Coke through the fence

I joined the 29th when I was 12. I lived next door to the Methodist Church on Kings Road. Remember sitting with Mr Blaney, the caretaker, in the boiler room. The wall was covered in cigarette cards, footballers and so on. When Mr Blaney died Aber and Blodwen Thomas became caretakers. They were as Welsh as their names suggest. Blod and my mother became firm friends and I soon became a frequent visitor to the Thomas flat in the House of Friendship. Gosh! Where am I going with this? So many memories. A last one: it was during the war years. When coke for the boiler was delivered it was dropped against the wooden fence bordering our house. There was a tiny gap at the bottom of the fence; pieces of coke fell into our garden; I was sent with a bucket to collect the windfall fuel. I found that if you gently tugged at the fence a bit more coke would fall through. But, in mitigation, I was only about 6 or 7 at the time, and coke was in short supply, and I liked to please my mother. And you had to work quickly cause Aber was barrowing it down to the boiler room.