Our Home

We lived in a semi-detached council house, with another family in the other section sharing a common wall. As a result, louder sounds could be heard through the wall, although conversation was fairly private. Nearby was "the Lane" that lead to a few farms and wooded areas, and the River Glaze. Also close by were the Manchester Ship Canal, and the railway that crossed the River Glaze via a three-arched bridge.

The general living area, laundry and bathroom were downstairs, while the bedrooms and toilet were upstairs. The toilet had a pull-chain faucet mounted behind and above the pan. The sound of the water rushing down when it was flushed was terrifying to us kids, and it was general practice to stand as close to the door as possible when pulling the chain, so as to make a speedy exit down the stairs.

The bathroom had a cast-iron bath on short legs, which was only used at weekends because it had to be filled with kettles of water heated on the stove. We took turns to bathe on bath night, the youngest first. We all had a bath on Saturday night, whether we needed it or not 😜, ready for church on Sunday.

In the living room was a large table that was used for meals and at night, for table games like draughts, dominoes and snakes-and-ladders.

In one corner was Mum's Singer "treadle" sewing machine which she used to mend the all-too-frequent tears to the (usually) boys' clothing, and to make new clothes from time to time. Her other occupations were knitting (with needles, of course: no knitting machine), hand sewing, and darning holes in socks. For these she had a few "tools" including a darning mushroom, sewing and darning needles, a thimble and scissors, and thread of several types and colours.

We had a mantel radio, or "wireless" which Dad used to hear the news from the BBC. I think the BBC was the only station it could receive clearly; if we tried to tune either left or right we got a loud whistle but no broadcast.. Close by was our record-player ("gramophone") on which we would play 12inch or 10inch, 78rpm vinyl records. It had a handle at the side to wind it up. The sound from both of these was less than perfect but seemed fine then.

There was a fireplace in which we burned coal, which was delivered in bags by the Coalman. It had a wire mesh fireguard around it, to catch flying sparks. Occasionally we found lumps of coal beside the railway line that had fallen off passing steam trains. Coal was stored outside in a coal "bunker", a large galvanised steel box with a hinged lid. Coal was also used in the kitchen stove.

Food was kept fresh in the "icebox", a steel unit similar to a small refrigerator. It had a compartment at the top to hold a large block of ice that was the cooling medium. This was delivered in a truck by the Iceman, about once a week, I think. The melted ice was caught in a pan underneath the icebox and this needed to be emptied regularly to prevent flooding. We kids used to look forward to the iceman's visits as he sometimes gave us a lump of "dry ice" (frozen carbon dioxide, used for keeping his ice super-cold), and we would place it in water to watch it zip around on the surface.

On Mondays, Mum would wash the soiled clothes and other articles in the copper tub. This was mounted on an iron frame above a small fireplace where coal was burned to heat the water. After adding soap powder - there was no liquid detergent back then - she would poke the contents for a time with a wooden "dolly" - a short, wooden stick - to ensure they were properly cleaned. When done, they were separately run through the "mangle" to remove excess water, then placed in a cane washing basket and taken to be hung on the clothes line.

The mangle had an iron frame that supported two rubber-coated rollers, linked by gears. The gears were rotated by a handle, and the clothes passed between the rollers and dropped into the washing basket. The clothes line was a wire that ran across the yard, supported on two wooden poles. The clothes were fastened to the clothes line with wooden pegs. The "prop", a long, forked stick, was placed half-way along the line to lift it higher so that the clothes didn't drag on the ground.

Dad worked at the local Steel Works by day, and had many other duties at home as well. He would sometimes take the 4 boys down to the railway track to search for pieces of coal dropped from passing trains. This gave us the chance to spot "namers" - named trains - on their way through. I never had a list, but I believe both of my elder brothers did.

He had a cobbler's "last", a heavy steel, multi-pronged tool that held shoes in various positions so that he could fit new leather on the soles or heels as they wore out. He also fitted small steel plates under the toe and heel that helped reduce wear.
His cobbling tool-kit consisted of the last, a small hammer, nail-tweezers, glue and tacks, as well as several pieces of leather of various thicknesses, and stains and polishes for the finished product.