Free Wild Thing by Bernard O'Mahoney, Lew Yates Page B

arrived in the Martindale home. Jean saw an advertisement in the local newspaper regarding a hairdressing salon that was for sale. Owning her own business had been a long-term ambition of Jean’s, so I told her to ring the number. I had been chasing my dream with little success since we had first met, so I felt it was only right that Jean should be given the opportunity to pursue hers. The salon was situated in Colne Road, Burnley. Above it was a spacious flat, which was to be included in the sale. Jean fell in love with the salon and the flat as soon as she saw them. ‘We have to take it, Lew,’ she said. ‘It’s too good an opportunity to miss.’
    Within a few weeks we had sold our home, purchased the salon and flat and moved in, to begin our business venture. J.L. (Jean and Lew’s) Hairdressing Salon soon attracted enough custom for us to employ two other stylists – not that I was involved in any way in the shop; my job was looking after our two children and doing chores around the flat. When the children were old enough to attend nursery, Jean took care of them and the shop, and I went back to work as a builder. These were years that I remember with great affection; life was simple but rewarding.
    In late 1972 Jean fell pregnant with our third child. I’m not sure if it was her hormones playing up or her intuition, but Jean was convinced that if she allowed anybody to manage the salon for us he or she would be dishonest. Jean was equally adamant that nobody could be trusted to babysit our as yet unborn child when it arrived, so the salon was put on the market and we went in search of a new larger home. In July 1973 Jean gave birth to our son Billy. Life for the Martindale family just seemed to be getting better and better. Having disposed of the shop and flat, we purchased a house amongst the hills in the beautiful Rossendale Valley, which is just outside Burnley. The views from our windows were breathtaking. It was certainly the ideal location to bring up three small children. I was working on a construction site at a place called Mellor in Blackburn around this time doing paving and tiling. The money wasn’t great, but work in the building industry was becoming increasingly difficult to come by.
    One of the guys on site was a painter who fancied himself as a bit of a kung-fu expert. He would talk to people like shit, strut around whooping like Bruce Lee and kick piles of bricks. I hated the bastard and knew it wouldn’t be long before we fell out. Everybody else on the site feared him, as they considered him to be a bit of a nutter, but I could see through his charade. One day I was sitting having lunch in a bathroom I had been tiling when he entered. I was having a laugh and a joke with a couple of other builders when Blackburn’s answer to Bruce Lee shouted out, ‘Oi, Bluto, keep the fucking noise down.’ I didn’t reply. I just got to my feet and smashed my fist into his sneering mouth. He flew across the room before ending up on the floor in a crumpled heap. ‘My head, my head,’ he moaned. When he looked up at me, I saw that he had plenty to moan about. His face had ballooned so much that his features had become distorted, and it was continuing to swell. To be honest, I became quite concerned, as a huge lump appeared to be growing out of his cheek under the eye. It looked as if his head was going to explode. Bruce Lee sensed he was in trouble too. He got to his feet while clutching his oversized head and ran from the room screaming, ‘Help me, help me!’
    When the site manager saw the state the man was in, he immediately called an ambulance. ‘Fuck this, lads,’ I said to my workmates. ‘I’m going, and if anybody asks, you haven’t seen me.’ I jumped into my van and sped away from the site, never to return. I later learnt that Bruce Lee had suffered a burst blood vessel when I had punched him. He was kept in hospital overnight for observation but released the following day when the