大象传媒

JOANS WAR
1

I was born on the 3rd of August 1941 at 70 Sneyd Street (now Ladywell Road) Tunstall Stoke on Trent. It was my fathers parents house. My granddad and grandmother McDonald house. My father had two brothers and five sisters. We lived in the front room down stairs.

I will tell you about the house, as I knew it, as I got older.
It was a very big house next door to a scrap yard that had an old bus at the front of it. The back backed on to an entry where there was a wall to crate yard a sort of builders yard. Where we used to play when we got older. As I was not big enough to climb the wall our Michael would climb over the wall Pauline would push me up and he would pull me over. When we finished playing Michael would drop me over the wall for Pauline to catch me. The crate yard backed onto the catholic school where I was to attend when I got older.

The house had three big bedrooms. A large hall a front room where I was born where we lived. A large living room with a black leaded range with an oven where the cooking was done. And a big black kettle that was always on the hob. It had a very big cellar that at one time it used to be a beer parlour. Where at one time you could go down there and fill a jug with beer. But not when my grandparents lived there. It had a big back kitchen with a brick floor and a big mangle with wooden rollers.

I was born on the day my dad鈥檚 sister got married. She married Joe McGough of Nashpeake Street Tunstall. He was the son of Joseph McGough who had a shop and a coal business. He was the brother of Clement McGough the undertaker of Well Street Tunstall.
After the wedding my mother and father went to the Ritz picture house. My mother told me of how thirsty she was in the pictures and had four ice creams.
Later that night she went into labour and she kept on being sick even after I was born.
The midwife said you should not be like this what have you been eating. When mother said she had four ice creams the. Good heavens the midwife said it鈥檚 a wonder you baby is not like a frozen piece of mutton.

Later when I was wrapped up my father was holding me in front of the window looking out at Bradwell Wood. He was saying when you get older we will go for lots of walks up there. Which we did on Sunday afternoons. With my aunt鈥檚 uncle鈥檚 and cousins.

My mother and father met at a dancehall called the Scala, which was at the end of Sneyd Street. When they were courting my father only saw my mother at weekends. The reason being he only had a suit at weekends because it was in the pawnshop from Monday to Friday.

I will tell you what I remember of Sneyd, as I got older so that you have a picture of what it was like.
Starting at the top of Nashpeake Street going to the High Street going from left to right. There was a butchers then a Co-oP a bookmakers. Then a scrap yard. A pub a shop a barbers (Elertons). My father鈥檚 sister married their son. A rag shop at the top of Booth Street Then a pub called the Lamb that belonged to my dad鈥檚 uncle Bob and aunt Kate. Another two shops the Salvation Army. The Scala Dance Hall (which is the carpet shop now). And finally the Globe pub, which is, still their today.

Shortly after I was born my dad went into the navy and my mother had a photograph taken of me. I was lying on my tummy holding a toy dog so that she could send to him. One night when my uncle George (dad鈥檚 brother) came home from work he said I thought there had been an accident at the top of Furlong road. There was a crowd of people there. Then I saw what they were looking at it was a big coloured photograph of Joan in the window it was on an easel. Later it was put in the foyer of the Ritz. My mother went to ask if she could buy it but they would not let her. So they did an enlarged one of the one that we had and coloured and framed it (I still have it today).

With my dad away in the navy my mother used to take me to my grandmother and granddad Churton鈥檚 house every day in my pram. It was a long way through the town along Station Road past the park up to Stanfield鈥檚. My mother had five brothers. So when my uncle David went into the navy and my uncle Harry went into the army there was a spare bedroom so we moved into 25 Reynolds Road Stanfield.

When I grew older my mother went to work on Radway Green an ammunition factory just outside Allsager. She used to get the train from Tunstall station to Allsager. And I went to the nursery in Station Road it was opposite Tunstall Park. My peg and bed at the nursery had a boat painted on because we had to have a sleep in the afternoon.
My mother worked shifts so if she were working one of her two younger brothers would take me to and from the nursery. They would also take me to the clinic for my orange juice and cod liver oil they were given to children as a vitamin supplement.
The clinic was in Station road, which is the Boulevard now. The clinic is now the Ryan Hall.

As sweets were on ration my gran used to make me sweets with household milk (dried milk) and condensed milk (sweet thick milk in a tin). She poured the mixture into a flat tin and put it in the porch on the tiled floor to set it was lovely. I also had condensed milk on sandwiches. My grandma used to take me to a shop in Waterloo Road in Burslem and I remember we used to sit there for hours talking until the shop empted waiting to get some thing from under the counter. Some times she was lucky some times not.

As my dad was in the navy we did not see him very often. When he was on the training ships he could get home more often. His ships were.
HMS CABOT
HMS GLENDOWER TRAINING SHIPS
HMS DRAKE
HMS BRADFORD DESTROYER
HMS BITER AIRCRAFT CARRIER
HMS DUKE OF YORK BATTLESHIP
FLAGSHIP OF THE PACIFIC FLEET

My dad was fighting in the Pacific Ocean when they dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was then sent into Nagasaki to help to clear it up. He also used to ferry sailors newspaper reporters from ships to shore.
A tale he has told me many times about going onto a Japanese ship where he acquired a ships clock (which I still have) and a Japanese flag. As he was taking a newspaper reporter back to shore he showed him the clock and flag. The reporter said he would love to have the flag so dad gave it to him.
Later that night when dad was on watch the captain stopped to have a word with him he told of how he had bought the flag of the rising sun off a newspaper reporter for ten pounds he was not to pleased to learn that dad had given it to the newspaper reporter earlier in the day. It is a tale I have heard many times before.

Back home my mam was following the wars progress. We used to go to the pictures to watch the news because letters were very scarce.
I remember her taking me to a bonfire at the top of Reynolds road where it met Metcalfe Road she told me it was because the war was over and afterwards I can remember the big burnt patch I used to rub my foot in it when I went to my friends house (Margaret Tooth) who lived at the top of Reynolds Road.
I also remember when as a child I had cystitis and my mother called the doctor because I could not wee. I was crying because it hurt me when I tried. As my mother was nursing me it just came away all down my mam and I just started to laugh I was ok then. I went round my friend鈥檚 house next door to play (Ann Emery) we used to play in the air raid shelters. My mother called over the edge for me to come in. When Ann and I went in the doctor was there my mother tried to apologise for the state we were in. The doctor just laughed we had got lipstick all over are faces and curtain net on our heads. We had been playing getting married. I also remember getting a little jerry can and filling it with sludge water out of the pot holes in the grass verges and went cleaning everybody鈥檚 step with it. When mam found me she had to clean all the steps again...My gran and granddad spoiled me my mothers two younger brother鈥檚 teased me until they made me cry. They used to tease me about a giant called Ginny Iron Teeth who lived in Beach caves just out side Trentham. They said she could lean over and pick a bus up and shake people out of it and eat them and she would come and eat me. In the end my granddad had to take me to beach caves to show me that no giant lived there.
My mothers older brother David was in the navy and he sent us a Christmas card from the ship he was on it was made of paper (I still have it).
My mother had another photograph taken a coloured one this time it was the last one that I had taken with curly hair. Because I had it cut shortly after and it never grew curly again.

My mother had an offer of a house to rent at 5 Hose Street Tunstall. So we moved there near the end of the war. The house used to belong to two old spinsters and we had to put all the furniture into the back bedroom it was a big room it went over next doors kitchen. They also had two dolls that the eyes opened and closed they had real hair and lots of baby clothes. These were all kept in a draw. When my grandma McDonald came to see the house my mother showed her the dolls. She said what if I ask if I can buy them when they come to collect the furniture one for Joan and one for Pauline. I don鈥檛 want them she said they look like two dead babies.

The house had three bedrooms a parlour kitchen and a back kitchen with a stone boiler built in the corner that you lit a fire under it to boil the water. My mother had a dolly tub a dolly peg (a three legged stool with a handle).
We had a utility sideboard table and four chairs. It was and still is a small street with a row of six houses. It had a smithy yard at the bottom of the street. It had two garages one belonged to the fruit shop where we got our fruit and vege. One belonged to the shop that sold wireless where we had to change the accumulator (a glass battery). There was another fruit shop further along Forster Street that the gate backed on to our gate. We used to get from there as well (not always through the front door) we also used to get boxes for firewood.

My mother did her shopping at Home and Colonial Stores in the market square for groceries. The butchers in the high street. She shopped at Woolworth鈥檚 Bickleys and Oakes and Hume鈥檚. She also used a shop called Johnson鈥檚 in Scotia road Scotia for clothes.

Now that we had moved back to Tunstall I saw more of Pauline my dads younger sister and my cousins Michael Carter who lived in Queen Street and Josephine McGough who lived in Nashpeake Street.

One day a knock came at the door and in came a sailor with his kit bag on his shoulder my dad had come home. I hid behind my mother I was shy of him he also had a big navy blue tin chest that he fetched in from the parlour.

He started to unpack it he had bought me a baby grand piano that you could screw the legs in the bottom. He put it on the floor without the legs and told me to play it. Still hanging onto my mother鈥檚 hand I started to play it with my toes. He bought red silk pyjamas for me and pink ones for my mother. He also bought her a ring with a green stone in it. He bought me a koala bear and one for our Pauline (stuffed of course). He bought lots of chocolates presents and nylons. He bought a galleon ship that was made out of matchsticks and was very highly polished. He bought a box carved with Japanese junks (that I still have) that he said a Japanese man carved it while sitting on the pavement while he waited.

By now I was so excited that I went running up to the school (Tunstall roman Catholic) for our Pauline saying my dads come home my dads come home. They let her come home with me where she had her koala bear and chocolates.
Pauline and I went to fetch her mother to come and see my dad lots of hug鈥檚 and kisses all round.
When my dad first came home he could not sleep he wanted to put a hammock in the bedroom he could not get used to sleeping in a bed.

When my dad got demobbed my mother went to work on Wedgwood鈥檚 on the High Street Tunstall. She was a caster sponger and fettler. As food was still on ration my mother used to have cheese sandwiches from the canteen at work. She used to take the cheese of and bring it home for me. I loved cheese and still do.
My dad went to work on clews pot bank as a sager makers bottom knocker.

Now that we were back in Tunstall I more of my dad鈥檚 younger sister Pauline some times she slept at our house. Some times I slept at hers.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.