It's the small things that stick in the memory. Lorraine Sissons muses on her days as a seven-year-old, when she constantly ran errands for her grandmother in Altrincham, near Manchester... "My grandmother would send me up and down to the shops - it was probably about 4 or 5 times a day. Every meal was cooked fresh, there were no freezers and so whatever my grandfather felt like eating, I'd be sent out as a runner for it." And Lorraine would be sent off to a small group of Co-op shops locally known as The Front.
What really sticks in Lorraine's head is the 'divvy number'- a kind of early reward points scheme. "The numbers were absolutely drummed into me - my grandmother used to go into apoplexy if I didn't give the divvy no. I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember the divvy numbers. My grandmother's was 67127 and my mother's was 102014."
Being sent off on errands could be tiresome at times, but they did give Lorraine an opportunity to indulge in her favourite fantasies, "I read illicit comics such as Bunty and Princess - they were full of stories of riding schools, and ballet boarding schools where talented young girls would be found by the Royal Ballet" Lorraine lept and pranced along the route in the hope that someone would see her and whisk her away to fame and fortune. Her reversible coat also came in handy, "It was blue on one side, and a beige raincoat on the other - I used to nip into a little side alley, quickly turn it round, come out and think no-one would recognise me." Such is the nature of childhood deception.
It had it's embarrassing moments too. Adults think they can just tell a child to say anything, and they won't mind. Lorraine suffered a bit from these preconceptions, "My grandmother would say, 'Tell the butcher I’d like a nice piece of skirt - and tell him it musn’t be fatty like last week’s piece!' On another occasion, I was sent off to get a pound of tomatoes. In the shop were several housewives waiting their turn. When the greengrocer replied to my request with, 'What sort of tomatoes?', my mind immediately went blank. I racked my brains for what grandma normally had. I suddenly realised and I said 'King Edwards!' The whole shop dissolved into laughter." But the worst by far was being sent off to ask for something for grandfather's 'water works' - Lorraine just couldn't bring herself say a phrase which was both cryptic and repulsive, "so I asked for something for diarrhoea - it seemed a much less awkward complaint. Grandfather ranted and raved, and stormed down to the chemist himself. To this day I still don't really know what one gives for the 'water works' ".
Sadly now, parents are reluctant to let their children run errands. Lorraine herself says she wouldn't dream of allowing her son, even at thirteen, do most of the things she used to do. "At seven years of age, I was taking the bus home from school, and thought nothing of walking the two miles, if I'd spent my bus money."
