Homes

What was the house like that you grew up in?

Peggy O-Rourke (born 1920)

It was a large house with six children and three adults so we needed a fairly big house so we had really a lovely lawn. It was named correctly, it was ‘Fairlawn’. It had a lawn big enough for a tennis court. We were not that energetic, we didn’t like tennis particularly, and a rose garden and then going up in the banking tiers, we had vegetables and fruit trees and things, so it was really quite a good house. The house itself, we had one big sitting room and on the side of the house there would be a drawing room. At the back was our dining room. Because it was such a funny place being up and down and up and down, our kitchen was semi-basement. In other words, in the front it came up to the first floor, so we had steps to go down to the kitchen which then opened....so it wasn’t dark.

Did you have your own bedroom at home?

John Sandell (born 1929)

It’s my earliest memory. I was about three years old and I was moved into a separate room. I was with my parents in the cot and I was moved into a another room. The bed seemed huge to me.

How was the washing done when you were young?

Bill Jenkins (born 1929)

We lived at the end of a small alleyway and the houses backed onto the canal in Birmingham........in the yard was a wooden hut sort of thing and that contained everything to do with the washing. The water supply, the bath and everything was all in this place. And three families had to take it in turns to use it. That’s all we had. None of the families there had money to burn or anything like that, no one did in those days, had enough to survive and that’s what we … but yes, it was quite tricky and there was a sort of bon homie about the place. “Alright to go in is it?” “Yes”....It was very very meagre, the whole area actually at that time.

Sandra Wood (born 1942)

We had a stove … it was like an old coal fired stove if I remember rightly and you used to put the pan on the top and boil the water and then you used to have to fill the copper with these saucepans of water until it was full and then put the washing in. You rinsed it in there and then we used to have to go out into the back yard and have a mangle. Feed it through and turn the handle.

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

But I remember mum, I think it was once a week, used to have something called ‘The Bag Wash’ and this man used to come in a big van and you had a big sort of sack or whatever it was and you’d put all the white things in there and he took it off …and then he would bring it back the next week, so all that was done.

I remember mum using those (dolly bags) for the whites. ‘Dolly’s Whites’ I think they used to be called. I think you can still buy these now. So that made the whites … the white sheets white. Cotton. Because you didn’t really have coloured sheets then did you? It was nearly always white sheets.

Was the washing done on a particular day?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Yes, Monday wash day, Tuesday was drying I think and Wednesday would be ironing. It was all sort of set out and you had your roast meat at the weekend and then cold the rest of the week and possibly on Friday you’d have cheese. It was all in a regular pattern.

Did you have a bathroom inside the house?

Gwen Croad (born 1931)

We had no bathroom in our house when I was a child, we had an outside toilet, there was no running hot water, the water had to be heated up on the fire for a bath and washing. We had gas lighting, there was no electricity till I was about 8 years old.

Jo Scott (born 1936)

I think we must have had a bathroom. I do remember a toilet upstairs in the houses that I lived in, but I know the house at Carisbrooke that we lived we had a bathroom space but no toilet. The toilet was out in the yard. There was one cold water tap, there was no hot water in the tap. You boiled a kettle....you had a paraffin stove...so there was always hot water....the water for washing had to be boiled somehow, so usually a lot of houses had a big copper in the corner which was mixed.

John Sandell (born 1929)

There was a bathroom but I didn’t like it because it had peculiar plugs....I was always frightened that I’d go down the plug hole. You put a hot water jug outside your bedroom door at night and in the morning the maid … by the time you got up, the maid had put hot water in it ready for you to wash your hands and that in the wash basin. You’d clean your teeth and so on. There wasn’t a sink or anything, you had a wash stand and a bucket underneath which you put your used water in.....We used to have a little enamel potty under our bed..... It was called the ‘Gazunda’, and we used to try and fill one of the bathroom potties by all using the same one, trying to aim that to empty into the loo.

How did you have a bath?

Bill Jenkins (born 1920)

Well, if it was our turn to go into the room I’ve just described (wash house), three boys were together we could strip off and throw water over each other to our delight! It was our turn and we had the place for however long it took. And yes, we managed to keep clean and what have you in difficult circumstances really. I know it’s difficult to think about it in these days but in the days I’m talking about, it was a very poor area and the buildings were derelict, most of them. It was just a question of surviving.

George Lyons (born 1923)

When we were little boys we used to have what they called ‘ardin’ which were sacking and that’s what we used. And then when me Grandmother and that used to rub us down after we’d had a bath in the tin bath in front of fire, she used to rub us down with this ere ‘ardin’ and we never had a towel. I used to have to borrow stepmother’s to when I went to Baths and give it her back and hope I didn’t get wet.

Did you have gas and electricity at home?

John Sandell (born 1929)

In my grandparents' house at first there was only gas, there was no electricity and you had a switch at the side of your bed which you turned and the gas went up to the light up above and ‘plop’ you could turn it off again. But there was no electric light until later on and when the electricity came oh, she (my Grandmother) was delighted. She could have a vacuum and all sorts of things. But the electricity was cheaper in those days and it was only 200 volts, not 240, so the electricity was made in Southampton, in the Electricity Station, the Power Station, and it was fed to the trams. Because it was fed to the trams, they could produce the electricity cheaper for the town. Weird things.

How was your house heated?

Jo Scott (born 1936)

Our house was heated with a paraffin stove which I nearly knocked over and burned myself, I was about 2 at the time. We had coal fires and in a later house we had a range. There were no washing machines then. Our clothes were washed by hand in the sink, put through the wringer and then hung on the line to dry.

Did you have to help with chores around the house?

Madeleine Wray (born 1940)

As children we had to help with chores because I was one of four children and our Mother couldn’t do it all. We helped with laying the table and washing the dishes. We also did the dusting, we used to tie the dusters round our feet to polish the floors, we didn’t have vacuum cleaners in those days.

Who did the cooking at home?

Jo Scott (born 1936)

Mum did all the cooking at home, we had a gas cooker. We didn’t have a fridge but a larder and a meat safe outside. My favourite meal was Shepherds Pie and you had to eat everything. You didn’t have your pudding unless you ate your dinner first.

What were your favourite things to eat as a child and what things did you not like?

Bill Jenkins (born 1920)

The favourite things I had was porridge for breakfast with a spoonful of plum jam in the middle of it. Porridge is very good for you. That was my favourite one. We loved pies, and I don’t know if you like this one but my favourite was rabbit pie. I don’t even know if that is allowed these days, but it was very common sort of thing in those days and it was very nice. But any sort of pies, that sort of thing we liked.

Gwen Croad (born 1931)

You used to have Camp coffee.....but it was a glass bottle, the same label as now but a glass bottle and it tasted of chicory rather than coffee.

John Sandell (born 1929)

Well it was War time so you had to enjoy your meals. There was nothing in particular....I didn’t care for crab or lobster or stuff like that. I don’t know what else, I’m trying to think. Then there was the offal we used to have at the end of the week. Liver, kidneys, I wasn’t keen on kidneys. All those sort of things, made into a stew, and breakfast, well you had porridge and it was cooked the night before and then in the morning it was put over boiling water in a saucepan to heat it up. I can’t bear it now!

Did you have a television when you were young?

Sandra Wood (born 1942)

The television was a big square box with a tiny little screen. We had it for the Coronation in 1953. There was a street party for the Coronation as well. There was only one channel on the TV at that time and that was BBC and the programmes only started at tea time and went on until about 11 o’clock. There were not an awful lot of children’s programmes.

Jo Scott (born 1936)

We didn’t have a TV when I was a child, they were only being made the year after I was born. The Queen’s coronation was the first thing I ever watched on the television. We did have a radio and I liked listening to In Town Tonight and the Children’s Hour.

Peggy O’Rourke (born 1920)

Well, not as a child. I should think I was about, oh, well into my 20’s when I first saw my first television. The first television I actually saw on the Island was at the Hare and Hounds, you know the Hare and Hounds? We got somebody from Portsmouth to bring over a television set and they set it up and they got it all going beautifully, and every time a car went by outside, it scrambled it, so we didn’t buy a television. It was well after the War before we bought a television set.

Alan Evans (born 1918)

The televisions then were in a wooden cabinet. Mind you we were the Rolls Royce of radio and our television sets were in taste. We could do them.....in mahogany or oak or whatever the purchaser wanted it to be..… to fit in with his own furniture. A television when they first came out was about £100. Now then, going back … yes, it would be quite a bit of money in those days but I’m just trying to think of something else that one bought at that time because it’s difficult to … because of course we’ve now gone metric and this was in the days before metric. I’m talking about £100 before metric, not after metric. I’m not sure quite how that would balance for a start.… Other companies made television sets and I think they weren’t quite as expensive as ours, put it that way!

Did you have a radio at home when you were young?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Yes, it was a radio by valve. There were valves in the back and it’s like putting a lamp light in. You sort of screwed these things down. I used to have a bath in front of the fire in the front room. Had this metal … you’ve seen the big metal bath things and you’d pour the hot water in from kettles. I’d be having a bath and then I was allowed to sit up and listen to the radio until about half past six or something and then I was then shot off to bed......During the War, there was ‘Music While You Work’ that was a regular thing. And there were one or two other serial things that went on like you have on television now but to do with the radio instead.

Did you have a telephone at home?

John Sandell (born 1929)

Well because of the business and my grandfather’s business, the telephone was on the wall with a hook thing like instead of having a stalk, it was fixed on the wall and I think when my grandfather had a telephone down at his office, I think there were only about six in the town and they gradually increased.... when I was about eight or nine I had to answer the phone at the weekend if nobody was about and quite often it would be from the Needles.......or Nab Tower.....I’d have to put down the number and message and so on and leave a message to then please will you contact on the Monday because I had been answering the phone on the Sunday. How they trusted me I don’t know.