OWD Codgers Norman Owen and Harry Worthington have been skating back to boyhood memory with one or two rough-and-tumble episodes that are sure to strike a note among today's free bus-pass generation.

The old-timers, sharing wartime Thatto Heath roots, were once particularly keen on the unique winter sport of 'clog-hopping'. A deep blanket of snow was required, along with a pack of local urchins, universally shod in clogs with horseshoe-like metal 'irons' nailed to the wooden soles.

This combination of wood and metal proved perfect. As the kids hopped around in the snow, this quickly became compressed, sticking like glue to clog soles. The more they tramped, the higher that twin pedestal of compressed snow became, until tottering heights were achieved.

Winner was the kid who stood tallest - often a foot or so above his normal height!

Another favourite, from an era when youngsters were happy to make their own amusement, was sledge riding down steeper side-streets. Dads were pressed into making sleds from old rocking-chair rockers, spaced apart by a couple of short lengths of timber, forming the nailed-on seat and footrest.

"Then up to the crest of Upland Road, woolly balaclava and home-knitted gloves on, for a breakneck ride down the slope".

Not everyone was fortunate enough to have a chair-rocker sleigh. Other kids had to make do with metal dustbin lids with the handle hammered off, or a rusty large shovel.

The kids certainly knew how to improvise. "Young Bernie Lunt and her pal, Betty Delaney, even skidded down on a set of ladders", our greybeards recall.

All this madcap sport was at the expense of a few bumps and bruises. But it might have been worse if the Jones family, whose home faced up from the foot of the slope, hadn't obligingly left their front garden gate open.

"Once you got sliding there was no stopping", say our long-memoried duo, "and that assortment of home-made sleighs would go whistling through the open gate, across the front garden and often end up by the back door". Folks, it seems were more tolerant towards the young in those distant days!

WONDER how many of a certain age will identify with Norman and Harry's reminiscences?