It seems that I have awakened a few childhood memories with my last blog episode.......And Mick talking about trolleys/bogeys/whatever you called them when you were growing up......there were endless arguments in our house.......there were five lads and only one trolley......so there were fights and falling outs over who was going to be playing on it......it was a longbodied trolley and would accommodate two of the lads comfortably....but the others were never happy to wait for their turn.
During the summer it was the first two to get home from school who would commandeer the thing.......and head for the top of Carter Street....they would then whiz down and try to turn sharply onto Marsden Street......any miscalculation and they would...

Margaret Pilkington

In a recent blog episode I told you that, as a family, we were poor.
In financial terms that is true.
Looking back, I now realise how hard it must have been for my parents to feed us all....provide us with clothes, and keep a roof over our heads.

At the time, which was just after the war, many families were in the same boat.
So going to school in 'hand me downs'...or clothes from the jumble sale, was the norm....or at least certainly not frowned on.
As children, we didn't hanker after branded clothes......and we wore what we were given...whether it was fashionable or not.

This, I think, is where the parents of that time had it much easier than parents of today.
There was no worry about...

Margaret Pilkington

When I was a child.......we were poor.
There were things that I wished for, but knew that I couldn't have because we couldn't afford them.

I wanted to go up in a plane....the one that all the school children went on, on ascension day.
It was only a bog standard Turbo Prop plane, but it flew over the town, and all the children whose parents could afford it, could look down on the local geography.
I wasn't particularly interested in geography, I just wanted to go up into the clouds......it never happened. (Well, not until much later)
On ascension day I would watch the planes flying overhead and imagine what those lucky children could see.....and I would envy them.

I wanted to go on holiday with...

Margaret Pilkington

Reading westenders blog about her brother made me laugh. So thought i'd tell you about my day with my brother. He's older than me - he was 49 last week and wind him up about his age seeing as he'll be 50 next year ......

Monday im still in bed ... and my mobile goes. Its my brother - "can i come and use your phone?" "Yeah give me half an hour and come down" - "im outside right now!!!" He should have been at work - well i thought he should have but turns out hes on holiday from work. I stuck the kettle on and he sat down and said wheres the phone - which is a very good question - when you have one of them cordless ones .. I said ring it - when it rings i'll find it. So he makes his call and the kettles...

shillelagh

The Chinese have a saying, "The much-loved child has many names". Our dad surely loved us, then, as we all 3 had dozens of names from him. We answered to them all, too.

Brother 2 (7 years my senior) was, by all accounts, a very inquisitive small child. Our dad could do a passable impression of his younger male offspring who as a toddler, apparently, met every statement and action with the flat demand, "Why?", accompanied by a determined expression. You didn't get away with ignoring him. It didn't take long before our dad referred to him, often, as The Why? Boy.

He was a tactile man, our dad. He wasn't given to openly embracing his children, particularly his sons, once we'd got past pre-school...

West Ender