1
Friday
“I remember I didn’t like him. You always got the feeling that he was trying to be your best mate, though you knew full well he had no intention of being so and in fact didn’t care less about you. Yes, he could smile and joke though he rarely did, but both had a hollow ring which suggested that he was trying to be happy, trying to be funny, trying to be one of the lads, when he just wasn’t. There was also something rather greasy about him, so I didn’t trust him one bit either; and if that lot wasn’t enough, he was also one of the world's bullies and could have a nasty temper, and I was just learning that this was the chap that Peterson, my manager, was pairing me with for the next week”.
So began Bill’s story. 
“Peterson,” interrupted Dick, who was sitting just across the table from Bill, “He wasn’t Jimmy Peterson’s father?”
“Yes, that’s right”
“My, this story’s going back a bit! He’s been dead about twenty years, hasn’t he?” 
Bill nodded. “Oh, it goes back further than that; goes back to when I was the age of these two whipper-snappers,” indicating young Derek and Simon who were just up the table from me, “Back to the days when I had just started in the forestry”. He paused. “Goodness me,” he added after reflecting on this, “Yes, its about forty something years ago.” He took a pull from his pint and continued, 
“Peterson had told me that there was a bit of tidying up to do on the 23rd plantation lot. “Not much, two of you should get it done in a week. As you know we’re a bit short (handed), so there will be just the two of you. Er, you’ll be with Blackman.” 
Oh, great! And that was how I learned that I would be spending the next week with Stan Blackman.
“He’ll be getting the truck and the gear, so he’ll pick you up at the top of your road at about 7.00am. You lucky devil, you’ll get an extra five minutes in bed,” he had joked nervously in a vain attempt to gloss over the fact that he’d paired me with the most unpopular fellow in our section. Extra five minutes in bed; fat consolation that was! 
Peterson was tall, thin, craggy faced and quietly spoken. He had a kind heart and always thought the best of everyone. From his appearance alone you could see that he was born for the outdoors. Since he’d been manager he’d worn a shirt and tie, but they didn’t sit comfortably on him and he didn’t appear comfortable in them. A heavy check, open necked brushed cotton shirt was what suited him and was what he felt comfortable in. He had been a forester for most of his life. Yet there he was, stuck behind a desk and penned in his office for what remained of his foreseeable working life. Gone was the freedom of the great outdoors, the fresh smell of pine, the wind on his face. All he had now were memories of those days out in the forest. There was no way back for him, the only path now open was forward via his desk and office to his retirement, which was due in a few months time.
As much as I felt peeved at getting “the Blackman short straw” that week, I also felt slightly sorry for Peterson. Not just because he was now stuck behind that desk, but because he was stuck with Blackman the same as the rest of us. He knew none of us liked working with him and yet every week he had the unenviable job of foisting - as we saw it - Blackman on to one team or the other and I am sure he would have been much happier if he didn’t have to do it, but, perhaps unluckily for him, he had applied for the manager’s job before Blackman had arrived on the scene and I hazarded a guess that had he (Peterson) realised exactly what his job would entail - that he would be saddled with the unpopular task of handling a fellow like Blackman - he might not have applied, as this latter aspect of his job was a task he couldn’t have enjoyed. He wasn’t disliked by the men because of this, they accepted that he had no choice in the matter, but as “the boss”, coupled with being “the allocator of Blackman”, he was no longer one of them and I had a feeling that he missed that as much as he missed being out in the forest. I liked Peterson. He was always pretty fair to me - until he lumbered me with Blackman that is! - but looking back on it I had had a fairly easy ride vis-a-vis Blackman and so really had nothing to complain about.
Stan Blackman. The story was that he’d actually been christened Stan and that Stan was not an abbreviation of Stanley. However we all called him “Lard”. Not to his face mind you! And no, this was not Lard as in “Lard of the Manor”, but Lard as in “tub of lard”!” 
Bill smiled at the recollection and continued, “The lads, my workmates of those days, had an almost innocent directness in their sense of humour, which was both rather endearing as well as being vicious at the same time. Nothing changes!” He smiled and winked at us.
“In fairness Blackman wasn’t that fat, though he did have a flabby neck and certainly carried too much belly on him, which hung in a roll over the belt of his trousers. If he did nothing else useful, he certainly did his bit to keep the local pubs in business! Not fat, no, but as I’ve already mentioned he had a greasiness about him. If I say he was the sort of guy you wouldn’t want in the same room as your daughter, you’ll have a pretty good picture of him, though if the rumours I had heard were anything to go by it was not only daughters that he was after, but also young wives. So the “lard” sobriquet was a little more appropriate than it first appeared.
Of course back then I knew very little about any of his sex-related goings-on as I was just a youngster and the older men didn’t talk to me about that sort of thing. Times have changed. Everybody was much more tight-lipped in those days. Oh yes, sex was talked about in a loud boorish, rugby club sort of manner, the rude jokes and all that, and there were times when I felt that the older fellows, and I particularly remember a bloke called Big Joe Sweeney, deliberately set out to try and embarrass us young’uns, but failing relationships, infidelity, affairs and sexual abuse were certainly not talked about with the likes of tyros like me! And I suppose if I am honest, I probably wouldn't have had much interest in them either – I was still a bit young for all that sort of thing. Goodness knows what the women could have seen in Blackman, but the few rumours that did come my way suggested that there was more than one marriage that he had helped towards the rocks and that apparently there were a couple of young girls who had received unwanted attention in just the short space of time that he’d been with us. As said, I was young, and so these rumours were rather like stories to me.
Stan Blackman had arrived in the valley only about six months previously in slightly mysterious circumstances, in as much that no-one knew, or let on, as one or more of the bosses must have known where he had come from, where he had been working previously and why he’d had to move on, as it turned out, to us. Somehow he’d managed to wangle a new forestry house in the village. No doubt there was a bit of jealousy as a result of this, some feeling that they, or theirs, were more deserving than he. And if all the aforementioned reasons weren’t enough, finally there was, in spite of his I’ll-be-your-best-mate façade, the uncouth, rude and boorish way he could treat others, as if their feelings counted for nothing, that got everyone’s back up against him - everyone that is except his female flavour of the month! - and surprisingly he didn’t appear to care. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that his fellow workmates couldn’t stand him.
Blackman must have been a good ten, fifteen years older than I was, probably more, which, in case you’re wondering, is why he had been allocated the truck and not me.” 
Bill shot a deliberately pointed glance at young Simon, who, during the previous month, had managed to put a Landrover in a ditch so successfully that he’d had to have it towed out. We all had a chuckle. Poor Simon, he was still being ribbed rotten about this.
“I had no idea then that in just over a weeks time I would again be sitting is Peterson’s office talking about Blackman.”