Joe Bowling
Bowling's elder brother by two years: a hefty, illiterate, permanently sulky boy who ran the local gang, could not stand the sight of print, and walked out of the house one night with the money from the till.
To be out. Bowling's reading is that his brother cleared off because he could not stand a decent respectable life in a little country town and wanted loafing, fights and women instead.
The book
At a glance
- Bowling's elder brother
- Two years older; eighteen when he left
- Walton Grammar School, near the bottom of it until sixteen
- Learning bicycle repair at a shop outside Walton
- Never. Possibly America, possibly killed in the war
- Part II, chapters 1 to 7
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeJoe was two years older, and from the start much bigger than the rest of the family: a hefty boy with a big lumpy head and tremendous calves, the kind who is always doing something dangerous. At seven he was already in short trousers and clumping boots while his brother was still in a holland overall. By twelve he was too strong for their mother to get across her knee, and after that, Bowling says, there was no doing anything with him.
At eight he got in with a gang of boys who called themselves the Black Hand, led by Sid Lovegrove, and spent his childhood breaking windows, chasing cows, stealing fruit by the hundredweight and cutting school about once a week. Bowling's account of the day he forced his way into the gang is mostly Joe: the chase round the pond, the knee on his upper arms, the ears screwed, which was Joe's favourite torture — and then Joe flinging himself into the water to grab the carp his little brother had hooked.
He was an utter dunce. He stayed near the bottom of Walton Grammar School until he was sixteen, got the cane about once a week, and could not read ten lines together. Bowling describes him picking up a boys' weekly, reading a paragraph or two, and turning away with the disgust of a horse smelling stale hay. He was supposed to be learning the trade at a bicycle shop outside Walton, which suited his slight mechanical turn, but he could not work steadily and spent his time loafing in greasy overalls, drinking, fighting and getting talked of with one girl after another.
At eighteen he had a moustache and a lowering face, and stood in the shop doorway with his hands in his pockets scowling at people, moving aside just enough to let a customer past and yelling "Da-ad! Shop!" over his shoulder. Then one night he walked out and was never heard of again.
How the book draws them
- The boy of sevenAlready much bigger than other boys his age, with a big lumpy head and tremendous calves. At seven he was in short trousers, thick black stockings drawn up over the knee and the great clumping boots boys wore then, while his younger brother was still in a holland overall.
- At eighteenMuch bigger than the rest of the family, with tremendous shoulders and a big head, and a sulky, lowering face on which he already had a respectable moustache. His brother's flat word for him is ugly. He is usually in greasy overalls from the bicycle repair shop where he was supposed to be learning the trade.
- The word he had just learned"Bloody", which he used constantly at eight. Their father overheard him once and swore he would thrash the life out of him, and as usual did not.
- Screwing earsHis favourite torture, and the one his brother could not stand. On the fishing day he knelt on the smaller boy's upper arms and worked at it until the rest of the gang told him to get up.
- "We don't want any bloody kids along"His whole position on his brother joining the gang, argued out that morning as "Yes, you did" against "No, I didn't" while the two of them dressed. Both of them dropped their aitches when excited.
- The sight of printIt made him feel sick. He went through years of schooling and came out unable to read consecutively, and tried to kick his brother out of the habit — but their parents had decided the younger one was the clever one and backed him.
- In the doorwayBy seventeen the extent of his help in the shop was to shout for his father without taking his hands out of his pockets. He was costing the family a great deal in drink and endless cigarettes, and their parents said despairingly that they didn't know what to do with him.
- The eight poundsHe prised open the till one night, took everything in it, luckily not much, about eight pounds, and left. It was enough for a steerage passage to America, which he had always wanted, and his brother thinks he probably went.
- The official versionThe town decided he had bolted because of a girl called Sally Chivers, who was expecting a baby. Joe had been with her, and so had about a dozen others, and nobody knew whose it was. Their parents adopted the theory and used it privately to excuse the theft, which they kept secret until they died and regarded as by far the worse disgrace.