memories of my Oldton

Hi Tim,

Sad story you have there – sorry about your dad, and it sounds like you still have a thousand questions or more. I’ve no pictures and no physical artefacts at all, but I have verbal descriptions.

At the north end of the town there was a railway station – just a small station with two tracks that ran across the road. So, every twenty minutes or so the signal would go….clang, clang, clang and the gates would close across the road, and we would stand and watch the train rush by. There was a signal box visible from the road, where the guard would sit, controlling the gates. When I was told I was to leave my town, I cried. I inscribed my name on the station’s gate post – “Elaine lived here and loves this town”.

Winding up from the station was a hill and about a third of the way up and to the left was the high street. There were no supermarkets, they had not been invented. Instead there were the Butchers, sawdust floor and a counter of red dripping meats and pallid chickens; the bakers where I used to spend my pocket money on doughnuts stuffed with synthetic cream and my most fervent memory – the toy shop. It had a red door and the windows were always stuffed with an array of toys. I used to stand and stare in the window at the dolls prams and dolls- cuddly toys bored me. Unfortunately my pocket money never stretched to buying much from the toy shop – I think I saved enough once to buy a skipping rope.

I can recall the entire physical layout of this small town – it was really a large village. I remember Butts lane where the bindweed grew- hours of fun popping the flowers

“Grandmother, Grandmother, get out of bed!” Pop! We would hold competitions to see who could fire their flower the furthest.

I remember the first time I saw torrential rain – we were on our way home from school and we sheltered under the canopy of the station shop, but apart from that I remember long hot days, sycamore trees in the playground at school and the vast stretch of lime green grass in the park.

I did not want to leave and have many happy memories. I was born there in 1963 and left in 1974.

Elaine Bousfield

Comments

[matthew]

i think i remember the sergeant saying something about Oldton. She came to Oldton before she sadly past away in Liverpool. Her friends said she loved the open fields and the railway. It took her away from the manic nature of her life and of Paris.
She stayed as a lodger, keeping herself alone. She loved the long walks when her bashed the sticks against Oldton primary school's railings. This must have been in 1999, before she saw Richard. I imagine when Richard came, her Oldton was dead. Good sturdy Oldton, the only firm thing in her life.