As I said I would be back with new stories of a Childhood well lived and where I lived it.

From my first story about the Delph I found a new friend who actually swam in it after school, he was very brave, I never went too close to the edge so scared of falling in, I could swim but for some reason it looked so foreboding and dark so I stayed at a safe distance and just enjoyed the view.

outside the iron fence which kept no one out as it had been bent and broken by many a visitor was a red shale path that led to what the locals called the score, I have no idea where that name came from because it was not twenty miles long or twenty kilometers but for what ever reason that was its name and it stuck.

The path led up through the Hughes estate a beautiful walk, it actually climbed quite a distance but so gradual that it was only when you reached the top and turned back to look over the fields did you realize that you were climbing.once at the top the path you through Rhododendron bushes one either side, some white some pink but all magnificent, tall oak trees and wild flowers and acres of green grass. Someone still looked after the Estate and it was always regal looking with mowed pastures and in the Summer ornamental gardens.

But I am getting ahead of my story which was the hours I spent at the end of my bed watching the dozens of young couples who walked the score every evening of the week,holding hands or with arms around each other leisurely strolling along lost in their own world, some laughing others whispering but all looking forward to the romantic walk ahead.

When I was little I had to travel to school for reasons best known to my family I did not attend Robins lane just across the road from where we lived but had to take a private bus to school. My first was Tower college in Rainhill, another beautiful spot a huge mansion had been taken over and opened as a school from kindergarden on through the sixth form.

I will write about school anther time and my only reason for mentioning it now is that because I had to get up early to catch the bus I had to go to bed really early when the Sun was still out and other reasonable families let their children play outside until it went down. Not me though I sat on the end of my bed and watched the world go by my window. I always loved Robert Lewis Stephensons poem, about having to get up at night and dress by yellow candle light, in Summer quite the other way I had to go to bed by day, I had to go to bed and see the birds still hopping on the tree and hear the sound of grown up feet passing below me on the street.

Yes I thought he ha written that poem for me.

Still my Mother told me that I could read in bed but had to rest because I got up so early. I did read a lot but as the evening drew on I loved to watch those couples and imagine what they were saying to each other, where they lived and when would they get married. I told myself stories about them especially the ones that I began to recognize they went by so often.

Little did I know that my turn would come and I would walk hand in hand up the score, but that is another story for another day

First look

My house sat overlooking some plots,fields and a wonderful view of the Hughes estate before it belonged to the Town. From the back you looked down over St Helens, past the Gas works at Peasley cross and on a clear day you could see Billinge hill in the far distance.

Round the corner was a once beautiful house with the name of Thornham where my Mother was born and I used to like to look up at the window with the cross built under it that was once her nursery.My Grandmother used to tell me stories of the tennis courts set in the front and the stables in the back. Once they sold it the graceful lines had been broken up added on and made into ugly flats.

A little way down the lane the paved road turned into red shale and the world of beauty,imagination and joy began, past Weldings farm and up to the mysterious, beautiful, and quiet land we called the "Delph". wild rhododendrons and a carpet of bluebells as far as the eye could see,just the place to lie and watch the sun twinkle through the trees and feel safe and warm,many a nap taken lying amidst the periwinkle blue flowers.

I tried every year to pick a bunch and race home to put them in a vase, and every year they had withered before I hit the front door. Another attraction of the Delph was a pond where the actual place got it's name the Delph was dark and still and so deep there was no bottom or at least that is what we were told. I never saw anyone fishing or swimming there was never a boat on it, it was rumoured that there were many drownings there but was never proved to me. There it sat,still, and quiet, if there were fish I never saw any, but then I never quite got close enough to the edge to check,it terrified me. many years later when I returned many years later the estate had been sold to the town and was now Shirdley Park and the Delph had been filled in the trees cut down and had become part of the Golf Course, sad but true.

I have more stories and memories of The Park as it used to be but will leave it for another time if anyone reads this and has anything to add let me know.