Let's Reminisce.

Margaret Pilkington said:
Cashy, they did not consider that.
All they were concerned about was that they kept their stash.
They crept out when everyone was in bed....and crept back in early doors.
Back then, no-one locked doors...and the lavvy was out back so no suspicions were aroused when they came back in.....a blanket was stashed in the bin hole.
To them it was all part and parcel of the excitement.

Another thing we did was put Philip(the baby of the time) into his push chair and put a sign on him ' Penny for the guy ' we stationed ourselves on Mount street just as the factories were loosing......and we got lots of coins.
Some was put aside for fireworks...some was spent on treacle toffee :)
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We did that penny for guy with a little lad in Alan E Dents doorway bottom of burnley rd but one night a drunken teddy boy ran up the doorway and kicked him the face.:eek: didnt do much for his teeth,
 
Margaret Pilkington said:
That was Halloween Taddy...and yes, it was the night for raiding the woodpiles of other kids to make your own bonfire bigger.
There was a lot of kudos to be had by having the best bonfire.
Our lads used to make the centre hollow and sleep out in it to make sure their wood stash was safe.
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I do hope that this was a tongue in cheek response to my post, because (No), this was not Halloween, if you read the post properly you will note that I said that I was out in the woodland,on my own at night with a shotgun after Woodpigeons, (to shoot, pluck and eat). After staring at the night sky through the branches of a wood for many hours, the affliction known as "Wood blindness" can atttack/Affect your eyesight,it is not a commonly known phenomenon but it can occur in the circumstances that I have discribed, I do know that it can happen because it happened to me.
 
No Taddy it was not a tongue in cheek comment...it was regarding your observation of 'Mischief Night' a time which occurred shortly before bonfire night...and I said that night was what Halloween used to be termed.

It was nothing at all to do with your eyesight issues...nor was I challenging your experience of this. These can be due to staring too long at an image(bright or otherwise) and it is akin to screen burn in computer terms...which is why you have moving screen saver images to prevent this.
 
Apologies Taddy..it was Monkey hanger who mentioned mischief night...which explains why I could not find it in your posts.
 
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Margaret you really have started something. My mind is now buzzing with memories. We also had a mischief night but it wasn’t until years later that I associated it with Halloween even though looking back I’m sure it was the same date. This was when we would tie the front doors together, knock and run. As this night was a very old tradition in the village most people just went along with it. Probably brought back memories for them. I wore old trousers so that I looked like a boy in the dark. We would string up an attachment on windows so that we could pull the string and there would be tapping on the windows. We played lots of pranks – but not one of them would have hurt anyone. We called through letter boxes for people to beware because it was mischief night.

On bonfire night there would be one huge bonfire that everyone had contributed to. Potatoes were thrown into the fire and then the burnt offerings were thoroughly enjoyed. Mums made treacle toffee to be shared. The lucky ones who could afford them had sparklers.
 
My mum and I would listen to really enjoyable plays on the radio on a Saturday night. However, you could guarantee that just before the play finished my dad would come home after having had a pint or three at the local and usually he would be singing some song or other. We would ask him to shush so we could hear the end of the play but you know what people are like when they've had one or two.... However, he would bring my mother two OBJ’s and fish and chips for both of us. Yummy fish and chips they were, definitely better than today’s. My mum would offer me a drink but I thought it tasted awful – and I still think the same about any beer. One of the songs my dad used to sing was ‘She’s Too Fat For Me’. I remember it well.
 
More memories – a train ride to the illuminations with my mum every year, coach trips to the seaside, the many street parades, the celebrations when war ended (the second World War that is, not the first – I’m not THAT old!). The walks with my dad when he would carry me on his shoulders when my little legs got tired – he used to walk a long way. The very old customs that the kids carried out at weddings in the village church.

Phew! I think I'd better stop now.
 
No, no...please don't stop.
It is by sharing these times that it loosens the memories in other people's minds.
We all have stories to tell about our lives.....and they are so very different from the lives being experienced by the children today.

We had adventures, we played outside, we ate fruit off the tree or bush...we never sonsidered that it was dirty......WE got dirty....we played in the dirt, we fell down, we grazed knees elbows and chins....but a bit of spit on it and we were ready to go again.
These things made us the people we are today.
All those dangerous things we did...and yet we came to no harm.
The mischief we got into, the telling off, the spankings....they all formed us.
They did not make us bitter, or victims.....they taught us the every single thing in life has consequences.....and we have to live with the consequences of our choices.
Most of us did that in spades...and were moulded into solid citizens....responsible people.
 
dotti34 said:
More memories – a train ride to the illuminations with my mum every year,

did you get those cheap half day train excursions where they seemed to use the oldest carriages that were available and returned home at midnight or later. as for what we called mischief night i thought it was in the same week as bonfire night as the hated halloween hadn,t drifted across the atlantic back then.
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moving on a little to our early teens in the early 60,s. we seemed to have a number of youth clubs around in those days when we started to realize that the opposite sex existed in a different form than they did even a few years earlier. its the efforts all seemed to put into their appearance back in those days. being a shy lad with lasses back then you had to be noticed. being an early developer physically i was shaving from 12 years old. i always made doubly sure i had no bum fluff present and spent more time in the bath room, shoe polishing and then trouser pressing that would be laughed at by kids nowadays. jeans on a saturday night was a no go unless you wanted lasses to laugh at you.
 
About 6 months ago I was telling a young lad about the railway line that ran through Priestley Clough and there was a bridge in Mount Street when he asked me where Mount Street was I said go to the end of Factory Bottom and that's the street that goes across. "Factory Bottom?" "Yes it was called that because it was factories from one end to the other and they were large mills and "Workers Playtime" was broadcast from two of them at least".
"Your pulling my p***er, workers playtime really, I'd get checked out for dementia if I were you". A couple of days later I met the lads mother "Our Jimmy's been telling me about chatting to you, Did you mean Victoria Street?" "Yes" I said, and she just nodded her head, give me a funny look and walked off and I started wondering if I did remember things properly.
 
Yes, the Railway line DID go at the back of the factories and the start of Priestley Clough....the Railway bridge was over Nuttall St....near the junction of Nuttall St and Belfield Road.
The Factories were Warburtons and Highams....there was a sewing room too.The Cotton Club was on Nuttall St....and it was the social venue for the factories....the panto and the children's Christmas parties were held there.....and I think there were dances from time to time.
Mount Street and Bath Street were at the Marsden st end of Nuttall St.
I think that Workers Playtime was broadcast from the big canteen at the corner of Victoria St.

I know these things because I lived up there until I was 19....both of my parents worked at the mills at one point or another...and it was a lovely place at that time....a real community.
 
Oh yes.....our lads had a trolley which they built themselves.
During the summer we used to slide down the hill...on the grass, on tin tea trays.....we got into trouble for picking gas tar from between the cobbles, mainly because we got it on our clothes and Mick(my brother) managed to get it into his hair.
He ended up with a shaved head.
Ma was ruthless.
 
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