Jasper was an intriguing character, like others, first met in 1965. He lived in a simple stone cottage in Belper situated up a rough track under a raucous rookery of constantly screaming crows from the crown of tall trees. It was wonderful material for my novels: an ugly hunchback with deep set leering fish-eyes eyes behind a large beak nose. Think of the old hag in Disney’s Snow White - and you have Jasper. In the late 1800s, he was one of the shadowy workers who emptied large buckets of ‘jollop’ into filthy carts during the hours of darkness.
The team leader was known as Smelly Sam who worked with Dirty Don and the night-soil horse - Wiffy Willy. Jasper was an undersized ragamuffin known as the limey-lad. His job was to walk ahead of the cart with a naked flame torch and spread lime over any spillages to get rid o’ stink.’ The invention of Thomas Crapper’s water closet eventually had a bad effect on the night-soil business. As the 20th century dawned, even working people were increasingly unwilling to suffer a trudge up the garden, in the dark, in all weathers, to a stinking privy. The jollop eventually dried and compacted down to a kind of soil – hence the term night-soil. In Derbyshire, night-soil men were known as Honey Dumpers. Conversations with hideous old Jasper was an education! In that same six-month cycling holiday 58 years back, I came across an amusing rotundity called Dolly who first introduced me to Jasper. Dolly enjoyed teaching chickens about queer life and took me on a tour of old lavatories notorious for loose bricks which could be conveniently removed. He told me a horror story about a hideously deformed old man who sat, for hours, in a crumbling old cottage – gay parlance for a public toilet. ‘He’s like a ghastly spider,’ said Dolly, articulating carefully with round vowels through flabby fleshy cheeks. ‘He’s humped and bent, patiently waiting for prey.’ In a colliery town, we turned into an ill-lit alley. Dolly urged me on with promises of pleasure at the entrance of a primordial gentleman's lavatory. He guided me past a ghostly outline of several dark, silent figures lined up at the urinal. There were three WC cubicles. The first two were closed and occupied. In the faint amber light available, it could just be seen that the door of the last one was ajar several inches. Gently, Dolly urged his young friend forward, placing him in front of that partly open door and gave it a soft push. My eyes strained to adjust to the darker gloom of that cave-like entrance, to penetrate, to pierce the dismal depths, to discern, to make sense of that strange crooked shape within. In that silent moment, there came to the ear, a short sound - a sort of 'click'. ‘Did you hear that?’ whispered Dolly. ‘Lucky boy! The click of a crone. It's the prelude to pleasure,’ sighed the little fat man in soft, round vowels. ‘Advance! Yield! Offer yourself to this master of the extended orgasm, give yourself - and know true bliss,’ he lisped rather theatrically into the youthful ear. But an instinct told me to stand my ground. I felt grateful for the protection of strong, form-hugging blue jeans and had high expectations with regard to the choice of a sexual partner. I was not yet accustomed to quick removal of false teeth in connection with casual oral sex. After two years in the USA, I expected sex with boys my own age. Having returned to the Derbyshire coal fields, I conceived a romantic inclination and dreamed of meeting strong, masculine boys who had a full set of beautiful white natural teeth. On this tour, I was hoping Dolly would push me into the arms of a strapping young footballer of firm straight body, a footballer with no hump. Or, alternatively, a virile coal miner of rough manners who would not be too gentle and might 'bend me over t' bog'. Alas, this particular bog was not inhabited by a footballer, a miner or even a minor. There was a man in that bog, but not the man I would have chosen. It started with two points of reflected lecherous amber light, gleaming with lewd intent which, as my eyes continued to adjust, eventually revealed two grizzled leering eyes - horrible to behold. These deep, salacious sockets were set behind a rough-hewn beak of a nose, thrust forward, bent forward in eager anticipation of the juicy morsel at hand. Out of a drooling slash of toothless mouth emerged a snake of oscillating tongue, inviting, beckoning, urging its prey to enter, to be caressed, stroked, slurped and finally drained with oodles of Jurassic slobber. I wanted a real man, as butch as a brick. Everything about the Belper Crone was womanly. He was an effeminate ugly old queen! It was all too much. The dark, the damp, the sudden horror of being confronted by that grotesque goblin who dwelt within his murky cavern. It caused a sudden panic! I fled that toilet as if the very devil were at my heels. This quick exit alarmed other loiterers who quickly departed. Jasper the one-time limey lad had aged into something like the old hag in Snow White. ‘Mummy dust had made him old. Cackle of crone and scream of fright had greyed his hair.’ Dolly was disappointed and a touch annoyed by my panic stressing that he had warned me about an old crone, humped and bent, patiently waiting for prey – who would receive ecstatic pleasure from a toothless hag. He also reminded me that, some years before in my preteens, I’d been imprinted with orgiastic rapture in the carnal kitchen of Guzzly Granddad in Heanor. Dolly was right! Nevertheless, I argued that Granddad was an old rough butch coal miner, quite different to a repellent monstrosity. As a compromise, I agreed to be chauffeured to that primitive stone cottage under the raucous rookery of screaming crows and apologise to old Jasper. Best thing I did! Dolly and I enjoyed tea and cakes with a friendly and charming oddity being transported back to a quaint quieter Belper which was, even in 1965, long forgotten. I also offered myself to the master of the extended orgasm and experienced - true bliss. In other words, I heard - the click of a crone … Narvel Annable Comments are closed.
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