Picking wild raspberries and blackberries and making pies with my (maternal) gran and great gran. Putting coals on the fire and being in-charge of it. Spending hours making pictures in the fire. Waiting for the coal man to come and fill up the coal scullery. Playing for hours with the mangle. Watching the rag and bone man come-by making his noise and being enchanted by it. Hot-water bottles. Sparklers. Paternal grandad's Budgies (Peter and Paul) sitting on my head chirupping. Holidays with maternal grandparents to Porlock and Minehead. St. Annes, Fleetwood, Blackpool, Cark-in-Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands. That horrible laughing clown (bastard!) at Blackpool. Wakes holidays. The summer of 1976 and going to Scarborough. 1974 World Cup Final. 1978 World Cup in Newquay. Rock pools. Coronation street party. Shaw Comrades Working Mens Club and the tap room if I was good: the Saturday night singers in the lounge..."Oh, Delilah!". Watching the Open University with my maternal grandad and him nodding and grunting appreciation: him calling cricket a game for "Percys" and "Nancy-boys": him telling me I could fill up his pipe if I was good and ate all my tater ash. Reading Victor and Warlord and all them: looking at both my grandads medals and war photos and watching Sunday afternoon war movies. Seeing old folks with rickets knocking around Shaw. Watching Shaw town hall being demolished when Shaw was occupied by Oldham. Bonfire nights and black peas and parkin. The Dolphin chippy. Brians chippy. Friday night Sherlock Holmes on TV and chippy dinners. Selection boxes. Prezzies in pillow cases. The oil freezing in the pipes in winter sometimes so we had no central-heating. The big black oil tank in the back garden. Dads bacon butties (a butty is made with sliced bread, it's not a synonym for a muffin ffs) and army tattoos and welding burns on his forearms. Stories by my great- gran and gran and mum that went around and around about "My cousin George's chum Billy Clegg who went to the Isle of Man for racing...Albert Spenser who married my sister Ruby - he lives on Scowcroft Lane - youngest sister, Ethel, used to work at Lilac Mill, well she went to see that lass Agnes, the one whose brother played organ at St. Joseph's....". Outside toilets. Riding my bike (purple Chopper) all day and not being afraid of being away from home: same with football, go anywhere. Bolt-action rifle and Bionic man with engine-block. Action man - eagle eye style and you'd made it. Football stickers. Top trumps. Kojak lollies. Laurel and Hardy lollies. Fingers of Fudge. White Mice. Sherbet dabs. The 59 bus. The 403 bus. Sitting outside The Black Horse in summer with a bottle of coke and a straw, and half a meat and potato pie - paradise. Playing in the sink for hours, just playing with water, nothing else. Copying my maternal grandad by eating tripe and elder (not too bad tbh so long as you have some malt vinegar and pepper). Marmite. Weetabix. Endless cups of tea and someone always brewing up. Soft-boiled eggs and soldiers. Pancakes with lemon and sugar. Sardines on toast. Mash butties. Mushy pea butties. Hours looking at photos of relatives who died long, long, before I was born. Great-gran's surviving brother, Teddy Vickers, a bona-fide WWI hero who stood about five foot and a dog-end. Going into the model shop in Shaw, next to The Bluebell, to get something Airfix. Shaw Baths and doing my Bronze, Silver and Gold badges. Going to Shaw Library twenty thousand times a week for books. Tintin and Asterix. War books. More war books. Even more war books. Remembrance Sunday. British Legion with my (maternal) grandad. Paternal grandad always refusing to talk about "the war" and just shoving memorabilia at me. My dad telling me off for always asking. Paternal gran's tiffin and macaroons. Cubs at St. Pauls. Watching the dustbin men. Sterilized milk. Status Quo, Mud, Showaddywaddy (sp?), Stuart Hall and Eddie Worthing and being unable to stop laughing, Dave Allen, Mike Harding and him cheeking "Beaky" and Mike Harding's bum "as red as a cherry". Shaw Market. Deborah Smith...*sigh*...I was seven. Early-closing on Tuesdays. The cobblers across from The Bluebell - amazing place. My first watch, Timex, brown leather strap, wind-up, date and luminous and engraved on the back. Still got it. Still works after 33 years. Tuning-in to anything on SW radio at night. Being chuffed when my dad came home with ping-pong to plug into the TV and getting bored after five minutes. Sneakily dunking biscuits when my grandad (maternal) wasn't watching. Raiding his drinks cabinet when I was eleven and becoming unwell. Getting in trouble for that fast one. Getting washed in a bucket at Barnstaple when I was four and a half. Breaking my mums prized crystal swan by firing matches (spring-propelled) at it from a toy 25 pounder. Feet didn't touch. Breaking the vaccuum cleaner. Breaking the front window. Breaking the TV. Making a hole in the skirting-board in my bedroom and putting all my toy soldiers in. Helping my dad make homebrew. Listening to ELO with my parents and liking it. Watching my dad shave. Watching my dad do crosswords. 20p Saturday morning goodie bags. Flash Gordon and Zorro on Saturday mornings. The smell of baking bread from Warbies. Dunwood Park being really spooky. Playing bowls with my maternal grandad and loving every second. Going to The Jubillee Inn with him for a "gill" and I got half a real shandy. Getting some Lucozade when I was "poorly". Vanilla slices. 99's. Going to Chatsworth House and wanting to go home right away where it was cozy. Sitting downstairs on the bus when they had open backs and a conductor -fantastic. Me paying the conductor and getting the tickets for everyone and thinking I was all grown up. Being fascinated with the ticket machine and watching the conductor going around the bus. Going on a tour of Crane Freuhauf where my dad was a welder. His stinky steel toe-capped boots. Debenhams. C & A. Getting lost in Woolies when I was five and being terrifed - the world was a huge place. Polio sugar-lumps. Getting scarletina. School dinners and the quadrangle and British Bulldogs and mittens tied together and threaded down sleaves so I wouldn't lose them. My first genuine Parka. My first pair of Adidas Samba. Clothes horse in front of the fire. Ice on the inside of the windows sometimes in winter and making pictures in it with my warm finger tip.
