2.
In Aunty Latch's COZEE NOOK
.... which is a bowl of disconcertingly grey soup and a slice of disappointingly grey bread (the lunch, not the Cozee Nook, obviously).
Uncle Reefer disappears into the tangle of weeds he calls his 'back garden', leaving Aunty Latch and Yo-yo in the kitchen with their distant cousin and permanent resident Lily Gusset.
''I can't belieeeeve how you've grown,'' gushes Lily Gusset. ''You're sooooo tall now. I can't belieeeeeeve you're still only ten.''
''Thirteen,'' Yo-yo corrects, ''And I haven't grown at all. Not one inch.''
''No, but you look as though you have, and that's what counts.'' Lily Gusset pats his knee and scratches her stubble. Lily is a reverse transvestite. Sometimes she is a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man and sometimes a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman. Today s/he is the latter, a strapping six-footer with huge balloons squeezed into a skin-clinging knee-length black frock. Her hairy legs would make a gorilla jealous. Make-up is plastered over her five o'clock shadow.
''I remember when you were a little boy,'' s/he sighs, flicking long blonde hair away from her square shoulders. ''You used to climb on to my knee and say 'Aunty Lily, sing me a song' and I'd dandle you in my hands and sing
''If I were the only boy in the world
And also the only girl …''
S/he quavers a little on the high notes. Yo-yo smiles fondly. Lily has always been kind to him. ''How's your mother?'' s/he says.
''Fine.'' Yo-yo scoops up the last of the soup with the last of the bread. ''She killed Dad in the end, you know. Bashed in his head with the coal shovel and buried his body under the beets. So I cut her throat with a hacksaw blade.''
''Hahaha,'' laughs Lily Gusset, ruffling his hair. ''That's nice. How's Gillworthy?''
''I drove a bulldozer through the wall and ploughed up their lawn,'' Yo-yo replies.
''What would you like to do this afternoon?'' Aunty Latch clears away the soup bowl and spoon.
''I'd like to explore,'' Yo-yo says, ''Have a look round York. What's the weather going to do?''
''Well,'' says Aunty Latch, ''We have sunny patches now, but cloud will start moving in from the west bringing a brisker wind and the chance of a shower or two later in the evening. Temperatures will be in the region of 10 to 15 degrees Celsius, that's 50 to 59 Fahrenheit, so a pleasantly warm spring afternoon. Looking ahead…''
She pulls a chart down from the ceiling.
''Tonight will be cooler, with a little light rain, temperatures around 3 or 4, but tomorrow will be brighter, temperatures higher than today, with sunny spells especially by the coast, where Scarborough can expect unseasonally warm weather, around 18 to 20 degrees, but, over the next two or three days, coming into the middle of next week, things will get cloudier and cooler, though still mild, with occasional outbreaks of rain and a stiff wind as this front moves in from the Atlantic. Sunrise will be at 0527, sunset 8.40. Leeds Time, of course, and the tide times, at Filey Bay, high tides at 0244 and 1518, low tides at 0913 and 2121, that's twenty past nine. For more information check out our website and I'll be back at 11 with the late night coastal and shipping forecast. But that's all from me for now, so it's back to Harry in the studio, and a very good evening.''
Harry Gration: Thanks, Aunty Latch. So a nice weekend coming up for the racing and don't forget the Roses match starts at Headingley tomorrow. Can't wait.
Now, how many of you remember Leeds Children's Day? The Yorkshire Film Archive has recently unearthed some fascinating footage.
Christa Ackroyd: Yes, and we are wondering if you were one of those who danced round the maypole or ran in the egg and spoon race.
Harry Gration: Or maybe you were in the beauty pageant or even Queen of the Day.
Christa Ackroyd: Muriel Cowpat was Queen of the Day in 1957 and she's here in the studio to share her memories of that day.
Harry Gration: But first, here's a look at some of that footage…
Yo-yo switches off the T.V. ''I hate Look Bloody North,'' he growls.
''Well,'' says Lily Gusset, ''Maybe we can go to the park instead.''
After lunch, Yo-yo explores the COZEE NOOK. It is just as dispiritingly gloomy as he remembers it from the time he visited with his mother. The living room contains heavy, old-fashioned, dark, wooden furniture, thick velveteen curtains in shades of deep burgundy, china figurines of coy, bonneted girls carrying baskets, small rod-bearing bare-footed boys wearing battered straw hats and those irritating handbag-sized yappy-dogs that resemble long-haired rats. Distressed aspidistras caked in dust rest on drab doilies whilst dreary paintings of river-bank scenes in brown and dun and dark green oils die inside over-elaborate, curlicue-edged, gilt-sprayed wooden frames. Coffee-coloured tablecloths and cream-cushioned chairs complement the chocolate-dark panels that distinguish the dining room whilst the kitchen's tan tiles are dirt-dimmed with age, the tired, grey grouting rough to the touch. The huge feather-beds in the bedrooms are smothered under heavy, dusky pink, flock-covered quilts while plump pillows nestle against padded, pink headboards. Yes, he decides, Uncle Reefer and Aunty Latch have really done it up a treat.
He heads upstairs to say hello to Mrs Lollipop, another long-term resident of the COZEE NOOK who has known him for years and who is bed-ridden from the nose down. She sits in semi-darkness, a pink cap crammed over her softly greying curls, her pink chins quivering gently, her porky pink hand clutching a walking stick which she frequently bangs against the chamber pot under her bed to attract attention.
Mrs Lollipop has been bed-ridden for around forty-five of her fifty years. When she was a little girl, she had caught a cold. Her mother called out the doctor who told her to put the little girl to bed ''until I pop round next week.'' Unfortunately, the very next day the doctor met with a bizarre accident when he slipped on a patch of vanilla ice cream on the top step of York Minster's tower and tumbled down the entire stone staircase to fetch up in a crumpled heap against the bolted, oak door. Mrs Lollipop's mother, following orders, kept her daughter in bed waiting for the doctor to return. Mrs Lollipop is still in bed, and unless the doctor returns from the grave, she will stay there till she dies.
''Yo-yo, my sweetling!'' Her flabby jowls quiver. ''Come kiss your Aunty Lolly.''
Yo-yo closes his eyes and puckers his lips. Kissing Aunty Lolly is like kissing a chimney sweep's brush.
''You're looking fat,'' he remarks.
''Why, thank you, my dearling.'' Mrs Lollipop settles herself against the plump pink pillows. ''It's my new diet. Egg and prune curry. You have to try it. It's a taste to die for. And you .. look at you. You've shrunk. I think you've lost a good couple of inches in height. But at least you look like a nine year old now.''
''I'm thirteen,'' says Yo-yo firmly, ''Nearly fourteen, in fact.''
''How's your mother, my codling?''
''She's dead, Mrs Lollipop,'' Yo-yo replies. ''She killed my father with a sledgehammer and buried his body among the sweet peas so I poisoned her coffee. Her feet went numb and her blood turned to mud.''
''Did it, sweetling?'' says Mrs Lollipop. ''That's nice.''
Something taps
TOC TOC TOC
on the bedroom window.
''That'll be Baby,'' says Mrs Lollipop. ''Be a dearling and let him in, will you?''
Baby is Mrs Lollipop's blackbird. Glossily feathered, he generally perches on a bedside chair-back nibbling nuts from a bag slung over the bed-post.
''All right?'' says the blackbird as Yo-yo closes the window behind him.
''Fine,'' Yo-yo answers. ''You?''
''Can't complain.'' Baby settles onto his perch. ''Nice ring.''
Yo-yo touches the ring on the chain round his neck. ''It's something my mother gave me to remember her by just before she died. She had cancer, you know.''
Baby squints at it. ''Very nice. Very shiny. Can I have it for my nest?''
''You don't have a nest,'' Yo-yo answers, ''You live here.''
/> ''Yeah, but I'd like a nest of my own one day,'' sighs Baby.
''Somewhere to take the birds, eh?'' Yo-yo says before he can stop himself.
''I find that a deeply disrespectful remark,'' sniffs Baby, haughtily taking offence. ''It's insulting to bird-kind and the birdness of birds.'' He sighs again. ''You know what I mean. A place of my own in a nice tall tree, maybe a poplar, a larch or even an aspen, countryside views, away from the bustle and noise of the city, settle down, get a wife, have some eggs, you know … every bird's pastoral dream.…''
Mrs Lollipop has fallen asleep. Her chins wobble whilst snores snuffle softly out of her mouth. Yo-yo says goodbye to Baby and closes the bedroom door quietly behind him. A bear ambles past.
''All right?'' says the bear.
''Aye, not so bad,'' Yo-yo replies. ''Yourself?''
''Mustn't grumble,'' says the bear, and enters his room.
3.
Into the City
OLD yellow walls
Grassy banks covered in daffodils
Cobbled streets
White and black half-timbered houses
Great STONE gates surmounted with statues
Medieval Churches skulking on corners
Ancient Pubs with oak-beamed ceilings
Buskers playing pianos in shopping streets
Bridges