大象传媒

My Dad didn鈥檛 go to war, he worked in the Sunderland Forge, but my mum鈥檚 brothers did. I can remember when they came home after the war ended, and the street parties with tables down the middle of the road and things like that.

I remember another time my Mum saying she had got some butter鈥ou know butter and things like that were all rationed, and when you were little in those days, if you had a sore throat they used to dip a lump of butter in sugar and that was supposed to be good for your throat. I used to like that and once, while she was doing the washing or something, I dipped the whole of her rations in sugar and sat down and ate the whole lot. I made myself quite sick and I have never eaten butter since.

I can remember when I was about 4 years old: I lived down Lower Pallion and one day I was taken out for a walk by a neighbour. She went into someone鈥檚 house and left me outside. I walked off, took a wrong turning home and got lost, but I was picked up by the police and taken to the Police Station.

No one had phones then, so the neighbour went back home and told my parents that I was lost, and everyone went out looking for me. My Dad then went to the Police Box next to Sunderland General Hospital and was told that I was at the Police Station, so he went to collect me from there.

I remember coming home on the crossbar of the bike, and when I got in I remember my Granddad had a pint of Guinness or something like that. He never went out to drink; I think they used to bring his drink from the pub. I always used to drink the froth off the top of the beer and he would never drink it until I had a drink鈥 can鈥檛 stand beer now.

You know, it鈥檚 running in the family now because my grandson, Joseph, always likes to have the first drink of his father鈥檚 beer.

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