My Quest
Barry Edge’s latest memoir concerns another tale about his sister.
Barry Edge writes…
This story is about a ‘Quest’ once entrusted to me by my lovely departed sister Jocelyn Ann.
When Carol Parton nee Jones was sharing a Newhouse Road, Bucknall memory with me it triggered a personal anecdote of when I ran an errand for my sister one morning before school.
My Quest
We both attended Cellarhead – later renamed Moorside Secondary Modern – but because we lived in Bentilee we would need to walk across a field and through the yard of Brookhouse Farm to the nearest bus stop in Werrington Road.
One morning Jocelyn Ann said she was doing Domestic Science and needed some glace cherries for the cake she would be making (mind you Domestic Science was just a fancy name for learning to clean cooking stoves and for keeping a tidy kitchen). But on that occasion a cake it was. However my beautiful sister was the one ingredient short and she suggested that I was better placed to go and buy them rather than she having to carry her other cooking items all the way down to the corner of Newhouse and Werrington Roads, Bucknall.
When I was sharing this story with Carol I said I couldn’t remember what or why but on the Townsend side of Newhouse Road – and opposite Woolliscroft the Butcher in Werrington Road – was a house converted into a ‘small shop’ which sold, amongst other items, glace cherries, and that back in 1955 it was the only shop of its kind for miles that did so.
Thankfully Carol knew exactly ‘what and why’ I was referring to, and when she reminded me it was a small bakery operated by the Mills family it brought into sharp focus that that was where our mum would buy little cakes adorned with glace cherries.
Where was I? Oh yes, ‘My Quest’
It didn’t take much persuading before I found myself leaving Winslow Green, Bentilee to walk down Ubberley Road, along Woolliscroft, left into Cornevlle, right into Ruxley, left into Werrington, then down to Newhouse.
With the glace cherries in hand I waited for the next bus to take me to school.
Ah! Now here’s the best part – depending from which side you view it from.
Did my sister forget? Or did she simply cross her fingers that I would complete ‘My Quest’ successfully?
You see dear reader it was well known in my family that I absolutely loved glace cherries – still do – and Christmas was the best time for lots and lots of them.
It was simply too good to resist and I remember thinking that 1 or 2 wouldn’t be missed – would they!?
Hmm, by the time the bus stopped outside the Cellarhead school gates I’d eaten at least half of the glace cherries.
Our headmaster, Mr. Dale, met me at the door to express his disappointment that I was late for class, and my lovely sister gave me a right verbal for eating the ‘cherries.
Mind you, I still believe she wasn’t overly fussed by it all – Domestic Science not being something she got too excited about.
See you later…
Barry Edge
Western Australia
July 24, 2018