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Out of bounds

K

Kandor

Guest
I was never allowed across the 'main road' The one in question was Ashted Row and with the 56 and 55 Bus as well as the traffic going back and forth into Town, even in the 50's it was still a very busy road, even for those times.
My kid brother Peter was knocked over just outside our house (right opposite Dr O'Keefes)
He had his leg broken rather badly and spent months in Hospital,
That's when Mom really cracked down on us never being able to cross Ashted Row unless we were with either her or Dad.
I only did it a few times and Mom larrupped hell out of me so I soon learned.
Crazy really as I got belted to death for going 10 yards in one direction yet could walk as far as I wanted to the other way (and that include crossing Gt Lister St ).
Although I liked to think I could wander far and wide in those days, in real life it wasn't like that at all.
Yeah, Cromwell St School was a fair old hop but it was just one long straight rd really, and I guess I only ranged a few hundred yards each side of that strip.
As soon as I got to aged 11 things changed, moving down to Hindlow close it opened up a whole new world, that of the River Rea, Vauxhall Dairy, Saltley Gas works
I'm an early riser, I always have been, always will be, I'd get up as the Milkmen took their milkfloats and started their deliveries, many's the time on fetching the paper for Dad, I'd end up in some conversation with one of them, I was always trying to get a job as a Milkmans runner, never did though.
Although I've moved on with my life and cant really compare what I have now with what I had then, I miss Nechells...I miss my Mom and Dad, I miss my scabby old cat 'Mouser', and I miss my old friends....


Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells,
He'd rather play with Mouser,
In the morning, when the moon,
Is scarcely gone....

In the dawn,
You'll see him coming,
In the dawn,
You'll hear him humming,
Some old song he wrote
Of love and Saltley gasworks.

Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells
He'd rather spend his time,
Out where the 'Rea' looks like a river,
After it rains,

One again you'll see him walking
Once again you'll hear him talking
To the friends he makes,
While asking them for busfare.

Guess he'd rather be,
Back home in Nechells,
Guess he'd rather live,
Back where the only thing you earn,
Is what you spend.....

In the end up in his bedroom
In the end, a quiet cough,
Is all he has to show,
He used to live in Streetly.....
 
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