|
 | |  | |
Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. He now lives in Australia.
The year 1940 came in very cold, in fact bitterly cold. Going to school was absolute hell. It has never been officially recorded as to what was actually wrong with me but I was forever falling over. I had surgical dressings not only on my knees, but my elbows too. Both my hands were always bandaged up. Perhaps my footwear was at fault.
I wore men's cast off boots that were about four sizes too big. To make matters even worse such boots were made from very hard leather. What wouldn't have helped was such footwear was often worn without socks. So all of this could easily have been a deciding factor in my constant clumsiness.
The only thing that kept the boots on my feet were thick leather laces. The 'hobnail' boots were so loose on my feet that I could actually take them off without undoing the laces. This caused me even bigger problems come the following morning, as I couldn't undo the knots. Getting the boots back on without having the laces undone was a possibility but very uncomfortable to actually have to do, especially on a cold frosty morning!
That very first winter there was ice all over the footpaths and the roads. I just could not stay upright on my feet. I have many painful flashbacks of standing outside Shepherds shop holding onto the fence top railings petrified with just the thought of falling over yet again.
I remember going 'sliding' with other kids on the iced over pond in the orchard by Dandridges mill. Of standing near the bridge at the mill then throwing sticks into the giant whirlpool.
I remember very well my first game of 'conkers' and all the subsequent games there after where you tried to smash the opponents 'conker' as it dangled on its string. Getting angry when your opponent wouldn't hold his conker still. The secret was to get your string to sort of slide fast down the others string, so his 'conker' split.
Then there was 'mystique' surrounding the secret methods of making your 'conker' very hard and strong. Like spitting on it all day and rubbing it on you shirtfront. Combined with this was the fact that you could add on your adversary's score of 'conkers' that he purported to have smashed! In doing so, you could end up with a 'conker' that had smashed literally hundreds of other 'conkers'. There was a certain amount of cheating and a lot of exaggerated embellishment went on too!
Playing marbles became a part of my life very early. You played along the gutters all the way to school. Playing marbles through the puddles and long grass became something of an art. Roy and I used the common 'dull' clay marbles. These were mainly cast offs by others, found, stolen but most times won. Sometimes I would get lucky and win a 'glass' marble. Perhaps on the very rare occasion even winning the much coveted 'Ally'.
Bernie Burnstein was a boy who lived in a thatched cottage up on the East Hanney green. He only had one real eye. The other was a glass one! He would take it out of his eye socket and play marbles with it!
When the game ended Bernie would wipe the eye on his sleeve and poke it back where it belonged. All this was quite disconcerting as Bernie would turn his red eye socket upon you as you tried to hit his eye, where it lay in the gutter, staring intently up at you!
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
