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Mrs Pugh came along to The Mailbox on 11 November 2004 to tell her story. It has been typed up by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ PW Outreach Officer, just as she told it. She is aware of the site's terms & conditions.

WAR COMES TO COVENTRY

The day that war broke out I was in Coventry visiting my Auntie Val and Uncle Harold (my mother’s brother). We used to visit them a lot.

[On another visit] I remember going out into the street to buy sausages from the man with the horse and cart, they were that good I sometimes used to eat a couple of links on the way home! Anyway, we heard a mighty explosion right in the middle of Coventry. My Uncle Harold was an ARP warden. When he got back home he said a bomb had exploded in Coventry. There had been a couple in a jewellery shop, the lady was trying on an engagement ring. The bomb fell so close and the lady was lying in the street — dead — the ring still on her finger. So we had to come straight back home to Dudley.

AT HOME IN DUDLEY

We lived in Wrights Lane, Dudley, next to my Nan and Grandad Johnson [Mum’s parents] — the houses were right together. Nan had a son, my Uncle Bert, who was a bit slow, mentally retarded, you know. Instead of going to the public shelters in the street, we had a cellar under our houses that we used. We made our beds on the big stone slabs in there and knocked a ‘bogey hole;’ in the party wall so we could all talk to one another.

Anyway, when we heard the sirens go, especially on Friday nights, we were ready. Friday was bath night. Mum used to get a bowl of water on a chair just outside the cellar door and wash us and then down we’d go! We never were separated when there was a raid on. Mum always said ‘If one goes: we all go together’.

There were six of us: I was a twin, there was one brother and the others were girls. We were a very close family and looked after each other. One day, we had an Air Raid while we were at school and Mum came and fetched us home. The teacher tried to stop her taking us home, saying we should use the school shelter like the other pupils but Mum insisted that we go home. The lady teacher said crossly ‘You’re a proper little mother with your little cluck of hens!’ but she let Mum take us home.

A DIFFICULT BIRTH AND DUDLEY’S COMMUNITY SPIRIT

When Mum had us twins, in January 1935, Dr Doyle saw to her. Oh! he was golden! Mum had a hard time giving birth to us, so they sent for Dr Doyle who was at a New Year’s party. When we were born, I was 2lbs and my sister was 4½ lbs. The doctor said to put me in a box and see if I made it through the night. I did, so he said ‘See if she’ll live ‘til June. I’d call her June in January!’ So Mum called me June and fed me on calves’ blood. They rubbed me with olive oil and here I am!

When Dr Doyle came and looked after Mum, Nan said, ‘what do I owe you?’ and he looked at a side of our pig and said ‘I’ll have a couple of slices of that ham off you’. It was good ham that.

We all mucked in together down our street. Mrs Dimmock, a neighbour, well, her son brought back a German bride. She had a lovely baby but no milk so mother (who’d just had a baby herself) went over to breastfeed this girl’s baby too. That’s just what you did then. We had a hard life but we’m happy.

VISITING FAMILY IN QUINTON

Dad was from Quinton and he was a gravedigger. During the Depression, Dad had been out of work for 32 weeks straight, so our Nan used to help us out. Dad’s own family was also very big and helped us out too. They lived at Birch Road, Quinton.

Dad used to bring Jean [my sister], Janet [my twin], and me, up to Quinton to see Grandad Jackson. Mum used to dress us three up like triplets because there was only 15 months between us. We had curly blond hair in ringlets: the Police used to stop the traffic for us. At Quinton, there was what we call a big house. The lady who owned it used to let the public use the big cellar during air raids. Not us though — we went home to Mum.

OUR PIGS

During the war Nan used to keep pigs. They were registered, some had to go to the Ministry but we could keep one for ourselves. We kids would take my Uncle Eric’s Dobbin — a handcart with big steel rimmed wheels — and go around the neighbourhood to collect peelings from everyone else. Then we’d go to the pigsty at the bottom, where we’d an outhouse. We’d put everything into the boiler and stoke it up. Nan would give us a spoonful, saying ‘Eat that. What’s good enough for the pigs is good enough for children’s consumption’.

When our pig had been killed, we would go into the cellar to salt it on the big slabs. We had great big blocks of salt that we’d break with a sad iron. We salted the sides first, then hang them from big gail-hooks to dry out. That took quite a while.

On a morning, you’d smell the bacon cooking: the liquor was very brown with the salt, delicious! We’d cut the leaf (fat) from inside the pig. Mum or Nan would cook it with rosemary and when it was cold, spread it on toast with lots of pepper and salt. It was absolutely beautiful.

Dad used to love the trotters and the pig’s tail. He loved them and they were his treat. When the pig’s chitterlings were pulled out, we children would go down the yard with them, put them on a hose and swill them through. Then we’d plaited them before cooking. They were quite tasty cooked but I’d always know where they’d been. We always had tripe thickened with onions on a Friday night. Dad loved that.

A TRIBUTE TO NAN JOHNSON

Nan Johnson was a wonderful woman. She looked after us all. Like many women in Dudley she used to make chain at home for money. Mum said that when she was little, Nan would sit her in her lap and reach round her to make the chain. When I was little, Mum would do the same for me. And when I grew up, I went into making the chain too, until the 1960s. That’s how life was in Dudley.

I have enjoyed this. I do like to talk about the old times. Thank you very much.

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