Another Treasured Dear Diary Memory

Dear Diary, I've been searching the deep memories
of childhood, somethings I can remember vividly,
others my mum recalled to me:

One of my memories that I want to tell you about
dear diary, is of the cottage we lived in, when
I was a baby and a child. It was one of ten, there
were five terraced cottages coming down in a line,
our's was the end cottage number five, which was
beside a lane, then there were five other cottages
that went along the other side of the lane, to form
a back to front L shape.

As you stepped out the back door, you turned right,
there was the outside toilet and beside the toilet,
was the place where dad kept the coal, we used to
get the coal delivered in those days.

Then there was a grassy bank, which I absolutely
loved to play on, my tortoise Fred lived up there.

At the bottom was a brick wall and a gate, along
the wall, was a well established gooseberry bush.
Our garden was completely walled in, so I was safe
to play.

Along the wall opposite the grassy bank, was a
narrow flower bed, where mum liked to grow all
her flowers, I on the other hand, would use it to
collect soil, to make into mud pies, to feed to my
dolls and my poor tortoise, who now looking back
on it, must have been under great stress, having
his face pushed into a mud pie, poor thing! bless him.

An old lady called Mrs Fox, lived in the cottage
on the other side of the lane, that faced our back
garden, my mum would spend hours talking to her
across the wall, she seemed like she was a hundred
years old to me at the time, but she was probably
only in her late sixties.

Then there were the Cowleys, I remember Mrs Cowley,
was a short woman, she always had her hair in curlers and she wore an apron, the kind that looked
more like a pinafore dress, than an apron.

The other houses, I have no idea who lived in them.
We had an old lady living next door to us, but I
never recall ever seeing her, she always had old
mattresses in the garden, it was such a mess.

One particular day, as my mum recalled to me, she
had put me onto the grassy bank with my toys on a
rug, I was safe as long as the garden gate was
closed.

She was in the kitchen doing the hand washing,
scrubbing my dads shirt collars, all ready to go
through the mangle. Monday was always washing day,
I hated it, because the washing flapped around so
much, especially when it was windy, that it would
knock me over.

When she had finished washing, she came out to see
if I was alright and to hang the washing out, but
I was nowhere to be found and the garden gate was
open.

Mum was frantic, she ran up the lane and started
crying out my name, she told me she called the
police and a neighbour had to come and sit in the
house with her. Well the police came, they searched
but they could not find me.

It was late afternoon, when finally I crawled out
of the gooseberry bush, feeling very sick and with
a very bad stomach. Mum was so relieved, but she
ended up having to give me castor oil and to this
day, I hate gooseberries.

We had a piano in the back room, where we ate, it
was my dad's pride and joy, but I hated it, I actually thought it was alive and would one day eat
me up, this all came from listening to 'Sparky's
Magic Piano,' for the piano had a voice all its own, Sparky told everyone that he was playing, but
it was the piano, it really scared me.

A bit like the daleks in Dr Who with William
Hartnell, I used to watch from behind the settee,
just peeping, because I didn't really want to miss
anything. Sometimes I would watch it around at a
friend's house, then it wasn't so bad and we would
watch it with excitement and anticipation.

I used to have a lot of nightmares due to my very
vivid imagination. Outside my bedroom window,
was a lamplight, that shone on to my bedroom wall,
it was only scarey, if I awoke in the middle of the
night, the light would cast shadows around my bedroom, I would pull my bed covers up over my eyes.

Eventually my mum made me take piano lessons, I was
probably about seven or eight. I would do
everything I could think of, to get out of piano
lessons, I hated them, but mum always won the
battle and off I would go down the road to
Lillian's, she was my teacher and she was very
strict. Lillian could tell after many lessons, that my heart just wasn't in it, so she informed my
mum not to waste any more money.

Lillian lived with her Father, who I really got on
with, he kept pigeons and I used to call him Pop,
I loved going round there and watching him fly his
pigeons and I used to help him clean them out.

He made me a beautiful dolls house for my birthday,
Lillian made some curtains for the windows and put
some wallpaper on the walls. My mum bought me some
furniture and little people to go inside, It was
the best birthday present I ever had back then, it
sat on a toy box under my bedroom window, I couldn't wait for morning to get up and play with
it.

Well dear diary, this is all for now.