100 Blog Fest ~ Martin King

I'm thrilled to be a part of Martin King's 100 Blog Fest! 100 Blogs in one month! Here is his childhood memory. I left a favorite memory of mine too. ~ Alisha

Martin: I grew up in a town that used to shut down for two weeks in the summer. All the factories would close at the same time. It’s hard to imagine a whole town grinding to a halt like that these days, but that was the good old days.
Quite often, half the street would all go on holiday together too, the destination – Primrose Valley. Back then places like Butlins and Pontins were popular family destinations. And as a kid, what better way to spend a holiday, than to go with all your best friends as well! Can you imagine that nowadays, the whole street going on holiday together? A lot of people don’t even know the names of the next door neighbours these days.
So there you have all the neighbours and their families and your own family too, it was like home from home. Well on this one particular occasion when I was about ten, my grandad had given me a pocket watch, not because he was being generous but because it didn’t work. It was one of the best presents ever.
So there we are at this cabaret show that was really boring, but it was okay because I had my new toy to play with. Well can you believe what happened next? That’s right, somehow I managed to get it working.
I was so happy and leaned over to my grandad, proud as punch that I fixed it. I thought he would be so pleased for me. He was pleased, pleased to have a working watch again. Yep, you guessed it, he took it back. SOB!
These blogs are all about fun and sharing. Thank you for reading a ‘#100blogfest’ blog. Please follow this link to find the next blog in the series:

Martin King's Blog


Alisha: My grandma played shoe store with me when I was a kid. I'd go get all my mom's shoes out of her closet and take them into the living room where my grandma sat in a recliner. I'd help her try on all the shoes and then she'd pick one pair and give me a nickel as payment. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that the shoe story she'd always told of growing up during the Great Depression was probably to blame for her shoe fetish. Every year as a child, her mother ordered each of her nine children one pair of shoes from the Sears catalog. One year, Sears sent the wrong pair of shoes to my Grandma...beautiful feminine, soft leather shoes with straps.
My grandmother was overjoyed but her dream was soon dashed when her mother told her that they'd have to send the shoes back. Sears had sent the wrong pair. They were too expensive. So the pretty shoes were sent back and the clunky, cheap shoes were reordered. Today my grandma has many, many beautiful pairs of shoes. For more stories of The Great Depression, buy The Wooden Nickel, loosely based on my grandparents' lives.

Don't forget to Tweet #100blogfest!

Happy Reading and Writing!
~Alisha