The Early Days. |
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The wabbit in the pitcher were dubbed 'The Rabbit King of Sydenham' by the Daily Mirror in an article about it, and how it (literally) kicked doggies out of the garding. Rusty's Pa are sitting on the right, lwking all neat and tidy innit. |
Indeed, the wabbit were so formidable that he featured in the Mirror's cratoon strip 'Pip, Squeak and Wilfred' as a tutor to Wilfred (a weak willowy wimp wabbit) to teach him to become a Big, Bad, Bold Butch Bunny.
But a weak wasn't enuff innit.
Remind me sometime, and I'll post the article and the cartoon strips.
And shortly before the war he seems to have traded the wabbit for a pipe:
(And the chair for a log. [Ed])
This was at the Lodnol Horse Spittal Anne Eggs in Lestre, or as the maps writ it to confuzzle Herr Adolf Schickelgruber and his fiends, Leicester.
[66] Flight Sergeant Hinge were stationed at RAF Croydon, and were on weak end home leave when some Army blerk in the Ack-Ack lobbed a 3·7" or 4·5" shell at one of Reichmarshal Goering's Luftwaffe bummers, and forgot to light the fuse.
Rusty's pa were in the kitching stoking the boiler when the shell came down again, having neglected to transform itself into flak in the proper place. Apart from him, two others in the adjacent room were unmolished, including the neckst-door neighbour, who was sitting beside Mrs. Hinge.
Fortunately for Mrs. Hinge, and for Rusty, she were not in direct line of the blast, as, being a proper British shell, it used the doorway. At the thyme, Rusty were in the cupboard under the stairs trying to grow into a wizard innit.
Being an accomplished escape artist and totally without modesty.........
...but biding his time he growed up 
Don't be deceived. He might look clean, neat and tidy, but on the occasion these Polyphotos were taken his mother was in charge, so he would be, wooden he? There are other aspects to the character of this little angel which have a darker aspect, like, when he found anything which would rub off on him.
It has always been a matter of regret that this propensity to collect influences only applied to the physical, such as mud, jam, soot, wet paint, oil, coal dust &c., or any combination of them, and not the more attractive attribute of, say, picking up the rudiments of algebra, tidiness, organisation, &c..
Ah well, you can't have everything.
And more: (but not yet - watch this space.)
While Mrs. Hinge was qualifying as a physioterrorist the young Rusty were packed orft to bawdy school at Seaford, in the vain hope that Herr Schickelgrüber might land there secretly and apply DISCIPLINE. However, this were not to be.
Seaford was chosen as a fit plaice for a young Rusty as his stepfather-to-be was an hofficer i/c an ack-ack battery at Newhaven, so weak ends by the sea were Mrs. Hinge's delight. She rented a small flat so that she could have Rusty for the whole weak end and sometimes see Lt. Rustypa-in-waiting and molish toys for Rusty out of Plasticene and Glitter Wax.
Some slight echos from that thyme unforgets Rusty of odd happenings, such as dens mantled from tables and chairs and tablecloths, the smell of polish, chalk, ink and so-on, slices of beef with bright yellow fat, and that he had a fiend called Paul, who fell from Grace. Grace was a butter-fingers innit.
At a weak end Mrs. Hinge came to take the ickle puritan to the flat she rented in the town, and happened to ask after Paul. Rusty said: "I don't talk to him any more. He tells lies." Interrogation [87] elicited the intelligence that Paul had told him that if he looked into that vase on the chest of drawers he would be turned into a block of salt.
"I wasn't." He explained.
On another occasion, he were noshing Sunday breakfast in the flat when he needed to spring a leak. As he left the table he whispered to Mrs. Hinge: "Guard my toast!" The influence of that school had a long reach.
One Sunday Mrs. Hinge took him to the Battery to visit his Rustypa-in-waiting, and on the way there they came upon a churned-up area where tankses had been dancing. "Is that the Officers' Mess?" He asked, careful to avoid dropping any cojbait.
On one of these visits Lt. Bracket's batman molished bananananana sandwiches for Rusty. Banananananas bean in rather short supply at the thyme he mantled his own wiv boiled parsnip and sugar, and ver gud it were TAAAW.
He remembers Pieter and Marijka, the son and daughter of Prince Baudouin's secretary, and if anyone has any clue about their whereabouts, Rusty would be pleased to be informed.
AAW, there were a Michael Pitt. - Message to Michael Pitt: Rusty forgives you. (Besides, Rusty cud run fasterer than you innit.)
[87] This is during the war, you understand.
During the holy days Rusty repaired to a rented house in Hornchurch and watched returning Spitfires from RAF Hornchurch. They used to drive down the road he lived in because it were a gud landmark, being as it was a half mile avenue of conker trees. Mined dew, the surface were unmade so they kept their wheelses a bit above it, NAAW they wooden have fitted between the trees so they had to drive a bit higher still.
Young Rusty were quite full of himself when he waved at one as it approached and it dipped its wingtips attim.
The house in Hornchurch were put up for sale by the owner so Mrs. Hinge and the young Rusty removed to a bungle-oh in Corbetts Tey, and behind this dwelling there was a big long overgrown meadow wot were seething with lizards, frogs, toads, meeces, grass snakes, ratses, voles and shrewses with a big long lake beyond the grassy bit fringed with reedmace and overfluttered by dragoon flies. It were a paradise for an inquisitive anklebiter.
Christmas 1944, and Rusty came into possession of an arj toy, the long-promised Lt. Bracket, wot had been a pre-whoar colleague of Mrs. Hinge and Flight Sergeant Hinge in the Head Orofice of Bankley's Bark. This brung up his tally of Grammers and Grumpus to six, or two brace to those of a sporting Diss position.
Since it were plain by lack of planes carrying the crooked cross for Lt. Bracket to shoot at wiv his Boomfers and 3·7" gnus that Herr Schickelgruber were not ideally placed to come visiting, Mrs. Hinge - now Mrs. Bracket - and Lt. Bracket decided that they should ohl the house in Hornchurch, so the fambly removed back again. Becoming a qualified physioterrorist the arj Mrs. Bracket joined Harold Wood Horse Spittal, the well-known rival of Pickfords, where she did her period of practical experience and, during the school holly daze the ickle Rusty was trainspotted to Harold Wood Horse spittle in a wooden child seat (molished by Lt. Bracket) on the back of Mrs. Bracket's incyclicle.
Rusty then went to a day school about a mile away, and he used to walk there unaccompanied each day. Well, walk there is a bit of an overstatement, as he used to start off in that direction. However, Rusty always was easily distracted. Well, he still is. One parent tells how she drove past with her son and saw Rusty dropping pebbles down a drane. Though the school was only a few hundred yards away, she said she stopped and offered Rusty a lift, which he declined. On the way back, he was still dropping pebbles down the drane. At lunchtime she came to collect her son and, you've guessed it, Rusty was there, still dropping pebbles down the drane. 'Plop!'
While Lt. Bracket was still in the Army, it were difficult keeping tabs on Rusty, so he was packed off to the school in Seaford again. By this thyme it had done a Topsy and its proprietrix bought a much biggerer house at the top end of the town, and it were Heaven. Early in the war it had been a Home Guard Post, and the grounds and sheds were stuffed full of interesting things. There were gas masks, ammo boxen, webbing, live rounds, a revolver, a grenade - you name it, if it was small enough not to catch ones immediate attention, like say, a Bren Gun Carrier or a field gnu, the pupils found it.
The rounds were stored in two biscuit tins in the big privet hedge, ·303" in one box and ·22" in the other. There were live rounds with bullets, and blanks. It was a matter of great regret that there no rifles for the rounds and there were no ammo for the revolver, however, everything except the revolver were stockpiled in the hedge. The revolver changed habds constantly, depending on whether its current owner could withstand the blandishment of chocolate, or a Dinky Toy.
Rusty's mother came to take him out one weekend and he said: "Promise you won't tell anyone, and I'll show you a secret." She promised. Rusty showed her. And she told! At the age of five, Rusty discovered that a secret was no longer a secret if you told anybody else. Perhaps it was just as well: we never did find out whether the grenade was live...
