Station St Cheslyn Hay. Photo courtesy CHLHS
One of the earliest signs I learned to read, before plunging between the floppy pink covers of “Janet & John Book 1” at primary school, was the sign between our house and the bridge.
It was in raised black script with weathered round red reflectors set into the letters like raspberry Rowntree’s fruit gums;
“Caution. Max. Headroom 12’ 6”“Dad, what does “Max Headroom” mean”
…I asked as he pedalled us under the bridge and uphill towards home on the dark green, immaculately maintained BSA bike.
The Sturmey Archer gears clicked. His dark blue bib & brace overalls have a packet of Players and a box of Made-in-Dudley matches in the patch pouch on the chest and a folding wooden ruler in the side pocket. His knees pumped up and down like mighty pistons.
I was on the cross-bar, astride a not-very- padded red satin cushion, using a knotted tartan kipper tie as stirrups.
Dad, in surprise, pulled on the rod brakes, which gave out a note akin to a yawn.
“Eh? Can you read that, Son?”
“Caution (pronounced cow-she-on)…Max..Head...room 12 dot dot 6 dot”
“Bloomin’ ‘eck. "
"Where did you learn to do that?”
“I doe know”
I replied, thinking about Grandad Jack’s “Valiant” comic in front of the blazing coal fire at their house in Low Street, or across the street at Uncle Frank’s, with the “By appointment to Her Majesty” Ready Brek packet and HP sauce bottle on his kitchen table under the redundant gas mantle, in front of the Victorian cast-iron cooking range.
Or the Sally Army “War Cry” distributed just before the Wright's seafood cockle man came round with his basket, grease-proof paper bags and vinegar on Saturday nights at the Working Mens’ club, to shouts of; " 'ave yer got any mussels on yer, cock?"…
…
Well, “Headroom” means that’s how high the bridge is. In the middle of the arch, though. So a double decker buzz can’t get under it, because they are nearly 14 foot high, right? That’s why they go down Coppice Lane, and the little buzz up from Wyrley, the “Wyrley Whizzer, is only a single decker, see…”
“Oh, orright”
Dad was my Encyclopaedia Britannica.
He lifted me off the cross-bar, and started wheeling the bike towards the back garden, through the cool darkness of the arched entry tunnel between 172 and 174.
“Dad, what's “Jellyman Ironfoundry Cannock”? And what does “Her Majesty” mean?
The free-wheel clicks to a stop. I hear the clack and echo of the latch when Dad opens the back gate.
Through the telescope of the entry tunnel, I see my little sister Nina in a yellow dress on her Tri-ang tricycle under the pear tree at the top of the back garden.
I stand alone in the sixties streetscape next to the flowering currant bush, in the dusty summer afternoon shade at the front of the house.
I have never been alone in the street before.
But now I am five.
I look up Station Street, at Gordon Cross's grey Ford Popular outside Jack & Gil Harding's house, then down at the manufacturer’s plate on the cast iron wall cappings.
The Wyrley Whizzer roars down a deserted street. Two little lads run out of the house opposite, and head for the allotments. 
I feel the hot diesel exhaust bounce off Georgie Lunt's chip shop windows.
I feel the hot diesel exhaust bounce off Georgie Lunt's chip shop windows.
“Dad, what's “Jellyman Ironfoundry Cannock”? And what does “Her Majesty” mean? “Your Mom’s made a cup of tea, Son. Come on and I’ll tell you”.
I hurry into the entry, still a bit wary of the dark and the musty smell of plaster and lath.
Then into the pool of light in the back yard where my Vulcan bomber is propped against the Staffordshire blue brick ledge under the middle room window.
A dog barks. A baby cries.
I am 5. I am going to The Top School next month. Janet and John Book One is going to be pretty tame stuff after Grandad's Valiant, or even The War Cry..
But I don't know that yet.
For now, the world seems old and new all at once.
It feels like being born, again.
It feels like...
... Home.
