Paul Malpas

It must have been in the early 1970s, possibly the winter of 1972 when an extra special case of mistaken identity took place in the suburbs of South Manchester.  As I was witness to this particular incident and saw what happened, I will never ever give credence to charges brought against a person accused of a crime and picked out at an identity parade by an acceptable witness to such a crime.

The players in this particularly unfortunate incident were:-

Alan Malpas, my father, in his prime at this time, 54 years old, mild mannered in ladies’ company, surly and unapproachable in male circles, with a sharp temper kept under control but liable to break out unexpectedly in moments of stress, a Conservative councillor for Longsight, in Manchester. married to a Justice of the Peace, deputy chief apparitor of St. Robert’s Church in Longsight, a pillar of the community and a big fish in a small pond, who had a name to look after.

Howard Skelton, a fine upstanding Longsight man who had served his time as a printer and at 6’2″ tall and about 17 stone weight, was  not a man to mess with.  Captain of  East Levenshulme cricket team, he doubled as a very competent opening batsman and wicketkeeper.  He decided at about 30 years of age to join the Greater Manchester Police force.  He was a man of the streets, feared nobody and these particular traits soon brought him to the attention of his superiors and at this time, having been recently promoted to Sergeant, had taken over the desk  at Didsbury Police Station in South Manchester.  At 35 years old, he was a man on his way up and liked by everyone who had no reason to fear him.

Paul Malpas, myself, a humble sub-contractor in the civil engineering industry, carrying out drainage works on motorways all over England, returning often to Manchester when the work enabled and joining up with old friends like Howard, to enjoy a couple of pints and also to further his betrothal to Helen Towey, the love of his life.  Howard and Paul had a long acquaintance from East Levenshulme Cricket Club and we both enjoyed a few off duty drinks at Longsight Conservative Club.

Kevin Malpas, my younger brother by 16 months, who was another man to fear, 6′ 0″ tall and 16 stone weight, with a nose to prove more than a passing interest in a clenched fist.  At one time training to be a missionary priest, he had passed his vocation up when he realized he would have to leave Manchester to carry out his duties.  With drink taken, his anger would surface very quickly and his change of personality was not nice to watch.  However on more than one occasion Howard had steered him from danger by using a more superior force than Kevin could muster.

Brian Cain, a diminutive taxi-driver, having to work night shifts at his precarious occupation, driving round the wilds of drug and drink laced Manchester, faced with increasing costs he could not control from a supposedly regulated industry which in fact was one out of control, with rogue drivers paying service to a gangster culture that was slowly gaining command of the streets of the town.  Brian, an Englishman with Dublin connections, was a man at the end of his tether.

Helen Towey, an unassuming, honest-to-goodness type of girl and the prospective wife of Paul Malpas, hoping shortly to marry her intended in the following March, on St. Patrick’s Day.  Helen was a quiet and kind girl whose Mayo parents had come to Manchester 35 years previously to escape the poverty of De Valera’s Ireland of the 1930s and obviously knew how to keep their heads below the parapet.

A.N. Other, a man about town, of lower working class extraction, who, although a good and honest worker during the week, followed the habits of his stock by dressing up on Saturdays and spending the day and night drinking in the many legal and illegal drinking clubs of South Manchester, eventually regaining his doorstep and sleeping off his excesses on the Sunday, penniless until the following Thursday.

Scene 1.

Howard Skelton, the desk sergeant at Didsbury Police Station is halfway through his Saturday night shift.  It had been a busy one, with a stabbing outside a pub 100 yards from the station, a couple of loons full of something or other who thought they were Bruce Lee, three or four drunks who did not know where they lived and a local whore who had tried to steal a few quid off a customer who she thought was sleeping off his excesses at the local hotel.  The six cells were overflowing, Howard had had enough and he was thirsty, he was managing the station and could not get out like the beat bobbies, to enjoy a pint after time in one of the local hostelries.

A stuttering fart of a taxi-driver enters the station, effing and blinding.

Brian Cain. I’ve been shuttling this fellah round Didsbury for half an hour, he is that drunk he does not know where he is, never mind where he wants to go to and I want my fare.

Howard goes out to the taxi and immediately recognizes the drunk as Kevin Malpas and gives him a playful tap on the jaw to waken him.

Howard’s playful taps normally knocked out offenders and this was no exception, the man was now prostrate in the back of the cab.  He turned to the surprised driver and told him to follow him back into the station.

Howard. OK taximan, I know this fucker, the best and easiest way to get your money is to take him to this address, 2 Birchfields Road in Longsight.  I will ring them now and tell them you are coming.  They will pay you.  They are alright OK.

Brian.  Fuck me, OK then

Scene 2

It was after midnight on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, Paul Malpas and Helen Towey after enjoying a couple of pints and a game of cards in the bar at Longsight Conservative Club, nothing too grand for this serious courting couple who were saving like mad for their forthcoming nuptials. They had decided to call in to see Alan’s wife Margaret and chew the cud for half an hour.  The phone rang at this late hour and Alan picked up the phone with some trepidation.

Alan. Hello

Howard. Is that you, Alan?

Alan. Yes

Howard. I have that dickhead son of yours outside the station in a taxi, he’s as pissed as arseholes.  I am telling the taxi-driver to take him to your house, you pay the driver and knock some kind of sense into that prick son of yours.  It is either that or I am locking him up and he will be in front of a special magistrates court in the morning.

Alan. Thanks Howard, send him round and I will deal with him and the driver.

Scene 3

Alan Malpas, his eldest son Paul and his very concerned future wife, Helen Towey are stood on the pavement outside  2 Birchfields Road waiting for the taxi to turn up.  Lights approach, a taxi is recognized and Alan puts out his hand for the cab to stop.

Brian. I’ve been told to bring this fellah round to you.  Can I have my fare please.

Alan. Hang on a minute while I get this bollocks out

He opens the back door and the Kevin is just coming round from Howard’s playful tap when he gets an humdinger from his father who, I know from painful experience, packs a fair punch. Alan skuldrags Kevin out of the taxi by his legs and drags him to the hedge.

Alan. Sorry about this driver, how much do I owe you?  He is my son and I will take care of him now.

Brian. I’ve been driving him around for ages  and he could not tell me where he lived.  That will be £5 10 shillings please.

Alan.  Bloody hell, you must have been driving around all day.  Here’s your money now fuck off.

Turning round he gives Kevin’s now supine body a few kicks and attempts to pull him up, Paul observantly exclaims.

Paul.  Hang on a minute, that’s not Kevin.

Alan. Course it is Howard said……….

Gathering our thoughts and leaving the drunk lying against the gatepost Alan and Paul, followed by the distressed Helen return to the house to phone up Howard.

Howard. Didsbury Police Station here.

Paul. What the fuck is going on. This taxi pulls up with a drunk in the back, you told us it was Kevin, my dad as given him a few wallops and we find out it is not him.

Howard. Well it was Kevin in the back of the fucking taxi here. You must have signalled the wrong one to stop.

The three witnesses slowly walk back out to the battered victim to apologize for their mistake only to see him staggering off along Birchfields Road, rubbing his jaw with one hand and soothing the pain from the kicks he had received with the other and no doubt ruminating on whether a Saturday night out on the town was worth it.  They also wondered what kind of hooch the Desk Sergeant at Didsbury Police Station was on during a very busy Saturday night shift.

From the age of 23 to 25 I was working for myself employing between 40 and 50 men on various road contracts that kept half the Irishmen in England in employment at that time.  We worked in Gloucestershire on the M5 motorway and around Telford in Shropshire which was in the process of turning itself into a new town.

After a couple of years of this itinerant lifestyle and although having met some very decent lads, I was fed up, the lovely Helen was calling me from a distance; my time had come, I wanted to settle down and settle down I did.  I did not bother working for six months, but I tried to work out a fool-proof mathematical system of making a living out of backing horses.  I would now tell you that it was a foolish notion but not then, I was 25 and I knew how to do it.

Six months later I was broke, my money was lost, the horses were still running and I needed a proper job.  In the meantime I had gathered together a deposit (£700) to put to a semi-detached three bedroomed house in South Manchester.  Alfred McAlpine, the motorway builder, welcomed me with open arms, and I spent a few happy months there before marriage, on the M63/M56 interchange at KIngsway, learning an awful lot about my chosen profession.

It was a time of massive union unrest in the construction industry.  The unions were at their strongest, never before or since have they weilded such power.  The Irish lads were not of course intetrested.  All they wanted to do was keep working away with a good bonus, and McAlpine provided both the work and the bonus in abundance.

One day union pickets arrived on Kingsway and although we managed to get on site one morning, the going home was thought to be tricky.  McAlpine’s agent, a man of many years experience, toured the site that day, hand picking men from different gangs.  He told them what was required and this collection of men formed the vanguard for departure.  They piled into the union pickets.  I learnt afterwards that the scouse loud mouth and leader of the union men was Ricky Tomlinson who became an actor afterwards.  When I saw him that evening, he was giving a great impression of a dead man, felled by a large Irish fist.

I stayed with McAlpine for about nine months and in that time married Helen Towey, who began the long and troublesome journey of teaching me how to behave in polite society.  We are still on lesson No. 1 after 37 years.  I do not pick things up to quickly and the older I get the slower I am at nicety.

A local firm of civil engineering contractors, led by a Roscommon man from Garranlahan, outside of Ballinlough, with whom my mother’s family had long term connections invited me to join them.  I liked and knew a lot of their workforce, so the move went like clockwork.  The first tender I priced, we won. the demolition and muckshift on a motorway contract in Sharston in Manchester.

I was back on home territory.  The “craic” in the cabin at lunchtime was fantastic.  Stories told of days long gone and lies in abundance, all showing the true character of the undiminished Irishman.  The first wave of Irish after the war were all at their peak, 45-50 years old, settled and happy enough with their married lives but still young enough to remember their precocious youth.

One character I remember from those days was Dick Murray, who used to drive his own wagon for years but he was driving a dozer for us at the time.  his wife was reckoned to be the best wagon fitter in Manchester.  I know Jim Towey, my father in law,  swore by her and always rang her up when he had a problem with his wagons.  Dick was as wide as he was high and his lies and stories were wider still.  When he died they had to bury him twice.  His coffin had to be specially made because of his width and nobody told the gravedigger.  When we tried to get him into the grave he would not fit so the gravediggers told us to throw a few sods over him and retire.  It seemed strange walking away from him, with his coffin lying there as though waiting for a lift to work.  Not even Dick could have thought up such an ending.  Later that day when everybody was gone the gravediggers removed the timbers and took about 600mm off one side of the grave and slid him in.

The male Irish immigrant fell into three categories when they came over to England.  There was the rough and ready type who never settled down. Long distance kiddies as they were known, who drank all they earned and after a few years with no money were ashamed to go home, settling in to short lived relationships and ending up their days in some flat or lodging house, prematurely aged with a poor level of health and with no intention of returning home.  Secondly there were the majority who understood their responsibilities, sending money back home and having a great time in their youth, before settling down, marrying and having families, returning home fairly often, always in work and earning a decent wage, some returning home in their retirement for good.

The last type were those that tried to integrate into English society, completely changing their accents and culture, not mixing with the rest of the Irish crowd and striving to live in what they saw as a higher social class.  generally these people earned less than the second type and normally had a much harder life.  Certainly they did not seem to enjoy their chosen path.  Sean Mannion, a Glenamaddy man I knew always used to say to me that if it was not for the fair Helen, I would have ended up in a flat on Stockport Road, which definitely would have  put me in the first category.