A Coventry Kid's Tale

Chapter 4: Approx 8 years old

The child was now getting older and wiser. A magnet he managed to find, this he used for retrieving dinky toys that had gone down the drains in the road, payment was half their sweet allowance for the day. The child did not want for sweets. However this was to end as all dinky toys were recovered and no more could be found. He sold the magnet for sixpence, bargain, for this was three times his daily allowance.

About this time in his life there appeared on the street a funny boy who walked around with an usherette's tray for selling ice-cream in the cinema? Weird, upon looking at the tray the child could see ribbons and medals from the war. This boy's name was Michael (fool) Dowling, the child was to make even more money!! "I will give two shillings for a ribbon" the fool said. Off the child ran, round the corner and down the alleyway, for at the bottom of the alleyway was a pile of old clothes. Now these clothes were covered in ribbons, so the child very carefully removed one ribbon and ran back to the fool. "Here's a ribbon" said the child. "Here's two shillings" said the fool. The fool walked away happy, the child walked away happy, knowing there were many more ribbons where that one came from. This lasted a very long time until there were no more ribbons left.

The father on Friday nights used to say "I'm off to see a man about a dog". The child for years used to think they were going to have a dog, but one never appeared. So one Friday night he followed his father. Peering around the back gate he watched his father march off up the road then suddenly he vanished through a door. Quickly the child ran to the door to peer inside. There inside was his father talking to another man (about a dog, the child thought). Off went the child back home to wait for the dog, but when the father came home there was still no dog? Curious, thought the child. The following Friday the child once again followed his father but this time he would wait by the door for his father to come out. He waited for hours and finally returned home. As he entered the house he was greeted with "Where have you been son?". The father was already in the house. This shocked the child for he knew his father had not come back out of that door? Magic, thought the child, his dad was a magician. It took the poor child a long time to find out there was another door in the other street. One either side of the pub. His father would go out the back gate, then walk up the road and enter into the pub in Alma Street and come back out of the pub into Lower Ford Street and then into the front door at home. (The pub was called The Canterbury Arms.) The child was disappointed for now he knew his father was not a magician (no dog either).