Childhood

A Memory of Newcraighall.

I was the son of the cobbler at the Klondyke pit. All the kids at that time played in the streets or went up to the pit head baths for a shower, this was because there were no baths or showers in the miners' houses. Everybody in the village at that time knew all the kids and all the kids knew the adults. I used to go across the bridge which crossed the main road so that I could see my dad mend the miners' tackety boots. The houses were small affairs, a bedroom and a living room, the coal cellars were all outside, in my dad's case it was down the stairs. I see the school seems to be the same, alas the village is no more than a housing scheme now.