Chickens! We kept chickens in the garden, I think eggs were perhaps still on ration. All our neighbours kept them as well and every now and again one was killed for the Sunday roast. My dad was too squeamish to do it himself so the chap next door used to wring it's neck. I don't understand how he couldn't do it, he had been in the army for 5 years in the war and had seen some dreadful things,perhaps that's why.
We also had an allotment,everything was grown, cabbages, runner beans, tomatoes, onions, etc.then later on in the year, parsnips, sprouts. I remember wheeling the veg back home in the wheelbarrow, my mum opening the door and the smell of the Sunday roast. Two way Family Favourites on the radio, a programme for the military abroad, messages sent from home here to them. Sitting on the back step,shelling peas into a colander, topping and tailing gooseberries and blackcurrants.
New shoes for Easter, Clarke's sandals usually. I always wanted red, I had to have brown and then in the summer white ones. My dad used to whiten them up with a liquid and then put them on the top of the coal bunker to dry. It was an idyllic childhood really.