MEMORIES! I often wonder how true they are? Perhaps, as we get older, we temper them and make them how we like to think things were.

Looking back, it all seems so easy, so simple. We were always happy and carefree.

We went to work, got a wage and spent it.

I don’t recall saving for the future being a big issue. Surely that was what the old age pension, and families, were there for? I have nothing but fondness for years spent growing up in a multi-aged family — mum, dad, grandma Womack, Uncle John, who was a temporary, and my brothers Alfred and Tom.

Come to think of it, it was not bad going for a two-up and two-down!

One thing, we were never short of company — then a miracle happened.

My dad got promoted and we could afford a bigger house, so we moved up to Green Lane — where, could you believe it, we had a coal house.

Yes! An actual room just for coal — and a garden.

Suddenly all our dreams had come true. We were ‘up there’ with the elite because, at that time, it was where the Rovers were housing one or two of their players, though I can’t remember their names, but I know my mum used to drop them into conversation as often as she could. Our other neighbours had jobs that were not connected to the paper mills.

They were commercial travellers and the like, which we thought rather posh, as they went to work carrying a briefcase, not a bait box, which was what my dad always took with him to work.

I made up the tea screws, a spoonful of tea, two large teaspoons of sugar and a huge dollop of condensed milk, and his sandwiches and then, if he’d been good, my mum would add a large slice of ‘sad cake’, his favourite.

Oh yes! They were simple days. Come home from school, grab a jam butty and out to play till my dad appeared at the door calling ‘You, in now!’ and there was no gainsaying that!