That website link has come up as a real address. Please DO NOT click onto it. I made that up, or at least I thought I did. 
That was a most enjoyable episode, thank you Mollie. Poor Crusty, falling the victim of unscrupulous salesmen and then being chawed off by Crustabel, but I suppose thats her way of loving him, God help him:-D.
Thank you Jem. Despite her chastisement of him, it will become very evident that Bel loves the bones of him, and he loves her as well, and accepts all punishments dealt out because he knows she’s just looking out for him. Although some of the punishments may seem harsh, he always understands why she metes them out. She is his protector. 
Oh goodness Mollie, if they’re that close please don’t tell us they have a little baby Crusty? Poor little might. Another great episode, thanks.
6
Crusty Loses His Sole Mate
(Life Short Partner?)
Am still enjoying these Mollie. :)
Well … Crusty is 68 years old and Bel is “of a certain age” yet to be divulged. However, a baby does come into these stories, but that’s many many chapters in the future and I can promise you, you will laugh and you will cry over that. Saying nowt else. In fact, am filling up thinking about it. 
Marpaul, thanks lass. You’re behind by 14 chapters, but I’m glad you’re still reading. 
I’ll put the next chapter on tomorrow night.
OK then Mollie, I’ll look forward to the baby story and tonight’s episode. If I have the grandchildren over I won’t get to read it until Sunday evening. Do you have any more of your poems you could post? They are brilliant too.
Thanks for that lass.
Not sure about the poems as they were only a side-line. I’ll have a look to see which ones are already on and, if I’ve any more, I’ll put those on as well.
Edit: No, I’m sorry. All my poems are already on here.
[B]21
Crusty Becomes Nostalgic
(and Crustabel has a Fright!)[/B]
Crustabel was still waiting for Crusty to come round after his shock. He would be okay - he’d fainted before. She looked at him properly now. She was really very fond of the silly old faggot despite his stupidity.
They were from the same cast, Crusty and her. Leftovers from a time gone by when principals were upheld, a gentleman’s word was his bond and when the world moved more slowly. You could trust people then.
Today there were few people you could really trust. Everybody’s out for themselves and greed is the greatest of all sins. Not greed for food though she thought! Oh no. It was greed for materialistic things. There was a lot of that today, especially with youngsters having everything handed to them as if they had a right to things. Everything was taken for granted. But whose fault was that then? Crusty trusted his Bel implicitly.
She’d never had any kids of her own but she knew there was no way she’d have brought them up to expect everything on a plate. She’d had a strict upbringing and whatever she wanted she’d had to earn. The first thing she learned as a child was to respect her parents, and she did.
She wished she’d met Crusty in the sixties. Perhaps they would have married. Who knows? She may even have been able to mould him into a different kind of person.
In his own way he was as innocent as the driven snow. He didn’t realise how much he got on people’s nerves. Totally oblivious! Maybe he did have it right. Maybe that was the best way to be, especially these days.
It was designer label this and designer label that. The only designer clothes Crusty had was the Old Blue Jumper by Woolworth (circa 1953)!
She came out of her reverie. Hey up! He was coming round so she helped him into a chair.
“Wossup” he said.
“Nothing Crusty. Ya fainted, that’s all.”
“Why?”
Then he remembered. Bel told him she’d read through the paper he’d signed, right down to the small print. He wasn’t to worry. There was no way they could force the money out of him.
“Burra I signed it Bel!”
Crustabel smiled at him for a change.
“Yes ya did you daft owd sod, bur’it hasn’t been dated!”
“Is that good?” He still looked worried.
“Oh yes. Without a date it means absolutely nothing at all. In fact, looking at it properly it doesn’t even look like your signature! Do ya know why?”
He shook his head.
“Well, ya must’ve bin enjoying the attention so much when ya signed that ya didn’t realise ya’d done proper joined up writing!”
“Didda? I’ve not done that since I were a youngster when they made me learn to do it at school with me chalk and slate, burra was never any good at it!”
What would he do without his Crustabel?
“Reet lad. Well I’m off home now to unpack me cases. You should get your stinkies int’ th’owd Crustamatic as well!”
“Oh they’ll be alreet for another few weeks Bel. They’re still fresh!”
Fresh?
She left him to it.
He remained seated in his chair and started to think hard about the things he’d got up to and the scrapes he’d got into. He was watching the pendulum of his wall clock swinging back and forth. Goodness me! It had turned 11 p.m. Where did the time go? Bel was right though. He was always loafing about and getting into bother.
He started to think back then. Back and back in time.
He remembered the farmer in Cornwall and especially that 12-bore.
Singing on the stage in Skoffenburg in his little leather shorts. His skinny little legs had been cold that day and they’d favvered a pair of chicken drumsticks. All pale and pimply they’d been.
The sandwich board he’d been forced to wear with the flashing pink lights and which held him fast like a straight jacket. He’d desperately wanted a pee, and he remembered Lady Melonie. That fine meal he’d sat down to in her cousin Ryvita’s house before realising he’d been taken there for entertainment purposes only.
He was getting tired now.
He remembered the jelly fish, which had attached itself to his face after he’d been a conquering hero with the unexploded bomb. It hadn’t tasted that bad when he’d slurped it down and he’d only done that because the doctors had failed to surgically remove it from his chops. It wasn’t quite so pleasant crapping out later though, he recalled!
He remembered the funeral where he’d met Melonie in the first place.
Tick tock, tick tock.
The fancy dress where he’d met his Bel.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Back and back in time he went.
He fell asleep and was transported back to his youth. He remembered the house where he used to live in his teens. A little back-to-back, two up two down, in Gees Court back in the fifties. If you wanted a bath in those days you had to go to the local swimming baths or get in the tin bath that your mother would put in front of the coal fire in the back kitchen and she’d boil water on the stove.
Crusty rarely needed to take advantage of either though as he rarely got mucky except for when he was making tar balls!
They were pretty in those days those little houses with three steps up to each front door, which had latches. Nobody locked the doors back then, as there was no need. Everybody had pretty much the same as each other. No tellies, no videos. There wasn’t even any lecky in those houses. They were as poor as each other so there was no point in stealing, but oh, they were very happy.
Each window had a flower box, which in summer, were gloriously in bloom with a myriad of colours. And of course they all had an outside toilet. Bloody freezing in winter when you had to trudge down the backs in your trollies in the snow in the middle of the night! You always ended up with yesterday’s headlines tattooed to your arse! Thank the Lord for the indoor bathrooms these days and toilet rolls.
Gees Court was made up of houses set in a square with the houses on three sides. In the middle the women would hang their wash on the lines in the communal area on Mondays after they’d used their dolly tubs. The cobbles would glint in the rain. In the summer, the sun was so hot that you could pick the tar from between them and make a mucky black tar ball.
Also, in those days, the only street lighting were gas lamps and he remembered the gasman coming to light the mantles at dusk. The gasworks was just at the back and it stunk to high heaven but they were wonderful days.
Coming from the Sandwich Islands, his father had been something of an oddity in the fifties. He was a comic figure striding up and down Darlington Street in his colourful tribal red feather skirt and matching head-dress! The spear he carried was a symbol of fertility in his tribe and he had to carry it with him everywhere he went!
If somebody walked down the street like that today nobody would bat an eyelid.
Being in the Western world now, Crusty had decided to stop wearing his feather tribal outfit when he was just eighteen years old as he’d got fed up of the local teddy boys trying to set fire to it with their ciggies.
He’d met his wife, Soreen, at the record shop on the main road just around the corner. Back then, if you were buying a record, you could go into a little booth and the man would put it on the turntable and you could listen to it first, to make sure it wasn’t scratched or anything.
Soreen? Oh well, her father had loved malt loaf so much he’d named his daughter after it. It was supposed to be Doreen but he got mixed up when registering her birth while the missus was still confined. She’d given him a clout for that once she was out of bed!
She’d been listening to “Mr Sandman” in the booth. Crusty listened outside and sung along in his own inimitable style.
[CENTER][CENTER]Mr Sandman bring me a bream
And let my afters be peaches and cream[/CENTER][/CENTER]
As I’ve said previously, Crusty never did learn the words to any songs properly but he did love his music. He thought she would come out when the record ended but she stayed where she was and the man put another record on for her. He recognised this one as well. It was called “Singing the Blues” and was in the charts by Guy Mitchell.
[CENTER]Well I never felt more like ayteing a stew
I never thought that I’d ever chew
Your loaf dear
Ya’ve got me ayteing a stew![/CENTER]
See what I mean! It was because his cauliflower ear was deaf and never caught the real words so he just made them up as he went along.
His favourite song by Guy Mitchell was, obviously, “She Wears Red Feathers and a Huly Huly Skirt” because of his family’s own tribal wear.
They’d seen each other a few times before and the girl had smiled shyly. He would wait for her now and ask her out.
When she had finally come out she smiled at him and after she’d purchased her records he had asked her if she would like to go for a walk with him. She nodded and off they went. They walked up the road and there was a little shop, Miss Lamb’s. Crusty asked her if she’d like some sweets. She nodded again. They went in and he bought her a ha’penny Spanish and a pennyworth of kaylai.
She was disappointed. She’d expected chocolates! Not exactly the most generous lad she’d been out with. He was more like as tight as a duck’s arse in a flood! Ah well, he wasn’t bad looking back then and seemed to have nice enough manners.
She’d been a slip of a girl then but over the next year or so she’d ballooned out a bit but Crusty didn’t mind a fat lass!
Well, the inevitable happened. She got pregnant and her father had frog-marched Crusty down the aisle. He hadn’t a clue what he’d done. There she stood at the bottom of the church with an enormous white flowing gown, which barely covered her disgrace. Well it was in those days. And what do you suppose Crusty was wearing under his wedding suit?
Yep! That’s the one. It was the Old Blue Jumper but, to be fair, the OBJ was new then. Well new from the charity shop.
That was 1954 and he was just 21 years old!
[CENTER]-oo0oo-[/CENTER]
There was a knock on the door but Crusty was still in the fifties. The knock was louder and then once more.
Crustabel peered in through the window and could see Crusty in the same chair she’d put him in last night. What was up with him? He must have heard her knocking.
Fearful, she went round to the back and tried the back door. It opened. She rushed in to see if there was something wrong with him.
“Crusty! Crusty!”
Nothing. She shook him hard. His eyes were wide and staring. She shook him hard again and then in front of his eyes clicked her fingers three times.
“Wossup? Weer’amma?” he said looking around his dingy room.
She looked at where he’d been staring.
Crustabel heaved a sigh of relief.
“I thowt ya was dead ya stupid owd bugger, sitting theer, staring at the wall! Ya’ve bin theer all neet!”
“But ya’ve only been gone a few minutes, don’t be daft!”
“Crusty, it’s now 11 a.m. I left you last night at about 11 p.m.! Where’ve you been all this time?”
“The fifties.”
She gave him a funny look. He was going potty in his old age.
Then it dawned on her. The chair, the wide eyes, the pendulum on the clock!!
The daft old bugger had hypnotised himself!
If Bel hadn’t decided to call round on the off chance to take him out for a late breakfast he might have been there all day and who knows how far back he would have gone?
They may not always see pie to pie but at least she was always there, just when he needed her most.
© Mollie M
30.08.01
Just finished reading Chapters 20/21 what a good read
I’m liking Crusty in a funny sort of way
Thanks again, Carmen. I’m thrilled that you like my characters. Crusty is very likeable but, as you say, in a funny sort of way.
One grandchild asleep in bed and the second still awake, just got back in from the local bonfire night. So will read tomorrow Mollie. Thanks for letting us know about the poems, nice to know we’ve got the full set.
7
Crusty Goes To A Funeral!
(and a Game of Bingo)
Another brilliant read Mollie… am really getting to know the old goat:)
Cheers Marian. It’s quite unbelievable what he gets up to.
That was very nostalgic for me as well as Crusty, and a nice bit of background thrown in too, lovely one Mollie.
My description of the houses with the window boxes are from my own memory as a child. Gee’s Court did in fact exist so it’s a bit of nostalgia for me as well.
Chapter 22 coming up.
[B][CENTER]22
Crusty Gets Food Poisoning
(and His Brains Are Questioned!)[/CENTER][/B]
She made him go upstairs for a wash and said that, once done, he’d feel better. Crusty back-pedalled and said he was fine, but she shoved him up the stairs anyway. While he was gone she put the kettle on for a cup of tea.
He couldn’t find the soap. Oh, that’s right! He’d finished off his block of fluffy Lyril and, try as he might, couldn’t find a shop anywhere that sold it! The shopkeepers had given him funny looks and told him that they’d never heard of it, but they did have a large selection of others in stock. No! It had to be Lyril or nothing.
He turned the tap on because he was sure that Crustabel was listening, and sluiced himself down. She was right. He did feel better so he went back down again grinning and she looked at him suspiciously.
“Wot’s thy bluddy smirkin’ at again?”
“Nowt Bel! It’s just thar’ave no soap left as I used the last of me Lyril about three weeks ago!”
She scowled at him. When she did that she looked just like her twin brother. Crustabel was a lovely person, but she did have a face like a plumber’s workbag!
“Ya mean ya haven’t had a wash for three weeks ya nasty bugger? Reet - we can soon take care of that. Get yer jacket on, we’re goin’ shopping!”
Crusty’s face dropped but knew he didn’t dare argue with her. She had that look on her face. The same look she had when she took him shopping for socks and knickers before they went to Skoffenburg.
“Can we not just have a cup o’ tea first please?”
She brewed the tea and shouted from the kitchen that he had no milk.
“Yes I have, Bel - I’ll just come through.”
He started rummaging through his cupboards then found what he’d been looking for.
“Here it is Bel. This always comes in useful when I run out o’ milk.”
She took the carton from him then looked at him in disbelief. Then she smacked him round the lughole.
“Ya’ve not been using this have ya, ya daft lookin’ bugger?”
She held in her hand a carton of National Dried Milk, a left over from rationing in about 1952!
“Yis Bel, wossup wi’ that?”
“Get yer jacket on, NOW!!”
He got up off the floor and put on his old brown jacket. It was long past its best but he liked it. It still had the bird sh!t on the back and Crustabel snatched hold of him and dragged it from his shoulders. She shoved it into the washing machine for later so he put his owd black jacket on instead. He liked this one better anyway.
He trotted behind her obediently and got into her car. They went to one of the large supermarkets and Crusty was in awe. He’d never been to a big supermarket before. She got a trolley and started wheeling it between the aisles.
They came to the toiletries and she asked him what kind of soap he’d like.
“Lyril!” he said, snickering again.
“Don’t be so bluddy daft Crusty. They stopped making that over forty years ago! I don’t know how you managed to make the last block last for so long!”
We do though, don’t we.
She sniffed at him, grimaced, and picked up a four pack of that soap which smells all fresh and lemony.
“There! Thackle last you out now and ya can’t make any excuses for nor’avin’ a wash every now and then.”
Crusty started sulking but soon started grinning again as she wheeled the trolley along the food department.
His eyes nearly popped out on stalks.
“Bel, Bel. Look at all this grub! There’s hundreds and hundreds of tins of food, fresh food and packet food. Crusty would like to live here! All Crusty would need would be a tin opener an’ a microwave then he’d live happily ever after!”
“Aye alreet, don’t get carried away. Neh then, have ya gor’any more washing powder? I know ya said that ya had a spare packet burra couldn’t find any!”
She had, however, found an old packet of Omo, but it had deteriorated so badly that it was useless.
“No I’ve not gor’any more Bel, not tharra know of anyway. I don’t really need any do I?”
“Well how are ya goin’t keep yer clothes clean?”
“Oh I can do worra always do. I swills 'em out in me washing up bowl at the same time I do me pots and pans!”
She smacked him round the back of the head again, making him spin like a top right there in the aisle, then put a giant sized packet into the trolley. (That’s if he ever bothered to open it).
She continued around the aisles of foodstuffs and suddenly realised that Crusty was missing. She sighed audibly. She’d have to go and find him again so she turned the trolley around and began her search. He’ll have got up to something again, she was sure of that.
Ah, there he was. She’d found him fingering the goods on the shelves.
“Worra ya looking for Crusty?”
“I thowt I might try some coffee for a change. There’s a jar of decapitated coffee here Bel. Will this be alright?”
“It’s not decapitated y’owd crate-egg, it’s decaffeinated!”
“Oh!”
She placed the jar in her trolley and hooked him under the arm.
“Come on, I’m not lerrin go of ya. Yer always gerrin into mischief.”
“I try not to Bel, honest I do!”
She dragged him after her, him trotting to keep up with the speed of the trolley. He got his foot caught under one of the wheels and would have gone sprawling if she hadn’t had him firmly hooked.
“Bel?”
“Worisit now?”
“I feel poorly Bel.”
“Why wot’s the matter wi’ ya?”
“I’ve getten’t bally warch Bel.”
She took him to the cafeteria and sat him down. The waitress came over to take their orders.
“Just a cup o’ tea please!” said Crusty.
Once they’d finished their tea she hurried through the rest of the shopping and got him to the foyer of the supermarket, just in time for him to rush to the toilets.
He came out with a green face.
“I’ve been sick Bel.”
“Wor’ave ya been ayteing?”
“Nowt! I had me shrimp butty t’other day and I’ve felt a bit offside since, burra didn’t like to mention it as I thowt it were just a bit o’ wind.”
Paaaarip!
“Phew, ya nasty bugger!”
She got him home and, having made up one of her home-made tummy remedies, questioned him.
Apparently once he’d got home from Southport he’d made a shrimp butty as he’d already told her but, on further investigation, it transpired that he hadn’t CLEANED OR COOKED the bloody things. He’d eaten the shrimps raw and possibly still alive! Bearing in mind that he’d caught them from the sh!t belt part of the beach he was lucky to be alive, the daft sod.
“Yer a daft bugger Crusty. Its no bluddy wonder ya’ve had bally warch!”
She stayed with him for the afternoon until tea-time, by which time he’d perked up no end.
“Wot shall we do tonight Bel? I thowt we might go to’t Club as there’s a good comedian on, or so I’ve been told.”
“Aye okay. Thackle make a nice change, as long as yer feeling well enough. Now that ya’ve got some soap and washing powder, I’ll expect ya to turn up tubbed and scrubbed. And leave that bluddy owd blue jumper a’wom. The poor bugger’s fed up of you keep pestering him.”
“Burra luvs me OBJ!”
“Yeh well he dun’t love you so leave him alone for one night. Put summat nice on.”
“Okay Bel.”
They met up at the Club later that night and started off with a couple of games of bingo. Crusty had his suit on which pleased Crustabel, until she saw what he had on underneath. She couldn’t believe it.
“Wot the bluddy hell hast getten on at all? Tha’ favvers bluddy weel!”
He had a broad red and yellow striped tee shirt on and, against the dark blue striped suit, it looked gaudy. Well at least he’d made some effort in putting his suit on in the first place, even though the suit was too big for him and was an old de-mob one from a charity shop.
“Sorry Bel. Do I look daft again?”
She just rolled her eyes and tutted.
Bel won a tenner on the bingo so she gave Crusty half, which went straight into his pocket. He couldn’t get it into his wallet because it was stuck with crud again. She spent her half on ale for them. Crusty was pleased and told her that he hadn’t expected to have a cheap night out.
“Ha! Tharrad be a first if you didn’t expect that. When was the last time you spent any money on anything, ya tight little git?”
He couldn’t for the life of him remember. Oh, except for the cup of tea and butties he’d bought for himself a few days ago in Southport.
The group came on first. Crusty didn’t like groups very much as they tended to be too noisy for him, but on this occasion it was three pretty young girls on stage and their costumes were skimpy. Crusty’s eyes dangled out, as did his tongue. Crustabel caught him ogling and smacked him one in his cauliflower ear.
[B][I]“Ouch Bel, why did ya do that Bel?”
“Behave.”[/I][/B]
“I’m being hayve!”
The girls finished their spot and Crusty applauded enthusiastically. The girls said they’d be back later and Crusty was ecstatic.
They played some more bingo and this time Crusty won a few quid. Crustabel waited for him to share out his winnings, but it all went into his pocket.
What did she see in him, the tight-arsed old bugger? He had his good side though she reminded herself. Then she started to think. What good side? When she came to think about it properly, he didn’t have one. Ah well.
It was time for the comedian now and Crusty sat back to enjoy him. He and Bel were on the long table to the right of the stage as you look at it. The comedian came on and started telling his jokes. He was funny and Crusty was laughing his head off very loudly.
The comedian couldn’t help but notice him, especially Crusty’s red and yellow striped tee shirt. Nodding toward the gaudy shirt the comedian looked at Crustabel.
“Why’ve ya brought yer deck chair with ya missus? There’s plenty o’ seats in here!”
Crusty guffawed even more. He’d been noticed. He had the comedian’s attention at last. Crustabel sat there and said nothing, but did smile widely. Too widely!
The comedian continued his spot and it was going really well until Crusty, laughing so much, fell off his chair and kicked the table over spilling all its contents to the ground. There was such a clatter that everyone in the Club craned their necks to see what was going on.
Crusty picked himself up off the floor, still laughing loudly, and righted the table. He picked up the glasses and noisily slapped them back on the table. Everyone was staring at him, including the comedian whose spot Crusty had almost ruined. Once everybody had turned to look at the stage again the comedian, leaning heavily on the microphone stand, turned to look at Crusty. Everyone went quiet and wondered what the artiste would say to the over-enthusiastic Crusty.
“Wot’s yer name lad?”
“Crusty!”
“Well Crusty, I have to ask ya summat lad. Hast getten varicose brains?”
“Er, I don’t think I’ve gor’any brains at all tharra know of!”
The audience erupted in laughter once more. Crusty’s smile faded. They were all laughing at him. Again he’d made a complete prat out of himself.
“Did yer mother lift weights Crusty?”
“I don’t think so. Why?” he asked, grinning his head off again.
“Well she must’ve done to have had a dumb bell like thee!”
Once she got him home she laid into him.
“How many time have I told you not to keep showing off and, more to the point showing me up? I’ve had just about enough o’ you Crusty Nibbleswick and I’m not taking any more of your crap!” she screamed, aiming swipes at him.
“Aw Bel,” said Crusty, trying to dodge her and nursing his head, “It were just a bit o’ fun, that’s all!”
“You almost destroyed the Club furnishings, knocked everybody’s drink on’t floor and didn’t offer to replace them, ya’d everyone in’t Club staring at you and the comedian making fun o’ ya! How d’ya think I felt? Come’t think of it ya never care about wor I feel. Yer a selfish owd bugger without a thought for anyone but yerself. I’m goin’ wom.”
Crusty got up off the floor.
“Will I see ya tomorrer Bel?” he asked, rubbing his bruises.
She slammed the door behind her.
© Mollie M
02.09.01
Where would he be without her. Thanks Mollie, and you with your sore hand an all, take care:-D