Monday, 5th May 1975
Sometimes I wonder what my parents really thought when we swapped our sleepy village life for the bustling edge of Manchester. I was excited, of coursea new house, a new start. We bought a semi-detached on the outskirts, thinking the world was our oyster. But then, the oddest thing happened.
I remember how, back in the countryside, neighbours always lent a hand. My parents were no exception. So, when the previous owners asked if they could stay on for a week or two after the sale, my mum and dad thought nothing of itjust a neighbourly gesture, they said. They had some paperwork to finalise, apparently.
The real issue was their massive, ill-tempered Rottweiler, Brutus. None of us wanted him, and he certainly didnt care to mind us. That dogI’ll never forget him for as long as I live.
One week passed, then another, and then a third. The old owners were still there, lounging about the house as if nothing had changed. I never saw them leave during the day, barely ever dressed before supper. It became swiftly obvious they had no intention of moving out. Most astonishing of all was the matriarch, Mrs Wilsonshe still carried on as if she ran the place.
Mum and Dad gently reminded them, time and again, about our agreement, but their leaving kept being put off. Meanwhile, Brutus ran riot. The Wilsons let him roam wherever he pleased, never mind that he fouled the flowerbeds. To tell the truth, we were all frightened to step outside. He was aggressive with everyone. My parents pleaded with the Wilsons to keep him under control, but every morning as soon as Dad went off to his job at the factory, and my brother Tom and sister Harriet left for school, Brutus was right back in our garden.
Fate, oddly enough, meant that the dog ended up sorting out the Wilsons for us.
One afternoon, Harriet came home from school, not knowing Brutus was loose. She strolled through the gate, and in a flash, the beast knocked her over. By some miracle, she escaped with just a grazed knee. We managed to grab Brutus and chain him up, but the Wilsons had the audacity to blame poor Harriet for coming home too early.
That evening, everything changed. Dad returned from work, slipped off his coat, andwithout so much as a worddragged Mrs Wilson and her daughter bodily into the street. Mr Wilson followed, shouting. Their bits and bobs landed unceremoniously over the fence, right into the muddy verge and puddles.
The Wilsons tried to sic Brutus on my dad in a last act of defiance, butthankfullyBrutus cowered in his kennel, wanting nothing to do with any of it. By the end of the hour, their belongings were in the rain, the garden gate was locked, and the Wilsons (plus their brute of a dog) were staring through the fence from the other side.
Looking back, the whole incident seems almost hilarious, but at the time, it felt like chaos. It’s funny how a touch of English stubbornnessplus an unruly dogput things to rights. The house, at last, was truly ours, and my parents’ kindness, though stretched to breaking, didn’t buckle beneath the strain.
