The Book of Me, Written by You - Week 63 - Addresses & Locations

The Book Of Me, Written By You is a 15 month project set up by Julie Goucher at Anglers Rest.

Each week there are prompts which require answering.

Week 63 - Addresses & Locations

I am going to recall 2 addresses and locations from my childhood.

My childhood home

The first is a town called Bacup,  and the house there in which is where I grew up. I lived there the whole of my childhood and we had great next door neighbours on both sides.

On one side there was an elderly lady who was so agile even into her 90s. She was called Mrs R and was a surrogate grandparent to me in many ways. We would help with small jobs around the house and garden, like changing light bulbs and cutting the lawn. She was quite deaf so we could sometimes hear what she was watching on the TV through the wall and we had to knock on the living room window and wave at her to get her attention. She would invite me in for a cuppa and we would have a chat. She used to drive an automatic VW Polo which she would get around everywhere right up to her sad departing from this world. The houses were 3 bedroom semi's with large gardens on a steep slope and we were adjoining her house. 

On the other side across the gap between the houses there was another family with children similarly aged to myself and my brother. We would play out with them quite a lot, we got up to all sorts of mischief with them! Climbing trees, building tree houses, playing sardines, hide & seek, cricket, football, making secret societies with passwords and being out on our bikes. It was a wonderful, safe place to play together, to get dirty and enjoy childhood.

There were not many houses on the street and most of the neighbours were very friendly, it was a nice quiet place to live with good scenery, not far from the moorlands to go out walking across. There was a newspaper shop, post office and Chinese take away all a five minute walk from the house. I would go and collect my dads paper during the school holidays or run errands to the Chinese or post-office.

The second place is a street in the town of Horsforth, where my maternal grandparents lived. We spent some time in our school holidays there as well as other days and weekends throughout the year.

Again my grandparents lived in 3 bedroomed semi, very much like my own parents house.

I knew my grandparents neighbours fairly well, across the gap there was a couple who my grandparents got along with really well. They would pay each others window cleaner and milk man and do errands and chores for one another. In my grandparents later life they cared for them and did much more for them than would be expected of neighbours.

The adjoining house was a family with 2 children a little younger than myself and brother who we would occasionally play with when we went to visit.

Walking down the hill to the main road from my grandparents house and across the road was St George's playing fields where Grandma would send us with Grandad to play football and cricket. We would also regularly visit Horsforth Hall Park, the playground and the Japanese gardens. I have many good memories there.