Winter 1963 By Charles Roberts

 

I remember the winter nineteen sixty three, I’d started at the local secondary modern school in the September of sixty two, it was about a mile and a half walk down to the school; and I mean down, it was about a one in six hill we had to walk down, and up again.  The deep snow and ice made for good fun, seeing how far we could slide without falling down, turning the packed snow into ice as the temperatures dropped during the nights; we could manage about twenty yards until the gritters got to work and sprayed the footpaths with their salt and grit.

          We still had the school playground though and, as it sloped down from the gardens to the gate we could just about go the full length of it, until the caretaker salted a path from the school door to the toilet block, yes we had outside bogs then.  I remember one P.E. lesson where we walked down to the rugby pitch, we used the same pitch that the amateur teams played on at the weekend.  It had defrosted during the weekend and they had played on it turning it into mud, then it had frozen solid.  Mr Thompson took one look at the pitch and told us not to tackle, we played rugby league not union, but to play touch rugby that way no one should get injured; I remember that you could hardly run on that pitch it was like a badly ploughed field, so we were sent on a cross country run instead.

          We had two cross country courses, one was about four miles the other was about six and there were no short cuts, he often used to ride his bike out to check on us, but with all the snow he couldn’t do that.  I was always in the last few so had a ‘clean’ path to run on.  When the cricket season started I ended up being hit on the forehead by a bat, I was wicket keeping; I woke in the headmaster’s office with an egg sized lump on the right side of my forehead. 

          The second time I woke in the headmaster’s office was during a game of football, I was in goal and it was the old leather ball then and they were heavy once they got wet; I got it full in the face and my nose bled for about two hours.  The head even thought about taking me to the hospital to try and stop it bleeding.  It’s good to remember the old days, even if they bring back the not so good memories.