First of all, many thanks to MargaretR for setting me straight about the location of the benefits office......it was indeed in Dutton Street.
It was a long time ago.......I think I might have been six at the time....after speaking to Ma yesterday she set me right.......I did remember it...mainly the upset at thinking we were going to be left with strangers and that Ma could not afford to keep us...but over the years have heard Ma tell how she took us down to the benefits office...and was going to leave us there(there were only 4 of us at that time)...I put two and two together and came up with five.....being more familiar with Melbourne House.
Anyway back to the memories.
Coal.....we had an old fashioned cream range in our kitchen....... coal fired in the main....or wood if we hadn't any coal.
The ground floor of the house had stone floors.....very cold to the feet.
One of my abiding memories is having cold feet......I hated having cold feet.
When money was short Ma couldn't afford to have the coal man visit.
Because we lived at the top of Riley's Hill the coal man would only come up the hill if more than one resident was buying, or if you were ordering a goodly amount of coal.
The coal cart used to park at the bottom of the hill and the coal man had to hoof it up the hill with the sack of coal on his back.
By the time he got to the top he was gasping like a stranded codfish......in winter when there was snow on the ground, and you really needed the coal, it was a point blank 'NO'.
I used to get sent to Bob Wilkinsons hardware shop on Nuttall street for a bag of coal briquettes........newspaper or sacking was put into the bottom of the baby's pram and I was sent off.....often with a gallon can too.....for lamp oil to fuel a valor stove that we had at the top of the stairs to warm the upper part of the house.
The Valor stoves were deadly. They could easily be knocked over.
I am pretty sure that children died as a result of families using these to warm their homes. (Eventually the design changed to add a safety feature which closed off the oil tank if the heater was accidentally upturned).
Back to the coal. The coal hole (we called it the coal place) was down the back yard.....it was always locked..... and we were sent out to fill the coal buckets in our turn.
There was always an argument over whose turn it was to fill the coal bucket...and sometimes the fire almost went out while the argument raged.
I hated going out for coal in the winter.....it was dark, cold and I always had difficulty with the lock and key......I could be there in the dark fumbling with the key for a few minutes....sometimes dropping the key and having to scrabble for it in the snow or the rain......but much worse was having no coal.
The railway was a good supply chain for coal........We used to go out with a wicker basket during daylight hours to look by the side of the track for lumps of coal that had fallen from trains as they left Accrington Station.
We had to go through a gap in the fence and climb the embankment at the back of Highams Mill to get to the railway line...we would search both sides of the track and if we heard a train coming we would slide back down the embankment to safety......sometimes though, we would shout to the train driver to throw us a cob of coal off....the trains were going quite slow at this point......and though I am not sure that the drivers could actually hear us, they knew what we were there for. Some would chuck us some coal, others wouldn't.
One winter afternoon, with the light just fading, we(myself and two of my brothers) were there scavenging for coal.
We could hear a train leaving the station and positioned ourselves ready to shout for coal.
The train drew up the track and stopped just a little way from us. A burly Railway Policeman(no, he wasn't burly, he was fat) jumped from the train and set off after us.
We didn't take much catching really.
He wanted to know our names and where we lived......he was going to take us home and tell our parents what we had been up to.
We slid down the embankment to the place where we had got through the fence.
We squeezed through the fence....and if we had had any sense we would have had it away on our toes...but no...not us.
We were proper daft. We waited for him.
There was no way he was going to get through the gap......he had to climb over the fence, puffing and panting and swearing under his breath.....tearing a hole in his jacket in the process.
He took us home.
Read us the riot act in front of Ma...who looked like she didn't believe that her children would do such a thing(grubby little urchins that we were)...and with reassurances to the officer that we would get our hides tanned when our father came home... that we would never be doing anything so dangerous ever again.
Ma did tell us off........for getting caught. She said we should have run away when we saw him coming....but that night we had warm toes courtesy of British Rail.
I hope this warmed the cockles of your heart...or at least made you smile.
It was a long time ago.......I think I might have been six at the time....after speaking to Ma yesterday she set me right.......I did remember it...mainly the upset at thinking we were going to be left with strangers and that Ma could not afford to keep us...but over the years have heard Ma tell how she took us down to the benefits office...and was going to leave us there(there were only 4 of us at that time)...I put two and two together and came up with five.....being more familiar with Melbourne House.
Anyway back to the memories.
Coal.....we had an old fashioned cream range in our kitchen....... coal fired in the main....or wood if we hadn't any coal.
The ground floor of the house had stone floors.....very cold to the feet.
One of my abiding memories is having cold feet......I hated having cold feet.
When money was short Ma couldn't afford to have the coal man visit.
Because we lived at the top of Riley's Hill the coal man would only come up the hill if more than one resident was buying, or if you were ordering a goodly amount of coal.
The coal cart used to park at the bottom of the hill and the coal man had to hoof it up the hill with the sack of coal on his back.
By the time he got to the top he was gasping like a stranded codfish......in winter when there was snow on the ground, and you really needed the coal, it was a point blank 'NO'.
I used to get sent to Bob Wilkinsons hardware shop on Nuttall street for a bag of coal briquettes........newspaper or sacking was put into the bottom of the baby's pram and I was sent off.....often with a gallon can too.....for lamp oil to fuel a valor stove that we had at the top of the stairs to warm the upper part of the house.
The Valor stoves were deadly. They could easily be knocked over.
I am pretty sure that children died as a result of families using these to warm their homes. (Eventually the design changed to add a safety feature which closed off the oil tank if the heater was accidentally upturned).
Back to the coal. The coal hole (we called it the coal place) was down the back yard.....it was always locked..... and we were sent out to fill the coal buckets in our turn.
There was always an argument over whose turn it was to fill the coal bucket...and sometimes the fire almost went out while the argument raged.
I hated going out for coal in the winter.....it was dark, cold and I always had difficulty with the lock and key......I could be there in the dark fumbling with the key for a few minutes....sometimes dropping the key and having to scrabble for it in the snow or the rain......but much worse was having no coal.
The railway was a good supply chain for coal........We used to go out with a wicker basket during daylight hours to look by the side of the track for lumps of coal that had fallen from trains as they left Accrington Station.
We had to go through a gap in the fence and climb the embankment at the back of Highams Mill to get to the railway line...we would search both sides of the track and if we heard a train coming we would slide back down the embankment to safety......sometimes though, we would shout to the train driver to throw us a cob of coal off....the trains were going quite slow at this point......and though I am not sure that the drivers could actually hear us, they knew what we were there for. Some would chuck us some coal, others wouldn't.
One winter afternoon, with the light just fading, we(myself and two of my brothers) were there scavenging for coal.
We could hear a train leaving the station and positioned ourselves ready to shout for coal.
The train drew up the track and stopped just a little way from us. A burly Railway Policeman(no, he wasn't burly, he was fat) jumped from the train and set off after us.
We didn't take much catching really.
He wanted to know our names and where we lived......he was going to take us home and tell our parents what we had been up to.
We slid down the embankment to the place where we had got through the fence.
We squeezed through the fence....and if we had had any sense we would have had it away on our toes...but no...not us.
We were proper daft. We waited for him.
There was no way he was going to get through the gap......he had to climb over the fence, puffing and panting and swearing under his breath.....tearing a hole in his jacket in the process.
He took us home.
Read us the riot act in front of Ma...who looked like she didn't believe that her children would do such a thing(grubby little urchins that we were)...and with reassurances to the officer that we would get our hides tanned when our father came home... that we would never be doing anything so dangerous ever again.
Ma did tell us off........for getting caught. She said we should have run away when we saw him coming....but that night we had warm toes courtesy of British Rail.
I hope this warmed the cockles of your heart...or at least made you smile.
at the bottom of the narrow backyard n oer the wall was Gainfords Coal Yard,wall was only about 6ft high, so took the dustbin oer n filled it, great but problem was the yard side wall was about 8ft high n couldn't get the bin back oer.
