Council Yard

At the end of Staplehall Road, just a couple of houses down from where we lived, there was a council yard where was stored some heavy machinery, mainly a very large steam roller, a snow plow and some other wonderful giants. Sometimes after school when the yard went quiet we would climb through the fence and play on these things pretending to drive them, they had loads of wheels and levers to pull and turn. Great fun. Does anyone remember Leesons shop opposite the cinema on Watling Street? It was the first shop that I ever bought anything in. It was when sweets came off ration and my mother gave my sister and I twopence each and we walked to the shop where Mr Leeson gave us a bag each with a mixture of small goodies in. It was absolute heaven to us who had never had shop-bought sweets. Over the fence at the end of the back garden were two fields where Farmer Howard used to keep cows. There was an avenue of horse chestnut trees where we could get across the field without the cows chasing us, though Mr Howard did. He had bandy legs and would shout and wave his stick at us. We always made it to the safety of the gravel pits or back home again. I think he was pretty harmless really. He never stopped us from picking blackberries in the hedges. That was if the O'Dells left any behind.