|
 | |  | |
Keith Shorland was born at Parry Barr, Birmingham in the West Midlands, and his early memories can be found under that section of the website. He was still under 10 when he went to live with his grandmother in Leicester.
Memories there are of those years with my Grandmother. We lived opposite Spinney Hill Park where my friends and I in the summers would take our cricket gear on to one of the areas designated for playing. I do not recall any evenings or weekends when that field was not full of youngsters bowling and batting for hours on end.
Then, of course, there were the areas where the adult cricketers played real matches, again in the evenings and on Saturdays with many spectators enjoying the spectacle.
I do not recall any hooligans or vandals in those days, but then, perhaps we lived in a fairly respectable neighbourhood. Not that that seems to count for much today. I can still taste the bread and jam sandwiches we stuffed ourselves with in between exerting ourselves playing.
Then there were the inevitable games in the street with whips and tops {and the odd broken window} and snobs, cigarette cards and marbles on the pavement while the girls went belting round with hoops.
Everyone, no doubt, has memories of the Saturday afternoon at the local cinema and Flash Gordon, Mickey Mouse, etc. There was Sunday morning along to the swimming baths and afterwards a bag of broken biscuits from the local sweet shop.
That brings thoughts of the tuck shop in Moat Road near our school. It is a wonder we were not all sick with the amounts of sherbet dips, liquorice sticks and gobstoppers we consumed; and how about the halfpenny lucky dip where we poked a rod into a hole on a board and, hopefully, won a goody.
The tram cars rattled past our house and once a car got stuck between the tramcar and a street lamp. A rare occurrence which brought out many to stare. There were at that time few cars at all. There was just one I think in a cul-de-sac near us where a doctor owned a black Wolsely saloon.
The son of that house was held in great esteem, especially as in the summer the family packed up and went off on holiday. Who ever heard of holidays in those days?
My Mother took me off once when I needed to recuperate after some illness. We went to Hunstanton, which was about the nearest bit of coast to Leicester. I cannot recall the boarding house but memories linger of having a very good time.
I believe I created some hilarity with the grown ups as I played with the little girl of the house and, it seems, while we were out somewhere the child needed to spend a penny, and being a perfect gent, I gave her one which she pocketed and then went behind some bushes.
Everyone then had a bicycle. The old Sturmey Archer gear was just giving way to the much improved cyclo gear with up to ten ratios which made longer journeys much easier to undertake.
We went out into the countryside much more then; to Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, and Kettering where the Aquadrome was, with sandwiches and a bottle of pop in the saddle bag or, if you wanted to show off, a canister fixed to the bicycle frame.
Mending a puncture by the roadside we often had to use some of our precious drink to find the hole in the inner tube.
One of our crowd was a young lady whose parents had a confectionary business and not only a nice house in town but another one with a paddock and a huge field in a small village, and a sixteen horsepower car.
My friend Bill Shaw and I used to cycle out there at weekends and we both learned to drive in that field under the guidance of the girl's Mother. After that, back in the house having tea, I can still hear the lovely tone of the enormous radiogram in their sitting room.
At this time it was Secondary School and cycling to the other side of the town, self consciously wearing brand new cap and uniform with a massive satchel doing it's best to unseat me.
A new dimension with this growing up was the milk bar in the city with tall glasses of milk shakes, exotic ice creams or gooey waffles with syrup on top.
By now the war was looming with Anderson shelters going up all around and large brick and concrete ones appearing on various waste plots. I don't know how many were used to shelter in but they certainly came in for much misuse by some of the younger set.
A.R.P wardens appeared and we were all lumbered with gas mask cases, while those of us who elected to be A.R.P messengers were to be seen haring about on our bikes wearing very uncomfortable steel helmets.
There was a story of one messenger being blown off his cycle when a stray bomb was dropped, unconfirmed of course. There were a few raids on Leicester but most of them were on Coventry or Birmingham.
And then it was age seventeen and thoughts of going into one of the armed services before being forced into one not of our choice. So a little vandalism on the birth certificate and much acrimony from parents and it was done.
How stupid can you be at seventeen? Only later did we learn that you do not volunteer for anything. My friend did the same but his parents went to the War Office and gave his correct age and he was out of the R.A.F and back home. He later ended up in the Black Watch where he did very well in Germany with some black market shenanigans.
But, that is another story.
Keith Shorland, West Midlands, 2002
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
