D’ya like it lady?

On a Saturday afternoon the two little girls would go with their mum and dad to Walthamstow market. It was a long market full of colourful stalls and about half way down was Manzies pie shop they would have their lunch there and go round the rest of the market., on the way back to the car the little girls dad would sing and dance along the high road like max miller singing “I fell in love with Mary form the dairy” stopping at the bus stop to ask “d’ya like it lady” to all the old girls waiting for the bus.

 In the evening after tea they would drive down to Newbury Park and go to ford social club. Their dad would give a quick flash of his cleaning ticket and the man on the door would nod for us to go in. Once inside Margo would be waiting and she would give a little royal wave to indicate where we should sit, as she smiled at passers-by who were regulars at the club. “Hello precious, hello pearl” she would greet us then her face would change to disgust an she purse her lips at the family known as “pick your nose” trying to breath in as they sat at the table behind us. The band would be playing and regular couples the ladies in their ball room dresses would take to the floor for a cha cha cha or a tango. Later in the evening when they played March of the mods it was our turn to dance and when the music finished we would have a large piggy back fight, girls against boys. Margo would forget herself and shout at martin her son across the room not to touch the “pick your noses” as he made her proud in the piggy back fight.

When we left the club it was back to Margo’s for tea and sandwiches and a séance.  We would all sit around the large dining table with a home-made ouigie  board. The glass in the middle would be asked a question and it would move to the letters spelling out the answer, then someone would lift the table with their knees freighting the life out of us. All accusing each other of cheating one brother or sister wrote a question on a piece of paper on the other side of the room, the glass then started to move and spelt out queen mother. The question had been what is my mother’s name? The answer of course was Queenie. We never played again, but we still went to the Newbury park ford social club that never changed.