An Heckmondwike Labour
Party member now deceased gave me this “for my archives she said”, this was in
her own handwriting, I could add other things she told me, but that is for
another day.
My mother
was very strict, never seemed to be doing any hard work, five children at this
time another was born in 1919, we the four eldest had to work hard, from aged
10 onward. My self being the only girl of the four was trained in house work at
an early age. I had to knead a stone of bread two mornings a week before going
to school. We were not allowed to sit at the table at meal times until we
started working.
We were all
hit for the slightest thing, but myself and a younger brother suffered the
most, I was told I asked for it because I answered back. I got three pennies
pocket money when I started working prior to that it was half a penny a week.
At the age of sixteen I was given six pennies a week.
We were
never allowed to bring friends into the house and when a friend invited me for
tea at his house my mother said I could not go because it was my job to wash up
after Sunday tea. I had to be home by 9pm from 18 onwards.
We never
went short of food and always had new clothes for Whit Sunday, but lived
economically. We were constantly being told we were “good for nothing”, other children were
always better than we were, though this gave us a feeling of being second
class, I used to look around and try to reason this out, but it had an effect
on the relationships I made at school.
Myself and
three of my brothers started work aged 12, half time, one day work, and one day
school. I had to get up at 5:30 am leave home at 6 to walk two and a half miles
to work, starting at 6:30, if you were two minutes late you were locked out
until 8:30 so you just had to walk around until 8:30. Breakfast was 8:30 to 9,
I worked at another mill where you could take left-over food from home and warm
it up on the mill boiler, tea was taken in a milk can and warmed up the same
way. Housework had to be done at night when I came home from the mill.
My father
always had three jobs; he was a coal getter at the pit, collected insurance at
night and worked as a waiter at the Three Nuns at weekends.
