Memories

are made of this

M. A. Douglas

Preface

This isn't an autobiography, it isn't in chronological order, it is just a miscellany of anecdotes, remembered by me and told to me by my Grannie Kidd when I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time with her during the time we lived in Kidd's Terrace. Some of the stories are from Aunt Eva and my Mother, I spent a lot of time chatting to them when they were old ladies and they had a fund of tales to tell. Perhaps I see those far off days through slightly rose coloured spectacles, there was a lot of poverty, my parents had to work very hard, but when they had a night out or a short holiday they enjoyed themselves with an enthusiasm not seen today.

September 3rd, 1939 changed the small world I knew, few people had travelled beyond Scarborough or Blackpool if they were lucky, London and Scotland were virtually foreign parts. The only people I knew who had been abroad were Dad and his colleagues who talked about their travels in that terrible first world war, and the missionaries from India who came home and told us about this far off continent. I didn't know anyone who'd been in an aeroplane and suddenly the boys we'd known and been at school with were flying Spitfires, and Halifax and Lancaster bombers. I'd heard of Africa of course at school, but before we knew what was happening local boys were in places like Tobruk, Tripoli and El Alamein, these names had never appeared on our red spattered atlas at school. Lads were going to Canada to train as Aircrew, Children were being evacuated to America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, lads were going to the Far East and becoming Japanese prisoners of war after the fall of Singapore (the only thing I'd known about Japan before the war was that they were funny looking people, had lightweight houses in case of earthquakes and that they made toys etc. which according to Dad were rubbish) all the world was upside down, the telegraph boy calling didn't mean an old relative had died but that one of the neighbour's boys had either been killed in action, or was a prisoner, or was missing believed killed. Mother queued long hours for food off ration, Dad joined the Home Guard (and thoroughly enjoyed his drill and rifle practice - when they had rifles they started with broom handles - Dad's Army is not far off the mark). Quiet old York was full of troops, Czech and Polish Airmen, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, Free French airmen were at Elvington aerodrome. There were a lot of bomber stations around York and buses would bring in all the brylcreem boys, proudly wearing their wings, they would be dropped off at Exhibition Square, make their way laughing down to Betty's Bar, scrawl their names on the famous long mirror (it's still there) and then dance the night away at The De Grey Rooms - back to the buses and probably no tomorrow. Most didn't come back, bomber crews during the war had only a 25% chance of remaining unscathed. The other 75% were either killed, shot down over Europe and finished the war as prisoners or were wounded.

Maybe they weren't the good old days, but I remember a lot of them with nostalgia - doors could be left open - as someone in Hungate said if anyone walked into your house it was to put something in, not take anything out. We didn't have counsellors - we had good neighbours and a strong cup of tea, the word teenager hadn't been invented - we went straight from boy to man and girl to woman, people courted, got married and then lived together, how quaint and naive we must have been - but it's all a long time ago.

I've had a lot of fun pulling all these stories out of my sometimes rusty memory, it's been a good mental exercise, and a chance to play with my new toy (a word processor - what would Grannie have thought of that) I hope my children and grandchildren enjoy reading this as I have done writing it.

MARGERY ALICE DOUGLAS (NEE KIDD)

BISHOPTHORPE, YORK.

JULY, 1997

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

'It's not worth buying a pram, you'll never bring her home' that was grannie speaking on July 12th, 1923 - the day of my birth when my father took her to visit my mother and me in Acomb Maternity Hospital. The reason for this pessimism, I weighed only four pounds, and in those days of high infant mortality, unlike today when babies under two pounds survive, low weight babies rarely survived, I did come from home from hospital, my mother did buy a pram, (a large navy blue carriage built pram, quite a Rolls Royce of prams in those days - mum sold her bike to help pay for it)

I came home to the 'big house' as it was called, No.1 Kidd's Terrace, previously built and lived in by my great grandfather Henry Kidd and his wife Maria. I was brought home by Grannie and Mother by bus and tram, getting off the bus at Peasholm Green and calling into St.Cuthbert's Church. No self respecting mother in those days would enter any house after giving birth without first going into Church and thanking God for a safe delivery. I was christened later in St.Cuthbert's MARGERY (because mother liked it) and ALICE after Grannie, Dad's mother. A little extra note of interest about St.Cuthbert's Church, it was said that it was the first church in the country to have electric light installed on December 3rd 1912, and it was the scene of the first service by wireless in York on February 14th, 1925. We arrived at No.1 where my mother and father had gone to live as newlyweds after their honeymoon in September, 1922. The house was rented by a butcher and his wife (Ralph and Lily Chipchase), a couple without children, and they were glad to let two rooms to help with their own expenses. Kidd's Terrace, a street of about 26 houses was full of members of the Kidd family, uncles, aunts, cousins etc. I was the first grandchild in Champney's family. This family consisted of my grandparents, Champney (always known as Bill), and Alice, and their children, my father John Henry, and his brothers and sisters, William, Evelyn, George and Mabel, all at this time adult and living with their parents in a two bedroomed house. Unusually, at this time, the house and the one next door were owned by my grandfather - most little terrace houses at this time were rented by artisans and labourers. My grandfather, and each of his ten brothers and sisters each owned their own homes as my great grandfather Henry , had bought the land and built Kidd's Terrace in 1857. He lived in No.l, the largest house in the road and brought his large family up there.

When he died in 1890 the house was bequeathed to Maria, his wife, and on her death in 1902 the properties were passed on to their eleven children as instructed in Henry's will. My grandmother used to tell the story (and I have confirmed the basic details by looking in a street directory of the time) that each of the married children were living in houses in Kidd's Terrace and paying rent first to their father and then to their mother, then on the death of their mother (Maria) they had to move into the houses designated in the will. Unfortunately, no one was living in the correct house, so, on one never to be forgotten Saturday all the families moved, with furniture, baggage, children, dogs and canaries in cages into their correct slot, each then owned two houses, one they lived in and one which they could rent out. Henry's eleven children, were nearly all trained for a trade or profession - again this was quite unusual. Henry was a butcher, John was a joiner and undertaker (I remember as a little girl him making coffins in the back yard of his house) James, who died in his twenties was a Minster stonemason, Champney, my grandfather was an upholsterer (at a very well known firm, still going when I was growing up - Brown Bros. and Taylor) Emiline was a shirtmaker, Thomas an Architect, Eliza was blind and stayed at home and helped her mother as did her sister Anne. Mary Jane was a school teacher, Maria stayed at home until she married a publican (they kept The Fox Inn in Dringhouses) and Sarah was a dressmaker. On the day of the great move, my grandparents, my father, brother Bill, sister Evelyn all moved to No.20 Kidd's Terrace (Mabel and George weren't born at this time) and Grandad rented out No.22. They lived at No.20 until my grandmother died in 1938, just after the Munich crisis. (I mention this because Grannie was very worried about the thought of another war and the family all said that this stress brought on the stroke from which she never recovered). My father was working in Dublin at this time for Rowntree’s.

Grannie's funeral was very impressive affair, with a horse drawn hearse with glass sides, hansom cabs following behind, black horses with black plumes and black crepe ribbons round their necks. My grandfather wore a silk top hat and my father and his brothers wore bowler hats (I think that is the only time I have seen my father in a bowler hat) I was the only grandchild at the funeral, I was fourteen and deemed old enough to attend. We went back to Kidd's Terrace for the traditional funeral tea of boiled ham and fruit cake, and 1 remember being very impressed because two of the great aunts wore fur coats - fur coats were not seen in Kidd's Terrace in those days. Great Uncle Tom came in his car - the only member of the family who owned a car. He was the one who was an architect, he lived in Burton on Trent and had married someone from a brewing family and appeared very affluent. The day after the funeral, grandfather moved out of No.20 Kidd's Terrace and let the house to his daughter Mabel, her husband Tom and their young baby , Charles. Without so much as 'may I?' Grandad turned up at our house. He arrived on Horwell's coal cart, sitting next to the driver behind the horse nursing his suitcase. On the back of the cart was a brown horsehair sofa, a single bed, and an ornate chamber pot

'I've come to live with you said he' no old people's homes and no invitation was deemed necessary, he continued to mother, who was standing at the front door (Dad had gone straight back to Dublin to finish the job he was doing for Rowntree’s) 'You're a bad tempered so and so, but you're a good cook and I'll get along with you so I've come', he stayed with us and my Aunt Eva alternately until he died in 1947 aged 89 - he spent the odd fortnight with the other members of the family on the odd occasion but always came back to us or Eva.

Back to my early days, Grandad, as I've said before owned 20 and 22 Kidd's Terrace and late in 1924, when I was a year old Dad, Mum and I moved into No.24, next door to Aunt Emiline. My parents were able to move into 24 because of someone else's misfortune, a family lived there and the father made his living by buying and selling tea and provisions, he gave too much credit, incurred a lot of bad debts and couldn't pay his rent(the house was owned by my father's Uncle Tom) and he and his wife and five children moved across the road to live with other members of their family and left No.24 free for us to move into and we paid rent to Aunt Emmie who collected rents for Uncle Tom. Grandad at this time , alone among his brothers and sisters was rather improvident, he worked hard from Tuesday to Saturday, but for some reason never on a Monday (according to Grannie, who was my oracle) and to help the shortfall he borrowed ten shillings weekly from Uncle Tom, didn't repay him, and when the cumulative ten shillings reached £200 Tom told him that he no longer owned No.22, so Grandad now had only the house he lived in, and Tom owned it. I don't understand the legalities of this but I gather Tom acquired a great many house this way, and Aunt Emmie and Grannie became his rent collectors. No. 24, became the home of my parents, Jack and Louie and me, Iris joined us in 1925 and John in 1931. The houses were quite solid little terrace houses, 2 bedrooms, front parlour, kitchen, and scullery, an outside lavatory, outside wash house and a shed built off the back lane. Only cold water and gas jets, a coal oven which needed black leading once a week and a buffing each morning, steel fire tongs, poker etc which mother used to polish with emery paper - In the front room (or parlour) the fireplace was tiled and the fire irons were brass which again were polished weekly. A green plush chesterfield and high back chairs in the front room, a table with a green chenille tablecloth and round the fireplace a green chenille frill with bobbles - I can remember counting the bobbles. The kitchen had a deal table and chairs and pricked rugs (snip rugs) on the floor. The front steps was stoned every morning, the yard was stoned on wash day, and the rugs lifted and shaken daily. One of my earliest memories are of the rugs being made in the evening, Dad made a frame, this was covered in a kind of sacking, old clothes were cut into strips and poked through the canvas as closely as possible to make a thick warm rug - it was a dusty job. Quite nice patterns could be made, no material was thrown away, all the pieces sorted into colours to make borders,triangles, squares etc. This wasn't particularly my Mother's thing, she was happy to shake all the pieces together in an old clothes basket and make a multi coloured rug, but Dad used his ruler and drew out a pattern for her to work to ( the way when we had a garden he used a ruler before he put his bedding plants in) Who says recycling is a nineties thing, everything was recycled in the twenties, thirties and forties but we called it economy or make do and mend.

I said we had an outside wash house, it really was a piece of corrugated sheeting stretching from the scullery wall, along the kitchen wall and joining up with back of next door's scullery wall. Under this roof, Dad had built a brick boiler with a zinc lining, underneath the boiler was a small arch containing an iron grate and in this on Monday morning mother used to light a coke fire. (The gas coke was bought, 3d a bucket from the gas works about five minutes away) The boiler was filled, shredded sunlight yellow soap put in, the whites would be done first, put into a dolly tub, filled with soapy water from the boiler (a hazardous job) well peggied with a peggy stick and then put into the boiler, lifted out with a long wooden stick, put into another tub for rinsing, taken to the scullery sink and rinsed again, then dipped in blue water (water with a Reckitt's blue bag dipped in) and then pillow cases, shirt collars and cuffs, tablecloths and aprons, doilies etc. would all be starched. The other clothes were then washed in rotation depending on the colours with Dad's dark navy blue work overalls going in last of all. Small things were hung in the yard to dry, but sheets etc. were taken to the 'Drying Ground' a gravelled area across the road which great grandfather had deliberately left for this purpose. We children played on it during the week, but never on Mondays, and never, never on Sundays. Mum never used to finish washing until teatime on Mondays, and on wet days and all through the winter the kitchen would be full of steam as there was always an enormous fire going, clothes horses round the fire and a clothes line slung across the ceiling and from the picture rails - I hated Mondays, Mother was never in the sweetest of moods and when we came home at dinner time it was always cold meat, rice pudding and the house smelling strongly of soap. It was lovely having such an extended family living close by. Grannie was always good for a sweet and she always stuck up for us if we were in trouble. Aunt Gwen across the road at No.9 would let us do anything we liked, she was so easy going you could help her to bake, play the piano, stick a bit of icing on a cake and she bought the most lurid magazines called 'Red Letter' which Dad said was rubbish and we shouldn't read them, but we could sit there, read a magazine, use curling tongs and curl Aunt Gwen's hair, make as much mess as we liked and leave Mother in peace to get on with her scrubbing, cleaning and cooking and dusting.

I haven't yet mentioned my mother's family, simply because we didn't see much of them even though my maternal grandmother lived only a few minutes walk away. My mother's father died in 1914, and her mother re-married. Mum said she only got married again because it was the only way she could survive with four children and not much money coming into the house. The man she married was a bachelor and he was very brutal to both mother and Aunt Annie although I gather he was alright with the boys, who were quite a bit younger. (George and Fred) Mum was not the temperament to take anything lying down, even at fourteen or fifteen and when she came in from Rowntree’s (she started work there at fourteen) and found that her father had beaten Annie she had a row with him and ended up throwing a jar of rhubarb and ginger jam at him (the type of jam was always important when mother told this tale) it cut his head badly and he threw Mum and Auntie Annie out. Mother said with a certain amount of pride when her stepfather was laid out (1945) the scar was still on his forehead. Despite this treatment, Mother looked after both her Mother and Stepfather when they were old, and even after her mother's death mum and Auntie Annie used to go once a week to their stepfather's home and clean and do his washing and take him home baking. Mother and Auntie Annie found a little house in Redeness Street, one room up and one down and they lived there throughout the first world war until Auntie Annie married her soldier fiancé when he came home from France and Mother then moved out to live with her Aunt Eugenie and her large family in St. Andrewgate. More about that later - that's another story.

My mother was born on February 28th, 1900 in the reign of Queen Victoria, she was christened Louisa Stock and was the second surviving child of Emma and George Stock - she had an older sister Annie (mentioned before) who was four years older than her, and an elder brother born to Emma before she met and married George Stock. Two brothers, Fred and George completed the family several years later. The family age span was fairly wide because Emma had numerous stillborn children, in fact Mother told the story of when she and her sister were only very young their mother had a stillborn child and they were sent to the corner shop for a Bassett's liquorice allsort box (This would presumably have been a little larger than a shoe box and this was evidently the right size for a tiny coffin) the baby was put in this and the girls had to walk down Layerthorpe, across Foss Islands Road, past the Old Cattle Market and down to York Old Cemetery, give the box with a shilling to the grave digger , and he would place the box at the foot of the next grave to be used, so the child would receive a Christian Burial without any great expense - I have since learned that this was a common practice so these shillings would augment the grave digger's meagre wages - it's difficult to imagine two small girls having to carry out this kind of errand.

Mum's family were very poor, her father worked for the council in an outside labouring job, they were laid off every time the weather was bad and of course there would not be any wages. My mother's grandmother, Emma Potts had a little baker's shop in North Street. Albert, the elder boy lived with her and I think she used to help feed her daughter's family when money was short - as it was every winter. Emma Potts used to make her own breadcakes (maybe mother got her breadmaking skills here as she used to go after school to help her grandmother) and make up sandwiches for men who were at that time working on the roads in the city and for the railway workers going to the station, she was also famous for her little rhubarb pies, she would have them baked by six o'clock in the morning, put them on the outside window sills to cool and men would buy them as they went to work at 7.30 a.m. (no hygiene regulations then) Grandma Eliza Hamilton also lived with Emma Potts for a while but then she moved down to a little room on King's Staith by the river and she eked out a meagre living by making little lace bonnets which she took the corn exchange (in Coppergate - where the Puffin bookshop is now) and sold them to farmer's wives who came into York market weekly to sell their butter, eggs etc. Albert, mother's half brother only survived he was seventeen, he worked for the local milkman, Mr Pearson and whilst helping one day he tore his arm on a milk church, severed an artery and died. No compensation in those days, no sueing so the family lost another breadwinner.

Dad, as I said earlier was one of a family of five, home owning and living in Kidd's Terrace which was quite a cut above Redeness Street where mother lived - Dad's family were also very different from the Stock family - no labourers in that family. my Grannie Alice came from a very educated family, Grannie started life as a student teacher but then came to work at York Station Hotel as a seamstress. Her father - Josiah Redpath went to Oxford University, but he married a boat builder's daughter, Jane Veness from the East end of London, left University and moved north to Hull (looking at birth certificates I think it is highly likely that he left University because Jane was pregnant), he became a salesman for Van Houtens Cocoa. Whilst Grannie was working at the Station Hotel she met my grandfather, I think he had an upholstery job to do in the hotel - she married him in 1895 and they moved into Kidd's Terrace and her father, old Josiah moved in with them.

Dad, as I have said before was their oldest child, he was apprenticed at Rowntree's at fourteen in 1910 but in 1914 as an eighteen year old he like most of the others of his generation, took the Kings shilling, and served in France and Gallipoli, came home in l919, met Mother and they married in 1922. Mother was friendly at the time with Uncle Bill, she met Uncle Bill and through him my Dad when she was on her way to work. She and Auntie Annie left Rowntree's in the early days of the war and they went to work at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Barnbow near Leeds, then a munition factory. Mother said she couldn't work on the making of munitions because she was under sixteen so she wore a red scarf and carried a red flag and was a danger girl - she never properly explained what a danger girl did, Auntie Annie at eighteen worked with cordite and consequently always had yellow hands and yellow hair - mother said that was the reason that Annie always suffered from kidney trouble - again whether that is fact or fiction I don't know. They used to walk to York station at six o'clock each morning (after paying someone 6d a week to knock them up) to catch the train to Leeds, and it was on one of these walks to the station that she met Bill, he worked at Adams Foundry on Peasholm Green (he couldn't fight in the war because an industrial accident had caused the amputation of both his thumbs and two of his fingers he received £200 compensation for this which he saved and this ten years later bought him his little house at No.9 Kidd's Terrace when he married Gwen Martin) I gather the lads used to wait for the Barnbow girls going to work, a few romances started then, but Mum thought Bill was too young for her, and Annie was engaged to Johnnie who was at the front and she wouldn't look at anyone else. I gather Annie tried very hard to keep Mum on the straight and narrow - they used to go to Spen Lane dances but Mum said men were so short at this time that you whistled if you saw one all the eligible young men were in France at this time, a few soldiers on leave or sick leave after being wounded used to go to the dance hall but Annie used to sit on the side lines and watch - she was faithful to Johnnie and she told mum she wasn't to dance with anyone until she'd asked to see his paybook to check if he was married. (I bet she was very popular - times have changed).

When mother married Dad on September 2nd, 1922 at St. Saviour's Church, she wore a gunmetal grey dress, with eighteen silver buttons down each side and she blew a whole week's wages on a grey straw picture hat, she was given away by her uncle Matthew(Husband of Aunt Eugenie) and he wore a silk top hat and a canary yellow waistcoat and she had a reception at her aunt's home in St. Andrewgate, the happy couple went to Scarborough for their honeymoon, staying in a house near the station, they bought their own food and the landlady cooked it for them, the day after the wedding they went for a walk along the front, Dad in his wedding suit and a trilby hat and mother in her blue going away dress - it was windy along by the sea and dad's new trilby blew into the water. They met a couple dad knew at Rowntrees, with a small child, they said they had very poor digs so dad ever hospitable asked them back to share the first dinner of their married life, the landlady presented them with their joint of beef, nicely roasted with Yorkshire puddings (the meat had been his first purchase in the resort, Dad liked his food) Dad hadn't a clue how to carve so he cut the meat into four and placed a piece on each plate. He wasn't in good books, mum had planned the meat would last a few days. When they returned home from their week's honeymoon they went to Aunt 'Gena's to collect their things before moving into the two rooms at No.1 Kidd's Terrace, they were greeted by a tearful Aunt, Mother had left her beautiful new wedding hat in the bottom of the wardrobe at Aunt 'Gena's and unfortunately the cat had kittens in it - as mum said despite a lot of rubbing and scrubbing it was never quite the same again. They collected all the items they had bought over the two years of their engagement (they'd stored them in the stable at Aunt Gena's ) and their wedding presents, which consisted, among other items a quarter of a ton of coal from Uncle Matt (he of the yellow waistcoat) a hand made valance for round their double bed, made by grannie Kidd, and a zinc peggy tub and peggy stick from Annie.

Mum and Dad seemed happy living in Kidd's Terrace (first at No.1 and then 24) surrounded by all the relatives and we lived there until 1932. I started the little nursery school in Bilton Street when I was three and I can still remember being put to bed for an hour in the morning on very hard little beds (Iris was despatched to the same school when she was three, but she walked home alone at playtime, said she'd come home for a cup of tea and she wouldn't go back) Life jogged on fairly happily, making our own amusements, we spent hours sitting on our own or our friends doorsteps playing with dolls, swapping scraps (2 Angels were worth six of any other kind no matter how big they were) Sunday School at Duke of York Street Mission morning and afternoon on Sundays, Band of Hope Lantern slides sometimes during the week, always extolling the virtues of Temperance, the slides would show pathetic little children hungry and cold outside the pub while Dad and Mum were drinking inside - we used to pay I think a penny to watch these slides - this was before we had been introduced to the cinema. We were always very well dressed unlike a lot of children of that time, Grannie made most of our clothes, very often cut down from clothes that hadn't been collected from Duke's Dry Cleaners - my Aunt Mabel was a book keeper there and if clothes hadn't been collected after a certain period of time they were sold very cheaply to the staff - I can remember one particular time when three Opera cloaks made of beautiful velvet had not been collected, two were Apple Green and one was Rose Pink, Grannie made Iris and I dresses from the green velvet and she made John a blouse and trousers, Pat and Muriel, our younger cousins had dresses made from the pink velvet, the linings were toning crepe de chine and the ladies of the family received petticoats made from this - recycling again.

Highlights of the year were the Sunday school Anniversary and the Annual Sunday School treat. For the Sunday school treat we used to walk, all dressed up again, in crocodile to Derwent Valley Railway Station and we would go by the Light Railway to Skipwith Common, when we arrived we had races and then we had tea, the local farmer's wife provided jugs of tea and the teachers would give us each a paper bag containing four Wright's potted meat sandwiches, a cake and a jam tart. We rehearsed for weeks before the Anniversary, we recited and we sang and Grannie sat in the congregation, told us we were the best of all and then we usually had tea at Grannies. Dad never came, he always slept after his Sunday dinner. We used to go to the Band of Hope Festival at the Homestead in Clifton, one year Iris and I were attendants and we wore long yellow dresses (bought ones this time from Marks and Spencer’s) the Queen wore a long white dress and we all thought we were terribly important. I was in my early days at Mill Mount at this time and I wore the long dress for my first school Christmas party. Grannie Kidd was always very proud of all her grandchildren and supported us whatever we did, she did a great deal of spoiling within the limits of her small pension. When we left Sunday School in the morning we always called at her house before dinner, we stood round the kitchen table and she would have a big bag of sweets she'd bought from the Cut Shop on Saturday. She would walk round and round the table saying one for, you, one for you until her bag was empty. Everyone in our street used the Cut Shop, it was in Church Street and run by a most miserable couple, brother and sister, I can still see them in my mind's eye, they bought everything in bulk, sold it loose and it was a copper or two cheaper than the Maypole or Lipton's - Mother bought her dry goods at the Cut Shop and Dad's Robin cigarettes but she always bought butter and bacon at the Maypole - always butter - Danish butter, Mother wouldn't use Empire butter or margarine. If you were anybody at all you shopped at Borders or Rowntree’s but it was the Cut Shop for most of us. I never knew whether that was the correct name but it was the one everyone used. Mum used to do her main shop on Thursday so she could bake on Friday morning ready for the weekend (I gather Grannie used to lend her ten shillings from the rents she'd collected and then Mother would repay her on Friday night when Dad got paid) Meat was always bought on Saturday night in York Market, Dad's cousin had a meat stall in the meat market which was then in St. Sampson's Square, they didn't go out until about 8 p.m. and then whatever was left in York Market was very cheap, as there were no fridges. Fish was also bought Saturday night and mother would buy some and cook it for Saturday night supper. Saturday night supper was always a feast, sometimes mother would buy a couple of pigeons and she would make a pigeon pie. 'Wrap it up, George' sold fish on Saturday night, he would stand in St. Sampson's Square, hold up a large piece of fish and say who'll give me threepence for this, someone in the crowd would shout ‘here’ and he'd throw it to his assistant and say 'Wrap it up, George' it would be wrapped in greaseproof and newspaper and handed over, there would always be a crowd waiting as the prices dropped and dropped. We always fed very well, Mother kept a good table - the joint we had on Sunday's was always a great deal bigger than we buy today. We used to go to Grannie's for tea very occasionally on Sunday, whilst tea was being made ready, Grannie, who always wore a white overall over her dress on Sunday would take the parlour key from her pocket (the parlour was always locked during the week) and we would go into the parlour and look at books or photograph albums (after she'd checked first that we had clean hands) Grannie also had a lovely gramophone with a trumpet, buy I never remember hearing it play. One of our entertainments in the evening was listening to the radio, Dad made the first cat's whisker radio set in Kidd's Terrace and everyone would come and listen and marvel at it. I think this would be in the late twenties.

At the back of Kidd's Terrace was a playing area for the children from the streets of Layerthorpe but we were forbidden to play there as the children of Bilton Street and Redeness Street and the many little yards in Layerthorpe were not thought to be fit companions for the children who lived in our Terrace, even the word Terrace as opposed to Street was thought to be slightly upmarket, woe betide anyone who said to Grannie that Kidd's Terrace was in Layerthorpe, it isn't it is Hallfield Road she would say.

We were very lucky as Dad was never unemployed or on short time, but in the late twenties and early thirties unemployment was rife, poverty was all around us and a lot of families were living on the dole or on the parish, both means tested and money could not be drawn unless all the so called luxuries in the house were sold. Someone called a relieving officer used to come round and check. Few people had pianos at this time, but one wasn't allowed to draw dole or parish if a piano was in the house.

As usual I've digressed, back to the forbidden playing area behind our house, we used to climb the wall and during the day there was always a group of unemployed men playing 'pitch and toss' for halfpennies, they would ask us children to stand cavey and shout if we saw the local bobby, I've seen the Black Maria swoop down the road, all the men would be bundled in, they would be taken to court the next day and fined, but as they didn't have any money I don't know how they paid. In the winter time when the snow was on the ground the men used to queue up at the Labour Exchange for snow shovelling, this was instead of dole money and if they refused to clear the snow their dole was stopped. People had to register daily when they were on the dole, not weekly or fortnightly like they do today.

In 1932, when my brother was about eight months old we exchanged our terrace house for a three bedroomed house on the new Tang Hall estate. grannie thought we were moving miles away and she also worried how we were going to manage financially as we exchanged a house with a rent of eight shillings a week for one of twelve shillings and threepence, but Dad had managed to get a permanent night shift job at Rowntree’s and this paid an extra ten shillings a week. People were moving out of Kidd's Terrace at this time because they were basically two bedroomed houses and inspectors were visiting each house and if you had a mixed family of school age you were told to move into a three bedroomed house, it appeared to be a legal requirement if you were living in rented accommodation, you had to be housed adequately. A lot of people decided to take the plunge at this time and buy one of the new semi-detached houses that were mushrooming all over the city at prices from £375 to about £500 and £25 down and in most cases the mortgage was only about twelve and sixpence a week, the interest rate was about 4%, I think Dad would have bought a house but Mum wasn't happy about it she felt safer paying rent and not having to worry about things like repair bills and outside painting etc. These houses have been a wonderful investment as even the small ones are selling for £60,000 plus. Auntie Eva and Uncle George bought houses when they married and somehow they coped with the repayments. Uncle George later sold the house he had bought on Tang Hall and bought one in South Bank, Grannie was very distressed saying that now they had moved across the river she would never see them.

Tang Hall School was built in 1928 to accommodate the children on the new housing estate, it was a very innovative design for its time, everyone thought it was the last word. I started at five in August, 1928 in the reception class of the new intake of the new school. The school was shaped like an H, a large Hall and the offices of the four headmasters along the horizontal bar of the H. 8 class rooms down each of the four legs and glass verandas along the class rooms. It consisted of three junior schools, (The Glen, The Avenue, and The Third Junior as it was called, the powers that be couldn't have had enough imagination to think of a third name) The fourth leg of the school was a senior school. I, and Iris and John each in turn attended the Avenue School, there was great rivalry between the three junior schools. We thought the Avenue was the best school but we would have given our eye teeth to have exchanged our Head, Mr. Skaife with Mr. Cyril Baxter who was the head of the Glen - Mr. Skaife wasn't popular but Mr.Baxter was adored by generations of children. One senior school was all that was necessary as a feeder from the junior schools because at eleven we all sat the scholarship and the degree of your pass decided which school you would attend. Mill Mount and Queen Anne for the girls if you passed your scholarship and Nunthorpe, Archbishop Holgate's, St.Peter's or Bootham for the boys. 1 place in York was allocated by the local authority for a boy to attend Bootham School, five places allocated to St.Peter's, I think it was twenty for Archbishop Holgate's and the remainder of the scholarship boys went to Nunthorpe. This system continued until the 1945 new Education Act changed things. One boy, Arthur Wise who later became an author took the Bootham Scholarship in my year and this was a great feather in the cap of the school. Pupils in the next stage down from the scholarship were allocated places in Higher Grade Schools, Knavesnmire School for Girls, Manor School for Boys, and Priory Street School which I think was mixed. The children who didn't pass Scholarship or Higher Grade went to the senior school. School leaving age at this time was sixteen for the scholarship children and fourteen for the others, another little perk the children at Mill Mount etc. received was we had six weeks holiday in the summer and all the other schools only had a month. I passed my scholarship and went to Mill Mount, I was so proud of my uniform and the blazer with the York Coat of Arms on the pocket I would have gone to bed in it more about Mill Mount later.

Our house in Tang Hall Lane had three bedrooms, a bathroom (which we'd never had before - in Kidd's Terrace we always bathed in a hip bath, which hung outside the shed all week and was brought in on a Friday night, put in front of the fire and filled with kettles of boiling water, we were always well scrubbed in that, hair washed, combed with a fine tooth comb - mother was paranoid in case we got nits (we never did) we were put to bed and then it was Mum and Dad's turn and we had a garden, but still an outside toilet, we hadn't yet graduated to an inside one. We had a big kitchen and a living room with a nice bay window. We still had a Yorkist range in the living room which mother used for baking but we also for the first time had an electric oven in the kitchen but this was only used for cooking in the summer when the fire wasn't lit. We also now had a gas copper and a rather smart wringer with a table top – an improvement on the old coke boiler and the big wringer with wooden rollers - this wringer had neat rubber rollers which didn't break all the buttons as you fed the washing through and the table was used for baking etc. when the wringer was folded down.. I had the exact same model when I married in 1949, things hadn't moved on at any great speed.

One week's holiday for working men was the norm at the time, and we were lucky because we had a holiday most years. Rowntree's employees were paid profit sharing in April and Dad always put his away in a holiday club and it would be drawn out before we went away. We took a furnished house in Redcar sometimes, mother did a mammoth bake before we went, boiled a piece of ham and we took as much food as we could carry with us. As we had to catch a bus to the station, change trains at Middlesbrough it was quite an expedition. One year a friend of Dad's had a small win on Powell's the local football pools - he bought a little Austin 7 for £15 and if dad would pay the petrol and give him a little for a drink he would drive us to Redcar and bring us back, this time we packed a cabin trunk, a metal one (I still have it in my loft) We were collected one Saturday morning, Dad all dressed up in his best sports coat and trilby hat pacing up and down outside for what seemed an eternity before the friend showed up - Mum chivvied the three of us exhorting us to keep clean. I don't know how three adults, three children and a cabin trunk all fitted into a baby Austin but we did, everyone around waved goodbye as no one of our acquaintances possessed a car, we felt like royalty. Granny and Grandad were there to wave us off, they always came to stay when we went away, they looked after the house and Dad's canaries. This week in our house was their holiday. We somehow made it to Redcar, I don't remember feeling uncomfortable in the car but I'm sure we were. I don't think these holidays can have been a great deal of fun for mum, because she still cooked dinners every day, still cleaned up and shook the rugs - I suppose it was a change of scene - but she did all the chores before she joined Dad and us on the beach every morning, then she was scurrying back at half past eleven to put the potatoes on. The sands were lovely at Redcar and everything was much cheaper than Scarborough. We used to spend the mornings at Sunshine Corner, Beach evangelists used to lay on a lot of entertainment for children, produce bars of chocolate or sweets if you were willing to stand up and sing or recite, we sang a lot of chorus's and we used to thoroughly enjoy it, Mum used to lie back in a deck chair and natter to whoever would listen and Dad in his deckchair with a knotted handkerchief on his head, read his newspaper and snoozed - maybe go for a paddle with his trousers rolled up. It would seem very tame to children today but we enjoyed it, I can still remember singing 'Sunshine corner, Oh it's very fine, It's for children under ninety nine, all are welcome seats are given free, Redcar's Sunshine Corner is the place for me' Children now are so used to their computers, their video games, holidays abroad and expensive entertainment but they probably don't have any more pleasure from these as we used to from out free entertainment.

Mum , Iris and I were fortunately rarely ill, but Dad and John were ill a lot, Dad suffered for years from stomach ulcers (he thought they were a legacy of the war - but it could have been a combination of that and years of shift working, irregular and rushed meals) he had many operations, not always successful, he was at death's door on several occasions but he survived until he was eighty seven. John suffered from a bad chest, bronchitis and when he was four years old he was desperately ill with pneumonia, this was a very traumatic time as the Doctor said he was close to death several times, this was of course before the days of penicillin etc. he became more and more ill until the Doctor said the crisis would be reached that night, Dad stayed home from work, Iris and I were sent to stay with Uncle George and Aunt Nell, the Doctor called twice during the night, applied hot poultices and at two in the morning the crisis broke, there was a turn for the better and he recovered quite quickly. Doctor's bills were a nightmare - no National Health service.

Mother decided to pay 6d a week into the Rechabite Friendly Society and this would guarantee if John needed a Doctor again they would pay the bills - by a strange irony once Mother began paying the insurance the Doctor wasn't needed again so after a few years the payment was allowed to lapse.

Dad bought a piano when I was eight, but my ninepence a week lessons didn't achieve much, I obviously wasn't very musical and the lady who taught me wasn't qualified, a lady who played quite well and she was a widow and these ninepences from a few children augmented her income. When Grandad came to live with us, complete with his horsehair sofa the piano had to go to make room for the sofa as we only had one living room. Dad promised it to a workmate for £5 and the two of them decided they could push it along Tang Hall Lane to Hull road without any other assistance, Dad's back gave way before they reached the front gate and they had to ask neighbours to help and Dad lay prostrate on the living room floor. I suppose it was a slipped disc but we had never heard of that in those days - people just had bad backs. No payments were made for illness in those days, a small weekly payment of some thing called 'Lloyd George' was made (I think it must have been a scheme for small sickness payments introduced by Lloyd George possibly at the same time as the ten shilling old age pension was introduced) Dad's Lloyd George ran out fairly quickly, it was only paid for a few weeks each year and Dad was in hospital most years with his ulcers. A little thing like a bad back wasn't going to keep him off work so before he went to work he would lie on the floor on his stomach, Mother would lay a folded piece of brown paper across his back, she would then iron it carefully and whilst the heat still made his back feel reasonably comfortable he would jump on his bike and pedal to work - how he coped with bending over machines and repairing them I do not know. The ironing of the back was typical of all the do it yourself remedies, these were all tried before expert advice was taken. if John or Iris were not well I would be despatched to Mrs. Watson's shop and told to ask for half a bottle of Crosskell's Yellow Mixture, I never remember buying a full bottle this was a cure all. Germolene sorted out all our cuts and scrapes, and a dose of Syrup of Figs after our Friday bath made sure we were clean inside and out. I don't know why it was thought necessary in those days for children to be purged each Friday, we weren't alone, everyone had a Friday night dose. It said on the bottle of Syrup of Figs, Children love it, it would now contravene the trade descriptions act I've never met one who did. If we were under the weather we were dosed with Parish's food, another vile concoction that had to be drunk through a straw as it made your teeth black. This liquid was poured over a vat of iron filings, then strained.

There was also Scotts Emulsion in the winter to keep the colds away and another tonic I remember called pink pills for pale people. Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever was very rife at this time and the 'Fever Ambulance' was a regular visitor down our road. the children who had Scarlet Fever usually recovered but the ones who contracted Diphtheria were rarely seen again. It was a strict rule in our family and most other families that if you saw the 'Fever Ambulance' and someone being carried in a red blanket we were not to go near the ambulance but run straight home. We'd line up, Mother would go to the corner cupboard by the fireplace, bring out a jar of sulphur powder, she would roll a square of greaseproof paper into a little cone, put it down our throats and puff the sulphur powder down, she used the same bag for us all so ~ suppose the chance of cross infection was great, I don't know what effect sulphur powder had on germs, it was either very good or we were just lucky because we never succumbed to the dread disease. Later in the thirties immunisation was introduced for both diphtheria and polio and they were virtually eradicated. The two grandchildren of our next door neighbour, a boy and a girl of six and eight were immunised for polio when we were, but three days later they developed polio or infantile paralysis as it was called then. A lot of rumours abounded and children who had not been immunised were prevented by their parents from being done because it was thought that immunisation had caused it - but I should imagine the children were already incubating the disease when they were immunised. The children were very ill and they were confined to long spinal carriages for the rest of their lives. Most of our illnesses were cured with home made recipes, chlorodine on a lump of sugar or peppermint essence in boiling water for tummy ache, sore throats were treated by a boiled onion inside a stocking tied round the throat - I suppose really it was a sort of poultice. At the first sign of a cough or cold our chests were rubbed with camphorated oil or, if it was near Christmas, goose grease, I think we must have ponged, John wore thermogene wadding next to his chest. Some people would tie a cube of camphor in a little flannel bag round their neck.

The Doctor was usually the local chemist, Mr.Newey if you lived in Layerthorpe, Mr. Saville if you lived in Bedern or Ogleforth, Mr.Batty if you lived in Walmgate. Mr. Batty eventually moved to the new shops on Tang Hall and he became 'our doctor' when we moved to Tang Hall. As a matter of interest Mr. Batty lived in one of the houses that we eventually lived in Millfield Lane, they were called the Villas in those days. When I was about eight the Doctor at the school clinic said I must have my tonsils and adenoids out at the County Hospital where Sainsbury's is now. Mother wasn't well so a neighbour offered to take me, we walked along to the County and I can still remember walking down Hospital Lane, in fact even when I was adult that lane filled me with dread. I was laid on a bed, an ether mask very sweet smelling was placed over my face and the next thing I knew I was lying on a mackintosh sheet in a big room, there must have been about forty children lying there, I felt sick, my throat was sore, the rubber sheet was cold and uncomfortable and there was a little enamel chamber pot next to me to use if I was sick. I was desperate for a drink and no one would give me one. Finally about four folk began arriving to take children home, our neighbour came, deposited me in a canvas push chair and pushed me home, children went home in prams and push chairs and I even saw one child going home lying in a wooden wheelbarrow with a pillow in it. We didn't have far to go, but no one was going home by car, ambulance or taxi no matter how far it was. How different when I saw my grandchild after his tonsils operation.

I didn't seem to be aware of class differences until I went to Mill Mount after passing my scholarship, all our friends had much the same life styles as we did, in fact we were better off than a lot of them, Dad was a tradesman not a labourer. I didn't know anyone whose father was a white collar worker, most of the men went to work in dark blue overalls like my father (nowadays it seems most people change out of overalls at work) but then everyone used to cycle home in their overalls and flat caps when Rowntree’s workers left the factory the road was full of men and women on bicycles. The girls used to cycle home still in their white overalls and white caps. Everyone seemed to work at Rowntree’s or the Railway. The Engine Drivers and the Printers were the elite of the blue collar workers - they brought home the largest paypackets. The only people I knew who were different were the Doctor, The Vicar, The Chemist and our Schoolteachers. The Vicar, who always visited his flock at least once a year when we lived in Kidd's Terrace was the Rev. Pyne of St. Cuthbert's. He was about 6ft 4", he always wore a black hat and a cape, like the one on the Sandeman Port label. he visited first in a pony and trap and then on a very high bicycle which I understand was specially made for him. He was greatly loved and when he died suddenly in 1934 Police had to be called out to marshall the crowds who lined the streets of Layerthorpe when his cortege passed. Curtains and blinds were closed in every house in the area - he was loved and missed, he really seemed to care about everyone.

When I went to Mill Mount I suddenly became aware of class differences and differences in lifestyle. I began to meet the daughters of shop owners, clerks, professional people, a lot of them living in the very big terrace houses on The Mount and in Dringhouses. One girl, and this really impressed me used to come to school in a black car driven by a liveried chauffeur, and when she came to school parties she wore a blue velvet cloak over her party dress, most of us wore our school gaberdine macs. There was quite a wide strata of society, even some of the scholarship girl's parents had to pay a small sum - ranging I think from £3 to £10 a term and then some girls were allowed a small clothing grant. When one passed a scholarship a form had to be completed and income written down, some parents had to pay whilst other pupils were given a small grant of between £2 and £5 a term. I was given £3 and this was in the form of a voucher to be spent at the school outfitters on uniform. The school uniform was a cream blouse, cotton if you were not well off, cream silk shantung if you were (Grannie made mine), a navy serge gym slip, which had box pleats going down from a square yoke, around our waists we tied a braid girdle in the colours of the school, navy, red and yellow, the different colours kept separating and I seemed to spend many evening stitching the three strips of braid together (I only had one girdle the whole time I was at school) Black stockings, thick ones, and a tie like a kipper with a piece of elastic to keep it on. We didn't graduate to ties that were knotted until we were fourteen. Black lace up shoes which made an awful clatter, because Dad always put metal studs on the toes and heels to make them last longer. In winter we wore navy gaberdine raincoats and navy blue velour hats that had elastic under the chin, in summer blazers with the York Coat of Arms on the pocket and blue checked dresses and panama hats which again had elastic under the chin. The hats were a real status symbol, I was lucky because I had a good one called an Australian velour which was stiff and furry, pity the poor girls who could only afford felt hats, they were shapeless, and looked even worse when they were wet. The same hats lasted me all the time I was at school, the velour was kept well sponged and brushed, and the panama was rubbed with crusts of bread to clean it. I don't know what proportion of the school in those days were fee payers - I only know I would have been delighted to have been a fee payer, they seemed the creme de la creme. The bus fare to school was ld each way, I used to catch the bus in the morning, but I wasn't supposed to use my evening penny unless it was raining, I was supposed to keep the second penny and use it the next day. One day I walked home and spent my penny on sweets, panicked and called to see Grannie and asked if she would give me a penny as I daren't go home without my penny. Grannie as usual was happy to oblige. Mother was always fussy that we didn't waste money, I remember on one occasion we were having company for tea, Mother had baked as usual, bought a tin of pineapple chunks (an old 4½d) and a tin of Fussell's cream (2½d) and she decided to show off a little and have some 'bought' cakes as well. Our local baker sold assorted cakes at ld each, or if you allowed the baker to choose then you got 7 for 6d, I was sent to the shop with sixpence to buy cakes, Mum didn't specify I was to buy the 7 for 6d kind so I had a lovely time choosing 6 of the kind I liked best(in my opinion the baker always chose six of the not very nice ones) I arrived home very pleased with myself. Mother counted them and when she saw there were only six I was in dreadful trouble for being so stupid and feckless.

I must have had a thing about food (hence my shape now) although we were always very well fed - our food was the kind that was then called wholesome and nutritious - but I'm sure would now be called full of cholesterol and fattening. It was my ambition during the five years I was at Mill Mount to stay for a real school dinner, it was ninepence a day (which was quite a lot at that time) but I never stayed during the whole time I was there. I was desperate to stay, particularly on Friday when it was Fish and Chips and Pears and Rice Pudding, I don't think the daily menu ever changed. (Tinned fruit was a treat, but we only ever had pineapple, sometimes for Sunday tea, but never at dinner time) We pupils who took a packed lunch had to pay a ½d a day for the use of the table, a white tablecloth and a glass of water. I would have thought I was in heaven, if, just once, I had been allowed to join the two tables at the end of the hall, where the elite paid their ninepence a day and had a cooked meal. My friend, Mildred didn't stay every day but was allowed to stay on Fridays and have the delectable Fish and Chips and Pears and Rice Pudding. When I used to say 'Why can't I stay, Mildred does' it was always a standard reply. 'Her parents can afford it, her dad pays income tax' I don't know how they knew he paid tax but it was such a sign of affluence I suppose people talked about it.

I mentioned earlier our holidays in the furnished cottage in Redcar - before that we used to stay for a week in Scarborough, in a lodging house near the harbour. In this type of boarding house you provided your own food and the landlady cooked it. We paid , Mother said £2 for bed and attendance as it was called. We were allocated a bedroom and a front room which was normally shared by two families. When we arrived we were told which shelf in the sideboard was ours, in here was sugar basin, butter dish, bread board, cutlery and cups and saucers and teapot and tins for your food. Each family kept strictly to their own shelf. Each day Mother would go to the local shops and buy our food for the day and the landlady would cook our breakfast and our midday dinner. We prepared our own tea which would be bread and jam and cake or maybe a crab from the harbour fish stalls. It must have been quite a job for the landladies cooking different food for each family but they seemed to cope. They were usually fishermen's wives. Dad always wore a trilby on holiday, he wore a cap the rest of the year, Mother might wear a pinny whilst she got the tea ready, but the harden apron she wore in the mornings at home was left behind. We were always dressed up on holiday, getting messy and dirty wasn't approved of. We always had wooden spades for the beach when we were little, it was quite an achievement when we graduated to metal ones, I can still remember the very satisfying scraping noise a metal spade made when it was dragged along the front at Scarborough. When we were little we wore a kind of rubber bathing suit with elastic round the legs which we pulled over our clothes, when we were older we wore hand knitted woollen ones, which looked quite nice when they were dry but when wet they hung down your legs and looked awful. Just before the war elasticated bathing costumes came in and we thought they were wonderful.

We had a lot of fun with our outside games in the summer, all the games had a season but I can't remember the sequence. I remember on Shrove Tuesday the shuttlecock and battledore came out (the shuttlecock was a circle of feathers stuck into a cork base and the battledore was a flat piece of wood with a handle) we played a simple form of badminton, on the road of course the boys played marbles with toes, glassies and neelies, Hopscotch played with a shiny tile, Kidd's Terrace was better that Tang Hall Lane for hopscotch, the pavement had nice large flagstones. Whips and tops which I think came out at Whitsundtide, Hoops and Sticks, a metal hoop from an old barrel was particularly goods. Skipping ropes were popular, of course with the girls, and the boys collected conkers in the autumn. We went to Rowntree’s park for the day, to Fulford and Poppleton Lidos, no one seemed to worry if we were out for the day, over to the Homestead in Clifton (the home originally of the Rowntree family) still in 1997 a good recreation and picnic area for children, sometimes at the weekend for a treat our parents would take us on the old River King, still held in a great deal of affection by the children growing up in the Thirties. (I understand, but I can't vouch for its authenticity that the 'River King' was used in 1940 and helped in the evacuation of Dunkirk) We used to wander about a lot on our own and our stomachs told us when it was time to go home to tea - there was of course very little traffic about, tradesmen were still using horses and carts for coal, milk, greengrocery etc. We didn't need to spend much money on our pleasures but we didn't feel deprived because most of our friends had parents with limited incomes.

We would occasionally, for a very special treat be taken to the pictures, Dad would sometimes take us on Bank Holidays, I remember seeing 'Top Hat' with Fred Astaire one Whit Monday. It was a wet day and Dad must have had a bit of spare cash. We didn't catch the bus, I still remember walking over to the Rialto. York was full of Cinemas in the Thirties (although I suppose the real heyday for them was in the Forties, Troops and people with a little bit of extra cash earned doing war work flocked to the cinemas) We delighted in Shirley Temple and swashbuckling heroes like Errol Flynn. Dad used to say that when he went to the old Victoria Picture House in Goodramgate (before my time) for a couple of rabbit skins and old jam jars they could, on Saturdays watch Pearl White and the old silent films. We used to go to The Electric (called the fleapit- and now the home of Macdonald's Furniture Store) that opened in 1911, then the Picture House in Coney Street, where Woolworth's is now, you could really have a lovely afternoon there, there was a cafe on the balcony and you could sit and have your cup of tea and toasted teacakes and then watch the film. The Grand in Clarence Street (who I gather donated the whole of their first days takings to the old County Hospital) The Tower in New Street which was converted from an old Wesleyan Chapel, they used to show a lot of horror films so we didn't go there very much, the Regent in Acomb, (now a carpet shop) The Rialto, and the Clifton (now Bingo Halls), The Regal in Piccadilly (now M & S) and the Odeon. There were wonderful double seats at the back of The Rialto, The Clifton and The Grand, very popular with courting couples, and a magnificent organ at the Rialto. The organist entertained the audience before each show and during the interval, the organ used to go up and down and we all thought it was pretty marvellous. The Odeon is the only survivor of all these cinemas, and even that is now split into several small screens - it isn't like the old Odeon. Cinemas were family viewing in those days, it was cheap night out when a seat in the front stalls cost four old pence (less that 2p) but after the war when Television began to come into the home the cinema went into decline.

What would my Grannie have thought of the nineties ? She would have marvelled at space travel, men on the moon, videos, computers, freezers and microwaves, she would not have approved of rice pudding in tins, yorkshire puddings on freezer shelves, wives working (I didn't know a single working married woman before the war - that great catalyst that so changed our lives- women doing men's jobs, and mothers going out to work whilst their children were at school) she would have been impressed I'm sure with washing machines, tumble dryers and en suite bathrooms, how her eyes would have opened at the sight of a supermarket with all its pre-packaged goods, at the old Co-op in Layerthorpe the grocers (taken originally from the word Gross -buying in bulk ) packed and weighed sugar in blue bags, dried fruit and pulses in yellow, and other things in brown. What would she have thought of products like spaghetti, tagliatelle, lasagne ? Loyalty cards are not really new - on becoming a member of the Co-op a number was allocated, every purchase you made no matter how small you quoted your number and you were given a little check about two inches by half an inch, on this was your number and the amount you had spent. This was stuck on to a sheet about A4 size and every half year this was handed in and totalled and dividend ( stores divi as it was called) was paid out. Sometime as high as two shillings in the pound depending on the co-op profit. Woe betide the child who forgot mum's co-op number or who lost the check on the way home. A rival firm called the Thrift Stores opened up offering divi at 2s6d in the pound and people deserted the Co-op in droves. The Thrift Stores closed down I think in the Fifties.

I hope Grannie would have been proud of her grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren. She would I'm sure have been very pleased at the opportunities they have had for further education and I think she would have been pleased to see them doing well in their chosen jobs. She would have worried about us all during the war, she would have been very sad about some of the things that have happened to some members of her family but I would like to think that all in all she would have been pleased with us.

ADDENDUM

I cannot claim credit for the following, I saw it in the Yorkshire Evening Press on May 8th, 1995 - 50 years after the War in Europe ended - this doesn't seem such a long time ago to those who were around at the time, but much has changed since then - the passages below just about sum up the changes.

For those of us born before 1945.....

We were born before television, penicillin, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, videos, frisbees and the Pill. We were before credit cards, split atoms, laser beams and ball point pens; before dishwashers, tumble driers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip dry clothes ... and before man walked on the moon.

We got married first and then lived together, we thought 'fast food' was what you ate in Lent, a 'Big Mac' was an oversized raincoat and 'crumpet' was eaten for tea. We existed before house husbands and computer dating. A 'meaningful relationship' meant getting along with your cousins and 'sheltered accommodation' was where you waited for a bus. We were before day care centres, group homes and disposable nappies. We never heard of FM Radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yoghurt or young men wearing earrings.

For us 'time sharing' meant togetherness, a 'chip' was a piece of wood or a fried potato, 'hardware' meant nuts and bolts, and 'software' wasn't even a word.

Before 1945 'Made in Japan' meant junk, the term 'making out' referred to how you did in your exams, a 'stud' was something that fastened a collar to a shirt and 'going all the way' meant staying on the double decker to the bus depot. Pizzas, McDonald's and instant coffee were unheard of, cigarette smoking was fashionable, 'grass' was mown, 'coke' was kept in the coal house, a 'joint' was what you ate on Sundays and 'pot' was something you cooked in.

'Rock Music' was a fond mother's lullaby, 'Eldorado' was an ice cream and a 'gay person' was the life and soul of the party and nothing more, while 'Aids' just meant beauty treatment or help for someone in trouble.

We who were born before 1945 must be a hardy bunch when you think how the world has changed and the adjustments we have had to make.

No wonder we are so confused and there is a generation gap today.

But, by the grace of God, we have survived.

'Older than my tongue and a bit older than my teeth' (Reply to 'How old are you ?)

'Up a topper down yonder, to see how far it is' (Reply to 'Where are you going')

'Money and fair words' (Reply to 'How much is it?')

Smittled - passed on an infection.

Bletherskite - A rascal.

'You're not framing' (You haven't a clue how to do a job)

Band - String.

Throstle - a thrush

She's genny - she's not well and miserable.

Stick of Spanish - stick of liquorice.

'Lloyd George' - Pension or sick pay.

On relief or on the parish - drawing money when not working or of f sick after being means tested.

Bowl of 'pobs' - baby or invalid food, cubes of bread in hot milk, with a nut of butter and sometimes a sprinkling of nutmeg or cinnamon.

Nobody was 'pregnant' - they were always 'expecting'

'Flitting' was moving house (a moonlight flit was when the rent wasn't paid)

The Gaffer was the boss - whether it was the boss at work or the missus.

Palings were wooden fences.

'Clarty' was very sticky.

Teachers' Rest - October half term holiday.

The 'back end' - Autumn.

 Ó M.A. Douglas 1997