The first garden Experience

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Greetings earth people,
It’s a wet wet day and i was sorting some old thoughts out today and i was trying to think of the first sight or contact i had of a garden experience,

Living in the city “Liverpool” ’well the dock road just outside the city the only grass we kids ever really did see was the railway bank at the end of our street,

many atime i’d hear my mates mums telling their loved kid to go and play on the “railway”

They didnt mean go and get killed No it was steam trains in those days and the grass banks had a feel about them,
No indians could see you when you we’re hiding, & japs and commando’ playing was perfect on that grass bank.

On a friday afternoon at the end of our street was a house and on a friday a horse and box trailer would be parked there, the horse was a big black horse and us 6 yrr old lads called it silver (only horses name we’d ever heard in those days ’HI HO SILVER,)

The girls being girls would stand and stroke this big horse as it ate from the sack around its mouth,
The trailer was full of dirty towels from the hotels around the city centre and would end up in the chinees wash house for washing and ironing,

We lads being lads would wait until silver lifted his huge tail and delivered fresh warm steamy manure!

The girls would scream and if they didnt get splashed they’d run away home,

The housing was all back to back and not many cars in our street, But next door to one from us lived mrs coosty.

A very strange woman, She had very long sticky out white hair, long finger nails and she wore a mans shirt with no collar,
And her slippers "Oh yes the slipper’s they we’re a tartan colour and folded over down the centre so each fold had what looked like a cats eye holding the fold down.
We kids feared mrs coosty very much and joey jones who had a turn in his eye it was said mrs coosty did that and his big sister aged 13 teen had spots all over her face "because mrs coosty did the same to her!
Put a spell on both of them.

After silver had gone i was changed from school hairy trousers and nice shoes into my street playing clothing,

the street was empty and as i walked passed mrs coosty’s diry windowed and un-cardinalled step it happend!!!!!

Her front door opened half an inch and her voice said!
“Come here you”
I swear i said three prayers and crossed myself "but being brought up to respect old ladies animals and the police,
I walked towards her door, she handed me a fire side shovel, I could see close up her long nails that curled into her palms, her hair all frizzy, and the dead cats eyes holding her slippers folds,

“GO and get me all that horse droppings” ALL of it mind you".

As i scooped it into one huge pile and pushed the shovel under the bottom of it !
I again prayed "please god forgive me my sins and please please dont let mrs coosty make me eyes meet in the middle and and please dont make me look like joey’s sister “the blotting paper kid” please god.

I lifted and some how ballanced that shovel and didnt spill a dollop,
The door opening was wider and i could see into her dark hallway,
Give it to me, Now go, go on, go.
I didnt need to be asked twice i was gone,

As we played on the railway my friends thought something was wrong when i kept asking "Is my eyes ok?
What about my skin! Is it ok??
Then one of the kids shouted the whitch is over there!!!!
we all darted down into the long grass, and there she was mrs coosty bending down in the long grass,

we thought she was having a wee wee, and then she stood up “still half bent” and we could see she had something in her sack appron, and then she was gone.

Years had passed and i was home on leave, my nan was proud of me in uniform and i told her all about the new life “Army” life,
It was then she said we should stand out in the street.

Funny i thougt but then i saw the hearst, the coffin being slid into the back, no flowers, even the neighbours had not drawn their curtains.

The car drove off and we went inside.
I asked why didnt anyone like her “mrs coosty”

I was told she did a bad thing when she was young,

“What” i asked?
She had a baby and she was not wed.

When they went into her house they found on both sides of her fire place a little garden she’d made with soil and a stone,
Christ only know’s we’re she got soil from.

I knew we’re the soil came from and why she wanted that horse manure “silver had delivered”.

And when i think of it that was my first experience of any form of gardening.

What was your first gardening experience?

Good gardening folks.

• 20 May, 2013
• 2 likes

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