1953 - 1958
Bradford - Out of School
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| 1955 Garden Party at Oakroyd |
Life at home was quite relaxed but with lots of things going on. The house and garden needed constant attention. Most of the work was done with self-help, but at some stage a wall was removed to make the kitchen bigger so I guess there was some help for that. I spent a considerable amount of time in the garden and playing in the stream. The stream is right at the bottom of the garden and, in the beginning, the bottom field was rented to Harold PRIESTLEY who kept chickens. I thought that it was a great idea to build a dam so that I could have a big enough pond to swim in. In truth, I could never get a stretch big enough to swim more than two strokes but it was still good fun. Harold didn’t agree and spent most of his time destroying the dams. Apparently he thought that I was stopping the water from reaching other properties further downstream. If you think about this, it is rubbish; although I did delay some of the water I never stopped it completely. One very hot day, I came out of the house and spotted a lot of smoke coming from the bottom field; closer examination revealed that Harold’s chicken sheds were ablaze. As the ground was so dry, I figured that sparks could set almost anything alight and so rang for the fire brigade. I waited on the main road to direct the Fire Engines, which duly arrived. The firemen seemed quite amused about the situation whereas I thought it very serious. I don’t remember much after they arrived but from where they parked to the fire was about 80 yards so the hoses had to be set out for quite a long way. Nothing else caught fire, so my worries came to nothing. A postscript to this incident came in the form of dismay from Harold’s daughter who was very upset that I had called the Fire Brigade. Perhaps she thought that they would get a bill. Whilst on the subject of chickens, our family decided to have a few of our own and so Pop built a chicken shed and we invested in a few chickens from Harold. These kept us in eggs for a few years with it being largely my job to lock them up at night and clean them out. Believe me chicken manure has a very powerful smell. They should have been locked in before darkness fell but if I was out, late or just forgot, it was an interesting job to go down the garden in the dark to lock them up. Even with a torch the noises from the trees made it quite a scary place to be. One evening when I was late, as I went to close the door, something shot out of the shed, hitting me on the leg as it went. I didn’t see what it was but it seems likely that it was a rat after the eggs.
In the years before I joined the RAF, I also had two pet rabbits, and two Guinea Pigs, one of the latter falling victim to an owl I believe.
Shortly after we moved into Oakroyd, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place and my parents bought a television set so that we could watch the whole event. I believe that it was a 12” Baird and was one of those that came complete with cabinet and closing doors so that it looked like a piece of furniture. I have always thought that it cost £84, which, if you think about it was a very high price to pay. Apart from the Coronation, I do not have many memories of television in the 1950s. ‘The Quatermass Experiment’ came along and was supposed to frighten everyone; in fact I was banned from watching it but my parents subsequently relented when they realised that it wasn’t as scary as they thought it might be. Speaking of entertainment, we owned a gramophone and lots of 78 rpm records. As I got older and 45 rpm records came in I managed to slow the speed down so that they could be played. I broke it in the end and it was replaced with something more appropriate. We also had an old music box, which had some of the pins missing. I wonder what happened to that? The Cinema was one of the main forms of entertainment but, apart from Dick Barton, I had never been, whereas many children went to the Saturday morning matinée. I was about 15 before I went and then I became a regular at the local Thornton Cinema, which had some of the double ‘courting’ seats in the back row; I didn’t get any use out of those. It was here that I first saw one of my all time favourite films ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’.
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| Commercial Street, Thornton |
My friends, and here I am talking about boys, during this period did not necessarily come from school but were local to the village. I got friendly with a lad called Dennis GODDARD, who was at St. Bede’s but was older than me; he lived at 21, Commercial Street. He introduced me to Vincent BROMWICH who was exactly two years older than me. He lived at number 16 in the same street. Commercial Street was a street of back-to-back houses that have long gone.
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| 1955 - Winchelsea, Sussex Mum & Pop with Vincent BROMWICH |
The houses were typical of those occupied by Mill Workers, small, lived in, outside toilet and very friendly places where the only door was usually unlocked and often left open. Vincent became an especially good pal and spent hours in our garden. In 1955 he came on holiday with us to Winchelsea. The last time I saw him was some time after I joined the R.A.F. He was called up at 18 for National Service in the Army and it was some time after this that I met him in Thornton. His words were to the effect that I should not be associated with him. Despite many periods at home, I never saw him again; he died in April 2006.
I was 14 in 1955 and this was to be the year of my first kiss from someone other than family. She was 12 and her name was Susan MOHAN. I cannot remember what precipitated the event but I went backwards through the hedge at the top of the garden on Enderley Road. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience but I soon found out that kissing her cousin was much nicer. She was also 12 and on and off she and I ‘went out’ together for about 8 years.
Shortly after we moved to Bradford, I got a different bicycle, this time a 26” wheel, drop Handlebar job with derailleur gears, eventually replaced with a 27” wheeled one. I have to confess that I do not know where either of these cycles came from, or who bought them. I would guess that my parents bought the first one and I contributed to the second. They both got a tremendous amount of use, quite apart from the paper round, with visits to Leeds, to see my Aunt and Uncle and even to play hockey on occasion.
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Yellow - First Paper Round
Blue - Second Paper Round
Purple - Post Round
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| 1955 Ford Popular - UUG 724 |
When we moved into Oakroyd, the garage was made up of large asbestos panels between metal stanchions, sitting on a concrete base which was large enough to have a narrow walkway all the way round it. It just so happened that there was a tree next to the garage with a convenient branch at right angles to the garage. There was a drop on the opposite side to the garage, which allowed a rope to be tied to the branch, allowing us to swing round to land on the walkway. All went well until one day when I misjudged the landing and went straight through the asbestos!! I must have cost my parents a fortune!
A group of us boys found out how to make little bombs as we got older and one day we managed fill the South Square cellars with smoke much to the concern of the residents. I note that the weed killer, which was a main ingredient of this explosive mixture is no longer available to the general public! For a full version of this event, see Chapter 10.
Sport.
I mentioned hockey earlier so it is appropriate that I say a little more about this sport and the start of my involvement. Pop had played for Adel Hockey Club in Leeds since 1947 and I travelled with him on many occasions always practicing with whatever stick and ball happened to be available. By the time I was 15 I was big and old enough to play on occasion and at Easter in 1956 I was offered the chance to travel with Adel to Aberdeen for a couple of tour matches.
My parents allowed me to go under supervision although I cannot recall who I travelled with; whoever it was, we stopped overnight at one of their relatives in Newcastle on the way up. I played in two games and I suppose that this was the real start of my career in the game. When I played football for St. Bede’s, the matches were on Saturday mornings and sometimes, after the match, I used to travel to Leeds to play hockey in the afternoon, as I previously mentioned, sometimes by cycle. I must have been fairly fit in those days even though, at the time, I did have the odd cigarette. Pop played up to 1956 but in a match at the Army Apprentice School at Harrogate, in which I also played, he was hit in the eye with a ball. He visited the doctor the following Monday and was diagnosed with pernicious anaemia. He never played hockey again.
My parents allowed me to go under supervision although I cannot recall who I travelled with; whoever it was, we stopped overnight at one of their relatives in Newcastle on the way up. I played in two games and I suppose that this was the real start of my career in the game. When I played football for St. Bede’s, the matches were on Saturday mornings and sometimes, after the match, I used to travel to Leeds to play hockey in the afternoon, as I previously mentioned, sometimes by cycle. I must have been fairly fit in those days even though, at the time, I did have the odd cigarette. Pop played up to 1956 but in a match at the Army Apprentice School at Harrogate, in which I also played, he was hit in the eye with a ball. He visited the doctor the following Monday and was diagnosed with pernicious anaemia. He never played hockey again.
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| 1955 Me playing tennis |
There was a large lawn at the front of the house which Pop turned into a tennis court after buying a second hand net from the English Electric Sports Club. It wasn’t the ideal court because the lawn had been cut out of a slope and retrieving a badly hit ball could be quite interesting. Tennis wasn’t a game that I really took to and the last time that I played was probably in 1963 on holiday in Devon
On the other side of the stream at the bottom of the garden was Headley Golf Course. In those days it was not very well used and when Pop started to play, I used to take a couple of clubs, go onto the course and hit some balls. Although the hockey and golf swings are not entirely compatible, I suppose that I had good hand and eye coordination and I could hit the ball quite well. Pop invited me to play in a Member and Guest Stableford competition one day. On scores we won, but were promptly disqualified because Pop had not paid his annual subscription. He promptly paid his subscription and resigned from the club. His competition fee of 10/- (50 pence) was not returned.
The winters in Thornton in those days always seemed to involve snow and the golf course with its steep slope from the 3rd (now 7th) green down to the stream was an ideal sledge run. The village children spent hours on the course sometimes dipping under the wire fence surrounding the 9th (now 4th) green and sledging right across it ending up either in a bunker or the stream. Methods of communication in those days were somewhat difficult and I don’t remember having a watch so Mum and I came up with a solution for mealtimes. She would hang a tea towel out of the main bedroom window. I could see this from the top of the run and would then make my way home.
My best friend towards the end of this period was Paul SHACKLETON, who lived with his Mum, Dad, Brother and Grandmother on Springhead Road in Thornton. His brother David, who was 4 years younger than Paul, suffered from polio. The family was very religious and took him to Lourdes hoping for a miracle; it was not to be and he died at the age of 14 in 1959. The home in which they lived was one of the friendliest that could be imagined despite the fact that David was bed-bound. I got to know Paul from going to the same church rather than from school because Paul was not at St. Bede’s. Amongst many other things that we did as teenagers, we spent hours cycling and on one occasion went to Bridlington and Filey for a long weekend, sleeping on the beach at Bridlington because we arrived so late, but managing to find a camp site at Filey on the following day. The photographs are not chronologically correct because I was on leave from the RAF when the following were taken.
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1959
Me ready for Filey
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1959
Paul SHACKLETON ready for Filey
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Between the New Inn and South Square was Mudd’s Yard where I was fascinated to find an old gentleman working away ‘dressing’ Yorkshire Stone. Most of this stone was from buildings that had been knocked down and ‘dressing’ consisted of cleaning off old mortar and then cutting the stone to size and making all the edges square. He taught me how to do it using small stones which were of little use so that it didn’t matter if I made a mistake. I used this acquired skill to prepare stone for various walls and steps that Paul and I built in the garden at Oakroyd.
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| 1959 Paul SHACKLETON |
The Sacred Heart Church in Thornton had a hall which was disused and very dirty. It seemed a shame to us teenage boys so a group of us got together and persuaded Father Moverley to allow us to use it as a youth club, as long as we made it habitable. We did a lot of work on the building, cleaning up the toilets and kitchen and used the place quite successfully for Table Tennis and simply as a meeting place to get out of the cold and wet. I spoke to David HAMILTON who reminded me that the original Church Hall had a space underneath, in other words it was effectively built on stilts. There was a stage at one end and underneath the stage was a trap door to the outside so that it was possible to get people in without going in through the front door. I can remember having girls in the Hall, which would be expected from a group of hormonal teenage boys, wouldn’t it? Anyway, that was our downfall in the end. Father MOVERLEY closed the club because there were too many girls hanging around!
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