Mamacaz. Your house may have been built on a tip. The common land opposite my house is full of bits of broken china and bottles. When finding old bottles became fashionable, some years ago, we were plagued by people digging holes, and leaving them. The Council put an extra layer of soil on, and banned digging.
The ‘night-soil men’ used to empty the communal lavatories, in Victorian times, which were often shared by numerous households. What an awful, and dangerous job, in those cholera days.
I was born in 1939, and remember going for ‘the rations’ with my mum, to the designated shop for groceries. The grocer used to deftly make a bag for sugar, etc, out of a sheet of paper. It fascinated me. Eggs, in a paper bag, were carefully placed on top of the other shopping. I don’t remember her struggling to carry her load on the mile walk home, so they must have been sparse.
Bread, fruit and veg came from the little shops near our home. They were just tipped into a bag or basket. Meat was also rationed, and in very small portions. Mum used to take a dish to put it in. We took a dish, or our own newspapers, to the fish and chip shop, which was a rare treat for us.
Milk was delivered to the doorstep, and the bottles were washed and returned
We didn’t have a garden, so food scraps were burned on the fire, though there was a ‘pig-bin in the road during the war, which stunk to high heaven in warm weather. I used to hate being told to put something in it!