Fwiends, Womans and countwymen...Part 2
The Tinsley Viaduct. The M1 runs on the top deck the lower deck carries a local link between Tinsley and Blackburn, both industrial areas of Sheffield and Rotherham respectively. This photo looks to be ten or fifteen years after the building of the road. The white car is heading towards the traffic Island that was where my home stood!
In the previous episode I mentioned that I lost contact with Russell, my first real friend, due to the M1. We moved from Blackburn to another area of Rotherham, a council estate that was still being built in 1965 called the Wingfield Estate which borders a lovely village called Greaseborough. Now Greaseborough is a part of a massive privately owned manorial estate called Wentworth which is absolutely stunning.
Greasborough Dam, Part of the Wentworth Estate.
I was sent to a little Victorian primary school, Greaseborough Infants, and was placed in the aptly named Mrs Grundy's class. Mrs Grundy was as Victorian in her educational attitudes as the building was and she terrified me so much that I would wet myself rather than draw her wrath down on me. My parents spoke to her about this and afterwards she seemed much more concerned about me but the damage was already done and I was still scared of her.
The light in my darkness at school was blonde, very pretty and with an easy smile that made you feel safe. She was my first girl friend and I was smitten. She would always pair up with me to go into lunch, holding my hand tightly as if she didn't want to lose me. Susan Baker was her name and she burns so brightly in my memory that I can only remember her and her antithesis, Mrs Grundy, from school. I know, from later experience, that there were two boys at Greaseborough Infants that I should have known but cannot remember because of the supernova that is Susan Baker. We only stayed on the Wingfield Estate for about a year and moved into Sheffield but I will always remember the Dark and Light from that school although they will have forgotten me days after my leaving.
Outside of school I had another good friend in Gary Morgan. His father and my father worked together at Arthur Lee and Sons Ltd. Arthur Lees was noticeable throughout my life as it had a huge blue building with the name on it's frontage in vast white letters, situated between the two railway bridges that separated Wincobank from Blackburn and, effectively Sheffield from Rotherham. The whole family on my mother's side spent Friday evenings and Sunday lunches at Wincobank & Blackburn Working Men's Club, my Grandparents, a Great-uncle and Aunt, their son and his family, and my uncle Frank and his scary wife Cath. Other families would join us, the adults playing cribbage and the kids doing whatever kids do.
Gary Morgan's family and mine socialised so Gary and I roamed the estate, firm friends. The estate was still being built and Gary and I would dig tunnels in the piles of builders sand for our toy cars. His Grandfather is worth mentioning here. Old Walt Morgan was a dapper gent always in a pale suit and crisply ironed shirt and tie. He was very slender with a pencil moustache and round horn-rimmed spectacles which gave him an owlish appearance. He was an acquaintance of my Grandfather's, always swapping dirty jokes in the club. He would also get hilariously rolling drunk and do ridiculous things. One evening in the seventies, as everyone was leaving the club, Walt noticed the weighing scales which had been in the foyer ever since I could remember. He stood on the platform took a two pence piece out of his pocket and put it in the slot. He squinted, myopically at the huge dial, unzipped his fly and pissed all over it! This got him barred, not for the first time!
When we moved away from the Wingfield Estate to a council house in Shiregreen, Sheffield, I didn't know that it would herald in one of the happiest times of my childhood. I heard, about 9 years later that Gary had been involved in a fireworks accident and doctors were "fighting to save his sight" and was relived to here that they had!
I was still only 6 years old. 6 year old boys have to be very resilient!
More to follow when the circle of friends expands!
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Fwiends, Womans and countwymen...Part 2
Intewesting blog Twoggi.
Posted 9th August 2013 at 12:26 PM by Demdike@Cult Labs
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Why thank 'ee koind zurr! (Ah'm gunna practise a Cornish accent just t' chuck people off o' t' scent!)Posted 9th August 2013 at 08:30 PM by troggi 
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