Jolly

Jeremy Turk

318 words

When I was young I used to holiday with my maternal grandparents in Brighton. They owned a modest dress shop on what was then the main retail drag, London Road. Every morning my grandfather would arrange rows of clothing along rails in the short passageway leading to the front door. Display dresses crowded the front window space along with two memorable small signs, "a small deposit secures any article" and "morning wear a speciality". My grandparents lived above the shop along with their pet cat Bunty who served a vital role keeping vermin at bay. The upstairs clothing store room had a strong naphthalene odour from the multiple moth balls scattered about to protect the contents; I have a Proustian reaction to the aroma to this day.

Holidays followed a predictable and enjoyable routine. A day on the Volks electric seafront railway to Peter Pan playground and onwards to Black Rock beach. A day of cartoons in the cinema, and a day taking the lift up and down the steep cliff face between town and esplanade. If lucky there was also a drive to the downs to scamper about while grandparents sat in their garden chairs otherwise carried permanently in the car boot. But the most exciting day for me was the visit to one of the two piers. Grandma was regular berated by her husband for losing so much money on the fruit machines, known suitably as one-armed bandits. However, I remained fascinated by the automatons which for an old penny would perform a crude yet somehow highly entertaining routine. There was "the haunted graveyard", others which now would be far too politically incorrect to describe, and my favourite, the Jolly Jack Tar who did nothing but wobble about on his stand, laughing hysterically in a highly mechanical and artificial fashion. Looking back, it was extraordinary that I found it so enthralling and mesmerising. Yet I did.