The Carol Caller

On the odd-number side of Ferntower Road, one of the sixties, round about number 65, there lived in the top floor flat a woman and her daughter by the name of Carol.
We know the daughter’s name was Carol because, as soon as Carol was old enough to play out, her mum would let her know when lunch or tea was ready and she should come back in, by leaning out of the window and shouting, ‘CAROL’.
This was OK at first, but as Carol got older she tended to stray further, and so be out of sight of her mum, and she also sometimes chose not to hear, when everyone else in the neighbourhood could.
‘CAROL! CAROL! CAAA-RUL! CA-ROOOOOOL!’ On and on it went. If Carol couldn’t hear it, then she was the only person that side of Newington Green who couldn’t.
‘Shut up will yer misses, some of us are trying to get a bit of peace round here!’ Eventually some people in the street began to shout back, especially one bloke who worked nights:
‘I bin trying to get some bloody sleep and all I can hear is you bellowing your head off. All that shahtin, I bin on nights and I need to get a little bit of kip without all that racket going on.’ Shouting up to her as she leaned out of the window, until she looked a bit shocked and ducked back inside.
The Carol-calling stopped. And shortly afterwards Carol and her mum moved away, to somewhere where the neighbours gave her less grief, or she hoped they would. But times had changed, Carol-calling probably wasn’t going to be accepted anywhere any more. Carol’s mum must have found it hard, coming to terms with these modern ways.
The mark of encroaching gentrification.
Dave