[Beso]

Top flat of a 5 story, kitchen with massive windows facing out to the rest of the flats. Metal sink with draining boards. An old washing machine thing that needed wooden tongs to get he clothes out, that used to sit at your naked back, absolutely fantastic for the heat from the steam coming out your grandads suit and braces being boiled to death in this contraption.

Yeah, scrubbed down by my school dinner granny mamie robson as a nipper. Got the tongs rattled on the counter a few times for wriggling to much that the water spilt.

Auld papa, tucker robson, getting the dominoes and cards oot on the wee table..the wee poofie(see LTs pic) for me and ma scrubbed doon body, aw fresh in ma Jamie's..cheese on toast through the week, biscuits and hot chocolate at the weekend for supper...mother n father working extra hours to pay for us four kids in the 70s.

Gin rummy was the game of choice, brilliant fun on a saturday night, cause I would be ball boying for the local rugby club, and my grandad would be taking the money of people going into the stand.


Now I say stand, but it held about 200 tops, steps at either side, probably 8 steps at the most..so auld tucker, my grandad. He did one side, and had an leather pouch, like todays manbags, fastened at the front.


Eh..aye..yeah..

So like, the saturday nights, 4 years on from being scrubbed down in the sink by my granny, when auld tucker, the gurkhas pal came back from being in the bar, whilst me the ball boy at 7 to 11 year old had gone back to ma grannies after the game, the dominoes came oot, and the 2p coins.

When he came back from the war, he was a janitor in the local high school, and a labour, as well as the beat papa you could imagine.

I ended up letting him down, which I may tell you about if you've ever been washed in sink.