A Coventry Kid's Tale

Chapter 10: 3A (Getting older)

A lucky win on the football pools the father had. "Son" said the father "would you like a new bike?". "Yes please" said the whimpering child. "Then let's go" said the father. Up to the top of Cox Street they went to the bicycle shop. There the child was told to choose his bike. A brand fire new racing bike, with drop handlebars and five speed gears. The child was in seventh heaven. The child went every where on his new bike, to school, his mates houses and to see Peter in Torbay Road at his aunty Lydia's. Sadly to say but on his way, going along Allesley Old Road, another racing bike passed the child and the handle bars caught in the child's coat pocket pulling him off his bike. With his coat almost torn in half and holes in his trousers his school uniform was ruined, so was his bike. With buckled wheels and blood running down his legs home he went. Explaining to his mother what had happened, the mother never ever, ever believed him. Always believing that he had been "tracking" in the woods and had come a cropper through his own fault. The new bike was a wreck within six months. Oh for an all steel Raleigh that weighed a ton.

At school the child had now started to stay for school dinners. This was nice as the child now started to eat twice a day, main meals that is!! Seconds and thirds almost every day was to be had, how the child grew. After school it was a rush to go to the corner shop in Newnham Road to buy your 3p ciggie and then go up Trentham Road to the canal to smoke it. You could hardly see the canal for smoke! Now, if all the children had clubbed their 3p's together they could have bought more ciggies for their money. At 3p a ciggie it worked out 2/6 for ten, but ten ciggies were only 1/10p to buy in a packet. Oh, for a brain!!!!
On the way home from the A.T.C. on Wednesday nights the child found a corner shop selling batches, this was on the corner of King Edward Road and Berry Street and called the "BER-DOT". Pork and stuffing batches and faggot and pea batches were a must, but also a dilemma as the child could only afford one. So it was alternated each week. The Ber-Dot, even when the child had his own children, took them there as well to sample the pleasure of eating the batches (the two of them had the same dilemma). His wife too.