Whenever I asked my parents why someone had died, I received the same response every time - "lack of breath".
We used to Knick canes from peoples green houses and make bows and arrows with them. We used to tape 1/12 inch staples to the arrows, worked brilliant mate.
Then the women came out and threw ashes on the slippy paths Had to chain our bath to the wall as baths made the green really fast compacting the snow. It was a tin bath
times have indeed changed and not always (if ever) for the better...we used to go for walks, all the farmers were happy to see us and many a time would stop for a couple of minutes chat with the older kids, i realised later in life they were checking all was well, maybe we were lucky in many ways surrounded by fields, there was the 'adventure' of the local rubbish tiip finding out if anything had been dumped we could use in our camp(s), there was the witches cave in the woods and any swings were left for all to use, the quarry was a regular place at dusk for us as we all wanted to catch our own owl or kestrel (luckily we never managed) and the scramble up the sides was a wee risk if we heard a truck coming in. a little older and some got ferrets and we would be off 'rabbiting', we had our older version of 'japs and english' but with our version we had air rifles, the odd visit down the train sheds at philly with a look in the pit pond along the way was never snubbed...no, we were not angels and 'pushed a few boundaries' but there were never fights with weapons and we tried to keep respect for our elders and to look after the smaller/weaker members.
I remember when our all day sessions were interrupted when the pubs closed, couldn’t even buy alcohol in the shops. Wasn’t worth me travelling back to Jarra, so hung about Mowbray Park like some tramp. The problem you had then, the first pint of the evening took ages to down.
We used to do the most idiotic things possible but tbf this was pre-TV and we just played out in all weathers. The worst thing, of many escapades, was during a big snowfall in the early sixties. We all had sledges our dads had knocked up and we had a brilliant idea No one wanted to walk their dogs in a snowstorm so we went and asked if we could do it which was pretty common. We ended up with half a dozen dogs, some rope from the allotments and a sledge big enough for two people. We threaded the rope through all the dog leads and prepared to be whizzed across the snow like Eskimos. When we screamed 'mush', and shook the 'reins' the dogs panicked, turned on each other and started fighting ... we all ran
The winter of 62/3 lasted for months, we spent Christmas at an aunt in Hounslow which was 2 bus rides away. Snow start around mid day and mum said we were off home. Can remember the bus skidding about and that was the start of it, shoveling snow for weeks. My first bike was a second hand bike which had been done up. We went by bus to the other side of town to pick it up, as my birthday was two days later, l had to walk all the way home pushing it. Loved that bike as it open up a new world to me.
I remember when the awards in the honours list used to be for people who had achieved something rather than “doing their job” or should that be “failing at their job”
I remember being (nearly) 18 and paying 1/3d (6p!) for a pint of Vaux`s silver tankard in the Station Hotel in Seaham. 16 pints for a pound, not that I ever had a pound!
I remember board games and the like being good fun. One called stay alive (I think) got hours of use in out house on dark nights. Game of life, kerplunk, Othello. Then you started to get electronic games coming along. I remember going into hospital for an operation when I was a youngun and the lad in the bed next to me had a hand held space invader! I had never seen anything like it.
We used to go "placky baggin' which was lethal. No sledges, but used heavy duty plastic sheets or bags and flew down hills. No chance of stopping yourself until you either ran out of snow or hit something. I even remember we would build jumps and send ourselves flying through the air. Man our childhoods were brilliant...
You just reminded me, I remember “borrowing” car bonnets from the small breakers yard at the back of a local garage and using them to slide down the pit heap. The biggest danger wasn’t from falling off them, it was from dodging the flying bonnets of our mates who had fallen off higher up the heap. They were lethal and would have knocked our heads off if they had hit square on.
Shiny side down of a pit conveyor belt from the top of the pit tip, two up and went down like a derailed train off a bridge ... ... it was so far down we had to take another breath to keep screaming, absolutely terrifying and never repeated.
