Open Writing

One of the amazing traits that the war brought out of many people in the community was the pride and refusal to accept charity by the poor and disadvantaged. This was never more in evidence than at Barnes Road School where parents of many children, who were poor by any standard, refused to accept free school meals because of the stigma that would be attached to such families. I recall my mother proudly saying, "No child of mine is ever going to have free school meals." This applied throughout my school years.

In 1941 clothes rationing began and I remember the fuss it caused in our house. In one way it was a great leveller because no matter how much money a person had, clothes could not be bought without a stipulated number of coupons. Initially everybody had 66 coupons, but this was soon reduced to 44 coupons per year.

With a pair of shoes, trousers or skirt costing 8-10 coupons, there were many problems and a 'black market' soon developed. It didn't affect us too much because we got most of our clothes from the second hand shop where no coupons were required. Clothes rationing did, however, affect the female demand for stockings and stimulated the wearing of slacks (trousers) by many younger women. Before the war, the wearing of such garments for anything but work or leisure was frowned upon. After the introduction of clothes rationing I recollect many a heated argument between Addie and my mother about my sister wearing slacks for normal everyday wear.

The number of second-hand clothes shops grew during the early years of the war, greatly stimulated by clothes rationing. They were nearly as popular as their fish and chip contemporaries. The most famous in our area was undoubtedly Gittermans in South Eldon Street. (It was opposite a public house - was it the Neville Arms?) My mother and I used to go and stand outside in a queue waiting for Gittermans to open at 7 p.m. on a Friday night. Once inside, it was everyone for himself. In later years, my first pair of football boots and cricket gear came from this well-known second-hand shop.

To help with our meagre income, my mother made clippy mats or rugs as they would now be called. She would purchase a piece of hessian of the size required for the mat and then I would help her to mark out the desired pattern. This would then be stitched into strips of cloth that ran the length of two long wooden frames. These frames had holes at each end for smaller wooden slats that were used to hold the hessian taut. A sharp steel tool with a hook on the end, called a 'progger' was then used to make a hole in the hessian to pull through a previously prepared cloth clipping. These clippings were usually about ½ inch wide, the various lengths having been cut from any available old clothes.

My mother used to spend most of her spare time 'doing the mat'. At the end of three or four weeks, she would un-pick the finished product from the frames and display an attractive fireplace mat. Her mat-making skills were well known by her family and friends. She used to have a waiting list of people wanting the product of her patience and skills. A new mat was usually planned for completion just before Christmas, so we would have a few extra pounds for presents etc.

Even so, I remember Christmas and New Year during the early war years as being very austere events. We did not have a tree but made streamers from coloured paper to decorate our rooms. I was lucky to get a box of snakes and ladders with perhaps a colouring book and some sweets for Christmas.

An essential post-Christmas activity as soon as I could print was the writing of 'thank you ' letters. My mother always got a present of a bottle of sherry from my Uncle Bob, who was secretary of the Perseverance Club in Hudson Street. She called this a present of convenience because it assured that we had a suitable drink in the house when family and friends came first-footing in the New Year.

If I remember correctly, giving adults presents at Christmas was rather unusual in the nineteen-forties. This might have been because of the war but I recall Christmas as being mainly for children, not adults. How things have changed.

During the years we continued to get much support from my grandparents. My grandmother Chapman, although well into her seventies, was still mobile and used to make the long journey from the Aged Miners Homes in Marsden Road to Laygate. This was to get her meat at Lawrenson's, who she used to describe as the best butcher in the town. She then called on us at Reed Street but had difficulty getting up the stairs. She never liked going 'down town' (King Street) because of the crowds, and anything she wanted there was usually done via my mother. As she got older, she had some difficulty with her sight and in the days before the National Health Service, I recall her asking us to get her a pair of sixpenny (2½p) reading glasses at Woolworth's. We did and they worked.

Whenever we visited my grandparents, even as a child I could never understand the logic of a large number of older people living together on one estate of houses. There were few shops nearby and when visiting, I was often sent on errands to the Nook Shopping Centre about a mile away.
The houses were owned by the miners but I also think they were designed by miners. Opened in 1915 by James Kirtley J.P., each house had a large indoor coal bunker, but no bathroom. Also the back garden measured approximately 25 yards (longer than a cricket pitch) by 9 yards and the front garden was 7 yards by 9 yards, a total of 288 square yards. How retired and often infirm couples were supposed to cultivate such an area will never be known.

I visited the area fifty years later and was glad to see the houses had been modernised, and that part of each back garden had been used to build some modern retirement flats named Bulmer House. This still left the front garden untouched and a small green area at the rear.

As a youngster, I found my grandparents' house rather frightening. It was typically Victorian, with large thick curtains which made it very dark inside the house. Lots of furniture including an organ and sewing machine, and many family photos on the wall made the living room seem very overcrowded.

My grandmother always wore long dark clothes. Whenever asked how she was, her standard reply was, "Canny yer na." She also used such expressions as, 'Neva', 'gerraway' and 'yur bugger', which I later found out meant varying degrees of surprise or amazement. I remember her talking to us once and saying, "The bus coined the corner, dunshed and went allower the flags." I had to ask my mother to translate.

On the other hand, my grandfather said very little and was always sitting on 'his' chair, smoking a pipe and reading 'The Journal'. Their mandatory cat sat asleep on the hookey mat in front of a roaring fire.