When I think back to my childhood, the things I remember are not of school. Given that I spent so much of my time there the memories are fleeting and few, my memories are of my mum and dad, my uncles, the tree in the garden, the lilac tree and its cutting down. Of the bench between our back yard and next door’s where we used to sit and chat. Of Christine Clegg whom I have not seen since I was a child and who by now must be almost an old lady. Of the wooden shed my dad built and the wooden coal shed that was replaced by a brick one built by my uncle Bob who was a bricklayer. The weekly delivery by the coal man with his thick leather back protector which we used to mimic with towels on our backs.
I remember one day we went round to my Uncle Bobs - he had bought this new fangled thing which was a radio with a gramophone built into the side of the cabinet - a "radio-gram". It had a device which enable you to play several records in a row, dropping them into place on the turntable. We all went round as a family to see it.
A couple of times a year we would go round to the shop where my dad worked and where my Aunties Nellie and Lizzie and Uncle Stan lived together with old Auntie Lizzie Smallshaw who was almost a hundred years old and bed-ridden, and we would all gather round the piano which Auntil Lizzie played and we would sing all evening until we were tired.
Once again dread wheels are turning and old demons rising to the fore.
Today would have been my mum's birthday
