I Was Nearly Killed Here!

A Memory of Corby.

Greetings from Canada!

O how this picture brings back memories. I was raised on nearby Argyll Street in the late 50's and 60's, and the area shown in this picture encompasses virtually all of my childhood... But also within this picture is the location of an incident that nearly ended my very young life in or around 1961-1962.

As a young boy, my parents drummed into me the need for road safety, and I was an ardent student of their teaching, always trying to follow their advice. However, there was one time when all the road safety discipline in the world failed me.

I was probably no older than three or four, and I had a pedal car that was my pride and joy. Because of the steep hill on Montrose Street, I had always been told to stay off that street. However, curiosity must have got the better of me one day, and I evidently went exploring.

I do not recall starting down Montrose Street, but I do remember getting into trouble on the hill. As gravity took hold, my pedal car gained speed and there was nothing my little legs could do to stop it. Ahead of me lay Elizabeth Street, and as I went flying past the medical building there was only one possible outcome and I knew it!

I remember my little car flying off the pavement and onto the road. I even have a very clear mental image of a car's radiator grille and headlights coming down the Elizabeth Street hill towards me. I seem to remember it was a Ford Zephyr, that's how clear that memory is even 50+ years later.

Somehow the car missed me, and I was spared tragedy. Somehow I pulled myself and my pedal car back up that Montrose Street hill, sobbing all the way. I have no memory of what my mum did, which suggests either I never told her, or the memory of that car nearly hitting me has overwritten everything else. Yes, it is one of the earliest memories I have.

Later memories abound from this picture too. See that tree sitting just to the left of the bus? That was one of my most-loved climbing trees as a youngster. You could climb it, or you could spend hours under the shade of its branches where we made a little den!

And what about the flats of Argyll House and Angus House? I used to climb up the outside of them, walk along the walls of the clothes drying areas, and play "knock door run" at the door of a woman we thought of as "the old hag" - hmm, she was probably younger then than I am now!

Yes, many memories surround this, my childhood haunt. Thank you so much for posting this picture online.

Regards from the Prairies!
Kenneth J. Kerr