Once Upon a Time - Childhood memories of summer holidays
When I was 7, I used to go to a small mining village in Durham, called Ushaw Moor to stay with my Grandma for the summer holidays. Sometimes it was just my mother that took me because my dad was in the army as it was war time.
Grandma lived in a tiny cottage that was a bungalow really. You always went in at the back door from the yard and through the scullery. In there was a red stone sink with just a cold water tap and a small walk in pantry. In the pantry was a big stone slab on which she stood the jug of milk that had a net cover to keep the flies off. There was no fridge; she had a meat safe with perforated zinc sides. It was on a stand and this stood outside in the yard.
She had no hot water and no cooker; the kettle was always on the fire in the kitchen and all the cooking was done either on the fire or the oven beside it. The kitchen was the only living room that she had. This was quite a large room, and in the centre was a circular mahogany table with chairs placed round it. I didn’t like the chairs. The seats were black leatherette and the prickly filling poked through and scratched my legs. The table was covered with a green chenille cloth with a fringe or tassels.
There were two rocking chairs on either side of the fire, and a small one that I used. The floor was made of stone flags some of which was covered by hooky mats that my grandma and aunt had made during the winter months.
There was a single bed set into a recess in the wall; this was where my grandma slept when we were all staying there. I used to sleep in what she called “the press”. This looked like a big cupboard but when the doors were opened a bed dropped down with a feather mattress to snuggle into. There was also a piano in the room for all the family were musical. My grandma had a big family; 6 sons and 3 daughters and all had been taught to play the piano.
There was another bedroom with a double bed and a dressing table and a wash stand. On the wash stand was a big bowl and jug for water. This was where we had to get washed as there was no bathroom. My parents slept in this room when we were all staying there. There was a smell from the drawer where the clean linen was kept - a combination of moth balls and lavender. I think there was actually dried lavender sprinkled in the drawer.
There was no toilet such as we have today. At the bottom of my grandma’s garden there was a little wooden hut. This was the privy or the netty as they used to call it over there. There was an enclosed wooden bench with a circular hole on which you sat and did what you had to do. This fell on a bed of cinders which was replenished every day from the kitchen fire when the grate was cleaned out. Every so often a man from the village used to come round with a shovel and a barrow to clean it out.
I can’t really remember the fire in the kitchen ever going out. There was a water boiler on one side of the fire and an oven on the other. My grandma baked all her own bread and sometimes cakes. She would make about 5 loaves at a time and the bread was always kept in a big earthenware crock. It never seemed to go stale and I used to love having the first crust off a new baked loaf lathered in butter. That was a real holiday treat.
My particular job was to get the milk every morning when Billy came round with the horse drawn milk cart. There was no skimmed, semi skimmed, pasteurised, homogenised milk then; it was still warm and creamy, straight from the cow! The milk was stored in churns and Billy would dip his quart or pint measure into the churn and pour it into my jug.
Another job I had to do was help my grandma in the big garden at the back of the house, where she used to grow a lot of flowers and vegetables. I especially remember the clumps of lavender that she would cut to hang in bunches in the kitchen to dry, and borders of nasturtiums, crawling with caterpillars. I would help her to pick and shell peas and beans; dig up new potatoes or pull the rhubarb for the delicious tarts she used to make.
Best of all I used to like playing with my cousins. I was an only child till I was nine but my dad’s sister had five daughters and they lived in a house that had been a shop. There was a huge front room which was used as a playroom when it was wet. We used to play games such as ludo, snakes and ladders, snap with cards, or dominoes. We had great fun in dressing up in old cast off clothes and pretending to be rich, important people. We also had a dartboard and as none of us were very good, it was a bit dangerous.
When it was fine we would take a bottle of water or pop and a sandwich and go to play in the river. It was only deep enough to paddle in so we would build a dam with stones to try and make it deeper. We would play happily all day and only go back at tea time when we were tired, dirty and hungry.
When I got back to Grandma’s I had to have a bath. The mats were pulled back from in front of the fire, the zinc bath was brought in from the yard and placed on the flags and filled with water from the boiler. This was the same bath that my Granddad used to bathe in when he came home from the pit. Sadly, I never knew him; he died before I was born. I was always scared in case somebody walked in while I was having a bath because nobody ever knocked on my Grandma’s back door. I used to snuggle into a huge towel that was warm from hanging on the clothes rack just below the ceiling, and I used to love the feeling of being clean and warm again.
My Grandma was very religious; C of E, and every Sunday we had to go to Church and Sunday school. The best thing about coming home from church on a Sunday was the smell of Sunday dinner. I know it was wartime but somehow Grandma always seemed to have a joint of beef to roast. Golden brown crispy fat on top of the meat; roast potatoes round it that had soaked up the juice of the meat, rich gravy and huge Yorkshire puddings; my mouth waters to think about it even now.
We were not allowed to play out on a Sunday, my Grandma was very strict about that. We weren’t even allowed to read books unless it was the Bible. At night, all the members of my grandma’s family that were living nearby would come down for supper. It was usually left overs from dinner time with home made bread, jam and any cake that she had made on Saturday. There would sometimes be about 15 of us crowded round the piano where we had to sing hymns together. I can still remember the words to the hymns 65 years later!
Church had a good point though; there was the summer Garden Party that was held at the Vicarage. We played games and had races and I can remember that on one occasion I won the potato race, (picking up potatoes and putting them in a sack) and my prize was a stuffed black and white rabbit. As toys were quite scarce during war time, this became a very treasured object.
It’s a long time ago since I used to stay with my Grandma. I went back three years ago to have a look; the house is still there but it has been modernised.
Time has changed it but my memories are still there.
Sheila Richardson – 21/8/2007
------PS
I think the milkman was called Billy Lowery and the Vicar Mr Welby
Sheila
The idea that the only permissable book was a bible made me wince. That sort of attitude, in my opinion, is still causing immense problems today. (Comment this)