Oh Happy Days

A Memory of The Four Alls.

My father worked for a nearby farm, I know the owner was called "Dunne". My father worked two Shire horses, Blacky and Bonnie, side by side for over 12 years. I spent my childhood sitting on their backs, truly gentle giants. Gathering in the harvest would be long days, but we would all walk to the Four Alls in the evening and I used to walk Blacky and Bonnie there, there was a little lane alongside the pub called Sandy Lane, and my father used to bring some drink out to us and the horses loved it. I still have the original brasses that I used to polish all them years ago. Birds-nesting, fishing, rabbitting, you couldn't put a price on my childhood, to say it was happy would be a massive understatement. I feel for the kids today, we were never indoors. I also remember that the lady who ran the pub was called Fanny and she went down to the cellar and came up with a large jug of ale, I assume there was no pumps then. My parents were always poor, but the childhood they gave me and my brothers was priceless. Does anyone remember the little shop nearby, it was near the handpump we used to get water from, a lady used to own it, I can still remember taking an empty bottle there and for a penny she would make fizzy pop.

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