Made In Hull: Stories 1969 - 2005 Part 1 (1/4) By Rich Mills

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4),

Child Of The 60's? Just! (College Street, Beverley Road and St. Paul's Church)

A romper suit with plastic feet, dancing to the transistor radio placed high up on the kitchen shelf. We really did have a mouse that lived in the skirting-boards of the kitchen, didn't we? Lift the lid on the Danset, slap on the vinyl, drop the needle. Here comes the crackling sounds of my deep grooved and somewhat scratched Pinky and Perky LP, Jungle Book and Top Of The Tots. Mum recording me singing Long Haired Lover From Liverpool on cassette tape, to send to my Dad somewhere in the North Sea. The threadbare carpet didn't reach the edge of the room, Mum had painted the floor-boards black where there was a two foot gap.

Nelson my Old English Sheep Dog, a friend and part-time rodeo horse. The lady downstairs who owned a cat, to whom Nelson became the step-father of her kittens.

Nestled in his great paws. Various adults drifting through the flat. No children, this was an adult world I alone existed in. The back street garage a few yards from our back gate, that bloke who worked there became our neighbour when we moved to East Hull. Hull is such a small city isn't it? Sitting in the trolley round Clifford Dunn's, eating a packet of raw strawberry jelly. That lady who owned the sweet shop across the road from us. Peggy I think she was called. I remember being bought Pink Panther chocolate from there. A bright pink bar, not unlike a Milky Bar, with an embossed image of the Pink Panther along its length.

Off to nursery. Passed St. Charles School, Rosedowns Engineers up ahead, did I dream the Mini spinning on its roof at the junction that day?

St. Paul's Nursery, in the old musty church hall. They made us sleep in the afternoon, on thin foam mats. Lots of painting the rest of the time, Mum still has them all. Trapping my fingers in the huge door on the way home that day. Still makes me feel sick to think about it. Playing in the sandpit, that my Mum's architect friends built. They designed the new church that stands on the site of the old one to this day. The only reminder of the old church is the giant modernist image of Christ on the Cross. Not so impressive in its then new 70s surroundings, was much more so when housed in the dilapidated church that stood proudly there before.

The Vicarage, where Tom and his brood lived, now an old folk's home. An Exorcist, Tom was an Exorcist.

His wife was a bit of a hippie. Always lots of children running around among the clutter of wooden trains, Fisher Price toys, old books and papers piled high, around the huge refectory table and out into the semi-secret garden. Happy times, safe and secure. Then again with that now distant memory of getting upset about my Pluto balloon from Hull Fair going down while I slept, I'm not so sure.

Continued ...next page(2/4),

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