Due to rationing during the war, and for some years after, it was not possible to go into any shop you liked.

You were given a ration book with coupons and had to register with a local shop for your meat ration, your bacon and lard ration, your sweet ration and your grocery rations, and these shop names were stamped in the back of the ration book.

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Each week mam would go to the designated shop and hand over her precious coupons for the small amounts of food.

Rationing of food and clothing was extensive. Issued in October 1939, the Ration Book became familiar to every citizen during the war. The start of rationing was postponed; owing it was said to a Stop Rationing! Campaign by the Daily Express, from November 1939 until Monday, 8th. January 1940.

Rationing began on 8 January 1940. Each person was allowed a specific mount of basic foods.
Typical examples of the amounts allowed to each person were:

Meat            between 1s. (5p) and 2s. (10p) a head a week
Bacon           4 oz. (113 gm) to 8 oz. (227 gm) a week
Tea              2 oz. (57 gm) to 4 oz. (113 gm) a week
Cheese         1 oz. (28 gm) to 8 oz. (227 gm) a week

Sugar           8 oz. (227 gm) a week.

In July 1940 a complete ban was put on the making or selling of iced cakes, and in September the manufacture of 'candied peel' or 'crystallised cherries' meant the death knell for the traditional wedding cake.

On 1st December 1941 the Ministry of Food introduced the points rationing scheme for items such as canned meat, fish and vegetables at first. Later items such as rice, canned fruit, condensed milk, breakfast cereals, biscuits and cornflakes were added.

Everyone was given 16 points a month, later raised to twenty, to spend as wished at any shop that had the items wanted.

There was an advertising song in a commercial film in 1943 which went:

Somebody’s going to be sorry, Somebody’s going to pay,
Somebody’s going to be sorry, They wasted my life away.

With it was a picture of a tablet of soap, dissolving away down the sink because it had been left in water.

A 12-oz. (340 gm) packet of soap powder was half a month’s ration; you could get one egg every two months and powdered egg could be bought on points. Fruit like bananas vanished altogether.

Clothes rationing on points began in June 1941 and a new kind of clothing— utility clothing—was introduced, using cheap materials and the minimum amount of cloth. The all carried the Utility Mark.

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There were even points for furniture, although you were given these only if you were newly married, or had been bombed out, or were having a baby.

Petrol was rationed so people stopped buying cars.

The things still rationed in 1948, three years after the war, were:

Bread, soap, bananas, and potatoes were also rationed during this period. In 1951 people could still buy only 10d. (4p) worth of meat each week.

Two new commodities were rationed after the war. Bread was rationed from 1946 to 1948 and potatoes for a year from 1947. The points system ended in 1950.

Rationing continued in this country for 14 years until 1954, when meat was finally de-rationed.

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To help with our food ration we kept rabbits and chickens in pens and cages in the garden as did many of our neighbours.

Each Easter dad used to buy day-old chicks from the cattle market in Nottingham, he would then take a drawer from the chest in my bedroom, place wire netting on the top and a 40-watt bulb put inside for warmth.

Each night I would go to sleep listening to the chickens cheeping to the light of the bulb.

When they had their feathers they were put out in the pen where they were fed with boiled potato peelings and bran, and other kitchen scraps.

The pullets gave us a supply of eggs, and the cockerels were fattened up for Christmas. 

Those in the yard who did not have fowls saved their scraps for us, and dad gave them a bird at Christmas.

Surplus eggs were stored in a large earthenware jar called a panshon which was filled with isinglass, this was to preserve them, and made sure we had supplies when the hens stopped laying.

 

Two items of food always take me back to those times.

I grew up seeing adverts on greengrocer’s windows showing a bunch of Fyffes bananas, and they seemed very exotic and wonderful to me, conjuring up pictures of tropical islands like the ones I had seen at the pictures. Then after the war was over I had my chance to try this longed-for fruit, and I was so disappointed, I didn’t like them at all. (Looking back I don’t think they were very ripe!).

The other story concerned a phrase often repeated by Mam during the war. When Dad asked what she would like for her tea she would answer “a cooked ham sandwich with best butter”

Once again this sounded wonderful and I wondered just what this must taste like to send Mam into feelings of nostalgia. Then one Friday evening after the war, Dad came home from work and proudly handed Mam a paper bag which contained the longed for cooked ham.

So we all gathered round the table as the sandwich was made, cut into squares, and I was handed one. Once again it was a huge disappointment to me; I found it salty and not at all pleasant.

 

Just before I was 3, Mam gave birth to a daughter, Joan on April 14th 1941 in the nursing home at 6 Broadgate, Beeston.

Sadly Joan died three months later on the 25th July in the Nottingham Children’s Hospital from Bronco-Pneumonia and Whooping Cough. 

The midwife who came daily when Joan was ill kept on telling me that I had made her ill by leaning over her cot and giving her a cold.  For years after I believed I had been the cause of the death of my sister, something that is still vivid in my memory.

She was buried in the Beeston Cemetery, on Wollaton Road on July 28th 1941.

(On July 6th 2005 we laid Mam’s ashes in the grave with Joan, and a headstone was finally erected.)

It is strange that throughout their lives, Mam and Dad always said that Joan died from Meningitis, which was wrong, and apart from a vague memory I have of being taken to the grave when I was very young, neither of them visited or kept up the grave.

I suppose it was a part of their lives they wanted to forget, and there was a war on too, so perhaps they decided to put it behind them and get on with their lives.

However, there was one story concerning the death of Joan that Dad once told me.

When she died there was no insurance available, and it was wartime. Dad had no money for the funeral. He was at his wits end, when on the Friday evening, into the house walked his brother Stan.

He had ridden his bike over from Netherfield to Beeston, and he handed over his wage packet for that week unopened and said, “Here! You will need this” and without another word, rode home.

It was an act of pure generosity, and Dad never forgot it until the day he died. 

 

Almost sixty years after that incident, in January 1999 at Wilford Hill Crematorium, I was thinking about it as I said goodbye to Uncle Stan, what other act could have that effect on those we love? When I was very young Uncle Stan was my hero.

He was out in Burma in the RAF and I sometimes had a letter or card from him.

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                                                 A hand made Christmas card sent to me from Uncle Stan in Burma,

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I began my schooling at the Nether Street Infants School, Beeston in 1943 when I was five. 

The only other person I remember at the school was a girl called Pat Onion.

I met Pat again many years later when I used to visit her in the order office in Boots D10 factory.

In 1956 Pat was knocked from her bicycle and killed by a dustbin lorry outside Boots gates on her way back to work after her lunch break.

The other memory I have from that school is the iron railings that surrounded the school and the gate that was securely locked when the children were all in.

Sometimes at playtime we saw our mams watching us through the railings as we ran around in the playground.

Looking back, it was a bit like being in prison.

Mam was confined in the nursing home on Broadgate, in 1943 for the birth of Terry.

He was born on September 17th but she always complained that the care she received was very minimal. Terry was baptised at the Beeston Parish Church the following March

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When the war ended almost every street in the country held a party to celebrate VE day and Evelyn Street was no different.  There was a huge bonfire in the middle of the street which cracked several windows, and four or five men from the street carried a piano from the White Lion on Station Road all the way to Evelyn Street and set it up under the street lamp outside our house so that Dad could play and everyone else could sing and dance.

All of the shops that stood on the High Road of Beeston have now gone, they have been replaced by more modern businesses, but the one shop that survived until the 21st century was Applebee’s.

This was a magic shop for all the children in Beeston, Mr. Applebee always wore a brown overall and he sold small toys, aircraft construction kits, paints, snobs and millions of small things, such as ¼ inch elastic which we bought to make catapults with. (We called them “gallys”).

When it finally closed in 2004 it still had all the old fixtures and fitting from that bygone age, and the local newspaper felt moved to publish a photograph of the shop as I remember it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In those days almost everything was delivered to the door.

Every day we would have a delivery of milk and bread from the Co-op, as well as the newspaper and two postal deliveries.

Then there was the Rediffusion man, the insurance man and other assorted callers so that it seemed that there was never a day when people did not call to deliver goods or to collect money.

On Mondays the lady from the Long Eaton Co-op called to collect our grocery order and tell Mam what was on special offer, then a box of groceries was left on the back door step on a Wednesday, and I was given the job of walking up to Chilwell High Road every Friday after school to pay the bill.

We ordered everything we could from the co-op because they paid out a dividend or ‘divi’ at the end of the year, which helped with the housekeeping.

Every month the coal man would deliver hundredweight sacks of coal from the back of a horse drawn cart.

The gas meter under the stairs took penny coins and so every six weeks or so the gas man came to empty the meter and count out the pennies on the kitchen table, then roll them up in green cartridge paper tubes and put then into his leather shoulder bag.

There was always a certain amount given back to the householder, known as the ‘gas divi’, which was always eagerly awaited, so there was often much excitement in the street, when the news spread that the gas man was on his rounds.

Strangely enough, whilst other kids wanted to be train drivers when they grew up, I wanted to be a gasman, and learn the skill of rolling pennies into the tubes, but gratefully the desire faded as I grew older, and I too joined the ranks of would be train drivers.

 

My childhood at 6 Evelyn Street, Beeston was by and large a very happy one.

I suppose it was very primitive by today’s standards, as the house was a 3up, 3down coldwater terrace house

The toilet was at the bottom of the yard, and toilet paper was cut-up squares of the Nottingham Evening Post.

Every winter it was frozen solid, a small paraffin heater was placed behind the bowl, but it was never very successful, and so we had to carry a kettle of hot water down to thaw it out before it would flush.

One winters evening, Terry went off to the toilet only to return a few minutes later in tears with his face covered in blood. When he calmed down he explained that as he walked down the yard he had been looking up at the stars with his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets, when he tripped and fell flat on his face onto the concrete.

At night it was very daunting to get out of bed, walk across the lino floor in bare feet, and go down through the dark house, then out of the back door and down the yard, so for this reason all the beds had a chamber pot or “po” underneath them.

On the chicken shed roof a galvanised tin bath was kept upside down and brought into the kitchen every Friday evening for bath night.

In the kitchen was a ‘copper’, a built-in boiler with a small fireplace underneath, which was lit to provide hot water and bathing was on a strict rotation, Mam first, and then Dad followed by the kids in pairs one at each end. In between each occupation a ladle was used to skim off the scum and replace it with more hot water.

The only heating in the house was an open fire in the “middle room” where we did everything; eating, sitting in the evening, Dad even shaved at the mirror over the fireplace.

The bedrooms did have small open fireplaces, but the only time that they had a fire in them was if one of us was ill, then dad would carry up a shovel full of burning coals from the downstairs fire and heat the room in this way. 

The original fireplace cast iron, which took up most of the wall and included two adjoining ovens.

I never remember anything being cooked in the ovens, but they were used for keeping house bricks in them, which were taken out, wrapped in old bits of blanket and used to warm the beds in winter.

Keeping the range clean was a very dirty job, as it had to be black-leaded every week usually on a Friday.

Every morning in the winter dad used to light the fire before going to work, so the house was still pretty cold when we got up.

Things improved when dad took out the old range, and a modern tiled fireplace was fitted, with an all night burner in it, Luxury!

There was no hot water in the house, so whenever anyone wanted a wash, or dad wanted a shave the cry went up “put the pan on” and a saucepan was put on the gas stove.

Later we had an ‘Ascot’ instant gas water heater over the kitchen sink.

Monday was washday which began with dad lighting the kitchen copper in the morning before going off to work, and it took all day.

There was a large wooden mangle in the yard, which I used to turn for Mam when I came home from school at lunchtime. Later in the day, when the washing was done, the warm water in the copper was used to wash all the floors.

Monday evening was spent dodging the lines of washing hanging to dry in the “middle room” before the ironing was done on a Tuesday.

We had no telephone, no television, no fridge or freezer, no carpets on the floor, only lino, no record player and our radio was a Rediffusion box on the wall which only provided us with the Home Service and the Light Programme, for which we paid rent every week.

This radio was our only entertainment and I have happy memories of listening to Children’s Hour with Uncle Mac, and Dick Barton - Special Agent. Later in the evening there would be ITMA, Ray’s a Laugh and the Goons.

On Saturdays there would be a football commentary, and to help the listeners have a better picture, the Radio Times printed a pitch map divided into numbered squares so for example the commentator would say that “Tommy Lawton was running into square 3 with the ball at his feet.” The first square contained the centre spot so the well-known phrase began - “Back to square one”.

All this was followed by a roundup of the day’s action in ‘Sports Report.’

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Mam never went to work while we were children, so the only breadwinner was dad, as was the case in every other house in the street.

We had no car, and our only method of transport was by bike, or the bus.

In fact Dad did not own a car until some years after both Terry and I had one, and we took him for lessons, which was very hair-raising.

Dad was never a very good driver; in fact we were surprised that he ever passed his test.

All this may seem we were deprived, but as every other kid in the street lived in similar circumstances, we never thought about it.

The house was a very noisy one, situated as it was next to a lace factory, and so throughout the day there was a steady rumble of machinery coming through the wall.

Visitors always remarked on the noise, but we never seemed to notice it.

Growing up in Evelyn Street all the neighbours were known to me as “Mr. or Mrs.”

I never knew their Christian names until recently when I discovered the 1939 registration records and so was able to fill in the details as follows:

​No.8:  Doug and Ada Schofield.

Mam and Dad always referred to her as ‘Florrie’

They had no children and Doug worked at the Beeston Boiler Co. with Dad. I used to accompany Mrs. Schofield to the Queens Road Methodist Church on Sunday evenings - even though I had been twice to Sunday school earlier in the day, I was the only child in the service. Mr. Schofield never came to church; he used to amuse me with a little ditty, which he sang to me Sunday evening when I went to the house before church. It went: “Amen, Straw Women, Judy Babies always swimming”. It is still a mystery to me what that was all about!

Mrs. Schofield was to say the least careful about money.  

She never spent a penny she didn’t need to.

They never went on holiday, ate very frugally, and bought everything they needed from the co-op to get the “divi”, which she never drew. Stories about her thriftiness abounded, but one I remember well. The co-op sold vinegar at 2 pence a bottle, but if you took in your own bottle they would fill it from a large barrel at the back of the store for a penny.

One day Mrs. Schofield walked all the way from Evelyn Street to the co-op to buy some vinegar, only to find when she arrived she had left her empty bottle at home. Without hesitation, she walked back home to collect it! I also remember her taking me along Cut Through Lane, which now runs through the Nottingham University Campus in my pushchair. This was to allow her to go ‘sprogging’ i.e. collecting sticks and branches for firewood.

At the time a bundle of firewood cost a halfpenny at Dickens’s, the corner shop. At one time a young lady called Dorothy came to stay with them, and, according to Mam’s account she was very beautiful and was the cause of much unrest between couples in the street.

I used to spend some time with her, and we used to send for various seed catalogues, from newspaper advertisements, I don’t know why, as we never bought or planted any seeds at all. And on some Sunday evenings we used to walk over to Lenton to visit a couple that were either her friends or relatives. On one occasion Dad and I caught a bus to Birmingham and went to visit her there.

No.10: William and Elizabeth Bottomore

There were two daughters; Jesse who lived at home, and during the war went out with a G.I. and her sister whose name I forget who lived in Stoney Street. They had a daughter called Lesley Durham, who often came and stayed with them.

No.12: John Henry (always known as Jack) and Harriett Hall.  

They had two sons one called George, I don’t remember his brother’s name and they kept bantams.

Jack worked in the sand quarry, which was situated at the top of Derby Street, Beeston, where Sainsbury’s car park is now situated.

The Beeston Boiler Company owned the quarry, and they used the sand for making casting moulds.

No.14:  Frederick and Emily Manley  

I don’t remember much about this family at all. Mr Manly rode a ‘sit up and beg’ bicycle to work everyday which caused much amusement among my friends and I, so ironically we called him Reg Harris after the world famous racing cyclist.

(How small things stick in your mind)

No.16:  George A. (known as Jack) and Edna Wardle nee Raven.

At first they lived with Edna’s widowed father Noel at no.22 until they moved to 16 on the death of Harriet Walsh.

Edna once called Dad into the house to see Jack in an emergency, it turned out he had a burst appendix, which caused peritonitis, and had to be rushed into hospital in an ambulance. Dad said he nearly died. They had a daughter called Margaret who was a few years younger than me.

No. 18:  Charles and Ethel Stafford.

They had two sons Ray and Charlie who played football for Beeston Town and I remember going to see them play in a cup final on the Barton’s Garage pitch on the Bye Pass. They were very prominent Methodists and worshipped at the Queens Road Methodist Church where I went to Sunday school. On one occasion I called at their door with Mam collecting for a wreath for George, a young man of limited intelligence who lived on Humber Road and had committed suicide. Mrs. Stafford refused to give us anything saying that suicide was a sin, and quoted to me. “What the Lord giveth, is up to the Lord to taketh away”

No.20:  John Henry (known as Jack) and Clara Glen.

They also had two sons, Bob and Ray.

Ray, the younger son lived at the house with his wife, who’s name was Margaret.

Mr. Glen stoked and maintained the boilers for Black’s Lace Factory, which stood where the Evelyn Street Industrial Site now stands. Mrs Glen helped at the birth of the twins and ran the ‘Morley’s’ club.

Each week she collected a shilling from each of the neighbours and they drew a number from 1 to 20. The idea was you received a voucher to spend a pound at Morley’s, a drapery shop in Hockley, Nottingham, on the week specified by the number. Everyone wanted an early number so they could buy the goods before they had paid for them, because everyone was in need of something for the home.

Later in life Bob was a security guard, and I believe lost a leg through gangrene.

No. 22: Noel Raven – father of Edna

No.17: Fred and Elsie Dobbs.

Directly across the street from us lived the Dobbs family. They were the last household in the street to have electricity installed. I remember calling for Brian and seeing Mr. Dobbs reading his evening paper by gaslight, and very often Brian was sent to the corner shop to buy gas mantles. The children were Avis, Jim, Alan, Brian, and Sheila. All of them were in our gang. Once, when climbing trees in Highfields, Jim fell from the tree and impaled himself in a railing. The spike went right through his thigh and we had to lift him off, and carry him home, bleeding profusely. He ended up in hospital for several days.

Alan contracted TB and had to go to Harlow Wood for about six months. He said he had been made to sleep outside on a veranda so that he had fresh air to breathe.

In later life Brian had a drink problem, and could often be seen staggering about Beeston after closing time.

No.19: The Taylors.

Their claim to fame was that they owned the only car in the street, which spent more time being cleaned rather than being driven. I believe it was because of petrol rationing. Most of winter he took off the wheels and it stood on four piles of bricks.

They had two children Ian (more of whom later) and Janet.

Janet later became Jan Thornley, and much later the Mayor of Broxtowe.

No.1a:  Harry and Ivy Hunt

Harry Hunt was a blacksmith by trade and worked at the stables at Wollaton Hall where he shoed the police horses.

They had a large family. Ray was a school pal of mine and another gang member.

Ray had a brother, Richard, who played the piano accordion, and I remembered Sunday mornings listening to him play as I passed the house. Later he committed suicide by throwing himself into Beeston Canal. Ray’s elder sister, Doris was also in our gang, and could climb trees and fight better than most boys of her age.

The other sister, Margaret was much more a girl and didn’t have much to do with the gang. There was also another brother Jeffery

No.3:  Harold and Phyllis Garner

An awful family who caused great problems in the street.

They were swarthy skinned, and Mam was convinced they were gypsies.

They had many daughters some of whom were Rosie, Patsy and Chickie. But we were never allowed to mix with them.

 

At the end of the street lived The Booker’s who had quite a bit of land, which they used as a smallholding.

They kept chickens, ducks, and pigs and had a small orchard.

We used to buy eggs and apples from them, and in the autumn our gang used to “scrump” apples from their trees.

In late autumn Dad always bought a few pounds of Russet apples from them, his favourite, which he stored in the bedroom drawers until Christmas.

They had two sons Ken and Ron, who were quite a bit older than me.

 

Local shops were;

The paper shop and general store on the corner of Evelyn Street which was run by Samuel and Sarah Dickens – I was a paper boy for them. Later the shop was run by the Carter’s.

The sweet shop a little higher up was where we used to queue each month on Sunday mornings for sweets on the first day of the new ration book coupons.

Mavis and Dennis Gray bought it in the sixties and my first wife Margaret worked for them for some years.

On the corner of Salisbury Street was a cobbler’s shop, which I believe was owned by Edgar Chapman.

The most famous building near to us was the Humber Works at the bottom of Humber Road.

I can only remember it as a burned out shell, which I assumed was bombed during the war, but I later learned that the fire was caused when a sweet manufacturer was using the building and a sugar store caught fire. I have no historical proof of this, only word of mouth, but it makes an interesting story.

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The former offices, showrooms and works of the Humber Car and Cycle Company.

The trademark (a stone replica) is shown above each window.

 

A brief history of the Humber Factory makes interesting reading:

 

Humber and Company Limited was founded by Thomas Humber (1841-1910) at Beeston, Nottinghamshire, in 1869.

Thomas Humber had earlier opened his pedal-cycle works in Sheffield, then expanded to Stretton Street, Nottingham, in 1868, to produce a diamond frame cycle that was described at the time as a curious looking contraption.

In spite of this, Humber quickly earned a name for producing a quality article and soon outgrew the capacity of his shop, and thus moved to Beeston, and turned his business into a limited liability company with Thomas Humber as general manager. (He further developed his business by building a works in Wolverhampton and, in 1889, Coventry.)

Humber Motorcycles were constructed in 1895, and the first Humber car the 3½ H.P. Phaeton built in this factory in 1899.

Although Beeston originally dabbled with the abortive Pennington car project, the first engine-driven, Humber-badged, machines from Beeston were motor tricycles and quadricycles, followed by tricars.

The first cars had two- or four-cylinder engines, but they were succeeded by the tiny single-cylinder-engined Humberette (literally, 'small Humber') in 1903.

By 1908 the company ceased production of cars in Beeston due to trading losses (probably because the Beeston cars were manufactured to a higher standard than its Coventry counterparts and were more costly). In 1932 Raleigh bought out the Humber Cycles Division.

The Beeston factory was located on the huge block of land between Humber Road, Queens Road and Hassocks Lane.

The premises have since been used for the manufacture of Jaacquard cards, by Frames of Beeston, and various other companies.

 

In 1946 I moved from Nether Street Infants to Church Street Junior Boys School.

In March 1947 Mr Cozzons called the school together and told us that the floodwaters were rising in Beeston, and we were to go straight home, and to avoid Station Road where the flooding was at its worse.

We all left the school immediately, and went straight to Station Road!

Evelyn Street became flooded later in the day and we had to live upstairs for some weeks.

It must have been very distressing for Mam and Dad, but for me it was quite exciting – and I had to stay off school!

 

I remember boats coming down the street with “flood parcels” which were donated from Canada and distributed from the Drill Hall on Broadgate.  They were handed out through the bedroom windows. In them were things I had never seen before.  They contained food that had not been available to us because of the war.

Also the drill hall distributed rubber soled shoes to any man who applied for them, and many men in Beeston wore them for years afterwards and they were always known affectionately as “flood boots”.

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The Humber works can be seen in the background.

Dickens’s shop on the corner of Evelyn Street is on the left of the photograph.

 

On the 4th of July 1947 Mam gave birth to the twins Susan and Peter at home.

It all happened early in the morning, and a neighbour, Mrs. Glen assisted in the birth.

I lay in my bedroom listening to it all happening, and Dad said I could have the day off school, so I was grateful to Susan and Peter right away. Susan was born first by a few minutes.

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I remember much of my Junior School, Church Street, Beeston. 

Mr. Arthur Cossons was our headmaster; know by all the boys as ‘Pop’ Cossons.

And he made history lessons interesting by telling us much about the early history of Beeston.

I have since learned he was born in Taunton on the first of January 1893 and died in Nottingham on February the twelfth 1963.

He wrote many books and papers on the history of Beeston and the surrounding areas.

He is recognised by the Local Historical Society with a blue plaque on the wall of the block of flats that now stand on the site of the Church Street School.

His son is Sir Neil Cossons, who was the Director of the National Museum of Science & Industry, London, from 1986 until 2000.

 

Mr. Morris took us for PT and games, which was odd as he only had one leg, which restricted his movements.

I have memories of cricket being played on a rush matting strip laid on the tarmac play ground near the bike sheds, seen behind the class in the photograph below.

The ball used was made of cork and had a rough surface, which hissed through the air, and hurt when it hit you, as we were not equipped with any pads or protection at all. 

It put me off playing cricket for years.

The other thing to notice on the photograph is that we all wore shorts, winter and summer. Which was fine in summer, but in winter the problem was wellingtons. We wore wellingtons through much of the winter which caused chapped legs where the tops rubbed on bare legs especially when it was wet. It must have looked amusing to see us all playing football on the park wearing shorts and wellingtons. The other damage to legs in the winter was chilblains, caused by sitting too close to the open fire. I remember a pink cream being rubbed on my legs to ease the soreness. Happy days!

I was 14 before I had my first pair of ‘longs’ as we called them

The school was eventually demolished in 2006 and replaced with flats, but the adjoining girl’s school was preserved and also converted into flats.

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My class at Church Street – I am fourth from the right, second row from the front.

‘Pop’ Cossons is on the left in the bow tie with Mr. Morris on the right.

Behind is the bike shed where we were taught to play cricket.

 

In 1949 I was sent to Venn Hall, which was an old church building on Dovecote Lane, used as an overspill class.

The one strong memory I have from my time at Venn Hall was gathering around Mr. Morley’s desk and being shown a revolutionary new pen that did not need filling, didn’t have a nib and would even write upside down, he told us it was called a ‘biro’ and it was very expensive.

Also in 1949, the Queen, or Princess Elizabeth as she was then and her new husband the Duke of Edinburgh visited Nottingham to officially open the new Nottingham Council House. It had been planned to open it earlier but the war had intervened. As none of us kids had ever seen real life royals, and as we had been given a day off school and a small union jack to wave we decided to go along to see her and her husband.

As the route was to take her along University Boulevard that’s where Brian Dobbs and I decided to go but when we arrived there were thousands of people lining the route and we couldn’t see a thing, and so like Zacchaeus in the story from Luke, we climbed a tree to get a better view. Unfortunately this is where my story differs from that of Zacchaeus. She passed by waving to the crowd, we leaned over to get a better view and there was a tremendous crack. The bough we were on broke, we fell to the ground; I landed on top of Brian, and broke his leg.

 

Most of my summer holidays were spent in Netherfield.

Netherfield was affectionately known locally as the “The Railway Village” and the men either worked at Colwick on the railways, or at Gedling pit. I usually stayed at 48 Arthur Street with Grandma and Granddad. At the bottom of the street was a large wooden fence, and a cinder path that led up to Colwick Railway Station. Every night I would lay in bed and listen to the railway carriages being shunted in Colwick sidings, it was strangely comforting.

The house had at attic up on the 2nd floor, and to me it was a place of wonder and delight, as in most attics it was filled with unwanted items, but dad told me it had been his bedroom when he lived at home.

I spent many happy hours sifting through the mysterious objects up there, including old newspapers and magazines, and one object in particular was a sort of carriage lamp with a heavy grill on the front and a curious smell.

Granddad explained that it was a carbide lamp used in the mines and on the front of cars during the war when a blackout was announced. The grill deflected what light there was from lamp downwards to avoid enemy aircraft from spotting it. When I persuaded him to light it, the light it produced was so poor that I am sure the driver would hardly be able to see anything; and I can still recall the pungent smell it gave off.

The attic reminds me of another of Grandad’s leg pulls.

One day when I went to see him he said he was tired out, when I asked why, he told me he had had to carry the mangle up two flights of stairs to the attic to paint it, when I ask again why, he replied, “Because the tin of paint was up there”

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I also spent a lot of time at 20 Hodgkinson Street, the home of Auntie Gert, Uncle Len’s and my cousin Pamela.

Again, the railway line ran along the bottom of their street, so we were never far away from the rails.

I loved being in Netherfield. I spent my time at Colwick Sidings train spotting, and fishing in the Trent with Granddad.

Even when I was not on school holidays I often cycled over to Netherfield to go fishing with Granddad, usually calling in to Tommy Watson’s tackle shop on Canal Street Nottingham to buy maggots and anything else I needed.

Granddad was a very good fisherman and fished for the Netherfield Railway Angling Club for many years yet never won a trophy until he was over seventy when he won the “novices cup” which amused him greatly and stood on his mantelpiece proudly for 12 months.

He turned the front room into a workshop where he repaired almost anything, sharpened all the neighbours’ knives, scissors etc. and built fishing rods. In the centre of the room was a large table full of tools and rod making equipment, and leaning against it usually a motorbike, very often with bits being repaired.

One of the club members Ronnie Lye once won the All England Angling Championship and he became very famous. His picture appeared on the front of the Angling Times and he was shown holding a rod, which he claimed he had used to win the Championship. The truth was, he used a rod made by Granddad, but he was prepared to lie to obtain the sponsorship money. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him again.   

 

After the war Colwick sidings were filled with tanks, army lorries, and other ex-war vehicles. All this was wonderful to me as I spent many hours climbing in and out of the tanks and other vehicles and collecting anything, which was not fastened down. I used to take all my treasures back to Granddad who always accepted them gratefully.

Years later I asked him why he never refused anything I brought to him. He answered that he simply threw away the rubbish, but always encouraged me to bring him things as one day I might have brought something useful!

 

Most evenings I used to sit by the fire with Grandad and he told me many stories of his younger days before I went to bed and he went off to carry out his night-watchman duties via a stop off at Jackie Bells.

He told me that during the 1920’s work was hard to find and he had to queue at the pit before every shift in the hope of being selected by the shift foreman to work that particular shift, those that were not selected simply went home, and then the process began again at the beginning of the next shift. Very often men would gather three times a day and not manage a shift, so, no work – no money. Fishing the Trent was more than a hobby or a sport in those days;

Any fish caught were brought home and cooked. Grandma became very proficient in cooking roach, tench, bream and even gudgeon, she told me she used to soak them in salt to give them taste, and the salt came from the piles of rock salt left by the side of the road by workmen for melting ice in the winter.    

Once someone told Granddad that herons had special oil in their body, which attracted fish to them so to increase his chances of catching fish, he devised a plan.

He shot a heron with an air gun and put it in a large pot on the cooker and slowly simmered it hoping that the oil would float to the top and he could skim it off and mix it in his bait. Knowing this would be a long job; he left it simmering and went off to the pub. A few hours later he returned to find all the neighbours on their front door steps with handkerchiefs at their noses asking where the horrible smell was coming from.

Granddad went home and hid the evidence in the dustbin, and so never got the chance to try out his theory.

Granddad was a great story-teller and he told me many tales which I had no reason to doubt, for example:

 The shift foreman at the pit was not known for his tact or sensitivity. One day he had to go to tell the wife of one of his team that her husband had been killed in an accident. When she opened the door he said to her “Are you Widow Brown?” she replied “My name is Brown but I am not a widow”.  “You are now” came the reply.

Grandad’s best friend in the pit was always complaining that his wife was very lazy. “You see this coat” he said, “There’s been a button missing from it for weeks and she has never replaced it, so I’m going to show her up. When I go home tonight I am going to sew a saucepan lid in the place of the missing button that should bring it to her notice!”

The next day the miners all gathered round to ask how he had got on. “No good at all”, he replied, “She cut a button hole to fit it!”

 

I did not enjoy visiting Mam’s sisters at Green Hill, Carlton at all. 

They all seemed very serious and quiet and there was no fun to be had there. But Frank and Evelyn who live next door, were much more cheerful.  They had a very large garden with a damson tree, which we climbed and picked fruit from every year. We also visited dad’s brother Uncle Bill and Aunt Maud at Shanklin Drive, Stapleford.

I will always remember that when we visited them when I was a child, Aunty Maud would take me into their kitchen and give me a biscuit or a piece of cake, then make me go out into the back yard to eat at so as not to get crumbs on her carpet. They had no children of their own. Mam and Dad were furious when they learned what she had been doing.

Another memory was that every year, the week before Christmas they used to visit us and hand out our Christmas presents. A shiny new half-a-crown coin each! As they had no family Bill and Maud always seemed to me to be rich, because they owned a car! It was an Austin 7, in which on one occasion they took us to Skegness, which was a bit of a squeeze, but it was the first time I had seen the sea, I was about 12. When they came to visit us Mam and Dad were always pleased to see Bill, but Maud was difficult to get on with and many times after they had been with us for an hour or so Dad would casually look out of the window and say he thought it was perhaps getting a little foggy. This was always a signal for Maud to jump up and say to Bill, “Get your coat we don’t want to drive home in the fog!”

This always amused Dad immensely as Stapleford was only 3 miles away.

Due to the fact that I grew up and went to school just after the war, money was very tight. 

None of the children in the street were given pocket money, so the only time we had money of our own was when an aunt or uncle gave us some on our birthday or at Christmas. One day after school, some of my friends asked me if I wanted to go shopping with them. When I said I had no money they said it’s all right you don’t need money. So I went with them along the High Road in Beeston and as we stood outside Woolworth’s they explained the plan.  

One of the boys stood at the top of the ally, and when the coast was clear he would give the signal and we simply took things off the counter, put them in our pockets and walked slowly out of the shop. They told me they had often done it, and it was easy. When I said I didn’t want to join in, they called me a coward and dared me to do it, so, not wanting to lose face with my friends, I agreed. The odd thing was that I took nothing for myself; I took a salt and pepper pot for Mam, and a fishing float for Dad. When I arrived home I couldn’t wait to give them the presents, but instead of smiles and thank-you’s I got suspicious looks and questions.  “Where did you get the money from?” 

 “I saved it from my birthday money.”  “Why have you bought them now, it’s nobody’s birthday?” “Because I wanted to surprise you” Then Dad said, “What made you pick this float?”  “Well I told the lady you go fishing so she gave me this one.”  “And did you tell her where I go fishing?” Oh! Yes, I told her you fish in the Trent.” “Oh really” said Dad,

“So why have you brought me a sea-fishing float?”  He knew what had happened when he saw me colour up and begin to cry.  “Get upstairs and pack your bags” he said “We don’t have thieves in this house”

So up I went; dragged the suitcase from under the bed and began to pack my few possessions, wondering where I was to go, I was only about nine years old. About an hour later, Dad came upstairs and told me the only way out of this mess was for me to go back to Woolworth’s, ask to see the manager, and return the goods to him.   And he added, if I was sent to prison then it was my own fault. I will never forget the feelings I had as I walked up Humber Road and along the High Road to my fate. The manager was very fierce with me, but let me go and warned that if I did anything like that again I would have to go to prison for a long time. That incident made me so afraid of stealing, and I still feel uncomfortable telling the story all these years later. Incidentally, dad never mentioned the incident again.

 

Another hobby which most of the lads at school were interested in was sending away for signed photographs of the stars. Film Stars addresses were swapped, and we wrote letters to exciting places like Hollywood and Los Angeles in the hope of receiving a reply. Many did, and I had quite a large collection of signed photographs of stars such as Alan Ladd, Doris Day, Bob Hope, and many others. 

The one photograph which survived for many years was the one I received from Bing Crosby, mainly because he was Mam’s favourite and she persuaded me to give it to her, but I kept the letter he sent, the only one left from the collection.

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One of the highlights of our week was the Saturday afternoon picture show. We used to queue out side the Majestic on the corner of Station Road and Queens Road, (where the supermarket is now) and then hand over our sixpence, (or nine pence if you could afford to go upstairs), and with mounting excitement we would watch the show.

There was always a cliff-hanger serial featuring Flash Gordon, or someone which made sure we would all go back next week, but the highlight for me was the cowboy film. Each week it featured one of our heroes, Hoppalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Lash Larue, Roy Rogers, or another of the many cowboy stars we all loved to watch.

The plot of every film was very much the same. For the first half of the film the bad guys were terrorising the town or the homesteaders, or the good guy’s ranch, and there was nothing the sheriff could do to stop them.  

Or another week it was the Indians surrounding the wagon train, and firing their arrows at the innocent victims who were travelling west to start a new life and raise their kids. This part of the film was accompanied by constant booing and hissing from the audience. Then when all seemed lost our hero would ride into town to a chorus of cheers from the audience, and set about cleaning up the town and driving the baddies out of town or shooting them dead with his trusty six-guns. Very satisfactory.

We all grew up reading comics. The “Beano”, “Dandy”, “Knockout” and many other publications were essential reading every week, but later I grew tired of them and moved on to what became a great joy in my early years, the “Hotspur”. We had it delivered every week and it was very exciting to read the stories in there, I read every one, and waiting in great anticipation every Thursday for the arrival of the new issue.

Whilst at Church Street I took my 11 plus, I was told I was a “borderline failure” and so was sent up to the Beeston Fields Secondary Modern School on Boundary Road, Beeston on the 5th. September 1949.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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