Introduction

As stated in the preliminary piece, "My Chiswick Childhood", I was resident in Bedford Park in Southfields, one of the three Acton wards of the London borough of Ealing, for some thirteen years between the late 1950s and 1970.
This second west London piece was adapted verbatim from an unfinished short story about a close friend in Bedford Park, an area once known as "Poverty Park" but now a famous conservation area, which had originally been penned in the mid to late 1970s. It was first published as "Wicked Cahoots" at the Blogster website on the 15th of February 2006.

Wicked cahoots

When he made
his first personal appearance
in the dirty alley
on someone else's rusty bike,
screaming along
in a cloud of dust
it rendered us all
speechless and motionless.
But I was amazed
that despite his grey-faced surliness,
he was very affable with us...
the bully with a naive
and sentimental heart.
He was so happy
to hear that I liked his dad
or that my mum liked him
and he was welcome
to come to tea
with us at five twenty five...
Our "adventures" were spectacular:
chasing after other bikesters,
screaming at the top
of our lungs
into blocks of flats
and then running
as our echoed waves of terror
blended with incoherent threats...
"I'll call the Police, I'll..."
Wicked cahoots.