Imagine a  boy eight or nine years old. the year would be about 1938, and Saturday morning was laundry day in our house. There was a brick built copper in the corner of the barn at the bottom ,of the garden ,and it was my job to keep the fire going under the copper bowl to boil the water for the washing. The fuel for the fire was scrap leather pieces from the shoe factory next door. I loved this job. A young boy in charge of a fire was wonderful, especially as the  fire box was not that large and the leather burnt out very quickly the leather  would curl up with the heat and

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