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I know records will prove me wrong, but summer seemed to start around the beginning of May and last until getting on to Bonfire night. We walked to Witton-le-Wear night after night to swim then walked home or, if we were lucky, got a lift in an empty meat van, not unlike the one driven by Corporal Jones in 'Dads Army'.

When it got too cold to swim we set about building and guarding our bonfire in the park. There were few organised displays in those days but there was tremendous rivalry between Bitchburn, High Grange, Valley Terrace, Victoria, 'Them up the New Buildings', and us. We invariably won, but to be fair we were well in with Dougie Wilks for a few tyres, and we enlisted the aid of a few 16-17 year olds, who in those days were not men but still big boys. We also had all of the park to ga at for dead trees and branches, not to mention a few live ones!

The patch on the old tennis courts where the fire had been was barely cold when the first snows fell and we had the sledge out. They must have been very long years for we seemed to sledge as many nights as we swam and still find time for conkering, brambling, playing 'pop-alleys', playing over the heaps, doing dickusses (I think that's how it's spelt!), playing blocky, kick the tin, chickmelly, tally ho and three goals go in. I guess a year must have been about 16 months.