My Childhood part three – schooling, the early years

My Childhood- the early years Part 3

In November 1957 Prime Minister of the time Harold Macmillan told the nation at a Tory Rally that ‘You have never had it so good’,
Mr Macmillan told Tory supporters: “Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms and you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime – nor indeed in the history of this country.”

According to most of the council house tenants in our street he must have been referring to the middle classes when he said that, Most families in our street still struggled to make ends meet, there was regular ‘tick’ at the local grocery store, that was where you could purchase food and cigarettes and pay at the end of the week on payday, if you didn’t pay your name went up on the window in great white letters, consequently the bill was soon paid. Mum smoked about twenty a day and would be too embarrassed to go to the shop and ask for tick, this is where ‘the note’ came in, so she would usually send my elder sister or brother to get the shopping, (a few years later I would find this a very lucrative way of getting a bag of sweets – so naughty lol)

It really was quite silly in those days, we could not buy cigarettes from the shopkeeper (another time ‘the note’ came in handy), but we could go outside put a coin in the machine on the wall and purchase two Park drive or two Woodbines, and the shopkeeper would sell us a 2d box of matches to go with them. I hasten to add that I wasn’t smoking at the tender age of five, I was nine years old before I had my first smoke!

Although life at home was hard there was always lots of love available from my mum, No matter what we wanted or needed she did her best by us, I would often see her searching through her purse counting the pennies, she would then write a note for ‘tick’ for one of us to take round to the shop, even then I saw her feed every last one of us and go without many a time.

Did you ever get that feeling of dread as a child of what would you do without dear old Mum, I cried myself to sleep many a night with that thought in my head. In late 1960 at the age of 36 she was carrying her final child of 10, he would be the first child she didn’t give birth to at home. So in consequence myself and my two younger brothers were shipped off to my Gran’s a couple of miles away in Silver street.

I have really fond memories of my Gran, if I close my eyes I can see her in a wrap -around pinnie, rolled down stockings, rolled up sleeves and a hairnet, she wasn’t overweight but like a lot of her ilk she was a big framed lady, but, when you were wrapped in those arms it was as gentle as being swathed in a blanket. She lived in a house where her back door looked out over the street but her front door looked over a beautiful park. My oldest memory of her was her using the dolly tub, she used a big T shaped and well -worn dolly with a bulbous bottom that was used to agitate and stir the clothing in the tub, it was then put through the big green mangle and the excess water squeezed out by the use of a lot of muscle especially on sheets. The washing would then be hung out using dolly pegs, then it was back inside to prepare Granddad’s tea, I didn’t know what my Granddad did but he would come home, remove his boots, his stud collar and his waist coat, he’d have his tea on his lap, he would then settle down in his favourite armchair right in front of the black lead grate and slowly nod off. That was the time for my Gran to put the iron on the griddle by the coal fire and start her ironing, she would spit on the hot iron to make sure it was adequate and press furiously before it cooled down. I don’t ever recall having much conversation with my Granddad, he was a very quiet man.

Gran on the other hand could as they say ‘Talk a glass eye to sleep’ she was always happy and jovial and when someone made friends with her it was for a lifetime.

At home we used to have home-made chips but not very often were they accompanied by sausage, egg and beans, so imagine the surprise on mine and my brothers faces when we all got stuck into the plate on the table – then Gran brought two more platefuls in – we thought all our Christmases had come at once! Another everlasting memory is the smell of kippers on Sunday morning, my Granddad had them religiously week after week year after year and the smell would fill the house, there was always the sound of the bells from St Georges church while he got washed and shaved and ready for the pub. He had a Gillette razor that when the handle was twisted it opened up and allowed you to change the blade, they would come in packets of five wrapped in paper, he had a huge white mug and a big brush which would whip up a lather on a shaving stick.

He wore a trilby and a brown striped suit which looked like a demob suit, he had a special kipper tie with a lady on it which – when it got warm – the ladies clothes came off! It was his party trick lol!

My two brothers and I slept in the same bed while we were there and one night I woke up and saw a woman stood at the bottom of the bed, needless to say I screamed the house down, my Gran came running in and calmed me down, next morning she asked me what had upset me, I described the woman and even what she was wearing, the colour drained from my Grans face, she told my mum later that I had perfectly described her mother and the clothes she was buried in. I have believed in ghosts ever since.

We went back home about a week later and with a few more pounds of weight on us, the house reeked of Johnsons Baby powder, there was an abundance of Terry Towel nappies and a couple always bubbling away in a pot on the gas oven.

My elder sisters would be responsible for keeping the house going, they would wash, iron, (our iron at that time plugged into the light socket on the ceiling so had a long cable on it) they would whip around with the Bex Bissel carpet cleaner, (only on the rugs in the middle of the floor, most of our floors were linoleum) and make sure the young ones washed, but Mum having just given birth was still expected to prepare and make all the meals besides looking after the new born baby. I have to admit that later I would test out the occasional Farleys rusk

Dad worked permanent nights, He didn’t have much choice really, he would eventually have to support ten children and a wife and a little later his Mother would come to stay with us, I found out a lot later in life that it was this pressure that drove him to drink heavily on weekends.

My Dad was a Carpet Weaver and in those days they worked a 54 hour week, he did four shifts starting at 6.00pm and finishing at 6.00am, on Friday they went in from 4pm to 10pm, on the 12 hour shift they were allowed a break at 9.30 for half an hour, even though leaving the premises wasn’t allowed by the bosses most of the weavers would climb the back wall and go across to the local for a few pints, the pubs shut at ten in those days, the landlord would line the pints up on the bar so that no time was wasted pouring them out for the expected rush.

He was a hard worker and only smoked and drank at weekends, he would go to the pub at opening time on a Saturday and return home at around 2.30, although he was a heavy drinker I can never remember him falling asleep on the afternoons, the tension was always high when he was in the room, as soon as he went out we all breathed a sigh of relief.

He would be out again for six o clock and Mum was expected to join him about 8.00pm regardless of what sort of hard day she’d had. We lived in a street which was really quiet at night, it was easy to lie in bed and hear my mums stiletto heels in the distance, if you could also hear my dad singing then all was well, but the nights I heard those heels and nothing else my heart filled with dread, there was an inbuilt wardrobe in our room and I would shut myself in there in the dark and hold my hands over my ears, I would hear mum come in and a few seconds later the front door would slam, then it would start -things being thrown around the kitchen, shouting and bawling – most of it coming from my dad, my Mum screaming as he hit her, within minutes of them arriving home the ten of us and my mum were out in the street, the neighbours who were well used to the rumpus were brilliant and would come out and a few of us would go to one house a few to another and so on.

The next day mum would go back, they’d make up and all was well until the next time. This was a regular thing in my early life.

That was going to be my legacy as I grew, I would never hit a woman or a child and I never have to this day, I still cannot stand sudden bangs or loud noises, but in later years I would sit with my dad (Whom I had a lot of respect and love for) having a quiet pint and trying to understand what made him like he was, All he would say was it had been the pressure of raising such a large family.

I quietly but politely pointed out to him that he didn’t raise us – Mum did!

Until next time…………….