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The house in Lancelot Avenue where I was born and brought up was semi detached and had been built circa 1935. Lancelot, Galahad and Elaine Avenues had been built by 2 developers by the names of Bornstein and Curtis. The area had previously been a potato field. Mum and Dad moved in to it when it was new when Dad had become the manager of Paines in Strood. All of the houses were for rental only.
It had a very steep set of steps down to the front door. On the ground floor were 2 rooms, the dining room and a living room plus the kitchen. In the dining room all meals were taken, sitting up at a table. I had to say prayers before and after each meal. I also was made to sit and eat everything, and I have memories of Sundays sitting for ages alone at the table because I had not finished my rice pudding. It was always some type of rice pudding on a Sunday and was not my favourite. This has made my parents sound very harsh and unkind, but that was not the case at all. Having just come through the war and rationing, waste of any kind was frowned upon.
In the sitting room were the comfortable seats, and in one corner a fitted narrow cupboard where crockery was kept. Below the bottom shelf was my space where I would keep my toys and books.
Both rooms had coal fires, but only one would be used. (I wonder if this is correct now as cannot imagine eating in an unheated room.) Each morning the fire grate would have to be cleared of ash, and then freshly laid. Once a week mum would do the black leading. Once cleared, screwed up newspapers would be placed in the hearth, then thin strips of wood cut especially to fit (by dad). Then coal on top. A match would be struck and the paper ignited. If it didn’t light properly a large piece of newspaper would be held over the opening causing a vacuum and somehow this would cause the flames to flare and light the wood and coals. The trouble was that if you weren’t careful the paper you were holding would catch light too.
Fire guards were the norm in most houses, partly for safety with children but also the larger ones were used to put damp washing on to air. The coal used in those days often used to spit out and, whilst the guard would stop it landing and singing the carpet, it could land on the washing hanging on the airier. There was a fire in a neighbour’s house, but the cause is somewhat muddled in my mind. I have a notion of a spark setting alight some nappies hanging there, but also recall the chimney had caught fire. No causalities luckily but I remember the neighbours rallying out with clothing for the woman’s children. Because of coal fires, chimneys had to be regularly swept. Mum would clear the room before the sweep arrived, rolling back carpets etc. she would dress herself in old working clothes with a wrap round apron covering most of it and have her hair tied up in a duster. As children we used to love to go outside and watch for the broom to appear out of the chimney top, and give a loud yell to let the sweep know. Despite having put a protective sheet over the fireplace, there was always plenty of mess and dust left for mum to clean up once he had gone. Needless to say she did not look forward to his visits.
The kitchen was at the back of the house. It had both gas and electricity. To get hot water you would either have had to have a fierce fire burning to heat the water in the back boiler, or later switch on the immersion heater. Washing was done by hand or in coppers. Mum had a white thick copper stick (with splits). Her boiler was an iron gas one, and then she upgraded to a Baby Burco. When I was young my job was to do the mangling - hated it. Mum never did get a washing machine, even in her later years she still used to do all her washing by hand. When I was young sheets were white cotton. I remember the old Reckitts blue bag which was put in the rinse water to help keep the whites, white. I also remember she used to mix up starch for dads shirt collars etc. She had a long high washing line you used pulleys on - somehow seeing rows of sparkling white washing blowing in the wind to my mind was far more satisfying than these rotary things we have nowadays.
Mums kitchen was really tiny and it is hard to imagine how it all fitted in. A large deep butler sink with a wooden draining board took up most of one wall alone. In the hallway was a pantry. This was the storage area for everything, food, tins, pots and pans etc. It was also where the gas and electricity meters were housed. Next to it was another door which opened up into the coal store. A small opening on the side of the house allowed the coal delivery man to tip the sacks of coal straight into it. This was later cleaned out and used for storage, and a separate coal bunker built outside. I had the task of counting the sacks as they were delivered (to make sure we got the correct number.) I used to enjoy it when the meters were emptied. A man would call and tip out all of the money onto a table and then count it out into piles. He would then make some calculation and mum would be given some coins back.
Mum used to have several tins which she used for putting away each week sums of money ready for paying bills. This would include money for the meters; coal for the fires, groceries and of course the Prudential insurance monies. She would also budget for the window cleaner, the chimney sweep and Christmas. A bread van would visit daily as well as a milkman.
Upstairs were 2 bedrooms, plus another very small room known as the ‘box room’, and a bathroom with WC. Both of the bedrooms had fitted electric fires, and one had a fitted airing cupboard. The box room had half of its space taken up by a fitted box which was where the stairwell space was. I had been born in the back bedroom but I can only ever remember this as being my bedroom. This is all it ever was, a place to sleep at night. Friends were never taken up there. I did have some choice when it came to being redecorated, but was never allowed to put up posters or stick things to the wall. Choosing wallpaper used to be fun. Dad would bring home a couple of very large books with paper samples from us to choose from. There might also be another one with borders, so you could match them up.
The bathroom would have been a luxury for my parents. Neither of them grew up with an inside toilet or a bath with running water. Whilst it was outside, mums home toilet had at least been of brick construction and one that flushed. For dad it was a ‘privy’ up the top of the garden. A wooden hut with no light at all (unless you left the door open!) and a hole in a wooden board to sit on. I think the cess tank was at the very bottom of the garden, and I know my uncle used to grow some amazing crops! The bathroom at Lancelot housed an enamel white roll top bath and enamel toilet with an old cistern and pull chain. The toilet had a wooden seat, which dad would periodically varnish and mum would regularly clean and polish! The bathroom was freezing. Oh the joy of the ritual bath (via immersion heater). The freezing cold bathroom. and not wanting to come out. Mum waiting to wrap me in a large towel (warm from coming out of the airing cupboard) and run downstairs with me to dry me off by the blazing coal fire. The immersion heater was only switched on for the weekly baths. At other times water was boiled up in a kettle on the gas stove (something my mother always continued to do all her life.) My night clothes would be laid out in front of the roaring fire to warm. This was something done regularly on cold days with hat, gloves and shoes all laid in front of the fire to warm. Of an evening slippers would be placed there ready for whoever was due home.
For women back then work was far from easy. There were no soap powders and washing was done with either large blocks of soap rubbed vigorously against clothes held against a scrubbing board, or shavings off the soap bar boiled up in water. The soap would be purchased off the ‘oil man’ who used to call weekly. It would be cut off a really large block – it may have been Sunlight soap.
Fitted carpets had yet to be invented and lino would cover all the floors, with rugs or maybe a carpet in the centre of the room. So floors would not only need to be washed but waxed too.
The back garden was very large. At the top end was a grassed area where I could play and mum could sit. Behind it when I was young was the old corrugated air raid shelter where dad kept his gardening tools. Eventually this was dismantled and dad got himself a shed/come budgerigar aviary. He used to breed the birds and then sell them. Mum always had a pet one indoors and she taught each one of them to talk. I didn’t like them at all especially when mum used to let the bird out each evening for a short while ‘to stretch his wings’.
The rest of the garden was given over mainly to vegetables, and flowers that dad would enter into the local vegetable and Flower shows. There were two he regularly contributed to, the ‘Jubilee’ Gardeners Association and St Francis Gardeners Association. These were held in the church hall in Elaine Avenue. Dad was quite successful with his entries (but having been brought up on a farm he obviously knew exactly what he was doing).
The garden supplied most of our seasonal vegetables. Nothing tasted sweeter than picking a peapod straight from the branch and eating the peas there and then. I also used to love the freshly pulled carrots, they tasted so sweet. On Sundays in the summer dad would go down and dig the new potatoes ready for lunch and what ever vegetables there were. I would scrabble in the rich freshly dug earth and pick up all the potatoes and take into mum. My job was then to collect fresh mint from the garden. I would chop this up finely and put into a small dish and add vinegar and sugar and leave to marinade. The only fruit I can recall him growing were strawberries and gooseberries.
When I was old enough to have ‘my own garden’ I was given a small section which I made into a rockery and which I would tend carefully. I also loved to help dad when it was planting time. Dad would put 2 sticks in the ground, one each side and attach a piece of string between them. This gave him a straight line to work with and he would use the hoe to make a narrow channel for putting the seeds and sets in. I was allowed to put the seeds in and learned how far apart to place them. Then he would then go back along the furrow pushing the earth back to cover the seeds and making a little mound so he could see where he had planted. He grew a really wide range of vegetables and I can still recognise what the crops are in the ground simply by looking at their foliage.
Dad worked long hours with the traveling involved to and fro work and most of his spare time (and there was not much of it) would be working in the garden. He took great pride in it, and it always looked immaculate and well tended. Because the house was set down from the road and path it was quite easy for people to look into, so dad grew a long tall privet hedge all along the front. This would be regularly cut and trimmed with precision despite it being done with hand shears.
Mum too took pride in her work. I think people back then were much more proud of their surroundings. I was often told off for chalking numbers on the pavement outside to play hopscotch. Mum would sweep and then scrub the front doorstep and porch. Polish and wipe the front door and brasso the letter box. At the back she would also sweep and swirl down with water and lift the drain cover and scrub together with the manhole cover. The window ledges were red tiles and these would have red polish applied and then shone. This would be a weekly task.
Neighbours back then were so much friendlier, and I can still remember the names of many of them. Often mum would be stood at the top of the front steps chatting to someone (and it was not unusual for her to have just popped down to the Co-op in Galahad and be gone for over an hour, having met a neighbour and got talking). The lady who lived next door (in the adjoining semi) who I called Aunt Rose (but who was no relation at all) used to come round for morning coffee (Camp coffee) with mum and in the afternoons mum would go round to hers for afternoon tea. It was how it was then for children to call neighbours who your parents were friendly with, auntie or uncle as a sign of respect. Poor Aunt Rose was a widow, and would never watch any programmes to do with war or Remembrance. I later found out that her husband Alfred Abnett had gone down with his ship. He was a Petty Officer/Stoker in the Navy. He drowned on 27th April 1941 when his ship HMS Wryneck was sunk after rescuing troops. His name is on the Chatham Naval Memorial on the Lines at Gillingham. Aunt Rose lived next door always.
Of course back then women were at home all day, didn’t have cars, and would have to go shopping far more frequently. Therefore it is entirely logical that they saw each other far more often.
