My early years 1944 - 1949. The end of World War 2 and life for the working class in a Lancashire milltown.

The 2nd World War brought my parents together. Mum was in service with a doctor and his family in Yorkshire when she met my father who was stationed nearby and came from Lancashire. Her duties mainly involved the care of the children. She would take them to and from school and to the park. When the children were at school she would assist the doctor’s wife with reception duties, arranging flowers and getting ready for visitors.

In August 1942 dad was to be posted abroad again and so mum and dad decided to marry. His pay-book shows his leave and in 1942 he had nine days leave during which they obtained a Special Licence so that they could marry before he was posted abroad. Lots of people did this because no one knew what the future held so they took the chance when they could.

Mum’s cousin made a buffet meal and then dad had to return to his barracks on their wedding day.They didn't have a camera so had no phottographs taken of their day.

Mum moved to Lancashire and lived with dad’s parents. My dad, her husband of two years had been abroad fighting in the 2nd World War which continued to affect the lives of so many. |He was in the 8th Army and was a Desert Rat. He had been in the Middle East and in North Africa where he took part in the Battle of El Alamein. In 1943 he was involved in the defeat of the Germans in North Africa and then moved to Italy. Early in 1944 he arrived home for a few days. Not long after, mum realised that she was expecting me and she found a little cottage for a very cheap rent and moved in just before I was born.

She was just twenty years old and was living alone in the Lancashire mill town, far from her Yorkshire birthplace. Dad saw me for the first time when I was six months old. Nine months later in January 1946 my sister was born. Sometime later dad was demobbed and came to live with us.

What a shock it must have been for him! He hardly knew my mother. When he was demobbed they had been married for four years but had spent very few days together. He was twenty when he joined up and twenty six when demobbed and now he had not only a wife to care for but two daughters as well! He had never had to handle money. Pre-war he had tipped up his wage to his mother and just received spending money. In the army everything was taken care of – he was fed and clothed and had no bills to pay so when he was demobbed he gave his wage packet to mum who remained in charge of the purse strings for the rest of her life. The army gave dad a suit to help him get back into civilian life. He had the Demob suit for years.

My earliest memories are of my life at the little rented cottage. I lived there from birth until I was four years old. We lived at number one, which was the first cottage on the left of the street. There were ten cottages in our street.

The cottage was just one of many in streets near the river and railway line. Several cotton mills for weaving and spinning, and a soap works, were situated beside the river.

In the 1940’s some of the mill-workers still wore clogs for work, and we could hear the clatter of clogs, as they hurried down the street to the mills in the mornings, and home again at night. I remember lots of grey fluff floating about and clogged up extractor fans on the mill walls which overlooked our street. The smell of oil and machinery was always there.

The little cottage was a ‘one up, one down’, i.e. one room downstairs and one upstairs and was built of stone. There were no gardens back or front, just a communal yard at the back, with six shared toilets for fifteen dwellings. Three cottages shared our toilet. The two cottages on each corner of the row were one up, one down cottages without a back door. Their only access to the toilets was to go out at the only door and then along the front of the street, then round the back into the communal yard.

Our cottage had a large living room, behind which was a tiny scullery, which was windowless. It was just a short passage about a yard wide, with a stone slab called a slop-stone for a sink. The sink had a very shallow rim around the edge and the water was collected in a pale green enamel bowl with a dark green rim. There was only one tap with cold water. Pots, clothes, and people were all washed using that bowl! A little gas stove was used for cooking and heating water.

We didn’t have electricity, although by then, many houses did have electricity. One gas lamp on the wall in the living room was the only light we had. We had to use candles or oil lamps in the scullery and in the bedroom.

Some of the cooking was done on the black bungalow range, which was in the living room and which had an oven at the side of it .A kettle was always on the boil on the fire and there was a boiler at one side, which could be filled with water.

I have many happy memories of that fire. A wooden fender separated the hearth from the rest of the floor; at least if coal fell out it would stop at the fender. We had a brass-topped poker, and a brush and shovel on a stand. The mantelpiece was high up, at about five feet, and in the middle was a wooden clock with a loud tick. Two brass candlesticks acted as letter racks; bills and letters were propped up behind them. A box of matches was kept there, out of our reach, together with a jar of tapers; these were made of white wax and were long and very thin. A mirror hung over the fireplace, and brushes and combs were kept on the mantle shelf. The fireplace would be ‘black leaded’ to keep it looking clean.

We spent many happy hours on the colourful rag hearth rug which mum and dad had made during long winter nights out of narrow strips of old clothes, which were cut up and pulled through a piece of sacking or hessian with a special tool. Periodically, the rug would be taken outside and hung on the line. Then it would be beaten with a carpet beater until all the dust came out. Sometimes, if the washing lines were full, Mum would bat the rug on the house wall, leaving a light coloured section of wall against the blackness of the rest of the stone. The stone was blackened due to the smoke from the coal fires and the mill chimneys and also the exposure to the air. We had a brass toasting fork, which is now in my nephews possession and often had bread or crumpets toasted on the open fire. I remember that whoever did the toasting usually ended up with a very red face, but the toast was delicious. Another use of the oven (other than baking), was to warm our pyjamas every evening! It was really lovely getting undressed in front of the fire and putting on warm pyjamas. Everything seemed to take place in front of that fire, especially in the winter, as the back of the room was colder, and upstairs had no heating at all!

Mum would talk about ‘blackjacks.’ At the time I had no idea what they were, but found out years later that they were cockroaches. They lived behind the fire and came out when it was dark. The adults were large and black and the young were brown.

(Twenty years later the Medical Officer for Health said that many houses had infestations of cockroaches and even though great efforts had been made to eradicate them, it had been impossible to bring them under control. He said that the houses were typical of the worst period of the Industrial Revolution and were very poor by today's standards. The area was depressing, it was hemmed in by mills and got very little sunlight. There were no gardens and so children played in the streets. The houses were demolished some time later).

Dad used to take us to the toffee and toyshop opposite the church. He would buy us a stick of Plasticine; not the thin strips of assorted colours that you buy today, but a thick roll of it. My sister would have one colour and I would have a different colour, usually yellow. We warmed it for a few minutes in the oven at the side of the fire; it had an unusual smell, which I liked, and was lovely to play with once softened. We played for hours with our Plasticine, making all sorts of weird and wonderful things but then our colours got mixed up, and we always ended up with brown Plasticine!

As we didn’t have a bathroom, we had to have a bath in a tin bath, which, when not in use, hung outside the back door on a nail. The bath was placed in front of the fire, with the clothes maiden put around it and draped with towels to get warm but also to keep the draughts out. It was filled with hot water, which was heated in a boiler and kettle on the fire, and on the gas stove. Everyone bathed in the same water, children first, followed by mum and last of all, dad had his bath, which, by this time, was cooling down and had to be topped up with more hot water.

The water wasn’t wasted. Some of the water was carried in buckets to the back door, where it was tipped onto the flags to clean them. Then the bath, half full, would be carried into the scullery. Sometimes, the dirty clothes, which we had just removed, were put into the bath to soak, to be washed next day.

We had a dark oak, dining suite, consisting of a square table, which had a fold out extension in the middle, four chairs and a sideboard. The sideboard was very plain, with two drawers above two cupboards and round wooden knobs. The furniture came from the1943 Utility catalogue. As a newly married, Mum could have ration coupons to buy furniture and she bought the suite from a local furnisher and was given credit for a period of nine months. The table was in the middle of the room, and the sideboard was on the stair wall. We also had a three-piece suite which was bought second hand. The two-seater settee was against the wall, facing the fireplace, and the chairs were on either side of the fire. It was made of un-cut moquette, in shades of brown, and the design was of birds, flowers, and leaves. The settee had a drop-down arm which made it long enough for an adult to lie down.

We didn’t have a vestibule, just a large piece of wood to one side of the door. Above the door was a fanlight.

Beside the front door and under the window was a Singer treadle sewing machine.Electricity wasn't required because the treadle was operated by the sewer. Mum would make our swimming costumes and earn extra money towards the holiday costs by making them for other people. The costumes were made of fine cotton and started off as a very large piece of material. Rows and rows of gathering, using shirring elastic, was done, first across the fabric and then down the length. This created a bubble effect, and the material shrank in size so that it was small enough to be shaped into a swimsuit, and because it was stretchy it would fit many sizes. The only trouble was that they stretched when wet!

Mum made lots of our clothes on the machine including dresses which had hand smocking on the bodice. She made us clothes out of her own clothes which were worn in places, she just cut out the best bits for ours. Curtains were made on the machine and sheets showing signs of wear in the middle were cut in half and restitched with the outer edges to the middle and the worn part on the edge, which was then tucked under the mattress. Socks with holes were darned on a darning mushroom.

In the recess near the window was a glass-fronted Edwardian cabinet, which is still in the family. It came originally from Bridlington. Some relative of mum and dad’s friends left them a house full of furniture. They couldn’t make use of it all, and so gave the cabinet to mum and dad. I remember that the inside was lined with a small patterned floral fabric at the top, and lovely, dark blue velvet at the bottom, which could be seen through the glass.

The bedroom was quite large. There was a recess which was over the stairs and the scullery. A curtain divided the room into two sections, with mum and dad’s bed in one half, and a single bed and cot in the other. The bedroom floor was just bare wooden boards, with a rug between the beds.

A chamber pot was a necessity as the toilet was outside and some distance away!

Relatives came to stay from Yorkshire; mum’s sister, husband and two children and mum’s brother, all squashed into that tiny one-bedroom cottage, together with mum, dad, my sister and me! All four children slept in the bedroom; my sister was in the cot, and my cousin and I slept side by side at the top of the bed, and her brother was at the bottom or on a makeshift bed on the floor! Our mothers slept in the double bed and the men slept on the floor downstairs. How anyone managed to get any sleep is amazing. I suppose that seven years of war made the men less fussy about where they slept. They endured far worse during those war years!

The woodwork in the cottage was dark brown varnish throughout. The living room floor was made of large stone flags, and a carpet square covered the centre of the room. The flag floor in the scullery did not have any floor covering other than a green oval peg rug in front of the slop-stone. The flags were regularly swept and mopped with water to which bleach had been added.

The stairs had stone steps; mum used to hide underneath them, surrounded by coal, when the sirens sounded during the war; it was the safest place in the cottage. Mum spent many hours with me, a tiny baby, under those stairs, waiting for the ‘all clear.’ There weren’t any air raid shelters in the vicinity otherwise mum would have gone there.

The front door of the cottage opened straight out onto the street. The doorstep was scrubbed every week, and then donkey-stoned. The donkey stone was a large tablet of soft stone, which, when wet, would produce a kind of cream coloured paste to decorate the sides and edges of the stone step. The stone was obtained from the ’Rag and Bone’ man, in exchange for rags or other unwanted items. He travelled about with a horse and cart and used to shout,

‘ Rag bone, rag bone,’ and everyone came out with their rags. He also had goldfish for sale but it was some years before we got one.

I can remember one very hot, summer day when my sister was first to be dressed in white shoes and socks, and a white dress with a hand-smocked bodice. She sat playing with toys outside our door, on the kerb edge, with her shoes in the gutter. (The street didn’t lead anywhere, so traffic didn’t use it - also, there were very few cars around at that time.) The tar between the sets had melted; she couldn’t resist popping the bubbles and ended up with tar on her shoes, socks, legs hands, dress, and even in her hair! I remember mum covering her in butter, in order to get it off! Mum never again got her dressed first; she waited until the last minute before getting her ready.

Washing clothes, towels and bedding was a laborious task in those days. Mum had a big tub, known as the, ‘dolly tub,’ in which she put the clothes. She had a washboard and would get the clothes clean by rubbing them up and down against it. It had a wooden frame, and the rubbing part was made of a piece of thick glass, which had ridges and knobbles on it, although most people had a board made of galvanised metal and I haven’t found anyone who remembers a glass one. However, I recently discovered a glass one in an antique shop. A pair of wooden tongs was used to pull the clothes out of the hot, soapy water and a wooden posser was possed up and down, to get the dirt out of the washing. Mum didn’t have a mangle until later, and so she had to wring everything out by hand! The washing was dried outside in the communal yard, or if wet, inside on a rack, above the fire. The rack had a pulley system, and could be lowered down in order to hang the clothes on, and then raised up to the ceiling out of the way, where the hot air would dry the washing.

Mum always hated ironing, probably because she had to use a flat iron, as they did not have electricity at that time. She would put a thick blanket on the table and iron our hand smocked dresses on it. It was years before she bought an ironing board.

Later, in the fifties, the rubbing board was given a new use; Lonnie Donegan used it to make music!The type of music he produced was known as ‘Skiffle,’ and the washboard became a ‘Skiffle board.’

Shopping was a daily occurrence; it had to be as there were no fridges or freezers then. We had a meat safe in the scullery; the door and sides were made of fine mesh so that the air could circulate round the meat but also, the meat was protected from flies. Milk was delivered by the milkman who had a horse and cart. Rationing was in force for many years after the war so there were many things we couldn’t have or could only have a small amount. Mum once had an argument with a shopkeeper who said she had to buy something she didn’t want before he would serve her the thing she did want.

My favourite shopping trip was to ‘Auntie Mary’s and Uncle Frank’s.’ They weren’t a real aunt and uncle but an adopted one. In those days any adult who became a friend of parents became aunt or uncle to the children. We had five couples that became aunt and uncle to us, and in addition, we had eight real aunts and eight uncles.

The shop was a wooden hut near the river. I have vivid memories of a door inside that shop; Uncle Frank used to tell us that if we were naughty, the ‘Bogey man’ would come through that door! We kept well away from it, and always behaved impeccably, as did all the other children who went into the shop!

The shop was a general store, but I can only remember the sweets! They had jars of sweets on shelves in the window and we loved standing outside to choose our treat. We could only have a few because sweets were rationed.

I can remember wanting a toy sweet shop which was displayed in the window. It was a pink box and inside were little jars of sweets, a set of toy scales and a scoop. I thought it was wonderful and never stopped talking about it. Sure enough, it was sent to Father Christmas, and appeared in my Christmas stocking! The sweets didn’t last long, but I played for hours with the shop, using little balls of Plasticine for sweets! I must have had a sweet tooth in those days - I can remember eating ‘sugar butties’ - ughh!

We seemed to have endless sunshine in those years. We would go for picnics regularly. Mum used to look after a little girl because her mother went to work in the mill. Picnics were fun - we walked past the weaving and spinning sheds then through the land belonging to the soap works. There were hundreds of oil or chemical drums littering the site. I can still remember them vividly. They seemed enormous to me, and were either rusty metal or painted in drab colours.

Once through the soapworks we were in the field by the river. Crossing the field we had to watch where we put our feet, because there were always cows in that field! However the best way to cross was along the path, which went towards the river’s edge and continued through to the next village.

We would turn right when we arrived at a small stream which was a tributary of the river. We would set out our picnic a little way upstream on the south bank. It was a lovely stream, quite shallow, about five feet wide at this point, and strewn with water-worn rocks and pebbles. I can still see the water bubbling around those rocks, rippling over the stones, and glinting in the sunshine. We paddled, and took off our dresses, and somehow, I lost my knickers. I can still see them, floating away, downstream! I returned home, minus knickers!

We made regular trips to the local park as it was very near. The swings at that time were in an area between the bowling greens and the river. The grass always seemed to be long, but we still enjoyed going. There was a bandstand in the park, and although I can’t remember the band playing, I do have vivid recollections of playing on the steps and running around inside it.

We had a little brown dog called Judy. She was a mongrel and had a lovely nature. She was also very good at eating up all the food which we didn’t want - we just put our hands and the food beneath the table, and Judy would be there! In those days, dogs were fed on scraps, not special dog food. Judy was extremely tolerant; she would let us sit on her back for a ride, and never snapped at us.

However it wasn’t always sunny. One winter we had torrential rain for many days, with the result that the river overflowed. The streets were flooded! Mum and Dad carried as many possessions as they could up the stairs, and stood the chairs on top of the table. And then we sat upstairs, watching the dirty floodwater swirling down the street. I was rather frightened at first, but I was soon fully occupied as Mum reeled off all the things floating along in the flood; a tin bath, a cabbage, planks of wood, dustbins, and lids, chemical drums, and branches with even more rubbish caught up in them.

When the flood subsided, Mum and Dad found that many of their possessions were ruined. Whilst they were in the process of clearing up, they were visited by their local Member of Parliament. He was very helpful. That visit got the MP Mum and Dad’s vote for the next few years!

My sister suffered from bronchitis and asthma and everyone said that the close proximity of the river, dampness, and the pollution from the mills was aggravating her condition.She couldn't see the doctor too often because of the expense. It wasn't until 1948 that the N.H.S. was formed giving free treatment to all.

Mum had problems with her teeth and gums when she was expecting me and developed gum disease which caused her to have all her teeth removed to be replaced by a full set of dentures. Nowadays mothers-to-be get twelve months free dental treatment as they are more susceptible to gum disease.

During the war dad drove trucks and learned how to repair them so when he was demobbed he didn’t return to his old job as a dyer at a local dye-works. He went to work at a local garage and petrol station. His experiences of vehicle repair during the war years had provided him with enough knowledge to get the job and he enjoyed working with cars. The hours were long; often we wouldn’t see him for a whole week, as we were in bed when he went to work, and in bed when he came home! When he did come home, he was black. Black face and hands meant that if children saw him they used to shout, ‘Black Sambo,’ and then hide behind the wall! The oil was impregnated into his hands, and the only time they were clean and white, was when we went on holiday.In later years I remember that even on Sundays dad was in demand – as more and more of his friends bought cars they came to dad for repairs and he didn’t charge for his services much to mum’s annoyance.

There were no facilities for Dad to get a warm meal at the garage; he had to take sandwiches. In order to get a flask, he had to get a letter from our Doctor saying that as he travelled a long way to work and there were no facilities for a hot meal, he needed to have a hot drink during the day, and so should be supplied with a Thermos flask. (I don’t know who the application was made to, but I still have the letter).

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Money was short, and I remember that Dad went to work in shoes with holes in them. When he couldn’t afford the leather to repair them himself, he stuck pieces of cardboard in them; this was successful as long as it didn’t rain! This was so that he could afford to buy us quality leather shoes, properly fitted Startrite shoes from the shoe shop on the main street. When we needed the soles repairing dad repaired them with pieces of leather using the last which I now use as a door stop.

At the end of our street, there was some land, which was used for allotments and every November we had a bonfire, with each family making some food to share with everyone else. Potatoes were cooked in the fire, as was Guy Fawkes!

People never travelled far for entertainment. We went to a pantomime (the title of which I can’t remember), when I was three, at a nearby Sunday school. We children sat on benches at the front. I remember an ‘Operation,’ scene; it was behind a curtain and was done with shadows. I can still see a long string of sausages being removed from the patient’s stomach! Another scene involved an ironing board and the ‘Dame’

Dad was good at doing things to make us laugh – he could waggle his ears and however hard I tried I couldn’t do it. He would get two spoons back to back and bang them together to make a tune. He loved to play the mouthorgan and could also make a tune out of a comb with tissue over it. He could make fantastic shadows on the wall by put– a rabbit, butterfly, swan, face and a bird.

Our holidays were spent at Blackpool. We travelled by steam train from the local station which was very close to our house.

When I was three and a half I became a pupil at the nearby Church of England School but this was unofficial as I was formally admitted when I was four. The teacher was a grey haired lady with glasses. She was unmarried and the school children were her children – she was lovely. The classroom was large; it had an open fire at one end of the room with a large, brass topped, fireguard round it. The high arched windows were on the opposite wall overlooking the road. There were two doors into the room; one was at the road end and the other was at the fire end. Next to the first door was a really tall cupboard; I could just reach the top. I would take a buttered Weetabix, wrapped in bread paper, for my play-time snack and place it on top for safe keeping. Many years later I saw that cupboard again; it was not quite as tall as I thought it was; it was no more than three feet high! But then, I was only three!

Next to the cupboard was the sand trolley, and I loved to play in it. It was like being on the beach, and if the sand was damp we could make good sand pies, but if it was dry, we couldn’t make things; the only thing it was good for, was putting through a sieve! I always seemed to end up with more in my shoes and on the floor, than was in the sand-pit I have fond memories of our teacher reading stories to us every day; we sat on the floor in front of the fire, where it was so cosy and pleasant.

In the infant class we had tables for two and sat on little wooden chairs. Wooden boards were used for Plasticine and individual blackboards and board rubbers were used for practising our letters. The little tables were ideal for my fourth birthday party. They were arranged in a ‘U’ shape, and after we had played party games we had a party tea, which was set out on the gingham covered tables. I can still see my mum coming into the room carrying sandwiches, then jellies, and then a birthday cake! It was a wonderful birthday.

In the late 1940’s the council built a new estate. We were one of the first families to live on the estate and moved in 1949, when I was about four and a half and my sister was three. We didn’t hire a removal van, but we certainly moved in style! Our coal-man, moved us! All our possessions went on the flat-backed coal wagon, and we travelled in the cab!

Although it was an exciting period of our lives it was tinged with sadness because we couldn’t take Judy to the new house as we were told that dogs were not allowed on the new estate.