A Childhood

I was born in The Spinney in 1961 and lived there until I let there at 19. I remember it all with rose tinted spectacles, the community, the shops: Waldens the butchers, Doreens the newsagents, or Hodges across the road, the hardware store, the small library, the Co-op and the Wavy Line Stores, the race meetings and especially Derby Day. I went to Merland Rise school and remember the two headmistresses, Mrs Bingham in the infants and Miss Wilson in the Juniors. An abiding memory is of the snow in the 1960s and 70s and trudging to school as a child of five or six to find the school closed but a small group of teachers running a class which I was put into, until my mum came to fetch me.