Eight Muni Old Boys
Book'd Italian Heaven
One scored treble nine
And then there were seven
There was a reunion of the 1958 Muni pupils in 1998. About half of the original 120 intake turned up. The invitation letter had promised that by responding, the recipients were not letting themselves in for a torrent of junk mail and we, the organisers, undertook never to do it again. As it turned out, it was a huge success and on the night and in subsequent letters of thanks, it was suggested that there be another. But we stuck to our guns. Until 2015, when Patrick Isherwood set up a lunch for a handful of us in Birmingham. Sadly, one of our wives died and we decided to call it off at the last minute. Undaunted, Patrick began again a year later and eight - Steve Brazier, Patrick Isherwood, Richard Law, Nigel Lowe, Frank McEntee Roger Nash, Michael Sharpe and Bill Tranter - agreed to meet at the Cielo Italian restaurant in Birmingham in November: Most had not seen each other since 1998 or even 1965. It promised to be a heady nostalgia-fest.
I have always been prone to light-headedness, Standing up quickly in the Snow Hill Junior Library often made me almost keel over. The sight of blood then - and now- does the same thing. Car-sickness as well: as a child, I could go on trolley buses but not motor buses. How I loved it when the conductor had to leap off to change the points with a huge bamboo pole at the top of Lichfield Street. Coaches and motor buses were no-go areas. On school bus trips however, I learned that singing warded off the effects on the inner ear and prevented nausea. Luckily, there was never a shortage of bawdy songs. Cars were worse. While my family did not own one, relatives did, though Uncle Ted's 1931 Austin 7 never made me sick, especially in the front seat, or better yet, standing on it with my head out of the sun-roof like the commander of a Centurion tank. They don't allow that today, of course.
On Monday 21st November, we set off, having exchanged mobile phone numbers and arranged for my wife to hand me over at New Street while she went shopping for the day. I had recently had the dreaded Norovirus but having recovered a week earlier, did not worry about a slight queasiness when I got up. The walk in the rain to Nottingham station would surely clear my head.
It was around 1961, in 3A when I first fainted completely. Mr Jones was drilling us in the Muni gym. I got the trade-mark cold sweat and abnormal vision. Everything went into black and white with bright lines at the edges. I banged my head on the floor but wasn't out for long. I was sent (alone) to the changing room to recover. That's all you did in those days and you didn't expect more. There were nausea fits over the ensuing years. The worst was on a TA exercise on Sunday in 1965 on Cannock Chase. We each had three blanks for our obsolete .303 rifles and were told to chase another lot across country. Not blessed with a lot between the ears, one of my platoon fired a shot as we knelt behind a hedge. The muzzle was next to my head and it made me temporally deaf. By the time we reached the house the quarry had hidden in, I was feeling very poorly and was permitted to fall out before I fell over. The parade, afterwards had another casualty. Our Lieutenant, also very dim but with a posher accent, had not noticed an enemy rifle poking through the letterbox as he kicked in the door of the house. It went off and the wadding from the blank left a large bloody burn n his forehead.
The packed Birmingham train was ten minutes out of Nottingham Midland, crossing the Derbyshire border when I got the cold sweats and vision-thing. With no room to get my head between my knees, I said "Carol, I'm going to faint". And did. I was unconscious for some time she tells me. Slumped on her shoulder, very pale and wringing wet, my eyes still open and my pupils upward. "Like a horror film". She thought I had died. When I came round, my eyesight was gone entirely. Everything was black. Someone had pulled the communication cord, the guard appeared, got an ambulance booked and over his phone, the NHS people gave me the stroke test and the silhouettes of the passengers opposite slowly materialised grey on grey. I was taken off at Derby and my first thought was for Patrick, Nigel and Michael, waiting for us at New Street. But we could get no mobile signal in the ambulance. They, bless 'em, waited over an hour before getting a taxi in torrential rain to the Cielo. My name was mud.
The paramedics looked worried. My blood pressure was 50/30 and I'd had another turn as they began doing ECG's and put in a canula. In A&E at the Royal Derby, there were more tests. Would I like some coffee? By now, I was sure the collapse was due to another stomach bug but I was freezing cold so I risked it. I immediately went into another faint, without losing consciousness. They took me for an X-ray, told me to hug the machine but leave my shirt on. Then mumblings from the technicians and a whisper in my ear "Did I have anything in my shirt pocket?". Panic over, I had forgotten to remove my little magnifying glass. For all the day's anxiety and nausea, it never lacked the laughs and good humour that keeps NHS staff sane.
After several attempts to get messages to Patrick, Carol got her daughter to phone the restaurant to tell him what had happened. They'd had pudding by then. They sent me a get-well message and my biggest worry - standing them all up - had gone. I'm told that they stayed from 12.30 until after 4 and had a great time. They even said they'd do it again. Bill emailed me to say I'd missed lots of valuable material for these Newsletter articles. At least I got material for this one.
The Royal Derby let me go at noon the following day. I'd been looked after by about fifty different people in all, from the guard and station staff to paramedics, nurses and doctors. I'd been in several rooms, all to myself as they worried whatever I might have was catching. It was relatively peaceful, even at night, though I didn't sleep much. And poor Carol, of course, had a worse time of it than I did. thinking for a while that I was a goner. She also had to get home that night. With difficulty she was persuaded to accept her daughter's offer of a lift, having been adamant she'd get a bus to Derby station.
So 52 years after I left, the Muni continues to colour my life. I am planning a return to Birmingham soon to have lunch with Miss Fenton - it's my turn to pay. There is a chance
that we shall be joined this time by Miss Witts - do you remember her? Tall and blond, taught history until around 1960. When my train crosses the Trent on that trip, I shall be crossing
my fingers. And when the lads from '58 return to the Cielo, I shall be with them. Its name, incidentally is Italian for 'Heaven'.
Table for eight, per favoure !
Steve Brazier (1958-1965)
Published in WMGS OPA Newsletter Spring 2017