Once again, Walter Murton draws on memories of long ago to draw this vivid
picture
of a figure from the past.
JOHNNY th´ARP - TRAMP EXTRAORDINAIRE
Oh, the 1930’s. Harbingers of yet another war, and recovery from the previous one.
Early in the decade, calamity struck the world’s economies and ruination tore cruelly
at the fabric of British society. Looking back, I sense that Johnny was a victim of that
savagery. I clearly remember that golden day when he trudged up to our pub, the
“Jaggars Arms” at Flockton Moor, in Yorkshire, and asked for some water. My father
was the landlord and the law decreed that a publican had to give a drink of water to
anyone who asked for it, regardless of the hour. It may still be so.
There was a sense of quiet despair about Johnny. I can’t remember
much about his
dress, but he reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in his rags and tatters. He
wore baggy
trousers, a collarless shirt and an unbuttoned waistcoat. I recall him as
short and
dark and defeated. So many of the tramps exuded an air of tense desperation
and
Johnny was no exception. We were used to tramps in those days. They would
stop
and ask for water and they would hope to work for a few hours to get a meal.
My
father would direct them to one of the local farmers. There were usually
some odd
jobs that needed to be done. Johnny must have been different. Perhaps it
was the
hopelessness. He was told he could sleep that night in the loft above the
stable. It
became his home until we left the pub two years later.
To the best of my knowledge, Johnny didn’t sponge on us. He sang for
his supper, or
more accurately, he sang in the pub for pennies. On Saturday nights, and
often in the
week, we four children would hear Johnny’s voice drifting up from the
taproom below.
Our bedrooms were above the public rooms and we could hear all the noise
below.
When we had all been bathed in the kitchen and made ready for bed, we would
scurry down the passageway past the taproom, to the stone staircase to the
bedrooms above. We carried candles; there were no electric lights on Flockton
Moor.
Once in bed, we would listen for Johnny, but he was not the only attraction.
Johnny
also played a zither. The Flockton Moor drinkers had never heard of a zither.
To
them it was a harp and so he became known as Johnny th’Arp. Astonishingly,
Johnny made his own zithers. I don’t know where he found the wood and
the harp
strings. I do know that he made several zithers. He must have been able
to sell them
somewhere.
In the stable there was a stout ladder leading to the loft above. There
was a trap door
at the top. It was in the loft that Johnny ate and slept and made his zithers.
My
brother and I would steal into the stable and listen to Johnny, as he tuned
the
instruments. Only years later did I realise what an accomplished musician
he must
have been. Had I known it, there was an echo of an older wisdom as he hummed
the
notes and tuned the strings to the right pitch. When he was not tuning,
then he was
building, and the sound of a tapping hammer and the smell of fish glue were
seldom
absent from the loft and the stables.
Most of the pub was demolished after we left. Johnny’s loft and the
stables were
converted into a pleasant home. I still carry his misty sepia-toned image
in my mind
more than seventy years later.