‘I’LL BREAK your bloody gob O’Shea, if you don’t quit shoving …’ ‘Ah, g’wan and stuff your granny!’

The long beehive, serpentine rows of lumber-suited, short-trousered, butt-smoking boys wound sinuously up the narrow sideyard of the picture house from the derelict launderette to the steel-bolted side entrance, a surging elbow-digging throng of barracking boys whistling, cat-calling, jostling, sly-pinching the hemmed-in behinds of boys immediately in front of them, flailing with gritty fist the would-be queue jumpers, lashing out at the unprotected shins of the offenders with toe-peeping boots, belting the bobbing, jerking napes of those fortunate youngsters ahead in the queue with hard rolled-up balls of paper catapulted from pieces of elastic held between the teeth. Big boys swapped lewd jokes and spoke with feigned masculine scorn about Betty Grable and her famous legs; small boys floated about like flotsam in this unfriendly sea of elders, clasping their threepenny bits grimly in their sweaty palms, whimpering in distress as they were pushed and shoved, some having queued for so long that, helpless to stop themselves, the urine ran down their bare cold legs into their mucky runners; mongrel dogs of a uniform dirty yellowish hue ran up and down yapping and yipping madly, snapping gleefully at shins and ankles at the hoarse encouragement of their owners; a churning torrent of brown boots, white mud-spattered sandals and just bare feet moving relentlessly towards the as yet unopened entrance with just one intent — to behold the corpulent Andy Devine push crooks and badmen about with a mighty thrust of his almighty belly.

The little peacock of a man in uniform on duty at the door stood smugly rocking on his springy heels, hands clasped behind back, a latter-day Emperor Jones…(42)

This…I wish I had read this before seeing the Andy Devine room in the Kingman museum just down the road from the Beale St Hotel where Andy Devine grew up. I adored this.

Brown, Christie (1970) Down All the Days. London: Pan Books.