1966 and all that

So it's 50 years since England won the World Cup. This morning the presenter of Radio 4's Thought For the Day harked back to 1966. He described it as post-war, with bomb sites undeveloped among the city and suburban streets. I remember it well. Manchester's Arndale hadn't yet been built. The city centre was Dickensian. There was a bomb site where my sister and I played near our house. Close by was an area of devastation known as Swinton Fields. We rode our bikes there, up and over embankments for long demolished railway tracks. On July 30th 1966 my sister and I were staying with my godmother, my aunt in the Isle of Man. School summer holidays, we were aged 11 and 12. Normally we would have been down on the stony beach at Port Jack, skimming stones, climbing rocks and making use of the disguised sewage pipe to walk out into the waves, past the cave in the cliff. But for some reason, though we weren't football fans, we stayed in, watching the game on her small black and white television. My aunt's flat was on Royal Terrace.The first floor living room had a bay window overlooking Douglas Bay from Onchan Head. While she lived there, I've seen the Red Arrows fly so close over the headland and past that window that you could imagine you saw the colour of the pilot's eyes. It was a sunny afternoon. We watched with concentration and fascination, calling my aunt in to join us for the last fifteen minutes. It was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement of the result, and in my mind's eye I see it in glorious colour.