Memories of Childhood Part 1

Is there something wrong with me childhood memories start when I'm ten before that I dont remember anything I don't remeber my first day at school. I couldnt event tell you which school I went to for the first five years of School.

I remember we lived on Kirkstall Road a house that had many steps. every fifteen steps to the right of my was a section of garden There was about six pieces going down so there must have been at least fifty steps to the bottom which led to the main Road.. There was a back garden and a gate which led to a ginal which led on to a housing estate at the back. The ginal was the easiest way to get to the Shops and School so I used this ginal every day. It was there I went to Kirkstall Road School and I fell in Love for the first time Oh so I thought his name was John and he was very popular with the girls blonde hair and blue eyes

I must have been about 10 years old but unfortunately it was a short affair and only lasted a week he finished with me because I wouldn't kiss him and the next girl he asked kissed him in front of everyone in the play ground I was stunned and broken hearted for about and hour then got over it.

I remember playing kiss catch in the playground, Jacks remember those with the ball and the metal prongy things you used to have to drop the jacks, bounce the ball once pick up the ball and the jack at the same time then two bounces and two jacks and so on till you had to grab a load of jacks at the end and the ball without dropping any. Wow I didn't realise I still remembered that game. By this age mum had had a few more children let me see if I was 10 my younger sister was 7 and a half my next sister down was 5 and a half. My brother must have just been born he was born in 1972 so he must have been a baby.

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My memories of living in Kirkstall Road are Fish and Chips were I used to get a penny a day for school and would go into the local veg shop near school and but a pound of carrots and with the change I would buy 2 ounces of Kay lye, sherbet in Proper English and a liquorice stick to dip in. I remember the shop as if it was yesterday little and pokey and full of sweets in jars. Imps were on a little tray on the front counter and it smelt musty I can still remember the smell of that shop even though it was a sweet shop.

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I remember while living there was the first time and the last time I ever stole anything it was in a shop three doors down they had just got some new sweets in a raspberry creamy thing that was 2p I wanted one I needed one I desired to taste the creamy raspberry filling and that was 2 days money. I walked in the shop and proceeded to look around as if I was going to buy something, quickly stuffed the raspberry treat up my sleeve when I thought the shopkeeper wasn't looking and started to walk out the shop. All I can tell you is a giant hand grabbed me as I tried to leave the shop they'd seen me I was caught with a 2p raspberry cream bar red handed. All I can tell you the shop keeper scared the living daylights out of me told me I would go in a naughty children's home and everyone would know I was a thief and when I grew up I would never be trusted in a job cos I had a criminal record.

My god when I look back I still remember shaking and being terrified but I was more scared they would tell my mum I remember pleading with him telling him I would never, ever, ever do It again and I haven't I have remembered that experience all my life and never stole again. It was different back then or was it now kids probably would stab the shopkeeper or not even care. This experience terrified me and even now I'm 46 remember it wow just writing this sends chills I know I never wanted never ate or never needed a Raspberry Truffle Bar as long as I have lived.

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I also remember it was living here I had my first experience of death. At School we had a pet hamster and each week it was someones turn to take the thing home. I remember I put my hand up and was picked and I carried the cage home with great care. I remember we had a fridge in the dining room and my mum told me to put the smelly thing on top of the fridge. Two days it lasted and the bluddy thing died on me. I woke one morning to find it stiff in the cage. I was in pieces why did it have to die on me, why not someone else. I remember my stepfather made me go in the garden and dig a hole and I buried it about two tiers down. I was heartbroken, not for the hamster though. How was I going to tell the hole class the classroom pet had died in my care? That put me off hamsters for life I can tell you.

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My second death experience was a friend down the street whose guinea pigs had had babies. While I was there one day watching these tiny squiggly balls move about, we suddenly saw the father guinea pig put a baby in its mouth Oh my god I cried it was actually eating the things. That experience also put me off guinea pigs for life.

I remember having to take my little brother to nursery on a morning for my mum living there too before I went to school I had to push this maclaren buggy for what I thought miles to the nursery. I remember this particular day it was really windy and I pushed this baby all the way to the nursery. It used to take me about half and hour along the top road from the school and along Burley Road to this bluddy nursery. One day I arrived at the nursery and went to pay for my little brother to stay the week and when I looked in my pocket the crisp twenty-pound note she had given me was gone. I panicked all I could think of was I had lost it on the way some how. Maybe the wind had blown it out of my pocket. I thought retrace your steps look for it everywhere I was in turmoil but I was terrified what mum would do to me too. Having to go home and explain to my mum I had lost twenty pounds was a nightmare. I remember the shouting screaming you stupid girl and funnily have never forgot.

Do we only remember the bad things and never the good things in our lives? I don't know. I am trying to remember the good but it's hard I can't. It was now 1973 and we moved we bought a house in Horsforth a lovely house in a nice area with the most enormous garden I had ever seen. We moved there in the summer my two sisters and my brother my mum and my step dad. I was to start big school in the September Benton Park. I had to wear a uniform and wait at the top of the street for the school bus to take us there it was about six miles from where we lived but it was big and I had fond memories of the short time I spent there. This house was where I had my own bedroom for the first time be it a tiny box room just enough for a bed and a chest of drawers it was all mine I could be alone at last.

It was a large three bed roomed house with a dining room, the best room and a garage, green houses, sheds, strawberry patches and the allotments were at the back of the house so we had no one looking over us. It was massive I remember we had rabbits and ferrets and polecats and ducks. Next door was a girl called dawn her mother was a singer on the cruise ships. They were strange but fun they had a huge piano in their front room and dawns mum used to sing at the piano while that bloke that used to be on calendar in the early 70s would come round and play while she sang. It was loud in their garden they had chickens cockerels and even a horse in a shed at the bottom. I used to look after the horse for them and spent every bit of spare time I had with the horse Sparrow it was called. I remember he had colic once and I used to give him molasses on a wooden spoon and he used to spit it at me. He used to escape on many occasions we would chase him up the street I even laugh now chasing this horse up a posh street in a posh neighbourhood must have been funny.

See I must have had some happy childhood I remember that. I also had a ferret called Simon he was my best friend I know stupid a bluddy ferret. I had been given him by a guy in a house that faced onto the other side of the allotment. Mick he was called he used to play rugby for LEEDS RL. He had the mother and she had started eating the babies so he gave me Simon. I didn't know ferrets are bald when there born and so tiny I fed him every day with bread soaked in warm milk and I used a puppet to feed him milk. I loved that ferret and he knew all my secrets. I used to take him out on a dog lead or carry him around my neck everywhere He was my pal my confident my best friend. I know your saying it's a bluddy ferret.

It's strange I don't remember having many friends as a child maybe it was me. Maybe there was something wrong with me shy and withdrawn and afraid of most people. I used to help mum mostly with the kids I'd do the ironing and the washing up, clean the house and any chance I had to escape I used to sit in my bedroom where I could read and escape my life. James Herriot Vet books. Little Women, Gulliver's Travels, Jayne Eyre and Enid Blyton. This was my escape from reality. My stepfather hated me and I hated him so that was fine. My sister and me weren't aloud to sit on the settee in the room we were always told to sit on the dog shelf that was the floor in our house.

I spent most nights in my bedroom wishing he was dead or I was dead. I know that's a horrible thing to say but it's true. I would cry most nights till I fell asleep. The man spoke to me with contempt and if he didn't he ignored me never looked at me and never spoke to me I wasn't his and he didn't really want me All I do remember is mum saying "cant you get on with him? Stay out of his way you are going to ruin it for us All". He would pull stunts like buy the other kids a bag of sweets and not me and then turn round and say if you want a sweet ask your sisters or brother.

It was here I had my third experience of death I was 13 now and decided I didn't want to live any more the arguments in the house had got worse and I was the blame it was all my fault every argument between my mum and him ended with your gunna ruin it for us all. But what was I doing ? I didn't even know what I was doing wrong! If I did I could have stopped doing it or tried to at least.

I thought its because I'm breathing that's why I need to stop breathing and everyone including me would be happy. I decided to find as many of my mums tablets as possible when the coast was clear.I then decided I would die in the allotments and no one would even think to look there to find me.

But it didn't work I had taken the tablets and my sister had spotted me she ran to my mum and said mum she's taken a load of tablets. Again it was you stupid bluddy fool what you done that for now ill have to take you to the hospital. I remember the tubes the swallowing and then the vomiting it was nasty I would rather be dead than have that done again or so I thought!

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