This series of stories will be titled ‘I’m surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood…’ 7

On the rows we had basic floor-coverings – usually lino, rag-rugs (peg rugs?) and sometimes a shop-bought rug (very often that would have been handed-down rather than newly bought).

I also remember a plastic woven rug, multi-coloured and smooth on one side. I’ll have to try and find a picture because describing it is frustrating me. (Spent ages trying to find the right picture… no luck, sorry).

The houses were old and decrepit, damp and infested with things – silverfish mainly, I remember.

These creatures are destructive, they consume natural fibres, cotton, wool, silk etc. They’re nocturnal, so don’t like light and are FAST! They move with a side-to-side movement, similar to how a fish wiggles - hence the name. I’m actually giving myself the creeps just writing about them.

I remember my great-grandmother lifting the lino in her kitchen and silverfish running about in a panic.

Dropped foodstuffs, especially sugar, attracted them, so you can imagine how many could be discovered if you lifted the lino in the kitchen!

They also destroy wallpaper to get to the paste, and they eat plaster, photos, some paints.

One of their main predators are earwigs – so, if you had an infestation of one, you could be certain you’d get an infestation of the other in short order. Shudder

Every house had them, I suppose the houses needed to be demolished.

We had an outside toilet and that was all I was used to, except at both grandparents’ houses.

We had ‘proper’ toilet paper, but some families, I remember, had torn squares of newspaper threaded with string and hung in the toilet.

We also had a ‘guzunda’ – a potty, chamber pot, po, thunderpot, and sometimes, potty-pot. If you’ve ever wondered why we encourage children to ‘go potty’ there’s your answer!

If we wanted the toilet in the middle of the night, that was what we used. The job of emptying the pot was left to my mother. I have another story about that, but I’ve already told it on another blog.
Here if you’re interested

Because my grandparents spoiled me rotten, I had a swing on our patch of back garden. And, because I was adventurous, I used that swing for many different activities, including climbing all over it. The base was buried in the ground so it didn’t tip over when I swung it high and therefore, it couldn’t be moved and I could clamber over it.

just like this one – and I remember being bitterly disappointed when the ‘big girl’s swing’ was replaced with a baby swing for my sister.

I used the fence between our garden and next door and I remember our neighbour constantly yelling at me to get off her fence! I’m afraid I was always a wilful child and her shouting made no difference to me whatsoever. I’d get down when she yelled, but as soon as she went back, I’d be standing on it again to get onto the swing frame. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d waited for the demolition men and yelled at them when they took down the fence. She may have been a little obsessive. And I was certainly not going to let her tell me what to do – some things don’t change.

Those rows were, as I said, demolished and some of us were moved to social housing (Council Estates) in the next village.

From this:

(This image is as close to the actual layout as I can remember. Try to ignore the boards).

To this:

Allegedly, our family was displaced from the house we were allocated but my parents complained/appealed and we then got the house where we moved to just before my seventh birthday.

I remember the excitement of the move! We went to a THREE-bedroom semi-detached house that was TWICE as wide as our old house – AND had central-heating!

Of course, the community was jiggled about a lot, our direct neighbours (the ones with kids) were left behind in Blackwell and their neighbours came to the next village, but were in a different part of the estate.

The family on the other side, the one that shouted at me was on the opposite side of the road, a little further down – I bet she was SO happy, not being next to me.

Our back garden was actually a garden and at the bottom of that, there was a park with two football pitches (soccer) and a playground. Beyond that, fields and lanes, cows and ponies. I had arrived in childhood heaven!

My great-grandmother was on the same estate and I remember going to see her every day. I also used her back garden as a short-cut to school on occasion.

What an adventure for a six-year-old!