Austin’s Memories from the Land of Matchstick Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs - Part 1.
 
Hello to all my Friends in the Mark Degree and I wish that you are all keeping as well as possible in these trying times and are getting assistance when and wherever it’s needed until we get through this National Emergency together.  I thought that this year would be much better than last year for my wife Linda and I, now look what’s happened!!
Broad Street today
Now then what’s all this about Matchstick Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs, as we have no Team Visits, Lodge Meetings or physical contact I thought I would write some memories from my early days (childhood and beyond) in the land of L S Lowry the now World Famous artist, that place is of course Salford, Lanc’s (as it was then) where I was born. I can relate to nearly all his paintings and most of the locations depicted, I recall them in my mind’s eye as though it was only yesterday. (and yet sometimes I can’t even remember what happened last week)
 
I am going to mention lots of random stories and items which I am hoping will give you some pleasure and that you will find yourself recalling similar items and events from your own early days, especially for us oldies.
Corner of Hankinson St, Hanky Park
Now where shall we start, Bus fares, to get to school and back it was 1½ d each way that of course was old pence so we were given 3d and a Penguin if we were lucky to have with our daily school milk at 10 o’clock, we came home at dinner time on foot to save the money, (didn’t tell Mum I’d walked of course) off we set after dinner with yet another 3d, the plan was that when school finished we could call at the staff shop inside Royal’s Bakery and get a hot Barm Cake eating the inside first, luvly, before we got home of course. If you were really flush you could get 5d worth of chips from the UCP Tripe shop, other treats could be a packet of Beechnut chewing gum, 1d with an extra packet every time it came round to the fourth turn of the wheel or some liquorice roots. At the same location you could get an open topped flimsy paper packet containing four Domino cigarettes made by Wills for 6d.  (I was probably at least 12 years old before I tried these, they made me dizzy) I remember playtimes standing at the railings watching out for British Road Services wagons going up and down Bolton Road the A6, each one would have the name of its home base on the sides, lots of exotic places which I had never been to and probably never would like Grimsby, Halifax, Stoke and Newcastle. Now how exciting was that.
 
Mondays were always special because that was the day the Beano and Dandy arrived, I would probably run most of the way home at dinner to get my hands on the new editions, couldn’t wait to see what Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat, Biffo the Bear, Pansy Potter and the Bash Street Gang had been up to. I think we also later got The Beezer and Topper comics which were larger like the Evening News used to be, the smaller evening paper at that time was the Chronicle. Sometimes you would get a free gift like a cardboard flipper, two triangle pieces of cardboard with brown paper folded inside which when folded and quickly flashed through the air would make a loud bang, wow, hours of fun, can you imagine something like that amusing children in this day and age.
Horse Show
Before we leave the buses I can remember when the Fog (Smog) was so thick the guard would walk along in front of the bus to guide the driver, if you were sat on the bus it soon became pretty obvious that it would be quicker to walk home, which I did on many occasions all the way from Ardwick Green to Pendleton probably about 6 miles after work. In the back streets and alleyways of Salford you definitely could get lost because the saying “you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face” was true.
 
What on earth was I doing one Christmas by poking a pair of scissors down a plug socket, the scissors promptly flew across the room and stuck themselves in a picture, I got a wakeup call as well, the next day I tried putting some tape on a cut wire by binding them all together, again that wasn’t a good idea, Bang, don’t think I messed with electric for a long time after that. I remember searching all over the house for Christmas presents as it got closer to the special day, we used to get a pillow case with bits and pieces in, nothing expensive because the money just wasn’t available for my family and most of the other people who lived in Salford, I do remember though we always got an apple and an orange in the bag oh and a chocolate smokers outfit, wow.
Mr Whippy
My Mum was a great cook and even though times were hard we always managed somehow to have a great roast dinner on Christmas Day which continued right up until the last year she was alive, being married we would go up to my wife’s Mum’s house for 12 midday have a great dinner with all their family then we would have to get down to Salford for about 4 o’clock to have another dinner, what did we all look forward to, that’s easy The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, (and the Queens Speech of course).
 
What games did you all take part in when you were a child? One of our favourites was Catch a Dart, two of us would take up a position at both ends of the “Big Back”, we would each find a board about a foot square sling a dart as high as we could from one end to the other, the ones as used in the pubs back then made of wood with a feather flight and lead weights in, obviously you were supposed to catch it with the board, I well remember on at least a couple of occasions the game had to stop for the day when someone would get their thumb pinned to the board, ouch, not a pretty sight.
Not our Big Back
 
The “Big Back” was an area measuring about 70 yards x 40 yards and was sandwiched on three sides by the back of two up and two down terraced houses, it was the site of a large air shelter during the war, following that it was knocked down and filled in with rubble, dirt and soil, this is where our imagination would take flight, a place where we could be Cowboys, Indians, Knights in Armour, Robin Hood every day was different, one of my favourites was Dirt Track Riders, we would tear round on our put together bikes, (don’t think anyone could afford a new bike) sliding round the corners just like the real riders did at Belle Vue Speedway, how on earth did we do it, it would take me all my time to even ride a bike now.!!  
 
Football was another favourite, sometimes it could be 5 a side, 10 a side or even more! It could be a Wembley Final, an England Match, Man City vs Utd, Bolton vs Blackpool, (Stanley Mathews included Keith), any teams in fact, before the games commenced you could pick whichever player you were going to be, we would play in the sun, rain, wind, fog and what I always enjoyed snow. We would all go home full of cuts and bruises because as I said it was a dirt croft with the odd brick showing through here and there, to us it was definitely Wembley. I remember on the odd occasion when somebody had managed to get hold of a new plastic ball wow what a game that would be, that is until it struck the barbed wire which was at the end of the “Big Back” where Marchant’s Gym was situated down a 20 foot drop, protected by a small wall and the dreaded barbed wire. I can still see my Dad heating up a flat bladed screwdriver on the gas stove trying to seal up a puncture in the ball, it hardly ever worked though. Just worth noting that on trips to this country the one and only Rocky Marciano and later Mohammed Ali both paid private visits to this little back street Gym in Gardner Street Salford, the Marchant brothers were well known in boxing circles in the 1920’s & 30’s.   
Pawnbroker
November the 5th was always looked forward to, all us kids would travel far and wide collecting “Bonny Wood” sometimes as we would say in the Police relocating it, there always seemed to be lots of property being pulled down in Salford as slum dwellings in the 50’s and 60’s, Hanky Park was being devastated, this was an area of rows and rows of terraced house with back yards and lots of slim entries and alleyways all it with gas lights. This area was the backdrop for the movie A Taste of Honey which starred Dora Bryan and was written by Shelagh Delaney who lived on Duchy Road, I used to take her groceries from my Dads Co-op Travelling shop, sometimes I would even get a 6d tip for my efforts, another movie was Hobsons Choice which starred John Mills and Charles Laughton, us kids loved playing around Hanky Park. I of course lived on the opposite side of Broad Street (the Posh Side) the A6 which was one of the widest roads in Britain at the time.
 
When the night arrived all the neighbours would gather together around the huge pile of wood with a fabulous Guy Fawkes sat on the top which my Mum would always make and yes you’ve guessed it on the “Big Back”,  the ladies would sit on all the chairs, settee’s etc which we had collected for the fire along with all sorts of rubbish, all the Mums had done Baked Potatoes along with Treacle Toffee and Toffee Apples, firework displays would take place from the more wealthy along with the smaller efforts from us kids, one thing we used to do was tie a banger to rocket sticks and see how far they would go before being destroyed. Another prank was to try and hit the chimney on the railway signal  box which was just behind my house, I still remember the 11.25pm Night Mail Train to Scotland which thundered past every night always on time with two steam engines pulling it complete with burning coal’s flying into the black night air and all the mail sorters feeding post into the little slots.
Railway behind my house
Before closing I thought I would just mention my first car, in fact it wasn’t a car it was a van, an Austin A35 in dark blue, the cost was £10 and I have a receipt somewhere showing that I paid £5 deposit with the other £5 following a month later. It had a piece of 3” x 2“wood fitted from side to side behind the front seats with a double seat attached, no seat belts of course. The heater was in the centre under the dashboard on the floor and consisted of a round canister with two flaps on the front. You could open either one and behind them was a heating element with a small fan behind, what luxury, no radio of course and a wiper motor above the windscreen which could be operated manually. There was quite a lot of rust especially on the sills, this was fixed using tin snips and a couple of empty 1 gallon oil cans by an old timer who lived on my street, he had been an engineer, cut to shape, pop rivetted sprayed and it was good as new. (No MOT’s back then)
 
A quick mention of holidays, when we had one that is, well it was always the same, a week at Golden Sands Holiday Camp Rhyl, which is situated just over the bridge at the end of the promenade, keep going and it comes up on the right hand side, I think the area is actually Towyn. We used to hire a small caravan (and I mean small) from the chap who owned the greengrocers on Broad St, Mr Heap, the cost was £5, my Dad would hire an old car from a family friend who owned a Pawnbrokers again on Broad St, cost £5, and off we would go, I thought it was brilliant back then. We used to ride on those four wheeled two-seater bikes, climb on an old steamroller which was on the site, have a go on the penny slot machines when we had a few pence otherwise we would just watch others using them. I remember going swimming in the outdoor pool in Rhyl, it always seemed to be freezing, correction it was Always Freezing, the only good thing about that would be being treated to a hot Horlicks after the swim.  
Shops in Rain
Ah well that’s it for today, I hope some memories came back to you and what you used to get up to, Stay In and Stay Safe, here’s looking forward to things getting back to normal for all of us, I’m looking forward to our Mark and RAM Meetings and reporting on all the Team Visits once again.
 
I’m keeping the camera batteries charged!
 
Mark Well
Austin.
Flixton Shepherd Eastwood Mark Lodge. No.1173
Why not give your friends a phone call every other day it does help to cheer people up during this trying time, after all our Mark Degree is known as the Happy and Friendly Degree.
It's good to see Austin back in the saddle again, Thanks Austin (Webmaster)