Winter draws on! As winter approached in wartime London and the evenings got darker and colder us kids still played out in the street until the last minute even though we were freezing! When the war ended and street lighting came back on we congregated round the lampposts and stayed out even later. It was very late before our mums came to the front doorstep and yelled for us to "Get in this minute ... you little bleeders!!"

All the kids I knew wore much the same winter outfits, both for school and "playing out". Some better off kids had a "Sunday best". The uniform in the street was: black school shoes, long grey socks pulled up to the knees, short grey trousers (bare knees - only working men wore long trousers), long-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the neck, Fair Isle knitted sleeveless pullover, tweed jacket (all buttons done up and collar up). This universal kids uniform was usually topped off with a grey or brown knitted Balaclava helmet, a "fashion accessory" of the time, which completely covered the head and neck leaving only a small oval hole in front to reveal the face.

Us kids all went round with our hands thrust deep into our pockets against the cold. We only ever took them out to roll marbles, pick noses, etc. When it was really cold our mums made us wear knitted scarves and gloves. The gloves soon got covered in snot if you had a cold.

All the knitted stuff, Balaclavas, pullovers, socks, scarves and gloves, were hand made by mums, nans and aunties who had no kids of their own. They were always knitting. Clack! Clack! And fast! They could all do it while having a conversation and reading a knitting pattern out of Woman's Own at the same time. If they weren't knitting they were rolling up balls of wool. They bought skeins of the stuff from the Wool Shop and made me sit with my arms outstretched holding the big loop while they unravelled it into a ball ready for knitting.

Sometimes someone would find an old unwanted knitted garment and spend ages unpicking it and rolling up the wool saying gleefully, "This will make Robert a lovely Balaclava!"

I even had a knitted hot-water-bottle cover with draw-strings. We had stone or metal hot-water-bottles and filled with boiling water they were too hot to touch at first. After a while in bed when it had cooled a bit you could take the cover off to get the last bit of heat. Trouble was, in the morning it was freezing cold and if you touched it, it made you jump. Sometimes you kicked it out of bed and it clattered on the hard floor and woke the whole house!
Happy Days!