Research Projects

by Margaret Matson

In the year 1936 and indeed for many years before and many years to come Durham Coal mining was a thriving industry. To accommodate the coal miners and their families’ endless rows of brick built colliery houses were erected. These houses each had a similar outlook and no luxury fitments or fittings were to be found inside. Some of the houses contained three bedrooms whilst others were two bedrooms with a tiny kitchen built into the backyard. The bottom floor of the three bedroom houses consisted of a kitchen, a back kitchen and a pantry. A coal house was to be found in the backyard and next to the coalhouse was the “lav” complete with squares of newspapers attached to the whitewashed walls with string. If one was lucky in years to come the soft paper wrappings from oranges were also found to hang there. The “lav” was only separated from the one next door by a single brick wall and quite often a conversation would take place if an occupant from each house were in their “lavs” at the same time. An all important tin bath adorned one wall in the backyard and often a coal miner returned safely from the mine this tin bath was placed in front of the fire. The water was heated in a brick built copper and ladled into the bath by sometimes an equally tired but loving wife. The naked miner was only able to wash his poor dirt encrusted body in a sitting position and always it was his wife who washed his back. His clothes full of coal dust were shakin against the walls in the backyard and were only washed when it was the annual holiday. The pit head baths which arrived in the year 1938 were a God send but that little tin bath still hung in the back yard for the miner’s wife and his children to use. Although the pit head baths were indeed an asset to the coalminer they still could not rid him of the black circles of coal dust from around his eyes. These black circles were known as “having the pulleys in”. Permanent small blue veins appeared on their faces caused by coal dust getting into cuts which they often sustained whilst doing this soul destroying occupation. Sometimes their backs became stooped as did their shoulders. Their hands became worn and calloused but nothing could damage their spirits. They knew they had to endure all of these things to earn some money, as meagre as it was, to feed their families.

In 1936 a daughter was born to a coalminer and his wife who lived in County Durham. I am that daughter and whilst I have no doubt I was a welcome little bundle, I was also another mouth to feed. I already had three brothers when I was born and by the time I was eleven years old I had three more. Times were hard in those days, wages were but a pittance and the struggle to cope was sometimes beyond belief. My love of my parents and my six brothers has never once wavered even though today I am sixty six years old. This is our story. It is based on facts, some happy, some sad, some harsh even and it also stems from a tremendous sense of pride of being a coalminer’s daughter.

In 1939 my mam and dad had five children. I was nearly three years old and my fourth brother but a few months. It was decided that we now needed a three-bedroomed house so a horse and cart carried our few possessions from one little district to another. Our street was a lovely little street. It was not one of the 80 something houses that were attached to each other. Our little street consisted of three blocks. Two of the blocks had six houses and the remaining one had four. We had lots of room to play outside our front doors and no other houses over looked us. We faced the miner’s allotments and this was a joy indeed. As well as growing the most delicious vegetables the miners also grew flowers. Pansies used to stand proudly down the borders, sweet peas would climb their frames. Carnations would gather in clumps and peony roses gracefully raised their beautiful heads whenever they grew. I can remember my dad giving me bunches of these flowers to sell around the doors to earn a little extra money. The taste of the vegetables is one I’ll never forget. Everyone grown chemical free and in abundance. What would we have done without them? The miner’s garden sheds were like Aladdin’s caves and our curiosity was endless. Their tools were so big and heavy to us small children and quite often we would hear a deep voice shout, ”Get out of there, if that falls on you it will kill you.”

I know that my mam and dad’s joy at moving us all into our “new house” was quickly diminished when they realised it was already inhabited. All three bedrooms were infested with bed bugs. It was a horror we seemed to live with for several years. The smell from them was nauseous but there was no point in trying to move to another house because they didn’t just live with us. Mam declared was on these abhorrent bugs. Our beds had iron frames and I can remember her standing the feet in buckets and pouring water through the iron joints. I guess the idea was to drown them or perhaps scold them to death. I remember the tears she cried as she battled with them and my heart goes out to her. She won her battle; after all she was a miner’s wife. She wouldn’t know at that time that another war would be declared, this time concerning human beings. Yes our mam and dad along with million more mams and dads had to bring us up in what we now call “The War Years.”

It must be remembered that I saw this war through the eyes of a child. My brothers and I did not despair when black out curtains were placed at the windows. In the wintertime we were not used to brightly lit rooms anyway because we had no electricity in those days. We had gas mantles to light our rooms and whilst it is true they could be turned up or down they didn’t provide us with a great deal of light. Outside our houses at intermittent intervals and each corner of our street gas lamps on high wooden poles beamed. These too didn’t give out a beacon of bright light and with the dimness in our houses we seemed to live in a world of semi darkness.

We had long since been taught that if we heard the air raid sirens at night we had to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. There was a lot of us children and very little space in the cupboard so we had to sleep head to toe, no matter how squashed we were we always made room for our tortoise who always hibernated in this cupboard for the winter. Mam and Dad slept under the big wooden table in the kitchen. Whilst it was fun for us it must have been a tremendous worry for them.

Miners were exempt from going to war because they were needed at home to produce the all important coal needed so desperately in the war years. My dad was a coal hewer and he and all the other miners in our nation played a great part in keeping the home fires burning. I don’t seem to have focused very much as to what my dad did in the coal mine but then my brothers and I did not know. Our time was spent with our mam in our house.

The war continued and brave soldiers lost their lives. Civilians were killed, homes destroyed and vast areas of our beloved Country bombed but life had to go on. Rationing of food was introduced and coupons for clothing were issued. It must have been a momentous task to make ends meet but the adults of our Country just got on with it. The children of our country carried on playing in the streets and not once did we grumble that we had no seen a piece of fruit for such along time. We did not bemoan the fact that we had forgotten what a sweet or a piece of chocolate tasted like. We simply had no choice. Sometimes in our village news got round that our little sweet shop had “got sweets in.” The excitement us children felt was quite overwhelming. There was no pushing or shoving in the snake like queue we formed. We clutched our pennies and waited our turn. When we were handed our three cornered bag containing our sweets it was like a dream come true.

I can’t even remember being hungry in my childhood years. The miner’s allotments and the huge variety of vegetables to be grown there were a lifesaver. They were washed and boiled in great big black pans. Our mam’s made leek puddings and onion puddings. All of these things soon filled little stomachs as well as big stomachs. The rabbit pie crust was one of the most delicious meals of those times. I often watched my mam expertly skin a rabbit and slit his tummy to remove the innards, which she placed on the coal shovel to be removed later. We always had pet rabbits on my dad’s allotments and if times got really hard we would stroke them and feed them in their hutches one day, then have them on our dinner plates the next day. It has made me so sad writing these last few sentences because we would never do that today. There is no need.

Time went on and still we played. We played fish and chips in the muck on the verge opposite our front door. We saved newspapers especially for this game. We became quite expert at wrapping a fish and two pennyworth of chips in our imagination of course. The loads of coal which were dropped regularly in the backstreet were also a fascination for us children. A little door opening was made in the wall outside which when opened lead in to the coal house inside the backyard. Each house had one of these small doors which were about five foot from the ground. These loads of coal were the miner’s free allowance. If a neighbour’s load was overdue then they would borrow a few buckets of coal from a load which had already been delivered to a fellow miner. These buckets of coal were always paid back as soon as the overdue load arrived. The job of “putting the load in” was not necessarily given to the miner. This load had to be put in and if the miner was at work the job fell to one of his sons if they were big enough. If all else failed the job fell to the miner’s wife as if she didn’t have enough to do. She was pleased however if she had a good load of “roundies” delivered. These “roundies” gave us a hot and bright lasting fire.

To be seen and not heard was how children were looked upon in those long ago days. We could still see and listen though. Sometimes as we played outside our houses front doors would suddenly open and our anxious looking mothers would gathered together with eyes full of sadness. We instinctly knew that something was wrong as we heard their voices saying, “He was such a good man,” “ What will she do?” “ What will happen to the poor bairns?” When grim faced miners also appeared we knew that a miner had been killed in the mine. The whole community gathered together and did what they could or gave what they could to the poor bereaved family. The worry for the family continued long after the funeral of the beloved husband and dad. The widow and the children did survive however. What an extreme struggle it must have been. The children grew up and gladly took care of their mother. Now they have their own children and are proud grand-parents. It is a known fact that life has to go on – no matter what.

Often a week of hard work down the pit some miners, including my dad, would spend their week-ends in the working man’s club. This was their escape. This was were they could forget the week before. There was no escape for my mam though. When he arrived home drunk I can still hear her shouting “ The money you have spent would have fed the bairns for a week.” There’s one thing about me dad he always made it home no matter how drunk he was. One pitman I knew was not so fortunate. He always collapsed in a heap just yards from his home. He would land in the gutter and remain there whilst we girls carried on playing around him. It was the norm to us and people would come and go and just ignore him. We knew his wife would arrive and rant and rave over him but all of the threats she uttered fell on deaf ears. An hour or so later he would get up and go home and that was the end of that until the next time.

The war raged on and we became school children. I always loved school but I can’t remember if my brothers did – they survived it anyway. Mondays were days when none of us school children minded being at school because this meant we escaped the horror of washdays. The small fire was lit at the bottom of the brick built copper to boil water. This was done about 8 o’clock in the morning. We did have a washing machine which I can remember being very hard work to operate. The lid on the washer had a sort of steel arm with what I can only describe as having a big knob fastened on the end of it. This arm would move so far to the left then so far to the right. It had to be done by hand and human arms literally ached pushing this thing backwards and forwards. This movement caused the agitator inside the washer to move amongst the clothes. How fast the agitator went depended on how fast the arm fastened to the lid could be operated. This method just about broke and if human arms could have cried then this is what they would have done. When I think today that I can do a load of washing just be pressing a button with my little finger my heart once again goes out to my mam. After the clothes were washed they were put through a mangle attached to the machine and of course this job was done by hand. In the meanwhile water was added to the copper, as the washer needed topping up to cope with the other loads of washing which were waiting to be done. As the pile of clothes came through the mangle they were placed on the big wooden table. The collars and cuffs of the shirts and blouses were soaped and scrubbed and eventually put inside the copper to be boiled. Towels and tea towels also had they turn at being boiled. From 8 o’clock in the morning until 5pm in the afternoon my mam never stopped. When the ashes in the slot at the bottom of the copper were cool she raked them out. If the day had been wet outside she hung the clothes to dry on lines which stretched between the walls in the walls in the kitchen and also the back kitchen. This was what we saw when we came in from school and we hated it. If we were on holiday on wash days we were given a bottle of water and two jam sandwiches (condensed milk, brown sauce and sugar were also sandwiches of the day) and sent down the rec. We went out first thing on a morning and told not to come back until teatime. How our hearts would be pound if our children were missing all day in these times. We didn’t have a watch but our tummies seemed to tell us when it was teatime.

Baking days were much more acceptable. We had a huge black range in our kitchen which was black-leaded once a week to keep it in pristine condition. An enormous black kettle always seemed to be precariously balanced on the red hot fire. The fire had to glow at a certain level to heat the oven, which was at the side of the range. This was to ensure that the oven was heated to the correct temperature especially if mam was baking bread. She placed huge dishes of bread dough in the hearth and these she would cover with tea towels. The bread dough was then left to rise. In the meanwhile loaf tins were prepared. The smell of the bread baking is one I will never forget. Mam also made each of us a tea-cake man. She made eyes in them and a nose and mouth with currants. Sometimes she made buttons on their chests with more currants. She also made iced teacakes and these were so delicious our mouths used to water as we were allowed to have one.

Each day in those times had a strict routine. Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings belonged to us children. Head lice in those long days were rampant and Saturday mornings were spent combing our heads out over a huge sheet of brown paper. We used to shudder when the black small-toothed comb appeared. Our heads used to be sore by the time mam finished with this comb but we didn’t dare move. Mam disposed of the nits as we called them by cracking them with her finger. Not very pleasant reading but his was a fact about the times in which we lived. I know, sadly, that head lice are still about today but there are more humane methods of getting rid of them. Dad would then take over and put a basin on our heads and cut our hair around it. This was our haircut. Sunday mornings were spent “putting us to rights”. We formed a queue from the back kitchen table up to the pantry door and here we were given, cod-liver oil, castor oil, syrup of figs and senna pods. Not all together of course but if mam thought we needed any of them we opened our mouths and swallowed them because we had no choice. If we were found to have worms we were cured by being given a luxurious looking chocolate worm cake. Believe me these chocolate cakes did not taste as good as they looked. All of these things were done to keep us healthy and our parents did a good job looking after us all.

Time went on and the spring came. The flowers on Dads allotment began to show their faces and the beautiful smell from them intermingled with the horse muck, which was never allowed to remain long on our roads. Out would come brushes and shouls and it was carted away to be used in the gardens. The smell from all the potato peelings each household seemed to save to feed Mr So and So’s pigs could be smelt for miles away. They were boiled in an enormous cauldron type of thing and the smell from them was dreadful.

Summer came and out came out top and whips. What fun we had with theses. Some of us could spin them for ages. Our skippy ropes twirled through the air and on a really warm day we were allowed to stay out until late and that’s when our mam’s joined us. Where they found the energy to skip I’ll never know but we all had such fun together. “All in together, the cows are in the meadow” we chanted as we jumped in and out of the ropes. We all loved it when our mams came out to play. Our games seemed to have a season of their own because tops and whips would be put away and then after they had had their turn the skippy ropes would be put away as well. Next came two balley and those of us clever enough played three balley. “Statues” and itchy dabber were great favourites. The lads played football and used the black gates of our back yards for the goal. They played cricket and the dustbin was their wicket. We played for hours and asked our parents for nothing. We sometimes all “took off” to the Rec and made good use of the swings the tea-pot lid and the jazza. The slide was always busy but no one pushed or shoved. We stood patiently waiting our turn.

Perhaps the highlight of our summer was the “Sunday School Anniversary”.

We had several chapels in those days – the Baptist – the Methodist and so on. Preparations went on for months before the actual Sunday came for the anniversary. Us children were all given a “piece” to learn. This was a verse or something taken from the Bible. The older we were the longer “piece” we were given we all knew our words well in advance but the best thing of all was that we all had brand new clothes for this occasion. I was so excited about my new dress and I loved the hair ribbons, which matched my dress exactly. My brothers had new shirts and trousers, and we all had new socks and shoes. I suspect all these things came from a “Doggarts Club”. On the morning of our Anniversary we would all meet and then go round each street singing hymns and offering prayers. A small organ or piano (I can’t remember which) was carried between two men and placed at the spot where we had all decided to sing so we were well accompanied. A door-to-door collection was made to try and swell our chapel’s coffers. The chapel was packed to the back doors as we all took our place on the raised platform, which overlooked, our parents, our aunties, our grandparents and anyone else who cared to go along. It was quite daunting to stand up when your name was announced to say “your piece”. When the service was over we went home, changed our clothes, then put them back on again for the 6pm service. It was a very exciting day and we all had a lovely supper before we went to bed.

What can I say about the Annual Sunday School trip? I can say that it was the only day of the year when we went to the Seaside. No one slept the night before – we were far too excited. Our buckets and spades had been packed, the eggs had been boiled and a huge amount of lettuce and tomato sandwiches were made and placed inside the empty wrapping of the bread to keep them moist. We got up at the crack of dawn so that we all could get ready. When we arrived on the beach mam put great big pit towels on the sand for us all to sit on. We didn’t have a tent so when it was time to plodge in the sea we just stripped off where we stood and off we went. We returned to our towels shivering from head to toe and with our teeth chattering. The sea was always icy cold but that didn’t stop us from going in again. When it was time to eat mam went for a big jug of tea from a small stall on the beach. A deposit of five shillings was required so we looked after that jug with our lives because if it was broken then we lost the deposit. The lettuce and tomato sandwiches were handed round and they had become so soggy they used to drop to pieces in our hands. The hard-boiled eggs were shelled and they always dropped through small hands onto the sand, mam really did try to get all of the sand off them by rubbing them in a tea towel but it was impossible to remove it all. I can still taste grains of sand. The time soon came for us all to get dressed and make our way to the bus. The jug was safety returned and we were given pennies to spend on the shows. No one got on the bus until we had “spent up”. The shuggery boats were always my favourite. No matter what we chose to go on the excitement showed on our faces. Tired little legs climbed on the bus and as we sat down we all knew that this lovely day would not be repeated until the next year. As we made our way home we knew we would not be sleeping under the stairs because the war had finished two years ago. The excitement of the victory street parties and the fancy dress parades were now but a pleasant memory. Many pitmen including my dad had been in the Home Guard during the War. I don’t remember them seeing much action but I do remember Dad’s Home Guard, which always hung on a huge nail at the bottom of our stairs. He could not hand it back in with his other equipment because it was eaten by moths. I have never seen anything so full of moth holes.

Our Dad was a born comedian and an ardent story-teller. He was so quiet during the weeks often he had done his shift done the pit but at the weekend he came into his own. Saturday nights were story telling nights and we couldn’t wait for him to come home from the pub. He would put a red and white spotted handkerchief on his head and with the aid of an old replica gun and patch on his eye he became a pirate. Our eyes used to be like organ stops as he told us the tale of his life on the high seas. He used to have us all spellbound – even my mam. He varied the stories each Saturday night and these stories were the highlight of our week. Our dad loved us and he really did do his best for us. Mam had put my name down for tap-dancing lessons. My little friend had proper tap dancing shoes but none could be afforded for me. That didn’t bother me but it did bother my dad. He had an ingenious idea. His bairn wasn’t going tap dancing lessons just to sit and watch so he made me taps from an old tin. He cut them into shape and nailed them to a pair of my old shoes. He even painted them with white wash. I was so thrilled and so very proud of my tap dancing shoes. There was just one problem. When I started to dance the white wash on my new shoes flaked off but no one was bothered and I enjoyed my tap dancing lessons thanks to my dad.

The coal miners had their pleasures too. Some of them enjoyed playing illegal “Pitch and Toss” in the wood near to their homes. Pitmen often gambled their week’s wage on this game. Two pennies were tossed in the air and the pitmen placed bets on whether they would both land heads up or tails up. One landing heads up and the other tails up was also bet on. We used to play in this wood and our hearts used to beat fast if we got too near them. Quite often we heard police whistles and saw miners running as they were raided by the police.

It was now the winter of 1947. Our summer playing days were now over but we weren’t deterred. We played under the gas lamps on the corners of our streets. The smoke from the hundreds of coal fires burning created a permanent fog in the air. If enough show fell we didn’t hesitate to make the most of it. We dragged our heavy sledges made by our dads to the top of the pit bank. Our squeals of excitement and delight as we sledged down this bank could be streets away. We used to be out all day and were always wet through when we returned home. When the snow finally froze we made snake like slides in the ice. How we managed to stay on our feet as we threw ourselves down these slides I’ll never know.

We played kiss, cuddle or torture with our neighbours lads. The game was for all the boys and girls to run amok. The plan was for a boy to catch a girl and hold her ransom. Her only means of escaping was to pay a forfeit. We could choose between being kissed, cuddled or tortured. We were to shy to ask for a kiss or cuddle. So we always chose torture. The boy’s grubby hands would encircle our wrists. One of his hands would twist the skin on our wrist one way and his other hand would twist the skin the other way. This was known as the Chinese Burn and it never failed to make my eyes water with the pain.

Life indoors continued. It was so cold outside so our winter activities came into play. Dad would get his last out and cobble our shoes. Mam would put the flat iron on the fire and if I was very careful she would let me do some ironing. The big event of the dark winter days was getting the mat frames out. These seemed to take the whole of the back kitchen up and once the mat harn was sewn in, it was action stations. Those of us big enough sat cutting long strips of material about one inch wide, which were called clippings. Coat material, trousers, and jumpers in fact any item of clothing no longer in use went into the mat. I still have the prodders mam used to feed the material into the mat and their handles are so very worn. It was a huge operation putting the mat frames and the mat up so they remained upright in the back kitchen for days on end. We seemed to spend all of our time crawling backwards and forwards underneath them. When after weeks and weeks the new mat was finished it was put away for the spring.

Winter nights were bitterly cold. We didn’t have the luxury of central heating. The windows upstairs in the bedrooms had solid ice on the inside as well as the outside. Icicles three feet long or more hung from the roof outside. We used to draw pictures on the windows. We certainly couldn’t see out of them. We never looked forward to going to bed because the bedrooms were freezing. Mam would take the hot oven shelf out of the oven and wrap it in an old sheet. This was then placed in our bed. It was so that six little feet had no trouble finding a space on it. If it was especially cold mam would add an extra hap – namely a big mat on top of the blankets. The cold lino on the floors soon hurried our feet along when it was time to get up.

Without any doubt whatsoever Christmas time was the most exciting and magical part of the year. There would be presents for us on Christmas morning. Preparations went on for weeks and weeks beforehand. The Christmas cake was sometimes made many months before. We also had nice cake and mam would make the most delicious ginger wine out of ginger wine essence. About three weeks before Christmas morning the most colourful of streamers were draped across our kitchen ceiling. Dad would place a lighted candle in a jam jar and then we were allowed to go Carol singing. We knocked on doors and sang our hearts out for the penny, which would be given to us by the lady at the door we stood. We also sang our hearts out at the Sunday school which we had to attend all though the year. The nativity scene of baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three wise men and the shepherds was a joy to behold. It filled us with wonder and awe. We acted out nativity plays and we had our Sunday school Christmas party. All of these things greatly added to the excitement we felt as Christmas approached. Mam cashed the Christmas saving stamps she had saved at Thompson’s Red Stamp Store and chose our Christmas presents for us. Of course we didn’t know this. As far as we were concerned our presents came from Santa Claus.

The big day arrived and dad would get up at the crack of dawn to rake the dead ashes out of the fire with the coal rake. He soon had a good fire burning with the help of the bleezer. A little space was reserved for each of us on our big kitchen table and this is where we would find our presents. My presents used to be always found on one of the corners of the table. The sight of my John Bull’s printing set, the small hard backed writing book, the pencil case and the little knitting set took my breath away. I meticulously took care of them. My brothers could be heard planning a battle to the death with the tiny cowboys and red Indians figures which Santa had brought them. Soldiers were placed in the fort, which dad had made and to this day I can still hear the commands my brothers ordered them to do. It was all sheer magic and like other children in the land, or so it seemed, we also had a candy walking stick and an apple and an orange.

The winter of 1947 was an extremely harsh one. One night in particular I can remember dad saying to my mam “ We had better bring the extra big spade inside”. It’s just as well he did because the next morning when he opened the back door the snow was almost the height of the door opening. It was essential to dig a path to the lav for obvious reasons. A path was dug to the coal-house so that there was access to the coal needed so desperately to keep us all warm. Our cat Tibby spent her nights in the coal-house so she had to be rescued and brought indoors. It was all such fun for us kids. Such a vast quantity of snow had fallen. It seemed to hold the whole country to ransom. Schools were closed; workers could not get to their work places. What traffic we had in those days was brought to a standstill. It was absolute chaos. When we did eventually return to school it was still so very cold but our mothers had prepared for this. They had had the knitting needles out. Pixy hoods were knit for the girls and helmets were knit for the boys. An enormous scarf was knitted for each and every one of us. This scarf was like some form of torture for us kids. It was placed around our necks then fastened very tightly round to our backs with a safety pin. The bigger the safety pin, the better, the hold the scarf had on us. The tightness of the scarf forced our shoulders back and brought our chests forward. We could not move our arms and these just hung stiffly from their sockets. Before we left the house a woollen mitten was placed on each of our hands. “Behave yourselves,” our mothers shouted as we were all turfed out into the street. We didn’t have a choice because we were so restricted by our clothes the only things we could move were our legs and feet. It took all our concentration to make them work. On arrival at school our teacher freed one of us so that then we could free each other.

Life went on. Mam continued to struggle and dad continued to work hard but by no means were our lives all doom and gloom. For all of his life our dad made us laugh. We would laugh until we cried and I’m sure my brother’s and I inherited his unique sense of humour. It is true that mam and dad could not give us much with regard to material things but these weren’t important anyway. What they could give us freely was sound advice on how to live our lives. They taught us values, which we have never forgotten. Of all the things our mam and dad gave us and taught us it was their love for us all, which we hold closest to our hearts.

In March of 1948 my sixth brother was born and two months later I won a scholarship to the local Grammar school. Yet another mouth to feed and now the added worry of having to find the money to buy me a brand new school uniform. I honestly didn’t realise at the time how hard this must have been for them. Whilst it is true my two eldest brothers were now bringing a wage into the house, this money was already “spoken for”. My brothers and I were growing quickly and one of us always needed new clothes or shoes. There was always a need for something. I guess the saying “ Where there’s a will, there’s a way” came into play because in September of that year I stood besides my school friends in my brand new uniform. I hope so very much that I said “Thank you” to them both.

I would like to think that things became easier for my mam and dad as time moved on and one by one we grew up.

It is at this point that I have decided to end the story of my childhood years. It seems so strange, that in order to write the epilogue of my story I must go back to the very beginning.

As soon as we could walk and talk my brothers and I were taught by mam that we must always look after my eldest brother and never ever upset him. As we all grew mam told us that our eldest brother had been born a “bit slow” and that’s why we had to look after him and never ever upset him. As young as we were we accepted this without question. Until the day she died our mam loved him and protected him fiercely from the whole world. He was always physically strong and when he grew up he brought a very welcome wage into the house by doing a very heavy demanding job for many many years. My brothers and I have always said if only he had not been born as soon he could have gone to a special needs school and perhaps then it might have been possible for him to have had a normal life. He now lives in a very comfortable sheltered accommodation. He enjoys going to the Workingmen’s Club and placing a bet on the horses. He is happy but those of us who know him best are very much aware that he still lives in his own little world. It his is birthday today. He is seventy-three years old. He is looked after by my fourth born brother, my sister-in-law and myself and we never ever upset him. Our mam knew she didn’t need to tell us to love him.

In September 1939 my third born brother died from Gastro Enteritis. He was four years, ten months old. Yet another brother born too soon.

All of their lives my mam and dad firmly believed in the saying “What has to be – will be” and I’m sure this belief helped them to cope with the sadness. They knew they just had to get on with it because they had other children who needed them.

My surviving brothers and I will never lose sight of our humble beginnings and we will never cease to be proud that we are the family of a coal-miner and his wife who lived in the North East of England.

Digitised by Janet Hughes
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