Lyn, your pictures are bringing back so many memories that were lost in time, (or is that age in my case? Lol). You are Brilliant, Thank you so much!!!
Oh and I agree, I wouldn't swap my childhood either. Our parents were proud people who did what they had to, to get by. I loved working with the milkman as a young boy, giving my small wage to my Mom to help pay for whatever she needed. It may seem strange to some but I remember fondly the brown bit in the dripping when we spread it on the partially stale bread after having a Sunday lunch. Bread and dripping was a meal as was bread and jam and sometimes just bread and butter. Going to Jones's and getting things on the strap or in the book as we called it in those days, as you all well know.
I remember making go carts out of scrap wood and some old pram wheels and playing down on the canal and the old bomb peck. You've got me started now I might put it all down on paper, as you said pictures are all the memories we have now because they have destroyed the physical that we knew and loved and pictures and words are all that can keep it alive.
As children we had very little, but did we, I ask? Look at children today, a lot of them don't go out and play in the fresh air with other children, they don't make things out of what's just lying around as we did with go karts and if they meet other children, a lot of them have no social skills because they spend their time on electronics, staring at a screen talking to their virtual friends. I worry what the world is coming to and what we as humans are doing to our once Beautiful world. Everyone in the street used to know and help each other, now we're lucky if someone 6 doors away say's hello.