For them the Second World War is just another bit of the past as remote as the victory of Wellington at Waterloo or Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon.
But if I am honest I don’t suppose bombsites featured that often in our leisure time but they were there and we did play on them.
And there were still plenty of other reminders of that conflict, from the still relatively fresh signs announcing EWS** sites and Shelters, to the gaps in terraced houses and open spaces.
Directly opposite us on Lausanne Road where a land mine had demolished a row of houses was one of those EWS sites which once held water in the event that the mains were hit during a raid.
The old cellar floors had been covered with a layer of pitch and the walls built up to create a huge tank.
There was another at top of the road and there would have been others.
Not that I experienced the bombing. I was born in 1949 and my parents rarely spoke of it which left me to pick up snippets from films and comics which are not the most reliable way to learn your history.
Nor were there much in the way of TV documentaries, after all television was in its infancy and the war was still less than a decade away and still vivid enough for most people to want to leave the subject well alone.
So there may have been bomb sites but essentially they were just open spaces with little to offer, unless it was the crypt on the roundabout by St Mary’s Road.
It had taken a direct hit and after rubble had been cleared away the entrances to the cellars blocked up. It may even have been used as a makeshift shelter.
But for us in the 1950s it was place to explore.
And it attracted small groups of kids most of whom didn’t know each other but were united by a sense of adventure and a candle which offered a bit of light by which to venture down the stairs into the labyrinth.
I don’t know what we expected to find and from memory we found nothing.
Unlike the day Jimmy, John and I took our lives in our hands and wandered across a half demolished block of houses somewhere on Queens’ Road and came away with bits of metal and a gas mask still in its box.
Such treasures were not often come across and instead if you wanted a relic of the war you had to buy it from those army surplus shops.
One year I remember there was a craze for what must have been ammunition bags or gas mask holders.
They were made of green canvas with a strap and cost one shilling, and became an essential part of your clothing.
A fact which was reflected in my choice of clothes as a student in the late 1960s.
A navy blouse jacket, RAF great coat and an American combat jacket were still cheap, durable and did the business for a generation which missed National Service and so did not associate any of them with square bashing and endless fatigues.
I recently came across my old great coat which continued in my wardrobe as something I wore well into the early 80s. It was an officer’s version with a fitted waist and was far superior to the first I bought which was nothing more than a tent.
But perhaps it’s best that they have long ago been discarded as fashion accessories, given that my son’s really would pronounce me as old and beyond the pale.
Pictures; Walter Green House next to the site of an EWS, 2009 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick, and surplus equipment, Vintage Belgian Army Haversack Bag, 1950s, McGuire, http://www.mcguirearmynavy.com/ RAF coat, from Vintage French Lifestyle, http://www.vintagefrenchlifestyle.co.uk/catalogue_detail.asp?nShopProd_ID=%7B16D7F14E-02E8-419C-81A3-E886FC3710C1%7D#.VeLpuiVViko
*The story of one house in Lausanne Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road
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