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She was born Florence Bamforth in Dewsbury at the turn
of the century I know very little of her early life except
that she worked as an apprentice in a dress making shop
and on leaving she worked for her mother taking in sewing
work. My grandmother seemed to run her home like a work
shop, I remember later in life that we had a cousin called
Millicent who lived with my gran and was made to work like
a skivvy doing most of the household chores. To jump forward
to St. Neots my mother became distressed when the nightly
bombing of London started. The sirens sounded every night
and the planes often dumped their load in the St. Neots
aria, one bomb dropping quite near to their house. She had
Peter apply for a vacant post in Retford which was Peters
home town and they moved up to live in Ranby late in 1941.
I paid them a surprise visit when I had a weeks leave before
I went out east. It was a bit of a shock for my mother to
find her son stood on her doorstep in a sailors uniform.
There was a large army camp at Ranby and each week they
held a dance and my mother used to chaperone my sister Pat
and her friends at these dances. My mother made friends
with some of the older soldiers. mainly sergeants and turned
her home into a open house, I don't know what the neighbours
in this small village felt but solders used to come and
go bringing with them fags, bottles of beer and food from
the N.A.A.F.I In the evening they would sit around the table
into the morning hours, on a quiet night playing solo and
on the busy nights brag, shoot and pontoon, it's a wonder
the police didn't raid this village gambling den.
I have told you that my mother was the worlds best dressmaker,
well you should have seen her at work. she used to sit at
her machine with a cig in her mouth and the ash used to
get longer and longer and you just sat in fascination waiting
for it to fall, but it never did, at the last minute she
would pop one hand under the fag in a sort of cup and tap
the cig with the first finger of her other hand.
Her customers use to bring copies of Harpers and Vogue
type magazines and point out the dress or outfit they wanted
and she would make it for them and this could be the simplest
dress up to the most elaborate wedding dress. She would
cut out patterns in news paper or old brown paper and pin
these onto the customer, then cutting them to size and hey
presto the dress was made, she certainly burnt the midnight
oil. When she cut out the material I told her she was wasteful
cutting the shapes out at odd angles and I learnt that for
instance you had to cut the material against or with the
weave or even on the cross for the different types of skirt
such as straight, flared or pleated and that the cut of
the material decided the way the finished garment would
hang. After Peter died my mother came to live in Leeds and
ended up in a flat in Armley, she no longer took in any
work but was for ever making things for the family. Bob
and I used to make work for her to keep her going we would
break a zip and then haveer mend it for us, she had tins
full of zips, buttons and fasteners all round the flat.
I used to visit her each Friday on my way home from work,
I used to visit a stall in Bradford market and buy a remnant
from which my mother would make me a tie. Ties had to be
cut on the cross and I became an expert on selecting the
best off cuts. I did by the way end up with the biggest
collection of ties in the country.
About 1978 she moved back to live near Pat my sister and
her children and got an old folks bungalow in Worksop. On
my trips up and down the Al I used to call and see her mostly
on my way home. For some reason she thought I was rich,
so to tease her having received a months expenses most of
it owed to my credit card I pulled out of my pockets about
£500 in pound notes and sorted it out on the coffee
table. When you think that her total assets were about £250
in the Post Office bank it just confirmed her view and she
never let me forget it.
VANMEN AND COLLECTORS
There was always the weekly visitor, it's really true that
You never locked the front door except when you went to
bed or were out for the day and even then there was a key
on a length of string hanging behind the letter box and
visitors just gave a tap on the door and walked in. There
was the man from the Pru. every one had a death Policy and
payments were as little has a penny or twopence a week and
there was the man from the Provident Cheque Co. the cheques
were for one Pound each and they cost one shilling plus
a shilling a week for twenty weeks, the cheques could be
spent in town at shops displaying the Provident sign.
My mother had the man from the Co-op visit each week he
used to bring the weekly grocery order and sit down with
a cup of tea and write down the order for the next week.
the paper man used to call on a Sunday and he would sell
cigarettes, sweets and chocolate. Although my mothers house
at Ranby was a new semi there were no drains in the village
so they had an outside chemical closet and before my time
they told me that a horse and cart with big drums on used
go come round to empty them. In my days Peter my step father
had to dig a hole at the bottom of the garden and empty
the closet in the hole, it was a pretty good spot for growing
some very fine blooms and you had to be very careful were
you walked, it might be a good idea for today to stop burglars
coming in over the back garden.
Back to Batley before the war, there was the fruit and
veg horse and cart, the cart was like a market stall on
wheels with a fancy top often painted in fancy colours like
a Gypsy caravan, he used to ring a big hand bell to announce
his presence. The milkman had a sort of pony and trap and
the milk was in large milk urns, you had to go out with
your milk jug and he would fill it with a pint or half pint
measure which used to hang on the lip of the urn. Ice cream
men had a sort of three wheel bike with two wheels on the
front and a sort of freezer box in front of the handlebars
or a very heavy sort of hand cart which they had to push
or pull round the streets, all they sold were cornets or
sandwiches a penny a time.
The coalman with bags of coal piled on a horse and cart.
every house had it's cellar and a grate in front of the
house, you had to count the bags as he emptied them down
to make sure he did not fiddle you. The breadman was a bit
posh, he often had a van and a clean white smock and the
man with the tingalary, they used to rent them by the day
together with a monkey chained to the top of the player,
they would come round the streets playing tunes like It's
a Long Way to Tipperary and hoped people would go out and
give them a copper or two. Barbara was brought up on various
Railway Stations, mostly in the North Riding as her father
who was a Station Master moved up the promotion line. She
told me that at Goldsborough a small North Riding station
isolated from the village they had paraffin lamps and did
not even have a water supply and their water had to be delivered
to them in large milk cans each day on the early morning
train.
Her mothers family were farmers at West Ness near Nunington
and she remembers that about three times a year a Tinker
used to visit the farm. He had a fine horse and cart, the
cart had every kind of kitchen utensil hanging from hooks
and as he entered the farm yard you could hear the pans
ringing and clanging together, the farm dogs barking and
the chickens screeching as they rushed out of the way of
the horses feet. The local doctor used to visit in a pony
and trap and on one occasion Barbara had a very nasty cut
on her forehead and the doctor was sent for. When the doctor
arrived he first had a look at the nasty cut and then spoke
to her father in a low voice, her father took a shilling
from his pocket and placed it on the table next to her and
said" not one sound out of you and you and it's yours",
he then held her firm by the hair and the doctor stitched
up the cut and not a sound was heard as she earned her first
ever shilling.
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