A Coventry Kid's Tale

Chapter 1: A Child is Born (20-01-1948)

A team of white coated people poked, prodded and abused him. As the days passed he became accustomed to this but the food he could not. This was mainly green carpet, cut into squares and steamed, he immediately scraped the green stuff into a receptacle under the bed, little realising they would find it. Horrors! After finding green stuff in the potty they stood over him to make him eat the cabbage. Yeech.

At night his parents would come to peer at him through a small round window in the door. No matter how much he pleaded with them to take him back home they laughed and pointed at him then waved goodbye. Oh how he cried.
Two weeks of misery past by, the funny swellings on his neck had disappeared (they thought these swellings were mumps) so the nurses said "A treat today, you are going outside", so they pushed his bed outside. All day he stayed there, freezing cold and covered in snow. The nurses said "Your parents should be here soon".
This was a crafty ploy, for when he sat up in bed to look for them, the ice and snow fell from the bed. Then they were able to return the bed to his room clean of snow. (His parents never came that day.)
After three weeks of solitary confinement, his parents relented and took him home. Oh, joy of joys. There on the table was a new electric train set, he forgave his parents.

Sunday walks were nice, five miles or more his parents would walk (with his little legs, 15 miles), through the Memorial park they would go. Then to Devil's Dungeon. Stop and have an ice-cream at the Milk Bar. Then forward again to Crackly Woods to see the bluebells. This was all exciting for the child for he had never been so far before. However his little legs could walk no farther, so his father said "Hop on my shoulders son". On he hopped, sitting astride his father's shoulders, off they went. All the way through town back to their home you could hear noises like, bang, crump, wallop, dongs and dings. Nobody paid any attention to this except the child? When finally arriving home they found the reason for the funny noises. The child suffering mild concussion, black and blue and with lumps on his head he had been too tall to fit under the street signs.
Now coming to the age of five he was to be sent to the workhouse (school).
Life was to change forever!!!