Permanent Moments
A Fictional Autobiography
by
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BATMAN’S AUTOGRAPH The Tivoli cinema stood in the centre of town, tucked away in a v-shaped block that also played host to Yates’s Wine Lodge. Mum had taken me to see Summer Holiday there a couple of years earlier. She was a big fan of Cliff Richard, much preferring his bland wholesome style of rock’n’roll to the hip-swinging pelvic gyrations of a certain Mr Presley and therefore she was, despite her protests to the contrary, a bit of a square on the quiet. The entrance to the cinema was hidden inside a covered shopping precinct within the block. Dimly lit and stinking of piss, it was the first stop for all the drunks that spewed out of the Wine Lodge in the early hours of the morning. I was twelve when I saw Batman – The Movie at the Tivoli on a cold Saturday afternoon in the January of 1967. The seats were uncomfortable, the heating was non-existent and the place was a dump, but it was closer to where I lived and cheaper than the Odeon. When I was seven, Granddad gave me a small collection of Detective Comics that he’d been given by a friend of his where he worked. His friend had told him that his own son had left home and had grown out of them. And so that evening instead of the usual dirty old sweet, granddad gave me something altogether more exciting; he introduced me to Batman. I can still remember the first time I handled those comics – the feel and smell of the pulp paper on which they were produced, the brightly coloured artwork within their shiny covers, the brilliantly drawn panels of fast-moving action and the excitingly dynamic storylines. It must have seemed such a small thing for to him to do at the time, handing over a few unwanted second-hand comics to his grandson, but that one tiny, unsentimental act would set me off on a path that would turn me into a life-long lover (and collector) of comics. Even now, I can’t understand anyone growing out of something so wonderful. In 1966 Batman arrived onto the TV screens of Britain, and every Saturday and Sunday evening the youth of the nation would be transfixed, watching Adam West and Burt Ward playing the Caped Crusader and his young sidekick Robin. Saturday night’s episode would end on a cliffhanger, with our two heroes caught in some fiendishly devious deathtrap, while the villains would all inexplicably leave them to their respective fates, from which they would then perform an unbelievably amazing escape at the start of Sunday night’s episode. The movie was released on the 16th December 1966 and with a bigger budget, it was able to feature the Bat-Boat and Bat-Copter, both of which appeared in a memorably hilarious scene featuring the Bat-Ladder, a rubber shark and a spray can of Bat-Shark repellent that the Caped Crusader just happened to be carrying in his utility belt. Audiences knew instinctively that Batman was climbing down the Bat-Ladder and not just some run-of-the-mill, bog standard ordinary ladder because attached to the bottom rung was a printed sign that read Bat-Ladder. As if all that wasn’t enough for Bat-fans around the world, the movie contained all four of the major villains from the series; Caesar Romero as The Joker, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, Frank Gorshin as The Riddler and Lee Merriwether (replacing Julie Newmar) as Catwoman. I was in Bat-Heaven! In the June of 1967 an advertisement appeared in the Fylde Gazette announcing the arrival of Batman and Robin in Britain. Along with the Batmobile, Adam West and Burt Ward had arrived on our shores to promote the second series of Batman. Granddad pointed out the advert and my pupils dilated rapidly when I read that they would be signing autographs in Lewis’ Department Store in the town centre that very weekend. I immediately showed the advert to my mother, who told me that there was no way on earth she was going to traipse all the way into town when she didn’t need to do any shopping. She could see the desperation on my face and still she refused to take me, even after I had repeatedly asked her. Grandma and Granddad were both busy that weekend so there was no one who could take me. “I’ll go on my own, then,” I said defiantly. “You will not go on your own, Stephen!” That was her final word on the matter and I knew she was serious because she had called me Stephen – in italics. Batman and Robin were there for just one day and during the days leading up to the event my selfish mother dug her heels in and flatly ignored all my increasingly pathetic pleading. There was no one to accompany me into town and so there was nothing else for it; I had to defy my mother and go on my own without telling anyone. What could possibly go wrong? Lewis’s Department Store was hot and muggy and a crowd of people were clamouring and shoving their way forward, trying to get a glimpse of the Caped Crusader. I was rake thin, and so able to scramble between the legs of the awe inspired crowd and reach the front with no problem. I was dumbstruck when I reached my exalted position and when I held out my hand Adam West shook it and pressed a small scrap of paper into my sweaty palm. I carefully unfolded the white square and gazed in adoration at the autograph. I thought, Wow! Nothing else. Just Wow! Then I was pushed and jostled back by the enthusiastic crowd. But the pushing and jostling didn't stop and an unexpected dig of someone's elbow in the small of my back sent me crashing to the floor. I slid along its polished surface until my head hit the side of a wooden shop display and I felt a sharp stab of pain in my neck. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I heard a woman's voice screaming hysterically. “Oh My God!” the woman screamed hysterically, “He's bleeding!” I instinctively brought my hand up to where the pain was. As I did this I felt something warm running over my fingers and down into the sleeve of my shirt. When I pulled my hand away it was covered in blood. Now I’m not good with blood, especially my own, and I tend to go into shock until someone qualified reassures me that I’m going to be all right and so therefore my head started to swim, a sudden dizziness overcame me and then I passed out. The next thing I knew I was on a stretcher being jogged up and down by a couple of blue-suited ambulance-men. We were in the basement car park of the store, heading for a waiting ambulance. Through watery vision I could see the Batmobile standing silently over on the far side of the dimly lit car park. "What do you think of that, then, kid?" one of the ambulance-men asked. "How would you like to go to the hospital in that?" Bugger the Batmobile, I thought, what's mum going to do when she finds out about this? With the siren wailing, the ambulance sped through the busy streets until it reached the ugly sprawling mass of red bricks and concrete that was Victoria Hospital. The vehicle screeched to a halt and the doors flew open. Strapped to a stretcher trolley, I was hurtled down long corridors and round sharp, blind corners, faster than a speeding bullet. In an examination room a white-coated, kindly-faced doctor poked, prodded and scrutinised me. I was surrounded by space age looking equipment that appeared to have been borrowed from the set of Star Trek. "Stitches," I heard the doctor say, softly. "Have you informed the parents?" "The mother’s on her way." "Now then, son," the doctor said, turning to me, "you're going to need a few stitches, and because you're twelve you're old enough to have them put in without a general anaesthetic." All the moisture in my mouth suddenly evaporated and a wave of self-pity swept over me. I looked at the doctor with a mixture of terror and confusion in my eyes. "Now, don't be alarmed. You're a big lad now. We're going to give you a local anaesthetic. That just deadens the area where you've been hurt. Trust me, you won’t feel a thing. We can give you a general anaesthetic that will knock you out if you like, but it’s not advisable. Anyway, only sissies and girl
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About the Book
When clearing out his mother’s fl at Stephen discovers a tin of
old photographs under her bed. Each image evokes a memory of
childhood and we get to meet the people who inhabit those memories
– wayward friends and sensible friends, strict teachers and hopeless teachers, ugly girls and gorgeous girls, Aunts who are not Aunts and Uncles who are not Uncles and a grandfather who revels in the art of mischief.
In this funny and sometimes moving novella Stephen Mitchell
wonders whether our memories can really be relied upon to provide an accurate reconstruction of our childhood years and especially those of an ordinary child growing up in the North of England in the 1960s.
About the Author
Stephen Mitchell was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1954, but lived in the seaside town of Blackpool until the age of sixteen when, in order to escape the catering trade he left home and joined the Royal Air Force. For the next twenty-three years he travelled the world, visiting places like France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Cyprus, The United States, Belize, Mexico and Coningsby. After leaving the RAF in 1994 he decided to fi nd a job that didn’t actually involve doing any work and so he applied to join the Civil Service, where he has remained ever since as a Training Offi cer. As a lifelong comic book fan, Stephen has only recently forgiven his mother for donating his entire comic collection (including the fi rst issue of The Amazing Spider-man) to a jumble sale shortly after he left home to join the RAF. He reckons that if he still had his comics today he could sell them and become a millionaire and not have to write books to support his meagre Civil Service salary. Permanent Moments is his fi rst book.