ColinWaldron is BACK! From the Edge Part 1

Sunday School did get me into the cubs, which got me into the football team, so I tolerated it in silence, it was a means to an end. I didn’t mind the Church Parades though, kitted out in our cub uniforms, we used to sit in the side aisles eating aniseed twists and crunching on them during prayers! I even got to carry the flag once, but it was so heavy and my back ached as the leather pouch it fitted into dug deeper and deeper into my groin; three years later and I would have had a hernia!

Winters seemed so much harder then; there was no central heating or fires outside of the living room and the inside of my bedroom window would freeze up with ice and I used to scratch my name backwards in it. We had a brick air vent which was covered with cardboard to keep the cold draughts out. It was freezing!

Christmas was less commercialised although we always had loads of toys, one year I got a Freddie Mills punch ball stand and boxing gloves, which was a punch ball on a coiled spring which fitted into the board which you stood on and punched away at. 1960 was the year I got my first claret and blue shirt and I was always Ray Pointer when I wore it outside playing football.

The School Christmas parties were tame affairs, pass the parcel, chocolate marshmallows wrapped in foil, jelly and fairy cakes. We all had to take our own spoons in and they had to have a piece of wool wrapped around the handle, so that we would know which was ours to bring home.

We even had our own little beds to get a late morning nap in, after we had drunk our often warm and souring milk! urgh never been that keen on milk since then.

There was no school bus or car to take you to school and me and mum would set off on the mile walk to get there; sometimes the snow was that deep that when we arrived my feet were frozen, damp and wet.

Christmas was always something special; up early to open your presents, which always came in a pillowcase with chocolate smokers outfit, apple, orange and shelled nuts. Christmas morning I would go over with Dad to his nearby allotment and we would bring a stalk of sprouts and whatever other vegetables we needed for Christmas dinner. The allotment kept us in vegetables all year round and I used to chase rabbits in the summer months on there, but never caught any; always tripping up and getting my feet stuck in the holes that they burrowed.

Our record collection was hilarious; we had a red and cream coloured Dansette record player and we got our records from Woollies on the Embassy label, which was a kind of pre Music For Pleasure type of copies of the originals and weren’t up to much. I can remember listening to Devil Woman and Swiss Maid; this was still pre Beatle days and Frank Ifield and others sent us to sleep with boredom.

I hope I’m not painting a picture of a loveable little lad, because I had my moments and one of them concerned one of my best mates Rob who lived next door. Having finished my tube of smarties I went to the sideboard drawer; opened mums bottle of iron tablets; they were brown and I often thought they looked like smarties, so I put 3 of them into the tube and set off to find Rob; I offered them to him telling him that I didn’t like the brown ones and he could have them. Rob stuffed all 3 in his mouth, chewed them and then burst into tears and set off for his mum! I got a right clout round the ear for that one!

Saturday lunchtime was the ABC Minors Matinee at the local pictures and we would watch films of Zorro, Tarzan and Batman. Yes we did sing “The Ovalteenies Song” and “The ABC Minors Club Song”. Back home in time to listen to the football results and smell mums baking for Sunday tea.

Europe was something I knew little about at my age and after so much hope in the 1st leg of the quarter Final against Hamburg; the preparation for a lifetime of supporting Burnley followed in the 2nd leg and out we went. Nothing that Burnley ever do has surprised me since and I suspect that’s the way it will always be!

I can remember getting the Charles Buchanan football annual the year Jimmy Adamson was named footballer of the year and had his photo in it; incredible to think he never played for England, the annual was lost and I’m not sure what year that was; probably 1962?

The following year would see many changes for the Burnley team with the likes of Andy Lochhead, Willie Morgan, Brian O’Neil, Arthur Bellamy and Willie Irvine starting to make 1st team appearances, a new era was dawning and for me senior school beckoned.

See you next time for more From The Edge