Childhood

A Memory of Market Rasen.

Me and my sister used to go and stay in the school holidays with our great nanna, Mrs Hilda Pocklington, in her cottage at Walsbey Road, we used to love our time there. The tennis courts were out the back, and we often used to sit and watch them play tennis in the summer and often wondered whether any of them would end up at Wimbleden, or indeed ourselves - childhood dreams I guess. I also remember she had a coal shoot on the side wall and the coal man arriving and tipping it in and cleaning out the grate and re lighting the fire on cold days. I now have a fake coal fire that brings back memories. The Sellars lived over the road in their bungalow and a Lady Jessie lived next door in a big white house and a man called Jack lived next door to Nan. His house is no longer there, after being rebuilt. My nan's cottage is now almost unrecognisable due to being modernised, but it will always be a quaint little cottage to me with its roaring open fires, coal shoot, the railway lines passing at the back.
Garnets sweet shop was the place to go to spend pocket money, then to the park round the courner for a muck about waving to the trains as they sped past, or fishing in the streams next to the park - not that we ever caught anything. I remember going up the chippy in Queen Street for our tea on Friday nights and the old Co-op on the market. I also brought my first ever record in Market Rasen, 7i-nch plastic vinyl, can people still remember them? No cd's or i pods in them days. Yes that was a special childhood for us and some good memories that will never leave me. Or Mrs Banks cooking her bacon and eggs and boiling the kettle over the fire, my nan's friend.

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