大象传媒

Nothing was wasted during these years and items which today are thrown away once they are worn out would be repaired. The government did all it could to encourage people to reuse all they could - even horse droppings would be swept up and used as fertiliser on gardens. Garden rubbish was stacked and rotted down in compost heaps. Kits were available to repair holes in pots and pans. They consisted of two metal washers which were placed either side of the hole. A nut and bolt, which fitted through the hole, were tightened up and clamped the washers into place. Watches would be taken to the watch repairer - many men carried a fob watch, one which was carried in a pocket rather than wear a wrist watch. Jackets with holes in the elbows on sleeves had leather patches sown over them.

A regular but infrequent 'chore' was taking boots and shoes to the cobbler to be soled and heeled. The cobbler worked in a shed in the back garden of a house up Tynings Lane, turn right along Birmingham Road and his house was on the left. He was an expert, repairing shoes and the like with leather cut from pieces round his shed. He could stitch, glue or nail as required. Often iron studs would be hammered into the leather to stop it wearing away too quickly. Many people had shoe irons and shoe repairing tools at home and repaired their own - often using materials sold by Woolworths and the like. Boots and shoes were expected to last a long time and they were not the fashion items we know today. Many children at school had the toes or soles out of their footwear and many could not afford to wear socks. The cobbler was also a expert in repairing any leather items - belts, bags, gloves and even the odd burst football case. Footballs had a rubber inner bladder which you blew up with a cycle pump with a one-way valve. Carefully removing the valve, once you had blown the ball up as hard as you wanted it, you tied the neck of the bladder up using string and tucked the whole inside the leather casing. You then had the joys of lacing the whole package up. If the rubber bladder burst you could sometimes repair it yourself using a cycle repair kit. Water was kept off the leather case by applying dubbing which came in a tin like shoe polish. A wet football could be very heavy - not like the modern versions. Football boots had leather studs with nails through them and were knocked into the sole using a hammer and foot iron. I had neither football nor boots until I left Aldridge and cannot recall ever seeing a proper football match until! was taken to see Walsall play many years later. I never heard of rugby until I went to school in Lichfield - a place which could have been the other side of the moon for all I knew.

(This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Wyre Forest Volunteer Bureau on behalf of Paul Bailey and has been added to this site with his permission. Mr Bailey fully understand the site's terms and conditions.)

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