Blast from the past: roller skates!
Every issue, our Editor at Large, Valery will be reliving the best bits of our lives. This fortnight, the thrills and spills of skates, bikes and scooters
We all look back fondly on our carefree childhoods – playing out with our friends all day, with no mums or dads in sight. And, of course, that freedom was multiplied by ten if you could whizz along on wheels. For me, it was roller skates – the old metal ones with a wing nut and leather straps. I’d whoosh along the pavements and roads – even in the Sixties there weren’t that many cars – enjoying that wonderful feel of smooth Tarmac under the little wheels. But for many of you, that happy feeling became tied in to darker world events... Mrs Bodle, like me, was a roller skate fan and had the joy of skating freely all the way along the prom from Hove to Brighton. But this was in the Thirties and she also remembers, “at this time the Spanish Civil war was on and children from Spain were evacuated to a big house opposite the Hove bandstand; they became our friends.” Irene Clegg also recalls, “The road where I lived was our playground. Cars were few and far between and we spent happy carefree days sharing cycles, skates and go-carts. But I do remember one occasion when there was a cry of, ‘The Blackshirts are coming this way’, and we children were all quickly called in.”
Molly Stoatt, meanwhile, is jolly lucky to be here to tell her tale...“One morning in the Forties, my dad asked me if I would like to join him and Uncle Ted on a bicycle ride to nearby Hainault Forest in Essex. “Off we set and were soon going down a country lane when suddenly in the sky appeared two planes having a dog fight. It was exciting to watch until I heard shouts coming from a ditch where the two old soldiers with me were crouching. Being young I hadn’t realised that bullets could also come down.” However, there didn’t need to be a war on for Yours readers to court danger. A sizeable chunk of your ‘wheels’ memories involved doing things that definitely wouldn’t be allowed today. And, if I may say so, all recounted with a certain amount of pride. Diana Manning’s, for instance: “When I was nine years old, I had to cycle some way to catch a bus to school, then a second bus and a long walk. We lived in a remote hamlet and my bicycle was left in the woods until my return. “One day, cycling down the hill – no hands but with feet on the handlebars – I failed to turn the sharp bend at the bottom of the hill and ended up in the stream. My mother was not amused when I returned home soaked to the skin.”
Mrs Jones and chums, meanwhile, managed to make roller skates equally dangerous... “In our last year of primary school in 1960/61, we were allowed to take our skates into school for playtime. The game we played involved two children facing each other and linking arm to arm to get going. The someone else would join each side. The line grew and anyone on the outer edge would have to skate hard and fast. One time I was on the outer edge and suddenly let go and I went flying into a privet hedge. Ouch!”
I had forgotten about scooters – not the sleek silver ones of today, but those heavier metal ones that could be quite tricky to handle, as Dorothy McKown remembers. “Only a few days after being given
‘I swapped my rabbit for a desperately wanted pair of roller skates!’
our scooters, my sister and I were going too fast down the street and lost control until we got on the level where we promptly fell off!” This didn’t deter Marjorie Edwards though. “My favourite wheels were on my little red scooter. This was in the Fifties when there were no helmets or knee pads. If we fell off, we cried a bit, licked a hankie to press on any trickles of blood, rubbed it better and went on our way! “One Saturday, my brother and I scooted around our area for an hour or so, then set off up the main Holloway Road (the A1) towards Archway and found our way to Highgate Cemetery, then into Waterlow Park next door. The drinking fountain provided our refreshment and our threepence each pocket money bought us a sherbet dip and a couple of gobstoppers which we indulged in on the fast downhill journey home!” In fact, any wheels could be dangerous if you set your mind to it, as Rosemary Medland remembers. “My favourite wheels were my blue dolly’s pram. I’d have much preferred a red pedal car, so instead one day I sat on top of my pram pushing along with my feet. “Sadly I was top heavy, over-balanced, went forward and bashed my face into the pavement, making my mouth bleed and my four top teeth come loose. Our very worried neighbour, who saw the accident, shot over to my mum’s to ask if I was OK. Mum’s unsympathetic reply was, ‘Oh, what’s she been and gone and done now!’”
Audrey Warwick’s carefree attitude to peril however, came from a different quarter. “I got my first bike when I was 15 and spent days out on it. Once I got a puncture and happily allowed myself (and bike) to be picked up by an army lorry. No thought of stranger danger in those innocent days.” But the last word has to go to Sue Marner. Her little anecdote shows that we may have been innocent – but we weren’t particularly tender-hearted. “I desperately wanted some roller skates in the Fifties, but my mum and dad couldn’t afford to buy them for me – and there was no birthday in sight. I’d had my rabbit for ten months and was fed up with cleaning it out, so I swapped Pinkie with my friend for her roller skates. Sadly, Pinkie died two weeks later!”