Auld Millfield

A Memory of Newburn.

I was another Auld Millfielder, times were hard and nobody was well off but it was a happy place to grow up. I remember as a kid everyone under 18 playing cricket on the 'square' at the top of Millfield Crescent and using dustbin lids for wickets and a tennis ball, no one owned a cricket ball or stumps, and playing football all day from morning till it was too dark to see, on the flat bit at the top of the clay field. There was a big but not too deep sandy hole in the clay field where we would dig tunnels through the clay, kids wouldn't do it now, and it was daft and dangerous then, but no one seemed to care as long as your parents didn't find out! I remember having to feed my dad's hens every day after school (Newburn Manor) and having to rake out the cree, and worst of all, it was my job to go to Walter Wilson's at Newburn and get two stone of corn and carry it all the way back home, that was a heavy load for a little lad. It's a fact that nearly all the tradesmen who came selling in Millfield seemed to have a horse and cart, but I remember the fish man who came once a week in a little green van, he'd open the back doors to display his wares and cry out at the top of his voice "Come on ladies - fish cakes and dirty stories!". There was always a huddle of women round the back of that van! I also remember how people in those days kept linnets and finches in cages and would hang the cage on the back door in the sunlight so the birds would sing. Great times and not a care in the world!

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