AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
33
coloured reins for playing at horses. Next came Davis's cheesemongers and after a tea grocers, and a hat shop, came
Merrils the furniture store, spoken about on page 48.
On the opposite side of the road was Jones the tea grocers which advertised itself by a huge red tea pot on the
parapet. Here I did the week's shopping for my mother. One regular item was `an ounce of two shilling Green
Tea', which was always weighed meticulously in a pair of balances suspended from the ceiling.
In that second raid, both Herold's School (infants' department) and the row of houses including 20 Drummond
Road, to which we had moved in 1884, were reduced to rubble. Mention has been made of St. James's Church. I
remember taking one of my daughters, as a child to show her the slide which the children of the neighbourhood
improvised out of the granite slabs that bordered the steps leading into the church. These slabs still retain the polish
that countless breeches' seats were worn out to accomplish, but to my surprise I discovered that even here the old
order had given place to new, for there, standing in the grounds and rendering the granite slides obsolete, was a
grand structure - tobogganing made easy in all weathers. Both ancient and modern `slides' have been indicated in
the accompanying sketch.