Trip down memory lane

Yesterday I went back. Back to where I grew up before I was 10.

72 Westby Street, Lytham.

It always feels like a bit of a dream when I go back to Lytham (near Blackpool). Nostalgia sure is a strong thing. I indulge myself every so often. Judith came with me and suffered the stories along with Jo and two young friends from TCH.
The power of stories, especially ones from the childhood of a parent can be very cogent. I still remember little memories my mother delights in: tales of local oddballs, Dickensian style schoolmasters and long gone places. They become part of my history somehow.

The windmill on the Green was the perfect backdrop for a story of mine. Aged 6, we as pupils at St John's Primary school were taken some sunny lunchtimes onto the Green to play. The rule was "No one must go around the windmill". I have no idea why! One day I decided to go around the windmill. I wasn't spotted. But back in the class room, snotty snitch Dawn Christopher pipes up: "Miiiiss. Andrew Stovell went round the windmill". I was called out and duly punished. Which was trousers down in front of the whole class and a slap on the leg. I went back to my table, trying to be brave. "It didn't hurt anyway", I whispered through gritted teeth to snotty snitch Dawn. What does she do? She pipes up again in her whining voice, "Miiiiss! he says it didn't hurt". The teacher called me out again and repeated the whole humiliating 'trousers down slap on leg' experience!

(It still didn't hurt, only my pride!)

(BTW, I forgive you Dawn and Mrs Poulter)

Then over to my back ally. The scene of many peashooter battles and water fights between "our end" and the enemy at the other. Strangely, they were Catholic and we were Protestant as it happens. ("St Peter's can't beat us, cos they've got rubbish teachers" went the war cry. We were from St John's Primary, they from the Catholic rivals, St Peter's)
Here we are standing on bins peeking over my old back yard wall. Not a lot has changed. I talked to a few old ladies, but none of them were around 35 years ago when I was a boy on Westby Street.

We then made our way to St John's graveyard. I wanted the kids to hear one last story. And by now, they were hooked. (What is it about memory-stories?)
I told them of Antony Storey. Looking back, he must have been a hydrocephalic child when he joined my infant class. Aged just 5, his oversized head made him instantly the one to laugh at and joke about. I remember not joining in but made him a friend. (Probably due to my mum's emphasis on kindness and looking after the misfits). Just a few weeks into term, Martin stopped coming to school. He had died. When the class visited his grave in St John's churchyard, I remember thinking how glad I was that I hadn't joined in the mocking. That at least he had had one friend.

It was great to catch up with Jan & Jamie who were with us in TCH and are now heading off to Afghanistan. Blessings guys. We had a farewell fish and chip tea with them at Whelans. Probably the greatest chippy on earth. As a kid, Saturdays were the business when we had fish and chips (or their amazing steak and kidney pudding), a bottle of D&B from The Dolphin, as Whelans was then called. I couldn't think of a better end to a day of nostalgia.