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Delia Alexander, who now lives in Canada with her husband Bernard, recalls fond memories of Autumn when they lived at Mosely, Birmingham.
My Memories of late sunny days, the drawing in golden days and the darker, cloudier days of late autumn, the latter having been made cosier with some additional loving care! Grandma would toast numerous slices of toast over an open fire using the long handled toasting fork. Occasionally an unfortunate slice of bread, half toasted, would accidentally drop onto the burning coals, producing many oohs and ahs from her waiting hungry onlookers.
My mother, although not directly on the scene, would be in the kitchen where it seemed to me that she had taken up permanent residence; along with the toast buttering she would be busy brewing up 'on tap' mugs of hot sweet tea, this beverage being the perfect accompaniment. Delicious!
Of course I loved the golden days when the mellowed sun gave of its free warmth producing such tranquilising qualities as to make even the most irritable of folk more amiable! What a glorious memory I have of the surrounding fields and hedgerows when they were heavy with fragrant woodsy smells.
A free and easy time when us kids were not pushed into wearing our 'Only for Sunday' clothes leaving us free to climb trees and swing across the brooks on 'Tarzan-like' ropes. Memories of these warm afternoons spent exploring every nook and cranny of the many surrounding fields of the West Midlands in England in the late 30's; privileged as I was to be born and cradled in the surrounding beauteous Lord of the Rings' countryside.
A lazy, hazy warm late autumnal day in my life might include a few easily rounded up friends, all hoping for an eventful and adventurous walk! We might take along a large (six-penny) bottle of either Cherry Tizer pop or Dandelion and Burdock wine (maybe because we liked the idea of this delicious beverage being called wine). We would each take it in turns to have a 'swig', hygienically making sure of course after each 'turn' the pop bottle top was well wiped over with grubby little hands.
Any hunger pangs were well satisfied from the many overhanging branches of passing backyard orchards. Their pickings of cider apples, blackberry and elderberry bushes heavy with their fruit would be ours just for the asking! We would walk on until afternoon's light was no longer strong enough to see the many tiny silvery minnows darting in the river, and already they would be seeking their resting places under the grassy banks of the river Cole.
I remember the huge spreading Chestnut trees that obligingly shed their cornflake leaves so that we could crunch our way through them on the way to school. More exciting still when it was 'wellies' time. Shiney and black gummed boots to kick about in no fear of Mom's reprisal having wet socks!
Horse Chestnuts, shiny and brown (no furniture polish needed there). Pieces of string on the ready for threading a hopeful 'sixer', meant six hits without the chestnut breaking your opponent's 'conker' and you were a winner! Branches of Hawthorn, laden with shiny red berries, to adorn the nature table and flatter the then Mrs. Higgins our one and only 'form' teacher.
A moment's daydreaming out of the classroom window and we might site a soaring bird gilded by the midday sun. The sun's effort to boost our flagging energies overspent from its hot summer rays now meant to boost our energy level. The whole classroom would turn from golden to dull, the lukewarm in-between, a no man's land, seeming both warm and cool at the same time.
Four thirty's ringing of the 'going home time' bell sounded no less than a choir of angels. The thought of Mom, tea and well-buttered toast, whose list of items held no kind of precedence!
Of course it wasn't all 'free and easy, lazy days' for in those days we had much teaching.
Mrs. Higgins was one of those lady teachers who seemed to be ageless, from the beginning of our infant day school when we shivered in our shoes but were made to feel welcom by the kind faced, hair in bun, bespectacled lady. Right up to the time when we graduated at the tender ages of 14 or l5 years of age, depending on whether you were a scholar at the beginning of l930 or the latter end as I was (1937!)
This dear lady tutored us in all subjects, indeed from our ABC's to hygiene classes (boys and girls classes would be taught separately, of course in the latter subject!) I remember much tittering when Mrs. Higgins said anyone who 'wished to empty their bladder' would have to put up their hand and request just that! Of course, no one ever did. An undisturbed class! I now realise what a 'clever' person Mrs. Higgins was!
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