Older Than Dirt Quiz :

You dirty bugger I do want to add a few things to this thread later and will do so when I get the time.

I started the thread off with something that had been sent to me in an email and I put it up as I knew we would get some good posts on it.

While I have always said I lived in Oakland Road, that really was not the case until I was ten, but the house was the home of my family. Born in the middle of a divorce (they took years back then) and my mother being the most proud woman, who would scrub floors rather than take a hand out, I was farmed out for most of my childhood.

I spent most of it living with my aunt Eva in Sandringham Road, right next door to Ethel. Merse will know who I mean, she was a very hard looking woman I felt, always looked dirty and was butch I seem to remember. She died maybe in her forties, I never knew how old she was anyway, and it was hard to tell. I was later told in life she was always in Penn Inn Park as she sold her body there. I remember well always seeing her there, but the thought anybody would pay really would surprise me.

I know when I was at Milber Primary school that she had a son, he was called William and one day he turned up for school in a white shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms, it was claimed she had no money to buy him any trousers and the school bought them in the end.

In those days there were no houses behind Sandringham road as there are today, such roads as Raleigh and Drake road were just an empty large field. We would go over a farmer style gate into the field and I remember there were the remains of an old barn there; just the two gable ends left standing. We would carry on our walk in the field and come to a clearing beside the river, at this point it was the river Teign.

I was always collected on a Saturday morning by my big brother; he would then take me to the Odeon Saturday morning pictures. I really loved going there; it was the highlight of my week. After this I was taken home to my mum’s house in Oakland Road where I stayed until Sunday afternoon and then shipped back to Sandringham Road.

There was one more house I often lived in before I was ten, this old stone building is still standing, but all around it now, is so different from when I stayed there. If you drive from Newton to the lights at Kingskerswell and turn down right, the house now sticks out like a bit of a sore thumb.

It once had a very large orchard and that is where I played, I remember coming in stung all over as I had fallen into a big pile of nettles. It also had a small stream running beside the house, that is still there and I would take a jam jar and try to catch the very tiny fish that swam in the steam. The orchard must have been sold off and the houses have been built nearly right up to the back of the old stone house.

I don’t remember if there was a TV at the house in Sandringham Road, I do remember that my great granny was still alive and lived there and I had to share her room, I will never forget going to bed and seeing that really very large underwear woman of her age wore then, hung over a chair in the room. The one thing I remember even better is the chocolate cakes my Aunt Eva made, well buns really, the tops cut of and butter cream used, the top was then put back on and they were called mushrooms, or the top cut in half and they were called butterflies.

At ten. years old I did find myself living at home in Oakland Road, I learned a few years ago it was not the wish of my mother that I did, seems as she was now remarried and they had a young child, the rest of the family told her I was her little boy and it was time she looked after me.

It does go some way to explaining the treatment I got at her hands, being locked in the under stair cupboard for hours on end having done nothing wrong, has to be the reason I have trouble on transport where the door is closed and I have no control on it opening. That’s why I got out at fifteen and joined the navy, it was not what I wanted to do, but was the only real means of escape. Very shortly after this I was informed my mother had disowned all her three children by the name of Roach. She is still alive in Newton I’m told, old and very bitter, but from that day to this she has never even acknowledged we all exist.

I do have more memories living here than when elsewhere, we had out buildings and one was very large and was used to do the weekly washing. A wooden scrubbing board in a very large sink. Yes I remember the mango and was made often to put all the washing through it. How times have changed for today’s children,

Jam jars with some jam in the bottom and then filled with water, hung up to kill the wasps. Flypaper was also used and unlike today you only had a bath on a Sunday. If you were the youngest as was my case, the water was dirty by the time I got into the bath, as only one bath was run for the three of us.

As Pete Godfrey said, we had all three TV channels, he said on here he loved coming around as he got to watch ITV, they only had BBC one and two next door

By the time I did move back home, my home was nothing more than a show home, I had to keep clean clothes in the wash house and had to change into them before I could go inside the house.

At night the three piece was covered in covers so we would not dirty it while using them and the rug in front the fire was an old one. That would change if the doorbell rang and we had a visitor, off came the covers, down when the best rug in front the fire, It sure was never a home.

Mind you I nearly killed her, not on purpose you understand, she went out and I had to hoover the house, it was one of those cylinder hoovers that was made by them. I was doing the bathroom and wondered what would happen if I put the suction end in the toilet. Yes it sucked all the water up and it was the last room I had to do and put the Hoover away. When she came to use it the next time it blew up and gave her a nasty shock, not as nasty as the one that was in store for me.

Makes you wonder how I’m such a well balance and happy man, ;D the secret is, I have never let anything change the person I want to be and who I really am

Watching Ali fight on the TV and the black and white minstrels and what was on the radio every Sunday morning?

and family favorites and I seem to remember a show for all the troops aboard?

Dave,

My Mum & Dad were born & lived in Buckland as were a number of other family members, some still live there, you must have known some of them.

They lived in Oaklands Road , Sandringham Road, Margret Gardens & Queensway.

Short's, Glanfield's, Dore's & John's any ring a bell??

In fact i was fairly certain my cousin Paul Short was in your Milber school photo a while back but can't be sure.

I remember playing in Milber woods and also Penn Inn park, before the dual carriageway was built.

When I get a second Richard I will email a copy of the photo to you.

Dave

That was real poverty for those kids wasn't it..................remember she had a little sister for William later. They all lived in Ethel's mum's house and it was "rumoured" that William's dad was also his grandad; however kids can be cruel to the point of callousness and a lot of the adults were no better in my opinion.

You have to remember that Penn Inn Park was on the long trek home from the pubs of NA with only the Penguin to pass once you had left the Railway behind in Queen Street.

Judging by the state of some of those I used to see staggering along the Torquay Road whilst going to cath those midnight specials I don't doubt for a moment that one or two would seek some "relief" in the dense undergrowth of the Penn Inn Park of those times. Remember too the old high stone wall and thick trees that used to hide Forde House from view too? There were a few things your maiden aunt wouldn't tell you about that went on behind that wall as well you know...........................and if it was a male you wanted for company there was always Gerald on the prowl around the toilets in Courtenay Park. He used to go on the United away trips with his little mate Michael who always wore a dirty mac and looked like a Newmarket Jockey so small was he. In fact wasn't it Gerald who clobbered World Cup referee Jack Taylor once at Plainmoor where he worked as a grandstand steward?