I lived in Appleton Avenue, Gt. Barr from the age of 4 (1954) through to 1975. My pre-teenage free roaming world extended to the Scott Arms and Hamstead.
Our house backed onto the Tame Valley canal and gave easy access to Perry Barr Park (although this was a long trek when my legs were shorter than they eventually became). My first proper School was the Holy Name at the Scott Arms. Mom used to walk me to school each morning and collect me in the afternoon. For a treat in summer we would walk through Red House Park where I could scare myself by climbing the tallest slide in my world before making myself dizzy on the roundabout.
Where I lived my closest friends were: David Proctor, Christine Norton, Susan Green, Sally Anne Warner, Peter and Ian Frost and Johnny & Billy Hannan.
I moved to Gorse Farm Junior School when it opened in 1957.
The high point at Gorse Farm was playing Sir Walter Raleigh with Sally Anne Warner as Elizabeth 1 in the May Day pageant. Academically I would say I was a little slow and only mastered reading in my last year when Miss Fisher became my teacher.
To help identify myself : I
was usually with a dog of some description (they always followed me)
could make my eyes vibrate,
could crack my fingers,
had a sstutter/ stsstammer (there I go again)
always ended up with that triangle in the orchestra,
wore a 'S' buckle belt and the same green jumper unravelled and re-knitted a size larger during the summer holidays.
could climb every tree on our side of the canal bank from the Walsall Road to Green Lane Bridge except for three large Sycamores.
was the Tomato monitor (responsible for watering the plants during the school holidays, the Caretaker Mr. Paddock used to let me in)
could throw a knife and always make it stick in,
could run faster than was humanly possible,
was feared by many because of my religious doctrine (a Roman Catholic)
could cycle up the steep side of the '[censored]' at the back of Gorse Farm / Jayshaw without getting off.
could throw a cricket ball over the school roof.
Can anyone remember?
The sub-sonic booms from the underground blasting at Hamstead Colliery.
Horse towed barges on the canal skyline;
That bloody long walk to the bus stop at the Scott's or worse still the terminus at Hamstead.
Being allowed to cycle to school on Fridays during the summer term if we had passed the cycling proficiency test.
When they tested the air raid sirens during the Cuba crisis and everyone told us not to worry.
On the last day at Gorse Farm School before moving to Churchfield?s Comprehensive we had a party in the Hall. You could drink as much fortified (with vitamins) orange squash from the health clinic. There were bags of Walker?s crisps with blue bags of soggy salt. We were given 'goody bags' with Helix drawing sets with sharp points on the compasses, compassi, dividers.
Obridges gave us a pocket book of facts i.e. the Longest, Shortest, Highest etc. certainly more facts than I would ever need at my next school.
We had a bag containing a huge rubber 3 foot multi-coloured balloon, that was so hard to blow up you had to take it home for your Dad to do. There was a Fry's Good Boy Bar, a sachet of Vosene Cold Tar Shampoo, two liquorice pipes and a Catherine wheel. A packet of Love Hearts, a Bassett's Sherbet Tube, a plastic square puzzle with sliding pieces that took ages to do I couldn't do the Rubik's cube twenty years later either.
I wore wellies almost all the time except for the summer holidays when I wore Tee bar sandals always leather never that new fangled plastic and looked a bit like 'Casper' in Kes