Deviations took place en route; there were all sorts of things to investigate like a piece of waste ground at the side of the railway, and all sorts of treasures for small boys were discovered. On the corner of Coleman Road was another piece of waste ground; at the corner was a chemists which later became “Adwills” who sold toys and cycles, and many times we stood and gazed in awe at the array of goods that were interesting, but beyond our meagre means. Diversions were also made along Saltersford Road to its end Where it became a black pad that turned at rightangles and ran parallel with the park up to Uppingham Road. Along that stretch there were one or two permanent jerry built brick huts in which lived two or three people, usually with a large fierce dog—if not fierce at least noisy—and we were well aware that the grey haired old lady who muttered to herself was a witch as she seemed to dislike all children and we thought that the old man was married to the large dog as they seemed absolutely inseparable. If we got too close the dog would growl menacingly to keep us off while the man completely ignored us no matter what we said or did. The piece of pad that was the continuation of Saltersford Road ran alongside a brook that eventually went through the park. This was also a big attraction. The other route from school was by The Martival and over The Litelmede hill and down to the Portwey, but this was ruled by a rival set of children and you went through on sufferance.
One of the first things that had an impression on a young mind when moving into the Portwey was the felling of a large tree that stood at the top of our garden. It was felled to fall in a straight down the line of our back garden. It lay there for a few weeks and was the joy of every child in the neighbourhoood, acting as a climbing frame.
Between our house—the last in the Portwey—and the end of Overton Road was a large area of ground that had once been fields. When we first moved there they were still being cultivated; these were mainly meadows with a horse on it, we never discovered who the horse belonged to but it grazed there regularly for two or three years. We played regularly on this area; hide and seek was easy with the long grass because as soon as you laid down you disappeared, so most hide and seek finished by being abandoned as impossible to find. Needless to say we played on our part of the fields as the other side of the brook that ran across it was the territory of the Overton Road Children. When the portwey was continued through to Tailby Avenue, the ring road that was to be, the stream was culverted through a large diameter pipe, and I think that the outlet was into the willowbrrook and on into the Soar. At certain times there were forays into each others’ areas, usually by the group that had numerical superiority at the time. Many of the imaginative games we played were based on the first world war experiences that we had heard recounted. Trenches were dug and dugouts and forts made with loopholes for observing the enemy who endeavoured to raid and steal your construction materials. The area between the Portwey and Overton Road was no man’s land. Ammunition was stored in the fort, usually stones and clods of earth.
The cinema also had an enormous influence, and up to the age of about 10 or 11 Saturday afterrnoon was always spent at the pictures. If one missed a week you missed an instalment of the serial which was an integral part of the programme. The ideas for play and adventures were greatly influenced by our superficial knowledge of “the War” or our imagined life of cowboys in the cinema. Thinking back on those days it is easy to see how we were influenced by our parents and their accounts and discussions, and excitement was provided by the escapism from the tedium and worry of employment.
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