Best Drop

A Memory of Newburn.

It was about 1953. Saturday afternoon was a great day down at the Imperial picture house in Newburn. Roy Rogers and Trigger, Gene Autry with his guitar and six guns, Flash Gorden with his ray gun, Batman and his cape. I remember an older lad than us called Wee Wee Reed, he had bright ginger hair, anyway Batman had been on and when we came out Wee Wee put his black Burberie mack, tied the sleeves around his neck and ran down to the station railway bridge with all us in his trail, he stood up on the top girder and jumped, shouting "ME BATMAN", hit the waiting room hut and broke his legs. Johnny Weissmuller played Tarzan then and I joined his fan club, I used to get a birthday card from him every year and the only reason they stopped was cos a moved away and a was 17 by then. Good auld Johnny yi never forgot me.We would come out and walk up Hareside path past the graveyard, a no no on dark nights as there was only one gas lamp half way up on a bend and it was off more than on. Anyway on the clay field there was a steep grassy bank where one would have a stick as a pretendie gun and we would run towards him and he would pick us off with his rifle, we would fall and roll down the bank, some of the falls we did would put some stunt men to shame. On the same grassy bank we would go to the back of the shop and get a cardboard box, lay it flat at the top of the hill, sit on it, hold the front as if on a magic carpet and with a little push we were away as quick as a sledge on ice. This brings me to my sledge, me Da got it made at Blucher pit where he worked as a Fitter, a joiner made the top and a blacksmith made the irons. "Bye it cud gan". I even had me initials burned into the wood. I think the most I got on it at one time would be about ten, piled one on top of the other, and off we would go from the top of the bank on the clay field straight over Millfield Lane, down the bank and finish up at the bottom of Dene View where me pal Alfie lived. We could play games in the street then as cars were very rare. One game we played was British Bulldog, one person standing alone in the middle of the lane was the Bulldog then six, seven, or eight of us would rush past him and he had to catch one. Then there were two to get past and so on, and so on, until everyone was caught, then the last man had to be the Bulldog. We also played Monty Kitty Finger or Thumb, two sides of as many people as you like, one side would be bent over. The first lad would stand against the wall, then each with arched back would put their head between the person in front's legs, thus forming a chain, then the other side would run and jump on their backs trying to collapse the chain. If it didn't collapse then the man against the wall would say "Monty kitty, monty kitty finger or thumb", holding out which digit it was and the bent-over guys would have to guess right, lots of fiddling went on then. Poison Finger could be played with boys or girls or mixed even, one person would hold out their fingers and everybody there would hold a finger each, obviously not more than ten in this game. The person holding out fingers would say "A bottle offffff..." (anything beginning with P), they stretched the word 'p' so you never knew what was coming, and by, there were some swear words, anyway when the word "poison" came out, if you were not quick enough your hand would be caught and you would be out of the game, which would then go on and on until everyone was caught. It got a bit boring if you were the first one caught. Another game was Truth, Dare, Will, Force, or Promise. This would normally be played in some one's house on weekends when the parents were down the club. A group of lads and lasses would sit in a circle and each had a turn at asking the fore-mentioned words. When it was your turn you could ask somebody to do a task from one of these i.e "I dare you to kiss Marlene Carter in the kitchen". Off the two of you went into the kitchen, did the task and came back, with lots of sniggering. Or "I force you to do something" and if you didn't do the task you had to remove an item of clothing. I can't remember how many times I kissed Alfie Nelson, but an item of clothing came off when I was asked to kiss Kip Bingham.

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