Gorton Ragamuffin

A Memory of Gorton.

I spent my early years in Beyer street off Gorton Lane living with my grandparents the Abernethy's before my dad bought his house in Railway Street. Ragamuffin described most of us in those days..holes in pants and cardboard in shoes because the leather shoes didn't last long playing footy on shale and stones like the Red Wreck playing field. 2shillings and 6pence for half sole and heel from Mckeckneys the cobbler. Friday we had fish and chips from Harrops the chippy. My grandparents and parents had drinks in various pubs...The Vulcan ( known as the monkey)....the Gardeners pub and The Angel pub. When we moved I was 13 and for the first time in my life I had a room to sleep in by myself ( it was actually a box room). The local became The Albion or The Railway at both ends of Railway Street. I went to St James cof e school and they were the best years of my life. When I first went there it was a boys school and the teachers were tough but we grew up admiring and fearing them too.
Pop Reynolds...Twink Taylor and Jed Panter the headmaster....then it became a mixed school and somehow we had too learn to get along with girls playing 2balls and skipping ropes while we tried to play footy around them. I left school n 1959 and finally got an apprenticeship with Beyer-Peacock locomotive Engineers and they were years I look back with nostalgia because of the apprentices and tradesmen I served my time with. It was the time of the Beatles and the Fabrication Shop resounded with "she Loves You" and "please Please Me"...we also went to learn ballroom dancing (to give us the edge in picking up the girls! )......it wasn't until I was 18 that my wages became my own.....before that my wage went into the dads pocket and he gave me "spends"....I think I could go on forever....Gorton ragamuffin..james foster

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