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Growing Up In Brum - Roy Blakey Inspired.

What a coincidence.

Yesterday, for my 82nd birthday my son in law presented me with a first edition copy of THE WOODEN HORSE, by Eric Williams.

I am sure that many of our older readers will get the connection!

Eddie
 
Yes, I remember learning the vault in stages, the first stage being to stop on top of the box with our hands on the front edge with arms outstretched and our ankles resting on the back edge. Then we just dismounted. But by stages we got to the final part where we jumped right over and I never once did that. I always managed to deliberately foul it up and the PT instructor would just grab hold of me a pull me over and which way he could. In this day and age I could probably have sued him for assault! Meanwhile my more athletic peers (one went on to play cricket for Warwickshire), jumped it with ease and went back for more! I still cringe at the thought of it!

Maurice
 
norfolk brummie said:
What a coincidence.

Yesterday, for my 82nd birthday my son in law presented me with a first edition copy of THE WOODEN HORSE, by Eric Williams.

I am sure that many of our older readers will get the connection!

Eddie
Click to expand...

Happy birthday Eddie & may you be blessed with many more. I shall have a wee dram tonight & charge it to your account :-}
 
Eddie,

I'm sorry but I didn't realise it was your birthday, so

A Belated Happy Birthday to You!

It sounds like you had a good day and I do realise the significance of the gift! But I was out nearly all day yesterday, first with a meeting of our Gardening Club, then lunch at a local taverna, and finally taking a new British resident on several hours tour of this part of the island as he hasn't yet acquired a car.

Maurice
 
I'm another one who has seen the film, "The Wooden Horse" starring Anthony Steele, but have not read the book. Happy Birthday Eddie. Dave.
 
I read the book in my youth, and had a paperback copy until a few years ago , when it fell to pieces
 
WASN'T QUITE READY YET.
I recall at one time when our Dad advised my younger brother and myself that it would be a good thing and a good experience if we were to start helping out around the house with jobs other than just running errands.
I think that this sounded good to us because here was our Dad seeing us as ' big boys ' now.
Things didn't run to plan on some occassions though.
One of our early attempts to ' help out ' backfired when we offered to ' clear ' Dads little ' veggie ' patch at the top of the garden but in the process we ended up dirtying most of our Moms freshly washed laundry that had been hanging on the garden clothes line.
Then there was the time we dropped and broke the glass in the photo frame of one of Moms favourite photos of Grandad and Grandma, this was whilst we were trying to help clean and dust upstairs.
There were a few other ' accidents ' that occurred which, on reflection, could only be put down to carelessness.
I remember our Mom eventually saying to us " I DO APPRECIATE YOU LADS TRYING TO HELP OUT, BUT YOU DO TEND TO DO A JOB AND MAKE A JOB AT THE SAME TIME ".
At that stage I think it was pretty obvious that we were more of a hinder than a help on too many occassions, so we were demoted back to ' running errands '.
So there we were, sacked from the more responsible help out duties before we had hardly got started.
 
MIMICKING and IMITATING.
There were countless children, I recall, who could imitate or mimic with a fair degree of accuracy and talent.
The range that I remember included the kids mimicking :
DONALD DUCK and POPEYE. Some of the girls did a fair old job of imitating SHIRLEY TEMPLE.
The CHARLIE CHAPLIN WALK most kids could do.
Some of the kids could imitate variations of BIRD CALLS.
Then there was the TARZAN CALL from many of the children as they swung about in the trees.
Most kids would do a fair imitation sound of the six shooter gun being fired whilst they were playing Cow-boys.( Peet- choo, Peet- choo, Peet- choo, that sort of thing ).
The SPITFIRE sound as they demonstrated their toy model areoplane was pretty common too.
Yep, they were pretty good.
 
CONKER TIME.
( Very much a look forward to moment in the year ).
Over the years many of the kids would be out, about this time, looking for their first collection of Conkers.
It was sensible to ' get in first ' , if you could , before any other ' groups ' might have already cleared up the fallen ones.
Not a major problem though.
If the tree(s) had in essence already been ground cleared by someone who had been there earlier you would see the ' best
thrower ' in the group aiming and launching short bulky pieces of wood from old fallen tree branches trying to bring down some of the Conkers still hanging on the tree. As the Conker seeds fell others in the group would set about splitting open the spiky outer shell to reveal the lovely Conker.
Another little ' look for ' whilst you were in the woodland area would be to have a scan around for a nice piece of a tree branch shoot that was long enough, straight enough, light enough, strong enough and nicely bendable that would be perfect to make your next archery bow.
Lovely times.
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WHO ? HOW ? WHAT ?
The natural curiosity of the kids. Going back a ways I think of the times when we klds asked our parents questions which seemed perfectly straight forward to US but seemed to throw THEM into a rapid state of muddle and confusion. For some types of questions there were many times that the eventual response would be along the lines " WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE A BIT OLDER, YOU'LL UNDERSTAND BETTER THEN ".
Dear O dear, what sort of an answer was that supposed to be.
The thing that amuses me though is that you could quarantee that,as a kid, if you remembered to ask your friends out in the street the same question(s) there would be no problem in getting an answer or an opinion ( might not have been accurate or reliable but you could weigh it up for yourself and it was at least some sort of an answer ).
We kids reckoned that perhaps the parents just didn't know the answers themselves sometimes.
But heck, what was so complicated about talking to us about things like Doctors, Hospitals, Marriages, Funerals, Family economics, Having babies, Religions, People going to prison, Moms and Dads having arguments, those sorts of things.
So, right or wrong, the kids CORNER STREET FORUM get togethers tended to come up with their own expert answers that
some of the parents couldn't or wouldn't provide.
 
PLANNING FOR " BONFIRE " NIGHT.
Period : Early Post-war.
Another exciting event for the kids to build up to. The main objective of the children was the collection of bits for their Bonfire. Worth bearing in mind that this was in the era of " make-do-and- mend " and therefore there was very little
" throw away " going on at this time. So,doing a bit of scrounging around had to be done to create a reasonable sized Bonfire. Knocking on the doors of neighbours and asking for something to put on the Bonfire was one means, another favourite was to ask the local shopkeepers for any of their old discarded packing boxes ( this could get quite competitive with other groups doing the same thing ).
Now there was the decision as to whether or not to create a " Guy Fawks " using old clothes, newspaper packing and the mask ). This project probably wasn't so much centred around " to put on top of the Bonfire " but more to-wards parading
your Guy Fawkes around in your trolley ( especially round by the shops ) in order to " collect " a few pennies from some of the shoppers.
Here was the bonus behind it though.
If you could collect enough pennies you could now consider adding " real fireworks " to your Bonfire night entertainments.
Dads and Moms might provide a few Carherine Wheels, Spray Fountains, Coloured Matches and with a bit of luck three or four Rockets but what the kids were looking for were " Bangers " and " Jumping Jacks " for the boys and the girls really loved their " Sparklers ".
So if the kids were successful with their Guy Fawkes collecting bit they could treat themselves to these extras
Make sure that Mom will be scrubbing up a few nice potatoes ready to place in the Bonfire ashes.
On the night and after all their worthwhile efforts the kids just couldn't wait for Dad to light the ceremonial match and set fire to their lovely Bonfire.
What a night it was going to be.
 
I was going to say "Don't forget the toffee apples" but I've just realised that sugar would have still been on rations.
Mother always made toffee but this was later in the 50's.
My brother had a mask which was made of something like coloured eggboxes, he used to keep it from year to year.
rosie.
 
rosie said:
I was going to say "Don't forget the toffee apples" but I've just realised that sugar would have still been on rations.
Mother always made toffee but this was later in the 50's.
My brother had a mask which was made of something like coloured eggboxes, he used to keep it from year to year.
rosie.
Click to expand...

On our local bonfire night, one enterprising lady set up a table selling baked tatties & roast chestnuts. She did a roaring trade (but no toffee apples) :-{
 
Conkers. When in Clent for a visit last month. We stayed at my nephews house in Clent. He has a Chesnut tree. CONKERS tree and low and behold CONKERS! Happy days of my youth, Vinegar was the key soak them good. I was the master of conkers. John Crump
 
THE HOME MADE STREET TROLLEY.
I don't think that there was anything more enjoyable than the times that the kids spent with their home-made Trolleys.
Every angle was explored and tried out with these proudly owned " Plank and four wheeled " concoctions.
One-upmanship was always in the mix regarding each kids individual trolley.
Performance and Presentation was always to the fore.
Fastest in any downhill race was the most important aim.
Whose trolley had the best looking pram wheels always caught the attention.
Whose trolley could seat more than one gained some interest.
Trolleys with a bit of decoration and paint looked good as well.
Many of the trolleys didn't have built in brakes so the main means for the driver of stopping, or slowing down was to place and drag their feet on the ground. If they didn't get this right " Scuffed shoes or boots" would surely get them into trouble with Dads and Moms.
A spin-off for the Moms was that the kids were quire happy to use their trolleys to assist them transporting groceries or heavy items back from the shops.
We kids living in Kingstanding were lucky because the area was blessed with some lovely hills for us to race down.
Just had to try and remember to look after the boots though.
Photo :
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We loved our "moke"!! Ours had two old push-chair seats so I suppose that made us "posh" as in your previous posts!!
(We had a sledge for Winter with brass curtain rail on the runners, it went really fast with furniture polish on the brass.)
rosie.
 
Holyfast Rd(Garretts Green)was our favourite trolley run. Not an elbow pad or safety helmet in site! How did we survive?
 
WELL DONE.
I think that a " well done " to the pupils of HAZEL OAK school in Shirley is in order and their efforts are worth a few words.
Mondays ' Birmingham Mail ' 12th Oct 2015, reported that the pupils with Autism and Learng Difficulties at the school have stitched hundreds of ' Toiletry Bags ' and generated thousands of pounds worth of donations to send to Syrian refugees based in the refugee camps in Calais.
Really good effort I reckon.
Photo:
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Less encouraging ( Same Newspaper ) was the report that " Only 1 in 49 young people go on a NCS ( National Citizen Service ) plan".
This plan was instigated by the government to tackle " the most pointless waist of potential " of young people.
These courses are for young people 15 to 17 years of age.
Cost : Programme charge is £50-00 ( If the programme charge is the barrier then a Burser assisted charge is just £10-00).
The NCS claims that the course will:
(1) Grow your confidence.
(2) Make new friends.
(3) Improve your CV ( Curriculum Vitae ).
(4) Develop the skills that Employers want.
(5) Make your UCAS ( University and College Admission Services ) application stand out.
(6) Give you access to exclusive events.
I suspect that such courses are getting towards the equivalent of the " National Service " period and many old timers will tell you what a useful experience that turned out to be.
Photos: National Citizens Service in operation.
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A BACK STREET SATURDAY MORNING.
Moms on the boundary, a cobble assisted ' Googly ' on its way, a clang from the dustbin lid, cheers all round.
" Your'e in next Fred ".
What could be any better ?
Photo : image.png
 
"Can I bowl? You have not let me bowl yet, it's not fair!"

"You were out"..."No, I wasn't"......."Yes you were". (Throws down bat in disgust, and walks away). Five others dive for the bat......."I'm next..."No you're not, I'm next".

AAAAAhhhh....the memories!

Eddie.
 
BORROWING DADS OLD SPADE.
( Period : 1943 ish ).
Our local schools invited we school children to join in with the " Dig for Victory " government campaign, to help out with the war on the home front.
Sounded good to us kids.
In our district the schools managed to acquire a large plot of land just off the Kings Road, Kingstanding ( right opposite the top end of Finchley Road Park ).
There was a good response from the kids and ' allotments ' were designated to the ' enthusiiastics '.
The kids formed their own groups. I recall we had a shock when we were told that we would all have to start by " digging over and clearing" our plots ( I think we thought that we were all going straight in with planting and seeding ). Never the less it was all part of the job and we eventually got it all prepared,
We were all borrowing our separate Dads spades and forks so we had to make sure that we brought our tools back home after each allotment session.
I can't recall for sure but I think the intended main crop on virtually all the plots was for Potatoes and I believe the Seed Potatoes to be sown were provided by the schools.
Anyway, eventually we all placed, spaced and covered our seed potatoes and waited and watched.
Patience was the requirement and it seemed we all expected to see something showing above ground too soon but eventually the ' Tops ' began to appear above ground and then we were taught how to keep exposed roots covered by developing furrows between the plant lines.
Came the time to ' test dig ' one of our plants ( to see the results of our efforts ).
I remember that we were expecting " Sack loads " of potatoes when we were finally given the go- ahead to dig out our crop but that wasn't the case in truth. I think we all expected to be harvesting whopping specimens by the bucket full but what we actually ended up with was more ' Ping- Pong ' ball size Potatoes.
Dissapointed ? Yeah a bit. Had we enjoyed and learned anything ? Absolutely, apart from anything else, we found that we had extended our friendship numbers with the kids from the other schools and we must have helped a little bit with our
" Dig for Victory " crops.
Well, just a little bit anyway.
Photo: Let's do it.
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Goodbye to the back garden lawn.
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Dig for Victory wartime posters.
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Hi Roy. I always enjoy reading your posts. In some of your recent posts I have been unable to open the image. I wonder if it is just me? I am seeing a small white cross in a black square inside a larger white square. If I click on it or on the lettering in blue saying "click image for larger version" then the screen becomes dark and nothing opens. Perhaps one of the technical experts could help. Thanks. Dave.
 
farmerdave. Hi there Dave. With reference to your difficulty in opening those ' images '. I'm sorry that I can't help you on this but I'm wondering if maybe a recent " Apple " update that I carried out on my IPad might be the cause. I can only assure that I follow the ' forum ' image procedure the same way that I have always done.
As you say Dave, if one of the technical experts is looking this way maybe they might be able to help.
Best Wishes
Roy.
 
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