My memories are varied, but the balance is more on the
joys than the sorrows. I have had countless blessings showered upon me,
and not least of these is a family of which I am inordinately proud. That
is something Ben gave to me to have and to hold forever.
I shall begin with the rise of Dawdon. A new colliery had been sunk right
near the coast. A great dirty railway was built right across the lovely
fields where we always played. Rows of houses were built to house the men
and their families who came to work there. A new school, surgery and
church had all taken shape before our very eyes and before we knew it we
were living in a much, much larger community.
These were a new breed of people. To us their ways were very strange. It
was with great trepidation that we started our new school.
We soon began to realise how poor we were, for the new inhabitants seemed
full and plenty. There were always fights with drunken men and slanging
matches with the women. It awed yet amused us, and our parents thought we
had really descended to the depths. But soon we had to leave. The years of
traveling in bad weather had undermined my father’s health, so he asked
for and was granted a transfer to Seaham Colliery. We were not as sorry as
we would have been when it was just the Cottages. You see, the new
colliery houses seemed like palaces compared to our little old cottages,
and what had seemed like sheer comfort to us now seemed real slums. Our
new home was bigger and much roomier and was the top door of a street of
fifty-six houses; but children are strange creatures, the only thing about
this house that pleased us was the stable styled back door, and the
Elderberry tree growing high outside the front door. The boys could climb
this tree and get into the upstairs bedroom.
We had only lived three years at Seaham Colliery when my father died. I
loved him very dearly and this was a great blow to me. I remember when he
was 51, I was 15 and his birthday was the day before mine, I bought him a
quarter of chocolates for his birthday and I shall always remember the
look on his face when I gave these to him as he said, “You shouldn’t have
bothered hinny”. These few words spoken as only he could speak them were
like a gentle caress.
We lived in the same street as the boy who was to become my great love. I
did not know him very well for quite a few years. I was too busy with my
studies to bother about boys, so I must leave him out of my scribbles for
a little longer.
I remember Mother giving us a lecture on how to behave when we went to
Seaham Colliery. We had been a quiet-spoken crowd at the Cottages. I often
think now, as I look back and recall so many of our strange expressions;
we were nearer the old Anglo-Saxon language than anybody. To talk like
that now would be outlandish, but to us the dialect at Seaham Colliery
seemed far worse. I can still hear Mother saying – “Mind when ye get to
the Colliery nee thous and thines like them, and nee sittin’ outside on
the paths; tark proper like ye’ve allus tarked.” Tark proper!!! We soon
knew what she meant, for one couldn’t walk up or down the street for
people sitting out on the paths in bunches, gossiping, or the boys
tripping you up as you walked past. I knew I had always been a tall girl,
but my goodness I never seemed to pass a boy but he shouted “lend ’s your
lass to get the ball out of the spout,” or “Eeh, hinny is it cauld up
there?” I was shocked and disgusted and branded them one and all an
ignorant crowd. But my brothers soon settled down, and made many friends.
As I said before, my father died when I was 18. I had been appointed to
the staff of new Seaham High Colliery Boys’ School, having served two
years on the infant school staff. I was to take up my appointment on the
14th August but my father was buried that day, so I was granted leave of
absence. There was nothing taken for granted in those days. I had to make
formal application to the Headmaster to attend my father’s funeral and it
was granted without sympathy and somewhat reluctantly, or so it seemed to
me. My Mother was the caretaker of the schools, as my Father was bedridden
nearly 3 years before he died. The Headmistress of the infants’ school
where I did my training was a real snob and she didn’t like the idea of a
caretaker’s daughter entering the profession. She made no secret of it and
she made my life perfect hell. No job was too menial for me – like
scrubbing cupboard shelves, slates, clay boards, with insults thrown in
for good measure. After the two years I was transferred to the boys’
school which was just next door. The Headmaster had a terrible reputation
as a terror, and I was scared stiff of him, but I must admit he was not
vindictive or spiteful like the Mistress. I was far from happy and begged
Mother to let me leave and go into service, but as I was then the eldest
left at home with five more children younger, she persuaded me to stick it
a little longer. You see, I had twenty-five shillings a week, and Mother
was depending on this. If I had gone into service I would have had less
than five shillings a week. But I am glad I persevered because we got a
new Headmaster and I grew to love my job.
I was educated at the Girls’ Upper Standard School in Princess Road,
Seaham, being amongst the first pupils to open that school. Our
Headmistress was Miss Aird, whose family claimed to be amongst the oldest
inhabitants of Seaham Harbour. She was a grand lady and was a great
student of Shakespeare’s work. Her brother was an art master, and I
attended his classes at the Sunderland ‘Old Lec’ for some seasons. I well
remember when I was chosen from Dawdon School to sit the entrance
examination for the Upper Standard. Mother said, “No, definitely not”. You
see, my oldest sister had been chosen to study for teaching in the
Londonderry School, but after a week of homework she would not stick it.
Mother said I would probably be the same, so it was a waste of time. I got
about four girls to call for me (all living at the Cottages) on the night
of the examinations, so after quite a struggle Mother said yes, but with
the added warning that if I was successful I must never grumble at the
work, and I never did. Two of us were chosen from our class at Dawdon and
that was how it all began. In the meantime we moved to Seaham Colliery so
I had to travel on foot everyday as there were no forms of transport. I
walked down the long ‘Farm Road’, crossed over the railway bridge onto the
‘Colliery Road’, crossed another bridge onto the ‘Black Road’ now called
Strangford Road and on to Princess Road. I had seen Princess Road built
from just a stony track, and both Dawdon and Princess Road schools brick
by brick.
By this time the First World War had started and soldiers were billeted in
the field beside our school – they were the Staffords. We watched them
training and marching to the tune of ‘Away to our Mountains’ from Il
Travatore. They went to the front and were almost wiped out to a man. What
a sad waste of lovely manhood. Tempers were running high and a German Pork
butcher’s place was the target for everybody when word got round about the
Staffords and their destruction. The occupiers of the shop had to be taken
into custody for their own safety and their property was badly damaged. I
remember the submarine attack on Seaham when luckily only one person was
killed and the Zeppelin was destroyed off the coast by Big Lizzie. It had
bombed Sunderland and was moving south above the sea off Seaham Harbour.
We had a gun squad stationed in a field at Yate’s Farrow. That was just
past the school where I taught later on. The gun was called Big Lizzie and
it was supposed to be a military secret. There were search lights too and
it was a great event to see these playing across the sky at night. The
crews were feted and spoiled by everybody. Came the night of the Zeppelin
when sirens sounded and the search lights flashed and everybody en masse
raced into the streets to watch. Men climbed up trees and lamp posts and
onto roofs to get a grandstand view as Big Lizzie opened up with her
shells. We could see the Zeppelin like a brilliant brooch in the search
lights which followed its flight and at last a burst of gun fire broke it
right in two and it fell into the sea. There was shouting and cheering and
dancing in the street and of course we all claimed our Big Lizzie had done
the trick. But there were other Big Lizzies stationed around the outlying
districts so it was a controversy which lasted forever. Then the crowds
became more sober for some poor mother would receive the same message as
ours were receiving every hour of every day. “Missing presumed killed”. We
thought they were dreadful lines with the telegram boys running day and
night and all the fine young fellows we knew personally from the cricket
and tennis clubs and the Mission boys all being slaughtered . I could weep
now when I picture them – eighteen to twenty-ones. Your Dad’s own brother
David was one of them. Ben took this very badly, although I did not know
him at the time. Then he lost a half-brother called Norman and there were
three more away at the time. I remember seeing this very young boy sitting
on the end of a form at one of our threepenny hops at the mission room. He
looked so very, very young and he was in uniform. I learned afterwards
that it was Wilfie Arthur, half brother to Ben Hodges. Ben at that time
was running all these social things to get money to make a big welcome
home party for the boys when the war was over. We had a long, long wait
and not many of the ‘Old Brigade’ lived to return. But we had a party and
everyone received a hymn book. To you this might seem an odd thing, but I
can assure you the poor fellows appreciated it.
My mother, poor soul, stood in queues for hours on end, sometimes her
reward being a quarter pound of bacon. We grew our own onions and
potatoes, and you should have seen the tin of panacelty this bacon made,
as the old miner said, “We could make soup out of the dish cloth”. It was
really four long weary years of make do, but those of us who survived were
only too pleased to be alive. Ben’s brother was killed very near to his
21st birthday. My sister’s boyfriend was killed within one month of
landing in France. I remember he was in the territorials and on the Bank
Holiday Monday I went with my sister straight from the fairground to
Seaham Harbour Railway Station to see him off. He had one leave for a
week-end and we never saw him again.
Ben could not join the forces as he had a crippled arm. He was very put
out about this but he worked very hard for those who had been called up.
He worked in the office at Seaham Colliery and evenings were spent working
to make parcels for the forces, and he was on call for the ambulance
service. He had always attended night classes to further his office work
and he attended ambulance classes to help in his work at the pit. He took
the lady to the Infirmary when she was fatally hurt in the submarine
attack. Although I knew him as one of the Mission boys at this time I had
no further acquaintance with him until we discovered our birthdays were
the same. We were twenty-one, a rather special birthday, and as we were
often dancing partners and we discovered at a dance that night that we
were celebrating our twenty-first, it made us take more notice of each
other. He asked me if I would go with him to Sunderland Empire on the
Saturday night which was the night following the dance. There was a play
called ‘The Eternal City’. I would only consent if I could pay for myself
and at last he agreed. That was the start of the happiest time of my whole
life. We were both Church workers, young Conservatives and we both were in
a glee party. We seemed to walk and talk and laugh and sing our way
through life. Mother never liked him for some unknown reason. He was a
strong character and so was she so they clashed. If Ben thought he was in
the right no one could move him. He had a strong character, but a good
one, and he was a most beautiful writer. He was always trying to improve
himself.
I remember all the joys of his success which never changed his attitude to
life. His motto was ‘do a good deed whenever you can’. When we first
started married life we were just able to manage. We had no money between
us as we had been in the same boat. Our mothers had depended on our wages.
We had no money for a honeymoon. Anyway, the 1925 strike was impending but
it was put off to the following year 1926. During that year Ben had to
down the pit for so many days each week. However he always said he would
not have missed the experience for all the money in the world. 1926 – It
was one of the warmest summers I can ever remember. Nobody wanted to go
back to work although many were suffering extreme poverty. Anything the
miners have now has been hardly won over the years.
Families lived all the day on the cricket field or the beaches in that
summer of 1926. They would sing ‘We have no money but we get great fun’.
The strike lasted a very long time and all of them were very heavily in
debt by the time it was over, because many of them were in scheme houses,
and could not pay the mortgages they owed to Londonderry Collieries. They
were horrifying times and the strike didn’t seem to benefit them at all.
Yet they made the best of everything, but I know how extremely worried
they were for many years after the strike was over and other people had
settled down to living. Yet they seemed to remain undaunted and were a
happy brood. They had no money but the food they concocted for their
picnics was a credit to their ingenuity. As families sat together and
unfolded their ‘bait’, there were shrieks of laughter. Dripping and bread,
beetroot sandwiches, pickled cabbage, lettuce, scallions all in
sandwiches, rice puddings cold and cut in squares, cold Yorkshire
puddings, mashed potatoes spread on bread. Jam was a great treat. Soup and
loaves of bread were provided in the soup kitchens. They looked a down and
out lot by the time the strike ended, but they were undaunted.
The miners have always been a loyal bunch of men. Mind you, some of them
were more loyal to each other than they were to their own wives. My father
used to tell many stories of the loyalty a miner bore to his ‘marra’, but
Mother questioned it many a time. For instance Dad told the tale, with
great relish, of the miner who was hurt in the pit and was taken to the
Infirmary. His three ‘marras’ decided to visit him. When they got there
the man’s wife was also visiting. Her husband sent her out to the shop on
some excuse and when she had gone he said to his ‘marra’, “Look in that
locker and you’ll find five pounds. Take it before she comes back, and
have a good night on me, because if she gets hold of it she’ll only waste
it”. Mother was not amused. My father could always entertain company with
a fund of stories like this. He was a splendid man. I can still hear Uncle
Bob’s bellows of laughter sitting around our fire on a winter’s night. But
that was in the far distant past, and I should not be talking of it now,
for this part of my memoirs is supposed to deal with the years that
followed.
Life is very varied and memories are both sweet and sad. Today is Sunday,
and as it is such a lovely day I have been down to Joan’s for coffee.
Isn’t it funny what little things can set one off in the realm of dreams?
As I sat looking out on the village green I saw a lovely sight which sent
me back into the past again. A bunch of men were playing at quoits, a game
I have never witnessed since before the First World War. Even the village
bobby was there. Such peaceful scenes restore ones hopes again. I pray
night and day that there will be no more wars, as countless will beside
me, but my faith is shattered when I hear the news. Men are growing so
wise in so many ways, yet never wise enough to prevent wars. They will
never learn.
The First World War was over, but we never really recovered. Food and
clothing were short for many years. There came the depression again when
all wages were cut. Women had to have jobs to make way for the men and
things were not good. But at least we were at peace – or so we thought.
Even so there were mumblings of a second war which made the peace so
uneasy.
When the Second World War did come, housewives were better prepared, at
least I know many that were – just as I was. We benefited from the
experiences of our parents. I tried to stock as much imperishable goods as
I could afford. Tea, sugar, soap, cereals, all had been so scarce in the
First World War, so we got in as much as possible. Then when things were
rationed we were not found wanting. Bread was rationed but that was a
lesson learned. We got what stopped us from starving and had no room for
waste. Mother, I remember, got in sacks of flour in the First World War,
but often she could get no yeast. She made girdle cakes for us, which were
quite nice when eaten warm, but it meant new batches at each meal, so you
can imagine her work with a family. Cakes sold in shops were stodgy and
unpalatable, but there were queues miles long for them. Many a time people
joined queues and didn’t know what for. I know women who spent their days
standing in queues and enjoyed it.
Also in the second war we had clothes coupons. This too was a much fairer
way, but even so, we had to make do and mend. The poor had never been
extravagant, we had always darned and patched and worn hand-me-downs, so
we were very little worse off. We even had a little party for my sister’s
birthday.
I remember it so well because one of her friends came with a pair of fancy
garters on her legs. They were made of miched satin with fancy boots, and
of course we thought we should have the same. They were only sixpence a
pair said we. But mother was outraged. She had never heard of such waste.
When all was said and done our stockings kept up just the same with our
pieces of string or old laces and in any case they should be covered up.
So no fancy garters. But it makes one realise how far advanced we are
nowadays. To look back on the sad and poverty-stricken days of my
grandmother makes one wonder in awe how my grandfather fought for his
trade union ideals. He always said he would not benefit but “some day our
offspring will know better times and so they should”. I long for the peace
of my childhood days but never for the poverty.
But my married life was not one of poverty, far from it. We could not be
lavish but we were comparatively well off and believe me we counted our
blessings. Then my children came and after twelve years of married bliss I
had three children. Oh the joy of those happy bygone days. I felt like a
queen on a throne. The first one I thought was so beautiful I marveled at
myself for producing her. Three years later the second one came, another
girl, but just as welcome and seven years later the boy. The joy of the
two girls was beyond description as was Ben’s, and so we lived happily
together. Then a bomb wiped out my youngest brother’s family leaving just
one survivor, our Gerald. We took him into our family. I remember Ben
saying to me “we’ll take him and do our best. It might have happened to
us” and so he has remained a part of the family. I took upon him as my
own, a sacred trust, bestowed upon me for the rest of my days. I hope he
thinks I have served him well, and loved him as the others.
Ben is always in my thoughts. I often think of the song ‘These foolish
things remind me of you.’ Well, a Jaffa orange always takes me back to my
son’s birth. He was born two days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve Ben
brought me my supper, bread and butter and Jaffa orange in segments. With
Ben and the two girls beside me on the bed we had our suppers before Santa
Claus came. I never enjoyed any evening or supper so much. Ben was the
kindest and most generous man. A loving husband and father, but he was
taken too soon from us. Christina Rossetti says, “a man’s life is but a
working day,” how true that seemed for him. He gave his life for his job.
He was a very happy fellow and could make friends so easily. I was the
opposite because I was so reserved. He is never far from me and as is
said, wishing makes it so. I recall a poem in which some kindred spirit
somewhere sums up my thoughts.
Once a day and sometimes more
He knocks upon my day dream door
And I say warmly “come in my love
I’m glad you’re here again with me”
Then we sit and have a chat
Recalling this discussing that
Until some task that I must do
Forces me away from him
Reluctantly I say goodbye
Smiling with a little sigh
For though my day dreams bring him near
I wish that he was always here
But what I know I cannot change
My dreams and wishes can arrange
And through my wishing he can stay
Nearer to me every day.
But I often say my life is not all sad, oh no, not at all. My
grandchildren have made life still worthwhile. Our Jim is so considerate.
I could not wish for anything more. Then our Ben’s bairns are really
lovely, a happy crowd always so pleased to see me. My other grandchildren,
I am sorry to say have grown away from me. I suppose this was bound to
happen, because they are so far away, but they are all good scholars yet
never think of writing a little note even in acknowledgment of presents. I
suppose most grandparents have the same complaints. As my brother often
says to me, “youth is callous”. But then perhaps we were the same. We are
so full of life when we are young, looking for joy and happiness and why
not, the sorrows soon follow.
Yet, looking back, I often visited my grandparents who lived in the
miner’s homes beside the Mill Inn. I loved to hear the stories my
Grandfather could tell of his very young years in the Isle of Man, and how
he stowed away on a boat which brought him to England. Evidently he was
befriended by a mining family. How typical this was in those far off days.
They would be poor as church mice, but one more added to their own would
make no difference. As long as he could integrate he would be welcome. The
miner got him a job down the pit at White Haven. He was what was called a
trap door boy. Remember, he was only eight years old. He was self taught
and spent his whole life fighting for the miners. I have told you of how
he was banished to America for his work for the miners, but he was soon
recalled by the Union. He was a most interesting man with a strong
capacity to put his views across, and had a deep resounding and compelling
voice. He had no use for politicians or chapel men. I am not endorsing
this view, but it was his and he never wavered. He had five sons but none
of them followed in his footsteps except as miners. Believe me they are
the salt of the earth. To watch a local football match then go to a pub
and discuss the game fully over their pints was, to them, a marvelous
weekend. My father seemed to spend his life down the pit. He would go out
at eight o’ clock in the evening and come home around seven the next
morning. He would have a bath and his breakfast then he would sometimes go
across the fields to the farm for the milk or go as a beachcomber to the
Blast Sands. He brought home all kinds of things, sometimes useful and
sometimes useless but always varied. Then he would have his dinner and go
to bed until pit time again. Yet all he prayed for was strength to carry
on. Alas! He died at the age of 53. Ben and I often used to talk of him
and Ben always regretted his dying at so early an age, yet he himself was
only 57 and thought he had had so much easier a life. One can never tell.
I never thought I could live so long without him. My brother Herbie has
been a constant comforter to me and has helped me in so many ways.
Life was never easy in those far off days, yet funnily enough, things
seemed easier in the years that followed my father’s death. My brothers
were growing up and one after another started work. Wages were very small
but one with another made it easier for Mother. After the First World War
things were very tight. Money slumped. Everybody’s’ wages took an enormous
tumble. As the men returned from the war the women had to stand down to
make room for them. We went back to the hard times and by the thirties we
seemed to be worse off than ever. I am seventy-seven and I cannot count
the number of crises I have passed through, known and unknown. Yet on
looking back I was always extremely happy. People need not worry about
youth. They can ride storms and still get pleasure out of life. Whether
they are aware of it or not I cannot say but they are like Kelly Lamps.
They cannot be knocked down. Miners were very badly off in those days.
Those who lived beside us were buying what were called scheme houses and
many times their wages would not cover this liability. They scrimped and
schemed until life was one great toil for them. They sold their coals. 3/6
for a load of coal. Think of that and compare it with today. Whatever they
have got now they have paid dearly for over many years. Yet they have
always held their heads high. They truly are a great race of people.
Mind you, one could see the difference in the generations. The young ones
coming on after the First World War were not the submissive lot like their
fathers before them. Submissive respect for bosses was waning, and we hear
today, “what is the world turning to?” It is progressing in many ways. I
don’t begrudge the young one single thing. Life is to be lived and they
are right to get what they can out of it as long as they hurt no one in
the process.
Far too soon came the Second World War. The older ones were scared knowing
what happened in the first war, but the young, poor bairns, thought at
first, that it was a picnic. People are not unlike lemmings. They go to
their destruction every few years. We’ll never learn.
Food was very scarce as I have said before, but we made some nice and some
nasty concoctions from what we had. We had no imported fruit, and I
remember going to night classes to learn how to make some of these weird
dishes. No bananas? Then make some. When Parsnips were in season we boiled
them and mashed them with sugar and a few drops of lemon essence and lo!
Banana to spread on bread and believe it or not we kidded ourselves it was
like the real thing. Recently I tried a little again with one parsnip and
I could not look at it. We were brainwashed into thinking that eggs were
unnecessary in cakes hence the eggless wonders. You could have stotted
them from here to yonder and they would not break. Yet we queued for them
at the baker’s shops. Tealeaves were never thrown out until the water
poured on them was as clear as when it came from the kettle. And sugar! It
was a crime to let your hand shake as you carried the spoon from sugar
basin to tea cup. Yet people did not show their resentment or depression.
They laughed over their various experiences and exchanged ideas with great
hilarity.
Potatoes and turnips were scarce and I remember the men raiding the potato
pits in the farmer’s field. Sometimes they kicked over the traces but by
and large they were well conducted, “little does the poor good and little
do they get,” was one of my Mother’s sayings but we all seemed poor
together. But after the war things began to turn sour. The men came home
with such high expectations from the promises made to them by Parliament.
But they found only poverty and unemployment facing them. All they wanted
was to settle down and have a few of the things they had missed in the
trenches. They had been sick and lousy and unkempt, half starved and
frozen all that miserable time and now they expected something different.
Wives and mothers too had suffered tortures not knowing what had happened
to loved ones. Missing. That was the dread message they had received. Some
never heard any more, a few turned up as prisoners. When men came home on
leave it was a terrible job getting rid of the lice and sores and the only
reward for those poor women was the return to the front to suffer all over
again. Very few men lived to see their twenty-first birthday. I can still
picture some whom I knew from the tennis and cricket clubs and the bible
class. We saw them once in uniform and then no more. We suffered too from
the air raids. The sirens chilled your spine, and there was a mad scramble
for the shelters. It wasn’t easy to lift children asleep from their beds
and get into shelters. My youngest brother, his wife and family did not
make it. A landmine was dropped nearby and all were killed save the oldest
boy. He was buried in the debris for twenty-four hours and was badly
injured but he survived. He has since been one of my family.
There was great rejoicing when the war ended, but peace was no picnic.
Food and clothes remained on ration for a few years. We had made weird
things for our children so that we could spend the coupons on shoes. I
bought some dish cloths and made some vests for the children. I crocheted
round the neck and sleeves in a pretty coloured wool and I thought them
good. We pulled out and re-knit garments which even in our poorest days
would have been given to the rag man.
I remember my mother cobbling our shoes in the First World War. Father had
died, so Mother had to take over. She could rip off a sole and put a new
one on as good as any cobbler in those days. I still have the last she
used to use, but I am not so clever as she was. When I look back I wonder
at their abilities and their ingenuity. She could read a letter but
otherwise was no scholar, but we were all decent scholars and yet she had
more wisdom than we had. Truly ‘knowledge comes but wisdom lingers’.
There go my beloved cows. They are being taken to milk. I often dream of
donning a milk maid’s bonnet and a course apron and walking in front of
the herd calling “kee-up kee-up” like old Sally did when I was young. But
then the paper boy calls me ‘the add wife that lives in the bottom door’.
He would likely call me the ‘mad add wife!’
The young are much more knowledgeable than we were. When I look back we
were simplicity personified. We had to make our own enjoyment. Of course
there were the cinemas but once a week was more than some of us could
manage. The Church was the centre around which we were gathered. We lived
at the High Colliery and the Church was at the Low Colliery. We had a
building called the Mission Room and we from the High Colliery spent all
our nights there. We had a library, and a games room and a dance hall.
Every Wednesday night and Saturday night we had a ‘hop’. Threepence was
the entrance fee, and once a month, on a Saturday night we provided
refreshments - salmon sandwiches and home-made cakes and tea. We were
working to buy a piano as we had only an organ to dance to. It was hard
work pedaling to play ‘The Lancers’ and I have known the organ break down
in the middle of it all. But the dancing went on until the big lads turned
the organ upside down and put it to rights. What an innocent and naïve lot
we were, but I wish it was like that today. We lived for Wednesday and
Saturday. Then we all went to Church on Sunday night, boys and girls, then
for a long walk afterwards.
How we walked in those days. Hail, rain or snow never stopped us. At
holiday times such as Bank Holiday, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, Christmas
Eve and New Year’s Eve we had a dance called a late night. It took Mother
a long time to concede, but eventually she did and we had some glorious
times. There was terrible disappointment among the boys if they were on
the wrong shift.
Changes are so gradual that customs have gone before you realise. I can
remember the first big motor coal bunker bringing the coals for the
miners, and before we realised there was no longer the clomp, clomp of the
horses hooves. Those beautiful big animals vanished from our sight. No
longer came the man to tell of the idle pits, “all the pits idle the morn,
shifters, wastemen and mechanics”. Go out and listen for the caller my
mother would say. No – a notice pinned to the board in the pit yard
replaced these men. It was always a job for old men, too old to go down
the pit. So it continues – men are constantly being made redundant. Of
course it is progress, for now they have pensions much better and sooner
than in my young days. We call the young ones now and say they are
thoughtless and this and that, but you know, I was a serious minded person
and yet I would visit my grandmother and grandfather at least once a week
and never gave a thought as to how they were coping. I did not realise
that they would be hard-pressed on five shillings a week. I did not know
what was coming into our house for mother to manage. I wouldn’t have been
told if I had asked.
Miners always addressed each other as ‘marra’. Their greeting would go
something like this. “Watch yer marra. How’s tha keeping. “Oh champion”,
was the reply, but if the answer was, “Oh, bloody awful,” it was greeted
with shrieks of laughter. All miners swore, but we as children were never
allowed to do so. We were never allowed to swear or to raise our fists
against each other. Mother used to say she could do all the chastising
that was necessary. And believe me she could.
I remember her saying to my Father, “It’s time you asserted yourself. You
leave it all to me”. He turned to us and said, A’ll make the down stott
off yer heeds”. We were puzzled for a very long time!
I have just come back from the shops. It is not very far, but far enough
to make me realise how the years are overtaking me. My mind is still quite
lively, but not my legs. I say me brain is lively but I am making so many
mistakes as I write, sometimes starting upside down on the page but I know
you will not mind. So you will have to do the juggling.
It is Halloween time and the children are knocking on the doors for
coppers. They come with their turnips hollowed out with candles inside. It
is more than seventy years since I did the same. If we could not get a
turnip from old Sally at the farm, then we put a candle in a jam jar.
Afterwards we would play a game with the jam jar called ‘Jack shine your
Maggie’. Jack would hide somewhere amongst the houses and we as a pack
would follow shouting “Jack shine your Maggie or the dogs canna follow”.
We would see the light shine at the top of the street and we were at the
bottom but by the time we followed the light would shine somewhere else
and we were puzzled as to how it had got there. If he was a good Jack he
could keep us on the run all night. You don’t see the children playing
games now as we did. I loved to play marbles with my brothers. We had pot
perkers, and iron vengers, and codlins and glass allies. We played shutty-hole
for hours at the bottom of the street. Then we played leap frog but the
boys could always beat us. I think it was because of our long petticoats.
“Mountie Kittee Mountie Kittee 1-2-3.
Fall off fall off fall off me”.
How many times we have shouted this, boys and girls together. Then the
boys would help the girls out with their ring games. We liked certain boys
to choose us in the games and give us a kiss. Some we were keen on and
some we weren’t. But I have often found that the ones we despised grew to
be the best in after years. I read in the Echo this week that our old
village school which has served for many years as the Parish Hall is soon
to be demolished. Ah well, I’ll disappear too when I am too old.
Today is Armistice Day and I’ve been watching the service on television. I
feel so sad. I think we that are old should teach our families to respect
these acts of remembrance and what they really stand for. People like
myself who have lived through two devastating wars, and are old enough now
to remember the miseries of both, dread the thought of another. When I
look at my lovely grandchildren, watching them grow up and thinking of
what might happen, it makes me worry and wonder. Truly, “the bairns little
think what the auld folks are thinking”. But parents should talk to them
or answer their questions when occasion arises. All our memorials are in
foreign lands so our younger generations have no idea. It is an amazing
and very sad sight to see the burial places in foreign lands, and one
monument says: - ‘When you go home tell them of us and say for your
tomorrows we gave our today’.
Oh dear God, those lovely lads I knew so well. At least we hope they are
now enjoying the peace that passes understanding.
What a cold, miserable November day it is, and the wind is terrible. It
reminds me of the November night years ago when the Seaham Harbour
lifeboat overturned and her crew was drowned. My family had come to visit
me, and while having tea, the rockets sounded. I knew instantly what was
happening. I had lived too long beside the sea not to know. I think eight
were drowned and the new lifeboat supposed to be unsinkable had not lived
up to its name. Tonight is just such a night and as I lie sleepless in my
bed my mind travels so far back that I don’t care to remember. But life
goes on at a terrifying speed, and the same tragedies recur. I remember
lying in bed as a little girl, listening to the roaring sea and the fog
horns, but our only worry then was the pits might be idle. My father knew
the sound of every boat’s signal as it came into dock. The pride of them
all in those days was the Maureen.
Yes, life has changed so much I fail to understand things. For instance,
yesterday I had a leaflet pushed through my door which said ‘Have an
account with…” Amongst other information was the fact that you would have
six months to pay off your ‘account’. What a swanky name for debt: In my
young days it was called ‘tick’ or ‘on the slate’, and you were looked
down on by everybody. My mother used to say “never ask for tick for if you
cannot pay this week you will have no hope next week when your
circumstances don’t change”. “She gets things on tick” was said by
neighbours of neighbours to smear them. Now if you have no account at one
at least, of the huge stores you are a nobody. People brag of their
accounts as if it were a pools win. No six months to pay in my Mother’s
day. Miss a week and your rations were cut off. I know that I am old
fashioned. Nobody needs to remind me of that, but no matter where I go I
love to return to my little humble home, and I think of the words of
Charlotte Bronte. “Restore to me that tender spot with four grey walls
encompassed round”. Home! Yet I like to recall my young days in the home
of our family. What pleasures are missed when there is no family. I had
three sisters and five brothers. We fought sometimes, perhaps often, but
we also had great pleasure. I recall my brothers cleaning their teeth with
soot before going to a dance. Yes! Soot. They would put a little clean
cloth round their finger, stick it up the chimney and hey presto! Tooth
paste: a little margarine on their hands then rubbed on their hair for
hair cream, spit for polish on their shoes, and then a swap round with
shirts and ties to match their suits. You can imagine the hilarity of all
this, and mother used to sigh with relief when they had gone. The boys
were all good mimics so we had another session of fun when they came home
again. The boys got great pleasure in frightening the girls. When they
knew mother was out somewhere they would get through the upstairs window
and stamp hard around the bedroom floors then descend the stairs with
heavy tread and in a booming voice shout “I am on the first step – stamp –
I’m on the next step – stamp” until they reached the bottom, when they
would spring out on us. Of course like all pranks after a time or two they
wore thin.
I remember a neighbour’s son from Dawdon came to visit us one evening when
home from France on leave in the First World War. He was drunk, and it
happened that my sister and I were alone in the house. We didn’t know how
to entertain him, and he could talk of nothing but death. Then he
developed the theme of how he could murder us, and no-one would ever know,
because he would be supposedly ‘at the front’. What a terrible time we
spent. It seemed like hours and I cannot remember how it all ended but I
know my sister and I talked of it for years. Poor lad! He was as quiet as
a mouse in his early years. It must have been his war experiences that
affected him.
I have just had visitors. Their only, or their greatest concern in life is
their overseas holiday. Will they or won’t they be able to make it. My
goodness! I remember when I was very young and Mother and Father were
going to Stockton for a half day excursion trip on the Saturday. Would
they or wouldn’t they make it? All kinds of things affected the outcome.
Would Father have to work? Would the baby be fit to leave? Would there be
sufficient money left? Happily they went. What a day! You talk about great
expectations. And guess what they brought back for us. A big bag of
horhound candy. What would the children of today say to that? But our joy
was unbounded. We only got a half penny pocket money once a fortnight and
yet we were never allowed to take money from anyone as payment for
services rendered. But the love, the joy, the contentment of those bygone
days is lovely to recall.
Mind you there was class distinction practiced in those days which
astounded me as a young girl. We had moved from my beloved Cottages to
Seaham Colliery and I remember going to Sunday night service at the parish
church. I was astounded to find I could not sit where I chose. I was moved
several times, but being an ignorant country cousin I did not realise why
the pews had doors and the seats cushions. They were family pews paid for
by the owners. I finally was conducted to one of these seats by a
gentleman and it was in a position where I could see all who came into
church. Eventually this lady, heavily dressed and veiled, walked in with
six children following. They ranged in size from small to tall, I never
see a swan with its cygnets on a lake but I remember her entrance.
Majesty! But she was just an Official’s wife. You see, our old school
served as church for us at the Cottages and we were all on a level, a low
one but genuine.
Crises, crises. I wonder how many I have lived through in my life. I never
heard the word when I was young. When very young the only crisis in our
life was when Father was ill and couldn’t work. But then we left it all to
Mother. But the First World War changed everything. They were serious
years. Death and destruction, starvation and deprivation, with sharks
around growing fat on the black market. We were so bamboozled by it all we
couldn’t understand it. What a terrible time it must have been for our
parents.
Isn’t this a real hotch potch. But you know tiny things act as triggers
and away I fly into the realms of ‘I remember’. One thing is for sure, I
am never bored. I am sitting now playing a fanciful game with my ball,
because a little boy has just chased his ball down the gutter. I was
always playing with a ball up against the backyard wall.
“Bounce ball, bounce ball 1-2-3
Underneath my right leg
Round about my knee
Underneath my left leg
Round my knee again
Bounce ball, bounce ball
Off we go again.”
Of course you had to keep the ball bouncing all the time. Then we threw
the ball up and caught it with the right hand, threw again and caught it
with the left, entwined your fingers and caught it again., threw it high
and jumped astride over it as it bounced, then gave it a hard bounce to
see how high it would go before you caught it. Playing with a partner you
gave marks if you never missed the ball. My Father called me bally pate.
So I travel on in my memory to my spinning tops. We didn’t buy these, we
gave two jam jars to the rag man for a squat fat top called a jenny
spinner. Father made our whips out of a round stick, into which he punched
a hole about one inch from the top through which he passed the string. You
see, our pleasures cost us nothing. We would decorate the tops of the tops
with coloured chalks or paper and see whose looked best when spinning.
How this has set me off about games. We had diabloes. These too we got
from rag men. They were wooden tops made in the shape of an hour glass. We
had a long piece of string held by two sticks which when stretched would
be about a yard width. We spun the diablo on the string to get a rhythm
and then threw it into the air and caught it on the string in its descent,
went on spinning and repeated the process. I was a dab hand at this and my
father again called me the diablo queen. He always prophesied a broken
nose, but he was wrong. Then we had skipping ropes. Fast - slow - fast -
slow – double dutch – skip and swing to the right, skip and swing to the
left. We went on for hours. We had long ropes (if you had a long rope you
were the boss) and with these we played for hours in groups, skipping
follow the leader – high and low water. Oh! I wish I were a child again.
We used to draw squares on the ground with thick chalk taken from the
pockets of the pit clothes we had to dash. The pitmen used the chalk to
mark the tubs. These squares were called boys, and with a hitchy dabber,
which we could get from any worker at the bottle works, was pushed around
and into the boys with your foot whilst continually hopping. Of course the
games were very complicated and the style of hopping was varied, and the
marks received for accomplishments were varied so it was very competitive.
We could also play a similar game with a ball. So we had hitchy boys and
ball boys. We also played rounders and French rounders, and hand ball
which was a very strenuous game. Men played this game but theirs was much
more fierce than ours. We hit the ball up against a gable end with our
hands. The men hit with their fists against a real ball alley which was a
properly built very high wall for this purpose. Then we played hidey, but
the boys always used to spoil this game. The boys would hide and spring
out on us unawares, or sit behind the little yard walls with white sheets
over them, swaying and moaning and we thought we had seen a ghost. Then
there was Kitty-Kat. Father used to make the Kitty-Kats for my brothers.
He would sit on his crocket and whittle away at a piece of wood about
seven inches long. The middle part had to have four sides and about an
inch or a little more at each end was pointed. The square sides had Roman
figures painted on them. The Kitty-Kat was put on the ground and you hit
one painted end with a stick and it jumped into the air. You had to catch
it in its flight, whack it with the stick and when it fell, the figure on
the side uppermost was your score. This too had many complications in the
scoring. Nothing was too easy to make one lose interest. You must have
noticed by now how little our games cost us.
Well, it is Sunday morning again. How time flies. It is a sunny calm quiet
morning and I recall such mornings when I was very young. What quietness
and peace. Not a hawker or caller dared come out on a Sunday. Whether
people were religious or not they upheld this tradition, not even milk was
delivered in those days; one had to go to the farm. We were dressed in our
Sunday best and we were not allowed to play games. We could go for walks,
but not to the docks Mother used to say. Alas we didn’t always obey her.
The docks was such an interesting place to go to, and the dangers Mother
pointed out to us seemed just in her imagination. Then we had to tell lies
to cover up, and one of the younger children would let the cat out of the
bag. We were punished in more ways than one so that curtailed our visits
for quite some time. You see the errant young were with us then as well as
now and always will be.
Perhaps the crisis over the petrol shortage will clear the roads and give
this generation a taste of the bygone quiet days. I am afraid this will
not be to their liking, because even in my little backwater spot nobody
can work without their radios blaring out noisy music.
Officially it is summer now and our little village is very quiet. I think
the majority must be on holidays. I am reminded of summer holidays when I
was a child. We ran bare-footed in the fields. Mother did not like this as
she said we might cut our feet on broken ‘boody’. This was the name used
for broken cups, pots and dishes. They had been thrown into middens, then
landed on the dump and eventually spread as manure. But again we did not
obey. We tumbled and raced about from morning till night. We had to go
home for dinner (this was an order never disobeyed) but after that we
could please ourselves. If you weren’t in for the next meal then you
missed it altogether. But Mother did allow us to help ourselves to bread,
provided we left the pantry shelf as clean as we found it. We used to
learn at school ‘bread is the staff of life’, and so it was for us. Water
was our main drink, so we could play for hours without bothering anybody
because the taps were in the streets.
Winter nights were a different matter. To start with bedtime was much
earlier as lamps used up paraffin and that meant money. So as soon as
father left for work between 8 and 8:30pm, mother was ready for bed. We
children had been safely tucked in for more than an hour. Paraffin was
sold from the store cart which came round specially every Friday. It was
quite a ritual filling the lamps, cleaning the chimneys and trimming the
wicks. We had a big one, ran on the pulley system, in the best room, a
standing one on the kitchen table, and small Kelly lamps in the bedrooms.
Mother used to check that they were all out by the time she was ready for
bed. She never used candles, because she didn’t trust them. We were never
allowed to light the fire. Father did that when he came in from work,
unless it was very stormy weather when mother would keep it burning all
night. This entailed Mother getting up and down all night long, and as we
always had a young baby in the house, Father would only allow it in
special circumstances. We seemed to stand the cold much better than this
generation. We relied on warm clothes and good nourishing food to keep us
warm, and let’s face it, food was much better than it is today. Free range
eggs, fresh warm milk, vegetables grown in our own gardens, fish from seas
uncontaminated in any way. What more could anyone ask for. People
cherished their gardens in those days. All miners’ homes had a big garden
attached, but people who lived in rented property had allotments. The
garden was their main interest. They worked in them together, and laughed
and talked as they dug and planted. They swapped skills, and had flower
and vegetable shows. Many kept pigeons as another hobby and summertime was
lively and gay. Where I am living now we have only tiny gardens which are
neglected by the majority.
It has been my grandson’s twenty-first birthday and the families gathered
together to celebrate. I have returned home exhausted but happy, and now I
am sitting again with my memories. There were 12 of us in our family when
I was young, and each birthday was noted. We gave no presents, no cards,
but good verbal wishes. The recipient was excused from any punishment for
misdeeds (according to mother’s assessment) for that one day and we had
stotty cake with strawberry jam (and a ‘scrat’ of margarine under the jam)
which was a great concession. Mother also made currant scones. Jokes and
guessing stories flew thick and fast, and there were always ‘made up ones’
which were complete nonsense, like the one my brother asked once “why does
a cow look over a wall? Because it cannot look through it?” You know I can
never remember the postman ever coming to the Cottages. Birthday cards,
Christmas cards or letters were unheard of. There was a post office, which
was a tiny dark little place but we never knew how it functioned. We could
not tell the sense of a shop which had nothing to display in its windows.
The daughter of the owner was the post girl but we couldn’t fathom what
kind of a job she did. Fancy, Mother never received a Christmas card in
her life. But when we moved to Seaham Colliery, and the First World War
was upon us, we soon found out what the postman did. He worked night and
day, delivering letters and telegrams. The post office I spoke of in my
young days was not at the Cottages, but in the main street at Seaham
Harbour, where we had to do our main shopping.
Even Seaham Harbour was just a small place then but it had three pawn
shops. The very poor could not survive without these pawn shops. People
pawned all kinds of things during the baff weekend, then redeemed them
during the pay weekend if they could. Many lost several possessions in
this way. I knew one family that never possessed anything but their table
and beds. They sat on upturned boxes, and slept in beds in their day
clothes to keep warm. Yet Mother used to say there was more money going in
to keep a smaller family than ours, and Mother had a clean, comfortable
well run home, so you see, the world can never be equal.
There is a local fair being held today on the village green, 22nd July
1979 and I am taken back over more than seventy years to similar fetes
when I was young. Dressed as today in our Sunday best to see the Bicycle
Parade, or the Procession of Witness, or the Sunday School Treat. Or the
Volunteer Parade, or the Great Flower Show. You see, life was still good
even in those days. There was always something of interest, at intervals
throughout the year, and believe me we all enjoyed them.
Yesterday was the Durham Miners’ Gala. We never heard of this until Dawdon
was built. No doubt it would be held but Durham City was a long way off to
the Cottages people, and money was scarce. But when Dawdon was developed
it was an unknown thing to miss the Gala. The celebrations started on the
Friday night with dancing in the street, and at six o’clock on the
Saturday morning the exodus began marching behind the bands waving banners
and determined to have a jolly good day. We had never witnessed the like
before and our sleepy little village never slept anymore. The band wakened
me yesterday about eight o’clock but here was a pitiful little trickle of
people following it. Well, Empires come and go and so do lesser things.
I hope the weather holds good for our village fete, as the money goes to
charity. That has set me thinking. I can never remember anybody even
mentioning anything about the proceeds when I was young. I am wondering
now who or what benefited. I have no cause to grumble as I benefited with
my happy memories, so I am content.
It’s a lovely morning and a piece of poetry I learned when very young
comes to my mind:-
When swallows dart from cottage eaves
And farmers dream of barley sheaves
When apples peep amid the leaves
And woodbine scents the air
We love to fly from daily care
To breathe the buxom country air
To laugh and sing and dance and play
Among the new mown hay.
It must be more than seventy years since I learned that and yet it came
unbidden to my mind when I saw all the house martins fly around from their
nesting places in the village farmyard. Alas! I never see the swallows
now. They were so lovely when I was young and played in the fields begging
a ride on the hay carts. Oh to go back to those carefree happy days.
Sometimes my Grandmother (Ganny to us) or my Father’s sister would pay us
a visit when it was a fine day. The kettle was put on and the white table
cloth brought out. We would have bread and butter with jam (fancy both
butter and jam!), teacakes and ginger bread. It was a red letter day. I
can picture Ganny now as clear as on those days. A stout old lady with
very white hair and a bright pink parting down the centre of her head, a
black silk dress and a silk cape all covered in black jet sequins and a
tiny little bonnet, with long wide ribbons fastened under her chin. I must
show you her photo some day. She was a quiet, sedate little body, the
perfect foil to Granda who was a talker of the first degree. “Are you
listening Janie?” he would say to her. “Aye so Betty was saying,” was
always her answer. I never understood it anymore than you will. She was a
dainty clean-looking woman, but my Granda was big with a hairy moustache,
long beard and thick long white hair. His body grew too heavy for his
legs, but Ganny could trot around until the end.
I am very fortunate in that I live in the end house of a small street with
a streetlight shining through the glass of my front door so that my home
is never in total darkness. But last night there was no light, and as I
often trot around upstairs through the night to ease my aching legs (old
age you know) I got to thinking of my life during the First World War. No
lights were allowed and the total darkness was terribly frightening. No
vehicles carried lights and our homes were completely blacked out. Special
wardens patrolled the streets and if the tiniest chink of light was seen,
that particular warden would knock on your door shouting “put your lights
out”. Some were like jumped up field marshals and nearly bashed the door
in to emphasize their authority. I remember Mother shouting through the
door, “carry on mister I’ll be in a bigger pickle if the door falls in”.
After the submarine raid on Seaham Colliery we all put strips of paper on
our windows to stop splintering. We bought coils of brown paper about one
inch wide with adhesive on one side and criss crossed them on our windows.
Here again people showed their ingenuity with the patterns they invented,
and we all bought blackout curtains. I remember that submarine raid so
clearly. Our neighbour was washing, but like everyone else she left her
tub and ran into the garden to lie flat on the grass. We all did this. The
raid did not last long and when she returned to her washing she was
shouting in rhythm to her possing “Bloody Kaiser. I wish I had him in
here”, meaning the poss tub. I bet those clothes were whiter than white
when she was finished. I shudder to think what the Kaiser would look like
after such a beating. There were always little things like this to ease
the tension. Fortunately there was only one woman killed in the raid and
she was a visitor to the district. You know it was very surprising how
suspicion spread amongst the neighbours about those little streaks of
light in the blackout. For no reason at all they were looked upon as spies
and the stories grew more and more alarming. Everybody was looking with
suspicion at each other and delving into backgrounds to find the smallest
trace of connection with the Germans.
I recall one very dark night during the war when my Father was having a
particularly bad night with his breathing. Mother had to open the window
and the front door to get plenty of air. All lights were out both inside
and outside when a loud terrible voice shouted “Somebody help – ah’s Jimmy
Grant and ah’s lost.” Poor man he didn’t know which way to turn to find
his home. He had just finished a shift down pit and had taken a wrong
turning. It was funny afterwards, but not at the time. Mother walked into
the corner of the wall at the end of our street and split her face from
brow to chin in the blackout, and I got stranded in the middle of a field
on my way to a dance which was held in the soldiers’ huts. A sergeant
rescued me and took me into the dance hall. Poor fellow! I wonder what ran
through his mind when he got into the light inside. These dances were held
to help in the running of the Mission House which had been converted into
a convalescent place for wounded soldiers. It was a common sight to see
them in their light blue uniforms and with bandaged heads, arms or legs.
There was one consolation. They were feted and spoilt by everybody in the
community. They were terrible times, yet they were all repeated in the
second war. We have only a few graves of soldiers, sailors and airmen in
our local cemetery, but to visit them overseas is a heart breaking
experience, lines and lines of them and nearly all in their twenties. I
often think the great division between the generations is growing wider
and wider. Young children are very shy with old people. They often scuttle
away like little frightened rabbits. Yet I recall how happy I was to visit
my Grandmother. I must have been very small when I can first remember her
house. It was called the round house as it had been converted from a
disused mill. It stood a little behind where the Mill Inn stands still,
and as the mill had a wide base then narrowed towards its summit so the
house was. I remember Ganny could not hang pictures on the wall because of
this. Fields surrounded the old house, and there was a row of stone built
cottages just adjacent which have long disappeared. These cottages had
stable doors and a very narrow footpath, but when one passed up the little
street these cottages looked the essence of comfort. The fields had stiles
and crossing these fields into Seaton village stood Seaton Hall, the home
of the Colliery Agents. I can recall many of these, Mr. Corbett, Mr.
Brough, Mr. Wallow, Mr. Ford and Mr. Charlton are some of them. Seaton
Hall was a beautiful home in those days. It was surrounded by farms but
now it is in the midst of houses – private and council.
Seaham Colliery itself was begun in 1846 by the Third Marquis of
Londonderry. The Parish was founded in 1857. The population in 1891 was
5,000 and it covered 500 acres. It is situated about 6 miles south of
Sunderland and one mile west of Seaham Harbour.
A big explosion occurred in1871 and there was a loss of 26 men and boys.
This was followed by another in 1880 with a loss of 164 men and boys. Some
of the widows and parents still lived at the cottages, as did some of the
injured. I remember one fine old man living in the next row to ours and
his face was all black from the heat of the explosion.
But Dawdon pit was sunk when I was a little girl. It was always called the
new pit, and then Dawdon itself replaced our little village.
‘Oh that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me’
Tennyson said this in his poem ‘The Brook’ so if he thought himself
inadequate who am I to grumble? So I shall just continue in my simple way.
It is a lovely sunny Sunday morning and as I look out on the village I see
groups of men winding their way to the village green to have a game of
quoits and then a free discussion afterwards in the village pub. Well, my
Father spent many summer Sunday mornings in the same way more than a
hundred years ago and continued long after I was born. I can see them now
in the ‘Cow’s Field’ laughing and shouting and enjoying a day of work. But
we had no village pub. They had to walk down to Seaham Harbour where there
were plenty. ‘The Rose and Crown’, ‘The Duke of Wellington’, ‘The Station
Hotel, ‘The Kicking Buddy’, ‘The Parrot’ just to name a few.
Oh no our village had only the four streets of houses. We didn’t call them
streets. We called them ‘rars’ meaning rows. The middle ‘rar’ was also
called ‘The Garden Walk’. We had a school, a fever hospital and the
cemetery. But our homes were not slums. They were built of stone, and had
three bedrooms, a sitting room and a living room, and a spacious pantry.
We had a big garden at the front and a big back yard with coal house and
toilet. We had no footpaths in the streets but every house had a cemented
yard at both back and front, about forty inches wide with steps up to the
door, a boot scraper at one side and a rain barrel at the other, and a
wooden fence and gutters outside of this. It was a great achievement when
you were promoted from scrubbing the netty seats to scrubbing the little
yard and gutters. The big back yard was scrubbed after every washing day,
the wash tub emptied and half filled with clean water to prevent it
warping. A cooper used to come round to attend to wash tubs and rain tubs,
and with the hoops around his shoulders he used to shout “jobs for the
cooper”. The gardens at the front were never neglected. All families
provided their own vegetables. They varied in degrees of quality but they
served the purpose. There was no shop near to provide vegetables so
everybody did their own garden. But if a miner was ill or injured,
neighbours would help out. A young man living at the top of our street had
a gun, and he used to go out shooting rabbits, of which there were
hundreds, in the surrounding fields. Sixpence for one, if you bought two
you got them for ninepence, but you had to skin them yourselves. Mother
could skin a rabbit as easily as she could tear off the sole of a boot. We
used to fight for our turn for the rabbit’s tail. Tie a piece of string to
it and you could play endless games with it. We loved the feel of the soft
fur, but the ragman bought the skins for a penny, so you will see what a
cheap dinner a couple of rabbits made for us. Some people would kill a
couple of pigeons if they had no money, but father loved pigeons so that
practice was taboo in our family. When I look back our homes at the
cottages were really very posh. I did not realise this for some years, not
until the Upper Standard School was built, and I mixed with other people
than the Cottages. The houses at Seaham Harbour were mostly privately
owned. Most had just one or two rooms let off to tenants. Some had cheap
little cottages built in the yards, and all had communal toilets and wash
houses. Rents were very low. Some were only 1/6d per week, while others
reached 2/6d. I then realised how lucky we were with our homes, but to be
a miner was sufficient to be held up to scorn, yet they were a kind race
of men and real socialists. I am glad they are coming into their own, for
they are the salt of the earth. I hope the spirit of the past never
forsakes them.
This is the time for the flower and vegetable shows and it reminds me of
my very young days, when shows were held in nearly all the public houses
or marquees built for the purpose. Some men, my uncle included, won prizes
years after year. It was my Aunt’s proud boast that she never had to buy
any linen or bed clothes. They were all won at the shows. It caused a lot
of jealousy, for the same people won year after year, but then they had
the expertise after years and years of hard work. Chrysanthemums and
dahlias were also shown then. The big flower show in Seaham Hall grounds
had already been held in the August. What a weekend that was. The grounds
were packed with amusements of all kinds, shuggie motors, swing boats,
horses, penny on the mat, you name it, it was there. There were tea
marquees, and coconut shies, roll your pennies, and shoot the clowns,
racing, skipping, dancing, and a glorious time was had by all. It was Lord
Londonderry’s ground and there was no vandalism, hence the same
festivities year after year.
Now times have changed. Nothing seems to be the same. Have you ever
noticed how few well-known characters visit in a village now? Ours was a
remote village with four rows of houses, a school, and nothing else. No
real shops, no post office, no pubs or clubs, but plenty of fields. Yet we
had characters who supplied us with our fun. A young man whose laughter
was like that record of the laughing policeman. When he laughed the whole
village laughed. There were men who got too drunk and threw their wives
out of their homes, then smashed everything they could lay their hands on.
Oh yes! These amused us. There was the old woman who was known as ‘List
tha knaas’ because she prefaced everything she said with this phrase.
There was a poacher, and two queers. There were holy Joes and ‘theats’
these were young folks who fancied the stage as a career and there were
chapel, protestant and catholic families all living in peace together.
Scots, Welsh, Irish and English were all represented and they were all
pitmen.
Looking back we had more pleasures than the young have today. Now I know
you won’t believe that, but our pleasures were not expensive and that is
the great difference. But our year was divided up so that there was always
something to look forward to and what is more, parents and whole families
took part. To begin with, Christmas was a long period of anticipation for
the children and hard work for the parents. All houses were cleaned and
new mats made in readiness. That was how we spent winter nights, going
from one neighbour to another to help with the mats. We were in warm
houses and when there are a few of you together there is always much fun.
We saved up all our guessing stories and tales to entertain each other.
Then came the New Year which was always a great time for celebration. Oh
the ginger wine we consumed was nobody’s business. Then came Pancake
Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. We had holidays always for this, and the
holiday in itself was a great thing. Then the pancakes – flour and water
and salt mixed together and fried in the frying pan. The secret was to put
a very thin layer in each pan, but my sister and I did not know this
secret when we surreptitiously made some pancakes one Saturday night. We
filled the pan at the first go and the thing never cooked. As it was
nearing time for Mother to return from shopping we had to dispose of the
lot by throwing a cupful into each midden up the street. If we had put it
all into our own mother would have seen it next day when emptying the
ashes.
Then came Easter which was a whole week from school. Easter Sunday saw the
distribution of dyed eggs amongst neighbours and the dancing and skipping
in ‘the Dene’ on Easter Monday. This was for all the family and while
mothers and children returned home tired and happy, fathers finished off
in the pubs. Incidentally, Easter Monday was the only day off that my
father had in the year. No wonder he died young, broken down and ill.
Next came Whit which was a shorter holiday but spent in the same way as
Easter Monday. Then came the long summer holidays for the children and in
August the Big Flower Show held in the Hall grounds. What a time we had.
When the Hall grounds were closed at the end of the week the shows moved
to the Bottle House Field, and so the jollification continued.
Next came the Volunteer Parade from the Drill Hall up to the field where
the Grammar School now stands. Of course there was no Princess Road or any
houses there then. After the Parade there was a big ball held in the Drill
Hall. Only the ‘elite’ attended, the ladies in velvet, silks and satins
and dripping with jewelry, and the men resplendent in their scarlet or
navy blue uniforms. We hung around the doors content to watch and hope
that some day we would take part. But alas –
I forgot to mention the cycle parade held on the Whit Monday.
After the Parade came Gunpowder Plot when all the rubbish was burned. The
big boys had saved up to buy Catherine Wheels, crackers, Jumping Jacks
etc. but we young ones were content with boxes of London Lights. No doubt
our parents would be glad when it was all over, especially after a little
child was burned to death in its push chair, which I witnessed and shall
never forget. And so we came to Christmas again. In all of this money was
never abundant, and our family like the majority, enjoyed it all at no
expense at all. The bottle house people seemed to be the ones with most
money although even they were very limited. Oh those happy peaceful days.
Money was scarce but our wants were few, and we always had plenty of food
although of little variety. But we were used to it. If we had no tea there
was plenty of water free, and if we had no meat we could make gravy with
gravy salt. We grew our own vegetables and we ate margarine. I have never
tasted some of the foods my grandchildren love and which are so expensive,
but here I am turned eighty and still going strong.
Some boys have just passed my window, eating ice cream. Do you know I was
in my teens before I tasted ice cream, and it was years after that when I
tasted coffee. But we survived on our plain wholesome food because our
mothers gave thought and preparation to all our meals. We were lucky for
we wanted nothing that was not essential.
And we were extra lucky being families of miners. Our homes were free, we
had a sufficient allowance of coal to keep us warm and although wages
dropped drastically in the winter when pits were forced to be idle, our
wise efficient parents provided for this eventuality. What people they
were! I feel very small and incompetent when I compare myself with my
mother yet she was no scholar at all but she had abundant wisdom. We also
had large gardens and a man could order a load of manure any time as long
as he awaited his turn and paid for the leading. These gardens were all
important for our vegetables. No neglected gardens then, because if a man
was ill his neighbours would help out if necessary. How’s that for
socialism? Nobody knows the true meaning of the word these days, and we
had never heard of it, but it was practiced.
Oh! For the sound of the rag man, the pot man, the pikelet man, the
cooper, the oil and vinegar man. “What do you feed your donkey on –
paraffin, vinegar?” The boys got a great kick out of this. Then we had the
prop wife, the yeast man in his little trap, the duck egg man from Kinley
Hill, the peg woman, a gypsy if ever you saw one, with her red
handkerchief round her head and her very large hoped ear rings; the
second-hand wife with her basket on her head, besides all the beggars and
tradesmen, not forgetting the hurdy gurdy man with his little scabby
bottomed monkey. The streets were always alive, but without cars and
lorries dashing around.
Then came the New Year. Christmas was for the children but New Year was
for adults. Mother had to plan well ahead because after midnight on New
Year’s Eve she refused to do anything until the parties were over. There
were about eight couples who used to celebrate together. Mother’s party
started things off and lasted all New Year’s Day, but some just provided
drinks and cake so they would visit a few houses in one day. I said mother
had to plan. Well she would bake bread, tea cakes, common spice, and she
would boil a pig’s head, press it and make a big dish of potted meat with
it. She would boil a shank and a piece of beef. This provided plenty for
sandwiches and my eldest sister was in charge. Then with the stock from
all this mother would make broth in the big furnace pot. Father had washed
and chopped all the vegetables in readiness, all grown in his own garden.
The broth was put into a big dish and put into the oven to heat as
required, so that no one would be scalded using pans on the fire. And so
mother was free to enjoy a few days on her own.
There is a terrible frost this morning. 1980 seems to be coming in with a
vengeance. I remember when I was a little girl and the place was hard with
frost we used to put old woolen socks over our boots to avoid slipping.
It’s amazing how effective this could be. Mind you, they were pure woolen
socks. The feet had been renewed countless times, then when the sock was
beyond renewal the feet were removed, the slit stitched and we had
overshoes or mittens whichever were needed. Oh there was no waste in those
days. The wages sound now so inadequate, but people managed and we still
had fun.
First footing! Now there was fun for you. I have been my own first foot
for years now. I could not wait for someone to come. But I can sit and
recall the first foot of yesteryears. It had to be a dark man, carrying a
piece of coal. He was given cake and wine and his hand was crossed with
silver. Some men went from one neighbour to another, and were provided
with money enough to see them comfortably over the holidays. It was the
same with the women who came round Christmas Eve with a little doll in a
shoe box and sang “God bless the master of this house”. They would make
quite a few coppers from this to help them over the holidays. Then we had
the guysers. These were masked men in fancy dress, who came in small
gangs, knocked on the door and said “Let the guysers in Mrs”. It was
considered unlucky to turn them away. They would dance and sing and crack
jokes perhaps for fifteen minutes, then they would get a few coppers and
be on their way. They would be content with just a penny, but often got
more.
Melodeons were the musical instruments in those days and we must not
forget the tin whistle and the mouth organ. Men would get together in twos
or threes, and play cards in the streets. Father would say they didn’t
play for their supper they played for a set in (that meant in the pubs).
Nowadays the enjoyment is confined to discos and dinners in pubs.
Personally I would go back to those days because there was more humanity
and peace than there is today, but I know you will not agree although I
have experienced both kinds of living.
The luxurious living of the young people now astounds me. I do not
begrudge them anything they have. All parents are pleased to see their
children prosper, but the change is so enormous one wonders if it can
continue. You will laugh when I tell you of one of our greatest luxuries
when I was very young. It was to sit on the toilet after mother had
emptied the hot ashes. It was delicious to sit and feel the warmth for
believe me the closets were the coldest, draughty places you could
imagine. What a luxury! Believe me we fought in queues to be the first to
go. Just to recall these things makes me very happy, and I often have a
jolly good laugh all by myself.
There was a special ritual getting ready for bed. Hair was combed and
plaited and shoes cleaned. All this was done in the back yard. Then we
undressed and folded our clothes and put them in our special place, had a
jolly good wash and were ready for our last slice of bread and a drink of
water. Our stockings had to be looped inside of our garters and hung on
the drawer knobs. It was a great mishap to lose a garter or a collar stud
in those far-off days.
These were the little things that worried us in those days.
