Up Our Yard

Through the rose tinted spectacles of time and with a selective memory let us take a journey back to 1952 to a time when most of us mere mortals lived in small yards also known as courts. Each yard had six or eight two up and two down tiny terraced houses, there was an outside toilet at the bottom of the yard shared by all the inhabitants, there was usually a wash house, again shared. The King has died, his daughter Elizabeth becomes Queen. What was life like for us peasants in those days? With a little imagination let us find out. Why don't we start when Ernie Bagnall died and the funeral directors had to lower him down out of the front window because he was too big to get down the narrow and steep stairs. As Florrie Morgan pointed out that was selfish of Ernie, if he hadn't felt well he should have spent the night on the couch downstairs. It all went well until the funeral directors let him slip through their fingers, he landed in the sidecar of a motorcycle combination which was parked underneath the bedroom window and he stuck fast. His widow, Elsie, not wanting a fuss, not relishing the spectacle of seeing the neighbours watch as her old man was prised free from the sidecar dressed only in his shroud made the decision that her Ernie should realise an ambition he had always had and have a ride in the sidecar. She had never let him go before on account of his health, but as Frank, the owner of the motorcycle combination points out, it really doesn't matter much now, does it? Frank was quickly enrolled as the chauffeur and is instructed to drive Ernie to his own funeral in the sidecar where in the relative privacy of the cemetery they will stand a better chance of prising him free. Frank isn't sure he wants the job but when Florrie, his wife backs up Elsie's decision  Frank has to give in. He goes indoors to fethch his cap and off they go.