For some obscure reason, as
mentioned earlier in this story, we were invited to stay with an aunt
of my mothers in a village called Wingate, which was about 3 miles
from Hutton Henry. We left on the 26th August and travelled
up by car, a Ford Prefect, and returned by the same means. The car
belonged to a neighbour Richard Newton Addey. This is the only time I
can recall this method of travel up to Durham despite the number of
journeys made there in the past. It wasn’t a spectacular week, two
days at the seaside and a day in Sunderland. Great Aunt was fairly
ancient and spoke a different language, which was hard to understand,
but she did change all our names to Kinny and hills became “banks”.
There was a lodger who sported a contraption called a betting clock in
his coat pocket – very strange people. We arrived home on the 2nd
September 1939 and on the 3rd September came the
announcement that war had been declared. We listened to it on the
radio after church. Late that night the sirens howled out that there
was an air raid imminent so we were woken up rather bemused. Mother
was worried, as she had lived in West Hartlepool as an 8 year old when
it was shelled from the sea by enemy warships. All our fears were
unfounded when the "all clear” signal was given an hour or two later.
There was much to discuss on the way to school the next morning and
dad checked on grandmother and grandfather in Park View to see if they
were ok.
There were many changes during
the next few months and they affected
children as well as the adults. After dark there was a complete
blackout in houses and in shops, factories, mines and the streets.
Black curtains were hung at windows, as was other materials so that
there was no light visible from the outside. The top half of the gas
street lamps glass was painted black, as were the headlights on
vehicles and cycles. Pocket torches were treated in the same manner
and must always be shone on the ground by law. November 5th
was cancelled until the end of the hostilities. It was an austere,
gloomy autumn and winter, and it became worse as time wore on. Both
sides in France had used poison gases during the First World War and
as educated lads we were well aware of this. Parliament were worried
that attacks from the air using gas was possible so it was decided
that every man, woman and child should be given a gas mask as
protection. Air raid wardens who proceeded to fit each child with a
gas mask made of rubber attached to a chemical filled filter and with
a clear visor to aid vision-visited schools. The latter always steamed
up and vision was reduced to nil. When not in use it was to be kept in
the thin cardboard box provided for it complete with a piece of string
to make life comfortable when carrying it. The box got wet when it
rained and the string cut through the wet card. The net result was no
box. Then ingenuity took over and receptacles of all shape and sizes
began to appear commercially to replace the useless boxes. Fortunately
the things were never required. The school windows were pasted on the
inside with a net like substance, which would prevent flying pieces of
glass from injuring anyone should the blast from an explosion shatter
the windows. Air raid shelters were built on the green at Hill Top and
in the spaces were numbers 4,5 and 6 once stood. There were three
blocks of four made up of brick and with a concrete top and an opening
for access protected by a wall the full length of the shelter. The
four spaces were interconnected inside and the users were expected to
sit on concrete and dangle their legs in a sort of well. The shelters
were so uncomfortable that, once used, residents decided that they
would rather trust to fate than use them again. Dad had the coal place
emptied and after cleaning, washing and lime washing he put in two
bunks, first aid box, a temporary light and a small stool or two.
Mother made a mattress for each bunk and we used our own bed covers
when we had to take to the shelters. It was quite cosy compared to the
public shelters mentioned above. In the autumn we had previously been
allowed to play around a nearby lamp, which cast a yellowish green
light for a few yards, but parents stopped this, as they liked us to
be in after dusk and not roaming around in the blackout. In school we
were instructed to take shelter under our desks should the need arise
as there was no air raid shelters for pupils. So we had to practise
getting under the desks in an emergency. To create the emergency, Mr
Foster would suddenly open a classroom door and say very seriously,
“bombs are dropping on Brierley”, this was followed by 40 children
leaping of chairs, grabbing gas masks and crouching under the desks
amidst crashing chairs, flying books and pens, overturned inkwells and
shouts of “quick gerunder”, geroff me” and “thas gor all room”,
hilarious but obviously necessary from the heads point of view.
The “Modern World”
now resorted to informing us of our military equipment with which we
(our armed forces) were to use in wartime. Battleships, cruises,
destroyers, MTB’s, Blenhiem and Battle, Whitley and Swordfish,
Hurricane, Spitfire, Bren Gun Carriers, 20 ton tanks, field guns,
grenades, rifles etc. What a mass of equipment but we had also been
informed of the Graf Spee, Tirpitz, Dorniers, Heinkels and Tiger tanks
of 30 tons. So this became a topic of discussion for lads like us – we
always came out on top despite the odds.
The following winter was a bad
one, but good for healthy lads who could
sledge and slide, I’m sure that it snowed for England that year. In
the spring we had to set too with a will to cultivate the school
garden as part of the “grow your own vegetables” campaign. We dug,
raked, hoed, made seed drills and planted loads of veg seeds. Also on
Barnsley Road, we dug the policeman’s garden for him under
supervision. He thought it was a good idea, we didn’t, and it hadn’t
been done for a few years. I have often wondered since those days who
got the vegetables when the time came to harvest the garden? Not my
family.
The new road from Brierley to
Grimethorpe had been opened the previous
year (1938) with a wide, smooth footpath on one side. On our
way home from the Saturday matinee at Grimethorpe we remarked that the
footpath from Fox’s farm to the bottom of the hill would make a great
trolley run so we decided to try it with our latest models fitted with
a make shift brake. We were right, it gave us a fast run from a
lamppost a short distance down the hill but from the top it was faster
still and scary so we decided not to try that again.
We spent many hours climbing
trees and the slab of rocks halfway down the
lane from home (Frickley Bridge Lane). The horse trough at the base of
the rock was fed by natural spring water, which trickled into the
trough at one end and overflowed into a ditch at the other. It was
always full and used by the horses pulling farm carts or gigs
up the lane. My sister fell in once and went home soaking wet – big
trouble and told to keep away – but we forgot. We tried throwing
stones at the insulators on the telegraph poles but it was a waste of
time “our aim was hopeless”. The area had once been a quarry, many,
many years ago. I cannot see our ancestors cutting through hundreds of
tons of rock to make a road so the rock must have been used in both
villages for building work. The road and footpath in the lane had been
upgraded two years earlier. The large stone slabs, which were the
footpath were removed and replaced with kerbstones and asphalt. As
there were trenches where the kerbs were to be positioned they had to
be protected from unwary pedestrians so a night watchman was present
when the workmen where at home nights and weekend. Mr Senior from
Clifton Gardens was watchman and we would spend many Saturday
afternoons talking to him and on occasions carrying the warning lights
to their positions after he had cleaned and filled them with paraffin.
The lights were about 8 inches square, 12 inches high and had a curved
handle on top. Three sides had a red glass lens and the fourth side a
door which when opened allowed the fuel tank and wick carrier to be
pulled out, filled and put back after lighting. Mr Senior had a cabin,
open on one side, in which he could sit and have his meals and shelter
from the rain. He kept warm with a brazier containing a hot glowing
coke fire and we liked nothing better than to gather round it out of
the fumes. What did we talk about? I don’t know but it was our way of
life.
During the summer of 1940
we were told of this school in Cudworth where the curriculum was far
in advance of ours in Brierley. I can’t remember how it all began but
some of us were interested and asked our parents if we could transfer.
They in turn asked Mr Foster who said that he had no objections to us
transferring, provided we were accepted, as it was a better school
with modern facilities. So on the day of restart after the summer
break four boys and two girls presented themselves with a parent at
Cudworth Modern School to see the head teacher of each category. Apart
from myself there was Jim Bond, Walter Deighton and Ken Grimes. The
girls were Monica Lukins and Diana Hanson. We were accepted and
all started in the ‘A’ stream – there were 3 streams 1, 2 and 3a, 1, 2
and 3b, 1, 2 and 3c plus form ‘S’. I don’t intend to write about my 18
months at Cudworth other than it was worth the change. Reading and
writing became English, then there was Maths, Geography, History,
Music, Science, Metalwork, Woodwork, Art and a library subject had a
specialist teacher and room plus a gymnasium and a sports field It was
indeed a modern building with a modern concept on education – it
broadened our outlook on life.
To make travel a bit more
economic I had to have a bicycle so that I,
and other lads, could come home at lunchtime, as meals were four pence
(2p) a day. One Saturday afternoon I went into Barnsley on the bus and
dad in on his bicycle and met me. We went to a little cycle shop at
the bottom of Dodworth Road (now gone) and I was allowed to choose a
suitable model, which cost £4-10-00 (£4.50p). Dad paid for it and we
rode home together. “What about the money” I asked. This was more than
he earned in a week. Apparently the three pence a week, which I took
to school for years and paid into the Yorkshire Penny Bank, had
accumulated into a tidy sum cared for by grandmother. I was rich and
never knew it. The balance of a few shillings paid for a new jacket
and cap. I left old mates behind and made new ones, Peter Sparrow and
his family moved to Leeds where his dad and brother in law found new
work in the Blackburn aircraft factory, Pete soon followed, as he was
my age. In my class were two lads, who I think now live in Brierley,
Jack West and Ernest Gardener. There was also Frank Winset whose dad
was missing in North Africa and was eventually listed as a prisoner of
war in Italy. Cliff Iveson who was very athletic, Billy Bates, Jim
McDonald who had some success as a boxer, Ron Rigby who later became a
Barnsley councillor, and so it could go on.
One item, which I forgot to
mention, was the presence of two fish and
chips shops in the village and of course the surgery. One fish shop
was halfway down Barnsley Road and was used to serve one half of the
village. This was owned by Mr and Mrs Massey and served that end of
Brierley. I could never understand why they used only one pan – first
for chips and then for the fish, which meant rather a long wait. Mr
and Mrs Naylor who also had the off-license directly opposite the
church owned the other shop. Mrs Naylor operated the fish shop which
was in what is now Church Drive, using both pans, coal fired,
naturally. Both fish shops were spotlessly clean and the cost was the
same at each i.e. a portion of fish was tuppence and chips a penny a
portion.
Joe Kenyon whose shop was opposite the Three Horse Shoes was an excellent
butcher and baker of bread and teacakes. My parents never bought
sausages or meat from anyone else, as long as he was in business. Mr
Kay was a baker and confectioner and had the shop at the bottom of
Barnsley Road. Often I was sent for a ¼ of boiled ham and 6 buns on
Saturday teatime, they cost one shilling (5p). Mother always baked on
a Sunday morning. Mr Kay travelled the village, selling his products
on a three wheeled cycle with a large cupboard like box on the front
when opened it revealed several trays on runners full of delicious
cakes, buns, scones etc.
I have left the question of health
until now as I thought it would be better discussed in general rather
that as individual ailments that only concerned my family because the
majority of children had the common or garden health problems. Dr
Gardener’s surgery in Church Drive was small, but the, the population
of the village was small too. The treatment room or consulting room
was the same size as the patient’s waiting room about 12 foot long and
6 foot wide with a large desk, a porcelain sink, a door on one side
and a window for lighting. The opposite side consisted of a double
door from the waiting room and tiers of shelves containing dozens of
bottles all with a Latin name on each one. This was his pharmacy and
he knew that each bottle’s contents cured or eased any local ailment
such as cold or grazes or constipation. He knew also when a patient
needed hospitalisation rather that his expert treatment. In my opinion
he was a good doctor. Drugs and antibiotics as we know them today just
were not available sixty or more years ago – neither were some of
today’s ailments and illnesses.
Not many families were without
a copy of the ‘Family Doctor’ a concise volume of illnesses and
injuries and the treatment thereof and every household carried
petroleum jelly, liquid paraffin, iodine, acraflavin, cod liver oil,
bandages, germaline, zinc ointment and other health producing
concoctions such as Scott’s Emulsion, Cod Liver Oil and Malt and
Arrowroot, not forgetting those tapes of aspro and bottles of aspirin
available in most shops for the persistent headache or toothache. For
baby there was Nurse Harvey’s and Woodward’s gripewater – quite
pleasant for the “older babies” with upset stomachs. Brother Ron had
scarlet fever when he was about four years old and spent several weeks
in the Isolation Hospital on the common. I remember being taken up to
see him one Saturday the only visiting day, by mother. A nurse brought
him up to the “line” and we were kept behind some railings about 30
feet away and tried to make a conversation, as did several other mums,
futile. All four of us had the usual children complaints, mumps,
measles, chicken pox etc and cuts and grazes of various sizes these
last been liberally treated with iodine which really stung when
applied. Acraflavin was used for minor burns and liquid paraffin to
keep us regular. We didn’t have to go the surgery very often. Oh! I
nearly forgot that for bee, wasp or ant stings there was always the
“Blue Bag” which, was used on washday to make all the clothes whiter,
it worked whatever was in it.
At Easter 1942 I left school aged 14
with nothing to show for the ten years of learning. Certificates were
a thing of the future except if one had been fortunate enough to gain
a place at Hemsworth Grammar School following the 11 plus examination
held every year. The problem was that there were only two places
allocated to Brierley school and although I was never lower than third
place, and more often than not in first place in class, I didn’t go to
Hemsworth. My teacher once said that I should have had the place
allocated to a boy. Some years later I understood the meaning of her
little outburst. Within two weeks I was working in a grocery
shop in Barnsley – there was to be no job at the pit for me said dad –
collar and tie it was to be and so it was for 7 shillings (35p) a
week. How could I be fed and clothed on that pittance? But I was.
Brother Ron took over the cleaning at Bob
Butterwood's and I went to Tommy Oakes’s farm
evenings, half day and any spare time. It was enjoyable learning to do
all sorts of jobs – harnessing horses, horse hoeing, horse raking,
feeding cattle, milking, cutting kale and marigolds, stoking,
haymaking, hedging, cleaning out of cowsheds, driving heavy cart and
dray and so on. Tom usually paid me 2 shillings (10p) at the weekend,
not much you may think but it was extra cash for me.
We lads were fully aware
that in four years time we would be in the army, navy or RAF. That was
all that we had to look forward to. In anticipation I joined the local
army cadets and had a foretaste of what was to come but never
regretted joining. In 1944 I joined the Air Training Corps and learned
Morse code, visited wartime airfields, managed to get onto a Boeing
B17, a Lancaster Gera Turret and almost got lost in a fog during a
flight over Lincolnshire, which the RAF offered as a sort of dangling
carrot. At 18 I was enlisted into the army where I remained for 2 ½
years – but that is another part of my life.
Perhaps the reader might feel sorry for my
generation or perhaps he or she might envy
us and our lifestyle without mod-cons but whichever it is I think that
we lived in a wonderful period of time, advancing technology and
Victorian and Edwardian ideals. What has been written here is only the
tip of the iceberg, as any one subject could become a story in itself?
However, I can still recall those blissful sunny days of my early
childhood, which can be read about but never experienced by the
reader.
Incidentally, a
pocket-handkerchief or a bar of chocolate was accepted as birthday
presents when invited to someone’s party. The cost was 3 pence (1½ p)
and value was never considered against friendship.
The grace sung before each
class before and after lunch
Before:
Be present at our
table lord
Be here and
everywhere adored
Let Manna to our
souls be given
The bread of life
sent down from heaven.
After:
We thank thee lord for
this our food
But more because of
Jesus’ blood
Thy creatures bless
and grant that we
May feast in paradise
with thee.
John
Steele 2000/2001
Baipip August 2005
