IT’S snowing and I am recalling the time, years ago – I think it was 1948 – when the weather was so bad the buses stopped running, and everything came to a standstill.

Everyone was struggling to get to school, or to work, and the deliveries of letters, and goods, to the outlying areas was non-existent.

All the girls and older ladies were wearing Russian boots which, if you didn’t wear stockings, left black marks on the back of your legs.

I had just started work at Mullard’s and getting there was a ‘two-bus’ problem. I had to run down to Cherry Tree terminal for the bus, then race across the Boulevard for one of the Mullard’s specials.

It was not much fun at 7.30 in the morning, but everyone was cheerful and, if you listened carefully, you might be lucky enough to hear what your friend was saying over the coughing smokers.

At that time ‘fags’ were a currency.

I didn’t smoke, but I always pretended that I did, and when offered a ‘ciggy’ I would take it and say ‘Ooh thanks, but if you don’t mind I’ll smoke it later, and then I would swap it for a piece of toast, or a cake, at break time.

Later on, when I had met John, I would give cigarettes to him, Ah! The things one will do for love.

I remember asking a bloke who worked with me why he always wheeled his bike out of the gates, instead of riding it.

He said he didn’t want to break the long neon light he was nicking, as he had craftily fastened it across from the handle bars to the seat, so that the lady’s bike he was riding looked like a man’s bike.

I never walked out of the gates with him again.

They were happy days at Mullard’s.

We had a health centre and a concert party, and there was good food in a great canteen, which was really a huge, but very nice, dining hall with a proper stage, where Workers Playtime concerts entertained us while we lunched with our friends. What could be better?