b'Me dad used to say Mrs, dont go on like that, whistle or shout or summat but dont creep up on us.Me dad started in the Church Yard in 1935 or 1936 when I was seven or eight. There used to be a 12-inch Qualcast mower, I think it is still there in the shed. I couldnt push it on me own although me dad had it in good order. My brother, Ken, was five or six so me dad got some traces for him and he could pull it in front of me and we could cut the grass in the Church Yard together. The biggest problem was the grass box. We couldnt carry that when it was full. It was tough going. Apart from getting off school to dig graves I was very rarely at school anyway. I was with the Gangs. Frank West, Lawrence and Nancy Wests dad, he lived at No. 26. He used to run gangs of children. Wed get time off school for tatie-ing or wed go after school or on Saturdays. After school wed go from 4 oclock while half past seven. Wed be about eleven. There was Arthur West, Doug Barker, Maurice Sissons, all on our bikes. Cold tea was the thing to take in those days. Me mother used to make some herby beer out of nettles or something and she used to give me that. We all had a lunch bag made out of hessian with a hessian strap over our shoulders. We went weeding carrots. We went down to Roland Hill. We singled sugar beet and singled wuzzels. We liked it, we maybe only got a bob but it was ours. I had another job. When the Flints, Simeon Flint, lived at No. 7 they had some hens and I had to let hens out every morning after I was about eight or nine and fasten them up at night. It was sixpence a week, seven days a week. The hen hut was on Thorny Lane at the end of the first field on the left hand side, opposite the back lane. Theres a pond in that field and the hen hut was there. I didnt have to give them Malcolm on an outing to Scarborough water because they all drunk at the pond. Mrs Flint used to pay me once a month, a florin in them days, get 18 inches before tha dad gets home.It is badtwo bob. digging in Wilton churchyard, one of us used to pickMy mother used to let me keep the sixpence, I and one of us used to shovel and while tother wasdidnt have to hand it over. With the papers it was doing something youd hold the stable lamp. Thisthruppence a night when I started but they put it up particular night, Eddie, Mr Tiplings son, hed beento sixpence. So I was getting 3 shillings on top of the milking cows late, probably nine or ten oclock at night7/6 I was earning at the Co-op, almost half as much and he was coming back. I was carting stuff away intoagain. I used to have to take money as well. I was the coke house and me dad was just getting out ofonly a young lad and it was a bit awkward having to the grave on a short ladder with the stable lamp at theargue about what was owed. The Press was 9 pence bottom. Eddie must have thought it was Resurrectiona week for six nights, a penny-hapenny a night. Mrs Day. He ran home and, of course, he came backBoyes, that was Cyrils mum, up at top, she lived with his dad, Tommy. Eddie was forty or fifty then. Itnext door to her sister, Clara Foster, who had the frightened him to death. A lot of people know abouttuck shop.She used to give me 10 pence, a penny that at Bishop Wilton. for me. She was the only one that did that. She had We had some right amusing moments in thethree boys, Len, Reg (he used to play the organ) and churchyard. When we were digging a grave a certainCyril and one girl, Renee, she was the eldest, and she person used to sneak into the churchyard in hermarried Raymond Baxter. They were in the services. slippers and she used to get right up to the graveCyril was the youngest. I worked with Cyril a bit. before she said something. Talk about a heart stopper!When I came home on leave I couldnt stick it BULLETIN 6 79'