CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

[SPR676]

Engine Engine Number 9 … A rhyme to figure out who will be "it".

I dare say there would be many and various versions, but this is the one used where I lived in Scotland.

Say the following as you point to each person:

Engine, engine number 9.
Runs along the bogey line.
Toot, toot
You’re oot
Engine, engine number 9.

The person to whom you are pointing when you say "9" at the end is out.

[Tizer]

Those sort of rhymes are part of the background to Catriona McPherson's novel `Bury Her Deep' set in Scotland: LINK

[SPR676]

Dandy and Beano comic books
Tin can stilts
Oor Wullie and his pals and The Broons in the Sunday Post newspaper

[SPR676]

Those sort of rhymes are part of the background to Catriona McPherson's novel `Bury Her Deep' set in Scotland: LINK

Sorry I don't see the connection. Is there one?

[Tizer]

Sorry Russ, I should have made myself more clear. The author Catriona McPherson has a series of very good `detective type' novels featuring a lady called Dandy Gilver. They are all set in Scotland and they're good on social history background. The one titled `Bury Her Deep' has a background of children singing rhymes of the type you mention. I can recommend the books!

[Cathy]

Remember when there was only 1 film showing each week at the local picture theatre?
(We used to call 'our local' the flea-pit )

[SPR676]

Sorry Russ, I should have made myself more clear. The author Catriona McPherson has a series of very good `detective type' novels featuring a lady called Dandy Gilver. They are all set in Scotland and they're good on social history background. The one titled `Bury Her Deep' has a background of children singing rhymes of the type you mention. I can recommend the books!

Thanks for that Tizer. The link didn’t help much.

‘Fraid Im not a keen book reader so I don’t think I’ll follow through on your recommendation but thanks again anyway.

[SPR676]

Remember when there was only 1 film showing each week at the local picture theatre?
(We used to call 'our local' the flea-pit )

We had two picture houses to choose from, the Regal at the top of the town or the Rio at the bottom of the town. Depending of course on what the film was, the Rio was mostly second choice but was closer to the fish and chip shop which was the meeting place after the show was over.

[Stanley]

Saturday morning kid's matinee at the Oxford in Dukinfield. The Perils of Pauline and Flash Gordon. Entrance was 3d or an empty jam jar.

[Tizer]

I think I put a link to this web page about old Blackburn picture houses on OG years ago but it's worth looking at again... Blackburn cinemas and theatres

I'll take this opportunity to give a plug for Blackburn Library archives staff who are very helpful if you want any information on local or family history. Their web site if the CottonTown one: CottonTown and the contact details are: Community History, Blackburn Central Library, Town Hall Street, Blackburn. BB2 1AG. Tel: 01254 661221 Fax: 01254 690539 E-mail: library@blackburn.gov.uk
They've helped me in the past and did so again last week when I wanted to know the names of the people living a house near where we lived in the 1950s. They have a set of charges but also will give help in exchange for information or images that they can use on the web site.

[Stanley]

They are 'improving' the libraries in our area Tiz. How are things now at Colne Wendy? Did they implement the changes they were proposing?
I remember being sprayed with disinfectant in the Savoy on Heaton Moor during the interval in Gone with the Wind...... Another memory that comes back is that there was always a newspaper seller outside the Savoy on Saturday night who did a good trade selling Sunday papers to the crowds as they streamed out.

[Wendyf]

Morale at Colne Library is very low if not rebellious Stanley. Over the last two or three years since Karen from Barlick Library took over as manager it has been a well organised, efficient, clean and happy place for staff and customers, increasing the all important footfall and getting it upgraded to the top grade - opening for 50 hours a week. Unfortunately there can only be one such library in Pendle and Nelson Library gets downgraded. The decision to completely swap the staff from Colne to Nelson on 1st July is a heartless and unbelievable decision, punishing the Colne staff for working hard to improve their library. A consultation was hinted at and local petitions were organised but the staff received letters last week informing them that their jobs would be at Nelson from 1st July.
Colne Library lost its way under its previous manager who failed to manage effectively, and she will now return. The Friends of Colne Library will probably be refusing to raise funds to support an organisation that treats it's staff with such disrespect, the Family History Society are hoping to move their resources and meetings elsewhere, and the same with smaller local groups.
Sorry for the rant, it's not a childhood memory but you did ask!!

[Stanley]

That's not a rant Wendy it's an honest report! How the hell did we get here? Is it just the Tories again?
Stockport public library was a temple, like church, silence was observed and anyone who transgressed got the full force of the lady behind the desk who was a dragon! A wonderful resource..... Don't get me going again about the deterioration in essential public services.....
By the way, I don't buy this 'footfall' argument. It's a numbers game. There are books on my shelves that only get consulted once in a blue moon but the point is they are there when needed! Footfall is an easily manipulated way of justifying cut backs, Beeching used the same ploy to close the branch railways.....

[SPR676]

but perhaps getting

[Stanley]

Russ, we don't mind a bit of off topic, it's how humans converse.....

[Stanley]

Cuddling up to my mother on her lap after tea in front of the fire before my dad came home from work. We listened to the wireless and I can remember the room getting darker until the only light was the flickering of the open fire. It must only have happened for a short while each year but is an incredibly powerful memory. Did we ever feel more secure?

[Stanley]

How cold the lino was on the bedroom floor when I got out of bed in winter. Very often the inside of the metal framed Crittall windows was covered with fern patterns from the frost. This was in the days before duvets and I can remember the weight of the blankets and big coats piled on the bed to keep me warm, no heating in those days. We must have been as hard as nails! Mother always had the fire lit in the living kitchen and that was the first port of call. One big difference then was that you always closed the door behind you to keep the warmth in the room where the fire was, it was no wonder we didn't need fridges in winter, every room was a fridge!

[Cathy]

2nd to last post Lucky You Stanley.
I vaguely remember being taken by bus to the Bradford Eye and Ear Hospital with Grandma. I was in the kids ward and had to sleep in a cot. I was 6 !!. Haha. She had bought me a new pair of slippers for the occasion and but she left them on the bus .

[Stanley]

That never occurred to me Cathy. If I caused you any distress I'm sorry, it wasn't intended. As you say, very very lucky......

[Cathy]

No,no. No distress Stanley, absolutely not.
Just saying lucky you. Xx

Bring on more lovely childhood memories - all of you.

[Stanley]

The smell of singed hair in Bert Slack's barber's shop near the tramsheds on Didsbury Road in Stockport. My dad used to take me on his way to work when he had his hair cut every fortnight and then I walked back home to get ready for school. Bert had a bad leg and the fire in the grate was always lit winter and summer and he had the chair nearest to it.

[Wendyf]

Do you remember Bay Rum? It used to be part of my dad's hair dressing kit when he was barber.

[Stanley]

I have always known about it but not the origin so I looked it up on WIKI. I've never used it, in my hair cream days it was always Brylcreem or similar but I never used much. Mother was a great believer in rubbing Surgical Spirit into our heads when we had been in the bath once a week, but she thought it was good for everything.......

[Wendyf]

Spending ages playing with the contents of Mum's button tin.
Going to grandma's cottage in Wyke and getting the old tin (Nuttall's Mintoes) out of the cupboard beside the range, it contained a set of dominoes and set of those wooden coloured shapes that you could make patterns with......I loved playing with them.
Making a den under the hefty table that nearly filled the room and was covered with a green chenille table cloth.
The Whistling Boy ornament on the polished sideboard and a rain forecasting gadget on the wall in the lobby where a man and a woman came in and out of their little house?? Am I imagining that?
Sitting out on the flat roof of the coal place/outside toilet and writing down the registration number of every car that passed by on the road.
The fly killer hung in the window which was a card parrot perched on a circular hoop.
My earliest memory is being in the big pram with my slightly older brother sat in a seat which attached to the other end.....he was probably kicking me.

[Stanley]

My grandma Challenger had one of those rain predictors Wendy. They worked by being controlled by a piece of gut under tension against a spring. As the humidity went up and down it varied in length and controlled the lady and the man so no, you aren't imagining it. At my mate's house they had one of those donkeys with a string tail hung outside, you've seen them.... 'If my tail is wet it's raining, if it's waving about it's windy' etc.