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As a very young boy I can remember the big earth scrapers working on the new sports field for the senior school.

10 years later everyone in the school was involved in digging out for a concrete base on which to stand the new sports pavilion.

The pavilion was actually bought second hand from an RAF base somewhere in the Midlands.

It was erected but was never used, apart from storing materials for bonfire night in the last year that I was there.

We also dug out to make bases for the cricket practice nets, this was a really professional job.

We dug out the soil and then threw in a load of old bike frames before the concrete was poured in.

Opposite the sports field at the bottom of Heathside Lane was the Rec.

I was told on good authority that “Rec” is short for recreation ground.

In its early days it wasn’t grassed over, it was just a black ash playing surface.

On a sunny day you could see the bits of glass glinting in the sunlight.

It was grassed over eventually but I can’t remember exactly when.

Don’t tell the city council, they’ve obviously missed some good bits of ground they could have sold off.

Further up Heathside Lane was a long line of allotments where the bungalows are now.

A chap named Brian used to have his racing Greyhound’s kennels there.

I seem to recall that the British Legion Club was there too and that was of a Nissen hut design.

One Sunday afternoon we were strolling with our parents through the Barracks and we heard a lot of shouting.

We spotted a front door open and the words that were spoken were something like “I don’t know why you don’t just move into the ******* pub”

Next minute the man’s Sunday dinner was flying through the open door and landed in the middle of the road.

We took this as a sign that we should no longer be there so we walked away as quickly as possible.

The other allotments are still there on Mobberley Road.

The hut where the old fellas used to sit was always thick with pipe smoke, you couldn’t see out of the window.

I used to go there with my uncle Jim to buy fresh vegetables.

My dad said and I always believed him, he once had a pair of binoculars which were so powerful, when he looked through them at St James church in Newchapel he could hear the organ playing. Phew, I bet they don’t make them like that anymore.

Was I gullible or what?

David Wood c 2014