All the local kids used to gather on a Saturday morning outside the Stanley Institute where the local cinema was. It was a penny or a pop bottle , they got the tuppence deposit, to get in and there was the kids club on for us to see the latest films as we thought. It was usually Flash Gordon or Tarzan. Sometimes we got Zorro. They seemed so good but were really the black and white films from the 1930's only twenty years old.
I remember once we had a visit from the PG tips monkeys , these were used in the adverts for the tea and did really funny things. They would set up a tea party and the chimps all used cups and saucers for their tea which I later learned was really fruit juice. They could also ride bikes and do balancing acts just like in a circus. They all had to wear nappies in case they needed to go to the toilet. We all got chimp masks to wear and we got a money off token for loose tea to take home for Mum. No such thing as tea bags then.
One Sunday morning when I was about 9 years old all the kids were playing Robin Hood after seeing him at the Saturday morning pictures. Errol Flynn was such a swashbuckling figure in his fight with the Sherrif of Nottingham. I wanted a bow and arrow to join in so I went up the road to the woods in Halls farm and found a decent length of willow that I could break off. I also took some withies to make into arrows, these were the new willows that were growing from the old trunks. They had grown straight and long and with a privet leaf put into the shaft would make passable arrows. I took them all home and went into the kitchen to make the bow.
Mum had been getting the dinner ready, boiled bacon today, she had sharpened the carving knife specially for it.
Dad had gone out on the new NSU Quickly moped, he was starting a new job as a trainee pub manager and wanted to see how long it would take him the next morning.
I got the knife, a 10 inch slicing knife with a bone handle, started to clean the bark from the willow. It striped easily leaving a smooth wet wood underneath, I decided that I would have to whittle a notch at one end to tie the bow string to, butchers string that mum had used to tie the bacon joint. I chopped away from me as I knew was safe. Then I had to cut the other way to make the notch and instead of doing what I knew I should do I chopped towards myself. The knife slipped and I ended up with it in my knuckle of my left hand.
There was no pain and I put the knife down on the table, I grabbed my left hand with my right hand and walked into the front room where Mum was crocheting,
“Mum I have cut myself” I said as I got to her. “Let me see” she said.
I moved my right hand and the knuckle opened like a pair of lips, it went right down to the bone, there was hardly any blood, just this straight cut across the knuckle of my index finger. She screamed and grabbed a cotton tea towel to wrap around my hand. The next ten minutes were absolute mayhem. We did not have a phone, the nearest was half a mile away by the corner shop. It was easier to walk me down the road to a friends of my Dad’s who had a car to get me to hospital.
Everything happened so fast, I was rushed to Ormskirk Hospital, I then started screaming because they wanted to give me a local anaesthetic. I was strapped to crucifix so that they could stitch the wound. Three big nylon stitches were put in and I was given a sling to wear. I felt like a war hero.
Three or four weeks later after the stitches had been taken out and I didn’t need a sticking plaster any more I had a great big scar right across my left index knuckle.
The first of many scars I would collect over the years, I always was a clumsy child.
Quite soon after my knuckle healed, I was playing marbles on the concrete square at the back of our house. Shane Higson was playing with me and two or three other lads. I remember that I won and went to grab Shanes marbles as you did.
He didn’t think I had won and stamped on my left hand. I saw red and just swung up with my right fist, it landed square on the end of his nose. He went down like a sack of spuds, I grabbed the marbles and ran up our path to my Mum in the kitchen.
“Mum, Shane Higson just stamped on my scar” I shouted.
“ Come here and let me see.” said Mum.
I went over and she said “it’s all right, it’s not opened up”.
Next thing there was screaming coming from the back of the house as Shane’s Mum came up our path shouting the odds about how I had thumped her son and burst his nose for no reason.
My Mum went out gave her down the banks about how her son had started it by stamping on my injured hand. Shanes mum gave him a clip around the ear and told him tell her the whole truth in future.
Good job we went to different schools as we weren’t mates any more.
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