Memories of a 1960’s Childhood – Part 1 The Shop

Memories of a 1960’s Childhood – Part 2 Life With Grandma

My parents business gave them little freedom, in those days we still had a half closing day, so on a Thursday afternoon the shop closed at 12.30pm and reopened to sell the evening newspapers at 4pm. Sunday mornings were surprisingly busy with coach loads of men heading out for a day of fishing crowding into the shop to stock up on sweets, cigarettes, newspapers and magazines. By the time the shop closed it was almost lunch time and my parents had already done the equivalent of a full days work. We would sit on the stairs and enjoy a milky coffee together before re stocking the shelves with sweets and cigarettes ready for the following morning, only then could we turn our back on the shop and escape for the afternoon.

Summer Sunday afternoons were spent at our cottage about thirty miles away in the north of the county. The car would be packed with food and toys and all the essentials for an enjoyable afternoon. We listened to the radio in the car, Jimmy Clithero was a great favourite of mine and his series The Clithero Kid was often on as we travelled. I still recall the whooshing noise of passing cars as we travelled along with the car windows open. The journey of about an hour took us through Kettering and out towards Corby past the huge cranes and the quarries that scarred the landscape, until we reached the village of Weldon. It was our routine to stop at a little shop there to buy an ice cream and I was allowed to buy some penny sweets, my parents didn’t sell such things and to me they were a great treat. The last part of our journey took us into a pretty rural world completely different from our everyday surroundings and I loved it. The bumpy farm track led us through a field of cattle, they surrounded the car and followed us lazily across the field to the cattle grid at the top, and then we drove away from the cattle along a lane bordered by the forest on one side and on the other a field sown variously with wheat, barley or fodder crops. The lane turned at the next cattle grid and led us past the farm house and on down the hill and up again towards the cottage and freedom.