manroy's blog No 15

Posted by manroy | 2008-04-27 | Comments: (1) | Hits: 224

Hi Folks
I know that one or two of you have been wondering where I have been, so first of all, I'll lay out my excuses, I mean reasons.
A few weeks ago one of my nephews asked me about his mother, my younger sister. He was interested to know what she had been like as a youngster. I was two years older than Marion so was probably the closest to her of my siblings. Unfortunately, Marion died of cancer last year at the tender age of 70.
The question about her childhood got me thinking that maybe other members of our family in years to come would want to know about how we had spent our formative years.
I started to write what I called "My story" and became completely embroiled in it. When they got wind of this at merthyrstories.org.uk where I write digital stories including pictures of Merthyr Tydfil it was decided that I should record "My story" in sound only, a chapter at a time and I am afraid I put MyShots on the back burner for a while.
Just before my good friend Les, AKA davles went on holiday to America to see his son and grandchildren, he phoned me to say that another member of MyShots had contacted him to ask where I was, and was I alright, (Thanks Mark) It was then I realised that we are not just virtual friends on MyShots, but friends. So I have gradually wound down various other commitments that I have recently taken up so that I can spend more time with you folks.
If you are interested to know one of the tales I told my nephew about his Mam here it is.
When I was about 8 years old, my eldest brother John was 12, the next down was Donald 10, then me, after me came Marion 6, then Dennis 4 and June the baby had not yet been thought of. We had a very old pushchair, which had seen much better days. One day John, Donald and I took Marion to the park in the push chair. The park was uphill all the way from where we lived in the middle of town. There was hardly any traffic in the early 1940s, so it was middle of the road all the way. On the way back John decided that Marion should not be the only one to enjoy our set of wheels, so with Donald balancing on one side of the pushchair, me on the other, Marion sitting down and John leaning over here under the handle with his feet on the axle we headed home, down hill all the way. The first part was a red path, then onto a street of houses and finally past the Synagogue and down Church street which was the steepest part of all. Then disaster, one of the wheels came off and with a screech the pushchair just stopped, Donald and I went rolling down the Middle of Church Street, John did a somersault into the seat that Marion had just vacated, and poor Marion did a roly poly out of the push chair and landed in the middle of Church Street legs in the air and her knickers torn.
We all limped home to Mam and explained that the wheel had simply come off.
I'll blog again soon.
Respect, Roy.