Gift from the Gallowgate by Doris; Davidson Page A

Oh yes, there was the odd little crush on one of the opposite sex, resulting in some
innocent teasing, but nothing more than that . . . not until we were a good bit older, anyway.
    Mostly we girls stuck with our own type of amusements, skipping, bouncing a ball against a wall and doing all sort of things (clap your hands, hop on one leg, touch the ground etc.) before it
came back . . . unless you fell over or couldn’t catch it. Then you were out and it was somebody else’s turn.
    We could enjoy ourselves without having to break rules, although Betty, one of my two best friends, and I did fall foul of the law one Saturday afternoon. I didn’t have a bike – I
had a fairy cycle with solid tyres at one time, which Bertha fell heir to, then Sheila, then Alan – so we used to whizz down the long hill with me sitting on the carrier of hers. Great fun,
most exhilarating . . . until we narrowly missed running into a bobby pushing his bicycle up the steep slope. Cowed by his angry shout, Betty jammed on her brakes and we waited until he came back
down to deal with us.
    He pulled out a notebook and pencil. ‘Don’t you know it’s against the law to ride two on a bicycle?’ he growled.
    ‘Y . . . yes,’ we whispered, our knees knocking at the thought of what might happen to us.
    ‘Do you make a habit of breaking the law?’
    ‘N . . . no . . . no.’
    ‘Well, I need both your names and addresses.’
    In those days, nobody thought of lying to the police (perhaps an odd one or two villains, but not the general public) so, heads down in shamed disgrace, each of us told him where we lived.
Having noted the information, he said, ‘I’ll be talking to your parents about this.’ Then he went back, retrieved his own bike from the side of the road and continued on his
way.
    Without saying anything to each other, Betty and I turned round and went back up the hill, she pushing our ‘steed’ and me trailing dejectedly along beside her. He had put an end to
our fun and we had the worry of having to admit to what we had done. I had only my mother’s reactions to fear, although she could deliver a fairly substantial wallop, whereas Betty had both a
father and mother to tell, and her father was a tall, well-built man known to have quite a temper.
    When we came to our house, I went inside leaving Betty to carry on round the corner to hers, and sat down quietly, making Mum instantly suspect that something was wrong . . . as mothers usually
do. So I had to tell her, but just as I finished, the doorbell rang. It was the policeman.
    ‘Is this where Doris Forsyth lives?’ he asked, in his most official manner.
    ‘Yes,’ Mum nodded. ‘What’s she done?’ I had just told her, but she thought I’d been keeping something back . . . again, as mothers do.
    ‘Two on a bike. Has she not told you?’
    ‘Yes, she was telling me when you came to the door.’
    ‘Good for her. Now, nothing more will be done about it. I wanted to make sure they gave me their right addresses, that’s all, and give them a bit of a scare. It usually stops them
from doing it again. It’s quite dangerous, you know.’
    My mother was actually smiling when she came back to the living room. ‘I’m glad you told the truth, anyway,’ she said, lifting a ten-ton weight off my shoulders. ‘I
suppose you heard what he said, and he’s right. It
is
dangerous, so don’t do it again.’
    Just as a matter of interest, that same part of Mid Stocket Road, a long, very steep hill, was superb for sledging, we discovered not long after this, and as far as we knew, there was no law
forbidding it. The older boys, from about fourteen up and from all nearby streets, each packed five or six of us younger girls at their backs, and with a push of their feet, off we went. It was the
most exhilarating, hair-raising experience, whizzing down and down with nothing to stop us. That’s what made those ‘joy-rides’ all the more memorable. There
was
no way to
stop –