Childhood memories

For Pap with love … as I continue my rehabilitation

3 Likes

And for the rest of you… Cat woman’s behind

4 Likes

Although Batman and Robin seem to be ‘sharing the rope’ on this occasion…

4 Likes

Born on the first day of the 1970’s, my childhood was a riot of oranges and browns, brittle woodchip, extravagantly swirled artex and vesta curries on Dad’s ‘cooking’ night.

Home was a small semi in Fair Oak which we struggled to afford.

Before I was born, Dad had built a pigeon loft at the bottom of the garden, a simple wooden shed on breezeblock pillars. It was always ‘the loft’ but the birds were long gone before I could climb the three steep steps to explore inside.

First there was a printing press, noisily spewing headed paper and shaking the loft on it’s stumpy legs. My brother and I would collect the still wet sheets and run them into the house. There we’d earn our penny per hundred, collating the five candy colours for Dad’s customer. Then, just as suddenly as it seemed to appear, the press was gone and the loft was given over to storage of paint tins, their rubbery rims displaying all the shades of magnolia. A work bench was fashioned from begged timber and hand tools rusted and seized as Dad drowned in DIY.

Under the loft we would snake a Corgi traffic jam around the pillars, bury plastic soldiers in the dust and dirt and dig up hollow bones.

The loft was then transformed by rabbits.

First came Midge. White with pink eyes. Dad built a hutch into the loft, cutting a hole in the front and fitting a chicken wire door, we could stand outside and watch Midge settle cosily into her two room home under the work bench. Soon, second and third rabbits were scrounged and the hutches multiplied, growing like tumours inside the loft.

They do indeed breed like rabbits. Soon there were seventeen scratching around in the piss stink.

Midge was the last one to go.

The first death was a little black baby. Dad carried her into the kitchen in a shoebox where she shivered and panted. Handy at DIY but no vet, Dad tried to feed her brandy soaked bread.

I think it was probably the disease rather than the brandy which caused the seizure as she stretched out her front paws and tilted her head back until there was a buck toothed snap.

A happy house but a garden full of bones and matchbox cars.

5 Likes

** “Holy Mother of Compromising Positions batman!!!”**

1 Like

Thanks Goatboy, that was a great insight into your formative years, and very well written too.

Sorry to hear about the rabbits. The amount of much loved family pets we’ve said goodbye to over the years, I couldn’t count anymore. From (relatively) small, peaceful and fascinating Tarantulas – to much larger and loyal dogs, they were always a part of the family, and even the losses of the smallest and least emotionally aware of these animals were still mourned with sadness in our various homes over the years.

Like Goaty, I was born at the turn of a decade…but just in the dying embers of the 60s hippy dream…November '69. Man may have been to the moon that year, but we still had Black and white TV apparently… I dont recall.

The early 70s to '76 are vague naturally, but I do recall the long hot summer of 76… playing out doors from 7am to 8pm without a care in the world… certainly not worried by Savilles, who where there, but seemed well … less there without the media streaming every detail of every case - news just seemed more local.

I do actually remember running around the garden wearing a yellow t shirt and cut off denim shorts in May that year following cup final glory - would have been in army quarters in Gillingham by then,having moved from Andover the previous year. kitchen back door adorned with:

as every house had…

Then in 77 dad was posted to Sardina… a Nato base… so began a 3 year holiday… and a strange hedonistic period for the parents now in their late 20s/early 30s… seemed like they were partying with neighbbours and friends, Italians, Germans and Brits 2-3 nights a week… with us kids (and others) left alone to get up to mischief … in the neighboring appartments… photos of these parties remain closely guarded… :lou_surprised:

We entertained ourselves with:

and I was lucky enough to have one of these…

The 80s was for teenage years - and it was a bad as you think it was - shit mainstream music and the tight skinny jeans were as shit then as they are now, but made worse by pastel shades in everything else… unless you had an older sibling in a post punk/new wave/ Smiths/Joydivison mode. you were left with fucking new romantic shite and a pop scene that … well its too grim to recall.

Not much luck with girls as was too sensitive for my own good and kept falling for the unobtainable… late 80s and saw pubs and decent music as I found back catelogues of Dylan and Young et al… and prep for the hedonism that was my 89-93 uni days…

In a nutsheel-childhood was good.

5 Likes

Cheers Gay, another great post for the topic. Thanks for your insights.

Yep – I remember the back door streamers – my Nan had a lovely colourful set of her own, adorning an otherwise typically grey shingle-covered Sparsholt Road semi in Weston.

Agree, the 80’s was mostly shite for music. Except our house was mostly accustomed to my Dad’s Zeplin, Duran Duran, and Dire Straits during those times, with Mark Knopfler’s dulcet husky tones a memorable accompaniment to many a Summer of Love. With Mum’s Beatles love-in for added effect, music was mostly at least more than bearable, so I escaped a lot of the newer crap that was playing on the radio of those times. Though Joy Divsion / New Order etc was not so bad.

I loved the later 80’s and on into the 90’s for music. The Arrival of the Stone Roses and latterly Oasis characterised my own teens, with anything Paul Weller, from Style Council days, and Dad’s older The Jam collection. I was pretty lucky really, and musically well catered for. :lou_sunglasses:

Just watching One Show and discover Giles Brandreth owns the original Paddington Bear and Fozzy Bear fromantic the shows. They’re now ruined. Cannot stand that man. Oh and his own teddy bear was called Growler. David Walliams managed to keep a straight face.

I can’t stand Walliams but like Brandeth. He’s genuinely funny. The only Tory/toff who can make me laugh. I like the chap.

1 Like

Looks like Fatso has fallen for the classic “Brandreth Trap” sadly. His colourful jumpers and jokey banter on daytime TV is alluring so I don’t blame him. He is Satan in human form.

3 Likes

When I was 14/15 the boy up the road from me passed every exam and was held up as everything I should be.

He looked like the Milky Bar kid and was frigging annoying because he excelled at everything…but as time went on we discovered he excelled at everything…accept life.

The lonely fuck now lives in a shitty bedsit and hasn’t had a woman or a proper job in decades.

Which I believe makes me the winner… :laughing:

2 Likes

Trying to think what was best about my childhood.

  1. No gas

  2. No electric

  3. No money

  4. No house

Somehow managed to get through it, as I had some pretty great friends! It was not the easiest!

Grew up in Netley and had a pretty feral childhood. From about 7 years old onwards I was out of the house by 8am, running / cycling to rustle up some partners in crime. Playing in the ground of the abbey / conker filed/ cricket field - terrosing the ground keeper of the castle. Fishing / digging bait at low tide. Climbing every tree possible. Scrounging lunch somewhere or bringing back half a dozen kids for mum to try to conjour up something out of thin air. Off again round the back by newtown dump - have a scrap with the weston lads. and back home by 5pm to get fed again.

It was blooming great

3 Likes

Having made mention of this in another thread I used to have penpals as a child/teen. From all over the place. The other year someone from Algeria wrote to me (I have to say I cannot remeber her) and I wonder what my penpal in Damascus is up to now. I am still in touch with some via Facebook nearly 30 years later. 1 I still haven’t met in Greece. My partner finds this highly amusing. I just think it’s me being interested in others.

1 Like

My kids still look at me in disbelief when I tell them when I was born there was still sugar rationing after the war!

My first 10 years were spent growing up in Herne Hill, close to Brixton, SE London. There was a bomb site behind our house that had a number of prefabs on it. After a few years the families were moved out and the prefabs were left to rot. You can imagine what a great playground that made for us kids and over a period of time we caused more havoc on those empty shells than McAlpines. Trouble is I have a horribe feeling that they were made from asbestos so we are probably all doomed to an early death as a pennance! We used one as a club house and used to sit around a fire in one of the bedrooms to keep warm in the winter. Happy days!

My parents wouldnt let me have a bike so I swapped a really cool cap gun I had for a mates bike. When I say bike, it had all of the main bits, but as Eric Morecombe would say, but not necessarliy in the right order. Two things were sadly lacking. The bolts that kept the front wheel on. This meant that if I went up a kerb or over a bump there was a big chance of the wheel flying off, which it did. Often. It also had hard rubber wheels which, although meant I didnt have to worry about punctures, also made for a hard ride. I am not sure if it had any brakes.

My mate allowed me to keep the bike at his place so when I wanted to go adventuring I would have a 10 minute walk, during which time I could plan my next journey. I used to go for miles and if my parents had found out they would have gone mental. I never did tell them about that bike. :lou_sunglasses:

Poo-sticks.

Originally posted by @Sfcsim

Poo-sticks.

As you get older…Poo sticks take on a new meaning…ask Soggy he’ll have experience of them too. :lou_wink_2:

3 Likes

Making massive car tracks all over the house and garden.

Playing football over the second field (not daisy dip), about 20 a side with no real rules. Sometimes the wing play was nearly in Daisy dip! Amazing at times to think back, you had 6/7 year olds and their parents/grandparents playing. You would play for hours with rolling subs, which were made up of people returning from being out, then some would go in for their tea. Light would fade and you would still be going, hours of football. Then complete mayhem as it was called ‘next goal wins’.

I am sure there is still a game going now down the 2nd field from 1987 because no one has called ‘next goal wins’.

Nostalgia just isnt what it used to be!

1 Like