I'm eight years old and it's a Saturday morning in 1956, I look out of
the window and it's raining, my heart sinks because I wanted to go to
the fields with my old bike that had lost its tyres some time before.
It will be a bit of a bumpy ride over the ploughed field but it was lots
of fun, it was less fun in the rain through.
So it looks like it could be Saturday morning pictures if I can get the
money to buy the ticket. I know the gas man won't be calling to empty
the meter as it's Saturday so I plead with my mum or dad but usually
money was so scarce in our household that the pleading fell on deaf
ears.
What to do as my first two options were not going to happen? Just up the
road from my house was a large outdoor swimming pool and I knew a way to
bunk in through a hedge and fencing which the local kids had made, in
our street most families had no spare money.
I did not mind swimming in the rain and I spent many hours in the pool
in most weather's.
Growing up in the fifties and sixties in a poor area where money was
tight and pocket money non existent I began my working life at about 12
years old helping the milkman and doing paper rounds in the evening. I
also used to go hop picking in late summer, the farmer used to send his
lorry up our street and the whole family piled on the back with other
families eager to make a few bob.
We would take a little stove to boil a kettle on to make tea and pack
some sandwiches for lunch. In those days the farmer would cut the hop
vine down for us to strip and put into baskets, I think they were either
weighed or we were paid for each full basket, I can't remember which. It
was exciting for the kids as there was a lot of clowning about and
antics which helped as the work was tedious. Hop picking is now done
with machinery so I'm not sure if hop pickers are needed anymore.
Alan Pepin, Born 1948
February 2022
Source: Facebook Group "The Good Old British Childhood Years"
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"Spring 2022"