Sileby My Early Life

A Memory of Sileby.

I was born in Mountsorrel 1938 and soon moved to Sileby 10, Mountsorrel Lane with my mother Mabel Foukes [nee Burton]. My father Thomas was in the army and my mum worked at Newbold Burton and Lawson Ward. I remember convoys of American lorries coming into the village from Sorrel, slowly to make the turn at the Horse & Trumpet, it was the first time I ever got and saw chewing gum. Midway down the lane lived Jimmy Hull, at the botton the Wells family, Norrman, Beryl, Janice. Round the jitty at the side of the church were 2 farms, Tommy Newbold who wore a built up boot, and next door another farm, the name of Smith. On the next corner a girl Mary Trasler then Roger Antill whose mum had a ladies shop on High Street. School in Sileby was 100 yards left hand side on Barrow Road opposite Botts bus garage, then onto big school in King Street opposite the Co-op, corner of Swan Street. A Mr Harrington was headmaster, some of the teachers were Mr Tunbull, Mr Greenwod, and others. Some other names of kids - Edwin Breward, Barry Rowe, Rattcliffe Road, from Barrow Road Mick Sharpe, Roger Riley, and 2 girls named Upton out towards Barrow. Main shops for me were Bells in King Street they sold Dinky toys & Meccano, at the bottom of High Street there was a sweet shop next to the brook bridge acroos the road was Carvells fish & chip shop, round the Banks under the railway bridge [fantastic echo] on to the botton of Rattcliffe Road yet another chippy but there was one more on King Street. I left Sileby in 1951 and went to live in a railway crossing at what is now East Goscote. Returing to live on King Street about 1959 in a large house that at one time had been a farm. I remember a traction engine being in the yard thrashing wheat and a load of kids armed with sticks waiting for rats. At the time we moved in it was a coal yard. My father worked on the railway as did I. Mum didn't do full time work and they moved to Mountsorrel with my 2 brothers Derek and Alan. I departed to Leicester and got married.
Davlo Foukes

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