Rich Recollections- Part one

This story is written for my children and grandchildren in the hopes that they will enjoy and have a better understanding of the world as it was in the late 1940 s and 1950s. It was a very special place full of naiveté’s and simplicity. I thought we were rich and it was a lesson in relativity. WE WERE INDEED RICH, rich in everything other than money.

We lived at the end of the row of terraced houses, upstairs on the second floor. It was quite posh to us...we had an inside toilet and cold running water, a fireplace in every room. The flat consisted of our scullery where our sink and cooker were, then our kitchen sparsely furnished with table and odd chairs and a radio as I remember. Outside that kitchen door to the left was a flight of stairs to go down to the lower flat or the street, to the right was that posh indoor toilet, then one stair down and 2 up (never understood that) mum and dads bedroom to the right and directly in front, of course, our FRONT room. Now that front room was a bit of a mystery to me, that front room could transform itself at any given time. It was the Saturday night Lets have a knees up party room sometimes complete with a piano and keg of brown ale. Sometimes it was my sisters bedroom, I remember my birthday parties being given in that room, my sisters wedding reception complete with sit-down dinner for at least 400!!!! Or at least it seemed that many. I don’t remember the furniture much, I think we had a green “ put-u-up” in there and very little else. Most of the floors had lino covering them, in the winter I would walk on tippy toes to try not to get my feet too cold. Sometimes when it was very cold there would be ice inside the windows and I could draw pictures with the tip of my finger in the ice crystals. I’d run to the toilet (that seat would feel like a block of ice), we didn’t have any toilet paper but dad had really done a good job cutting up newspaper squares and they hung on a string from the cistern pipe. From there I’d run into that kitchen and Oh what a joyous place to be!!! A coal fire was glowing and warm, a hot cup of tea and toast and drippings awaited me. My school clothes (complete with my liberty bodice) hung on the homemade clothes horse near the fire place so they would be warm to put on! Surely we must be the richest people on earth to have such luxuries????

Dad worked night work, so after he left for work me and my sister and mum would climb into mums bed to save on the coal for the next day, we’d all bundle in together under those stiff old grey army blankets. Mum would tell stories of her childhood better than any book could tell stories. I felt so sorry for her they were so poor compared to everything we had. We would play great games like I spy with my little eye , and tell jokes and silly stories. There was a special little song my mum sang just for me it was called The lamplighters serenade…. “a moment after dark, around the park, the old boy goes parading. Dressed in funny clothes and singing as he goes, the Lamplighters serenade. The old boy loved to talk, to couples on their walk, filling their eyes with his magic, and then he goes away, to sing another day. The Lamplighters serenade….. “
I suppose I liked Saturdays best except for the fact that they would pull that old tin bath off its peg in the backyard and boil pots of hot water and I knew what was coming next....the worst of the worst.....bath night!!!!! Id run outside to play when I saw that tin bath come in and when they’d call me they’d start out nice calling me, then it would get a little sharper, a little less nice. By the time they had to come out and get me I got clipped on the ear and dragged inside. Tears streaming down that dirty little face caused streaky lines on my face. What a wonderful feeling to be stepping out of that bath, it was like the relief of going to the dentist and finding out you really didn’t need a filling! Then mum would put my hair in rags so I would have my Shirley Temple ringlets on Sunday.

Saturday nights were my favorite because my dad was there then! After our tea my dad would sit at that table and read the evening standard and predict the football game winners. Then my parents would sit around the radio and get the actual scores and check it against their weekly football pools form. I would listen with baited breath to see if we were going to be even richer than we already were. Mum said we would book up at Butlins holiday camp if we ever won. When the realization sunk in that we really were not winning that week the lights would go out and we would sit around that glowing old coal fire and make toast in front of the fire with a not so long fork. We would all be talking and dad would tell funny jokes, we would have a hot cocoa or a hot cuppa and I never remember going to bed on Saturday nights. I was in this perfectly heavenly place surrounded by my family, warm and toasty...and sound asleep!!!!

Sunday mornings were mum and dads lie- in, my sister would make the tea that morning, but we would drink it in bed because nobody had started the coal fire up and it was too cold to sit in the kitchen without it. Later there would be breakfast of bangers, eggs and fried bread! Then they would dress me up in my best clothes, I really don’t know why they dressed me up because we never went anywhere. However, dress me up they did, the rags came out of my hair and my golden tresses fell to my shoulders. My one and only best dress was donned, clean socks were put on, and overnight somehow my dad had polished my shoes. Sunday mornings radio shows were different from other days we had The Billy Cotton Show ....Wakey, Wakey.....with old Maxie Bygraves singing his cockney heart out. Then we had The Goon Show with Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. Outside I would go to play street games with the other kids. Hopscotch, tin can Tommy, releasio, 2 balls played on the Osbergs wall till they came out hollering at us. Later in the day a horse and cart would come down our street, it was the winkle man. His cart would be full of shell fish, prawns and whelks and winkles, all out in the open enough to make all the flies of the world happy. My dad knew the man that owned the horse and cart from Dads old days as a barrow boy on the Kilburn High Road (before he got a real job), anyway this man used to holler to me Sandybobs, Sandybobs go in and get a pot and I fill it for you...You’ ll have winkles for your tea tonight . Winkles were like manna from the gods to me, dad would boil those little snails on the cooker and I would sit waiting for them, bread and butter in hand and the largest safety pin my mum could find. My mouth would water waiting to make that winkle sandwich. First you would have to pull off the eye of the winkle, then stick that safety pin in and pull out that little salty winkle from its shell. It took so long to make one sandwich but it was SO worth it!!!