Summer Holidays

A Memory of Rushall.

When we all broke up for 6 weeks holidays it was all the kids jobs to go in 'the cut' and swim to fetch coal out. The boats used to carry the coal from Walsall Wood pit to Birmingham and the boater used to drop lumps of coal into the canal. Once we had been in the cut and got the coal out we had a bike frame and 2 wheels to carry the bags of coal to home. We had a local copper, 'Long Tom' we called him because with his height you could see him a mile off. If we saw him coming we would ditch the bike and coal. Then as we walked passed him he would call us back and ask what had we been doing. I would reply "having a walk". Tom would say, "so you ant been in the cut then? "No", we said. Tom said "considering we had no rain for weeks how do you get your hair wet, take half of the bag of coal to my house!"