My Life - Early years part 2

My early child hood was good fun. We lived in a community in a part of Wrexham called Rhosddu.

Ours was an end terrace, victorian design and overlooked the railway. We were also quite close to Wrexham Football Club so I quite enjoyed sitting on my front wall watching the supporters come and go.

When I was scared at night, I would take myself to my mums room which was at the front of the house and the sound of the trains, together with the lights of passing cars would soothe and comfort me.

We had lots of friends around there and we had areas where we could play. Our house backed onto a rough communal track which we called the "Red Backs"  (bet you can't guess why) and over the main road called East Avenue there was the "White Backs" but we weren't allowed there.

Quite often mum would send us to Mrs Ankers sweet shop for supplies. Off we would go with our note and our money and if we were lucky we were allowed to spend a penny or two on bubble gum or those little fizzy sweets.

Mrs Ankers sweet shop was a delight to go into. She was a lovely lady with white hair and dark glasses and although her shop was small it was stacked high with shelves and shelves of sweets in jars. The "expensive" confectionary was under the glass counter. There was another sweet shop near us called Mrs Higgins shop but for some reason I never favoured that one. I think the attraction of seeing those shelves full of sweets was just too compelling.

There was an old man who used to walk up and down New Road and we called him "won a pound". He wasn't quite with it, I am not sure why but he would walk up and down the road saying "won a pound yesterday". Totally harmless character so it was sad when he was found dead.

Mr Jones was another favourite of mine, he lived in the houses which faced our school. He couldn't walk very far but he would shuffle to the front of his house to watch passers by. Every time I saw him he would ask me the same question "whats your name" to which I replied "Sara" and then he would give me a mint and start singing "che Sara Sara what ever will be will be" - to this day, whenever I hear that song I think of old Mr Jones.