ME: Yeah, we were very poor. It was, it was hard in those days. But, we never went without food and we never went without clothes. The house was always clean. This is how poor we were; somehow our dad got hold of some barrage balloon material and he upholstered a 3 piece suite. In the road we had a couple of wealthy children, I wouldn’t say wealthy but they were far better off than what we were and they used to get decent toys for Christmas. We used to have what was known as a my-o? and we used to draw squares on the pavement with the toys in the squares and we used to chuck stones. Whatever square it, er, landed on you had that toy. It would be interesting to see if anybody else remembers that. And then we used to play marbles down in the gutters and on Bonfire Night the actual bonfire was in the middle of the street. And then the tip, we used to play up there. Originally, the tip was, the actual field itself was very small. Back in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, it was used as a landfill site, because you had all these wagons coming up the road, we used to hang on the backs of the lorries, you know. So I remember that. I of course remember the big water tank, it was in there for the war, you almost drowned in there. … Used to, um, dig holes in the ground and build dens down in the ground, you know, one or two. I was a little terror. The good, I used to help mum and dad about the house and I used to do the Sunday wash in the old boilers. And the bad, I used to get in little scrapes. We had a little gang called the TTO gang, it was called the ‘Tree Top Outlaws’, and, you know, in those days, you could go anywhere. We used to walk up to Blaise Castle. We used to walk over to Snuff Mills. Severn Beach we used to walk sometimes, you know. But nowadays, you know, you can’t do that now, see. The old bread van used to come round, while he was in the house we used to get to the back of the van, and break crust off and disappear, like. That was lovely, that was. Oh, crossing railway lines and stupid little things really, you know. Pinching apples and ‘Knock Out Ginger’, and that sort of thing. Never anything violent, you know, we weren’t violent children in those days. We enjoyed ourselves. There was no such thing as drugs in our days, apart from cigarettes, which we used to make our own. You know, out of chrysanthemum leaves, we just used to dry them off, and then roll them up in paper and light them, you know. It’s stupid things really but you know, it was good. I love it here, you know. I got two of my brothers living down in Eden Grove, down the bottom end, in the newer houses. My daughter lives in Wallscourt Road, you know, they’re all local. You know, we did go through a very bad period about 5, 6 years ago, prior to the redevelopment. We had certain people here that were causing noise and trouble. Er, we had all our stained glass windows smashed in the church, and it was only 10 year olds. And it’s gradually got better. My favourite place is Wotton-under-Edge, which is where my family were for 300 years. Course, they were in the clothing trade and the agricultural side of things and they moved into Bristol around about 1860, about 1860, 1861, and they were living down in Pennywell Road way. Then my great-grandfather, he was a confectioner and he opened a shop in Castle Street and er, he married a person called Fanny Ditchett. Her grandfather was a brother-in-law to Henry Overton Wills. Tobacco. Thomas, who I’ve said was a confectioner and had this shop, couple of years later he turns out to be a builder, so he changed his track and he’s a builder now. He had 1, 2, 3, 3 sons, one being my grandfather and then he moved back to Bristol and went bankrupt. They were all carpenters and then my father got married, beneath him, according to the family, and bearing in mind great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather, they had, er, servants, so you know, they were quite well off. Her name was Gertrude Powell. I think they were Bristol, pure Bristol. They were, they lived down in Moorfields, Lawrence Hill. I started out as an electrician, applied for BAC, then got accepted as an electrician to work on the Concorde. I was on the Concorde about 18 months and then I left there to go self-employed and was self-employed for a few years. The depression came and then I went into management at the Carrefour supermarket, or hypermarket, and then I was there for 7 years, and then I got made redundant from there. I was at Rolls Royce as site manager and ended up in Rolls Royce for 17 years. And then 3 years prior to my retirement I was asked if I wanted to leave Rolls Royce and go down to Avonmouth Docks, and be a site manager for a maintenance team down there. And that’s where I ended up. I love the new development. I think it looks really attractive and I just wish I could swap my house for one of theirs, you know. Yeah, it’s lovely. You know, the council were offering 100% mortgages. We’d come across this one so we actually got the house for 3000, in 1968. And now it’s worth about 170. I’ll tell you this: the actual salary at the BAC was £12 a week, but it was a bonus scheme which brought it up to about 30.