It never rained when we were kids

Most of us say this, don’t we? No matter what kind of childhood, looking back, we don’t remember the rain. While writing my book, ‘Second Chances’, I thought a lot about my childhood. The main characters had all grown up together and when writing about their younger years I couldn’t help but remember my own. The freedom, the sunshine (because it never rained when we were kids) and the simplicity of just living. Admittedly in my book, the main characters Jack and Emma lost touch during their late teens, only to be reunited as adults (no more spoilers) but in my mind, they grew up exactly as I’d done.

Like most kids born in Lancashire, England, in the early 1970’s I led a very basic working-class life. Our family sufficed with three television channels viewed from the heaviest object in the house, rented from ‘Rumbelows’. Posh people had an oak veneer around their television sets that matched their coffee table, and if you weren’t posh, like us, your television sat on a cupboard with drawers that housed your dads ‘pools’ coupons and your mums sewing patterns for pinafore dresses that you dreaded having to wear.

We didn’t have a telephone either. If a phone call had to be made, you either got friendly with a neighbour that had a phone, or you filled your pockets with ten pence pieces and joined the queue outside the red telephone box, opposite the chippy. You always left stinking of cigarette smoke whether you’d had one or not, caught up on the sexual exploits of the locals by way of the graffiti, and you always had a strong desire to wash your hands after pressing the metal buttons. Unfortunately, quite often, the phone wasn’t working, which meant you had to walk the streets in the rain (not that it rained when we were kids) to find one that did work.

During the summer holidays we played out all day (it never rained when we were kids), except during Wigan weeks, when the whole town shut down for fourteen days while everyone went on holiday to either Blackpool or Rhyll. The posh ones went to Pontins at Southport. We normally rented a car for a few days and had ‘day-trips’. My mum would pack a picnic with salmon paste butties, cans of Lilt and those packets of crisp where you had to search through the bag to find the little sachet of salt. I still remember the excitement of leaving Wigan in a car, lifting my feet up on the back seat when going down a hill, and winding the window fully so I could stick my head out while sucking on a travel sweet.

When not on holiday, summer holidays consisted of waking up early to the sounds of bees buzzing against your window (because it never rained when we were kids) and the vibrations of the twin-tub spinner taking a waltz around the kitchen floor. Readybreck was always the breakfast choice, followed by a quick strip wash with a bar of your mums best Camay soap. If you had chores, like I did, you brought the hoover out from under the stairs (don’t touch the dust bag otherwise you had to polish the sideboard too) and ran it up and down the shag pile carpet a few times. If you offered to empty the bag as well (without choking) this normally resulted in a twenty pence piece later spent on a ten pence mixture and a milky bar (because the adverts said they were homemade and therefore good for you).

We always just assumed other kids would be sat in and waiting for that knock to come out and play. They normally were. Because it didn’t rain when we were kids, no waterproofs were ever needed and if we got hot, we got the hosepipe out and either drank from it, cooled ourselves down under it, or quite frequently, both. We‘d disappear for hours, playing kirby or reading ‘Jackie’ in someone’s shed and pretending we could relate to the problem page.

We didn’t have watches, our stomachs told us when it was time to go home for food. On Fridays, we always had a chippy tea. My mum would give me a large Tupperware bowl and send me off with an order for fish, chips and pea wet. If you queued patiently, you got a chip lolly as a reward (3 chips on a wooden fork).

Friday was always bath night, to clear up the mud the hose pipe hadn’t removed. Posh kids used Timotei on their hair and Matey bubbles in their bath. We had an all-in-one hair and body shampoo called washing up liquid. You couldn’t put too much in though, because your dad had to get in after you when he got home from work, and if you had a dog, that got in after everyone else. After that, we’d all sit together and watch the ‘Fonz’ in ‘Happy days’, followed by ‘Starsky and Hutch’.

Bedtime was never greeted well, but at least it meant we got up looking taller (because everyone knows as kids you grow while you’re sleeping) before looking forward to your next day of the holidays, because as kids, it never rained.

Love, Louise x