Continuing from see first of the series post here and 2nd installment here I'm going to share just a little more of life with rats, mice and poverty.
I left off last time telling of the first impressions of our 'new home' in 1971 in the slum red light/drug district of a UK city.
This post I want to continue that theme so you have background to the next post - which is lighter, I promise. Life isn't all doom and gloom.
Our house was dismal to say the least. Mould growing and water running on the inside of my brother's (unusable) bedroom, sharing cold nights in bed with my younger sister, snuggled to keep warm, thumping her every time she snored, little heating, little food, little comfort.
I've already given you a glimpse of the street, the bedrooms and the cellar but what about the rest of it? Well, the door from the street opened directly into the front room. In there was a big open coal fire, an old table and chairs, dark, second hand crushed velvet curtains framing the single glazed, wooden framed sash window. The was a dresser in the corner which held mum's nick-knacks and a few other bits. I don't remember it being in our cottage so this was probably second hand too. In fact I believe most of the furniture was, as when we had to leave the cottage quickly I know that mum wouldn't have had money to pay for a removals company. There was a charity for families of convicts in town (which became important the in the following months for different reasons) and I remember being dragged there to help carry sheets and blankets so we must've left most of the stuff we had behind in the cottage. Dad had always borrowed someones lorry when we moved before - but we had lost that luxury when he took his inside holiday away from the dire days of the outside world.
To amuse us on dark nights there were mice too.
As youngsters we were highly amused when sitting by the fire and a mouse would boldly sidle up beside the one and only arm chair in the house, occupied by my mother if she was home, by me if not (after all I was in charge at the grand old age of 9 and 3/4) If it was just us kids, my brother Chris would try and slowly sneak to the kitchen to get a piece of bread or something from the shelves and we'd encourage one or the other rodent to eat (we never saw two together but we knew that there were at least two). They were effectively free pets to us. If my mum was home and sat knitting or whatever in her chair and mousy arrived we would struggle to stifle the giggles, pretending not to look. We knew if mum saw it, not only would she squeal and send us to bed 'for our safety', but she would do her best to batter the poor thing with the coal shovel. Sometimes she did see one ... and we'd cry.
That room, the one with the coal fire became our main living area. When mum did buy coal or coal-lite (make believe coal I'd call it) we were toasty and she would cook us stews in the big pot on the fire.
'Surely you had a cooker?' I hear you say. We did - it was gas, installed prior to us taking the house on - and we had no gas after the first 3 months as mum never paid the bill.
The next room to this was the 'middle room'. Stark by contrast as there were no curtains, a tatty old 6 feet long sofa and a small melamine wood table. We had no carpets or rugs and no lamp shades, so the bare, grey/white walls and floors made this cell of a room more like a room dad was now occupying. There was a gas fire (unusable of course) in here and a door to the stairs on one side, a doorway (the door was missing) to the kitchen directly in line with the front door, and a high, narrow, rotten framed sash window.
The kitchen was square and housed the door to the dreaded cellar. There was also a door to the yard - I'll come back to that - and a low window over the sink in which the glass was badly cracked across one corner. The wind whistled it's lonely tune through that many a day and night.
There were few cupboards, a work surface, a gas cooker, an old pot sink and an electric water heater tap thing for our only hot water source. Yes, our one and only means of getting hot water unless we put the old steel kettle onto the coal fire in the front room.
Now this is 1970's UK. My ex mother-in-law called me a liar once when I told her about it - not wanting to believe that in the mid- latter years of the 20th century people were living in similar conditions to those during the war years. I promise, every word is true. And what's worse it's now 2018 and I know that people STILL live in squalid poverty like this but I digress.
The kitchen was another source of mousy amusement to us children. Being young we didn't understand or care about the health consequences but to have the 'winning' mouse on an imaginary race as we watched them hunt around the kitchen was a constant source of amusement to us. I recall one day we saw a mouse's head pop out of a cereal box left on the side. We were hysterical with laughter until my squealer of a sister told my mum later and we got belted for a) letting it happen, b) doing nothing and c) saying nothing. How unfair! - and to add insult to injury no breakfast after mum threw the cereal away. I guess we just didn't understand.
You may have noticed I haven't mentioned the bathroom. That's because we didn't have one. That door to the yard... it was also the door to the toilet which was situation in a little building of its own 15 feet away round the back to the rear of the kitchen. That meant that come rain, snow, ice, scorching sun, whatever the weather, you needed to toilet you had to put your clothes on - day or night. This wasn't entirely true. Mum put a bucket on the landing and anyone wanting to pee in the night used it. Most nights we made sure we didn't and were all fit to burst come morning times and stood, often shivering at the cold, north facing back door, waiting for one or another to finish in the outbuilding toilet. I'm sure it did our bladders no good at all. To add to the misery, even going to the toilet was a chore, apart from legging it the distance, the room had no light, so nights and winter it was really, I mean REALLY scary in there. The only light was from the top of the door where it had been cut short of the frame - presumably to let light and air in. There were spiders in the - ENORMOUS spiders, and rats.
Rats lived at the bottom of the garden. Not just ours, everyone's. The whole street was a slum housing nightmare. It wouldn't be the first time I've sat doing my necessaries, sending quick flashing glances around every wall and corner making sure spiders hadn't moved, knickers at knees, only toes on the floor, when under the door a HUGE MOUSE - aka a rat - sat casually looking me up and down. I've no idea what they thought when they saw us perched, terrified in the half darken, damp, brick room they no doubt saw as home, or at the very least an interesting resting place. I have to admit, when I had the opportunity I soon learned to do as much of my business at school as I could, even if I had to suffer great pains in between times.
Well, now you have the picture. Dark or stark, cold or at the very best, chilly rooms, no comfort facilities. You'd think we would be the miserablist (is that a word?) kids on the block but ironically we had some of the best times.
This post is long enough for one day, but next I'll show you all that even the bad times can be good...
Old outside lavatory - just like the one we had at home- only this one is cleaner - much cleaner!!
Not unlike our kitchen during this time.
