Seeing more clearly in black and white.
A few years ago, well on thinking about it, probably more like thirty years ago, Dorothy and Les were on holiday in Spain. Instead of taking the car into Barcelona they chose the train as being slightly less dangerous. On the return however they were a little perturbed to notice that as they were making their way down the aisle, the Spaniards were either sniggering as they passed or even laughing out loud. There appeared no escape from this obvious amusement. Dorothy wondered whether it was the fact that Les was wearing some dreadful shorts, or simply the fact that they were English. They finally arrived at an empty space and sat at either side of the table. Dorothy collapsed in laughter as she could now appreciate why the entire carriage had been laughing at them. Les was wearing a pair of sunglasses. Nothing unusual in that but for the fact he had lost one lens and had not noticed. How anyone cannot notice the difference I don't know.
Almost all children can be naughty, but Uncle Ernest seemed by all accounts to have had an excess of mischief within him, not bad but naughty. In common with thousands of other families the Wards were brought up in a row of terrace houses on Woodbourne Road. Terrace houses which were split into yards where there were either four or eight houses, each of which had its own toilet, albeit at the bottom of the garden. Toilet doors were always kept locked but of necessity the key was left in the lock for use by the next person. This presented Ernest with a most welcome opportunity to create amusement / mayhem. He carefully and quietly locked all the doors, took the keys, and waited at the other side of the wall to see what happened. When the first person came out of the house she discovered to her amazement that the toilet door was locked and no key, so spent a while looking on the floor to see if it had fallen out, before returning to the house presumably in the hope someone would turn up with a key It wasn't long before a second neighbour had a similar experience and then a third. By this time, the needs of number one were becoming urgent and she duly reappeared, and to her amazement found two more ladies searching for keys. It is not certain at what point in time a bunch of keys suddenly appeared, all tied together, no two alike, and the sight of all these women desperately trying different keys in the toilet doors was too much for Ernest and he gave away his presence. The good hiding that followed was worth it. Unfortunately, his reputation followed him, and thereafter any misdemeanours within the immediate area were attributed to him, perhaps not unjustly.
The terraced houses down Attercliffe were all very similar, kitchen living room with front room or parlour kept for special occasions. There can't have been many special occasions as I can never remember going into 'the front-room'. The houses also had cellars which served as general storage but more important a place to stock your coal. All the houses were heated with open coal fires. In order to deliver the coal, the cellars had a grate opening on to the pavement that the coalman could open and empty the sacks directly in them. But what the coalman could open, could also be opened by others. This was not a problem for theft of belongings as most cellar doors were locked on the inside, so anyone entering from the street couldn't really go anywhere. This arrangement provided yet another opportunity for Ernest. He was well aware that Mrs. Bill didn't like cats, and she had in fact been known to drown more than one that got in the way, so in one of his more mischievous moments he set about catching the cats in the street. Not a difficult task as the local moggies were always looking for food. Having caught the cats, he did no more than open the cellar grate and put the cats into her cellar. There is no official record as to how many he actually caught and put in the cellar, but it is rumoured that Mrs. Bill saw hundreds of cats run through her house when out of necessity she opened the cellar door and unwittingly gave the cats their freedom back.
Can you REMEMBER WHEN?,HealthUnlocders
I Can Have A Kitten...Or Two !
My biggest enemy - me!
Controlling behaviour 
