Dennis (1926)
Dennis was born on the 7th of October 1926, whilst Ralph was managing a shop in Derby. When he came home a week later, he brought me three of the hugest Chrysanthemums. They were lovely and I was the envy of the other mothers in the ward. I was home within two weeks, back to Cromer Terrace.
One day I decided to take the tram to show the baby off to Ralph’s mum, and the neighbours in the street. The day after my outing I must have caught a chill, as I was taken seriously ill, and was rushed to Leeds Infirmary – something to do with my kidneys. I was put in a sort of casing that was full of electric lights, with only my head showing. The lights were very hot, and the doctor said it was to sweat whatever it was out of me, to get my kidneys to function again. I never did find out what my illness was. Doctors never told patients what was wrong with them in those days. I was so ill that Mother sat up with me every night for two weeks. Everyone thought I wasn’t going to recover, so Ralph’s Mother took the baby to live with them, and I did not see Dennis again for three months.
An incident happened whilst I was in the Infirmary – I didn’t talk about it, as I am not quite sure whether I was hallucinating or if it was real. I only know I was desperately ill, and didn’t know if I would get better. One night – all the lights were out, so it must have been late – a lady came down the long ward. She was blonde and had flowers in her hair. She was dressed all in white and in a sort of shimmering silk. She came up to my bed and laid her hand on my forehead. She whispered, “You are all right, my dear”, than she turned away and walked back down the ward not stopping at anyone else’s bed.
When I was able to come home from the hospital, I was sent to a convalescent home in Southport. After I had been there a month and seemed to be getting better, Ralph sent me a telegram to say that his mum had had a severe heart attack and I was to come home immediately to look after the baby. I went to Ralph’s house, and lived there a while as by this time Mother had sold Cromer Terrace house and gone to live in Bridlington.
I learned how to look after the baby and helped in the house until Mary, Ralph’s mother, felt able to go back to work.
I still did not feel really fit, and got terrible backache. Ralph had taken over the management of the shop in Knaresborough, but was lodging through the week and only came home for Sunday for a few hours. I was very miserable as I was making meals for Ralph’s Dad, and his siblings Bill and Molly. They never lifted a hand. I was really thrown in at the deep end.
I decided it was time we had our own home, so we went and had a look at the house and shop. It seemed huge. There was a cellar kitchen with a horrible iron fireplace. The window was half below the outside pavement – we could see people’s feet as they went by. The toilet was outside, also underneath, with a stone sink in one corner and a cold tap. Everything was filthy and had not been used for years. There was no way I was going to live in that dark hole. I went up three flights of stairs, to a lovely big sitting room with a bay window and a fireplace at one end. Another door at the top of the stairs opened into a small room, which I thought would make a nice kitchen. Up two more flights of stairs, a large bedroom and a smaller one, up one more flight of steps to a large attic with dormer windows. Every room needed decorating. We decided we would live above the shop, even though we had no water upstairs and the only Electricity was in the sitting room and kitchen. The rest didn’t even have gas, so Ralph and I had to use candles in our bedroom.
We moved our furniture, which fitted in good, and I stared to decorate. It was a good thing Dennis was such a placid baby, and he thrived. I put a tea chest in one corner of the kitchen and had a large bowl, which served as a baby bath. For washing up etc. there was two buckets of baby clothes all white with long petticoats (not like today’s clothes – stretch and grow, and overalls). We had to fetch up every drop of water, and take the dirty water back down again to empty it in the cellar. There were no cooking facilities either, so Ralph had the gas people put pipes in, and points, so I could at last boil potatoes and fry sausages. After making do with a gas ring Ralph realized he had to have a gas oven. I was delighted and could make proper meals.
Then we had another blow. I fell pregnant again when Dennis was only eight months old. We were devastated as I wasn’t too well. By this time we had got to know people and we became great friends with Molly and Alf Whitley. They had been married a little while before us, and she was pregnant with their first child. They were a wonderful couple, and Molly taught me such a lot. She was a waitress at the Town Hall Café in the Market place in Knaresborough. Alf was a cabinet-maker for Mr. Woodward, who was a funeral director with no children. When he died, he willed the business to Alf, for being such a good and faithful worker. Molly had a baby girl called Kathleen – a very pretty red haired child. We used to take our babies for walks along the riverside or watch the boats and punts on the river.
Ralph and Alf would take us punting. They would compete with each other to get up the rapids, which was quite a feat, as the water rushed down between two rocks that were just wide enough for a punt to get through, but unless you knew the knack you would end up in the river. We used to watch others try to get through, it looked so easy – no one was hurt – only soaked, and the cushions wet through.
For 10 years, we had wonderful happy times. Ralph seemed to draw friends to him like a magnet, and the chap’s all brought their girlfriends to our place, or to Molly and Alf’s. We had great parties. We did not have a lot of money, but we never missed it.
Trevor (1928)
Trevor was born in 1928, in March, and that year it was so cold in Knaresborough. The river froze completely and everybody went ice-skating. Tacky lights were strung all through the trees and I walked on the ice very gingerly, afraid of falling and having a miscarriage. Molly came and looked after me when Trevor arrived. Mother came and took Dennis back to Bridlington for a few weeks. He came back with a whole lot of new clothes she had made for him – specially a beautiful red overcoat with brass buttons. He looked real bonny with his blonde hair and big blue eyes. Trevor was quite different – very dark hair, green eyes a thin, restless baby but very lovable. He was always more reserved – not as out-going as Dennis, even in later life, but they were great friends and went everywhere together. Our lives were just marvellous. Ralph taught the boys to swim.
On Thursday afternoons half day closing, we would either go fishing with jam jars, or go punting on the river. It was only 6 pence an hour. Alf and Ralph joined the YMCA and met two or three times a week to play Billiards, Snooker and Table Tennis – where all the other young congregated, and where all our other friends originated, and of course Ralph invited the ones he liked best to our house for supper – fish and chips and tea – nobody drank in those days. Then they asked if they could bring their girlfriends. There was Molly and Alf, and Bernard Newly, Hubert Kenn and his girl Pam, Jack Wheelhouse and his girl Ethel, Basil Wheelhouse and his girl Nellie, Archie Sorrel and his girl Elsie, Syd Corcheran and his girl Fay. Each one of these men, married the girl they brought to our parties – all except Bernard Newby. He was too busy studying and going to Leeds University to have a regular girlfriend. He always made a beeline to our place whenever he had a vacation, and Dennis and Trevor always called him Uncle Bernard.
Molly and Alf had their second child, named John, another redhead. Molly had to give up work for a while, so we were able to go out into the Castle-yard with our children. We spent many happy hours in the new paddling pool that the council had made. Molly and I were very close. She was like the sister I never had.
Carol (1933) (my grandmother)
When Trevor was four years old, I fell pregnant again. At first we were a bit upset, but when our little girl was born on Jan 6th, 1933, we were thrilled. We called her Carol. She was a beautiful baby, and weighed 9 ½ pounds. She had fair hair and blue eyes that were speckled with brown. I used to say she had stardust in her eyes.
Ralph bought a big motorbike, Royal Enfield. He also bought an old sidecar to fit on his big motorbike, so he could take us all for rides and picnics in the country. It looked quite smart when repainted. Dennis would ride pillion, Carol, Trevor and I managed somehow to fit into the sidecar. He would go roaring up the High street and I would cling like mad to his back. I lost so many hats on that bike that I refused to go anymore. Ralph and Bernard used to go for a swim to Rogers Lido every morning at 7-o-clock. It was a very popular resort for campers. Ralph would then come back, have breakfast, and open the shop for 9-o-clock.
Once a year we were allowed a week’s holiday from the shop. We would take off for Bridlington, to stay with Mother and Dad. We always went up Garroby Hill, which was very steep in those days – 1 in 6 whatever that meant – and when we arrived at the top of the hill people used to stop and let the engines cool down. Some cars couldn’t even make it to the top! It was a great attraction; but there were dreadful accidents for folk’s in cars and buses going down the hill, mostly because the brakes failed. One very bad accident was when a bus failed to take the sharp turn in the road, nearly at the bottom. A few people were killed so a cross was planted there to warn motorists to take special care.
We also went with Molly, Alf and their two children to Blackpool for a week. We found some cheap lodgings and brought our own food, and the landlady cooked it for us. It was a good system, and worked very well as there was not a lot of money to spare. In fact, we took our weeks wages 2 pounds, 12 shillings and 6 pence, and managed fine. So did Molly and Alf.
Unfortunately it rained nearly every day, and was very cold, so we spent a lot of time in the Tower. It cost nothing to go in and listen to the big Wurlitzer organ with Reg Dixon playing. When we did manage to get on the beach the poor kids were muffled up in overcoats and scarves, trying to build sandcastles; but we did enjoy it just the same. It was a change, and the first holiday that Molly and Alf had had for years. We were invited to London to visit Beattie and Allan, so off we went on the motorbike. Allan was in the police force, and was living in Wandsworth at that time. They made us very welcome, and we became great friends. Beattie and I exchanged letters every month, until she died in about 1963 from heart trouble. She and Allan had not been retired long, and had bought an old pub, “The Talbot”, at Much Wenlock in Shropshire. After a while Allan sold out, and went to live with his son Max and wife Enid for several years.
Dennis and Kathleen Whitely started at the Castle-yard school when they were three years old. Then Molly and Alf were asked to be caretakers of the YMCA. The house was very nice too; so all the lad’s went there for their games. It was very popular, didn’t cost much, and, of course, there was no alcohol. I don’t think any of them took a drink – at least, Ralph didn’t until he was 25 or 26, when he and Alf joined the Working Men’s Club.
When we had a party, one of the lad’s would take a huge jug to the pub and fill it with beer for the men. We ladies would have lemonade, a few sandwiches and cake. We played guessing games and twenty questions. We really had a lovely time. In the weekends we would take picnics and all go to Scotton Banks, by the river. Ralph taught both Dennis and Trevor to swim – also Kathleen and John.
By this time I had painted and papered all the rooms of the house. The wallpaper was only sixpence a roll. And large cans of paint cost one shilling and sixpence.
Mother would come for a weeks visit every couple of months. She had given me her old big Jumbo Singer sewing machine, which I kept up in the attic, and Mother would go into Knaresborough market, and buy remnants of material very cheaply. Then she’d make clothes for Dennis, Trevor and me.
When Dennis was seven, and Trevor five, I would put them on the Bridlington bus and ask the conductor to put them off in York. Then they would walk through the Town, and over the Bridge to Rougier Street, to get the other bus to Bridlington. They knew the way, as I had taken them many times when they were younger. They really were marvellous, and I never worried – not like today! They would stay for a month – all the school holidays. Dennis still talks about what a lovely time they had. They played on the beach, and went swimming nearly every day, and did look well when they came back on the same bus route – reversed this time, and I would meet them at the bus Terminus.
In the meantime, Molly had gone back to waitressing in the Town Hall café, so I also took a job whilst the boys were away at school. I was doing quite well, and the bit of extra money was useful, as Ralph had not had a rise since first taking the managership of the shop. We did very well though, as Ralph earned 2 pounds, 12 shillings and 6 pence a week, and rent rates, gas and electricity were free – which was an exceptionally good wage in those days. But of course, as the family grew so did our expenses, and our lifestyle. I didn’t want homemade clothes anymore. I remember one time Ralph took me to Leeds on the bus to buy some things from Crofts, and I came away with three lovely outfits for 1 pound, 9 shillings and 11 pence: a white linen suit, dress and jacket, a navy-blue silk dress and long coat, and a plaid dress. I felt very smart. I kept my job at the café. I started at 9-o-clock in the morning, and finished at 7-o-clock in the evening, when I picked the boys up from a friend who looked after them from 4-o-clock, after school. I would collect them both and put them to bed. Then I had to prepare the meals for the next day and clean the house, because Ralph was too busy in the shop.
When I fell pregnant again with our daughter Carol, I had to leave the café. Dennis was five, and Trevor was seven, and we all adored this little baby girl. Mother came to visit and decided to have a plumber bring cold water up to my kitchen, and had it paid for too. We had another three perfect years. We thought it would last forever, but life is not like that.
We got a letter from Scales and Sons of Pudsey, to say the firm had gone into Liquidation and they gave us a month to quit the house and shop. We were frantic. Ralph tried to get another job – he even went down to Lewis’s, in Leeds – they were advertising for floor walkers, but the wages were two pounds and10 shillings per week and we would have to find somewhere to live and Ralph would have to pay for fares to Leeds everyday.
Ralph answered an ad for undermanager at a shoe-shop in Skegness. He got it, and had to start straight away. So I was left to pack up and store all our furniture, and then go to Mothers with the three children. Mother and Dad were then living in Balhome Chalet – a lovely old house in Bridlington on the Southside. There were only five of these Chalet’s built – by a Swiss builder – so mother decided to take in visitors, and I was to help. The children all went to Hilderthorpe School – Carol was three by now. Ralph sent a pound a week for our food, as he had to pay board and lodgings. As it turned out, the job at the shoe shop was only seasonal, and finished at the end of September.
Ralph came back to Bridlington, but there was no work to be had, and he refused to go on the dole. He had a months pay in Lewes, so he relaxed a bit. One morning he didn’t go downstairs to breakfast until after 9-o-clock. Mother was furious. The visitors had gone out and the children were at school. I can see Mother now – she stood in front of Ralph and said, I quote,
“Them that don’t work, don’t eat in this house!” Which was a bit unfair. It was just like two electrics were meeting. Ralph just turned round and walked out without a word. Dad and I were struck dumb.
MY ANCESTOR PHOTOS 