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Eddie Stansfield
In a general way of speaking, Eddie Stansfield was a quiet,
law-abiding man; about average height and sandy-haired with gentle blue eyes.
He was the last person you’d associate with crime – but then many criminals are
like that, especially those high up in society like bank directors and Members
of Parliament, who have proved the biggest crooks we’ve had. However, when in
time he did join the criminal fraternity, he settled in as cosily as a Mason into
his new Lodge.
He might
never have become a criminal had not the newly established Metropolitan City of
Bradyke swallowed up the little Borough of Keighworth in the boundary changes
of the 1970s. That marked a dire turning point in Eddie Stansfield’s life,
which turned him from a guileless mace-bearer and chauffeur to the mayor to a
latter-day Keighworth Moriarty.
He was in
his fifties when it all happened, when the Metropolitan Cities of England were
dreamed up in Parliament. The new cities immediately swallowed up all the
surrounding small towns and villages, which before had run local affairs from their
own roosts, but that changed. The new Met City
fathers asserted their authority at once by tearing down the boundary signs of
the surrounding towns; signs which informed you that you were entering
Bingworth or the hamlet of Crossways or Keighworth, and Keighworth’s boundary
sign proudly bearing its coat-of-arms disappeared overnight. They were replaced
by Big Brother signs, twice the size of the old ones, trumpeting you were about
to enter the Metropolitan City of Bradyke.which now sprawled for miles up the
Aire Valley and across the flanks of the Pennine Hills When its boundaries
went, so did Keighworth’s hard-earned glory.
Its mayor
and corporation became part of history.
They now formed part of the new Met. City’s council. However, nominally, Keighworth still had its
mayor, a Toytown mayor with no authority, who along with his Toytown council
paraded themselves once a year in full civic dress on Gala Day, revelling in
their robes and regalia, smiling and waving genially from their limousines at
the cheering crowds who lined the streets.
The rest of the year, their tricorn hats and splendid civic robes edged
with fur, were moth-balled. So was the
town mace and silver; stached away in a vault in the old Town Hall and
metaphorically speaking so was Eddie Stansfield.
It cut deep
with Eddie. For three generations the
Stansfields had been mace-bearer for the mayor, beginning with Eddie’s grandfather
in the 1880s, when the Borough of Keighworth was formed. That was a golden era
in which the town had come of age; growing from a small market town at the
start of the century into a thriving industrial town by the end of it. And symbolising its new-found wealth and
prestige was the new Victorian Town Hall; not quite the grandiose buildings of,
say, Bardyke with its superb Gothic arches and chiming clock, or the
neo-classical City Hall of Leeds, but nevertheless it modestly announced
Keighworth had made its mark in the world and was as good as any city or town
around it.
Cosily snuggled up to it were the
post-office and council offices surrounded by newly built streets which any
town would be proud of. And no one was
more proud of Keighworth than Eddie Stansfield, mace-bearer extraordinary, when
he walked with dignity before the mayor on civic occasions in his frock coat and
civic dress, complete with tricorn hat and white kid gloves. And when he wasn’t
on parade, he was the mayor’s chauffeur and oversaw the Town Hall staff.
He’d never
married for his job was his life. O yes,
he’d socialised a little, played bowls, had the odd drink afterwards, watched
cricket and rugby down Garlic Lane; but he wasn’t what you’d call the’ hale
fellow well met’ type, and he spent most nights at home reading or listening to
good music on the radio. During the day he was an assiduous worker. He organised the cleaning staff at the Town
Hall, made sure the mace with its town motto: “By Worth” on the head was
gleaming and ready for use; then he went away driving the mayor and mayoress to
any civic functions in the borough, always checking that the mayoral chains
were immaculate and safely stowed away in the security vault after use.
He took his
duties very seriously and made sure the Town Hall was spic and span; each day
gathering his little team of cleaners and allocating them their jobs. He was
never domineering, but he distanced himself from them to let them know who was
boss. The cleaners called each other by
their first names but when they addressed Eddie, it was always ‘Mr
Stansfield.’ They got on well together
but if any of them stepped out of line he was on them in a flash.
To tell the
truth he was a bit of a snob and regarded some of his cleaners as ‘common’;
especially those who frequented pubs and, he suspected, did rather more than
flirt with the men they met there. One of them, Mrs Cannock, was married to a
right wrong ‘un, who was in and out of prison; but she worked hard and her
husband’s doings were none of Eddie’s business – yet.
Then overnight Keighworth was taken over by Bradyke Met. and
his world fell apart.. Eddie was
devastated. Gone was his job as mace-bearer and with it his tricorn hat and
regalia; gone were the civic processions he proudly headed. It depressed him so
much it brought him to the brink of a breakdown. But after the initial shock he pulled himself
together and began a very Machiavellian plan for the future.
His job as
mace-bearer went to a much younger man in Bradyke; worse still, he was demoted
and became one of the very cleaners he’d once supervised. Now he was ordered
about by an arrogant administrator sent over from Bradyke. The humiliation of
having now to work as an equal with those he considered ‘common’ was almost too
much, but it taught Eddie salutary lesson in humility and he became friendly
with his old team, especially with Mrs Cannock – and her husband Pete from whom
he learned a great deal. He also began attending Spanish lessons at
night-school.
As a
cleaner he still had access to the priceless mace and the borough silver and
gold plate. They’d been valued at millions
and were heavily insured. They were at the heart of the plan for building
Eddie’s new life, with the help of Pete Cannock, who had several contacts in
the world of smelting gold and silver.
Doubtless,
dear reader, you’ve already guessed what happened next. Just before the old
borough mace and plate disappeared, Eddie already had a false passport and new
identity, thanks to Pete’s contacts. The
day the borough gold and silver disappeared, so did Eddie to emerge some time
later and blossom in Buenos Aires
as Eduardo Cannetto.
As Eduardo
Cannetto he lived a quiet life. He was
fluent in Spanish and soon built up a circle of close friends. He had a healthy deposit in an offshore Argentinian
bank and bought himself a little villa at Avellenida along the coast from the
capital. He never yearned for England,
like many ex-patriots; especially after he married a comfortable widow who
nurtured and nourished him the rest of his life.
And perhaps
I ought to add that at the annual Mardi Gras festivals in town, Eduardo always
led the grand procession dressed in a tricorn hat, frock coat and white kid
gloves carrying a wooden replica of the old Keighworth borough mace proudly
bearing the motto: “By Worth.”
John Waddington-Feather ©
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