Christmas presents

I was trying to remember some of the presents I loved in my childhood. See if you remember any of them.

'Baco' sets - you got plans and could build small houses with them. They were made from bakelite, there were bases with lots of holes that you placed rods in. The bricks and windows slotted in between the rods. There were ready made roofs of different sizes to finish them off.

'John Bull printing outfit' - There were lots of small rubber letters and numbers which slid into slots in wooden blocks. You made up a few lines of text and pressed it onto an ink pad and then stamped it the text onto paper.

'Meccano set' - I'm sure we all remember those. Various metal shapes, wheels, nuts and bolts for making all sorts of models.

'Triang and Hornby Double O electric train sets' - Every boy's dream. I didn't think my parents could afford one and found a smaller version in a Grattan's catalogue. It was a 'triple O' scale and that's what I thought they would buy for me. They came up trumps and bought me the Triang set. Do you remember the fantastic smell of ozone from the electric sparks of the engines.

'Sweet shop' - I though this was great. It had small tubes of candy/sweets and some weighing scales. The box made up into a shop.

'Chemistry set' - Lots of test tubes and powders. I thought it was really exciting at first but it soon turned boring when I realised you couldn't do anything very interesting with it. No explosions or nasty smells!

'Mechanical penguin' - Simple little toy. Strangely enough it was green and white. Made from pressed metal it had a wind up mechanism and two wheels. The wings flapped up and down and it moved around, changing direction every so often.

'Wigwam tent' - I went downstairs one Christmas to find it standing there. I loved this and had many good times with my mates in it.

'Desk and chair' - One year, both me and my sister got one. Made by triang, they had a little ink well and a lift up lid where you could keep paper and things underneath it and. We played at schools with them (strange since I hated school), wrote stories, drew and painted etc.

'Bagatelle' - A weird toy, it was a board with a curved wall around the edge. Inside were small cupped holes with nails around them. There was a plunger thing that fired glass marbles into the board and you had to try to get them to land in the cups which had various scores.

If I can think of any more I'll add them later.

Christmas approaching

It’s that time of year again. What was it like in the 1950s? For children of any generation, it is a time of great excitement. 1950s-style Christmas was quite different to what it is today and I have to say, it was much better. Bear in mind that treats were few and far between and television was still a rarity in many homes. We weren’t pummelled with advertising every fifteen minutes like we are now and it didn’t start in October either! So when it did come, it was the most exciting and welcomed part of the year for us (maybe not for our parents though).

Winters were colder and snow more frequent, so the setting was more naturally ‘Christmassy’ than it is now. For us it would start with the odd brown paper parcel from the postman, which mum would quickly ferret away out of our sight. We had a lot of aunties and uncles who sent us gifts but we didn’t figure that was what the parcels were until much older. We still believed in Santa for a long time. The first exciting event was probably helping mum make the Christmas cake. Putting all the lovely ingredients into a big bowl and helping mix it up. Of course, the best part was scraping the bowl clean and eating the sweet, gooey mixture. It always caused arguments between my sister and I so we used to draw a line halfway across the bowl – mine and hers.

Next piece of fun was decorating the rooms. An old cardboard box, full decorations appeared along with a small artificial tree. It had a small round wooden base, which was too small to support the tree, so dad wedged it into a fruit bowl, packed the sides with sand and covered it with cotton wool to make it look like snow. Mum did the tree decorating, assisted by my sister and I. We took it in turns to pick out a piece, which we had carefully wrapped in newspaper after the previous Christmas. There were certain favourites that we hoped we would find when we opened them. There was a green, frosted-glass church with sparkly snow on the roof and a bauble with a long spike and an indented face that looked like an old-fashioned car headlight. That one went on the top (no fairy). Our most favourites were two small glass birds with nylon brushes for tails. They had a clip on the bottom to attach them to the tree. Shirley and I had one each. I think mine was yellow and hers pink. We didn’t have any lights for the tree but I really longed for some. We finished it off with a long string of pink, glassy beads and small lumps of cotton wool for snow.

Meanwhile, dad would be getting fraught with the paper streamers that were hung from corner to corner of the ceilings in the two downstairs rooms. I didn’t understand why he seemed so cross about the affair until I grew up and had the job to do myself. I reckon it was mostly the frustration of drawing pins. You teeter on the top of a stepladder, stretching over the settee and trying to pin the streamers to the wall. Your back is killing you and you either drop the pin first or find that it is bent and have to come down for another one. You try to push that into the hard plaster and that one bends too, or the streamer rips. Over-excited kids getting under your feet and demanding you put this one up now doesn’t help either. Plus you know it’s all to take down and put away again in a couple of weeks. Bah humbug – anyway back to the reminiscences of childhood.

My favourites decorations were the ball and bell shaped things that started out flat. You opened them like a book and clipped the two edges together to make a coloured, paper, 3D decoration. We usually made some paper chains and lanterns from different-coloured, gummed, paper strips. Blowing up balloons was always fun, making us dizzy. Some would escape our grip and fly around the room making a loud farting noise. Sometimes they’d go completely haywire and disappear up the chimney. Best was if one burst whilst someone was blowing it up. Lastly were the small figures that we put on the mantelpieces. There was a set of three small fir trees that looked like tapered bottle-brushes. I think we had one of those clear plastic domes that were filled with water and white flakes. There was a snowman inside and you shook the thing to create a small snowstorm inside it. I think we had a small plaster santa that held one of the trees.

The scene was set and we were pumped up with excitement. Mum would soon be busy baking buns and cakes, making trifle etc ready for the BIG DAY. Christmas Eve arrived and we were so excited we thought we’d simply explode. Usually, my parents arranged a pie and pea supper for the adults – mum and dad, mum’s parents and my auntie and uncle who all lived in the same town. They were never big boozers, a couple of bottles of pale ale each for the men and a glass of QC sherry or port for the ladies. Sometimes grandad would bring a big cigar each for the men. We were never allowed to stay up for the supper and it was one day in the year that we didn’t argue. We figured that the sooner the night was over the better, then it would be Christmas Day and the real fun would start.

Usually on Christmas Eve my sister and I slept in the same double bed. I think it started when one of my uncles was staying and was using my bed. After that, we always wanted to stay together on Christmas Eve because we were so excited we couldn’t sleep at all and we could talk and pass the night away better. Grandad would usually come upstairs to say goodnight and spin one of his yarns about how he’s just seen Santa and his sleigh on one of the roofs down the road, but we had to be good and go to sleep before he would come here. The night seemed so long and we would keep peeping out of the bedroom door to see if ‘he’d been yet’. The tradition in our house was to leave our presents in pillow-cases on the stair landing. After several disappointing investigations, I guess we eventually fell asleep in the wee hours. We’d soon be awake again though! Probably around five or six am we’d see the pillow-cases there, bursting with parcels. Sometimes we had a furtive feel to see if we could guess what was in them. I remember one year, an umbrella-shaped parcel in my sister’s sack – no surprises there then! Eventually we woke our parents and begged them to let us open the presents…………More to follow.

some wintry memories

Coming home from school to a cold house, warmed only by paraffin heater. Do you remember the smell? Or maybe mum had lit a fire but you couldn’t feel it because there was a clothes-horse around it, full of damp, steaming washing.

Buttercup syrup or Gees Linctus to sooth your cough. Having Vic ointment rubbed on your chest and nose when you had a cold – boy did it sting if you had a sore nose. Sena pod and raisin tea when you were constipated

Chilblains and sore calves from cold, wet wellies and lads dropping snowballs inside them. Why did your socks always slip down and end up in a ball on the end of your foot? Ballaclavas mum had knitted and woolly mittens held together with string and threaded through your coat sleeves, so that you didn’t lose them.

Ponds, lakes and rivers freezing over. Long icicles hanging from dripping overflow pipes. Bottles of milk on your doorstep that had frozen. The solid milk expanded and pushed the tops off. Sometimes bluetits had pecked the foil open to drink the cream.

Cars that wouldn’t start in the morning and had to be ‘pushed off’ or started by cranking a huge handle through the radiator.

Being the first one out in the morning and running through the fresh, virgin snow to leave your tracks. The fun of just watching your breath coming out as steam. Looking to the sky, watching snowflakes falling, how they hurt when they hit your eyeball.

Power cuts and the excitement of having to use candles to light the house.

Having a bath in front of the fire, then toasting bread or crumpets on a fork. Drinking hot milk and honey and snuggling up to mum or dad for a story before bedtime.

lost in time

Can you remember any of these? They were part of our lives in the 50s and 60s but mostly have been lost in the mists of time.

Women who went to the local shop in slippers and wearing curlers in their hair.

Hairstyles on men that had a ‘quiff’ at the front.

Coconut macaroons with a cherry on top, mum made them in an eggcup.

Double seats at the back of the cinema, young couples could enjoy ‘a bit of slap and tickle’ and probably saw little of the film.

Boys shouting to cyclists, ‘Get off and milk it’ and ‘Is it a bike or a bedstead?’

Dipping a small stick of rhubarb into an eggcup-full of sugar and eating it.

Your sister ironing her long hair on the ironing board in order to straighten it. Or cellotaping curls to her cheeks until they had dried and set to get a Cilla Black bob style look.

Boy scouts ‘bob-a-job’ week

Cow-horn handlebars

The ‘pop-man’ - he used to bring a truck full of fizzy pop to the street. Ours was Barrs pop.

Taking empty pop bottles back to the corner shop and getting a few pennies for them.

Making a peashooter from and empty biro pen and blowing grains of uncooked rice through it.

Knitting long woollen ‘tails’ using a cotton bobbin with four small nails in the end. The tail emerged from the hole in the bobbin.

Playing a game of ‘ponks’ with glass marbles. We used to play it in the gutter of the road all the way from school and back home.

Making a toy ‘tank’ out of an empty bobbin, a slice of candle, a rubber band and a used matchstick.

Girls doing handstands against a wall and tucking their dresses/skirts into the legs of their knickers to hide their modesty.

Seeing your breath as steam on a cold frosty morning – in your bedroom!

Making a sort of gunpowder out of weed-killer and sugar. We made a trail with it on a wall and when lit it would fizz and sparkle and work its way along the line.

Collecting empty cigarette packets and cutting the front and backs off to make playing cards. We played ‘snap’ with them and did swaps. Some favourites brands were: Bachelors, Senior Service, Capstan Full Strength, Craven A, Kensitas.

Barbers shops where men had their split ends singed off with a lighted taper. The mysterious ‘Something for the weekend sir?’

Stuffing your bra with paper hankies

Sitting on the wall by the road and writing down every car registration that passed.

Drying your hair in front of the open fire and seeing steam rising off it.

Paraffin heaters and Esso Blue

Folding cigarette cards and pegging them to the struts on your bicycle, the spokes on the wheels would make them flap and create a sound like a motorbike (so we thought).

a christmas party

I was reminded today that Christmas will soon be here and it brought back a really warm memory. I must have been about nine years old. Every year in our school, a small group of children were chosen to attend a party held by the young girl students at the local College of Housecraft. The college seems like a quaint concept nowadays. The students were taught the crafts of cooking, sewing and other domestic activities. I guess they would later progress to be teachers in what was called Domestic Science at school (a remarkably p.c. title considering it was the 1950s). That was another quaint concept whereby girls were basically taught how to be housewives. (This subject was dropped from the school curriculum many years ago but many believe it should be re-introduced now to address the problem of a generation living on junk food).

Back to the story – well I was part of the chosen group one year. As I remember, we were to give the students a carol service and they would provide us with some food that they had prepared. On the day, one of the teachers walked us out of the town and up the steep hill to the edge of the moors, where the college was situated. There was deep snow all around, which set the Yuletide theme nicely. The large Victorian building was very grand and we sat cross-legged on a highly polished floor in a large, dark and wood panelled room. Three or four young, women students looked after us very well. There was a grand piano which one of them played whilst we sang our carols. They plied us with sandwiches, cakes, buns and probably jelly and ice cream. I seem to think we played some games and the students helped us make some Christmas cards.

It was such a refreshing change for me, to be attended and cosseted by these lovely, gentle young women, instead of the usual rough treatment we got from our teachers at school. I recall it was dark when we walked back into town and a warm, happy glow filled me. One I can still feel faintly from time to time, when I remember that day.

bonfire night

Bonfire night was the culmination of great excitement that had started weeks before the 5th November. Health and Safety wasn’t the national disease it’s become nowadays and children could buy fireworks without their parents’ presence. There were few organised bonfires in the fifties and sixties but most streets had at least one, organised by the local kids. Fireworks appeared in the corner shops – the newsagents and general stores, two or three weeks previous. We spent all our pocket money on them, which were sold separately, for a few (old) pennies. They were displayed in glass sweetie jars and we pondered for minutes over which to buy. Some of the names I remember were: golden rain and silver rain, volcanoes, jumping jacks, snowstorm, Catherine wheels, and the bangers were penny and two-penny canons and little demons.

Boys bought dozens of bangers to light before bonfire night. We were often reckless but nobody wanted to get burnt. I don’t remember anyone getting hurt. We used to stick a banger in the soil, light it and put an empty baked bean tin over it and watch it launch into the air. We put them in milk bottles and threw them in the river to get a satisfying deep thump sound and a puff of smoke from the water. Not very popular with anglers!

The main activity was building the bonfire, which was normally on our vegetable garden. We called on neighbours asking if they had any old wood or furniture and usually collected a big pile. Often there was an old armchair or settee, which we made good use of before it was burnt. There was no plastic foam in furniture, so no toxic fumes to worry about. Dad usually started the building of it by lashing branches together to form a wigwam shape. The centre was filled with smaller stuff. There was competition amongst kids over the size of their bonfires. Raiding from rivals was a threat and had to be guarded against. It doubled as a den to play in before ‘the night’.

Sometimes we made a guy with the help of mum and we took it around the neighbourhood, asking if anyone had ‘a penny for the guy.’ The money bought more fireworks. Mum made toffee and parkin nearer the day. Family and close neighbours would be joining us for the fun.

When November the 5th came, we couldn’t wait to get home from school. We stuffed the bonfire with old newspapers and cardboard and dad soaked it in paraffin. All the fireworks were pooled together, ready for the adults to light. We’d be running around the houses with our torches, passing time until everyone arrived and watching the sky for signs of the first lighted bonfires. Before long the sky was glowing and filled with smoke and rockets. The fire was lit and we delighted at the crackling and spitting as it intensified. The heat could be felt many yards away and the damp soil around it steamed. After a while the fireworks were lit and we took it in turns to pick one out of the box, seeking out our own special favourites. Drinks and food soon followed: toffee, jacket potatoes, parkin, pop for the kids, cups of tea for the ladies and sometimes a bottle of beer for the men.

When all the fireworks had gone and the fire died down, we gathered around, poking at it with sticks, trying to light the ends so we could wave them around making glowing patterns in the air. We’d search around desperately to find a firework that hadn’t been lit, just to keep the excitement going. Sometimes we tried to bake potatoes in the embers. I remember the taste of spuds that were almost burnt to a cinder.

The following day we rushed home after school and went straight to the old fire. Often it was still glowing underneath the pile of ash. We poked it, blew on it and gathered any small pieces of wood we could find to revive it. We looked around for the spent firework cases that still littered the area. Throwing them on the glowing embers often caused a small fizz or sputter. It was an incredibly exciting time, almost as good as birthdays and Christmas.

first day at school

At the tender age of five, freedom and a carefree lifestyle were about to end. My parents tried to ease me into the prospect of school, by taking me to see the classroom where my older sister attended. Presumably they thought I would find it acceptable, knowing that she returned home each day in one piece! They pointed out the fun elements: the children’s paintings; colourful numbers and alphabet decorating the walls; Janet and John books; a tank of water containing small toy boats; a bucket of modelling clay etc. It certainly looked promising but I had a heavy feeling in my gut that forewarned of things to come. My enduring memory is one of desks. Neatly placed on each was a small blackboard. On that were a knitted, square, board rubber and a piece of chalk.

Inevitably, the day arrived that would herald the start of an eleven-year nightmare. Suitably primed for the experience by mother, we walked the quarter mile to the infant school for my ‘first day’. Smells of polish, disinfectant and unidentifiable food greeted me. In the corridor were rows of coat hooks - we called them pegs – and each child was allocated one for their coat and ‘pump bag’. Under each peg was a small picture of a piece of fruit to help us remember which was ours. Mine was a banana.

The mothers and children fussed around in the classroom. Some children were crying by now, but some seemed excited. As soon as mum informed me that she was leaving me there, I joined the first category and bawled my eyes out. I pleaded with her not to go. I don’t remember much more of that first day except we were allocated a desk and chair each. They were arranged in groups of four and I was seated with three girls. Two of them were non-identical twins – Pat and Angela. Angela was the quiet one and had a sweet, pretty face that befitted her name. I fell slightly in love with her eventually and decided I wanted to marry an Angela when I grew up. Nearly twenty years later, I did (but not the same one)!

Initially I think I settled in quite well, but before long an incident occurred that mentally scarred me for many years. At break times we were instructed to visit the toilets. Five-year olds don’t have full bladder control. I entered the communal boys’ room one day, to find one character wielding a knotted towel. He was swinging it around and whacking everyone about the head as they entered. He seemed like the devil incarnate and gave me a hefty blow. My young, impressionable mind imagined he would be there every time. I decided it was not a place for me in future and avoided it at all costs. The price to pay was having a bladder that felt like bursting. The benefit was it taught me some control, though there was the occasional embarrassing accident.

The first teacher was a placid and skinny, mouse-like lady, called Mrs Osmond. She seemed ancient but probably no more than 50 years old. She always wore a long, flowery, housecoat type of overall. It hung straight down off her bony shoulders, showing no hint of a womanly figure beneath. I distinctly remember that from the back she looked like our ironing board.

Lessons consisted mainly of learning numbers and the alphabet. With the aid of flashcards, we learned basic words like: the, and, it, to, for etc. There were a few long or difficult words that I liked because they made me feel knowledgeable: aeroplane, zebra and xylophone. Great to have in your vocabulary! We had stories read to us such as: Chicken Licken; Hansel and Gretel; Three Little Pigs; Red Riding Hood etc. Sometimes we painted pictures of: a house; a cat; the sun; a tree or our mummy. In the afternoons we had a short rest period when we laid our heads on the desks and closed our eyes. Whether that was for our benefit of Mrs Osmond’s, I’m not sure!

Discipline was drummed into us in two ways. Folding our arms across our chests whilst sitting bolt upright was a call for stillness and attention. A shout of ‘QUIET CHILDREN’ and ‘HANDS ON HEADS’ was all that was necessary to restore order in those days.

Much more about school to come later.

the toy cupboard

It was known as the “toy cupboard” but to me, it was the portal to another world.

It was next to the bath I spoke about earlier. Built into an alcove, there was a large copper water cylinder above, which kept it comfortably warm. The toy cupboard measured about three by four feet and a couple of feet high. There were lead water pipes running around the bottom of the walls, where spiders and silverfish sometimes lurked. Two old wooden boxes were kept inside to hold most of our toys. I would often climb into one of them and shut the door. It was a place where I felt safe and private, a haven from a world I was still unsure of. Sometimes I’d fall asleep.

Other times it was a place of excitement – a cinema, a car or a spaceship. It was our stage for make-belief adventures. I had a toy battery operated slide projector. The slides had images from the comic strip Dan Dare. Sometimes the four of us – me, Barry and the two Shirleys – would climb into the toy boxes that became our seats of a 1950s space rocket! I would sit in the front and be the projectionist, illuminating the flaky whitewashed wall, transforming it into a window to outer space. We spent many hours exploring this new universe, fighting aliens and out-running them in our low-tech, toy box rocket. Eventually it would get unbearably hot or the appearance of a spider would ensure a hasty exit from the escape hatch!

freedom at last

I can't let today go by without a post here. I resigned my job after suffering enormous stress after the company was bought out a couple of years ago. I decided to retire early and today was my last at work. Free at last. Kind of a weird feeling after 40+ years of working. Not much else to say about it, just wanted to record it here as part of my story.

great uncle Jack

Here's me with my great auntie Ria and her husband Jack. They had no children of their own. I only saw them a few times in my life. Jack was a simple, uncomplicated man who apparently was pretty useless at anything but keeping bees, which was his passion and forte. He had few social skills and said little, as demonstrated one day when they came to visit us. He offered to take my sister and I for a walk and eventually we came to a corner shop near the childrens playground. It was hot and sunny and we were all wilting.

"Uncle" Jack, as we called him, announced that we should wait outside while he went to get an ice cream. We waited with baited breath for the certain treat we were about to get to revive us. He duly appeared brandishing a single cone topped with a lovely flourish of ice cream. I can imagine my sister having the same thought as me, that we would have to share it, but hey that was better than none. Not so, without a word spoken he carried on walking, slowly devouring his ice cream whilst we trailed on behind, ice cream-less!

1950s winters

Now that summer is over, thoughts turn to the coming winter. In the 1950s we had “proper” winters that brought new phenomena to explore and excite us. I would wake up and all seemed deadly quiet. The room so cold you could see your own breath. Opening the bedroom curtains would reveal a snowy world that had turned white over night. It was incredibly exciting and I couldn’t wait to get out into it and be the first to run around the houses and garden paths to leave my footprints, make a snowman or roll up a huge snowball that quickly became too large and heavy to push any further.

With luck some friends would be out too and snowball fights with them were great fun until eventually you realised your hands were so cold that they were numb. Woollen mittens would have been discarded once they turned wet and soggy and bare hands were the tools to use. When we finally gave up, went home and they warmed up, the blood flowed again and they hurt like hell. In those days we had snow that was deep and sometimes stayed for weeks. It would be piled up along roadsides and turn black with dirt from the traffic. Eventually it turned rock hard after continual hard frosts.

Winters were very cold and sometimes mum would put her washing out on the line during the day and forget it until evening when it would have frozen stiff. You could stand my dad’s heavy overalls up against a wall until they thawed. Hard frosty mornings would turn puddles to ice to be hacked at with the heels of your shoes. The toilet overflow pipes that jutted out of the stone outhouses sometimes dribbled water, which then froze into long icicles. We would snap them off and sometimes treat them as free, iced lollies, sucking them to a sharp point.

When it snowed and we got to school, kids would have made a slide down the playground and be queuing up to take a run and see how far they could slide down it. The best ones were when they had frozen overnight and had become hard, glassy and incredibly slippery. We would get the fun out of them for a day maybe before the caretaker eventually threw sand on them.

There is a small pond or “tarn” on the moors here. After a week or so of hard frost, it would ice over thick enough to stand on. If you went there at the weekend, it would be heaving with adults and children sliding and skating on it. I remember skimming lumps of broken ice across it, which would make a weird echoing, whistling noise as it zoomed across.

sunday night at the london palladium

We had no TV for many years and a real treat for us would be an invite for us all to go to our good friends and neighbours the B…..’s to spend a Sunday evening. Sometimes we would start out with a game of Monopoly but the real treat was watching their TV. It meant we could stay up late with our best friends and it always seemed more fun at their house. The two families together created a great buzz for me, Mrs B. had a natural quick wit and always had us laughing.

“Sunday Night at the Palladium” was a family variety show very popular then, hosted by Bruce Forsythe. There would be a mix of entertainers – a comedian, a singer, magician or someone spinning plates on the end of sticks but always a star performer to finish. This star would usually be the reason for our invite, someone who was a particular favourite of mum or dad – Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey, Frankie Vaughan, Matt Munro, Sammy Davis Jnr. etc. It was also a novelty to see commercials on tv. The only other tellies we could watch were our grandparents or uncle Frank’s. They only had the one BBC channel (no commercials) but our friends had ITV as well. There was one advert where a small guy in a white overall was telling us how good it was to buy “low suds in Cheer” washing powder. We all thought he looked like dad (he was a painter and decorator who wore white overalls) that seemed to amuse us all no end. Wasn’t entertainment simple then?

Mrs B. would usually have bought a big bag of mixed sweeties, which would be handed around every so often much to my delight. My favourites were “chocolate butter dainties” which were toffee lumps filled with chocolate. Not really dainty at all as they had a tendency to rive your tooth fillings out! The show always ended with the “Tiller Girls”. They were rather like the dancers in the Follies Bergere - scantily clad young women in skimpy costumes with long legs. They would link arms and high kick their legs in synchronicity while rotating around – bizarre or what? It was always a point of amusement to us because as soon as they came on Mr B. would don his spectacles and lean forward to get a clearer view. I was too young to understand what was so interesting about them – pretty boring to me. It didn’t click until I was about 13.

first holiday

Holidays were a very rare treat in the 50s. Most working people only had one or two weeks paid holiday a year. Money was tight and few people had their own transport, so travel was difficult. It usually meant a train journey to somewhere-by-the-sea. I can’t remember much about my first, as I was only about 3 years old. Our family with my aunt and uncle, travelled to Sandsend near Whitby. We stayed in a ‘camping coach’ for a week. It was an old railway coach that had been converted into holiday accommodation. I think there was several parked on a piece of disused track that overlooked the beach. Apparently, they were a popular form of holiday at the time. A few years we had a holiday in Wales with our friends and neighbours, the B……. family.

Have a look at these photos taken at Sandsend. It was around May time and it looked cold. Nothing’s changed then! I like my dad’s beachwear, a suit and tie and trousers rolled up, seen here with us on Whitby beach. Leisurewear hadn’t been invented. Mum says that my aunt took her pressure cooker with her, to make meal times easier. Eating out wasn’t an option.

nettles

Nettles

Stinging nettles seemed to figure a lot in our young lives. They were a major threat to our wellbeing when "playing out". There always seemed to be a patch or nettles, often unnoticed but well placed somewhere to catch you out. I once tried to take a bend too fast on my trike and fell headlong into a patch. Man that was painful. The best “nettle story” I have though, involved a large patch of them at the side of the dirt track that ran down the end of the street and onto the main road. It was opposite the house of an old lady called Mrs Haycock. In those days, most old folk were miserable and complaining. Mrs Haycock was an expert at it, always telling us off for some minor indiscretion.

One time me and Barry started whacking these nettles with long, thin sticks that we had snapped off a tree somewhere. The nettles were in their prime, tall and succulent and a deft swish with the stick would slice the tops off them easily. We had a great time until we realised we’d cut them all down and created an unholy mess of dead nettles all over the place. Realising Mrs Haycock would certainly see it and find a reason to moan and complain, coupled with the certainty that she had probably witnessed us doing it, we figured we’d be carted away to the local jail if we didn’t do something quick. (We were always in fear of the law catching up on our “crimes” and on the off chance that she hadn’t actually seen us do it). So we set about frantically throwing the dead plants over the fence and into the laundry to dispose of the evidence. The other side of the fence was overgrown with grass and weeds anyway and would not be noticed. The adrenalin made us oblivious to the stinging factor of the plants for a while. Until we stopped and then. ……Bloody hell it was painful. You know how it is with nettles, they sting like mad for ages, then turn into itches until you scratch them and they start stinging again. Our hands swelled up like cows udders. We needed a lorry load of dock leaves to calm that down.

A few days later – we were down in the area playing when Mrs Haycock emerged. “Do you know who’s chopped all those nettles down”? She asked in her spiky, cracked voice. Fearing the worst, that they were somehow precious to her and that she would call the police if she found out, we instantly decided to lie.
“No”. We said (and got ready for a quick exit).
“Well they made a good job of it, it looks much better now”. She said. That was the only time I heard her say something good and it was too late to claim the credit!

the back street

The back street

We had a rough gravelly back street between the two rows of houses. This was one of our major playing areas and meeting place and resulted in quite few grazed knees over the years. Barry and I spent many hours, one at each end of the street kicking or throwing a ball to each other or playing cricket down it. At our end of the street was a tall, solid wooden fence that made a good goalmouth for the boys to play “three and in” taking turns to be either the goalkeeper or the striker. Once you scored three goals you swapped around. It was a bummer if the ball went over because behind it another house and the little man who lived there was slightly crazy and hated the infringement. Getting the ball back without him seeing us was like a commando exercise.

When there were more kids out, we used to play all sorts of games like “farmer farmer, may I cross your golden river in you golden boat”, “giant strides and fairy steps”, “black pudding”, “leap frog”, “French cricket” etc. The girls would sometimes do handstands against the stone outhouse walls. Skipping ropes came out there occasionally and you could send the gravel flying at high speed when the rope hit the floor. Sometimes we would climb onto the low roofs of the outhouses and sunbathe in summer. They were good hiding places too if you laid flat.

At the other end was an old green painted gas street lamp. It had two arms below the lantern part. We would shim up the post and try to reach the arms, grab one in each hand and then sort of dangle off them for a while. Dunno why, just a “boy” thing to do. The lamp was a focal point for us. We used to play hide and seek and whoever was doing the seeking would stand there with their backs to the houses and count to 100 while we hid, or sometimes they would have to grab it with one arm and sort of swivel around and around it a number of times. If you were hiding, that was the point to try to get back to before you were found. It was a meeting up point when the nights were dark. The light it gave off had soft warm, yellow glow that felt friendly and welcoming. When dusk came, moths would circle crazily around it.

I learnt to balance a two-wheeled bike for the first time along the back street. When learning, Dad would run behind me holding the saddle to balance me. Then one time I got to the end and looked around to see him still stood at the far end. He had let me go and I rode the whole length on my own. I was elated and that was the start of mobility and freedom to explore places further afield.

first explorations of the natural world

Before I started school, I was on my own much of the time. My sister and Barry had started school and my other friends were sometimes not evident. Dad worked at night and slept during the day, so I guess mum kept me out of the house as much as possible. Mothers didn’t worry about their children getting abducted or coming to harm. The two small blocks of houses where we lived formed our boundaries most of the time, until we got older and were allowed to venture into the unknown world. This small area was the place to start my explorations of planet earth. While mum did her housework, I was usually outside in the yard or front garden and left to amuse myself. Having few toys, I spent time looking at plants, puddles, soil and insects and anything else that was within three feet of the ground. The sights, sounds and smells, were all new stimuli to be explored by my inquiring mind and no doubt started my love of nature.

There was a small gulley running by the path that stretched the length of the five houses. Water would seep out of the small boulder walls that held back the garden soil. It collected in small pools here and there, which to my mind were lakes. Small leaves or sticks would become boats, which I could float in the water. I encountered various insects, which were all fascinating to watch. Tiny red mites ran crazily around the boulders, apparently confused. I loved to watch the exotic centipedes as they snaked their way back to shelter after having their hiding places disturbed. Tiny spiders sometimes seem to arrive from nowhere. We were told they were ‘money spiders’ and meant good luck. Worms were fascinating creatures, moving along by alternately stretching and contracting. I was told they had an amazing trick. If you chopped one in half they would become two complete worms. I still don’t know if that’s true!

Various bees and hover flies popped in and out of the nasturtium flowers that grew abundantly on our patch. The leaves were home to various green, black and yellow caterpillars. In later years, Barry and I would catch bees while they were inside the flowers, using jam jars and a piece of cardboard to trap them. We lined them up along the path, seeing how many we could catch, then shake the jars to infuriate them. Then we plucked up courage to tip the jars over and release them, hoping to not get stung.

There were plants to explore too, some with unexpected surprises. There was a small weed called plantain. It had a small, plump, yellow bud and if you crushed it with your fingers it smelled of apples. Tiny purple and yellow snapdragons grew amongst the boulders and if you nipped the back of them, they opened up like a gaping mouth. A friend would hold Buttercup flowers under your chin and if it reflected yellow light onto your skin, it meant you liked butter. Apparently we all liked it. Dandelion flowers, when picked, oozed a milky white liquid that later turned dark brown on your skin. I doodled patterns on my hands with it, until someone warned me it made you wet the bed. Nettles were a painful discovery but could be eased by rubbing the sap of dock leaves on the sting. My favourite discovery was the fantastic smell of the small, purple flowers that grew on a shrub in the corner of the back yard – lavender.

the den

I briefly mentioned the “Nazi” den in a previous post. I’m not being un-pc when I talk about this and no offence meant to anyone or race. As you can appreciate WW2 was not long behind us and boys’ comics and books were full of exciting war stories that we used as stimulus for our made-up games. It was always more exciting to be a “Jap” or “Nazi” soldier hiding out in an imaginary jungle or bunker somewhere than a British one.

One summer I noticed my older friend Barry seemed pre-occupied and rather secretive about something he was doing around the back of an old disused garage at the end of the street. Behind it was a small plot of land which was rough and overgrown with weeds and grass. I pestered him for a while and eventually he said he’d show me but I had to swear to absolute secrecy. He took me to the plot of land where his work was now evident. It was a small hideaway den made up of old window frames and cupboard fronts. It stood about three feet high and 10 feet long and emblazoned on the front and roof was a bright red swastika sign and “keep out”. My worry (fed by Barry’s warnings) was that our Royal Air Force spotter planes might see it and thinking it was a renegade German soldier still undiscovered and hiding away after the war, would either machine gun it or bomb it to smithereens with us in it. Parents must not know about it either or they would surely demand its demolition or report it to the authorities when it would then be attacked by a troop of British foot soldiers, maybe even send a tank in to smash through it.

We played games of soldiers in it, taking turns to be English or German with the attacker throwing lumps of hardened earth which we called “soil bombs” at it, pretending they were grenades. Well the secret probably lasted about a week when our sisters found out about it and wanted to join us. The whole thing suddenly became rather more domesticated and girlie than we would have liked. They insisted we put an old carpet down on the damp earth floor to deter the creepy crawlies that abounded and my sister bought some lilac coloured paint from “Woolie’s” to brighten the inside. We built a small annexe with a curtain across it that contained a bucket. That was supposed to be the bathroom. We dared one another to actually use it but nobody ever did. One end of the den had an old window for the roof giving us much needed light, a sort of primitive conservatory. When it rained we would place the loo bucket and any other old tins we could find under the many dribbles of water that seeped through the roof and just enjoy the comfort of crude shelter from the elements. We spent many hours in the hot, damp and stifling atmosphere of this summer retreat. A private world away from adults where we could make secret plans, have surreptitious feasts of biscuits, scones and fizzy pop we had seconded from home or when mum wasn’t feeling so generous with the goodies, just dry stale bread and lukewarm water from an empty pop bottle we had filled from the tap. I remember one time the girls collected long dry grass and spent hours in the den sewing them onto old bras and pants to make Hawaiian grass skirts. There was going to be a hula-hula dance, performed for us come bonfire night but I think the cold weather won out and we were denied that treat. Good times.

early years

I have a vivid memory of standing in a cot in the corner of my parents’ bedroom. It was early morning and they were fast asleep. My older sister had come into the room and was standing in front of the cot, beckoning me to climb out. I couldn’t manage it and so she climbed in with me to play. This must be my earliest memory and I can’t have been more than about 2 years old. Early years centred on our home and small family. My sister was my first friend and playmate. Here’s a very early picture of us both, with me in the super luxury pram of that period.

Look at this photo of us both in our front garden. No I’m not an astronaut in training or a budding fighter pilot. Money was tight and mum used to make a lot of our clothes. The natty outfit was one of her creations and known as a ‘siren suit’. I guess the fantastic hats in the photo above were her handy work too.

Here’s another corker of us – it looks like we are at Custer’s Last stand with our Indian headdresses. Don’t ask - I have no idea why we were both wearing them!

friends

Friends tended fall into one of several categories. The best true friends were the other children that lived a few doors away. Sure we would “fall out” occasionally over some small unimportant issue but there was a sort of loyalty and protectiveness with them, more like family. If I ever had a fall out with one, it would leave a hollow feeling, like I had lost something valuable, which indeed I had temporarily. So differences would soon be overcome and friendships re-forged in short time.

There were school friends, other children that you had forged a special bond with. Some of those you never saw outside of school but a few special ones would call around when we got older. Then there was what you might describe as “enforced” friends, those that were introduced by our parents – perhaps children of their friends or acquaintances who weren’t really our friends at all. Friends are more than acquaintances, they are people you have a special bond or affinity with – people you like to be with.

My closest neighbourhood friends, who I will talk about frequently, were Barry and Shirley B. (surname withheld). We lived in the end house of one block of five and they moved into the house at the other end when I was about three or four years old. They would be my closest friends throughout most of my childhood. My sister, also called Shirley, would complete the gang of four. Shirley B. was my age and Barry B. and my sister were both about three years older. Our four parents all got on well together too and sometimes we would have family get-togethers. Barry was a loveable rogue with a good imagination and not frightened of much. Being three years older than me, he was the closest I had of a big brother but without the dominating attitude that older brothers often have to their siblings. We rarely disagreed and I don’t ever remember him hurting or fighting me. He would lead me into all sorts of adventures and games that I would never have experienced without him. He was generous too, always allowing me to play with his toys and games that seemed so much more exciting than my own.

His sister Shirley was pretty and I always enjoyed being in her company too. She had an air of aloofness at times that both frustrated and attracted me. There was another family in the opposite block of five houses who were there before the B’s arrived. The oldest girl was my age and called Susan. She had two younger sisters, Jeannie and Christine. At the age of about four, she had agreed to be my girlfriend and marry me when we were old enough. When Shirley B. arrived shortly after, I was smitten and wanted to marry her instead. I dutifully informed Susan that I thought Shirley was prettier and was going to marry her instead. Susan who was actually just as pretty wasn’t too cut up about it and we all got on well as friends.

A few years later Brian, a year younger than me, arrived with his mum and dad. He was a highly-strung boy. He had pulled a pan of boiling jam onto his arm when very young which had left a terrible, big, swirly scar. I think after that event and being an only child, his mother was rather over-protective which he resented as she often restricted his activities. Brian was OK in small doses and I feel guilty that we sometimes tried to get away before he could find us and latch onto us. He would start out playing fine but tended to want his own way and throw tantrums. He loved to play war games and soldiers and his ambition was to be one when he grew up. That became a terrible reality. He joined the army but died tragically in a helicopter crash aged 19.

My other close friends were from school and didn’t feature much until I was in my early teens. My best schoolmate was Colin. You’ll hear about my adventures with him later. For now life will revolve around my neighbourhood pals.

the laundry

I’ve already mentioned our little houses were originally built for workers of the nearby Lakeland Laundry. The laundry took in washing in large quantities. I think it mainly catered for commerce like hotels, hospitals etc rather than individuals. It was like a small factory with a tall brick chimney. For us it was an exciting playground when the workers had gone home. There was a tarmacced car park where we could play “three and in” football against the loading bay door. A grassy wilderness where we could play “hide and seek” and other made up adventure games and there were all sorts of interesting items that had been discarded and thrown into the grass at some stage.

There was an element of danger about it that excited the small boys of the 1950’s and 60’s that today, would send the soft “nanny state” parents and health and safety pundits into a nervous breakdown. There was a legend that somewhere there was a well containing acid. If you fell into it, you would dissolve in seconds and even your bones would melt and no-one would ever know what had become of you, just your teeth would survive. It scared the crap out of me but didn’t deter us from playing there. We did eventually find an underground tank of some kind with a metal cover. You could just see into it from the ends and it was indeed full of liquid. This had to be it and we would drop sticks and stones into it expecting some kind of frantic bubbling and noxious gases to be created. It never did but maybe we needed to find something more organic like a cat or small dog to drop in there. We drew the line at that experiment though.

The other danger was the transport manager who we knick-named “Mr Bullyman” on account of his aggressive manner. He had the most severe “short back and sides” haircut I had ever seen, slicked back with Brylcreme and would shout and ball at us if he caught us anywhere on laundry property. So whenever we played there, we had to keep an eye out for him. He would emerge from some dark corner, and shout and rant at us. We would make a run for it and our lithe young bodies would always ensure we could outrun this red faced, overweight, middle-aged demon. One year, there was an old window frame lying in the long grass just over the fence from our houses. My friend Barry and I decided it would be great fun to throw stones over the fence and try to smash all the glass panes, which we eventually achieved. One day we were playing on our patch when Bullyman collared us. “Have you smashed this lot” he barked. “No” we lied, shaking in our scruffy boots. “Well if I catch ‘em I’ll have the police onto ‘em” he snarled. He ranted on about how they’d end up in prison and somehow I knew he knew it was us and it would only be a matter of time before the coppers were handcuffing me and Barry and carting us off to prison. Our parents would obviously have no idea where we had disappeared to. We went and hid in my room for about an hour just to throw them off the scent.

We survived the ordeal for more laundry adventures, like the time the tall chimney had scaffold placed around it for repairs and Barry scaled it to the top while I kept watch for his mum. There was the time when we found one of the disused vans and climbed in to play at “laundry drivers”. Those vans had no ignition key, just a knob you pulled to start it. It must have been left in gear (we didn’t know anything about gears and clutches). We pulled the knob thinking nothing would happen and the van jerkily started off down the car park. I was petrified but my big mate Barrry (probably about 11 years old then) had it all under control and successfully steered us to the abrupt safety of a big grassy embankment. We got out and ran like hell to the safety of our “Nazi” den. “The den” - now that’s another story.

sunday school

I wonder if there are still any of those quaint attempts to religiously educate our young souls by sending them to ‘Sunday schools’ anymore? I doubt it. Today, Sundays are more likely to be spent wandering around B&Q, Ikea or MFI than taking the collection in church. I doubt also, whether many children who have experienced it, would like to go back to their youth to re-live even one day of it. I hated Sunday school almost as much as I hated regular school. The saving grace was that it only lasted an hour or so and there was no arithmetic or spelling lessons to tax my poor brain. The downside was that it ruined my whole Sunday.

Before we had all-day tv, computers and electronic games machines for entertainment, the average child would be out playing with their mates in the streets around their houses. They would be up to their necks in muck, grass stains and various cuts and grazes by the end of the day. For those of us unfortunate to be members of a Sunday school, there was no such pleasure on Sundays. The first restriction was that you had to wear your very best clothes and be spotlessly clean. So the day got off to a bad start by having to have a bath, whether or not you’d already had one that week! Then you were trussed up in all those horrible, clean new clothes that were normally only worn for such occasions as visits to/from relatives, Sunday School and the odd wedding. They never fitted properly because they were bought a size or two too big for you to ‘grow into’, or you had already grown out of them. You had to take care not to rip or dirty them for the rest of the day, which meant – no playing out.

We’d walk the half-mile to the Methodist Church. The urge to kick stones, climb trees or throw dirty sticks at anything on the way, had to be curbed so we arrived pristine. None of our family was a Methodist and neither of my parents ever attended, so God knows why we had to go! The classes were held in back rooms of the Church before the morning service. Some of the less fortunate kids had to join their parents in the service after classes, but most of us would be released. It must have had some benefit because I remember the terrific sense of elation when it ended!

The classes were split into age groups. The youngest had ‘nice’ Bible stories read to them. They would sing a few childish hymns like ‘All things bright and beautiful’ and draw pictures of palm trees, lambs, shepherds, wise men, baby Jesus, Joseph’s dream coat, Easter eggs and bunnies and other such biblical scenes. Older children would have more serious stories read to them about plagues of locusts in Egypt, Jesus throwing a wobbly in the Synagogue and various nasty characters of the day, like Pontius Pilate and King Herod. Fitting these stories into a meaningful theme was no easy task for me, but the general impression was that all religious activity happened in either Egypt, Bethlehem, Jerusalem or Palestine (wherever they were) and that God, Jesus and Santa Claus were all basically good guys, as long as you behaved yourself. If you didn’t, then “woe betide you.” No presents at Christmas and watch out for the ‘Holy Ghost’ who knew everything you did and who was sure to scare the living daylights out of you. This was enough of a threat to ensure we got home equally pristine by resisting the urge to kick stones, climb trees or throw dirty sticks at anything on the way back.

Several times a year there was a “special” day. There was the Christmas party, where we would be treated to a magnificent culinary spread of potted beef, egg and cress sarnies, jelly and blanchmange. Games such as “Beetle Drive”, “Snap” and “Lexicon” provided hours of riotous fun, So did the surreptitious forages into the store rooms where there was an old piano. There was always someone showing off by playing both parts of Chopsticks. My friend Terry and I didn’t possess such talents, but using a couple of walking sticks for guitars, did a great impersonation of The Shadows playing Apache.

There was the annual prize giving for good attendance that usually consisted of a children’s book containing bible stories, pictures of palm trees, lambs, shepherds etc. Also annually was the Harvest Festival. We were encouraged to make up packs of goodies using old shoeboxes filled with fruit, bread, or tinned food. Sometimes, an odd child brought a shoebox full of coal, which was clearly inedible and caused derision from the rest of the fruit-wielding mob. What puzzled me – we were led to believe they were offerings to God to celebrate all the good things that had come our way over the last year. Why would he need those things as he had apparently created the whole universe by magic? How would he collect them – I had never once seen him actually attend Sunday school or Church for that matter? I later discovered they gave it all to old people. who presumably would have starved otherwise, so that was good.

We also had the occasional day trip. Holidays were a rare thing for us, so this seemed like a great treat. We visited far-flung places like Southport, Bolton Abbey and Knaresborough. Unfortunately it was marred for me because I suffered with travel sickness. It usually resulted in throwing up into a grease-proof sarnie bag, which had been saved by some well organised adult, who was familiar with kids and travelling.

When Sunday school finished, it wasn’t much better. We weren’t allowed to change into our old clothes and play out with our mates. Those who weren’t made to go to Sunday school and there for lacked moral fibre, would no doubt end up as thieves and murderers! We were allowed to do quiet and ‘clean’ activities: reading, writing, or playing inside with our toys, just as long as we stayed spotless. This was ten times more liberty than my mother had been allowed. The expectations on her generation were that you spent the rest of Sunday reading the Bible. If she visited her auntie, she would be allowed to sew or knit, but that was considered a moral sin by the more staunch thinkers of the day.

At the start of this, I gave the impression that Sunday school was a fate worse than death for most kids. Looking back, there are some fond memories and the moral code of conduct it encouraged in us, did no harm at all. There was no glue sniffing, graffiti or vandalism from bored kids who don’t appreciate the values of respect and decent behaviour. Maybe the kids of today would benefit too, from drawing pictures of palm trees, lambs, shepherds etc and the threat of that Holy Ghost watching their every move!

children of the 1950's

Let me tell you about ‘little’ me first. I was a very shy and insecure child, not exactly a wimp but not very confident, often scared of retribution from adults and authority figures - more of a follower than a leader. That resulted in a lifelong, internal rebellion against those authoritarian types who are basically just control freaks and bullies. You have to realise that we were a different species then. Not only were children supposed to be ‘seen and not heard’ but also adults would probably have preferred us to be ‘not seen or heard’. We could have been forgiven for thinking we were some type of inferior race that adults just had to tolerate. We were scolded for the slightest thing, often not even genuine demeanours.

For example, my grandparents had an upright piano in their front room. This was the room that was never used but kept ‘for best’. Apparently grandma could knock out the odd hymn or two but we never ever heard her play it. It was simply a piece of furniture she polished and presumably some sort of working classes status symbol. My sister and I often spent an afternoon there while our parents were working or busy.

There were few toys to entertain us so inevitably we would explore the house and eventually find, to me, the most exciting and interesting thing in it - the piano. We would carefully lift the lid and press a key or two. Wow, the lovely resonance of the strings was so enchanting even though I couldn’t play a tune. The bass notes in particular sounded so good. There were the two pedals, which I thought were for driving it, as if it was a car. They were a complete mystery but nevertheless worth a few presses. Within minutes grandma would come storming in and chastise us, swiftly shutting the lid and banning us for life from touching the thing. End of fun and musical exploration for us!

Ordinary children of the 50s had few treats. They were mainly the reserve of Christmas, Easter and birthdays. Toys were relatively simple and we made our own fun and games from everyday things and imagination. We lived and believed our games. Boys played at ‘cops and robbers’, ‘cowboys and Indians’ and mimicked our comic heroes such as Dan Dare and Davey Crocket (king of the wild frontier). WW2 was not far behind us, so playing war games was popular. The enemy ‘Japs’ and ‘Nazi’ soldiers, so often featured in our politically incorrect comic-books, seemed like real threats to a young lad with a good imagination. They were no doubt still lurking in the bushes at the back of the laundry. Girls played soft sissy games like ‘mummies and daddies’, pretending to feed and dress babies and wash clothes. We were basically mimicking adults but with an innocent childish twist. That innocence seems to disappear much quicker in children of today, yet their parents also tend to over-protect them. I’m sure our parents did care but they didn’t worry about us coming to any real harm. We had lots of freedom to roam the neighbourhood and as long as we arrived back in time for ‘tea’ or bath time, then all was well. Life was a big adventure and we explored it every day. TV wasn’t available 24/7 and we didn’t even own one until I was 10 years old.

the cuckoo

The cuckoo is a mysterious creature rarely seen (I have only ever seen one, which was at the top of a mountain in North Wales). When I was a child It puzzled me, because the evidence was apparently all around us. Copious amounts of so-called ‘cuckoo spit’ festooned the plants where we played. It was hard to believe that one or two cuckoos were responsible (even a gang of pubescent schoolboys would have difficulty providing that amount of saliva). Now, I know it is created by a small insect called a frog-hopper. Then there’s the weird business of laying one egg in an unsuspecting bird’s nest and kicking out all the other babies. It’s a kind of lazy yob of the bird world. These oddities added to the suspense and mystique of the event I am about to describe. This story is not about small birds in clocks, or spit. I doubt if anyone else has heard of this because my grandfather invented it. It was an annual affair that rated in the same scale of excitement as Pancake Day and Bonfire Night.

This is what he told us. ‘Every Spring, the Cuckoo comes and if you’ve been good children, he brings a small present for you.’

We believed that ‘The Cuckoo’ came with gifts for me and my sister and our close neighbourhood friends. First it would fly into a nearby tree, then if all were well, into our parents’ bedroom. It opened the window slightly (not an easy task for a bird laden with gifts) and waited for us below to shout for him. To make him deliver the goods, we had to shout ‘cuckoo’ repeatedly as loud as we could. After a while, a small wrapped present slowly made it’s way down to us on the end of a piece of string. It had a name written on it and that person would take the gift. We would all shout again for the next present until we all had one.

Grandad was a canny old chap and who loved a practical joke or trick. He would wind us up to fever pitch by telling us he’d just seen The Cuckoo in a tree, then disappear upstairs to act it’s part. To add excitement, he kept us waiting and shouting and came out periodically to ask if The Cuckoo had been. Sometimes the present got half way down only to disappear again before we could reach it, which caused more frantic “cuckoo” shouting. My friend usually got over-excited shouting ‘It’s Barry here cuckoo’ in order to ensure his present reached him ASAP.

Naturally, we never caught sight of the fabled animal (it was extrememly shy according to grandad). We couldn’t figure how it opened the sash window in the bedroom (even Dad had difficulty with that one) and carry several presents. We assumed it had similar magical powers to Santa Claus and as there was a present involved in it, we didn’t really care. The event finished with grandad nonchalantly appearing again and asking us if he’d been yet. To grandma’s disgust and for those who still had any vocal chords in tact, the finale was a singing session of ‘John Brown’s Cow went frrrrrp (raspberry blowing) against the wall’

the bath

As I said earlier, the bath in our house was in the living room! I don’t think there had ever been a bathroom. People living in those small working class houses would originally have used tin baths that they placed in front of the fire and filled with hot water from pans. So I suppose it was a luxury to have a real bath that was plumbed in, even though it was in your main living area.

Dad, who was a very practical type, had disguised it by “boxing it in” with plywood painted to look like real wood and fitting a hinged top which covered it completely and doubled up as a work surface and dining table. There was a sort of shelf we called the “leaf” which slotted into the side so that you could sit up to it to eat your meals, a 50’s style breakfast bar. It served as a dirty linen container too. When someone wanted a bath, the lid was lifted and clipped securely to the wall. The dirty washing was removed and piled to one side and once filled with nice hot water, you could enjoy the luxury of a bath whilst listening to the wireless or later, when we got one, watching tv. Afterwards we would get out and stand in front of the open fire whilst getting dried. I never saw my parents having a public bath in front of the rest of the family like that though. They either didn't have baths or waited until we were tucked up and fast asleep.

To an outside observer the bath was just a rectangular box with a red linoleum lid, no-one would have suspected what was inside, which you’ll see was to my advantage on one occasion. Every week or two we would get a visit from a bus driver called Billy Monarch. He was a rather outgoing, blunt and loud character who came to collect the football pools money. A sort of lottery thing based on the football results of the week. Well as a child I was very shy and found Billy’s presence somewhat overpowering. He would always overstay his welcome as far as I was concerned, telling his funny tales of life as a bus driver and taking whatever opportunity he could to get a laugh out of my parents, sometimes at my expense, or so it seemed to me. One night I was in the bath when there came his tell-tale knock on the door, a loud rat-a-tat-tat. I knew instantly it was Billy and flew into a panic. He knew nothing of the bath and would have made a big deal seeing me sat there in the buff, causing untold embarrassment and probably using the experience as new material for his comedy act with the others on his round.

“Don’t let him in, don’t let him in” I pleaded.
“Don’t be silly.” said mum trying to pacify me. “He’s seen naked boys before.”
“I don’t want him to see this one.” I thought. “Put the lid down quick” I implored.
After much huffing and puffing about it she agreed and then let Billy in. I laid flat out there in the hot and steamy dark bath, trying my very best not to move and slosh the water about, or sneeze, cough, belch or make any other noise. Not an easy thing for a young lad! Boy would he have got a surprise if I had and thinking about it now, would love to see his reaction had I let out a loud bubbly fart. Eventually he left after what seemed a lifetime and the lid was lifted to reveal a wilting, semi cooked but relieved me.

the outside loo

Once a normal part of the ordinary working class household, the outside loo was a part of our lives that has many memories attached for me. There are still thousands of little brick or stone built outhouses standing at the bottom of the yards of the small terraced houses around the country. They are very much associated with the hard working Northern towns and cities. I suppose they were in some ways a more hygienic and healthier arrangement than the soft option of modern housing with centrally heated bathrooms that germs and bacteria probably thrive on, and that we all enjoy the luxury of these days. The lead pipes and overhead water cistern did tend to freeze up in winter, though a bit of hessian wrapped around the pipe and a small paraffin lamp glowing away in the corner, kept the temperature just enough above freezing point to stop it. The lamp would also provide just enough light so you could see where you were peeing too. When there was severe frost it was a common sight to see icicles hanging from the overflow pipes outside. We would snap them off and mess about with them. Sometimes we would suck them like iced lollies! Kids huh?

There was a small obscure glass window in the door of our toilet, which let enough light in during the day. I remember finding numerous faces and figures lurking in the pattern whilst sitting there “waiting for something to happen”. My favourite was a Red Indian with full head-dress. I somehow felt that he was watching over me in a sort of protective way. The outside toilet seemed quite a threatening place to a young child. I was always slightly uneasy at the thoughts of large spiders lurking above me. Constipation was a rarity for me.

Another strong memory was the shear logistics of going for a poo. I used to wear little short trousers held up by a pair braces, as most boys did then, (although I think I was pretty lucky in having a pair of Dan Dare Braces). In winter I would have a jumper over the top, which meant that I couldn’t drop my braces down without taking it off first. There was nowhere to put your jumper in the toilet so it had to come off first whilst still in the house. The downside to that was, first it announced to the rest of the family that you were going for a poo and secondly it was damn cold in winter.

Toilet paper was something of a disappointment then, thank God for Andrex and the soft, multi layered, absorbent stuff we enjoy now. In those days it was usually Izal or Bronco, a sort of tough, greaseproof type of paper on a roll that smelled of disinfectant and absorbed nothing. It merely spread things around but at least your finger didn’t go through the paper! Often we would run out of it and have to put up with torn up pieces of newspaper hung on the back of the door. That was even worse than Izal as the print would rub off onto your bum. At least there was some reading material to hand for those long visits, except you only ever got a quarter of the story.

Having no inside toilet was a problem at night so most people would have a “gerry”, “Po” or “Gazunder” under their bed. The gerry was a sort of gigantic porcelain teacup that was really only intended for peeing into but also proved useful especially if there were young children in the house. As every parent can testify to, they have a tendency to want to throw up or get unexpected bouts of diarrhoea at the most unearthly hours of the night, so the gerry under the bed was quite a handy thing to have. One memory that still lingers is finding a cardboard circle, about a half-inch in diameter, floating in my gerry one morning. It was out of the top of a bottle of “Buttercup Syrup” (a popular cough medicine that was ever present in our house over winter). I remembered my mum giving me a dose at bedtime and I was most puzzled as to how I could have possibly swallowed it without realizing and even more puzzled at how I had passed it without doing myself some serious injury. On reflection in later years it became obvious it had simply dropped out of the bottle and into the gerry.

On the whole I am glad of the cosy bathrooms we have now to perform our ablutions, as they were a mixed blessing at best. Let’s consider some other final advantages though. They were more private than a bathroom, standing at the bottom of the yard you could let rip with as many loud farts as you needed without the fear of embarrassment from being overheard from your family. The postman may have had the odd fright occasionally mind. They were well ventilated (draughty as hell) so there was no need for those aerosol air fresheners that simply announce the fact that someone has just had a good clear out and probably account for the hole in the ozone layer. They took little in the way of decorating, the occasional slap of whitewash on the rough walls usually sufficed to freshen it up and clear out the spider’s webs.

early life as a baby boomer - our house

From about 1953 we lived in a small terraced house in Yorkshire that was one of ten, arranged in two facing strips of five. They were built around the early part of the century and intended for workers of the nearby Lakeland Laundry. Ours had been sold to a private owner. We referred to these houses as ‘the blocks’. For example we would say, ‘I’m just going to play around the blocks’ which gave our parents some reassurance that all was well and we wouldn’t be far away. No one worried much about the safety of their children, as long as they were aware of the dangers of the main road and other hazards. Even those concerns were mild as there was so little traffic then and sometimes you could sit for ten minutes, waiting for the next car to come into sight. Photo left is the front of the house. The upper window is where the fabled ‘cuckoo’ lowered his gifts to us. (See cuckoo posting).

We had two main rooms downstairs and a tiny kitchen. The front room or sitting room was ‘for best’ and had: a moquette covered suite; a china cabinet for our few treasures; dining table and chairs and a bookcase. It was only used on very rare occasions e.g. when special visitors were due such as relatives from Derbyshire or at Christmas time. The back room or living room had: an old black enamelled fireplace with oven; two armchairs; a treadle sewing machine; a ‘utility’ sideboard with a wireless on it and under the window, a bath - more about that later! The kitchen was tiny, about three feet wide and ten feet long. We had: a pot sink at one end; an electric cooker in the middle and a kitchenette at the other. The kitchenette was a common piece of furniture then. It was like a small, painted welsh dresser with cupboards top and bottom where we stored our few cooking utensils and provisions. We had an electric kettle but that was it for electrical appliances – no fridge or washer. The picture (1966) below is the back of the house.

The tiny window, bottom left, was the kitchen. Upstairs were two decent sized bedrooms and a small box room that was my bedroom (top left). Outside was a small, stone outhouse divided in two. One side was the coalhouse and the other the toilet (no inside luxuries in those days). Dad had built a shed over the front of the outhouses to give more privacy and protection from the weather and to provide useful storage space. It was a multi-functional place. In there we had: an electric boiler; a mangle and a dolly tub. The dolly tub was a galvanised barrel used for doing the weekly wash. Usually on Mondays, mum heated a few gallons of water in the boiler to fill the dolly tub. If the weather were nice she would put it outside for more room. The dirty clothes went in with washing powder and the clothes were pummelled with a posser. That was a sort of long stick with a bell shaped piece of copper on the end, which you pulled up and down in the dolly tub to agitate the clothes. If she were washing white items, like bed linen, she would put a dolly blue in to make the clothes look whiter. It was a small stick with a little cloth bag tied to the end that contained some sort of blue colouring. After she had ‘possed’ them for a while, she ‘fished’ them out with a stick and ran them through the mangle to squeeze out the surplus water. If the weather was dry they were hung outside on the washing line. In winter they were hung over the clotheshorse, which was put in front of the open fire in the living room. The washing would eventually start to steam as it dried. It was tough luck for us if we were sitting there, as we would be totally excluded from any heat reaching us from the fire. There was no central heating then.

We had a decent sized garden at the front where dad grew fruit and veg. There was a small garden shed where dad bred a few budgerigars. We had a blue one named Paddy in the house and mum taught it to say a few phrases such as ‘who's a pretty boy?’

baby boomer intro

What better time and place could I have asked for to be born - 1951, England? OK there probably are some better options but it is probably one of the more interesting periods/places of the 20th Century to land on this planet. I’m thinking that as a teenager, what could have been more exciting than spending it in the heart of the cultural revolution that was taking place with it’s centre right here in Britain during the 1960’s?

It was a great time to be emerging from your childhood into the adult world. Being born a few years earlier would have probably meant that I was newly married, with a couple of kids and a mortgage and out of the social scene that was spiralling to a peak of new discoveries that were a teenagers paradise. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well actually it wasn’t that good but if you liked pop and rock music and all that stuff, it was pretty damn good. Being born a few years later meant I would have been stuck with listening to the likes of Brotherhood of Man and Alvin Stardust instead of Eric Clapton, CSN&Y, Santana and Jimmy Hendrix.


It’s probably just coincidence but the fifties, being half way through the century, seemed to be a turning point in our society and the sixties saw an end to a lot of things that had not changed much since our parents were children. I am old enough to remember the delights of steam trains, Dan Dare, “the corner shop”, Bill and Ben, valve radios or “wirelesses” as they were called then, and a host of other things that are in danger of getting lost from our consciousness.

I am still young enough, however to witness the fantastic discoveries and inventions of the late 20th century – computers and the internet, CD’s, man’s landing on the moon, “keyhole" surgery, etc. These things are still with us and ever present in our daily lives so it’s the images and memories of the 50’s and 60’s that I intend to invoke. If you were born later than 1965 you are probably too young to associate much with this but your parents might be able to endorse what I have written and maybe expand on it. This picture shows our little family with my grandparents (mother's side) in our front garden. In case you had doubts, I'm the little chap with his shorts pulled up to his shoulders!

I am writing this blog from a highly personal point of view, some of the images can be proven as fact and others – well, unless you were a shy, sensitive and somewhat imaginative child, you might not agree with my observations. On the other hand you might discover that someone else exists on this planet that was as bent and twisted as yourself! Buckle your seatbelts, set the time machine to “somewhere in Britain during the mid 20th century" and see where you land. Have fun.