Today’s song is dedicated to my best mate and life-long buddy Tony Walsh from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland. The song is ‘All Shook Up’. It was recorded by Elvis Presley, published by Elvis Presley Music, and composed by Otis Blackwell. The single topped the U.S. ‘Billboard Hot 100’ on April 13, 1957, staying there for eight weeks. It also topped the ‘Billboard R&B Chart’ for four weeks, becoming Presley's second single to do so, and peaked at No. 1 on the country chart as well.]It is certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA. The song was ranked Number 352 on Rolling Stone’s list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’.
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Around the time that this song was released in 1957, I was a teenager aged 14 years old. Two and a half years earlier I’d been trapped under a lorry and incurred multiple and life-threatening injuries. For nearly one month I was at death's door and my damaged spine led the hospital doctor to tell my parents, ‘Even if he lives, Mr and Mrs Forde, which is most unlikely, I’m afraid he’ll never walk again!”
When I was at my worst and in a semi-comatose state, my father promised he would buy me any present I wanted if I lived through my ordeal. When I became fully conscious and did live, remembering my father’s promise made on my hospital death bed, I told him that he could buy me a new bicycle. Prior to my accident, my father had purchased a rusty, second-hand bicycle for ten shillings at Cleckheaton Market Place. The bicycle had no mudguards and only one brake; the front brake (which is the most dangerous if only one brake is available for use when cycling at speed). I asked my father to buy me a brand-new Raleigh bicycle with a Sturmey Archer three-speed that made it easier to cycle uphill. Being a man who never broke a promise in his life and a man whose word was his bond, he smiled and acceded to my request.
Despite having been told by the medics that I would never walk again, he kept his promise. This was a promise he could ill afford, in order to buy me a new bicycle that he’d been medically told that I’d never be able to ride. He only retained ten shillings per week spending money from his wage packet that was always handed to my mother over unopened, and the bicycle I had specified could only be purchased on the ‘never never’ (hire purchase) by him. It would use up most of his weekly spending money for a couple of years. I even recall after I had been discharged from hospital overhearing a conversation between dad and mum. My dad said, "I’ve bought him a brand-new bike, Maureen, that he can only look at in the hallway". Mum replied, "You promised him a new bike, Paddy. No matter what use he gets or never gets out of it!”
By the time I’d left the hospital after nine months as an in-patient, I had regained the sensation of pain in the lower half of my body beneath my waistline. For reasons that the medics could not explain, my spine was again sending signals to activate my body below my legs. I was now able to move and wriggle my badly damaged legs, even though there were no prospects offered that I’d ever be able to mobilise them into action again. I’d had dozens of operations performed in breaking and re-setting my twisted legs so that I wouldn’t be left looking physically deformed.
I refused to become a bedridden son in my mother’s house and learned to stand up over the months ahead and support my weight on a kitchen surface or tabletop; whichever was to hand. My father made up a bunker (Go- Cart) for me to be pulled around in by my sisters, Mary and Eileen. This was a box made in chariot-style design from old wood where I could sit upright. Supporting the weight of the passenger being pulled was an undercarriage made from a plank of wood that was somehow attached to four Silver Cross pram wheels, along with a steering wheel that could turn the two front pram wheels in different directions. There was, however, no brake system; presumably as dad did not know how to attach one. For six months I would be pulled around Windy Bank Estate by my sisters in my bunker (Go-Cart). My bunker became my chariot of freedom that would get me out of the house.
My gradual progression over the next six months witnessed me slowly walk if my two sisters were prepared to sling one of my arms over their shoulders as they supported my body weight. There were times, however, when they would get fed up with humping me around the estate when they could have been having fun elsewhere. Whenever this occurred, they would simply abandon me on a low-level wall, and run off laughing loudly. They would naturally return, but it could be an hour later!
One year after leaving the hospital, while I still couldn’t walk unassisted, I wondered if the part movement of my legs would enable me to pedal a bicycle; my own brand-new unridden bicycle with its top of the range Sturmey Archer three-speed. I asked my father to lift me on the bicycle and he pushed me like a parent might support their five-year-old child learning to cycle for the first time. This was when I discovered the disadvantage of having one leg three inches shorter than the other. I could turn my longest leg (my right leg) one full rotation with its pedal but was unable to do anything with my short left-leg that had been left in a position of semi-use; being unable to bend it beyond 70 degrees or straighten fully. So, while I could place my right foot on the pedal when it was at its lowest point of rotation and propel it one full revolution, I could only place my left foot on the pedal after it was in a nine-fifteen clock position, and then sharply remove my left foot as the pedal rotated back upwards. Should I not time this removal accurately, because my left leg wouldn’t bend or straighten far enough, it would create a jolting pain. My father added a pad on the left-hand-side pedal to make up for the deficiency in leg length to my left leg. Now, I was able to rotate a full 360-degree cycle of the pedal with my right foot and when the left pedal approached my 70-degree maximum bend on my short leg, I would need to speedily remove it until the pedal had lowered once more.
It took me around one month before I was able to cycle to the bottom of the avenue where I lived unaided. At first, I would falter and fall from the bicycle and I would ask my dad to re-mount me in the saddle. From my bedroom window at the rear of the house, I could see the towering monument on Castle Hill in Huddersfield, some seven miles away. I would look towards Castle Hill and vowed that I would one day cycle there and back home!
Every day I went out on my bicycle without fail whatever the weather. My father worked as a miner for a living and my mother was always too busy looking after her home and growing family. After being mounted on my bicycle, I would have to look out for myself. I would cycle as far as I could before I fell off the bike (usually when I had to stop at a T-junction or crossroad). When this happened, I would simply wait on the ground until some strong-armed man came along, helped me to my feet and lifted me back into the saddle. If he refused, I would simply be piggybacked home in shame by a passing broad-backed stranger.
To overcome the risk of falling from my bike when it almost stopped or was brought to a stand-still was eventually made possible after I explained the problem to my dad. He changed the mechanism (or got someone else to change it) to a fixed-gear system of rotation. This change allowed me to better control my speeding up and slowing down and stopping. In a short span of time, I became like a trick cyclist who could bring their bike to a three-minute stand-still and keep it under control without falling off.
I continued to set out daily on my bike, whatever the weather was like. You must bear in mind that the volume of traffic on the roads in 1956 was nothing like as congested as one experiences today. The closer I got to Castle Hill, the better I was becoming at being able to hobble about unaided and no longer needed to have assistance when mounting my bike. I was well into my 14th year of life, going on 15, the day I arrived at the base of Castle Hill. I cried with pleasure and started to cycle back home to tell my mother that I’d made it. Halfway home as I passed the ICI Chemical Works at Bradley, I suddenly realised that both my feet had completed the full rotation of the pedal cycle. It hurt like hell, but I'd done it!
It was at that moment that I shed the happiest of tears that ever streamed down the cheeks of my face. I cried so much as I peddled home to tell my mother that my body tremored with sheer happiness. I was ‘All Shook Up’, and every time I hear this song it reminds me of that eventful year in my life before my fifteenth birthday when I cycled 7 miles to Castle Hill and 7 miles back home!
It was a few years later that I met Tony Walsh and we became the closest of buddies. I dedicate this song to my best-mate, Tony Walsh from Carrick-on-Suir in County Tipperary. This Elvis number was one of his favourites when we were teenage buddies.
Love and peace Bill xxx
cheers
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Around the time that this song was released in 1957, I was a teenager aged 14 years old. Two and a half years earlier I’d been trapped under a lorry and incurred multiple and life-threatening injuries. For nearly one month I was at death's door and my damaged spine led the hospital doctor to tell my parents, ‘Even if he lives, Mr and Mrs Forde, which is most unlikely, I’m afraid he’ll never walk again!”
When I was at my worst and in a semi-comatose state, my father promised he would buy me any present I wanted if I lived through my ordeal. When I became fully conscious and did live, remembering my father’s promise made on my hospital death bed, I told him that he could buy me a new bicycle. Prior to my accident, my father had purchased a rusty, second-hand bicycle for ten shillings at Cleckheaton Market Place. The bicycle had no mudguards and only one brake; the front brake (which is the most dangerous if only one brake is available for use when cycling at speed). I asked my father to buy me a brand-new Raleigh bicycle with a Sturmey Archer three-speed that made it easier to cycle uphill. Being a man who never broke a promise in his life and a man whose word was his bond, he smiled and acceded to my request.
Despite having been told by the medics that I would never walk again, he kept his promise. This was a promise he could ill afford, in order to buy me a new bicycle that he’d been medically told that I’d never be able to ride. He only retained ten shillings per week spending money from his wage packet that was always handed to my mother over unopened, and the bicycle I had specified could only be purchased on the ‘never never’ (hire purchase) by him. It would use up most of his weekly spending money for a couple of years. I even recall after I had been discharged from hospital overhearing a conversation between dad and mum. My dad said, "I’ve bought him a brand-new bike, Maureen, that he can only look at in the hallway". Mum replied, "You promised him a new bike, Paddy. No matter what use he gets or never gets out of it!”
By the time I’d left the hospital after nine months as an in-patient, I had regained the sensation of pain in the lower half of my body beneath my waistline. For reasons that the medics could not explain, my spine was again sending signals to activate my body below my legs. I was now able to move and wriggle my badly damaged legs, even though there were no prospects offered that I’d ever be able to mobilise them into action again. I’d had dozens of operations performed in breaking and re-setting my twisted legs so that I wouldn’t be left looking physically deformed.
I refused to become a bedridden son in my mother’s house and learned to stand up over the months ahead and support my weight on a kitchen surface or tabletop; whichever was to hand. My father made up a bunker (Go- Cart) for me to be pulled around in by my sisters, Mary and Eileen. This was a box made in chariot-style design from old wood where I could sit upright. Supporting the weight of the passenger being pulled was an undercarriage made from a plank of wood that was somehow attached to four Silver Cross pram wheels, along with a steering wheel that could turn the two front pram wheels in different directions. There was, however, no brake system; presumably as dad did not know how to attach one. For six months I would be pulled around Windy Bank Estate by my sisters in my bunker (Go-Cart). My bunker became my chariot of freedom that would get me out of the house.
My gradual progression over the next six months witnessed me slowly walk if my two sisters were prepared to sling one of my arms over their shoulders as they supported my body weight. There were times, however, when they would get fed up with humping me around the estate when they could have been having fun elsewhere. Whenever this occurred, they would simply abandon me on a low-level wall, and run off laughing loudly. They would naturally return, but it could be an hour later!
One year after leaving the hospital, while I still couldn’t walk unassisted, I wondered if the part movement of my legs would enable me to pedal a bicycle; my own brand-new unridden bicycle with its top of the range Sturmey Archer three-speed. I asked my father to lift me on the bicycle and he pushed me like a parent might support their five-year-old child learning to cycle for the first time. This was when I discovered the disadvantage of having one leg three inches shorter than the other. I could turn my longest leg (my right leg) one full rotation with its pedal but was unable to do anything with my short left-leg that had been left in a position of semi-use; being unable to bend it beyond 70 degrees or straighten fully. So, while I could place my right foot on the pedal when it was at its lowest point of rotation and propel it one full revolution, I could only place my left foot on the pedal after it was in a nine-fifteen clock position, and then sharply remove my left foot as the pedal rotated back upwards. Should I not time this removal accurately, because my left leg wouldn’t bend or straighten far enough, it would create a jolting pain. My father added a pad on the left-hand-side pedal to make up for the deficiency in leg length to my left leg. Now, I was able to rotate a full 360-degree cycle of the pedal with my right foot and when the left pedal approached my 70-degree maximum bend on my short leg, I would need to speedily remove it until the pedal had lowered once more.
It took me around one month before I was able to cycle to the bottom of the avenue where I lived unaided. At first, I would falter and fall from the bicycle and I would ask my dad to re-mount me in the saddle. From my bedroom window at the rear of the house, I could see the towering monument on Castle Hill in Huddersfield, some seven miles away. I would look towards Castle Hill and vowed that I would one day cycle there and back home!
Every day I went out on my bicycle without fail whatever the weather. My father worked as a miner for a living and my mother was always too busy looking after her home and growing family. After being mounted on my bicycle, I would have to look out for myself. I would cycle as far as I could before I fell off the bike (usually when I had to stop at a T-junction or crossroad). When this happened, I would simply wait on the ground until some strong-armed man came along, helped me to my feet and lifted me back into the saddle. If he refused, I would simply be piggybacked home in shame by a passing broad-backed stranger.
To overcome the risk of falling from my bike when it almost stopped or was brought to a stand-still was eventually made possible after I explained the problem to my dad. He changed the mechanism (or got someone else to change it) to a fixed-gear system of rotation. This change allowed me to better control my speeding up and slowing down and stopping. In a short span of time, I became like a trick cyclist who could bring their bike to a three-minute stand-still and keep it under control without falling off.
I continued to set out daily on my bike, whatever the weather was like. You must bear in mind that the volume of traffic on the roads in 1956 was nothing like as congested as one experiences today. The closer I got to Castle Hill, the better I was becoming at being able to hobble about unaided and no longer needed to have assistance when mounting my bike. I was well into my 14th year of life, going on 15, the day I arrived at the base of Castle Hill. I cried with pleasure and started to cycle back home to tell my mother that I’d made it. Halfway home as I passed the ICI Chemical Works at Bradley, I suddenly realised that both my feet had completed the full rotation of the pedal cycle. It hurt like hell, but I'd done it!
It was at that moment that I shed the happiest of tears that ever streamed down the cheeks of my face. I cried so much as I peddled home to tell my mother that my body tremored with sheer happiness. I was ‘All Shook Up’, and every time I hear this song it reminds me of that eventful year in my life before my fifteenth birthday when I cycled 7 miles to Castle Hill and 7 miles back home!
It was a few years later that I met Tony Walsh and we became the closest of buddies. I dedicate this song to my best-mate, Tony Walsh from Carrick-on-Suir in County Tipperary. This Elvis number was one of his favourites when we were teenage buddies.
Love and peace Bill xxx
cheers
