Everthing here is true, but they may not all have happened on the same day.  Be fair, it was over forty years ago.

Thinking back, I am constantly amazed at the games and distractions my Mum would come up with, especially as we often had no money half-way through the week.  It is only as an adult looking back, and looking at old photos, that I realise that we lived in a slum.  That the times we had sugar sandwiches as a treat was when sugar and bread were the only food we had in the house.

Ee, but we were 'appy.  Kids today, and all that.

Unashamed nostalgia.  Sorry.

"I don’t want to play with the Lego anyway. Alices and Jimmies is a stupid game. Anyway, rats are too big to fit in that stupid house. When you’ve finished I’m going to build a space rocket."

No-one was quite sure how Tony had come up with Alices and Jimmies. Alices were mice, Jimmies were rats, and Tony would build elaborate houses for them out of Lego. The houses would have several rooms and flat roofs. He would spend an hour or so building the houses, then amuse himself inventing little stories about them. That was when Tony was Good Tony. When it came time to put the Lego away, or if one of the other boys dared take even a handful of bricks for his own project, then Bad Tony would surface. There would be screams and tantrums, and any attempt by Mum to mediate a compromise would result in him storming away to the bedroom all four boys shared to pack his suitcase. On at least two occasions he had reached the end of the street, carrying a bag with two spare pair of underpants, a T-shirt, his spectacle case and his moneybox containing anything up to a shilling.

Kim, as the eldest, should have known better. Sometimes he would play Alices and Jimmies with Tony, though he was happiest with a book or even the Daily Mirror. Sometimes it was odd to think that only 18 months separated the two boys. But it was August and even with the sash windows open it was stuffy in the little terrace house. Michael was eyeing the Lego from behind the chair, and Mum just knew that an all-out brotherly war was going to ensue soon if she didn’t do something.

This was not what she wanted today. She had once put a sign in the front window, stating that she did not beat her children, after all three older boys managed to collect a black eye each. As soon as the babe learnt to walk she was sure she could count on a fourth. The Bed and Breakfast guests were leaving today, and she needed to give the house a thorough clean before anyone else knocked on the front door. The house may not have been the smartest in Ramsgate. Let’s face it, it was run-down even by the street’s standards. But she was proud of the cleanliness of the house, even with three boys between three and six years old and a babe in arms doing their best to mess it up.

What could she do to entertain them? Better still, what could she do to get them to entertain themselves? She only had a spare couple of bob until Friday, when Dad came home with money in his pocket. Her eyes fell on the old blanket that she had put aside to throw out, past even her attempts at darning.

"Do you know what sort of weather this is?" she asked the boys. "It’s Indian weather. Everybody get your shirts off."

Fifteen minutes later the three boys were resplendent in her makeup. Lipstick stripes on their chests, eye-shadow lines on their cheeks, cowboy pistols in their hands. Mum made special sandwiches with Red Indian jam and cowboy biscuits. Then Mum led the tribe over the road to the corner shop.

"How! We want firewater for heap big braves."

"Oh yes? And what sort of firewater would that be?" asked the lady behind the counter, smiling.

"We want um red firewater" said Mum, pointing at the cheap bottle of cherryade.

Provisioned, the tribe made its way to the Tanyard at the end of the street. This was a small area of wasteland, surrounded by the backs of houses. It might once have been a tanning yard, but now it was overgrown with grass, buddleia and shrubs. A long-abandoned minivan lay in one corner. It was, in short, a child’s paradise.

Mum draped the blanket from a shrub. "This um wigwam. The cowboys might be attacking um village. You braves must keep the cowboys at bay. You have um food and firewater. Squaw go back to um village and will see you this afternoon."

And it was indeed hours later that tribe, happy, fed and filthy, made the long trail back to the reservation.