It was the end of a long hot summer day. It must have been late because we should have been getting ready for bed. It had been so glorious that Mum had said we could have an extra half hour to play and we were making the most of it. Our playground was the ‘Big Alley’. We lived in the terraced house in Constable Street where I had been born not many years earlier. It was a three up, two down with a scullery on the back. The third bedroom was over an arched gateway into the ‘Big Alley’. I don't know if it had been used in the past for stabling but there were the remains of buildings that might have served that purpose, but some were locked and some forbidden to us because of dangers unknown to small children.
There was a wide space where we could play, even an area where Dad had attempted a little gardening. There were hollyhocks which came very year unbidden and African marigolds planted on purpose. There was a bramble bush that produced a disappointing crop that we braved the thorns to pick in autumn, always sour and not worth the effort. There were fine crops of dandelion all over the alley wherever gaps in the cobbles allowed soil to gather. We knew not to pick them as they made you wet the bed. There was also a plant I always found attractive and it proves to me that a weed is just a flower in the wrong place. It had delicate, white, trumpet- shaped flowers. I did not know it was the bindweed or convolvulus and had to be regularly cleared if it were not to take over the whole plot. I just liked that delicate flower though I learned not to pick them as they wilted quickly in our jam pot vases and often there were earwigs lurking at the bottom of the trumpet.
It was this playground with its makeshift garden that marked me for life. I cannot remember the game that was being played or even if we were just three Swallows together. There may have been a couple of Whitehouses and one or two Bells as well. I doubt if I was taking much part in the game my sisters would have organised. At my age, I would probably have been on the edge of the game and at the edge of the garden.
The edge of the garden was clearly marked and it marked me. There was no wall or special edging. Instead, a number of slate roof tiles had been stuck into the ground so that one corner pointed upwards and made what might have seemed a rather smart garden border. I must have been running around, and slipped, and fallen. My screams brought the game to a halt and Josephine and Christine came running to pick me up. When they saw the blood, one stayed with me while the other ran into the house to find Dad. Dad had of course, just walked out through the front door moments before and was not to be found. Mum came running. I was taken inside and the blood cleaned from my face to reveal a deep cut, high on my nose between my eyes. How close I must have come to losing an eye, forty years early. I was swathed in bandages so that I was effectively sightless and a taxi was called.
It shows what an emergency it was felt to be because taxis were seldom used when buses and trolleys passed the end of the road every few minutes. I have little recollection of the visit to the hospital. I don't know if I had the wound stitched though the scar has been there ever since. What I do remember was that had I taken my very first trip in a taxi and had been so carefully wrapped up in bandages that I had been unable to see any of that momentous journey. I have a feeling that Mum may have panicked a bit with all the blood. She was a state registered nurse, though not working at the time. As if raising three children wasn't work enough. Mum could cope calmly and efficiently with a medical emergency that happened to anyone in the street. She once climbed in through the window of the house next door to find the neighbour's son. who had so tragically taken his own life but she went to pieces if one of her family was hurt.
The scar on my nose has added to my character, I suppose. It does show the dangers of breaking with routine. As Mum went on for a little while afterwards, if it hadn't been such a lovely day would she have had us safely doors, washed and ready for bed. Instead in we had had a wonderful time playing in the evening sunshine and creating childhood memories to share.
