Smudger Snippets: Thinking
Created | Updated Oct 25, 2009
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Thinking
I was sitting watching our grandkids playing in our back garden the other day, and I was thinking just what sort of world they will grow up in? One thing for sure is, it will be a lot different to the one folk of my age group did. There have been many changes during my lifetime to date and technology has come a long way. For instance, we have seen the birth and the demise of video which went from large plastic cassettes to small DVD disc to small SD Cards. Then the same thing happened music, from vinyl records to eight tracks, then cassettes to CD discs, and now on tiny Mp3 and iPod players. It was all a bit frustrating really, for as soon as we got the hang of one system, the next one to replace it would come along, and we would have to start all over again. And just to make things worse, our children would come along and set the video to record a program for us, in a fraction of the time we spent reading and trying to follow the instructions.
I was not too bad at setting the video as I was working away from home a lot and living by myself in a flat, and had to set the video to record my favourite programs while I was at work. I used to do shift work, or twelve hour shifts day or night at that time, so relaxing with a can of beer and a good film or favourite TV program was a treat for me.
I was watching our grandkids playing shop, and it brought back memories of when I was young, and my parents ran a shop along with a café. My first job in life at the age of four was to sit on our front step and shout shop every time someone passed me going in and stood at the shop counter, then my parents would know there was a customer waiting. At that time I had blonde curly hair, it was so curly that all the women heading for the shops at the top of our street would rub my hair as they passed.
I remember they all wore hats or head squares and carried those small straw woven baskets to carry their shopping. The only men I remember seeing were the workmen who used to come to the café for their meals at dinner time. I never saw any more during daytime as they were all probably at work, as there was full employment in those days.
I used to be sent up to the butcher or grocer's shops with whatever my parents wanted written on a piece of paper, as I sometimes got things mixed up, and came back with the opposite of what they wanted. It was quite normal for them to phone my parents up to check if I had got it right. They had one of those old wooden hand crank phones.
The grocer's shop was right next to the butcher's and I had to pass it in order to get to the butchers. In the summer the door was held open with one of those old black irons that you had to put on the fire to heat it before using. It was really heavy as well, or maybe it’s just because I was so small and couldn’t lift it. With the door being open, that lovely smell of freshly ground coffee would waft out and meet you as you passed. When I looked in, I could see the old hand cranked coffee grinder sitting on the bare wooden floor boards. It had a large red iron wheel which had a wooden handle, and I can still see that grocer in my mind today, standing there cranking that handle and whistling his favourite tunes. I remember he was always cheery and made you feel at ease.
He had a small bentwood chair near the counter, which the older customers used to sit on while waiting their turn in the queue: no one was in a hurry and they would chat away while waiting. Right next door was the butcher’s shop, which used to have one of those curtains made up of strips of plastic, which I used to hold onto and run through my hands when I went inside.
There was sawdust on the floor, and hanging behind the counter on a large steel rail were sides of beef and bacon, which he used to take down and cut into slices using the hand cranked slicer. To the right was a small office where the old lady bookkeeper would write my order into a log, as my parents had an account with them, so we never paid by cash. The only part of this lady I could see was the top of her head and her eyes, as I was so small, yet she always leaned forward to say goodbye and smiled to me when I walked out carrying a large parcel of meat. They were the only two shops I was allowed to go to at that time, as I was only four years old, and my parents wouldn’t allow me to go any further away.
Not that there was any threat, as back then things were so different, kids could play safely out on the streets. In fact we used to be playing outside right up until it got dark. The only danger we faced was being run over by one of the many men that came out of one the pubs on our street. They all used to cycle to the pub, as at that time only the rich could afford to own a car.
It always amazed us how they knew which bike was theirs, as there were so many of them leaned up against the museum across the road from the pubs. In fact you can still see the grooves in the stone that were left by the handlebars to this day. To tell the truth, we used to go up and swap them around, and then watch when they came out, to see if they could find the correct bike.
The pubs in those days the pubs closed at half past nine in the evening, and then this army of men, all dressed in a uniform of long rain coats and caps, would come out and stagger as they tried to put on their cycle clips to stop their trousers being caught in the chain.
Apart from the farm workers, as they always had string tied at the ankles, to stop rats running up their legs.
It was so far away from today, a time that is now long passed, where we never heard the words 'terrorist' or 'paedophile' or 'junkies'. We never even knew what a hypodermic was, not like when our grandson came to me with one and asked me what it was!
I found it very depressing having to sit down with him and explain what it was and what it was used for, and telling him never to pick one up again, and to go get an adult to where he found it. Yeah, it was sad really, or maybe it’s just me living in the past again, a place where I felt safe, when we all had nothing, or would share it if we had.
