the top of the door and the door jamb . He would then give a sharp tug on the body of the bird and the lower legs would come off dragging the tendons out of the thigh area .

There were always loads of lower legs on the floor with long tendons hanging out and Stan and I would hold the legs and pull on the tendons and the feet would open and close . A lesson in anatomy at a very early age !

In the next process my Dad would chop off the heads and neck and clean out all the innards, keeping the Giblets . There were usually enough giblets left over for my mother to make the most delicious soup . After all this the birds were then ready to take back to the shop in the morning ready for the customers to collect.

When we were not at school ( I'm now talking about when I was five to ten years old), we would play in the street . The popular games then were Top and whip, Hop scotch, Rounders, French cricket ( this was played because of the narrowness of the street and so the possible damage to windows if someone slogged the ball in proper cricket ), Football, Hoops, Yoyo, Ollies, Realio, Tick, Hide and seek, Skipping, Making and flying paper aeroplanes, Scooter, Roller skating and of course Cycling . I think it's true to say the only game played now is football with the participants not caring much about the locals regards or property !

I believe that with all these physical activities the youth at that time were much fitter, stronger and more self-reliant that those of today.

We had no Television, no Videos and at that time my Dad had only just acquired a Crystal Radio Set ! To work the Crystal set you had a stylus called a ' cats whisker ' which you moved around on the surface of the crystal until you picked up a station on your head set . Eventually we got a proper wireless set which worked off an accumulator ( a battery rather like today's car battery ) . This accumulator required charging every week and a local chap made a living out of re-charging accumulators !

When my father had his Fruit and Vegetable round, he stabled his horse in a yard in Yanworth Street, off Lodge Lane. Sometimes he would take Stan and I up with him on a Sunday morning to feed and water the horse. He would then take it out of the stable to exercise it round the stable yard. This particular Sunday morning he was walking the horse around when it suddenly reared up in the air, eyes wide open, nostrils distended and flailing away in the air with its front hooves.

Stan and I cowered against the wall, with this horse towering over us, my Dad, as I have previously said had been a cavalryman, was experienced with horses, grabbed the reins and pulled the front of the horse down and gave it a god awful punch on the chin . It shook its head and decided enough was enough. My father was only about 5`4" tall and weighed about 10 stone !

My father was afraid of nothing. Another incident with a horse happened when we were on one of our Sunday walks through the fields in Woolton. We were walking
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