

6.00pm

We knock on our neighbour Irene’s door. Her husband Alan answers and we say, ‘Trick or Treat!’. He says, ‘What’s all this about then?’

 Jenny tells him that he has to give us something like sweets or money. He digs around in his pocket and pulls out a packet of Extra Strong Mints and gives us one each. Then he tells us to beggar off, because Irene’s watching her programmes, and she doesn’t like being disturbed.

6.10pm

We carry on around our block, knocking on all the houses. We get an After Eight, 20p and half a packet of digestive biscuits. Nobody is having a cool party like they do on T.V. There are no pumpkins or cauldrons full of sweets. I don’t really think people in Eastern Green get Trick or Treating.

6.20pm

I step in a dog poo and tell Jenny I want to go home, but she makes us go to the next block, even though we’re not allowed to.

Jenny says that a witch lives in one of the houses on this block, but she can’t remember which one. We knock on a house that has a cactus on a shelf in the porch; Jenny says that’s the sign of a witch.

An old lady opens the door, and we say, ‘Trick or treat!’ she tells us to wait in her living room while she gets the biscuit tin from the kitchen. I forget to take my shoes off, because I’m scared, and get dog poo on her carpet, but she doesn’t notice.

While the old lady is in the kitchen, I ask Jenny if she thinks the she's a witch. Jenny says she’s not sure witch’s watch Home and Away and have a pink curtains.

When the old lady comes back she tells us that it’s nice having some visitors, because she hasn’t seen anyone apart from her carer in three weeks. She gives us a shortbread biscuit each and asks us if we’d like a cup of tea. I tell her we need to go, because we are only aloud out for half an hour.

6.40pm

When we get back to our house, Jenny and me aren’t speaking to each other, because we’ve been arguing about who gets to keep the After Eight. Nanny Pam answers the door and says we both have a face like a slapped arse. I tell her that I hate Eastern Green, I hate Jenny, and I hate Extra Strong Mints!


Nanny Pam swaps our After Eight for 50p and two squashed Cadbury’s Mini Rolls from her handbag. We eat all the stuff we got trick or treating on the sofa and tell ghost stories. Nanny Pam tells us one about the time she thought she saw a ghost in her neighbour Sue’s house, but it was just the Kev, the window cleaner.

Monday 5 October 2015

AMERICA


9.30am

I'm having a day off school, because my class are on a school trip to Coventry Football Stadium and Mum said that I’d get a better education staying at home today.

Nanny Pam has come round to look after me and we are on the sofa watching Super Market Sweep. Nanny Pam shouts at the lady on the T.V. 'Quiches are in the chiller you daft cow!’

9.35am

We can hear a man coughing up a greeney outside the front door. It’s Grandad. 

Grandad has been away in America for a few weeks after he split up with Candy. Mum said Candy was sick of living in Grandad’s static caravan full of his useless old crap.

I'm worried because Nanny Pam and Grandad always argue when they see each other and it makes me feel funny.

Grandad’s wearing cowboy boots, shorts and a shirt with nudey women holding guitars on it.

Nanny Pam laughs her head off when she sees him. He says 'Pammy, I'm a new man. I think you're going to start regretting kicking this cowboy out!'

Nanny Pam laughs even more and says ‘I’m going into the kitchen to make a coffee, when I come back in I want to watch This Morning in peace, without you here’.

9.50am

Grandad sits down, lights a big brown cigarette and starts watching Supermarket Sweep, he shouts at the lady, ‘Go for the electricals, you daft cow!’ 

The cigarette smells horrible, so I put my mouth and nose into my Count Dukula T-shirt.

10.00am

When Supermarket Sweep finishes, Grandad tells me he's not used to such crap telly, or small couches, or tiny houses like this. He says the bog in his hotel was bigger than our living room. Then he gives me a present. It’s a lighter that says: ‘I GOT LUCKY IN LAS VEGAS’ on it.

I ask him lots of questions like:

 Did he go to a Prom? Is the McDonalds the same? Did he have a corn dog? Did he have a telly on the plane?

Grandad says all I need to know is that America is bigger, brighter and better than this shit hole. 

10.05am

Nanny Pam comes back in with a cup of coffee and a Mint Choc Options for me. 

This Morning comes on and Nanny Pam says, ‘Times up Skint Eastwood. Judy’s waxing Richard’s leg in a minute, and I don’t want you ruining it by talking silly bollocks about America’. 

Grandad says, ‘We were like Richard and Judy once’

Nanny Pam says, ‘If you mean I was the long suffering wife of an arrogant arse hole then I suppose we were.’ 

10.30am

I go to my room while Nanny Pam and Grandad argue. I wrap the lighter in half a loo roll and put it in my special shoebox next to my pig ornaments. 

I spy on our next-door neighbour Carol doing her gardening for a bit and think about America.