When I was about 4, we moved to a house in town which was nearer to work for Dad. This was number 10 Shelton Avenue, in Newark.
This is how the house looks now, but it hasn’t changed much. There’s quite a few pictures from the time that I can add.
I used to play outside a lot, either in the back garden or in the street, with my friend George Wrigley. I had a tractor and trailer that I used so much, I wore the plastic wheels through! I also had a pedal go-kart. And of course the swing.
When it came to starting school, I went to Victoria Street infants school, along with some others that would be with me for a lot of my school days, though we got there by different routes. I remember learning to count, using plastic stacking blocks. I remember learning to read, using the “Janet & John” books, and Ladybird’s “Peter and Jane” books. I remember learning to add up in “old money”, pounds shillings and pence. There were 12 pennies (pence) to a shilling, and 20 shillings to a pound. That made for some interesting “carrying”! There were no calculators in those days. It was like Hundreds, Tens and Units, but harder! That’s why we learned our times tables up to 12 in those days. We just sat and learned them by repetition.
When I was about 7, we moved house again, to 67 Riverside Road. This was a brand new house, the only one my parents ever bought.
This picture was taken in 2022, but again it hasn’t changed much (that porch wasn’t there though). I’m sure that’s the same garage my dad built. My room was the small one over the front door, and it had a cupboard that went over the stairs. There was a frosted glass window between the living room at the front, and the dining room at the back, and a peninsular with a bridging cupboard over it between the small kitchen and the dining room. We had a rockery round the back, and I remember trying to carve a rabbit out of one of the pieces of gypsum dad brought home for it! I think we had a small pond too, with a waterfall. I had an old bike that I used to ride round the estate roads which were fairly quiet.
Around the same time I moved to Hawtonville Junior School in Newark. My class teacher was called Miss Tipler, I know she was very old because she had taught my Mum! I think somewhere I still have an old exercise book from those days! I used to walk home with my school friends Sally Crofts, Julie Lamb, Nick Targontsides, and Andy Marriott.
One of my main memories from that school was the Moon Landing in 1969. They took us all into the school hall and sat us in front of the big TV. (It was big because it was on a high stand, but in 1969 it was black & white, and a tiny picture by modern standards, probably about 26 inches.) However this was before anyone realised I needed glasses! So all I could see was a grey blur.
In 1970, we moved house again, to 11 Hopyard Lane, Bathley, a small village. It was a bungalow, with a big back garden which backed onto a field of huge Charolais cows! I used to play in the garden, I remember getting a leather football one Christmas – when that got wet, it was like kicking a medicine ball! I also used to build show-jumping courses for my spacehopper, going higher and higher, and racing against the clock!
I know I helped my parents in the garden, they used to grow a lot of vegetables. Before deep freezers became common, they would preserve runner beans in sweet jars packed with salt. And fruit and tomatoes in Kilner jars. Round the front they grew roses and other flowers, including flag irises, and a rockery behind the fishpond. We often used to get frogspawn in the fishpond, so I would collect tadpoles in a jar!
Moving to this house meant changing schools again, away from all my friends. I went to Muskham Primary School, which is now one of the best in the area, but was quite ordinary then. My class teacher was Mrs Stevenson, who had a big effect on my education.
I got a new bike, a Raleigh Concorde (though I really wanted a Chopper!), which I used to ride the one mile to school, along a country lane. Most of the village children would ride together, including Paul Franklin, Daniel Beresford, and my neighbour Wendy Maddocks. This route included a railway level crossing (with gates back then!) and the busy A1 roundabout! I was 9 years old…