Night Watchman

A Memory of Rawmarsh.

Does anyone recall Teddy Barlow, the night watchman who used to sit in his little sentry box in front of his brazier of burning coke, situated on Harding Ave, Monkswood, and who patrolled Harding Avenue and Haugh Avenue etc, new house building sites? Someone made a ditty about it which went: 'Teddy Barlow, Teddy Barlow sells fish. three-halfpence a dish, don't buy it, don't buy it, it stinks when you fry it'. I recall the many chestnuts that I ate, which had been roasted on his shovel on top of the brazier and the sips of hot cocoa from his tin mug.
Then there was the 'rec'(the playing field), now built on, which was situated below Shaw's farm, from where we used to watch the old steam threshing machine threshing the corn next to the Dutch barn on the farm, with the rats running out of the sheaves thick and fast, with farm dogs hot on their heels. This field is where we all played football, cricket, flew home-made kites and threw home-made arrows with a piece of string as a sling shot (Boy, did they go). My father never did find his pea sticks. ha ha.
Teenagers today have a lot more than we ever had, ie computers, MP3s, gaming consols etc, and they still say they are bored. I would not change my childhood/teenager days for any of theirs as I am one of many who enjoyed my younger days in Rawmarsh.

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