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| The Wedding |
The wedding ring wasn’t purchased in the way we would normally do it, now, but as was common practice among the working class, at the time. It was forged out of one and a half gold sovereigns by a mate around the corner, one Freddie Young, who did a little gold and silver smithing, watch and clock repairs, gem setting and the like, taking a few gold or silver clippings for his trouble. In a later, more affluent year, Charlie had another sovereign added to it. Looking at the two and a half sovereign ring now, I can’t help but wonder about Freddie Young’s ‘few clippings’, not with standing the 70-odd years of rough wear Jane gave it.
It would appear that our Mr Young was quite the entrepreneur. I recall when I was 5 or 6 we had a wireless which ran on acid accumulators- four things like glass bricks, full of liquid, and with ceramic carrying handles. They had to be taken and be changed for re-charged ones, every so often. I had to help Charlie to carry them- to Freddie Young’s. Also at that time, I remember Charlie paid a subscription to a sickness benefit club, payment being made to- correct! I have the impression that the scheme was not geared to casual ailments or miss-haps, rather to more serious incapacity of a final nature; death, even. So one can only speculate- was Freddie still around when the first claim came in? I fancy Freddie had already shuffled off his entrepreneur’s satchel, and was bellied up to some celestial tap-room bar rail, drinking ambrosia shandies, in pints. Back to the wedding-
After the ceremony, Bill and Ada left the happy couple to walk to their newly rented house in Bowden Street. It was a courtyard house, consisting of one up, one down, and communal outside W.C. There, among their pitiful few sticks of furniture, they shared their wedding feast of one whole orange between them.
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| The Wedding Feast |
“Aren’t we ‘avin’ a drink, Charlie?”
“No”.
“Why not?”
“We ‘aven’t any more money”.
Oh, Grand dad! And you called me a Daft Beggar!
So off they went, back to work, presumably drawing wages at the end of the day, to shop their way home on the eve of the first Christmas of their married life.
After such an inauspicious beginning, hardly the love story of the new century, more a sympathetic arrangement of mutual comfort and commiseration, it is surprising that in the last few days of his life, in seemingly good health, several times as Jane passed his chair, Charlie reached out to stop her with-
“You’ve been a good wife to me, Jane”.
“Gerroff, tha soft ‘ap’orth!” (halfpennyworth) was Jane’s repeated response, as she bustled about her business. Poor Jane. In all her life she was totally incapable of giving or receiving the slightest sign of affection.
They occupied the little house in Bowden Street for only 2 or 3 years, then moved to a similar house in Hodgson Street. No.1 house in No.4 court, written as a fraction- 4ct/1h, and pronounced ‘four court one’. Trivial now, maybe, but not to me as a 3yr old, learning my address. This new house had the same one up (bedroom) and one down (living kitchen) plus the added amenities of an attic bedroom, with a proper sash window, not just a skylight, and a cellar with a cold slab. Imagine a stone table, a 4” thick slab of smooth, fine-grained York sandstone, up to 4’ square, mounted on four brick piers. The price of such a piece of stone, now, would have paid for 2 or 3 of those houses, then.
Opposite the top of the cellar steps was a little alcove, again fitted with stone shelves, a very useful cold storage space, known as the cellar head. The 12 W.Cs, in their double, back-to-back battery in the yard, were shared one between two households. So the upkeep of each, being shared between two housewives, each keen not to lose face, ensured really clean loos, plus a plentiful supply of newspaper squares strung on the back of the door.
As dustbins were still in the future, their function was served by a midden in the yard. Imagine a brick lean-to, maybe 10ft. by 6ft. with a slate roof, three window openings- no windows, just openings, and no door. Two dozen households- six pairs facing each other across the yard, and six more pairs back to back with them, in the bordering streets, would all tip their ashes etc. in there, and council workmen would come, shovel it out, carry it out to the street, and cart it away. The emptying would be no more often than monthly, maybe less seldom. Again the system depended on everyone’s honour, so everything that could be burned in the small fire grate of the Yorkshire range was so disposed of. The range was the sole source of heat and cooking, so was always alight, and anything which made the fuel go further, made economic sense. Of course, with solid coal fires, sooty chimneys needed sweeping at least once a year, or zealous rubbish burning could easily result in a chimney fire, and a visit from the fire brigade, which in turn meant water, mess, and expense! So nothing went into the midden, which would rot, smell, attract flies, cats, dogs, birds, or vermin.
Charlie and Jane rented this one house for over 40 yrs, rearing seven children and burying two. The one attic was curtained between girls window side, and boys stair side, though by the time the youngest two were born, one, possibly two of the older ones had already flown the coop. When the same attic served Betty and me, it was still lit not by electricity, but by a single, small gas mantle, over the bed. It had a strange, sickly smell. I can smell it still.
The midden didn’t give way to dust bins until the mid 40s, which explains why, while ever they lived with open fires, my family never lost the dubious habit of scraping a dirty plate, whatever it held, straight onto the fire, after a meal.