24 Playing Out

Light nights and fine weather brought everyone out to play, and my brothers and I weren’t the only kids in Twydall to know the joy of climbing into a near empty coal bunker and wriggling out of the hole at the front.

Brendan Wright’s coal bunker was back to back with ours and the ideal viewing platform for the kids of Crundale Road to watch Brendan’s one man show in the back garden of number 41. After rebelling against the cheeky bugger’s intent to charge us a penny each, the show went ahead. Amongst other mildly amusing acts, Brendan tried his hand at juggling and ventriloquism, but the highlight of the show came when he balanced an upturned broom on his nose. ‘Dum-dum-diddling’ the circus tune, he wobbled back and to, keeping the broom upright. For a few seconds he was brilliant until…

‘Dum-dum-diddle-diddle-dum-dum-dum ARGH!’

How we laughed when the broom handle slipped off his conk and poked him in the eye. Bravo Brendan!

Poor Brendan copped it again on the day Tony Davidson, at number 39, was messing around with a hosepipe. Though Tony and I were the same age – we were in different classes at school and moved in different circles – I knew him mainly as a kid that spent hours playing with toy cars on his front garden path. But on this particular day Tony was in his back garden, aiming a hosepipe so high and wide that the spray passed over the Wright’s garden at 41 and came down in our garden at 43. Dad, who was in our garden at the time, was not happy. With vengeance in mind he came into the kitchen to fill the washing up bowl at the sink… and carry it outside.

Whoosh!

Brendan picked the wrong moment to step out of his back door. He got the full force of it.

‘Mister Lynch!’ he gasped, shocked and dripping wet.

‘I’m sorry Brendan. That was meant for that fool over there.’

Though Dad’s apology was sincere, he couldn’t stop himself having a little chuckle when he stepped back inside.

Tony’s comeuppance came on the day our Mike wandered into the house, tearful, saying Tony had hit him.

Dad’s response was immediate. ‘Gerard! David! Go and find Tony Davidson and hit him. And take Michael with you.’

We found Tony smirking beside the lamppost outside his garden gate.

‘Our Dad says we’ve to hit you,’ I said, but then I hesitated, as the required action seemed so cold blooded. Our Dave had no such reservations. He didn’t waver from throwing a right hander that thudded against Tony’s ear and bounced his head off the lamppost. A couple of thumps to the chest from me and token punch from our Mike finished the job. Mission accomplished.

‘Hard luck next time!’ Tony shouted as he reeled down his garden path. A strange thing to say, we thought; must have been the bang on the bonce.

David Webb was one of several kids I played Cowboys with. Great fun, especially if we had caps for our guns, but a cowboy called Gerard? How I wished I’d been called Tommy or Billy or Johnny. Even Rowdy was better than Gerard.

Though David lived around the corner from us, on Milsted Road, climbing over the dividing fence between the Webb’s garden and ours was a convenience that suited us both when it came to playing in our respective gardens. Thus I and others enjoyed some happy times in Webb garden with David and his sisters Linda and Helen. Taking cover in a crater in the middle of their wide open space was great fun, as was leaping off the top of the Webb’s brick shed, until I made the mistake of jumping upwards on take off. As a result of the longer drop my legs folded beneath me as I hit the ground and I kneed myself in the chin.

‘Gnn!’

~

Out on the street I was used to seeing girls playing jacks, hopscotch and skipping, but the Heard girls Linda, Sally and Vivienne were playing a new game called Kerby, sometimes with Julie and Diane Wright.  From opposite sides of the road two girls took it in turn to try and bounce a ball off the far kerb. While a miss gave the other player a chance to throw, a rebound at a nice height gave a catchable opportunity to score a point if caught two handed, or two points if caught with one hand.

Good times they were, but at nine years old I was now spending more time at the homes of schoolmates William ‘Bimbo’ Hollands and Kevin Garlick. At William’s house at the bottom of Hawthorne Avenue (the last house on the bit that curls round to Doddington Road), I marvelled once more at his collection of World War II soldiers and artillery, and model airplanes suspended from his bedroom ceiling. In addition, he now had a Wild West map on the wall and some historical figures – cut from the front page of the Valiant comic, pasted onto cardboard and made to stand on his bedside cabinet – that were very impressive.

It was at Bimbo’s house that he, Kevin and I made Zulu shields out of cardboard. Painting a few dashes of black or white on them was desirable, but a small pot of yellow paint was all we could find and there was no time to wait for the shields to dry. Itching to play, we went straight out onto the grass front that led over to Beechings Way for an exciting game of Zulu, unconcerned that we all ended up with paint on our fingers.

Bimbo was the owner of a huge collection of comics and when he decided to part with his old ones, Kevin and I were the thrilled beneficiaries. Not Beanos or Dandys and the like, but comics like Valiant, Hotspur, Victor and Hornet for older boys like us. Thus, Kevin and I left Bim’s house with a bundle of comics each that we vowed to swap once we’d read them. Alas, though I got my bundle home and stashed it behind the settee, there would be no enjoyment. Dad, who considered comics to be a fire hazard, got to them first and binned them. Damn!

As always, big chunks of most weekends were spent at Kevin’s home on Waltham Road, where many hours were spent re-enacting famous battles with our toy soldiers. These battles were fought mostly in the living room… if his brother’s pop group weren’t rehearsing in there. The Saints, as they called themselves, were Twydall’s version of The Shadows and in Will Youden, they had their very own Hank Marvin lookalike.

The Saints line up: Drums: Ronald Arber. Rhythm: Barrie Garlick. Lead: Will Youden. Bass: John Lane, later replaced by Peter Adley.

Others on the scene were Alec Taylor, Ron Arber’s sister Margaret and her dance partner Trevor Botting.

Kevin though, had little time for any of them yet for all his scorn, The Saints were a talented bunch. That said, my loyalty lay entirely with my friend so while Barrie and his pals made their racket, Kevin and I played elsewhere.