Legendary Huddersfield journalist and author DENIS KILCOMMONS is a natural storyteller who brings everyday subjects to life in his own inimitable style. Denis wrote a hugely popular column in the Huddersfield Examiner for 34 years until his retirement in 2023. Now he’s back from a break and writing for Huddersfield Hub.
Nicknames have been around since Vlad the Impaler.
When I arrived at De La Salle College in Manchester at the age of 12 I discovered I had been dubbed Killer.
I had transferred from St Michael’s College in Leeds and was a month late starting the second year and gained Killer in absentia because my name Kilcommons was read out every morning when the form teacher checked attendance.
What could I expect? Particularly as the class already had a Cummings. Kill Cummings was whispered in the corridors of learning. Then I arrived, a 12-year-old with a puzzled look, a Yorkshire accent and a physique like a Twiglet.
After everyone stopped laughing the name stuck throughout my time at De La Salle.
I like nicknames and many have featured among friends past and current. Billy Shoes was so called because of his job as a stock auditor for a shoe firm.
Crazy Horse was the nickname of a very fine senior police officer and friend because of an incident early in his career and a surgeon pal with a sense of humour was tagged Crippen.
Phil Wood had many including Doris, Phil the Corner and Big Veg (this latter nickname gained because of his love of large vegetable curries from a Honley takeaway).
A former Butlin’s Redcoat, he could be found at other periods in his career serving drinks in The Jacob’s Well in Honley or driving a vehicle transporter around Europe as part of a Formula 2 team. A character to always make you smile.
My daughter Siobhan became known among her friends at Honley High as Shiv which always sounded slightly threatening as if she was an expert with a blade.
My friends have included Rag, Wimps, Ratbag, Krusty, Hoover, Hobby, Sponge, Chef, Duffy, Billy the Fish, Poggy, Peter Pan, Shep, Trev, Lord Honley, Baz, Daz and Gaz.
When Maria and I became an item when I was working on the Evening Gazette in Blackpool, I knew I had been accepted into the family when Little Grandma, Mary Colaluca, insisted on calling me the Little Scribbler which made me sound like a Batman villain. Most people since have called me Den which is, possibly, a slight improvement.
Talking of memorable names and characters, more than 50 years ago I spent a Saturday evening with Percy Shaw. His name might not be widely recognised but people around the world rely upon him every time they drive on a road at night. Percy invented Cat’s Eyes, a device that has been acclaimed as the greatest contribution to road safety.
It happened when he nearly drove off the top of a moorland road on a foggy night in the 1930s. He braked just in time after his headlights were reflected in the eyes of a cat sitting on a fence.
As Frank Carson said, if the cat had been facing the other way he might have invented the pencil sharpener.
His invention was slow to take off but the device became essential during the black-outs of the Second World War. Sales grew and so did his factory which he extended around his house.
He insisted on keeping a tree in what had been the factory yard. When I visited in the 1970s and when he was in his 80s the tree was still in place and growing through the roof.
I was introduced to Percy by mutual friends and had a pleasant but odd evening with him at his at his home in Boothtown, Halifax.
He was a bluff Yorkshireman with a dry sense of humour. No carpets or curtains – ‘they just hold muck’ – and a view into the yard. Three televisions all on at the same time on different channels but with the sound turned off.
He had two Rolls Royce motor cars.
“Why two?’’ I asked.
“For when one of them goes in for service,’’ he said, as if the need was self-obvious.
He served me beer and discovered I smoked the occasional cigar. My choice was small half coronas but he produced for me what he described as a special cheroot.
It was twice as long as a full corona, thin and not exactly straight. Rather than the sort of cigar rolled on the thighs of Cuban maidens, this looked as if it had been weaved by drunk monkeys.
I never discovered whether this was a joke but manfully smoked the thing for a time before letting it go out and taking it with me for disposal.
Vivien Irish captures the spirit of the man in a delightful piece she wrote for the Yorkshire Philosophical Society website.
She describes how he would sit in the back of his Rolls Royce and eat, with his fingers, tripe he’d bought from Halifax market for his lunch.
“This was a change from his regular lunch at the Co-op Cafe in Northgate, costing 1/9d,’’ Vivien says.
Catch up with Denis’s previous columns HERE
