A Loving family
By
Jacquimac

Pt One
The beginning.

We`ve a good life together Richard and me, our four children are grown and themselves are now grandparents.
Today is Richards 75th Birthday and the whole family will be arriving in the next hour for the Usual celebrations.
You would think the family had planned all the birthdays they way they`re spread out through the year.We`re pretty well spead out across the country but we always get together for any family celebration, it`s not good for a family to loose contact or just pick up the telephone or drop a letter, being together whether times are good or bad means a lot to us all, anyone of us that needs help or has a problem knows that our within loving family they can get help, advice or can just talk.Oh we have our fights like any other group of people, I mean wouldn`t it be great if we were all alike? like hell it would, life would be damned boring,but for all our fights and arguments which never last long as we love each other whatever our faults.

Richard and myself never really new love until we found each other all those years ago, we were from poor working class families and rarely saw our parents due to them having work long hours just to pay the bills, we were what they called in those days `Latch Key Kids` Pocket Money was a rarity, when we went shopping with our mothers you never asked for anything as we knew they could`nt afford it.
There were no computers in those days ,in fact there were no pocket calculators if you had to do any counting or maths calculations you use the calculator between your ears (Your Brain) with a pencil and paper,
Toys? we never had many usually we had a cricket bat or a football we made our own fun.There were no amusment arcades, cinemas? there were a few of those but like I said money was tight so we had to make our own games,Oh didn`t mention we`re from the 1950`s generation, World War 2 had only just ended and the Korean war was the latest topic and food rationing in the UK had just ended.

Richard was born in England in1950 and I was born in a Small town In Scotland 1953. My parents moved to England when i was about 6 months old leaving me with one of my grandmothers.I didn`t join my parents until I was around 6yrs old by which time I had a sister and a brother.The house was a 2 up 2 down with old stone slab floors, no hot water and an outside toilet and outside coal shed.
All the houses in the area were the same and every family was more or less in the same financial situation ,damned poor.
Just about all the parents worked in the local cotton mills usually doing 12 hr shifts.All the kids in the area were well fed and although our clothing was full of patches they were clean, families would swap old clothing with other families especially when the kids had out grown them. We lived in real communities were everyone looked for each other, local shops were small family owned used passed down from the parents.Everybody knew each other and usually each others business.
the Kids usually all went to same local primary,junior or senior school unless you went to a domination school or won a scholarship to grammar school.
Yes we lived by todays standards in the Darkages,I think there one television in our street a black and white 14inch tube set that used to take around 10minutes to warm up, no and only 1 channel to watch at first,nobody owned a car even if they could drive.there was a bus service with buses every 20 minutes or so.Yes times were tough but a lot slower than today.

to be continued.........