Test Match Victories

Unless it was raining, my brother and I were routinely 'turfed out' of the house, with strict instructions not to return until tea-time. This allowed our mother to do her housework without us 'getting under her feet'.

Once outside, the street was full of children our own age, so there was plenty of opportunity for games such as football or cricket, whilst the girls sang their never-ending rhymes as they skipped or played games of hopscotch on the pavement. We always wondered how the girls never seemed to get fed up of their endless chants, because us boys certainly did!

In the late 1950s/early 1960s there was little traffic on our cobbled residential street. The occasional car could be heard approaching whilst it was still a long way off, giving us ample time to move aside. We had to be patient as we waited for it to noisily trundle past, so we could resume our game.

Nobody had a watch, but we could tell it was tea-time when the church tower clock, many streets distant, struck five.

I lived off the Caledonian Road ( Lesly Street) in the 1940s.
3 stumps were painted on either side of the street for Summer. For Winter goal-posts were painted.

What luxury to have a set of stumps. We had to make do with a lamp post.

Playing out was the big thing. I'm not sure how many people would use that phrase now. I remember playing out from lunchtime to dusk. You just turned up at home before it got dark. We went for miles. Amazing, it would not happen now.