Childhood
the best years of my life, part 1
In 1946 I first started school in the Infants.
I was 5 years old, my sister was 9. My mother used to put us on the bus at the top of the road. The fare was one and a half pence. At that young age it was all fun and games. Banging the drum, painting and making plasticine models.
As time went on I became a Junior and played football for the school team. When I was 9 years old I gained my free pass at swimming, I went most evenings.
Out of school our main game was playing football underneath the Gas Lamp in the street. We had no television in those days. We would spend our time playing games such as kick - can, there was a marble season and we would play hopscotch and whip and top I would chalk on the top of the Top and it would make a lovely pattern as it spun round. We would make up various other games.
At school we all used to fear the Headmaster because he used to administer the strap or cane to anyone who was badly behaved. We used to write his name all over the school walls, it was our way of getting back at him. l got caught once and got two strokes of the cane.
There was a little sweet shop opposite the school. They sold liquorice sticks and sherbert for a Farthing (the smallest amount of money in them days), the coin used to have a lovely little Robin on the front of it.
As time went on I left my old Church school St. Michael Tonge. I moved on to a brand new school, Moorclose Secondary Modern School (no more ink wells or metal tipped pens) I joined in all the sporting activities, football, rugby, cross country running, swimming, gymnasium etc. Our P.E. Teacher was Welsh and used to play Rugby he could have played for the Welsh Rugby team.
In our optional lesson I took up woodwork which is how I came to be a Carpenter in my working life.
At Assembly one day we had to pick a Choir. The Choir consisted of twelve pupils and out of three hundred pupils I was chosen to join the Choir.
As a small boy I have vivid memories of the War years born in Middleton, living near Middleton Junction where the Train lines were. The Germans tried to bomb the main train lines going into Manchester. I remember VE day at the end of the war when there was a parade of Tanks and Artillery through the Town. I was also taken to see the Search lights in Middleton Town Centre. Two families had to share an Air-raid Shelter. I hope those days will never be repeated.
One of my hobbies was Fishing. I remember we used to go to Rhode Lodges. We had no equipment all we had was a piece of cane and nylon line which had been discarded by fishermen. To complete the rig we used a bent pin as a hook and a matchstick as a float. Our bait was mostly worms from our own garden we would also get some maggots from out of the local butchers bone bins at the back of his shop (it wasn't very hygienic)
Another pastime would be to make Kites. We would make them out of cloth and cane. We would also make arrows out of cane, they had paper flights at one end and a nail at the other. In the summer we would put melting tar from the roads onto the end to balance the arrows.
One of my favourite hobbies was cycling, the only thing was; we were so poor we couldn't afford to buy a bike so we used to go to the River Irk which ran through Middleton, to find bits and pieces for parts. We used to call these bikes Track irons and they had no brakes!
Other things we used to do was, to take Ferrets and go hunting for rats we would carry air rifles and dispense with them.
We also had a favourite place to collect Clay. We would make Gnomes with the Clay and then dry the Clay over open fires.
In the summer on nice sunny days we would go swimming in the Canal until the Polio scare stopped us.