MUM'S WAR MEMORIES 3

My Grandparents House

The house in Convamore Road was dark and drab. Nothing new was bought during the war so if things were damaged they couldn't be replaced. The windows were stuck all over with brown sticky paper in a criss-cross pattern and at night shutters had to be put up at every window when it got dark because there was a 'blackout rule'. There were no street lights and no light from the houses as it was thought that it would be a good guide to enemy bombers.

The doors were all painted brown, in fact brown was the predominant colour. The hall was half-papered with brown lincrusta (sp). The living room, the largest room in the house had a coal fire (when we had coal) and there was no other heating anywhere. The boiler in the washhouse was lit and heated with coke if we needed a bath as there was no bathroom until after the war. The insides of my bedroom window would be frozen in the winters. The living room had a three-piece suite with velvet cushions (also brown). There was a dining table that extended to seat 10 people (and often did) when fully opened, dining chairs, a large wireless on a small table near my Grandfather's chair (he was always tinkering with the knobs) and another small table in a corner which usually held a plant but at Xmas held a little artificial Xmas tree. The floor was covered in lino and there was a snip rug in front of the fire. There was a single light hanging from the ceiling with a glass shade and from this would be hung a sticky fly catcher. When it was full of dead flies it would be taken down and a new one hung up. Every household had these horrible fly catchers - I remember the horrible buzzing noise the flies made when they became stuck!

The 'front' room was carpeted and had a moquette three piece suite, a plant stand in the window with a large aspidestra stood on it. There were two large oval photographs of my mother and father, one either side of the fireplace, taken just before their wedding. Last but not least was a rosewood piano with brass candlesticks on the front. I had music lessons for years so every night I had to go into this cold room to practice. It was so cold and damp it was a wonder it played at all. The fireplace was marble and a fire was lit in there at Christmas and sometimes on a Sunday night if we had visitors.

On winter evenings all through the war the fire was 'banked up' in the living room and a library book, embroidery and knitting were brought out. My mother, Rene and Betty when she was there and myself sat in a semi-circle around the fire. Our fronts were hot and our backs were cold. We each had some knitting or embroidery on the go and the library book was passed along so we each read a chapter, putting our work down while we did so.

They were cosy evenings, Mum and Rene got on so well together I never heard a cross word between them. They were in their 20's/early 30's so I think they thought they would make the most of what they could. Every Saturday night they went to the Tivoli Theatre, until it was bombed to the ground. It was just off Freeman Street before you reached the market. It was a Variety Theatre and many famous names of the day performed there. We always went to the Pantomime at Christmas.

On these nights around the fire they would describe some of the acts to me. They also scandalised of course because American soldiers were billeted further down the street! I sat there, a little pig with big ears as the saying goes.

One night the hearth rug caught fire and as there was nothing in the shops to buy it was decided we should make another one. My mother bought a canvas and two hooks, we cut old wool coats and skirts up into strips then folded a strip of material, put the hook into a hole in the canvas and drew the strip through making a knot. We tried to make patterns out of the different colours but it wasn't easy as sometimes we ran out of a particular colour. It seemed to take ages, at last it was finished and we proudly put it in front of the fire. We didn't have any TV of course - I was seventeen when we bought our first TV but I feel that although I love to watch TV, I think it has destroyed a lot of family life.

Although the house was shabby my mother was very proud and it was spotlessly clean. Everywhere had to be cleaned every week including windows, paths and front paints. She always insisted we all sat down to have meals together and a tablecloth was alway put on the table and it had to be 'set' properly. We had a gramophone (belonging to my grandparents). It was a 'HMV' (His Majesty's Voice). It needed to be wound up with every record that was put on as the turntable was operated on a spring. I loved playing this old gramophone with a horn out of the side and regularly played 'The Laughing Policeman' to entertain Bryan and Rodney.

Rene loved buying sheets of music that were popular during the war. We both played them over and over again. We always played the piano and sang the songs on a Sunday night, favourites such as White Cliffs of Dover, We'll Meet Again and Sing As We Go. Mum had a decent voice, she had sung in a choir before the war, but Rene and I would sing them at the top of our voices!