A Birth in Windy Nook

I was born ion Nursery Lane, Windy Nook, Felling in my Grandparents house (Mothers side)..

Home births were very common in the 1940's and my Mother who suffered from servere asthma was not well when I was born. It did not help that I could not hold down my Mothers milk and it seemed that I may have been on my way out from this earth earlier than expected until the local GP decided that a little bit of rum and water would probably get enough nutrients inside me to keep me going and it did the trick. So lots of thanks to that Doctor who knew his stuff and wasn't held back by the PC practices of today.

The house at Nursey Lane was a semi detatched council house and my Grandad  was a coal miner. I know that he walked with other miners to/from the pit which was around 5 miles away. I remember him as a quiet man who like most miners loved gardening which was always full of plants that was watered from a wooden rain barrel standing at the bottom of the garden. Like most miners he had a delivery of coal every month that was dropped outside the front gate and some of the neighbours helped with the moving into the coal shed. I'm sure some were allowed to borrow coal when needed. This coal wasn't the small lumps that we get today and they seemed massive to a small boy. Needless to say the house was always warm.

My Grandma was a small woman who to me was always dressed in black with a white lace pinny and kept a spotless home and always had a smile on her face. She had six children, 5 girls and one boy. My Uncle William wasn't a healthy person and he died a young man before I was born. My Mother was a twin and she and her sister Peggy were 3rd and 4th born.


My father was a newly qualified policeman and I'm not sure how long we stayed at Nurserty Lane there because my first memories were of the rented house in Davidson Terrace on Holly Hill about 1 mile further down the hill.

The housed in Nusery Lane is still standing today but the character of the area is totally changed and it seemed to me at the time my Grandparents lived there, to be a very friendly area where everyone knew each other and although it was not a wealthy area being populated by working class families, it was rich in community spirit.

How times change and the world moves on.

Monday 23rd November 2015

As my birth record shows I've been on this earth for over 66 years,  although I doubt that very much.

All of my friends and previous work colleagues could recall what books they read at school or when they first started to learn French and things they did when they were young. As for me, I know I went to school and but was never taught French and I do know that my childhood was generally a happy one but my memories are very limited. They sometimes come back to me at the strangest of places and time and I know that not all that I remember is totally accurate.

It is as if I have spent a lot of my time popping in and out of parallel universes that do not allow you to bring back the memories. It is still happening today and Grandma Elaine can get very annoyed with me when I appear to be listening to what she is saying when I'm really off on my travels to some other place.

I was really amazed when I first saw the film Billy Liar where the lead character drifts off in his own world totally oblivious to what was happening around him, so here was a film saying that other people mind wander and I was not the only one. I love telling Harry bedtime stories and always make them up as I go along and sometimes I am always amazed how I can conjure up a good ending out of nowhere, having got myslf in a storyline that kept on rolling in various directions.

Perhaps I just popped into one of those worlds that I visit to get some inspiration.