CHAPTER THREE

Round And About Our Street

Children of my age to play with, in my area, were thin on the ground. However, there was one other girl living in our little cul-de-sac.  As I don’t remember seeing her on my wanderings down to the corner, I don’t think she had lived there for long, she just suddenly was there!  Her name was Janet Snell; she was the same age as me. Her father must have had a good job and was well-off – for he had a car!  Most of the fathers and husbands in our area went to work in Liverpool, on the train, and my dad rode to work on a bicycle – but Mr. Snell had a car! 

Janet was strange – in fact the whole family was strange, her mother would blow hot and cold confusing the life out of me.  One day I was welcome to visit their home - next day I was banned! 

Looking back on it all, I now think that Mrs. Snell was a manic depressive, but at four years of age to me she was just witchy and horrible!  Janet was difficult to play with – like I said she just wasn’t as switched on as ordinary kids of our age.  These days she might be diagnosed as having mild autism, or maybe Asperger’s.  Trying to be friends with her was like creeping around a volcano that might erupt any minute.  I never knew when something I would say would upset her; then she would go all huffy and storm off into the house!  That would be the last I would see of her that day, apart from peeping at me out of the bedroom window! She would tell her mother that I had been mean to her or some such tale, and her mother would come out and berate me, telling me I was not to play with Janet again or go near their house!  She frightened the life out me.  I was a timid child and did not like being shouted at.  After that I was always wary of Mrs. Snell – even when I grew into a teenager, I could not talk to her without feeling uncomfortable.

Janet had an uncanny way of staring at you without saying anything; made me feel quite unnerved.  She also had a terrible habit of slapping you or punching you on your arm! Days would go by when she would not come near me to play.  Then one day she would appear again, ask if she could play with me, and act like nothing had happened. I don’t remember her coming into our house to play, I suspect her mother had told her she wasn’t to go into “that house”.  Mrs. Snell was a born snob. Mr. Snell was alright – but he too was not like normal people – he would stare right through you at times.  It was like he had gone into a trance and wasn’t even aware you were there. It was no wonder their child was strange, was it?

One day Janet told me she was going to get a baby brother or sister and eventually Baby Snell arrived in the world, they named her Barbara.  I have one vivid memory of her when she was just old enough to sit up in the pram.  Mrs. Snell had got her and Janet all dressed up to go down the road to the shops.  Barbara was sitting up in her pram, all tucked in – with the hood up and the storm cover fastened into place – luckily.  Suddenly she vomited all over the cover.  Mrs. Snell was still in the house.  Janet and I stood looking at each other and then at the mess.  Janet suddenly flew into the house shrieking “Mummy come quick; Barbara has been sick!”  Well, you would have thought it was our fault the way she laid into us, she was furious.  She rammed the brake of the pram off and swept down the path and into the house with Janet miserably in tow!  When Barbara started growing up, she was quite a normal kid - unlike her older sister and demented mother.

There was another child I played with, a boy named Bernard Richardson.  He lived on Hall Road, which was the road that ran past the end of Spring Gardens.  His house was around “the left corner” and down the road and on the other side.  Needless to say, it was some years before he and I could visit and play with each other.  He was OK.  Bit of a mummy’s boy.  Everything he wanted to do would have his Mother saying: “Bernard dear, don’t do that; Bernard love, don’t go out in the street, you’ll get run over.” All the time she fussed.  However, I do remember enjoying going round to their house to play.  His parents owned a nice cottage and a very large yard which was heaven for kids to play in.  As the years passed, I outgrew him and went further afield to play with children I met at school.

Having talked about the Snell family, I figured this was a good place to talk about the other neighbours who shared our lives in Spring Gardens.  To me, it seemed that neighbours were very important, or so my mum led me to believe, as she talked to them all at some point in the year. Mainly though it was to say “Good Morning” or “Hello Mrs. So-and-so” or “Merry Christmas”, and occasionally she would stop and have a good natter with one of the ladies, but she was never on first name terms with any of them! It was all very pleasant and friendly, but not too deep. Looking back, I realize that she didn’t go into their houses or invite them into ours or take tea or socialize at all in the way people do.  She kept very much to herself, and my dad did his socializing at the pub. 

I can’t remember them all, and most of them were unremarkable and nothing happened which involved them, that was worth of note.

The Snell’s lived at number three on the other side of the road. At number five was the family Gibson.  Mum often talked in the street with Mrs. Gibson. She had a son about the same age as my sister; George was his name and he joined the police force and was located at our local station.  He was to figure in a drama in our lives in later years, but I could not have foreseen that coming when I was four years old. 

Mr. & Mrs. Gill and their son Albert lived at number seven, which was practically opposite our home. These were my favourite neighbours. They spoke with a London accent, and Mr. Gill was well off, a big wig in the Liverpool Market, or so it was said, and he drove a Jaguar car!  Thinking back, he could well have been what was known as “bit of a wise boy” with ties to the London criminal gangs, but not a whisper had followed him up to Liverpool! They were both overweight. Mrs. Gill had bleached blonde hair, was short and round but very well dressed and was kindness itself. She was always offering me chocolates from a massive box of fancy ones – probably a present from Mr. Gill.   Albert, their son, was a little strange.  It seems there were a lot of strange people in our little road! Anyway, Albert had weird eyes, the left one faced away from his face and the other looked sort of straight at you but not quite!  Trying to look him in the eye was a challenging proposition.  He had to have been about thirty; he was overweight and very slow thinking.  Poor Albert, he was never likely to marry and it’s doubtful if he was capable of looking after himself.  I often wonder what became of him when his parents died.  Anyway, whenever I was talking to his mum or dad, he would stand there listening intently and then ask me a question that was totally unrelated to anything that had been said!  When I grew older, I could handle him, but at four years of age he just frightened the life out of me!

They had a green McCaw parrot in a cage that hung in the window so “Polly” could see everything that was going on in the road.  He was very curious and must have had wonderful eyesight!  Whenever Pat or I would come out of our side gate, Polly would spot us and screech “Hello Pat, Hello Wendy” and then he would give us the wolf whistle – over and over and then roar his head off  laughing.  We would call back “Hello Polly” and he’d squawk like crazy then shout, “Pretty Polly, Polly’s a pretty boy”! 

The Gills were also passionate about West Highland Scottish Terriers, the Westie.  They had owned several, one after the other, and they were all named “Kiltie”!  The current one, was a friendly little chap, but so overweight from being fed chocolates and other rich foods, the likes of which no dog should ever have to ingest!  I wouldn’t be surprised if all his predecessors had died from being fed this constant diet of rich food!

At number nine was the Cuddies. I would talk to them every so often, when they were out working in their garden. I think there was three sisters, from an old farming family in the town. I vaguely remember at some point in time, a young boy came to live with them. He and I became friends and we would sometimes play together and wander all over the district during summer holidays. But that was when I was a fair bit older, after I had started school. Strange I should suddenly remember him but blessed if I can remember his name.

In number twelve, on our side of the road lived a very tall lady whose name was Miss Claire. Mum said she was a retired teacher. I would say hello to her if she was coming or going, but that was the extent of my relationship with her. I never went into her house. At number ten, next door to Miss Claire were Mr. & Mrs. Roscoe. I can’t remember him, but Mrs. Roscoe loved to talk. If she caught sight of you in the back garden she would come to the fence and talk the hind leg off a donkey!  We were at number eight and I never knew the people at number six.  At some point I think, one of the inhabitants died and the property was listed for sale. By the time it sold I think I was about five years old.  Our new neighbours were the Crocket family.  Mr. Crocket seemed to me to be rather old and hardly spoke at all. Mrs. Crocket was nice enough and she would talk to my mum, again, on the front path or over the garden fence. They had a little girl who was about three or four when they moved in.  She informed me her name was Jonquil!  I had never heard of that name, either then or since. Apparently she was called Jonty for short. She and I played together eventually and I have some tales to tell of our exploits, but they will come in a later chapter.

At the closed end of our road, just the other side of the border of Miss Claire’s property, ran a small railway line that went to Ormskirk and places north.  There was an electric train that ran regularly from Liverpool to Ormskirk and back. But every so often we would hear the steam trains trundling through.  I would lie awake at night and hear them passing by.  It was a comforting sound rather than an intrusion.

Poor as Church Mice, with a Grand Piano

We had a Grand Piano!  We were poor but - we had a Grand Piano!  Don’t ask me where it came from or when, nobody ever mentioned it.  I suspect that dad had acquired it before the war.  He was the very definition of a handy man and was always carrying out small jobs for people – fixing this, mending that.  Mum would say he was “Jack” of all trades, master of none! Plus, he had taught himself watch mending.  So it was likely that he had done a job for someone and they offered him the piano in place of cash, for his charge. At that time, pianos were not highly priced or sought after. People were taking axes to them and braking them up as they couldn’t sell them for love nor money!  Maybe dad wanted a piano but didn’t have the money to buy one, so he accepted his customer’s offer. I can imagine my mother’s reaction when he turned up with a van or cart or whatever, which carried this gigantic piano to their home!

Dad did play the piano – now and then. We had a stack of sheet music sitting on the piano. All popular songs of the day, which I was learning to sing.  My sister played too, and she and I had more sessions at the piano than I did with dad.

One night, I must have been about eleven, mum happened to be out and dad (who was a rather introverted man) must have been in an outgoing mood, as he asked did I want to go and have a sing along with the piano.  Of course I jumped at the chance to make music with my dad. So off we went to the lounge which was way down the hall at the other end of the house.  However, only minutes before, dad had suggested we have a cup of tea so had put the pan on the stove to heat up some water.

We got really involved in our repertoire of music, completely forgetting the proposed pot of tea!  It was lovely singing my favourite songs standing by my father.  We must have been there for half an hour when dad suddenly remembered the pan on the stove!  “Hells Bells” he suddenly exclaimed “I forgot all about the pan for the tea!” We both flew through the house to the kitchen, once there we could barely see through the steam that filled the room and the pan was almost bone dry. Dad leapt to the stove to turn off the gas and flung open the window and the door.  Then he grabbed the tea towel and started wafting the steam out of the door!  The walls were streaming with condensation! “Bloody hell” he cursed, “I’ll get it in the neck when your mum gets home. ‘It will ruin the paint’ she’ll complain.”  He was wrong - we both “got it in the neck” Still, we’d had fun!

The Handyman Extraordinaire

As I mentioned my dad was a handyman, he could turn his hand to fixing almost anything within reason. One being motorbikes!  A story mum once told me concerned an incident that occurred before the war while they lived in Fazackerley, which involved her leaving the house to go shopping, only to return to find he had taken a motor bike engine apart – in the living room – with all its parts spread out on newspaper on the floor!  Their house didn’t have a shed or garage or sheltered lean-to where he could carry out these mending jobs. This job probably resulted in the appearance of the aforementioned piano!

He would put up shelves for people, mend leaking taps, fix a dodgy light connection and one time he even figured out how to put a heating element in mum’s iron and turned it into an “electric iron”;  which up till then she had heated up on the stove! And had to keep heating it up as it cooled during her ironing marathon!

But the gift he really excelled at and enjoyed immensely was mending watches and clocks.

He  wasn’t a “watch maker”, per se, but he could put together the bits and pieces necessary to produce a working watch and then he probably could sell that for a small price to make a little on the side. In his drawer were boxes and boxes of springs, cogs, spigots, wheels, casings and tiny, tiny screws, all separated and placed in the boxes.

My dad had very fine, tapered fingers and slender hands, just right for delicately handling all these miniscule pieces. The boxes were bottoms of “Swan” match containers or tobacco tins and any small useful box that he came across. He didn’t have spare money to buy special boxes or containers so he was also very good at being able to save a penny or two here and there!

Sometimes he would be asked to mend a clock that would have chimes or one that was in a case that stood quite tall.  These were tricky as they had a weighted pendulum that swung from left to right, which drove the spring that turned the hands of the clock. This is stating the process very simply, as really it was a complicated mechanism which if it wasn’t balanced just right, the clock would run fast or slow. 

Christmas and other celebrations

I can’t tell tales of life and home without regaling you with stories of Christmas. My earliest recollections of these celebrations are of waking up one morning to find a stocking at the bottom of my cot (crib).  I would have been about two or three years old.  Mum and dad where standing in the bedroom doorway, apparently waiting for me to awaken.  On investigation I found all sorts of goodies in the stocking.  I cannot now remember them all but there was a tangerine and some chocolates and little wooden toys.  On top of my bedding was a tea set.  It consisted of six little cups, saucers, plates and the tiniest teapot ever seen.  It was delightful.

Even though we were poor, Christmas was always a special time in our house.  Somehow my parents would find the money to provide us with Christmas fun and goodies. Mum must have squirreled away a few pennies every week, to be able to buy all the essential supplies needed to make the festive season – festive!  We always had chicken or duck and roasted spuds and sprouts for Christmas dinner - AND Christmas pudding! 

My mother would always prepare the puddings back in October and cook them, which required a boiling process.  From then until Christmas, she would keep the puddings (she never made just one) wrapped in waxed paper and tea towels and stored in a dark corner of the pantry.

The day of the pudding creation was a performance.  Starting early in the morning, mum would assemble the long list of ingredients which included dried currants, sultanas and raisins, chopped apples, grated carrots, nuts and aromatic spices, to name just a few  – and as she mixed it all together in a large mixing bowl, we all had to come and give it a stir for luck. She would also, put in silver sixpenny pieces, which all of us family hoped to find before we bit down on them and broke a tooth! She’d add lots of sherry to stop it from going moldy - this was why she could keep them for so long before we ate them.  When the mixing was done, the next stage was to divide the mixture up into the several ceramic bowls she had, then cover each one with wax paper and tie string around it and make a string handle to lift the heavy bowl in and out of the pan. To get string very tight around a slippery bowl with a slanting side is not easy – I’ve tried it!

Mum would manage three before you could blink, then she would wrap each one in old tea-towels that she kept strictly for this purpose.  Finally, the bowls were placed in large pans that were filled with boiling water.  The trick was to get the water level up to the rim of the basin, but not over the top!  Then she would have to keep the water topped up all day, with equally hot water, as the cooking proceeded – which took hours.   To heat water for cooking, making tea and other needs, mum couldn’t use a kettle because the water had many minerals in it and was referred to as “hard”; over time it would form a coating of lime on the inside of the kettle which was difficult to remove, so life was easier if a pan was utilized.  All day she would keep a smaller pan with heated water at the ready to ‘top-up’ the water around the puddings.

The kitchen would be full of steam, and the walls would be streaming with condensed water.  As you will have deduced by now, my mother was paranoid about steam in the kitchen.  I guess as the whole house was so damp and she had to fight with damp clothes and bedding all through the winter, one can understand her consternation. Consequently, during this annual ritual, the kitchen windows would be flung open regardless of the weather and if it was cold or howling a gale, so be it.  Home was not a comfortable place to be on “Christmas Pud” day!

The next preparation for Christmas was “making the Christmas cake day” which usually followed closely on “Christmas Pud” day.  Same procedure; a long list of ingredients not dissimilar to the one for the puddings but added to those would be glace cherries and candied peel and almonds. But at least it was cooked in the oven not steamed, so Mum didn’t have to suffer the abject misery of dealing with water fall-out and we didn’t have to suffer with doors and windows flung open to the elements.  Once the cake was cooked and cool it was placed in a special round tin – upside down – and then every week a teaspoon of precious brandy was poured over the bottom of it.  This was done, mum said, to preserve the cake and enrich the flavour, because slowly but surely the brandy would seep through the whole cake.

Then just before Christmas arrived the cake would have marzipan applied to it, usually just on the top, and then mum would ice it. Marzipan, in case you are wondering, is a confection made from ground almonds (almond meal) and icing sugar, also known as powdered sugar. Once mixed it can be rolled out like pastry.  It makes a very good topping for a cake and a base on which to place icing or frosting.  At that time in the U.K., this would be a hard icing, not the soft fudge icing made with butter or margarine.  This icing was made with icing sugar and the whites of eggs.  It was spread over the top of the cake and using a palette knife, formed into peaks to resemble snow.