The headline in the newspaper caught my eye “Family meals a thing of the past” I read on, apparently most people eat their meals in front of the television, and some families never sit to the table for their meals, indeed some families do not own a dining table. How sad, some of my first memories are of a huge table that dominated our kitchen. Well it wasn’t a table as such, it was a Morrison shelter under which we sheltered during the air raids over Coventry. I was a war baby and my eldest brother Bill tells me that our family didn’t bother going to bed because the air raid sirens would sound and you only had to get up and shelter under the table. That table stayed in our kitchen a long time after the war as furniture was hard to get, we used it to prepare meals, eat meals off and even to do the ironing on. Most things in our kitchen were multi purpose’ the copper was used to boil the washing on Monday and come Saturday heat the water for our Saturday night bath. I grew up in a tight knit community that was Hockley lane which consisted mainly of a row of thirty terraced houses built in blocks of five. Everyone knew everyone else and they looked out for each other. No one bothered to lock their back doors, well apparently every ones back door key fitted every one else’s back door (or so I’ve been told). The games we played went with the seasons mainly in spring it was kites made out of slender sticks, newspaper (brown paper if you were lucky),string and paste made with flour. The sun always seemed to shine during my childhood summers, it didn’t of course but it seemed like it. We girls would collect Cherry Blossom polish tins, tops off jars for there were cakes to be made for dolls tea parties, the mud had to be the right consistency, well tilled soil was best, but don’t let Dad see. Once mixed the tins were filled level then, and this was the hard bit, daisies, cow parsley and even dried tea leaves were used to decorate the top of the “cakes”. Hopscotch was another favourite our games could last all day as we would see who could win the most games. Apart from the workers going to the factory in the morning and home in the afternoon and the odd bus, traffic was almost non-existent, someone would produce a long piece of washing line and we would line up to skip to our skipping chants. For some reason hide and seek was always played after tea, boundaries had to be drawn other wise the area was too vast. After the first person was found the object of the game was to get to the rally post without being seen. Of course we played cricket mostly with improvised bats and wickets. The old style of farming meant hedges laden with blackberries, mothers taking their own children blackberrying soon found half a dozen more clamouring “ to come please”, I don’t remember anyone refusing. Off we’d all go with our jam jars, back we’d come jars full of blackberries, faces and fingers stained purple with the juice. Apple and blackberry pie for tea nectar of the gods. As the days shortened we moved on to marbles, whips and tops, conkers and bonfire night. I didn’t like marbles very much you had this lovely glass marble with pretty colours inside and someone always won it off you. Whips and tops were better, I preferred the mushroom shape tops to the beehive, but if we hadn’t got the proper tops we would use the tops from Lant’s lemonade bottles. Conkers were alright but it was more a boys game, my brothers would soak the conkers in vinegar or bake them. They had long strings of conkers on boot laces and it was always a sad day when your prize conker got smashed. Bows and arrows were also played, but mainly by boys, who would make the bows and arrows out of hazel wood. Trolleys were our pride and joy; they were made from the wheels and chassis of old prams. Planks of wood formed the base and bushel boxes the cabin, the whole contraption was steered by a rope which controlled the front of the trolley. Races were sometimes held down hills, it was all a bit hairy as very few trolleys had brakes. Cowboys and Indians were always based on which ever film we had seen at Saturday morning pictures Saturday morning pictures were great; we cheered the goodies and booed the baddies enough to raise the roof; and should the film break down we stamped our feet and slow hand clapped and did we cheer when the film restarted. Autumn half term had us scouring the hedgerows and spinneys for old branches, and knocking on doors for “anything for the bonfire?” It was always satisfying watching the bonfire grow. As my brother Paul was born on the fifth of November, bonfire night was a big event for us. Dad always baked spuds in the bonfire, he’d bang holes in the bottom of a biscuit tin put the spuds in and push the tin into the red hot embers. The potatoes were always burnt black we just split them in half sprinkled them with salt, delicious, even if we burnt our tongues. Hot cocoa rounded off the evening. Grown ups always let off the fire works, we had our sparklers and some times cracker jacks. No we didn't have sausages, meat was still rationed. Life was not all play we had our jobs to do mostly I had to run errands or take my Dad's snap (which translated was a can of hot tea) to him at the farm where he worked, I did this every afternoon after school. During school holidays my elder sister and I would help with the washing by mangling the clothes, the fun part was turning the handle but my sister Joyce always did this as she was older than me, I got stuck with guiding the clothes through the big rollers. Whatever we were doing our lane was always clear of children by twenty five to seven you would find us by the radio waiting impatiently for the programme to start at quarter to seven, the programme? Oh DICK BARTON SPECIAL AGENT of course!!!! The threatened development of the land opposite our row of houses suddenly became a reality and it didn’t take long to envelope us; and for us to become part of the urban sprawl. Once that happened, things were never the same again.