Looking back on life on Radcliffe Gate in Mansfield

Life in Ratcliffe Gate was a backward move for me. New school, nowhere to play and worse no bathroom.

Bath night was a tin bath in front of the open fire in the living room. No privacy and shared water.

One night a friend of my mother's, who ran the fish and chip shop up the road called for some ‘change’ for his till and my mother was in the tin bath. We had to drag her and the bath into the kitchen before we let him in.

The house and shop on Ratcliffe Gate were next to a railway bridge and an embankment.

It was called the Central Railway which was mainly freight, although across the road you could see a passenger station. Of course, it was steam then and every night at 3am the Grimsby fish train used to come past. What a noise at 3am!

The railway embankment used to cause problems with floods on the back garden. One night a large toad entered the kitchen – this put my sister Mary and my mother on the kitchen table.

I managed to catch the toad on a dustpan and, I don't know why, I threw it on the open kitchen fire – the toad did not take kindly to the fire and jumped off and made its way out the back door.

Bullying

Life at the new school did not go well either, because the new boy got picked on.

After entering school one day, the chief bully caught me and pushed me down a slope near the school gate and my head collided with the cast iron school sign.

I was covered in blood and my head was wide open with some teacher looking inside my skull. I was bandaged up and taken home down the road to the shop. The teacher suggested I go to hospital for stitches and my mother had to shut the shop and take me to Mansfield General Hospital. She was not pleased.

I don't remember what happened to the bully. I think he said I just slipped and fell down the slope. The school sign is still there, probably with my blood on.

I did make some friends eventually and one boy had a full model train set in the loft of his parents’ bungalow. We used to spend hours up there running those trains. I always wanted a train set and asked for one for Christmas. I asked for a Hornby, but all I got was a Playcraft which was a cheaper substitute.

My mum’s shop was a little sweet shop which was on the way into Mansfield town centre. It did quiet well with passing trade. One day some boys came into the shop and asked for some mice which were in the window. My mother thought they meant the sugar mice and got some out of a jar. “No,” they said, the ‘real mice’ running in the window.

The man who ran the fish and chip shop, Ralph, was an ex-merchant seaman and my dad decided that it was time for me to learn to swim, even though nobody could swim in the family.

We went one Sunday morning to Central Baths and Ralph proceeded to teach me. After a bit he decided to do it his Navy way and just pushed me straight in off the side. I sunk to the bottom and then popped up frightened and gasping for breath. That was not the way to learn for me, but I eventually found a very good teacher and learnt to swim at 50 years old.