Roses are red
Violets are blue
Violets are blue
The shorter the skirt
The better the view
The better the view
And this one…
Fatty and Skinny were having a bath
Fatty blew off and made Skinny laugh
Everyone knew the Tony Hancock mime, just as everyone knew this rhyme,
loved by boys and girls alike…
My friend Billy had a ten foot willy
He showed it to the girl next door
She thought it was a snake so she hit it with a rake
And now it’s only five feet four.
‘I know what a willy looks like,’ said Linda Underhill,
outside her home at 47 Crundale
Road. ‘It looks like a chip!’ How I grinned when she
then drew a willy, in chalk, on the pavement. Less impressed was her little
brother Douglas.
‘Um, I’m telling!’
Linda chased her little brother down their garden path, knowing full
well she was in for it if she couldn’t talk the little tell-tale into keeping his
mouth shut.
Girls were okay, sometimes, when they weren’t playing with prams and
dollies. Linda Webb, like Linda Underhill, was also in my class at school and she needed
a helping hand from me, to sit on top of the pillar box on the corner of
Crundale Road and Milsted Road; not difficult when climbed from Eddie Churchman’s
garden wall.
Though the Webb family lived around the corner on Milsted Road, the bottom of their garden
bordered ours and through that, my brothers and I got to know Linda’s younger
sister Helen, and little brother David. Having two big sisters might have been a little tough on David, who was always keen to chat over the fence.
My brothers and I got on well with most people at our end of Crundale Road, but there
was the occasional flare up. That the Revell family were known and liked was largely
due to Mrs. Revell and Pop, the family granddad. Wearing his cap and
coat in all weathers, old Pop would happily stop and have a word with anyone as he
shuffled home from his lunchtime pint at the Royal Engineer. Besides looking
after Pop, Mrs. Revell had three sons to care for. Peter, the oldest, was well
into his teens and beyond playing in the street. Brian, the baby of the family,
was in the same school year as our Mike, making him about six. They troubled nobody
but the middle brother, Colin, could be a problem. Aged ten or eleven, Colin was
someone to be wary of.
I had to look twice on the day I glanced though the window of our
downstairs utility room and saw Colin throttling our Mike over our garden wall.
Luckily, Dad was home.
‘Dad, Colin Revell’s got Michael!’ I yelled, as loud as I could. ‘He’s
strangling him!’
Whoosh! Dad flew out of the front door.
Within seconds Dad had Colin by the throat and was giving him some of
his own medicine.
Wow! That’ll teach
him!
It did too. A shaken Colin stayed well clear of us after that.
Not long after Dad made some garden improvements. After planting a row
of privets across the front garden walls, he made a gate.
‘No riding on it,’ he said, reading our minds when he saw us admiring
his handiwork.
Though my brothers and I nodded obediently, the temptation was great and we disobeyed at the first opportunity.
Upon standing on a horizontal and releasing the catch, gravity took over and the
gate swung down the sloping path. Great fun, as long as Dad didn’t catch us.
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Dad’s improvements didn’t stop there. New fences appeared front and back,
with a trellis halfway down the back garden to separate a vegetable plot from our
play area. To aid the growth of his potatoes and runner beans, Dad installed a
manure dump. Sunk into the border, just off the garden path, this four foot
square of rotting compost didn’t half stink when given a poke.
There were few car owners at our end of Crundale Road. Mister Heard (next door at
45) had one and so did Mister
Underhill (at 47), but in
working hours, the road was usually clear. Apart from the odd passing car,
street games were only interrupted by welcome visits from the Corona man, the Ice Cream man and Mister
Wilson the Fruit and Veg man.
‘Hello Mister Wilson!’ went the cry from my brothers and me whenever
Mister Wilson showed up.
‘Get in the house and don’t be so cheeky,’ snapped our disapproving Mam,
at our use of a catchphrase used by TV’s Just Dennis to greet Mister Wilson, his next door neighbour.
Kids generally kept a respectful distance when work brought tradesmen onto
the streets. The bin men did their job unhindered, as did the coal men when
deliveries began in late summer. The rag and bone man wasn’t so lucky, as a horse
and cart was a magnet to the procession of kids that ‘dur-durred’ the Steptoe
theme tune whilst following it around the streets.
A special Brooke Bond promotion drew loads of kids to the Holy Trinity
church hall, where cartoons were shown and kids were given free balloons and
badges; a rare treat.
But summer, most of all, was about long sunny days and the freedom to
roam. Waltham Road
was hardly a roam, but I tagged along with Brendan Wright, my next door
neighbour, when he called on his mate Danny Bloomfield. As Danny was a mate of
Brendan’s I considered him to be a friend of mine, even though he was significantly senior. Through friends of friends I got to know a lot people, believing
being on good terms with older kids could only be beneficial. Brendan, as
always, led the kids of Crundale
Road on many great expeditions. A traipse to
Motney Hill wasn’t that eventful though we did come across a huge cylinder.
The size of a house, it had a single doorway (no door just an opening) and was
empty inside. Within this great echo chamber we shrieked and howled and made
ghostly noises till something spooked us and we took off.
(My brother Dave informs me that this was a silo at a cement works)
I left Motney Hill with no regrets; like Sharpe's Green, I thought it an eerie place. On
the long trudge home Brendan proposed that we knock at the door of one of the
few houses on the lower roads, and ask for a glass of water. Cheeky, I thought
but despite my misgivings, the motion was carried and I was pleasantly
surprised when a kindly householder obliged.
Other adventures were more exciting. Seeing the huge daisy field, off Broadway,
for the first time was a great thrill. A glorious afternoon was enjoyed by all
who frolicked in the sunshine and made garlands of daisy chains. Not so
glorious was the short cut home Brendan showed us after a trek down Lower
Woodlands Road. The sense of adventure I felt as we started down a narrow alley
behind Cornwallis Avenue,
was quickly displaced by anxiety when I realised the alley ran alongside the cemetery.
Never having been so close to a graveyard, I found the sight of the headstones
on the other side of the green railings disturbing. Then, when a dog in a back
garden rushed to snap and snarl at us through what appeared to be a hopelessly
inadequate gate, my nerves were on edge. Alerted by Fido’s barking, other dogs
rushed to form what quickly became a gauntlet of gnashing teeth. Scared witless
by the time we reached the last house, we were shocked to find the alley came
to a dead end, leaving us with no choice but to turn around and go back.
Shit!
In the long grass of the wasteland, opposite the golf course on Beechings Way, everyone
relaxed and started throwing grass darts.
‘What shall we
do?’ asked Brendan, like nobody knew what was on his sneaky mind. ‘I know,
let’s play Rudey.’
Brendan always suggested Rudey when we ended up in long grass. It wasn’t the first time we’d played Rudey with the girls but it seldom went beyond I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
~
I was lucky enough
to have a little holiday too, staying with my Granny Lynch at her home in Barry, South Wales. This is me on the beach with my Aunt and young cousin.
And here’s a
postcard I sent…
…to my Granny
Gray, now resident at our house in Crundale Road.
A perfect song from that summer...
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