Hornimans Tea

A Memory of Shrewsbury.

I used to live at No 52 on the left of the picture, in a flat on the 4th floor. I was only 7, I remember the first night while lying in bed I heard a screech of brakes and a dog yelping. The next morning my mum told me that a dog had got killed on the road. I can remember wanting to go back to my old house, but I was very cautious of that main road, especially after having moved from a quiet country lane, but as I grew up, I was allowed to cross that road to go to the little grocer's shop, where I couldn't wait to buy the Hornimans tea for another free card inside to stick in my book.  The trees always looked pretty and heavy with leaves, and it did block a lot of views, but when they were cut down because of disease, we could look right out over to the hills of Church Stretton.  I remember across the road and down the little lane, which I think much later became a supermarket, there used to be fields with a brook which ran into the river in Coalham. There used to be a gang of us that made a raft, and we would sail in it right under the railway bridge, and then the boys used to jump in the water and have a swim.  Oh, if only my parents knew what fun I used to have, I never ever told them I played in the brook.   I remember in the gang a boy who lived at the Dunn Cow, think his name was Rod, and his parents used to keep chickens in their back yard, I used to love going over there and feeding them.  I was so excited when I was given some roller skates for a birthday, and they were just plain metals ones without rubber and they used to make a clanking noise when you skated, but when you fell over and skinned your knees, wow that did hurt and you would have scabs there for ages, they didn't have knee pads in those days. I left Shrewsbury in 1961, and said farewell to Abbey Foregate and Monkmoor School, but still have very fond memories of the town I grew up in, and try to visit occasionally.