Going To The Pub:1

 My earliest memories of a Public House are of family outing to the King's Head in Upton St Leonards.

It would have been a warm summer evening. Kids are not allowed in the pub, but there is a garden, with a wooden shelter and a grassy playground. A bottle of pop a bag of crisps (Smiths, in a blue and white packet that comes with a twist of oiled paper containing salt.) Mum and dad drink Watney's Pale Ale.

Supper was a Melton Mowbray pork pie, with cold pickles.

There were games to be played 'Grandmother's Footsteps', 'Hide and Seek', British Bulldog', 'In And Out The Bluebell Windows', 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush', and 'What's The Time Mr Wolf'?' I teach them to my grandchildren now. 

And there were chants and rhymes, running and laughing ... lots and lots of laughing.

Ball games, skipping games, handstands, cartwheels and Tag. 

Always sunny, always suffused with joy. Evening falls and I can see Dad lifting a tired brother Mervyn over his shoulders as we trudge home down Winneycroft Lane and to bed.