Where's me get younger pills? (From Gazette & Herald)

Where's me get younger pills?

AN interesting letter this week from Colin Gaydon of Wetherby, an ex-Norton Boys' School boy who had loads of memories to recall of an era just a little later than my own. Nevertheless he did 'serve' under dear William Frankish, that very fatherly headmaster, and one of his first recollections is being fitted with a gas mask at school. This, in turn, jogs my own memory, for masks must have been issued fairly early on in 1939, as I can remember helping to fit them to local folk whilst at the Town Hall. We spent hours assembling them, along with an extra filter which had to be added, which was to cope with some other form of gas that the original filters didn't cater for. Fitting went on in the council-chamber-cum-library, and the test that it was gas tight was when we placed a piece of card across the filter inlet, and the wearer found he or she couldn't get any air. Panic!

Colin mentioned Audrey Wray, a teacher at the school, who I also remember, for she was my next door neighbour way down Scarborough Road, although 'next door' was probably more than a quarter-mile. I remember Audrey's mum, a lady who wore her hair with a 'bun' and I would sometimes go into her parlour and watch her churning milk for butter, and the fascination of seeing her making up the pound lumps of butter using wooden 'paddles' (what IS their proper name?). These had either just grooves in them, or a criss-cross, and one I think had some sort of picture carved on it, so that your pound of butter was always delightful to look at, as well as to eat.

Colin tells me that Audrey, who lives now in Bishop Stortford is still teaching (part-time). She does well, for she is now an octagenarian.

Memories there are two of evacuees from Hull, and Sunderland, and they would swell the school numbers, for some lessons were conducted in the Empire Ballroom at Norton, which of course was lastly Norton Clothing Factory. When I came on leave I remember dances were held there - I only went once as they appeared to be the venue for local wars between a couple of gangs, and chairs were likely to be flying. Names I still remember - but those were days of long ago, and many of the rivals will be no more. A German bomb fell on a hillside at Scagglethorpe, so Colin tells me, leaving a large crater, and he, and other lads, walked all the way there to look for shrapnel.

Several years after the war, I'd cycled to Wetherby where Colin was working as a public health inspector, although I didn't know that at the time. Anyway, climbing the hill out of town I saw this chap standing by a parked car in a gateway, and it turned out to be him, he'd seen me, and turned round to overtake and stop and have a chat. Was I surprised! Many thanks Colin for your memories.

An interesting snippet appears in a little newsletter which we used to get from the Autumn Tints Cycling Comrades and it tells of the Haworth Prayer 'Tree'. Visitors to the church where the Brontes lived, can write messages and stick them on the 'tree'. These were some of July's last year: Original spellings.

Dear God, Please keep all my family and friends safe when I go on holiday. Don't let harm come to them. See ya Luv. Tania.

Dear God, Please help me get a girlfriend. I want her to be the right one fore me. Thank you.

Dear Lord, Please keep all my family safe and try to get them to talk before it is two late. Love Alison XXXX.

Dear Father, Could you say hello to my Granddad Fell.

Vicky, our late secretary, thought these might interest members, and indeed they do. Whether you're religious or not, these surely prove that faith exists.

I had three goes at trying to work in the garden today, and got rained off. I'm not a lover of gardening, although I do like to see the results of my labours, but could well do without them, for many of my days just disappear into the garden. I look at other folk playing tennis, going for a ride or a walk, or even holiday, and wonder where I went wrong. Housework and garden doesn't leave time for much pleasure, for neither can be ignored. As I get older, and abilities less, the garden seems to get bigger - it's that old inverse law again. Murphy's (or Sod's) Law, stated that 'If anything can go wrong, it will'. To that can now be added Reed's Law - 'The size of the garden increases in inverse proportion to the diminishing abilities of old age'. Where's me Get Younger Pills?

On the subject of gardening, do any of these wonderful so-called weed-killers work? I must have spent pounds and pounds over the years trying to eradicate ground elder, and wicks, couch grass and the like, but they still come in abundance. I think if they did work for the general public, the manufacturers would be out of business, and the only answer must be to get some of the 'proper' stuff the farmers use, somehow.

Seen on a church bulletin: "At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice".

Updated: 17:01 Wednesday, May 28, 2003