lived in a millhouse on an estate owned by the chairman of the National Provincial Bank. Father was a labourer on the estate. He had been a colour sergeant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was paid eighteen bob a week, from which he had to pay four bob rent. That left mum with fourteen shillings, for seven children. She had a hell of a time making this money go round. We used to get wood from the estate. We had a big brick oven and mother used to get flour in by the sack and she baked all her own bread. For clothes and shoes, we were always on our uppers. Father had a pension from the Fusiliers. He got seven pound every three months, which would have helped, but the trouble was he used to spend most of it at the tavern.
Edith Turner
While my mother was in hospital with my brother and sister, my father had the opportunity of selling papers to earn himself a few coppers. When he was out doing this, I was locked in a room at home so that I couldn't come in contact with the landlord. The landlord would knock on the door, and when he got no answer he tried to open the door to get in. I used to lie on the floor and watch him to see when he went away.
Mrs G. Edwards
When we were little, my mother would fill the bath in the kitchen and bathe us in there. One day, she brought in a saucepan of boiling water and poured it into the bath, and when she went off to get some cold water, my younger sister fell backwards into the bath. My mother took her to the doctor straight away but he wouldn't have anything to do with it and told mother to take her to St Thomas's Hospital. We didn't think she was going to live. My father came home and when he heard, he was in an awful way and went straight to the hospital. After he left her, he was walking away when he heard her crying. He rushed back again and he found her in the ward with nobody with her and he made an awful fuss about it. He said he wouldn't leave her there. They told him that if he took her away, he'd be responsible for her death. So he left her in the end, but he told my older sister Nellie, who was about fourteen at the time, to go to the hospital to talk to the nurses to try and get them to take an interest in my little sister. She lived, but her back's been all scarred ever since.
Tom Kirk
In 1905 I remember a great adventure – a visit to London! I still remember the smell of leather seats and the swishing of the horses' tails as we went along Station Road. I remember Father's remarks on the train as we neared Peterborough. ‘Look out on the right and you may see a red Midland and Great Northern train racing us!’ The following day, we went to Brixton to pick up a tram into the City, but the electrical supply had somehow failed, and when the tram finally appeared it was pulled by a horse.
Dorothy Scorey
Mother said we all had to have a trade, because she was left a widow when she was in her forties and she said that if we were ever left like her, you have to have something you can put your hand to. She was so blooming strict with us. ‘Any of my girls bring trouble home to me, the workhouse you'll go.’ That's what she used to say. She wouldn't let us out after ten o'clock, and if we were talking to a boy, she'd come up and say, ‘I don't thank you boys for keeping my girls out at night time!’ I always used to say, ‘We'll never get married, any of us!’
Ernest Hugh Haire
We had a servant who lived in. Her name was Bridget and we used to call her Biddy. She was a delightful Irish person who kept us in order as children. Her husband was a sailor with the Cunard Line. He lived with us too when he was home from sea, and did odd jobs for Father. He made all sorts of toys for us. They were marvellous people. We had another woman there for a time who was paid £8 a year.
Mary Keen
My father was a very hateful kind of man. None of us liked him. He ruled us with a rod of iron. We were afraid to speak or laugh. He thought we were a lot of dummies. He always rowed with my mother for no reason at all. We'd be sitting at the table, having our meal, and he'd glare at her, then he'd start swearing and cursing and he'd fling up the window and shout out, ‘I'm going to let everyone know what you are! You're a so-and-so and a so-and-so!’ His language was filthy. Then he'd go out for a walk and he'd come back and he'd be as right as rain. I think he was a bit mad. One morning we woke up and found that he was gone. We were rejoicing, but he'd only gone hop picking in Kent.
Jack Brahms
I was twelve when my mother died and after that I had to fathom for myself. Father couldn't do much for me. He used to make me go to the synagogue every morning and evening but apart from that he wasn't interested. He might have made a meal at the weekend but most of my meals were a ha'p'orth of chips from Phillips, the fish and chip shop in Brick Lane. I'd sit on my doorstep and eat it. Or else, I'd go to the soup kitchen to get a can of soup and a loaf of bread. I used to go to McCarthy's lodging house because they had a fire burning there and I'd have a warm-up. I had to bring myself up.
Daniel Davis
I had an aunt in Rothschild Buildings – Aunt Bessy, and she was very orthodox. Her eldest son was a cripple and he used to sit on a settee all day. He used to sleep there and eat there and everything. It was terrible to go into that place because he used to do his business in the room. You used to think twice about going up there.
William George Holbrook
On Saturdays I worked for my grandfather. He was a mean man. He was a greengrocer with a ginger beard and he used to pay me a shilling for the day. I had to walk to his house about four miles away through the fields. In those days there were no houses beyond Romford. So I spent Saturday making deliveries in his greengrocer's van to the people he knew in Romford. And when I went back to his house at night, he gave me a shilling. He used to keep his money in a bag that he kept in the scales. So I would say, ‘Grandfather! A lady would like to see you!’ and while he was gone, I used to pinch his money. He didn't know. When I got home, I shared it with my older brother and sister. Once, I bought fifteen shillings' worth of fireworks with it. When I left the job to start work on a farm, my younger brother took it on. When he came home the first Saturday, I said, ‘Tom, he keeps his money in a bag in the scales.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’ Tom worked it out on the first day. I took a year to find out. The funny thing was, just before he died, I went to his shop in Romford and on his deathbed he gave me a gold watch. And I was the one who stole from him.
Bill Smartson
Every Saturday, before I started at the quarry, I used to go over to Ravensworth golf course caddying for the golfers. I got on caddying for a chap, Mr Nixon, he got me to wait every Saturday, and I carried his golf clubs, and I used to clean them after the match with emery paper. He would come out the golf house and say there's four shillings, take that home to your mother and there's sixpence for yourself. Well, out of that sixpence I could go to the pictures for tuppence, buy a bottle of pop for a penny, and get a three-ha'penny paper of fish and chips. I used to give my mother the four shillings on the Saturday. Many a time she was waiting on me coming back, and as soon as she got the money, she was away off to the butcher to get a bit of meat for the Sunday. There was about nine of a family, I was the eldest of nine. Hard days.
Harry Matthews
Pretty nigh every morning when we got to school, first thing the master used to say was, ‘Come out the boys that have been on the breeze lumps’ – picking over rubble for small pieces of coal to burn. There'd
