The Guy Family who lived in the end house on our side consisted of the mother and father, Maggie and Billy, and their five kids, Arthur, Jean, Leslie, Margaret and Stephen. Another brother, Tommy, lived opposite them on the other side of the street in number 42 with his wife, Barbara, and their kids, Tommy Jnr., Raymond and Julie. There was enough kids to these two families to play with the rest of us kids in Dessy. The two around my age group were Stephen and Tommy who I associated with more than anyone else in the street.
I remember one day playing outside between our house and Lily Emery,s house next door. We were playing "house," which was a few sheets off someone,s bed turned into a tent. I was the dad, Margaret was the mum, and Lily and Stephen were our kids. There was no water to make a pot of tea so I peed in four cups, which was convenient at the time because I didn,t want to go in to use the toilet. I said to the rest, "Come on let,s have our tea," and we raised our cups. The rest thought that I,d got some lemonade and gulped theirs down whilst I only sipped at mine to see what pee tasted like. There were coughs and splutters all round and shouts of "Oh you dirty get!" And I wasn,t flavour of the month for a week or so after that little escapade.
Margaret said that to drink ones pee was awful and that you would die if you didn,t eat meat right away. She always seemed to know about these things. So I legged it into our house to see if there was any meat around. Ha, meat in our house was like saying there,s snow in hell. Fortunately for me and my longevity that day, there was a couple of cold chops from my uncles tea the day before and I managed to to beg one of these from my nan telling her how hungry I was. I came back out and finished playing with my friends and stayed out until after my uncle came home looking for one of his chops that was for his tea today. There was a bit of an argument about it apparently but it blew over quite quickly. and I lived to see another day.
Another time with the Guys and Lily we were playing "hide and seek." Stephen, Margaret and I were hiding in the flats at the bottom of our street where we had full view of the length of Dessy from one of the stairwell windows. I climbed up onto the sill to open the top part of the frosted window, and my new glasses fell off my nose and crashed to the stone floor and smashed. I was especially upset as I wasn,t to wear them until the first day back at school, which was the following week, but I was so sick of my taped up old ones, I,d put my new ones on. Nan would go mad if she knew I,d worn them for playing out. I went home and swopped them in the case for my old ones. The following week while getting ready for school and my new class, I got my glasses case from the drawer in the sideboard, and, while putting my coat on I "accidentally dropped" my glasses case containing my new specs, onto the floor. Opening them up we "discovered that they were broken" and I would have to wear my old ones until I could get the new ones mended. I was a right scheming swine in those days. I think I had a degree in "How to hookwink my nan."
On another occassion, Stephen and I went for a walk, well an adventure really, and ended up a very long way from home, well it was for two little ten year old lads. We had walked to Great Homer Street and across the very busy dual carriageway towards Scotland Road. Thinking that Scotland Road was very nearly in Scotland and we had walked enough already, we just looked around the street we happened to find ourselves in, and would head back home. We came across a huge desserted yard that looked as if it had housed animals in it as there were bits of straw around and animal droppings. There were large metal hoops halfway up the wall with thick ropes hanging from these. In one corner of the cobbled yard was a huge wooden structure suspended on two wooden beams coming out of the wall. We both climbed up the wooden ladder about seven or eight feet high and went into the room.
There was evidence of pigeons in there, all over the floor was droppings and feathers, and the smell was not very nice. Uninterested in this structure, I climbed down from the far side of the building and went to nose around the rest of the yard in more interesting corners. I heard a terrific rumble and shout behind me and turned to see the pigeon loft upside down on the floor and heard Stephen screaming in fear on the inside. I ran over to get inside to see him crouched in one corner. I lifted him up and scrambled with him outside of the loft and found that his foot had been damaged and he could hardly walk.
It had appeared that when I had got out of the loft his weight had overbalanced the whole thing and it had slid off the beams and toppled over.
We made our way with great difficulty to the nearest hospital I knew which was called " The John Bagot Hospital" in Netherfield Road North. We rang the bell outside as the main door was closed and a man came to see what we wanted. After explaining what had happened and what difficulty we were in, he told us that there was nothing he could do to help and that we would have to go to the children,s hospital towards town or "The Royal" which was a little nearer, but still miles away. So we started off to walk/drag ourselves to town and another hours pain for Stephen. We got there eventually and we were there yet another hour before Stephen came away with a badly sprained ankle and he had to stay off it for awhile. When he got home yet another hour away there was commotion in both our households that we had "gone out of the street and look what happened," and was never to do it again.
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Another time in the street the older lads were playing cricket. I not wanting to interupt their game went round the back of the batsman as he made a swing for the ball, which he hit for six and the momentum of the bat struck me on the side of the temple knocking me over and out of the way. About half an hour later there was a lump as big as an egg on my forehead, where before I had cracked it open on my bicycle crash. The lump stayed there for about three weeks.
One fine evening I was sitting on the pavement outside our front door playing with some toy cars. Uncle Ronnie came down our lobby doing an "Alex Young" with a plastic baby,s bottle belonging to my little cousin Sheila, and took a side kick to it with his left foot kicking it towards me and shouting for a goal. Not being too bright in how to handle the situation, I just sat there and took the bottle in the face smashing my glasses. I,m good at this glasses smashing lark.
I could feel an irritation in my eye and had to be taken once again to the children,s hospital to be examined for splinters in my eye. Luckily none were found and I was back home a couple of hours later.
Only one more time do I remember going to the Children,s hospital and that was the time I felt that I had a fish bone stuck in my throat after eating fish and chips. Along I went with my nan, stuck there waiting to be seen, and, eventually having a long metal spatula type instrument plunged down my throat making me gag all the time. The doctor said that he couldn,t see anything down there and sent us on our way home again.
What its like being a child with all the ups and downs and ins and outs of doing childish things. What happy memories one has.........
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