Terry and Sandra Williams recall more about their life growing up
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 24th February 2012 by Liam Physick
Sandra Williams mentions how she, the tallest girl in the street, would shin up the lamp post to throw the rope around its bar and create a swing, an activity that often got them into trouble with the police! Terry recalls playing ollies on the bombed site in Tunnel Road, and scrape sugar falling out of the sacks on the wagon, put it in the Ollie bags so his grandmother could make bun loaves for Christmas!
Interviewee: Terry and Sandra Williams
Date of Interview: 22nd November 2011
Interview Transcript
Sandra: Because I was the tallest girl in the street – there wasn’t many girls, more boys (Jodie giggles) – at the top of the street we used to have the lamp post, and it was me that used to have to shin up the lamp post to put the, the rope on so we could have a swing! (laughs)
Terry: That was gas light, though, wasn’t it?
Sandra: Yes, yeah.
Jodie: Oh, you’d, you’d make a swing on the lamp, on the lamp . . .
Terry: The gas, gas light used to have two arms coming out . . .
Jodie: Oh, yeah.
Terry: . . . and the arms were for the man who used to come to sort them out, he used to put his ladder up against the arm . . .
Sandra: Yeah.
Terry: . . . so the girls used to put the rope around.
Sandra: Yeah.
Jodie: Oh! (laughs)
Sandra: We used to get caught by the bobby quite a few times, “Get down off there!” (she and Jodie laugh)
Terry: And I remember another incident, where Spekeland Street (sic), which was off Chatsworth Street, became the Traffic Division, certainly for this area, so you never really chanced your arm by being naughty as such . . .
Sandra: No.
Terry: . . . because there was always scooters, motorbikes and cars, police cars that is, going to and from the police station . . .
Sandra: I know . . .
Terry: . . . and . . .
Sandra: Cos there was St. Anne’s police station as well, wasn’t there, Cecil Street?
Terry: Was there? I don’t remember.
Sandra: Yes. Yeah, go on! (she and Jodie laugh)
Terry: No, I don’t, I don’t remember that . . .
Sandra: Yeah.
Terry: . . . but, what I was gonna say, before it was a police station, it was a part of Tate and Lyle, and what we use to do, is go over, and every, every kid had an Ollie bag, used to play ollies, on, on the Hollow, which was a, certainly in, in Tunnel Road, there was only one place that had been bombed, and that was what we called the Hollow, and somebody on the site has already said they used to put the holes in the ground, we used to throw your ollies there, and you’d go round a, a circuit of, you know, like (Jodie laughs), but when the house got pulled, when the house got bombed, we used to have, just trying to, losing track now of what, what I was going on to say about that . . .
Sandra: Lost it?
Terry: Oh, it’s past me, yeah, trying to think of names, doesn’t it? (Sandra laughs) I’ll go off that one, then, I’ll go back to the Spekeland Street (sic) one, where before the police took it as a police station or a traffic police division, it used to belong to Tate and Lyle, and we used to run over, the, the, at that, an Ollie, an Ollie bag, which we use to keep the Ollie in, and we used to leg the wagons, that, that was as the wagon came out, loaded with bag sacks of sugar, as it started going off, we used to leg it, run it, so we used to run, as we said, leg it, and hang on to the back of it, and we used to scrape off the surplus sugar that had come out of the sacks . . .
Jodie: Oh! (sounds intrigued)
Terry: . . . and put it in these Ollie bags (Jodie laughs), and take them home (Jodie laughs), and it was, that was the raw brown sugar . . .
Jodie: Yeah.
Terry: . . . and, near Christmas, your, your grandmother used, well mine did . . .
Sandra Bun loaves! (laughs)
Terry: Yeah, “Can you, can you see if you can get some brown sugar, I’m gonna do the bun loaves for Christmas?”
Jodie: Aw! (she and Sandra laugh)
Terry: And we used to go over, and, dare I say it, nick the sack and let the sugar come out, and . . . (Jodie laughs)
Jodie: I was waiting for that! I thought you were gonna say you threw the marble at it and it made a hole! (Terry and Sandra laugh)
Terry: No, again with sugar.
Jodie: Yeah.
Terry: Yeah.
Jodie: Yeah.
Terry: And that’s a memorable thing then, you know . . .
Jodie: Yeah.
Terry: . . . cos your grandma used to show you how to make bun loaves.
Jodie: Aw! (tuts and laughs)
Terry: Yeah.
Jodie: Yeah, it’s really nice.
Categorised under: Change & Communities
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