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A year in the life of...
Mick Tarts Year
9/9/10 - Micks Year
Boy Hood Memories
I find as I get older and I have a moment or so to myself my mind goes back
to the days when I was growing up in Norwich. Norwich is where I was born
and lived, and worked until I moved to Gigha with my wife in 1988. This
was more so when I was looking at a book sent to me called pictures off
Norwich past. So let me tell you of the characters that we came across,
and the things we boys got up too.
The period I remember best is just after the war, when my dad was back home
after being away for five years. We had a fruit and veg merchant come to
our road, with his horse and cart full of the best fruit and veg, I always
loved the Robin pears, what happened to Robin Pears? a big bag for 6 pence
old money. This man was known as spud arrey, his name was Harry really but
the Norfolk dialect shorten this to arrey, we always knew when he was about
as his call was, come on you gals get your spuds ear, he also dropped his
Hss. I suppose by gals he meant my mother and all the other mothers. I remember
also when the first ice cream vender came around just after the war, this
was a brightly painted cart pulled by a very small pony, at that time there
was no such thing as wafer or cone biscuits so you got a dollop of ice cream
on a piece of grease proof paper, or you took your own dish. There was also
the fish merchant, Billy Anderson he had a small van which he sold his fish
from. Again I loved his call which was, pinter rumper rip, for years we
did not know what he meant by this call until later we fathomed out what
he meant, which was, Pint a Pink Shrimp, you may ask why a pint, well in
those days the shrimp was measured in a pint beer mug. Weights and measures
would have a fit now. Before moving on, and staying with horse power, I
must just mention the local brewery who had two lovely shire horses that
would deliver the beer to the local pubs, I can see them now, decked out
in their best tackle and the men who drove the dray, each horse had its
name on a brass plate, ours were John and Michael.
The Theatre De- Lux was our favoured picture house; this was better known
as the Ranch House because it showed nothing but westerns, with the occasional
Flash Gordon thrown in. The commissioner was a big man, well they were all
big to us boys, but this one was big, and he came from Glasgow. As we went
to buy our tickets he would always say to us, now boys remember, one toot
and you’re out. We still shouted when the bandies got ruffed up by
the good guys. During the week nights whatever we were playing at all games
came to a halt at 6-45 when we would run in our own house to listen to Dick
Barton Special Agent on the Light Program, no Radio One or Two then, this
was our favourite 15 minuets’ of radio time. There are so many memories,
but our local police man was a characters, even if he did clip us around
the ear before we had ever done anything wrong, he was something like the
commissioner at the picture house, he would always ask us what we were up
too, when we said nothing, that was when we got the clip around the ear,
he would explain this injustice by saying, that’s for when you do,
do something wrong, this did us no harm at all for later life. There are
so many things to remember, so I better stop, I’m sure there are other
folk who may read this have their own memories, if so did you play the same
games we did? Such as, Marbles, Rounder’s, Hopscotch, Rope skipping,
pop guns, and so many more. And did you make your own go carts, or a bike
frame with a bike wheel at the front and a pram wheel at the back, no brakes.
We would persuade the smallest kid to curl up inside a lorry tyre and then
roll it down a grassy hill, all good fun except for the kid in the tyre.
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