popcorn and black peas. They used to sell lotus in the shop – you could chew it. It was like a big piece of root – like liquorice to chew on, but you'd spit it out – not swallow it.
Lena Burton
Our chief fun was dressing our father up – we used to dress him up in all sorts, and he used to sit there and let us. Proper silly games, but there was nothing else to do.
My father was bothered with gout a lot, and was off work, so I had to start working when I was thirteen. I felt awful in that mill, it was horrible. It was at Kinder's and I was with a woman by herself in the basement – she never used to talk to me. I used to cry every night. After six weeks my father said, ‘You're not going there any more,’ and he got me in at Bocking – and I was really happy there. I gave my mind to it – but I knew I could have done something better if I'd had the chance.
We used to look forward to the Christmas tea party, which was held at St Mary's School – each school had their own party. We used to make our own entertainment – dialogues and singing and recitation and dancing. And Whit Friday we used to get up at six o'clock in the morning to get ready, then we'd assemble at school and go on a walk, then come back at dinnertime for tea and buns. Then we had sports in the school field and then we came in for tea. The sports were running, racing, three-legged races, wheelbarrow races, skipping rope races and egg-and-spoon races.
We had a maypole, but not at school, at the band club. The band used to parade round the village with a horse and cart all dressed up – and once a year there was the bike parade, and the bicycles were dressed up with flowers. This was for May Day, and the May Queen and Princess would be on the parade too. They had to vote for the May Queen – and there was a lot of jealousy. I was never May Queen – I was on the retiring side – a bit shy.
We never sat down for a meal. My mother and father sat down, but we had to stand round the table – and we couldn't leave until we'd asked permission. And we hadn't to speak at the table – if we spoke he'd say, ‘Let your meal stop your mouth – that's enough.’ We never answered back. No matter how tired we were, we had to stand, and we went to bed at half past eight every night.
At Christmas we used to hang our stockings up on the mantelpiece and we would get an apple and an orange and a thruppenny bit, and one little toy – then it was filled up with carrots and things.
An aunty of mine bought me a doll, and as I was very fond of sewing I used to make this doll little clothes. I think my sister poked the doll's eyes out with a pin when she was a baby – and I cried.
When I was about twelve I helped out at school teaching the little ones ABCs and counting. There was a teacher there – I was just a helper. I'd wipe their noses and take them down to the lavatory, that sort of thing.
We used to have slates tied round our necks with two strings, and the school provided slate pencils. We'd sometimes say, ‘Please sir, I can't write because my pencil wants sharpening,’ and he had something to sharpen them. Then, when we were older, we started with copy books, and we had black lead pencils. When we got pen and ink, it was glorious, we made a lot of blotches, but we thought it was great. The ink was in inkwells set in a little hole in one corner of the desk. That was a great day in our lives when we got inkwells.
We always wore all sorts of clothes. First a vest, then a chemise over the top, then a liberty bodice, then a flannel petticoat and a cotton petticoat, then your frock, and a pinny over the top. And knickers – and woollen stockings that Mother knitted herself – she used to make all our frocks too. We kids were sweltered to death in those days. We had clogs and shoes for Sundays. I had to have buttoned-up boots and we had a button hook to fasten them. We had to take our Sunday boots off when we came back from Sunday school and put our clogs back on. You'd take your frock off while you played, and then change back to go to school in the afternoon.
My father used to dose us with castor oil every so often, whether we needed it or not. He would stand us in a row, the three of us, with a spoonful of jam in one hand and the castor oil bottle in the other. If your stomach was out of order Mother used to brew gentian root, wormwood and camomile flowers – and we used to have to have bitters – that put your stomach right. Every spring, we had a jar with black treacle and powdered sulphur in it, and we would have a spoonful of it every morning, whether we wanted it or not. That was to purify your blood. If we had a cold, it was black treacle, butter and linseed tea. We didn't go to the doctor's unless it was absolutely necessary, because we had to pay.
Mrs Clark
We lived close to the sea, and every morning, after my mother got the baby and me washed, we used to go onto the sands with a two-handled basket. She took one handle and I took the other – and of course she was carrying the baby. When we got to the seashore, my mother used to put a piece of cloth down for us to sit on, and I had to look after the baby. My mother then gathered sticks and coal to put on the fire. The wages were that small, you had to do something. So when my mother had got plenty of coal and sticks we used to come away. I would only be about three years old.
Polly Lee
I remember my mother having a small pail, and we used to go round the marketplace asking if people could spare us a little coal. My mother was a widow at the time, and when she remarried she got her coal, I think that was one of the things she got married for. She had to keep us.
Florence Hannah Warn
When I was about ten, I did some housework for a crippled lady, scrubbing cement paths with a long-handled broom bigger than I, then scrubbing a long passage of linoleum and polishing it afterwards, black-leading a huge old-fashioned fireplace, scrubbing the floor cloth in the living room, and then scrubbing the scullery floor. It must have taken four or five hours. I was paid the princely sum of one shilling, but I had to hand it over to Mother, and received tu'pence for myself, but there was no feeling of resentment, as it was expected and quite usual.
Mr W. Cowburn
At times you just hadn't got a shoe to your foot. There were schemes where they sometimes used to send a pair of shoes, but they were nearly always much too big. You were either crippled with them or hoping your feet would grow. I remember me sister carrying me to school on her back. You were all right once you got into the classroom.
Mary Lawson
Great-grandfather was a wonderful old man. He was six foot three and about sixteen stone. On a Saturday he used to walk down the town, wearing a grey alpaca suit and his grey top hat and his stick, to the co-operative store. At the head office he'd pay the grocery bill and I would get a packet of boiled sweets, which used to last me all week. If he had pigs to sell they would already be in the market and he would meet his fellow cronies. They were all selling hens and chickens and what have you, and he would have a glass of whisky, thruppence a glass then. He would say to me, ‘Now, if you sell a pig, I'll give you some pocket money’ I think I was only once lucky enough to sell one. Then we would walk back, strip off, have a meal, then he'd feed his family, feed the horses, the chickens, the pigs, and then I think perhaps he would get a sit down, because he liked to smoke and he smoked a clay pipe.
Mrs Linsley
I was born in Cornwall, where my father was a miner. But within a year he got a job working for an urban district council. He said, ‘This bairn's brought us luck.’ He built us a house, at West Kyo, ten miles south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In those
