Juanita Williams

Tufty Club

The Tufty club was a ROSPA initiative to keep children safe when crossing the road.  Apparently dad was approached by them (mom has name of person at ROSPA) with a view to doing cycling proficiency in schools and at one meeting he attended they said they needed a woman/mother/person to run the Tufty club, he volunteered mom and she got thrown in at the deep end.  She had one training session at Bingley Hall and that was it.

I love this picture because it is so typical of the time.  Our hairstyles and ruddy cheeks together with hand knitted cardigans are pretty much how it was in those days. The wallpaper in the background is so pretty and typical of the era and I bet it was a devil to paste on the wall.

Whilst we were growing up we had a dog called Timmy, mom brought him back from somewhere and he was a poor thing, riddled with fleas.  He pretty much did his own thing most of the time but when he was on a lead he would walk with us to school.  Needless to say he learned how and where to cross the road…………. Look right, look left, look right again, if it’s clear, quick march. (not sure if this is the correct code, it’s definitely not the Green cross code which came later).

We always used the crossing down from us and it was there that Timmy was knocked over by a car. Fortunately the taxi cab owner, (might be Harry Figg, but I can’t get hold of mom to confirm) knew he was a family pet and he took him to the vets where he was treated for a broken back leg.  His front leg was also hurt and he walked with a limp afterwards ……. until we took him to Barmouth beach whereby he miraculously lost his limp and chased seagulls as far as he could.