What a great site this is for walking down memory lane, and when you do so, you just know that your doing it with all your old friends.

I lived in Philip Lane until I was 16, then Mum, Dad, John. and myself ( Alan ) moved into 73 Summerhill.  My Nan and Granddad, Mr & Mrs Lloyd lived at No.67, so naturally my childhood day’s were spent playing in Summerhill.

My first memories are of hiding under the dinner table when the air raid siren went off, or running next door to No.65 to take cover in the Bomb shelter, it was either Mrs Moore, or Mr & Mrs Patterson who lived there at the time. Mrs Moore was my Nans Mother.

I remember my Nan having a Paraffin heater which was about three feet tall with a grill and lever on top for opening and closing the grill , open it for boiling a kettle, close it for warming the room, we used to get the paraffin from Kirby’s across the road, Nan had an outside toilet ( chilly in winter ) and a fixed bath in the kitchen with a wooden cover which became the work surface or kitchen table.

“ The games we used to play “, all mentioned elsewhere on this site, Jimmy Jimmy Knacker being the roughest I think, but did any one get hurt ? No !, well not seriously anyway. The game was mostly for the boy’s, but of course the girls would want to join in which made it all the better because the more you had the better the game. The girls would also play skipping with the rope stretched right across the road, no chance of that nowadays.

The Piggery front yard was always the meeting place for us all, and mostly the playing area, can you imagine the noise we used to make, and yet we hardly ever got told off for being too noisy ( what good kids we were ).

Doug Minter and I used to play Gobs or flicking cigarette cards on his front porch, he had the best collection of cards that I had ever seen, has he still got them I wonder.

Jimmy Hasler of Clyde road was my best friend ( as we used to say ) and we would always be together Playing and occasionally we would forget the time. So my Mum or Dad would come walking down Summerhill calling for me to come home for tea, and I would say "uh oh I’m for it ,I’m late," but it was never to bad.  I never had too many evenings of being grounded, that was the trouble with Summerhill, It was just so much fun.

Then we got older and girls started to become interesting to us , Jim and I started going out with a couple of girls from the road, and many a time we would go to Downhill's Park for a kiss and cuddle, I wonder if the girls remember, better not mention any names, how are you girls, still gorgeous, course you are.

Phyllis Martin was nearly always with us, by then we had bikes and when we got to the park we would lean them together, take off our coats and drape them over the bikes as best we could to make a tent.

I now live in Kent and Jim Hasler lives in Australia. I remember many of the names listed on this site as children. Best wishes to you all.

Alan Travis - August 2004

Ernest Travis, the Uncle of Alan, was a serving soldier in WW2 who was captured and detained as a POW. He was later to escape and a Czechoslovakian family helped him hide.