Advent Diary, day 21 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (2nd of 3)

"I got me christening card and me bible and all that. I was  five when I was christenend. I had three or four behind me, following me like, a little baby and I think there was three others between me and the baby, we was all christened together. It didn’t make  me cry; they dinna pick me up either, they put some water on me forehead.

O aye, there used to be a lot of us there on a Sunday morning at Sunday School, that’s the only time we ever got dressed up. When we got home mother said take all them clean clothes off, put the dirty ones on, go out and play now.  I had a little pillover, mother had knitted, short sleeves like, I think I was about five year when I first had it. I give it up when I was about ten. I used to pull it down, but I grew out of it like, over five years.

Mother’d knit a sleeveless pillover in a night. Knit the back, do the front, then sew it all up. Her was quick, never looked at it like, the needles was going but you never see her look at it. We used to hold the wool out and roll it all up for her.

We made a fair few carpets too. We used to cut the cloth to a certain length then you’d pull it through the mat. We did a hell of a lot of them for mother. My eldest sister went to Bridgenorth when her first left school. Her went to a carpet factory and her used to bring these offcut carpets and the wool like and we used to do it all with wool like, and patterns too; used to keep us busy at night. No telly then.  One’d be doing one pattern, the other’d be doing another. 

Could be about eight of us living at home at one time; three in a bed; me older brother and me younger brother. But he had more sense because he used to sleep in the middle and come winter time he used to pull the blankets and there’d be none on your side and the other brother used to sleep against the wall, so he could never lose his like, and I’d be on the outside and I’d be the one with nothing on me. We’d be tugging away there. trying to get covered.

We went to Felindre  once and we stopped the night at me mum’s mother. She was in bed like, her was getting on,  her couldn’t get out of bed like and her’d have this stick and her’d be banging on the floor like and we’d be down below, listening. Her was just like a witch. The bedroom was all one big room with curtains like,  and we stopped this night and there was eight of us in one bed, and her was there round the corner, grumbling and mumbling like, just like a bloody witch.

Me dad went with his brother in law fishing, salmon fishing like, and they didn’t get caught. Next morning, early light, we get back to Weston, that’s down the dale; we went to school at Compton. Of course, when we got home, we missed the bloody bus. The bus used to take us about two and a half  miles and then we used to have to walk about another mile to school. So we all had to walk down the road to school like; you had to, you couldn’t stay at home like because you'd missed the bus. We all walked together and we got to school.

We had to walk another mile when the bus dropped us off, there was a happle tree on the right hand side; of course, being kids, we used to pick up sticks and chuck them in the tree like to get the apples to fall and catch ‘em, and if it had been a windy night you’d go the next morning and there’d be umpteen sticks in the road, all the sticks that had got stuck in the tree. Same as the conker tree it was; we were always there chucking our sticks up to get the conkers down. In the village we had a big hole in the hedge and there was a horchard off the road. Mrs. Dollor owned it and us kids, we dared one another to go, you know, go on, get through the hole, and get some apples like. I mean if we’d a gone and ast her, her’d have given us some apples. But it was just for the dare like, we had to dare ourselves like. We were right buggers for pinching."

final instalment tomorrow.