The Lucky Shoes

This is a sad story, but at least it’s got a happy ending. The year was 1972, and I was attending Pendeford high school. We had a song that went, “We are the Pendefords, we are a load of thugs.” And we were a load of thugs. I used to sit next to a lad called Robert Hill. Robert Hill wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but he was a good lad and we went through a lot together; we were in the football team and the rounders team, but Robert never ever had any luck. This is the bad luck he had.

When Robert was a lad at school, his father got killed. An airplane crashed into a house, the chimney splintered everywhere, Robert’s father hid under a tree and the brick from the chimney hit a branch and the branch dropped on his head and killed him. That’s how unlucky Robert’s dad was.

He left seven children and Robert was one of the seven children, and Robert never had anything. He never had anything. But Robert and I had a paper route together and we worked at Monmore Green dogs together, we did everything together. But then Robert got expelled from school on account of that we went to Chester Zoo.

Our teacher Mr. Cormack took us to the zoo where we saw lions, tigers, elephants, sea lions and camels. Mr. Cormack said to us, “You have to remember something you’ve seen today at the zoo and draw it, and then paint it.” But all Robert Hill used to do was paint trees and he used to put the sun in the top left hand corner. I remember it well. I remember I painted a zebra and called it Spotty. And Robert drew a tree. So Mr. Cormack said to Robert, “What’s this all about?” There was an argument and Robert picked up the paint brush which made it worse because he was painting the sun at the time and he pushed it in Mr. Cormack’s eye and red paint ran down and it looked like he was bleeding.

Robert was expelled from school. And while Robert was expelled from school I sometimes used to play truant. On this one particular day we had saved all of our money for weeks from our paper route, we had saved and saved and saved and we went to a shoe shop in Birmingham called Faith’s Shoes. The shoes that we had saved up to buy were Sallazio shoes, I was going to buy a red pair and Robert was going to buy a black pair. Now these shoes were over woven shoes, they were unique. And while we were walking back to the railway station with our treasured purchases, we were accosted by five youths. They came up to us and they said, “Give us those shoes!” I wasn’t going to argue with them, they looked pretty rough. So I said, “Here, take them, you can have mine.” But Robert didn’t. He didn’t concede his shoes, and so one of the youths got a knife out and they wrestled on the floor. Accidents happen, and one happened there because the knife plunged in the youth’s chest and he died in my arms. It was terrible.

Robert Hill hadn’t meant to do it, it was a complete accident. But when he went to court, obviously with him having been expelled from school and his bad attitude in school it went against him and he got seven years in prison for manslaughter. While Robert was in prison he became a nonconformist.

Seven years he was in jail and the last week of his seven year sentence, without remission, he was taunted by a screw. A screw is someone who looks after the prisoners. Robert was 22 years of age, he was a young prisoner in Winston Green prison, the guard taunted him and Robert strangled the guard with his bare hands and killed him. Anyway, he got thirty years for murder and while he was doing his thirty years it was recommended that Robert Hill get life and never come out. It’s a sad story.

But I had a phone call from Robert Hill’s mother only yesterday. Robert has got asbestos on his lungs, which he caught from working in the boiler house at Winston Green prison. And they’ve released him to a home in Wolverhampton on sentimental grounds as he only has weeks to live and I’m going to go and see him this week. But I’ve got some good news for him. The good news is that I’ve got his black Sallazio shoes at home, and I’ve never had the laces put in, they’re still in greaseproof paper!