Halloween Prankster

With Halloween fast approaching, I found myself yet again tripping down memory lane and thinking about all the fun we got up to as kids, and all the scary stories my father would tell us!  One particular memory stood out and i would like to share it with you!

The Three witches!

Halloween was fast approaching and like many 15 year old teenagers me and my friends were always planning some kind of mischief!  We had decided this year to join the massive crowd that always ascended up at St Nicholas Church!  Apparently it was said that if you walked round it 3 times, a ghost was sure to follow you home! 

Cheryl, Lin and myself had decided to dress up as witches and do some trick or treating!  We baked dozens of fruit pies and jam tarts but made the pastry mainly from salt and had added chili and Tabasco to the filling! 

It had just started to get dark and off we set!!  "oh this was going to be fun" we thought, as we made our way from Buller Road toward the church, stopping now and again at a random house for a bit of trick or treating!  As yet we were getting treats in the form of apples sweets and nuts!  No one seemed to want any of our delicious pies!  

We finally arrived at the foot of the hill and was making our way up the steep road.  We could see a large crowd hanging around the steps of the church and also the vicar! (he used to try and dissuade and disperse the crowds).  We could see a rather large group of lads sitting and standing around the bench at the top.  Some of them spotted us (or more to the point out cooking tins)! and started to run down the hill toward us. All three of us just froze!  The lads ran right into us, grabbed our tins and scoffed our pies and tarts!!  Within seconds they were retching and throwing up all over the place!!  All we could do was run!!  We ran like  bats out of hell up to the church and then off to the left through the graves and towards the scout hut with our witches capes flying high behind us!!  

up until now, no one knew who it was that made them lads puke their guts up!  Don't supppose they were so quick to raid anybody elses cake tins.

34 years on and i still have a little giggle about that night and often wonder what the vicar must have thought when he saw 3 witches running through his grave yard on a spooky Halloween night!

A MONDAY MEMORY,

When I was in junior infants at laindon Park School, Monday mornings were swimming lesson days!! Mrs Low, a stocky and very strict teacher, would make all us kids line up in pairs just inside the school gates while we waited for our bus to arrive! We would ascend the bus two by two, no talking was allowed as we made our way to our seats. For some reason, the back seat was always very desirable and there would be a great "serge" (when Mrs low wasnt paying attention)! to get to the back!! 
The bus would pull away and we were allowed to sing ten green bottles or one man went to mow!! I remember feeling so excited! I loved the water and just assumed that after one lesson i would be able to swim!
It only took about 10 minuites to arrive at Gloster Park Swimming pool. I had driven past it many times and for some strange reason always thought that the big glass exterior was the pool itself!! I was so dissapointed when i got inside! We were ushered into the changing rooms and each had a cubical of our own to get changed in. Most of us girls wore our cossie's under our clothes so it didn't take long before we were good to go!! In them days you had to ware rubber swimming caps, the more elaborate the better! Mine was in blue with huge pink flowers on it!! They were very uncomfortable to ware, and very hard to put on! We must have looked a proper sight! Then we had to walk thru the foot baths before we went into the "little pool". I remember we got a Pink ribbon if we were brave enough to jump in! I jumped in and almost drowned meself!! As i was recovering from the shock, Debbie jumped in and landed right ontop of me!! She panicked, i very nearly drowned (again) and Mrs Low was shouting like a fog horn!! She made both of us "sit on the side" for the rest of the lesson! to this day i never understood why!
That was my memorie of my first swimming lesson, what was yours?