Someone has stolen the roof from Bradley Farm...

Someone has stolen the roof from Bradley Farm.

The sign above the door at MPC North Ltd says ‘mpc north: managing people’s choices’. The reception area is staffed by people in military fatigues with laptops on their knees.

At the park homes on the moor, a woman in an old fleece jacket with a picture of a wolf on it tells me I’m a good postman because she’s seen me pick up an elastic band I dropped. She tells me that my colleagues just leave them on her path. The wolf woman’s friend—salmon pink anorak, big set platinum hair and a plastic rain hood—says “Ignore her love, she’s like this,” and the wolf woman says, “No I’m not”.

At Mr Haigh’s, I have to step over a dead calf to get to his front door today.

An old Ford Ka pulls up next to me. In the front is a smartly dressed couple, he in a camel hair coat with suede collars and her with a tidy perm and a large beaded necklace. In the back is another man in a beige anorak. They are all in their seventies, maybe eighties. The driver winds down his window and shouts over in a southern accent, “It’s good to see a good healthy postman!” I kind of nod. The man goes on “I’ve got a man here...” He gestures over his shoulder at the man in the anorak. “... and I’m bringing him to see his childhood, er, all the good people!” I look at the anorak man in the back, he’s pulling faces at the driver like a petulant teenager and mock punching the back of his seat. “Bye bye!” says the driver, and he waves and drives away.

“A load of poofs live there”, the driver of the bin wagon says to me, pointing to number 20. All the bin men laugh and say “See you, mate” as they drive off.

The man in front of me with the shaved head, the tracksuit bottoms and the shiny blouson jacket...

The man walking in front of me with the shaved head, tracksuit pants and the shiny blouson jacket stops to pick up a packet of sodden cigarettes from the gutter. He opens it but he can’t get at the contents because they’re all stuck together. He tears at the packet, peels away a wet cigarette from the cluster, puts it in his mouth and makes repeated attempts to light it.

A man with a splint on his wrist, wearing glasses and smoking a pipe says “It’s a nice spot round here”. Just around the corner, I see a massive red toadstool and I run over a squirrel. Ten minutes later another man who is wearing glasses and smoking a pipe (but without a splint on his wrist) says “How do?” and asks me for directions to Bradley Farm. A bit later I trip over the wellington boot belonging to the man who is practising the drums with the window open and Mrs Sykes says she’s glad it’s a nice day and that junk mail is a bit of a pain but she supposes it keeps me in work.

I see my first domestic Christmas tree of the year. It has plain white lights.

On my way into work at 5.15am I saw two skinny men rolling a lorry wheel up Church Street...

On my way into work at 5.15am I see two skinny men rolling a lorry wheel up Church Street. They are soaking wet and panting loudly.

At the Toby Grill, a man in a blue fleece jacket and jeans rummages through the box of Remembrance Day poppies on the bar while the barmaid pulls him a pint of bitter. “Where are the pins? You need a pin in it”, he says. “They never came with any. I’m surprised we’ve got rid of so many” says the barmaid.

At the Grange, I lift the flap of the letterbox and half a dozen large black flies drop out into a stream of run-off that carries them struggling away down the driveway.

The man fitting metal window screens to a vacant house on Elmfield Avenue asks me whether I’d like to buy some trainers. I say no. 

I pass a large pair of Eurimco pumps discarded on a country lane.

The woman at number 36 tells me about her wealthy neighbour’s recent home improvements: “It’s unbelievable! He got an interearier [sic] designer in who is a gay from Leeds so it looks amazing!”

Two young men in their twenties talk on the bus: “Were you on Black Ops last night?” “No, I was going to but I had to go up to the shop to get a tin opener.”

"Have you got owt for me?" said the bald man with the the big jeans...

“Have you got owt for me?” says the bald man with the big jeans and the paintbrush in his hand. I hand him an envelope from the DVLA. “Car tax”, says the man. “Have a guess how much? Go on. I bet it’ll be £225.” “What kind of car have you got?” I ask. “A V70. I can’t be doing with small cars. What have you got?” “A little Skoda. It’s old” I say. “Crappy little things. No disrespect to you, I just can’t be doing with them.” “I’ve never bought a new car”, I say. “I’ve bought twenty-four. I’ve got two at the moment. The Volvo and a BMW. I need two because I’m going up to Scotland for a few days.” The man tears open the envelope and unfolds the letter. “£205. Not as bad as I thought! It’s a lot though, isn’t it? It adds up, it’s four quid a week that." He folds the letter back into the envelope and goes on, "I was self-employed for twenty-five year but I’ve passed all the work on to someone else, just walked away from it. Still got my name running around on fifteen vans mind.” He waves his paintbrush at his driveway, “just got a quote to get that re-surfaced: five and a half grand. Would you pay that?” “No”, I say. “No, but even if you had the money, would you?” “I suppose I might. I don’t know.” “I’m seventy year old. What’s the point? I’d only be doing it for someone else, wouldn’t I?” The man looks up at the window frame he’s painting and says “Anyway, you’d better let me get on. See you lad”.

The young couple with the tattoos and the toddler at number 201 have fastened a VW badge to their front door.

A skinhead in combat fatigues who is smoking weed asks me for directions to his own house.

An old man was cleaning egg from his front door...

An old man is cleaning egg from his front door. He tells me that some vandals threw it at the house on Halloween. He says he’d like to pin them down by the throat with the handle of his broom and stamp on it.

At a house on Sycamore Close, the bald man wearing motorcycle leathers and a Bluetooth earpiece says “Hold on John”, and makes a “Do I need to sign for it?” sign by pretending to write in the air in front of his face with an imaginary pen. I make a sign for “No” by shaking my head and I hand over his package. The man gives me an emphatic thumbs up and continues with his Bluetooth conversation with John, “...the thing is mate...”

The old lady whose light blue fine knit cardigan exactly matches the colour of both her garage door and her meter housing box is very pleased with her parcel of garden bulbs, she says it’s “just the right size”.

Twice in succession during my parcel delivery, the door is answered by a middle-aged woman with a broken arm.

The German shepherd at the bottom of the street seems particularly keen to get at me today. It’s on its hind legs at the gate barking and snarling. The fur on its back is on end and it doesn’t take its eyes off me as I deliver the mail to the neighbouring houses. As I approach, it becomes apoplectic, barking furiously. A thin woman with a blonde perm and skinny jeans opens the door of the house, runs up to the dog and grabs it by the collar. She pulls it down from the gate but it struggles loose and leaps back up to continue its frenzied display. The woman makes a second attempt to grab the dog and this time she manages to keep ahold long enough for me to pass over her mail. “Thank you!” she shouts in a strong eastern European accent, “She is very friendly dog!”

As I queue in the Co-op to buy a new jar of peanut butter and some Mini Cheddars, the woman on the till shouts to a colleague, “Lisa, would you class this as quiet?” Lisa breaks off from her customer and briefly glances around the shop, “Umm, yeah, I reckon”. My till woman shouts back to Lisa, “Good, I need a wee”.

I see another headless pigeon. This one is on Yew Tree Road near the junction with Weatherill Road.

As I drove up Station Road I saw a colleague on his delivery...

As I drive up Crosland Road I see a colleague being attacked by a fat black Labrador with a fluorescent green collar. He manages to protect himself with his mail pouch before kicking the dog in the head. The dog runs off and my colleague gives me the thumbs up as I pass.
At the army surplus shop, a customer asks the proprietor whether he has a hat like Michelle wore in ‘Allo ‘Allo. The proprietor says he hasn’t.

As I make my way up the front path of a house in Greenwood Street, the door opens and a large aggressive looking German shepherd runs out of it towards me. Fortunately, the dog is attached by a length of blue rope to its owner, a man in his fifties in a torn anorak. The man
is dragged down his steps and several feet up the path towards me before he regains his footing and restrains the dog. “Don’t worry”, he says, “He doesn’t bite as a rule, It’s your bag. He doesn’t like postmen or people with bags”. The dog barks and snarls and pulls the man another foot or so up the path. “When I take him down on the field I have to have a good look around to make sure there’s no one about with a bag otherwise he’ll think it’s the postman and he’ll have them.” “Oh”, I say. “Yeah, it’s just bags— and postmen. Funny, isn’t it?”

As I round the corner into Lawton Street, a young boy of about eight or nine speeds off down the hill on a BMX. Two other boys jump up and down excitedly. One of them points after the BMX boy and shouts to me, “He’s shit his pants! His bum is wet!”

11.30am: A large woman in pyjamas comes out of the shop holding a packet of Lambert and Butler cigarettes and a copy of The Sun. She’s having a conver- sation via speaker-phone. She holds her phone in front of her face while she shouts into it in a southern accent: “... and then she says ‘Fuck you! It’s over! Now fuck off!’ You gotta love her, haven’t you? Anyway, don’t forget your key... Love you loads and loads... Byee!”

Half-an-hour later, I see the woman again. She’s smoking one of her Lambert and Butlers in the garden at number 17 with two other women in pyjamas.

I watch an aggressive stand-off develop between two young men. It begins
with the usual cursing and swearing but escalates into something quite unusual, ending thus: “You’re a fucking moo cow!” “You fucking moo cow!” “MOOOO COOOW!” “You’re a moo cow!” “MOOOOOOO COOOOOOOW!” “You’re a moo cow!” With that, one of the men chases the other up the road and into a house, slamming the door behind him.

I knock at the door of a house on the estate. I hear the back door open and a Border terrier runs around the corner, squats at my feet and starts pissing. I step away as the dog’s owner comes out saying, “Don’t worry love, she’ll not bother you”.

On my way into work I saw a bat, an owl, the short woman with the sweat shirt...

On my way into work, I see a bat, an owl, the short woman with the sweatshirt and the peroxide perm who goes through the bins in the park and, on the pavement outside the Mortgage Introducer and International Flights shop on John William Street, a women’s block-heeled boot.

At the house with the broken porch, a boy of about three or four is sitting on the window sill wearing nothing but a nappy and drinking milk from a baby bottle. I knock at the door and a thin woman in her forties with braces on her teeth flings it open and shouts “Toilet!” She looks surprised and then explains “Oh sorry love, I thought you were someone else”.

Mr Briggs intercepts me in his Suzuki Carry. He asks whether I’ve ever toured Scotland by coach. I say I haven’t. He tells me his wife saw an advert in The Examiner: “Up one side and down the other. Five hotels in a week!” Mr Briggs goes on at some length about his reservations about coach travel. “A sore arse... compulsory seat belts... steamed-up windows that you can’t see out of... the lack of decent toilet facilities... If you get sat next to a knobhead...” and so forth. “I said all this to her”, he explains, “but she’d already gone and booked it, hadn’t she? Her and Barbara had cooked it up together, hadn’t they? So the four of us went together: me, the missus and Gary and Barbara. And do you know what?” says Mr Briggs looking up at me from over his wire rims. “What?” I say. “We had a real time! It was fantastic! We’ve been another, one, two, three, four times since!” He tells me about some of the exploits they’ve had. “They’re only allowed to drive for a couple of hours at a time these days so we always have the chance to have a coffee or a tea”. And how he’d got around the “seat belt problem”. “If you plug the belt into the thing before you get into your seat and then just sit on it, the driver’s alarm doesn’t go off. He’d had to tell me a couple of times over the tannoy before I figured that out.” Mr Briggs chuckles and does an impression of the bus driver, “Passenger number forty-four, could you fasten your belt please!” I tell Mr Briggs that I once travelled from London to Paris by coach and I found it quite tough going. I start to elaborate with an amusing anecdote from the journey but he cuts me short. “Anyway, I’m off to Leeds now” he says, and he drives away".

A man is lying on his side on his asphalt driveway...

A man is lying on his side on his asphalt driveway manicuring the edge of his lawn with a pair of shears. Half his backside is showing. He rolls over onto his back to say hello.
Leylandii, berberis, box hedge and open-plan lawns. Stone built bungalows with feature arches and patio-doors, swirly carpets and telephone tables. Staffordshire ladies on the window sills. “Did you hear about the burglary two doors down? They’re on holiday. They didn’t draw their curtains, didn’t set their alarm. What did they expect?”

Rockery islands and miniature conifers. Limestone and alpines.

Locks on doors, locks on windows, locks on cars, locks on bikes, locks on sheds, locks on greenhouses, locks on gates... 

Two cars on the drive and nobody home.

Women walk the streets in fleeces and overactive Reactolites. Pulling on North Faces as it starts to drizzle. Swinging little bags of dog shit as they stride on towards Strawberry Drive in spotted Barbour wellingtons. Dragging a growling, clipped schnauzer as it tries to hold its ground. “Why are you like this with the postman? He’s usually so placid and lovely, aren’t you?” she says, without looking up.

In the week, it’s older, retired men with tucked-in shirts and side partings. They lie down underneath Range Rovers or fine-tune their lawns. They say “What’s she been ordering now?” about “the missus” who sometimes comes outside in her specs and unusually coloured hair. “Have you seen the postman?” she says as she sets down a tall glass and a

Hobnob. At the weekends it’s younger men who stand on their lawns in casual sportswear holding power tools. They say “All right mate?” while ‘the missus’, in her navy-blue polo shirt with the buttons undone, holds a spaniel by the collar. There are one or two children but they are at nursery except on Saturday when one of them gets strapped into the seat of his grandad’s Ford Focus and taken to the United game. His grandma waves him off, she already has her pinny on.

I could see a small man walking towards me in the park...

5.30am: A man is walking towards me in the park. He’s singing loudly to himself and occasionally performing a kind of shimmy. He stops to take a long drag on his cigarette, briefly looks up and notices me coming down the path. At this point, he begins to cough in what seems like a fake way and when he starts walking again, he does so with a pronounced swagger and an expressionless face.

Trizzle and N. Smith have both written their names on the May Street pouch box.

On the estate, I knock at a house to deliver a registered parcel. A man answers. He’s carrying a little boy in a duffle coat, mittens and a woollen hat, “Oh thanks, mate, that’s great, I’ve been waiting for that. Excellent!” He puts down the little boy to sign for the package and a slim women in a vest top peers around the door. Her eyes widen, “Is that your new phone? Fucking hell you jammy cunt! Mine took fucking ages. Fucking hell!”

According to the large A1 laminated poster entitled ‘The Toby Grill Hall Of Fame’, Mick has served 994 drinks and Kerry over 400 meals so far this week.

A man who looks a bit like Tony Hancock stops me in Kirkwood Drive to ask whether I know why there is so much bird muck on the roofs of the bungalows there.

A young man wearing a yellow vest, faded red boxer shorts and fluffy yellow slippers...

A young man wearing a yellow vest, faded red boxer shorts and fluffy yellow slippers is sitting on my neighbour’s front step in the rain at 5.30am.

I see a fox on Station Road.

On the bus, I overhear a man telling his companion that he shat himself in bed after drinking too many Turbo Diesels in the pub.

Mrs Shaw gives me a bag of homegrown tomatoes. She says she’s completely self-sufficient as far as tomatoes are concerned.

Dr Groves opens his front door to take his mail. “It’s a reasonable day by the looks of it”, he says.

Mr Briggs pulls up to tell me he’s off to Oldham today. He pauses, then says “Actually, I tell a lie, I’m off to the office, then to Meltham and then to Oldham. I’m working on the precinct there, it’s a right bastard to park”. That’s all he says, then he gets back into his Suzuki Carry and drives away.

At the Chartered Accountants’, a chubby white male chartered accountant with brown plastic-rimmed glasses, a white shirt and a grey suit is talking to a slim white female chartered accountant in a white shirt and a slightly lighter grey suit. “Did you get through Chapeltown all right yesterday?” asks the man. “I know! I didn’t see a single white face!” says the woman biting her lip. “I bet you didn’t want to stop at the lights did you?” “No”, says the woman, “I pushed my door locks down!” She mimes twisting around and pushing down the door lock. “Absolutely terrifying”, she says. 

Mrs Gaunt waves to me from her first floor window with a tenon saw in her hand.

Places I’ve seen the Cross of St George today: 1. Painted across the bonnet
of a white baker’s van. 2. On a flag flying from a dead tree in a garden on Manse Drive. 3. On a flag flying from the Foresters Arms pub. 4. Painted on a drain cover by the back door of a house in Cowlersley. 5. On a flag flying from what used to be The Green Cross real ale pub but is now a Sex Encounter Club with blacked out windows and plans for a sauna.