Ian McMillan: Milking a coconut for all it’s worth

Jack was from Sheffield so he was what we in Barnsley call a DeeDar; Sheffielders have a unique way of saying their th’s, so Now Then becomes Nar Den and What Are Tha Doing becomes What Dar Duin?

Anyway, one night in the mid-1960s, me and my brother and my mam and dad and Auntie Mary and Uncle Jack went to the fair (or as it’s known in my part of Barnsley, the feast) on the Top Field. Uncle Jack announced (and I won’t write the DeeDar accent because it’ll wear out the D on my keyboard) that he was going to win me a coconut. “You’ll like it,” he said, when he saw me looking uncertain. “The milk is like nectar.” I didn’t know what nectar was, but I nodded.

We went straight to the coconut shy and Jack starting chucking balls at the coconuts. His aim was fairly erratic and he almost knocked the cap off a passing pensioner from Wombwell. The coconuts, on the other hand, were safe.

“Are they nailed on?” Uncle Jack shouted to the lad who was guarding the stall.

“Stand closer if you want,” he replied, certain that, even from point-blank range, Jack couldn’t hit the target.

Uncle Jack stood closer, and carried on missing.

After a while, we all got fed up and began to drift away. Uncle Jack sensed that this was his final chance to get me the coconut of my dreams. He gripped the last ball tight and took a long run-up, almost disappearing out of the field. He thundered in like Fred Trueman. He hurled the ball. The stallholder ducked and the old bloke from Wombwell held on to his cap. The ball struck the coconut and it tottered in its holder and then fell, slowly, like a demolished block of flats. We all clapped and Jack took a bow before grabbing the coconut.

“Now then”, he said, triumphantly, “let’s get to that milk. It’s like nectar.”

He felt in his pocket for his trusty Sheffield Steel penknife; Auntie Mary pointed out that it was in his other jacket. He looked frustrated but only for a moment. He took his car keys out and began to pound the coconut rhythmically. He twisted the car keys in the top of the coconut. He dropped the coconut on the floor from a great height. He assaulted the coconut with a combination of the car keys and a mallet he’d borrowed from the kid on the stall.

The car keys began to bend alarmingly and I could see that Auntie Mary was getting worried about how they’d get back to Hillsborough.

Suddenly, Uncle Jack got very angry with the coconut. He picked it up and hurled it as far away as he could. It flew through the air and landed miles away. There wasn’t the sound of smashing glass, but there should have been.

We all went home and had a cup of tea. With cow’s milk, of course.