Little Boy's Heaven

A Memory of Hednesford.

In 1961 or 1962, as a small boy of 5 or 6 my mum, brought me to Hednesford to visit her grandmother, my great-grandmother, Emily Chetwyn. A diminutive lady, we, the children, called her little nana. I believe she lived in the end house of a terraced row of miners houses on Cannock Rd as I have fixed in my mind walking down to a junction and turning right to cross over the railway bridge, while turning left meant visiting Aunty Gladys and Cousin Cissie up West Hill and being bored with adults in conversation.
Little nana's house was a two-up, two down though by the time I was visiting there had been a modern bathroom extension fitted onto the kitchen at the rear. Between the house and its semi-detached neighbour, the home of the Griffiths boys, there was a small courtyard perimetered by a wall in which was a gate protecting steps down to a vast cindered area with a few garages scattered about. This is where I played though one had to be careful as there was an entry broad enough for vehicles which descended a steep slope with a change in level of fully 25-30 feet between two adjacent terraces.
Enclosing this cindered area on the farthest side from the house was a wooden wall of railway sleepers and in little nana's parlour there was a settee under the window which without shoes I was allowed to climb on rather clumsily due to a precious die-cast red train in my hand. Through the window one could see beyond the sleepers and on to the railway. There before me, as if solely for my entertainment, steam trains puffed and chuffed backwards and forwards all day long, ferrying coal trucks. It was a sensual pleasure beyond words.
Now as I sit typing this memory in my office here in Strasbourg, I can see the toy train stationary on a bookshelf, battered, but still with enough remnants of red paint to bring the sights and sounds of those faraway railway days to visit me fleetingly.