Once upon a time....Memories and Stories of times gone by

[Northern Lass]

Long ago and Far away in a Land that was Black by day and Red by night
there stood a forum..........
inhabited by a Bostin' bunch of guys and gals!......
These are their Stories!



This is a place for all our members memories, to be gathered and saved into.
Not just Black Country ones.
So Post your memories, of Places, People, Family, Games played, days out etc etc, here,
Of those times gone by, but not forgotten....happy or sad.....Give us a taste of how it was then .....share the memory.
Real stories about real people - stories about you and yours.

(nb I will add the "relevant" memories to our "Book"
and so clear the posts to keep the thread moving with new topics).


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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 1- CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

Di

I had a favourite stuffed toy - a Koala Bear with bald ears ... I'd sucked all the fur off - ptooey!!!

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a5baggie

I remember miners coming home from the shifts on washday monday and if they were walking across the cobbles back to the houses, if the washing looked dirty or grubby they would cut the washing line so that the washing dragged on the floor and had to be washed again.


And the blokes in Hamstead village nicking coal from the coal siding on the way home from the boozer at night!
Drunk the money nicked the coal to keep the family warm.

I can remember going in to the miners "baths" in Hamstead - where they used to clean up after being underground. And using their shoe buffers to clean our shoes. And also going into the miners canteen with our biscuit money to buy a bread pudding and it was fabulous.

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Rob

I used to love watching girls doing handstands up the wall!!
Hide and seek! Count to 100 as fast as you can! 5-10-15-20 -100!! Coming!!
Wack 'Oss acky acky acky 1-2-3!
Football in the winter and cricket in the summer.
Birdnesting!! I had a fantastic collection of bird's eggs!!
Tracking!! Arrows chalked on the ground and the others had to find you!!

I lived on the edge of Brandhall Golf Course as a kid top house but one and after that was farmland and fields all the way to Quinton.The Stag and Three Horseshoes.
So whenever we weren't playing football or cricket we'd be making dens and birdnesting and catching tadpoles and blackberry picking.
My mom made a mean blackberry pie.

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Nemo

Very relevant to genealogy nowadays, I loved playing "Happy Familes" as a card game where 4 players had the cards divided up and then in turn asked someone for card you thought they might have to complete your family - this continued til you got a wrong request and the turn passed on until the winner could put down complete sets of families (face down)

No needless to say the families were Mr & Mrs + son & daughter;

So the names were like Mr Bun the Baker, Mrs Bun The Baker, Master Bun and Miss Bun...etc

We could compile a black country set and flog em to make money...............Mr Pick the Miner, or Mrs Chain the Maker, and Miss Pit the Bonker ( praps not) you get the picture................ in those days though they tended to not stop at the classic 2 kids of the card game purpose!

Daisy chains ; one penny packets (old money) packed to bursting of broken crisps; blackjacks and gobstoppers;muffin the mule (no rude comments here);horse drawn milk carts - family arguments about who had to and collect the muck for the roses; rag and bone men; the queens coronation lasting foreveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - what a bore; 2d(old money) saturday morning picture houses; the interlude on the tv - the potters wheel; Whirligig; Noddy books; plasticine; skipping, and skipping and skipping................................... ration books; stockpiling bags of sugar; taking back bags of empty beer bottles to the outdoor; ...............................

Kiss chase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
& what should probably be in a separate posting - navy blue knickers and liberty bodices
cold feet in wellingtons in the snow; knicker elastic garters to hold yer socks up.........and bloody hair ribbons!

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Linell

Hi BC Wench, ......
Your childhood sounds just like mine, climbing trees and building camps, running around the countryside, catching tadpoles and sticklebacks, also tried making the rose pefume the same as you, but no it didn't work did it Happy days. Best Wishes from Linell.

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Sparkstopper

I remember going with my father (born & bred Blackheath)to see my grandmother, She used to knit all the woollen
socks for her 4 sons during the second world war. Whenever we went my father would take an old pair that had
holes in the heels or foot. While we spent a sunday back in the BC (We now lived in Brum)..She undid the feet of
the socks and put each one on three kneedles and proceded to 'refoot' the sock. I went home with a 'tanner' and
Dad went home with an almost bran new pair of socks....I was facinated.

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 2 - CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Rob

First christmas i can remember is when i had a pair of "Stanley Mathews" football boots. Brown ones that covered your ankles and had wooden studs and a hard toecap!!
This must have been around 1954 the year West Brom won the cup.
It wasn't my best christmas but the first one i think i remember.

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Carol

Remember the first Christmas tree we had -a sort of wooden pole, with green brush things sticking out and a pretend trunk at the bottom. It used to have little red bits on the end pretending to be berries I think. I remember fetching a long glass bauble thing from Woolies and walking home with Dad for a couple of miles in the driving wind and torrential rain. I still remember that walk home every time I get the decorations out and still have that bauble. I also rememebr some ancient string of candle holders for real candles-never used in my time but it lived in a wardrobe for quite a few years. Think I've also got a couple of glass fir cones from the 1930's that still get hung every year. Does anyone else have any old decorations?

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Nemo

Spending hours stirring a pudding mix, putting in the tiny old silver sixpences, then into crock basins with muslin tops tied with string - into a giant boiler and cooking for hours - wonderful old fashioned Christmas pud; then some weeks later plucking turkeys.

As an adult I was a Special Police "person/man/woman/whatever" and one of the patrols was round the streets past butchers shops - big crime was robbing the shops of these resplendent birds, rabbits, pheasants all displayed in their glory hanging from giant hooks whilst the joints of ham and pork lay on marble slabs in the shop window. Often these birds hung down from the bars of the window blinds which came out over the pavements - intermingled with holly & mistletoe.

At home Christmas day was one of only 15 days in a year my ma and pa stopped arguing! ( the other 14 was the annual trip to the seaside on a REAL train)

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BC Wench

This memory always sticks out in my mind of a school Christmas party.

We would take into school our own plate, bowl and spoon. We had to write our names on these, so that we knew whose bowl etc. was ours with sellotape. Well, we never had sellotape in our house in the 1950s, there were better things to spend the money on than that, so Mom would stick a little ellastoplast on the them and write our name on that.

The whole school would have their Christmas Party on the same day. Different kids would take in "party" food to share with the others in the class. We would play games, dance to music etc., but on this one occasion I fell and bumped my head. One of my older brothers was still at the school, so they got him to take me home. As you can imagine, he wasn't very happy about this as he was missing his party, so he only took me down the road, out of site of the school and said "You'll be alright now won't you?" and legged it back to his party. Oh boy, did he get in the neck when Mom caught hold of him. This topic is brought up many times when the family is reminiscing of our happy times of all being at home with Mom and Dad, "Do you remember when you bumped your head"....

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 3- SCHOOL MEMORIES

Northern Lass

I remember a teacher who was a right ugly old bat and wore long pigtails, long grey pigtails, glasses and a huge conk!

She used to be the maths teacher I think, and walked around us 6 yr olds putting the fear of god into us as she slapped that 12inch ruler into her hands!! and woe betide anyone who hadnt done their sums right!

Scary lady

and I remember we had a school production of I think it was the Pied Piper of hamilin...and the song went
"Parents are a pretty problem
we appeal to you
they dont love us
they dont want us
what are we to do"

I can still remember that!

and school dinners ...I used to love school dinners, especially when we had chips on a friday!

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BC Wench

I used to like school dinners as well, but CHIPS we never had them, but you're younger than me Northern Lass Chocolate sponge pudding and pink custard - yummy.

What about being a school monitor? One of the jobs you had at Junior School which lasted for a week, was to go around all the classrooms collecting the bottle tops off our "free 1/3 of a pint milk", which was collected in a big colander. The tops had to be washed ooohhh that smell it was awful.

Dudley Schools Sports Day which was held on Dudley County Cricket Ground until it was too dangerous to be held there due to the ground collapsing because of mines, it was then held at the Priory Primary School and I came 3rd in the high jump Now look what's built on the ground - The Village!!.......
MORE.....
Yeh, I loved the cheese and potato pie as well, with slices of tomatoes on top. Long legs, well I keep them covered up nowadays couldn't cock me legs over a foot stool now

I loved netball and rounders as well. It used to be a blood bath when our school Wren's Nest Junior played against the Priory School. We never real got into hockey, just had a dabble and hated it. Miss Sherwood took us for sports at Junior school and she used to ride a motorbike and dressed in black leather - I'm sure you'd have liked her Robbie, she would have matched your leather jacket

Tuck shops: Ours was Mr. Harris's on Old Park Road, Dudley when my brother used to spend my threepenny bit (which I should have spent on biccies with my milk at school) on aniseed balls for him and his pals, wouldn't have been so bad, but he had his own threepenny bit

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Rob

We never had chips either BC but you're much younger than me Northern Lassie.
I loved school dinners up to when was 14 then i used to spend my dinner money on six penneth of chips from Sherwoods down Langley and 5 Park Drive from the Blind Man's down Rood End.
Our school sports days were held at Accles and Pollock's ground at Birchley where i came second once in a 3-legged race!! I was fastened to Carol Brown from Portway Road and we ran like the wind!!I wonder if she'd still remember that!!
Later when we got more serious the sports days were held at Hadley Stadium Smethwick.I hated running! I'd run all day on the football pitch but,and i still do,hate with a passion aimless running or jogging!!

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 4 - PLACES OF THE BLACK COUNTRY REMEMBERED

Rob

I was in Old Hill most saturdays and mondays at The Plaza.This is like in the time of Edwin Starr and Lou Christie 1966-67.
Old Hill was full of old pubs and terraced houses.Clifton Street? Was that close by The Plaza?...........
Eric Hollies played for Old Hill at Haden Hill park before and after Warwickshire.He retired in 1957 and the Dollery you mention is Tom Dollery also of Warwickshire...........
Now i may be wrong but didn't The Grand become Old Hill Plaza when it ceased functioning as a cinema?
I come from the other side of the hill to Old Hill so 'm no expert.

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BC Wench

As kids one of our old stomping ground was the Wrenner (Wren's Nest) where we spent many happy hours climbing trees and swinging like monkeys from ropes wrapped over the branches; making fishing nets out of wire and old nylon stockings to catch the newts and frogspawn; collecting petals and put them in water to make perfume, which never did work; collecting blackberries and taking them back home where we'd put them in a little bottle with Dad whittling down a piece of stick to use as a "podger" to ram the blackberries into pulp and sucking the juice off the sticks. Imagine that nowadays with Health and Safety. Going down the seven sisters caves (which are cordoned off now) which was really scary.

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 5- OUR HOLIDAYS

Rob

We'd spend dreamy wistful long hot summers at our villa in Lombardy!!
A day trip to Blackpool or Rhyl was all we had.
Oh we went to Clent sometimes for the day.
Didn't mind.I thought it was great to go every year to the Blackpool Illuminations in september.
If you were lucky it would coincide with "Scotland Weekend"!!
Collection for the driver on the way back and a good singsong."For he's a jolly good driver".
What i also used to love was "The Breakfast Run's" my dad would take me on from the pub.
Down to Bridgenorth or Evesham for your breakfast a walk along the river and back home.
!!

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 6- EMPLOYERS OF THE BLACK COUNTRY

BC Wench

Now that a lot of the larger companies in the Black Country that I can remember in the 60s, 70s and 80s have long gone, what about making them “come back to life” by our memories of working at these companies. What company did you work for? What was your occupation? What did the company make? Did you meet your future spouse while working there? etc. etc.

I'll start the ball rolling. Leaving school in 1965 I worked at J. & A. Hillman on the corner of Trindle Hill and Porter Street, Dudley. The company was a leather merchants. My job title was a Junior Invoice Typist earning £3.15s.0d a week. I knew at the time of my interview that Mr. Arthur Hillman was a Governor of my secondary school (probably why I got the job), but it wasn't until years later that I realised he was once a Mayor of Dudley and from a very affluent family.

One of things they made at Hillmans was headcovers for golf clubs. As a 15 year old at the time I could never get my head around why a golf club would need a headcover. I worked there for 9 months and then got a job as a Junior Audio Typist at M. & W. Grazebrooks in Pear Tree Lane earning £5.00 a week, what a jump from £3.15s.0d.

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Rob

Nice one BC Wench.
Like you i started work in 1965 and i had no idea of a career.All i wanted was money in my pocket and go out every night.
So for some reason or another my first job was an Apprentice Electrician at Atack Brothers Oldbury.Situated on Anchor Bridge Birmingham Road the job entailed me at first to accompany an Electrician on his rounds of factories and houses around the West Midlands.Great fun.
Sometimes we would have to go the new gas works at Tipton but then there'd be a gang of us.Loved the comradie and banter.
However after 6 months i left to go to Accles and Pollocks another brilliant career move!!
I was " Dogger-up" at the Hypo.I had to stand at the end of a track whilst a tube was pulled through a die!!
Then when the " Dog" reached the end of the track i had to catch it and place it in a basket.
Well let me tell you the tubes would be hot and they'd snap out of the Dog like a whiplash causing burns on your arms if you were'nt careful.
The work was ridiculous but it did allow me to play 3 seasons for Accle's Colts.This was when works football was at it's height and Accles 1st team were brilliant.
Accle's had a very good social club at the Birchley which i ,together with my mates,would attend every thursday where the records would be played by a DJ whose name i've forgotten!!Good times.
I lasted at Accles till January 1966!! So in the space of a year i'd had two jobs!! But i never missed a days work!! ............

MORE...........

Now where were we?

1966.England won THe World Cup.I went to Blackpool for my holidays in fact that's where i watched the final in a boarding house with my mates one street behind The Golden Mile!
I left Accle's for Halesowen Fabrications a small firm in Gorsty Hill across the road from Stewart and Lloyds just down a bit from The Bell and Bear.
Irish owned.We'd be off every saturday night ,me and my mate Rog,to the dances at Droitwich,Hartlebury ,Malvern Winter Gardens or The Locarno or Tower in Brum.Halesowen Lads and a couple of Italians Franky and Gianni from Langley would be with us.
I learnt to weld and drill and stuff like like that. Still played football for Accle's Colts and couldn't give a jot!!
Left there in the summer of '66 for Stewart and Lloyds!! More money? Can't remember but i had a great time there as well.The place was huge!!
Underground canals! Vast warehouses! We'd play hide and seek in our lunch breaks!!
Learnt how to work a lathe and get soaked in oil!! But we were Kings of The World at football and i was in love only with myself.

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BC Wench

Right, where was I, oh yeh.

I'm in 1966 as well Robbie, in my second job as a junior audio typist in the typing pool at M & W Grazebrooks, Pear Tree Lane. I had to catch a bus from the Old Park Farm Estate, Dudley into Dudley bus station and then another one to the top of Pear Tree Lane and walk down the Lane to Grazebrooks, where 9 times out of 10 we would get a lift from another employee.

Oh, I remember getting a lift once in a mini from a chappie who worked in the Cost Office, can't remember his name now. It was pouring with rain and when I got into the passenger seat of the car, he asked me to pull on this piece of string that went through the passenger car door window (remember the old slide-back type windows on a mini) and was attached to a wiper blade on the front window screen. He had another piece of string through his side window and we had to alternatively pull this piece of string so that the wipers could wipe away the rain, 'cos the wipers weren't working. Oh did I laugh. The thought of us two sitting in that car doing that "pulling" and he was just looking at me as though it was quite normal. I'd obviously heard of "pulling a bird or guy" but this!!

There was a time once when a car pulled up and me and my friend ran up to the car to get a lift, opened the door to get in, and we didn't know the chappie, he only wanted some directions to get to a company. Laugh? We could have done with some of those lady's incontinent pads.

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Silver Surfer

My mum started work at Cheneys of Smethwick when she was 14 (1925). She travelled by train from Old Hill and very often had to run for it as her friend was always late. She started first in the counting dept then progressed to the polishing. If you have ever looked at the clasps and eyelet fasteners on old purses and cases did you notice the name Cheneys? She was paid the princely sum of 3farthings a gross for polishing these, their gross being 156 not 144 so as to allow for spoilages. No health and safety in those days the fluff from the 'mops' filled the air like snowflakes falling and had to be swept up several times a day. She kept a clean rag in her pocket to wipe her face at the end of the day and the boss called her 'Little Miss Clean Face'. She also worked at Phillips cycles and very often the handle bars would fly off the mops and hit one of the workers. Men mostly did these but mum has a 'dimple' on her face where she was caught by a flying object.

(A little bit from my family history book. NL keeps asking me for a taster)

My father in law worked for Grazebrooks as a moulder all his working life. He walked from Holly Hall through Woodside, calling in on his maiden aunts to see if they were ok, then across the canal. He rescued a postmistress from near the lock keepers cottage where she had fallen in the canal on a very foggy day and also a young lad at another time. When he moved to the Saltwells he again walked it all the way to work along the canal. You may have known him BC Wench.

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[Northern Lass]

Chapter 7- Crafts and Activities of the past

Rob

it's called Podging.
My granny from Rowley always used to say "In front of the old black lead grate, or even at the side of the bed, there was nothing quite like the feel of a podged rug"

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Peterd

clippy because they use clipped of bits of material and i think podgy will be what the nickname for the stick implement that they used, as they uses podgy up north for putting bulb in to the ground http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JJe8-ddo4 ... re=related

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Silver Surfer

When I wasn't playing hop scotch or throwing balls about or skipping with a rope stretched from one side of the road to the other, I was indoors with my best friend at her gd mother's table 'making' dolls and designing outfits for them to wear. The doll was made from stiff card and the dresses etc from paper which we coloured in with tabs at the waist and shoulders so that they could be fitted on. We spent hours at it. Thinking back if I'd had the foresight I could have asked old lady Dingle about her parents and gd parents. She seemed about 80 at the time, and next door was an even older lady called Mrs Bayliss whose front garden was full of golden rod, and then there was Mrs. Nutt.........

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Mally

I can remember 'Corking' which involved a cotton reel with 4 tiny nails inserted at one end and any left over wool.
I would sit for hours winding the wool around one nail at a time, picking up the previous thread and taking over the head of the nail with a hairgrip.
It was so exciting to see how long you could get the chain that emerged from the other end. When long enough it could be made into a little table mat.

Mmmm....come to think of it, I must have a go at this with my 7 yr old Grandaughter

[Northern Lass]

Chapter 8 - CLAIMS TO FAME

RachelK

My cousin used to be married to Roy Wood, although he was from Birmingham I think, so dunno if you would count him for this list.

And a story that makes me smile when it probably shouldn't. My mum Polly trained as a nurse in Wolverhampton, qualified in '72 or '73 I think. (I've got her badges and that in my jewellery box) Unfortunately, around this time Don Powell, the drummer from Slade, was injured in a bad car crash. I think he was in a coma for a while, and my mum nursed him. My other cousin (sis of aforementioned Roy's ex wife) was a big Slade fan and begged my mum to try and get some memorabilia from Don. Well apparently mum cut off some of his hair to give to her. Whether or not he was awake at the time I don't know! Not the most ethical of nursing practise I suppose, but hey, it was the 70's. Thankfully Don recovered from his injuries albeit with memory loss. Says on wikipedia he was born in Bilston.

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Tonibunny

My cousin used to be married to Roy Wood, although he was from Birmingham I think, so dunno if you would count him for this list.

And a story that makes me smile when it probably shouldn't. My mum Polly trained as a nurse in Wolverhampton, qualified in '72 or '73 I think. (I've got her badges and that in my jewellery box) Unfortunately, around this time Don Powell, the drummer from Slade, was injured in a bad car crash. I think he was in a coma for a while, and my mum nursed him. My other cousin (sis of aforementioned Roy's ex wife) was a big Slade fan and begged my mum to try and get some memorabilia from Don. Well apparently mum cut off some of his hair to give to her. Whether or not he was awake at the time I don't know! Not the most ethical of nursing practise I suppose, but hey, it was the 70's. Thankfully Don recovered from his injuries albeit with memory loss. Says on wikipedia he was born in Bilston.

My Aunty Jean was a radiographer and she did his x-rays! She might have known your mum Rachel

Are there any rag and bone men with horse-drawn carts left in the Black Country? I can remember one that would go round the Russells Hall estate where my gran lived in the early 1980s, and it feels so odd for me to remember such an old-fashioned thing when I'm only 34.

[Northern Lass]

Chapter 9 - BLACK COUNTRY WORDS AND PHRASES REMEMBERED

Suki

Little ditty my mother ofter recites,

Wot a love ely nit ti tis,
Wot a many staars,
Wot a love ely grate thist got,
Wot a many baars,
I bin a cor tin,
Day yow nouw,
I tod thi faatha,
Day e tel thou.

translation
What a lovely night it is,
What a many stars,
What a lovely grate you have got,
What a many bars,
I have been a courting,
Didn't you know,
I told your father'
Didn't he tell you.
Didn't you know,
I told your father didn't he tell you

[Northern Lass]

Chapter 10- REAL LIFE EVENTS Tragic, Heroic events recorded here....

Mumbles

NL,I just read your story on couple who walked into Canal on a Foggy night and picked up the Bugle From 18th of December to note full story.
My interest was raised because my grandfather John Joseph Richard Parsons drowned at exactly same spot at Windmill End in 1902 and my brother fell in at same spot in c.1990 ( survived). I also had two Canal Boat Fires at same spot in c. 1994.I wrote an article called Ghosts of the Canal for Bugle a few years back which detailed my family experiences and a number of other drownings at same locationm.
The one in latest article I did not know about but it adds to the list of strange happenings at this spot.
Miss Phyliss Chandleraged 19 of Bumble Hole and Samuel Crew aged 21 of Church Rd. Netherton and Mary Ann Wells aged 17 of Bumble Hole were people who drowned in fog of X-mas 1914 .

note from NL... if you click on this link it takes you to the discussion of the 3 young people who tragically lost their lives
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=845

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Resident Pyjama

[b] Jack Judge and the Drowning story.[/b]

Jack Judge was getting ready to go off to work in April 1904 when he heard shouting from the back of their house from the canal , some ladies had gathered to witness some children who had fallen into the canal whilst playing there, Jack ran down to the scene to be told what had happened.
Seeing the two children (James Lockland and two year old Annie Locklan;his neighbours kids) he jumped straight in and headed for the children Jimmy (as he was called) was sinking fast under the dirty canal water,whilst Annie in her pram was under water, after some splashing he managed to grab Annie who was now out of the pram and he got her to the gathered crowd on the tow path.
There was no sign of Jimmy as he searched below the dark dank waters, he had to come up for a breather before again searching below the polluted waters, at last he saw the boy trapped below his sisters pram at the bottom of the canal bed, with great force the man got the child free and pulled him to the safety of the bank.

When they got Jimmy out he was unconscious and needed the kiss of life again Jack saved the boy.
The Strange thing about this is that one of the Lockland family had in 1876 saved a young Jack Judge from drowning in the same canal in Low town when he had fallen in himself and was drowning (I don't know if this was John Lockland - Jimmy's dad or one of his brothers).
My connection to this is Annie was my great Aunt.

[Northern Lass]

CHAPTER 11- SUNDAY SCHOOL TREATS

dumblonde

Does anyone remember these? Were they only to do with Non-Conformists? My sister and I went to the Tabernacle Old Hill and we used to go on the Sunday School Treats. It was like a carnival with local businesses turning their lorries into floats. Each one would have a theme, the youngest kids and the elderly would also be allowed to ride, but the rest of us had to walk. We would walk MILES!!! From Old Hill to Cradley Heath , each church had a huge banner which we all followed. At the end of the traipsing we would go back to the Sunday School to have some refreshment. We were given paper bags with sticky buns and sweets in. Later we would go to either the playing fields at Bluebell Road or Haden Hill Park. There would be a band playing and we had races, including egg and spoon of course. Then when totalling worn out we would stagger home in the evening.
Dumblonde

[Northern Lass]

CHAPTER 12 - SWEETS OR "SUCK" we remember...

Mallosa

Some of the sweets that I loved were -
Sweet Tobbacco, Flying Saucers, Spangles, Parma Violets and Lucky Bags, to name a few...
but my favourite was Kali (lemon, strawberry or rainbow) and the colour of your finger was the evidence

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[Northern Lass]

CHAPTER 13 - RAG AND BONE MEN

Tonibunny

Are there any rag and bone men with horse-drawn carts left in the Black Country? I can remember one that would go round the Russells Hall estate where my gran lived in the early 1980s, and it feels so odd for me to remember such an old-fashioned thing when I'm only 34.

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Linell

We still get Rag and Bone men, once a month on a friday morning! Only thing is they now come with without the horse, in an old tatty pick up truck, still have the bugle though, hey I wonder if that is where the Newspaper got it's name from the Bugle Call Have to ask them. Linell.

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BC Wench

We get them as well Linell, but this week they came round in a transit van.

The rag and bone man that came round our estate used to give away little chicks and gold fish. I always wanted a chick, never realising when you're really little what they grew up to, so we always had a goldfish. When cleaning the fish bowl out, Mom was using a little fish net to get the fish out of the bowl and the fish jumped out of the net and went down the plug hole in the sink. Mom ran outside with a cup to catch it when it went down the drain We had that fish for years and the cat used to sit by the side of the fish bowl and scoop the water out of the bowl with it's paw and drink it. Stupid cat, must never had realised that there was FOOD there.