THE word boredom never entered into his vocabulary when George McNicholas was a lad. That's why he's now inclined to get a bit tetchy when one or other of his nine grandkids complains about having nothing to do.

His stock response to that is: "How on earth can you be bored? There's lots to watch on telly, you've a music centre and plenty of videos, and there's a park and three playing fields just across the road". It's a scenario familiar to countless parents and grandparents in these materialistic modern times.

Writing with his own personal slant on contrasting kiddy attitudes (now and during his own boyhood) George, from Crawford Street, Clock Face, adds: "Although not really enthusiastic, one of my grandsons took my advice recently. He picked up his ball and went on the Rec to play football, leaving me pondering on what I used to do back in the 1940s and 50s when I might have felt bored".

And then it struck him. "I searched my memory but couldn't ever remember being bored. In fact, I don't remember the word bored being in the dictionary back then".

Born in Broad Oak Road, Parr, in 1939, George was his parents' seventh child. Dad was a regular soldier, and after he went into military action, as one of the first to be drafted overseas, George never saw him until he was six years of age. "My mum worked in the Boardmans Lane timber yard struggling to keep us fed and clothed during the war".

But their circumstances were little different from any of their Parr neighbours. "All they had were kids, and loads of ideas to keep us all happy. Parents taught us all sorts of street games, joining in at skilly, tick, hide-and-seek, racing, top-and-whip, cowboys and indians and trundle racing.

"There was also work to be done and coppers to be earned", adds George, who contributed in numerous ways. He ran errands for a "wonderful old lady", Mrs Leyland.

Then it was off to the local 'stick ranch', chopping and bundling firewood for a colliery-crippled ex-miner named Ted Storey. Saturdays were spent on the firewood round, and Mr Storey wouldn't return home until he had sold the lot. They went as far afield as Warrington selling sticks door to door.

George used to compete with the firewood dealer's daughter, Rita, to see who could wire-tie kindling wood the fastest. "She was like greased lightning and I don't believe I ever won!" Apart, that is, from the few occasions when Rita eased up, on her parents' prompting, to let George win as a morale-booster.

"Whichever, I have a lot to thank the Storey family for. And the money earned used to pay for a visit to the Parr Dog (Parrvilion) picture house". The rest of his coppers were donated to his mum's tight family budget.

And George vividly revives a special memory for all upper-age readers who may recall the sheer absurdity of a ventriloquist's doll being the star of a hit radio show, 'Educating Archie'. The Archie Andrews doll was used to promote a brand of ice-lollies which had special wrappers featuring the dummy. "If you sent off 12 of these, you got an Archie Andrews badge".

The challenge proved irresistible to little George. "I went to Mrs Rimmer's wooden-hut shop at Parr, bought a dozen lollies, ate the lot and sent off the wrappers. I was sick for three days after that, but you can't imagine my sheer joy when that badge arrived. Mrs Rimmer's sister, Alice, now in her late 70s and still living in Parr, never fails to remind me of this episode whenever we meet". George certainly had a busy schedule during his short-trousered days. He delivered papers for Mr Rogers of the Derbyshire Hill post office; and with his brothers used to plod off to Sherdley gasworks to bring back coke, loaded into their rickety barrows, old prams and and home-made trollies.

"Sometimes, on Saturdays, we would go to St Helens market to watch the 'Cheap Jacks'; and if anyone wanted a roll of oilcloth delivering we'd carry it home for them for the reward of a tip".

But it wasn't all work and no play. "We'd time to go swimming in the Parr flash, climbing trees in Pigots Wood and scrumping apples".

Then, as they passed into teenage, the old gang attended the 'tanner hop' at Haydock English Martyrs' parish hall. "If we had the temerity to talk to the girls outside, the priest would come out and chase us back in again before chastising Mr Murphy, the doorman, for allowing us out. He was such a nice man, and would just stand there and take it".

George's two favourite personalities from days when larger-than-life characters abounded were Ike Billinge and Manse Palfrey, two contrasting types.

Ike was a miner at the Lyme Pit, which stood on the Haydock-Earlestown border. And on Sundays he frequented the Oddfellows Hall in Broad Oak Road. When well oiled, he'd sing all the way home, with the local kids trailing behind him and joining in the chorus. "He'd then hand out pennies. All the kids admired him".

Manse Palfrey was a different case altogether. He had a short fuse and flying fists. "Every Sunday, after playing pitch-and-toss (a gambling game with pennies skimmed at a mark on the ground, then flipped into the air to sort out the heads from the tails) he would end up having a fight. "Whether he won or lost, he always put on a good show for us kids on the hills". These vantage points were raised mounds of earth on open land where the gambling games took place, away from the prying eye of the local bobby.

But those fights were nowhere near as vicious as today's acts of thuggery. "If a battler put up his hand and gave in, then that was an end to it. Not another blow was landed".

George flicks back to the end of the 1939-45 war when street parties and parades marked those happy times. "I was a member of Parr Juvenile Jazz Band and one of our most enjoyable events was the Labour Party parade". Canvassing was then done in style. People didn't just open the door and nod or shake their heads when a candidate arrived on the doorstep. "They got out on to the street and participated. We had people who dressed up as acrobats, jugglers, clowns and cowboys, all joining in the big parade".

That era also marked a big turning point for the womenfolk. They had tackled men's work for five or six years (while husbands, sons and sweethearts were at war) and at last realised they were no longer domestic underdogs. When the men came home again, they found wives who were no longer meek little doormats, but strong and dominant in the household. They soon realised that it wasn't just the men who had fought a war".

And George, in summing up, finishes off on a philosophical note. "I really feel sorry for the young of today. In reality, we have given them very little, apart from trying to buy them a happy life". And material things could never replace parental involvement and attention.

"Life is so short", he declares, "that every minute should be properly used, and boredom totally banned".

WELL, I'll vote for that, George, owd pal!