Shirley, the skater

I loved to skate .When I was about 11 years old I had a pair of tin roller skates that you actually had to put under your shoes and hold them on with leather straps. The wheels were very plain and no ball bearings so to actually skate was quite an effort. But it was fun and in those days there was so little car traffic on the road where we lived , you could skate all over the road just outside your front door.

This photo was taken when we went on a summer holiday ( vacation) to Clacton one year. I remember we stayed in a caravan ( trailer) which was actually a bus ride from the beach and the seaside but it was a holiday away from home for a week and it also had a funfair. The best thing for me was there was a skating rink and for not much money I could borrow skates and skate on the rink for an hour or so. I think my parents and sisters just went off and left me to do other things but I liked skating the best.

these were the kind of skates I had

Later on I tried ice skating as well but the nearest ice rink was in Wembley which was a rather long bus or train ride away from where we lived so I didn't do that much until we went to Montreal when I was about 30. That didn't last long either just when the kids were little. They soon were much better than I would ever be. I did get a lovely pair of white skating boots when we were first there but it's pretty cold skating in a Montreal winter outside on the ice rinks. I think I left the boots in Montreal when I moved to Texas.

I never tried the inline road skates but now I think I'm a bit too old to try .