But before I left we, the men, were talking about this and that and I just said can you remember when there weren't any plastic buckets. Tthe only ones available were galvanized ones.

I then went on to say that they did rust through in certain places - the result was a hole and because they were not cheap you had to repair them. The way you did that was with a repair kit from the hardware shop, which consisted of two washers and a nut and bolt: washer on the bolt pushed through the hole the other washer was put on the bolt when it passed through the bottom, then the nut was tightened. Hole fixed.

I’ve seen buckets with more washers than bucket bottom.

Not one person had heard of this repair. When you think of it you couldn't throw the bucket away because of a small hole as money was tight in those days.

Then I thought about peg rugs: Mrs Phonenix, whose family lived near me on the Manor, was was very good at making them with bright colour s and intricate patterns.

My childhood on Harborough Avenue was very good to say the least, the summers were excellent and so were the winters. It always snowed - you could bank on it every year. But going to bed in those days was a bit of a trial, to say the least with no heating upstairs. So if you got cold in the night you just put another coat on the bed.

Before I went to bed my mother put a shelf from the oven on the Yorkshire range wrapped in a blanket then placed it in the bed. Absolute heaven...till it went cold.

I didn't have a sledge for the snow. All I could muster was a big shovel which was great. In fact it was better than a sledge because once I got to the bottom of the gennell near the Steel Inn, I just picked it up and put it over my shoulder and walked back up. You couldn't do that with a sledge

Those crisp mornings, walking to my school, St Theresa's, on Prince of Wales Road, with my pal Harry Colley, were wonderful as we bet each other which could exhale the most breath into the cold morning.

There were no winter coats for me then. It was just my summer attire - sports jacket, short trousers and socks that had a mind of their own. They always ended up round my ankles. I often wondered ‘Do boys’ socks travel up to their owners’ knees in Australia?’

The only extra way I had in winter to keep out the cold winds was to dig my hands as deep as they would go into my pockets and turn up my coat collar. We always arrived at school frozen but that's how it was. We still had the summer to look forward to and the six weeks holiday: playing on the Manor fields,, just running round and acting daft, only to tire ourselves out and lay on the grass and watch the clouds drift by.

I was out from early morning till late at night (by late I mean 7 o’clock).