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| Boring, Boring.... |
Sally was my grandparents' neighbour in the terraced street of 20 houses where we lived until I was four. She lived at no 19, diagonally across the cobbled street from my grandparents at no 18. The street was twenty cobbles wide, and with little or no traffic, they were a more exciting way to learn to count than an abacus. Sally worked the morning shift at a local mill and would come across for a cup of tea and a chat with my mum and grandma when she got home. Her language sparkled with Lancashire idioms, although she toned down the expletives in my presence: "bleeding 'erry " instead of "bloody hell. She always wore a headscarf tied at the front to keep her hair out of the looms.
Sally would curse Wilf, her husband, and accuse others in the street of being "bad 'uns". The Doyles had two sons in Borstal, and the Hudsons had 5 children and smelt of fish, not surprising given that they lived in a 2-bedroom flat above Macfisheries. She could let fly at bin men who dropped rubbish or window cleaners who missed a window with full on mill language. Apart from that, Sally, the pride of our alley, would help anyone in trouble; her rough demeanour concealed a heart of gold.
It was her reference to bad 'uns that has stuck with me. She meant people who could not be trusted; they would steal and do unacceptable things to other people. I realised this at school; there were boys, and it was mainly boys, who would cheat, lie, bully and steal. You could easily spot the bad 'uns; they acquired reputations, and you had to be wary of them,
In adult life, bad 'uns often presented positive attributes but they could do far more damage. It was still possible to spot them. Many folk were attracted to them as they displayed their power or celebrity and, by doing so, encouraged their bravado and sense of entitlement. I could never understand the popularity of Jimmy Savile; he was an obvious bad ‘un. I remember in my first Glasgow Marathon getting stuck behind him and his entourage of a hundred or so runners as we ran along Bath Street. He had started ahead of his expected finishing time and subjected a thousand or so runners to getting stuck behind him and his entourage as he waved to the crowds. What a wanker.
There are lots of others who seemed obviously bad 'uns years before they were outed: Gary Glitter, Robert Maxwell, Nicolas Fairbairn, Mohamad Al-Fayad, ex Prince Andrew, Owen Paterson, Russell Brand, Michelle Mone, as well as neighbours and work colleagues who you steered clear of.
The whole world is aware that there are global bad 'uns like the US and Russian Presidents, Netanyahu, the Israeli PM and his ministers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. And after watching the shady money deals and duplicitous jeering and bad handling of demonstrators at their conference as Farage led the chants of boring, boring, it is hard not to believe that Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick and Zia Yusuf are the UK's top team of bad 'uns. Oh, for Sally to be with us to give them a good skelping.
