Jill’s Tales 💕

I shall try my utmost to bring my past to life from amidst my befuddled brain

Well you know I was the youngest girl with four older siblings in our house

So as you can probably imagine it would never be as quiet as a mouse

Heaven’s forbid no, we were quite a lively lot

Going out and in our front door and seldom stationary on the spot

Our Douglas or Dougy as he was known, is four years my senior, so I often played alone

Mind you I had my school friends and a few of them lived on my street

So after the school bell was rang at half past three.. we would all run home, get changed, and meet

To tell you the truth when I was just a youth, we played outside until the dark

We were always hanging around until our Mother’s came and found us, usually in our local little park

But we had our games for each and every season

Where our different activities were for an obvious reason

 i.e., in the glorious sunny summer heat and I can recall only beautiful blue skies

I spent my playtimes on the beaches which will not come as a surprise

As I lived on the coast and my Father with his brothers

They owned two fishing boats where they worked with one another’s

I absolutely loved being a fisherman’s   lass

And I was always climbing up and down of the metal rungs on the pier, it was class

So I ambled my evenings on and off our fishing boats

We would pretend we were fishermen and wear my Dad and uncles smelly coats

I can fondly remember the heavy snowfall one mid December 64’

My friend and I was always walking around to that massive house and walking through the back door

We I would trudge around to the ‘Shieleen’ almost every day.

This huge house was rather grand, full of my Dad’s siblings.. and in this old, untidy attic is where we used to play

I was never by myself.. Oh heaven’s no

I would join our Dougy and our cousins and we all would put on a show

Oh yes I can still see that old attic now

It would be full of cobwebs and spiders but we didn’t care somehow

All of us well except for little me.. slept over when we wanted in that old attic by the sea

Haha the norm was to have a big, round china peepot under the many put up beds

And I don’t know how many times we would bump our little heads

Coz the attic had diagonal big old oak beams

And funnily enough still today I see these in my dreams

Summertime was so much fun, we would run to the farmer’s fields

New, fresh bales of hay would be those local farmer’s yields

I adored playing in the dens made out of bales of hay

It was like a large maze and I always lost my way

But Oh that unique smell of the new cut grass

Lots of my best friends joined me from my school class

Now when the Autumn came around we would knock on neighbour’s doors

Shouting “Penny for the guy, we can help you with your chores” 

And all the while we pushed wheelbarrows which we used to fill

And then dump it on our bonfire which ended up brill

Coz come November the fifth well we would light up the night sky

And our rocketting fireworks would zig, zag and zoom way up high

Then of course December would come around

With all the merriment festivities and family fun that was abound

Christmas was such a magical time for me

These are the clearest memories I can recall, spent with my family

The sheer excitement that I felt was so unreal

I simply cannot explain to one and all how that early morning made me feel

Our Dougy must have been lying wide awake

And as Mam and Dad crept up our stairs, our Dougy’s fast asleep was nothing but a fake

But as soon as he was able and he possibly could

Haha and it would be much earlier and at a stupid o’ clock than he really should

He came creeping in to tell me “Jill getup Santas been” 

Weary-eyed from no shut eye at all, we would tip toe down the stairs, and open the living room door to our presents that was seen

Each arm chair in the room had a bundle of wrapped presents, of all shapes and sizes

Especially for me and my brothers and sisters surprises

Noe we didn’t get alot but in those days that was the earth

We were simply over-the-moon with our merryment’s mirth

I can still recall walking with my welly boots on with my Mam and Dad and our little lot

We and all our cousins with their Mams and Dads, always went to the ‘Shieleen’ for our get-together Xmas spot

Well we played games and ate nice food and the old sunny films was always good, what a party we all had a briiliant ball

Then at the end of the evening, we would all say our goodbyes and trudge away home in the seasonal snowfall..

I was brought up with a methodist religion and attending morning Sunday school was our usual tradition.. I was in the choir until I was about thirteen, It got sort of abit not a teenager done thing, if you know what I mean.. but I still went in that Chapel every Friday night.. but this was different coz it was youth club and our youth club was alright.. So betwixt the youth club at the Chapel and the youth club at the school, well I used to go both of them coz they were cool, I was always a busy lanky, lean bee with a group of my school chums we amused ourselves happily..My Mother was a liverpudlian lass and as a youngun she would lug us all in the smelly carriages, on a train bound for Liverpool.. to stay over at her two sister’s.. this was just class.. I played with the girl nextdoor to my lovely Aunty Nellie everytime I went, and I can tell you Monica and I used our childhood hours well spent.. Aunt Lily was Mam’s other sister but she never married so had her house in another street.. Aunt Nellie was the loveliest, most caring person one could ever meet, with her husband David and kids, Stan, Kenneth and Anita.. I can recall how she would break into floods of tears everytime we’d greet her..Both our big families went on little holidays.. five most memorable treasured 60’s weeks.. I loved Butlins in Oh so many ways..
 
I must have been thirteen or just less when I started working for my wages, I would do split shifts at various hotels and earn my pay in stages.. at some I would serve breakfasts, then I would go upstairs and help clean the rooms..Eeh I can recall us squirting the customers perfumes.. but all-in-all I enjoyed waiting on, and I was told that I was good at it when all was said and done..Now I started working at the Viking ballroom, I was a waitress just the same and we waited on at dinner dances where hundreds of people came.. now this was great coz I got to stay out late and that would be the beginning of my dancing.. well that’s what I will blame.. Well the Viking used to be the talk of the town, it’s where everybody went and all full buses from everywhere travelled down.. So of course I loved that place, it was my pride and joy.. I didn’t pay a penny or have to queue Oh boy..