Mother hated it when I brought a goldfish home!
Easter weekends were very special, starting with hot cross buns on Good Friday Morning breakfast. This was always a quiet, sombre sort of day, with no shops open. When I was in the Brownies we marched in a procession of witness around Wallsend. Easter Sunday was the big day, when all the eggs arrived and we went out with Grandad and aunts and cousins on some sort of trip out, often to the beach. At teatime we would have an enormous tea, with beautiful salads and fresh ham – a kind of ‘spring’ type meal.
After tea I can remember sitting with all of the boxes from the Easter eggs, and the cellophane wrappers from the chocolates inside, making dolls houses. Wrappers from Quality Street and Roses were best, because they had lovely colours and patterns on the wrappers, they made beautiful sets of curtains.
Easter Monday was spent with friends and we would do two things in particular. Firstly we went to the sledging hill near our house, near Davy Bank and rolled our paste eggs until they smashed into pieces. Then, in the afternoon we would go to the funfair at the Burn Closes, to try and win a goldfish or go on the waltzer. Mother hated it when I brought a goldfish home!