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Back to my own story, my own family were off to see my mother's brother and wife in Huddersfield. The day started well I ate the soap when having my bath. I then struggled in my father's arms and fell onto the railway station platform. Just as the train arrived a porter grabbed me before I fell on the line under the train. Going up Birkby Lodge Road I was violently sick, up came the soap - one problem solved. My Aunt (a former nurse) said it was OK for me to sleep it off.Now my own first memories. Waking up I wanted my Dad. He was, I was told, across the road looking at some new semis in course of construction. I toddled across the unmade road and saw four pairs of semis just built up to the ground floor joists. I can still see them in my minds eye. Uncle's garden was a lawn raised rose bed with a path round it leading to a garden gate with fruit trees on either side. We grew up I had a boy cousin, we used to throw sticks up to knock hazel pears off the trees which went across the top of the still unmade road. Now after 70 years I went to see the old place - Uncle's garden is still the same. The road, now metalled, and runs into Birkby Lodge Road higher up.
What a difference in Mother's family. Grandfather Peace also died aged fifty. He was tuner in a blanket mill with six girls and their machines (looms) under his control. A very close-knit loving family Grandpa was a keen gardener and grew love-apples (tomatoes) that Grandma never ate. He brewed his own beer and made wine. One day she went down the cellar, drew a tumbler full of rhubarb wine. When she came to she had broken all her front teeth out on the fender. So she immediately went out and signed the pledge never to drink again until she was seventy. Her Doctor said. "Do you drink Mrs P"? "No certainly not". So he advised taking a pint of Pale Ale in a narrow waisted glass with lunch and the same amount of Stout as a nightcap. It put ten years onto her life (80).
Incidentally after the drinking episode she went to the local blacksmith who pulled out all her teeth and fitted new ones for £5.00 and told me her hubby never saw her without them. The whole family were full of fun and used to pull my leg. Such as when I was visiting Goole and Mirfield, which was the best river? The Calder at Mirfield or the Ouse at Goole, same river. Uncle at Mirfield where I lived for a time while mother looked after Grandma with her sister at Goole often took us for a ride in a rowing boat belonging to his father in law who had a barge which he filled with coal at the coal fields and sold it in and around Mirfield, while my Aunt's father was away at the coal field.
My mother went to the Dentist to have an her teeth out one afternoon. I was about four years of age at the time. Father's sister lived next door but one to us, she was supposed to be looking after me, I was out riding my three-wheeler bike. Coming down the road rather fast I turned into 'Cowmouth Farm" too sharply. Over the handlebars I went, straight onto some large lime stone pieces, where I cut my forehead. I've always bled like a pig! I ran home howling - blood everywhere. I was wearing a yellow trouser suit (mum had made) trimmed with blue. Poor old mum, what a sight to meet her eyes and feeling rotten herself!
Starting school (aged 5), which was about a mile from home - Norton Free School - to Maugahay School. It was a church school under Derbyshire County Council. The headmaster was Mr Fox with three other teachers. Mrs Marsden, Miss Young, and Mrs Coupe. The headmaster took standard 5-8, Mrs Marsden 3-4, Miss Young 1-2, Mrs Coupe the Infants, the headmasters, Mrs Marsden and Miss Young shared one classroom. There were soil closets and the infants shared with the big girls. I don't remember any washing facilities.
We did not have milk, but Horlicks at playtime, 1/2d (old penny) per beaker or five Horlicks tablets 1/2d which I had, as I couldn't drink the liquid version. It was a happy school, but very lax. The Headmaster spent many hours in the baby class as there was an open fire surrounded by a large iron fireguard. He used to come in and sit on the middle to the fireguard to warm himself! One day after a dance the previous evening at the school, somebody fastened a drawing pin just where he sat (fastened with a rubber band). He sat on it. I was there, saw it, he rushed back into his classroom. All the boys in his class got the stick. If ever the inspectors were expected, he was always ill, so he could organise the school in a few days ready for the inspectors to return with everything in order.
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