Growing Up - The Early Years

This blog entry is a few random memories around growing up.

Growing up for me was split into 2 parts.

The first part, the early years, was up to when I was 11 (1963 - 1975) and lived next to Spencer Park in Rushden. When 11 we moved to Wymington Road Rushden and at the same time I also started secondary education, so everything changed, the teenage years.

I have very few early memories, perhaps the earliest is of a play group I vaguely remember going to in Highem, even that I can only remember the car journey and where it was.

The early years were dominated by living next to Rushdens Spencer park. Me and my brother Nigel, spent a lot of time outdoors playing football, on our bikes, hide and seek and such games. I remember the mass of leaves in autumn and a by flood once. There was a paddling pool in the park where we would sail boats. The main path way was on a raised mound and we would play lots of games along this. There was a small shop on the other side of the park Wasis where we used to by sweets. Next to the park was a big school, which we used to play around, although we were not allowed to and would get told off by the caretaker if caught. On the other side of the school were some fields and wooded area, with a steam, we would spend a lot of summer here building camps and playing crab apple races in the stream.

Two big events would happen in the park during the year. Rushden carnival was in the summer, we would watch the huge marquees go up days before and play around them. On the day the carnival would parade through the town and end up in the park, we would watch the parade sitting on the wall and throwing pennies. I was in the parade a few times, on a cubs float and once with my brother as tv's. Back I'm the park were stalls and demonstrations and I remember the marching bands. The fair was in the Autumn, we watch it arriving and being erected and played amongst the empty stalls before it opened. At night it came to life full of exciting light and sound. I could see it from my bedroom, it was always a great week. It was during carnival week that my parents told us we would be moving and I was devastated.

Our house was a 3 bed semi but was quite small. I remember our small kitchen table used for meals. I remember an arger type fire in the early years being very hot and I remember a rocking chair would be brought into the kitchen when we were ill to snuggle into and keep warm (in fact I still have that rocking chair). We had a front room which we didn't use much. I shared a bedroom with my brother, a bunk bed in an L shaped room, I had the bottom bunk. Our bedroom window looked out over next doors flat roof extension to the park, one day I bounced a power ball onto the flat roof and I could see it for until we moved. When I was about 7 we had an extension built which added a lounge and another bedroom, the layout of the kitchen was also opened up. I also remember us getting our first phone.

I spent a lot of time in the garden, my dad did a lot of gardening (I remember broad beans and marrows). We had a swing at the bottom of the garden, we used to build quote solid dens around the swing. I remember playing action men under some bush/trees. We also had some tents which would sleep in during the summer. In November we would celebrate bonfire night with people from the street with a big fire in the garden and a guy, which my mum would make.

At the top of the road were we lived was a small field, part of a hospital which had the best conker tree, each autumn we would surreptitiously climb over the railings to gather conkers.

When I was young I had meningitis and measles at the same time, I remember spending a lot of time in a remote hospital and an incidents when a nurse tried to stick a big needle in my bum. I had a lot of time off school to recover and remember getting home made get well cards from all my class, I remember having to miss a country dancing show at school which we had been rehearsing for ages. I also had quite bad allergies, animal hair and dust, but this went away as I grew up.

I went to Alfred Street Infants and then Junior school. I don't remember much about school. I do remember the walking to school through town. I remember the separation of the Infants/Juniors and watching the older kids over the playground wall. In the Infants in remember drinking milk from small bottles and being milk monitor. I remember walking across town to get to a playing field for sports, we also had to walk to the separate dinning hall for dinners. I remember dancing around the maypole and harvest festival in the hall. I remember the school being closed once due to snow and my mum had to come and get me. In the Juniors I remember spending a lot of time doing projects and producing scrapbook type books of work. I remember once being sent to the headmaster, not sure why, but I hid in the cloak room instead for a while and then went back to class, I got away with it. I remember playtime/lunchtime in the 'cages' playing massive games of football and British bulldog. I do remember some classes, at desks with ink wells, and making Christmas decorations.

I went to Cubs which was also at the school and remember it being weird being in the school with a bit more freedom. I remember doing bob-a-job cleaning windows and cars in our street. One of my worst memories from childhood is with the Cubs after a remembrance parade in a church service wetting myself because I was scarred to walk out to the loo during the service.

I remember Rushden High Street as we walked through it everyday going to school (there were a few routes back from school, we even tried to get a direct line which was through the back of the shops but you got told off if caught). I remember Thomasis newsagents where we used to get sweets and other crap when we had some money (I also got run over outside Thomasis), when a teenager they would also give me a paper round. There was Osbornes toy shop but we couldn't browse in there for long, they were quite strict. I remember the big Co Op with its toy department up a double flight of stairs. There was also another Co Op nearer home, on Higham Road bottom of Washbrook Road, which had some train sets we used to admire. I remember Woolworths which had lots of general stuff to browse. I particularly remember Christmas time, hunting for presents I could afford.

Each week the family went to Fine Fare for a food shop. I remember me and my brother would take it in turn to choose the cereal, we mainly based this on the free gift in the box. I remember collecting some Dr Who cards. We would also get large boxes to carry the stuff home in, and which we would make all sorts of things out of.

The main toy I remember having was Action Man, I used to get as much stuff for him as possible for Birthday and Christmas. I remember a parachute which we tried out by dropping him out of the bathroom window, we had wound the shoot up too tight so it didn't open and we then had a damaged action man. I remember making a lot of stuff, some from Blue Peter makes, such as a snow sledge from lolly sticks.

I remember playing with Lego a lot, it was raw bricks in those days, not kits so you had to be quite creative, I remember a lot of space ships. I also played quite a lot of board games (I remember a friend up the street, Julian Ellis, had one called Battle of Little Big Horn which I liked). We also used to make up our own games such as crazy golf around the house, lego flick a brick, show jumping and rubber band battles (with toy soldiers - spending hours setting them up).

I also remember collecting Football stickers, trading them at school, there was always one rich kid who had thousands of them.

I don't remember many friends there were just a lot of people at the park and at school. Julian Ellis lived a few doors up the street and I used to play with him a bit, although he was a year older.

At school I remember Peter and Jonathan Clarke, whom I would later become good friends with. It was not until I was about 10 when I became friends with Dominic Edwards did I have a real friend. This was when my nerdy side developed more and we played a lot of board games, particularly Scrabble. Domonics family were a bit posher, his dad was a music teacher at the secondary school, we would have chocolate spread sand witches when I stayed for tea. They also had a croquet set and, although they only had a small garden, we played it a lot.

On Sundays we went to Rushden Baptist church. There was a service and then we would go to quite a large Sunday school. I only really remember the large hall with different sets of tables for each age group.

Sunday afternoons we would go to Nan Bird's for tea (dinner). She also lived in Rushden, Washbrook Road. I remember these a lot, in summer we would have outdoor picnics (I remember Macaroons), there was a great plum tree which used to have loads of fruit. My Dad had an allotment which was near my Nans so we would do bits of work on that. I also remember watching Sunday tv in the evenings (see separate tv blog entry). We always went to my Nan's on Boxing Day.

My other grandparents lived in Wolverhampton and we used to visit them a few times a year. It was quite a long car journey, not so many a road/dual carriageways then. I also used to go bad stay with them during the holidays for a week. My Grampy Bannister was a lay preacher at the small local church at Merry Hill so we would often walk there and also to the small group of shops. Sometimes we would catch a bus to Wolverhampton centre. I remember the daily routine of lighting the real fire in the kitchen. I also remember going to see Wolverhampton Wondereres play a few times with my Dad and my Uncle Don, who also lived near my granparants. I also had 2 cousins (Caroline and Michael).

Saturday afternoons I remember watching Dad play football, at Higham Rec. I didn't watch much football but spent my time playing in the small wooded area. We would listen to the football results on the way home.

I loved the summer school holidays, mainly playing in the park/fields. I also remember some church activities where in Irchester country park and at some grounds on the outskirts of Rushden where we would play big team hunting games. I remember going to a Rushden Swimming pool quite a lot, it was outdoor, and swimming lessons, particularly doing my half and mile certificates.

We would go to holiday camps on the East Coast, first there was Corton Beach. It had some very basic 'sheds' for accommodation, very cold (no heating), I remember a plague of flies once. I remember a big food hall and a big dance hall, we played bingo in the evenings. I remember doing a catch the pennies where all the kids would run around the hall collecting pennies thrown by the adults.

The camp was split into teams and I remember various activities/games, I also remember being in the fancy dress as a clothes line. There was a great beach which was down a steep cliff. After a few year we moved up the coast to the large Caister camp, the accommodation was a bit better, but it was very similar. I mainly remember the sports competitions Putting, Table Tennis etc.

I also loved Christmas. I loved shopping for presents, I only had a limited pocket money budget and would hunt the High Street shops for hours. We made a lot of our own decorations, some from Blue Peter. Nan Bird would come round to stay and I would sleep on the floor of my parents bedroom.