our old clothes and Wellingtons to start work at half past four
until half past six. It made us feel very important to have a job
and on Fridays, pay days, we were very well off, receiving four
pounds per week, including a Saturday morning's pay. Our work consisted
of various tasks; planting seeds, cutting lettuce, packing it and
weeding. On rainy days, we would work inside the greenhouses. These
occasions were enjoyable as sometimes the boss would leave us to
get on with our work — a grave mistake, for we would immediately
down tools and fool around, having peat fights (throwing clumps
of peat at each other) — great fun but rather nasty if one caught
you in the mouth. On Saturdays, we started at seven o'clock in the
morning, working until half past one in the afternoon. We took a
piece with us and I remember we used to be so hungry at the time
break came, that we would happily munch our way through crisps and
sandwiches washed down by lemonade, sitting next to a heap of manure
and with dirty hands. When I think of it now, I feel quite sick,
but these were happy days and ! have lots of memories too numerous
to recall.
Winter in Prestonpans brought new and exciting games to us children.
We would beg, borrow or steal from our mothers' kitchens trays to
sledge down the steep hill which is now a flight of stairs between
Summerlee and Burnside leading to the Wee Shop. We would haul our
sledges to the top of the hill and go speeding down the slope (which
was by this time as slippery as glass), shooting right off the kerb
and on to a road which was used quite often. My house looked over
on to the slope and if my mother caught sight of us, we would be
ordered into the house and skelped, then told not to go and play
there again but to go to the Pennypit Park where it was safe. However,
we took no heed of her warning — what good was it playing in an
area that did not carry the slightest bit of a risk? Until one day
a friend of ours took her turn on the slope and sledged right under
a lorry as it came full speed along the road. We were thunderstruck,
the lorry driver slammed on his brakes and jumped out of the cab.
He was a deathly white colour as we all were, but our friend had
escaped unhurt and had run away. Well, that was the last we ever
played there as the lorry driver reported the incident and the council
workmen came and gritted the icy slope whenever it snowed.
Where the houses are built now at Summerlee used to be a slope and
we would often play there. We discovered the soil had a lot of clay
in it and we would dig it with our spoons, then make models as we
would have done with plasticine. If we left the models out for a
day, the sun would bake them hard. On top of the slope was a wilderness
of long grass and weeds which every so often the council workmen
would come and cut, and we would then collect armfuls of the stuff
and form dens, playing for
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