Re: Good Old Days?
 

Now do we really want to know the details of that part of G,s past? :)

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Doug......the past is part of who we are.....it made us, even the bad times and the hard times.

Your story of the Christmas bike brought back some very poignant memories for me.
We were very poor and from about September my Mum would trawl the jumble sales for cheap second hand toys.....dinky toys, metal pans.....you know the kind of stuff. My dad would disappear up into the attic for hours at a time.......he was putting new paint on these old tired toys. He made a garage for one of my brothers with his name stencilled on the top.....it had a ramp that lifted the cars and petrol pumps. He made a fort for one of my other brothers......and a cooker for me. During the half term holidays when my parents were out of the house for a short while I managed to get the key to the attic and we all went up and saw the work that was being done so that we could have a good Christmas......our eyes must have lit up. We started to play with these toys and lost track of the time. Before we knew it my mother was stood at the top of the attic stairs surveying the scene. She was absolutely livid and told us that there would be NO presents for us at Christmas. Well it seemed a long time until Christmas to us and by the time Christmas came along we had forgotten about the threats. Christmas morning we all got up and there were 4 brown paper bags.....one for each of us. Inside each one was a pile of cinders. I can't tell you how much we cried.It was a terrible week for all of us, but we were reminded that we had done something we were not supposed to do..... and this was the punishment. My mother held back our toys until New years day.....we were not expecting any toys so it was a surprise to us. You may think our parents were cruel to do this to us, but I valued the lessons learnt by such things.
It taught us that we have to take responsibility for our actions.....and that in life all things are paid for, one way or another.

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Margaret todays kids could learn a thing or two from the things their grandparents and to some extent their parents endured.

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Being my handmaiden certainly helped her. She married well, and still lives locally.;)

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Re: Good Old Days?
 

We weren't sweethearts, she just adored me, a bit like you do now.

I'll give you a shout if I need a push.:)

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Re: Good Old Days?
 

Woof.:)

Has the spell checker been at the cooking sherry?;)