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At the beginning, me and my bro shared what was later to become my room. I don’t talk much about my bro because sometimes I forget. Who he is! But back then, the days were sunny, the summers were our own and mixing dirt with water just seemed like the whole purpose of life. My brother and I have never been close. I mean even when he lived in the same room as me, I hardly saw him. I saw his material possessions, his clothes strewn about the house, his books, tapes and drawings, but not actually him. Sometimes I herd him, singing with me a rousing chorus of The Streets Of London, as we ended another fine days learning at the Comp, that’s comprehensive for all you public school toffs. As with all Bros he beat me up occasionally, mainly for fun, his, not mine. I think I pissed him off, mainly because I didn’t have my own friends and hung around his, just outside his peripheral vision, like a ghostly spectre. The first few years that we lived at 72 my Dad was still in contact with his brother Tony. In fact, Tony, was the only member of his family that he was in contact with, as he had had fallings out with the rest of them. Tony used to come around every Saturday evening with his then girlfriend Ann, to pick Mom and Dad up, and they would normally go off to some local club cabaret evening. I remember, it was usually when the Generation Game was on TV that they would turn up. The great smell of Brut was pungent. It was the late seventies, era of the mullet, flares and big collars. Saturday nights were a free reign for me and Kevin back then, we’d inevitably mess about, break something expensive, and try to cover up the damage before our folks came back home. Usually in their inebriated state, with Dad full of beers and Mom worst the wear on rum and blacks, they’d be oblivious to any suspicious goings on. They’d come back home for a later night coffee, put on some suitably embarrassing music (i.e. Des O’Connor or Neil Sadaka) and claim this was real music and not the clap trap that we listened to. There were rumours afoot (mostly made up by the kids in the hood) that the lady who lived in the house that backed onto ours was some kind of Witch. There was an old shed or green house at the bottom of her garden and we’d occasionally see her disappear into it, and I always wondered what she had in there. What really freaked me out though was when she’d have a bonfire at night, we’d see the flames from the bedroom window and our imaginations would run riot. Cauldrons, broomsticks and helpless children always featured highly. It was only a year or so after moving to 72 that Dad lost contact with Tony, after they had a row. We never saw him after that. He exists now only in my memory, with his long mullet and bushy moustache, and thick Black Country accent. Unlike mine. However, Moms mom, Grace, was still very much on the scene and in our lives. Especially where planning what to do with the house was concerned. Many a time she would be the instigator in getting Dad to knock down a wall, put up a shelf or construct something or another, much to Dads dismay. He would huff and puff. Claim the idea to be impossible and retreat to the shed. Which he had sound proofed against Nan’s creative pontificating. Hours later he would immerge from the darkness, high on his own home brew, to the sight of Nan and Mom standing firm, arms crossed, stern of face and ready to take on the world and it’s wall. Dad knew that there would be much hard grafting was ahead of him Playing in the road with the neighbourhood kids brings back all kinds of memories. Most of them unsuitable for this medium, but as all children do, we got into all kinds of mischief. Kicking balls, fighting, playing knock door run, riding our choppers up on down the road, falling off, climbing over the school, which we lived next door to and a lot more. We Made sledges and slides in the winter, chased the ice cream man and had water fights in the summer. We explored Sutton Park, Witten Lakes and Perry Barr Park. There were the Heys’s, with their unkempt house, the Millman’s next door, the Cowan’s, with their own back yard building site, Mr Auderick, the school caretaker, and across the road, the Haskins, with their rather large family. There was the swimming baths, the Cricle, the Library, the cross-ways, the canal, the Pimple and the playing fields. These and others saw us through our first few years at 72.
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