This series of stories will be titled ‘I’m surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood…’ #2

I remember summers that were so hot we were all dunked in the tin bath on the yard and allowed to play in the water. Not just me, the kids next door too.

If memory serves, the bath would be sitting in the shade of the dogged-on extension/kitchen and all the toddlers got to splash in a few inches of soon-mucky water.

Who needed water-parks?

The few square footage of yard on the back of every house led on to a path that ran the length of the row – and as we lived at 181 Primrose Hill, you can imagine how long that path stretched - miles it seemed then.

As the adventurous one, I used to poddle off on my own. One day, I went down to see my great-grandma (my grandmother’s mother, father’s side). She lived on the bottom row. I can’t recall the exact location, I was no more than three or four.

One of these houses is hers.

I got into no end of trouble for ‘running off’ and not telling anyone. It made no difference whatsoever, I never learned that particular lesson.

That adventurous three or four year old must have toddled off down the path – either the one running along the back of all the houses, or the one leading directly away from the house, down the small patch of ground we called the garden.

After the garden, there was another path that ran right across the rows between all the gardens and the outhouses. Each terraced house had an outside toilet and a brick ‘shed’ to fit dustbins (garbage cans). There was no door on that part of the building because we had nothing to steal back then (or hardly anything). You’ve seen Billy Elliott? Well we didn’t have walls around our property.

This is a similar layout, but imagine a garden between the house and the outbuildings and a wide path between the two rows of outbuildings.

Running along the back of the outhouses was a track made of black ash – literally, it was made of stuff collected from the fire in the morning. Then the row was repeated. Outhouses, path, garden, path and yards and then the bottom row.

No one had cars back then so the streets were relatively safe. Still, I threw my mother into a panic when I came home and gave her a message from great-grandma.

One day, I bought a little friend home – I cannot for the life of me remember if it was a boy or a girl.

I do remember that my mother took one look at the cardy the little one was wearing and declared it was one she’d made and had gone missing off the washing line. I remember distinctly that she knew it was mine or my brother’s because she’d singed the sleeve and the yarn was discoloured.

I neither remember what happened after that, nor whether she removed the cardy and sent the little one packing. All I remember is that one exchange. “I made this! I burnt the sleeve with the iron!”

I also remember another confrontation with a more sinister outcome.

It was growing dark and I arrived home crying. Another kid had hit me – nope, I don’t remember what for.

My mother marched me back to where I’d been playing and in no uncertain terms, told me to hit her back or she’d give me something else to cry for.

Then we went home, retribution served.

I was in the bath in front of the fire and there was a massive banging on the back door (no one used the front doors). My mother opened the door and a screeching woman pushed her back into the house, into the table.

I remember the exchange only through the mists of time, but I know my mother was pregnant then. She gave as good as she got, however, and sent the woman packing.

The girl that hit me had gone home after I’d been made to hit her back. She’d told her mother that my mother had hit her.

Yes, I would have been angry if a grown woman had laid hands on my kid, but to listen to a five-year old’s version of events? Seriously, who does that?

It was certainly rough living there.

One of the families had a massive black dog. I remember the name of that dog, he was called Rex. He had a great big bark and I remember being a little afraid, yet fascinated.

I used to follow the bigger kids around, especially when they went to play in the ‘Pendean’. It was an overgrown garden that belonged to the huge house at the end of the rows. I remember the trees along the bottom of the land. We had a game of climbing the trees and going from one end to the other without touching the ground. I couldn’t manage it for a long time.

In the middle of the row of trees, there was a large gap with a brick platform (so the game wasn’t spoiled, it was technically not touching the ground if you had to stand on that.

A rope swing was hung from one of the larger central trees and Rex used to get real excited when the kids swung on the swing. The sight of a huge dog hanging off the swing, biting onto the knot of rope mere inches from someone’s arse terrified and delighted the toddler-me.

Pictures from Pixabay or Google Images