Criminal Masterminds Aged 7

How we waged war on laundry, phone boxes, and Mr Vincent’s car in 1960s SwanseaWe weren’t bad kids in the Port Tennant end of Swansea in the early 1960s. We were curious, bored, and occasionally criminal. Most of what we got up to would get you therapy now, or a court date. Back then it was just what kids did. Our criminal high command operated from Ysgol Street, where the public phone box stood conveniently next to a police box. I once acted as lookout while some older kids tried to rob it. The copper inside stepped out and gave me a good clout round the ear while the other, far more alert, boys scattered. No arrest. Just a reminder that someone was always watching, and probably another hiding from my father on top. When we were feeling particularly wicked, we threw mud at some poor woman’s freshly hung washing. Her lines stretched along the back of Ysgol Street. Our seasonal speciality was setting fire to the grassy bank sloping down to the railway lines, then phoning the fire…