Keeping warm

Dad was the local bobby in the 60s in a mining village so we got a (monthly?) tip of coal too. I remember coming home from school with my brother and we had to help move it up the steps and round the back of the police house into the coal hole!!

Maggiemaybe My gran was a very independent woman. Widowed at 30, she brought up four step children and four of her own. She did all her own decorating, sewing, laundry and looked after her invalid daughter. I loved her to bits.

I remember my parents having a “Glo baby” It was a white frame with a red bulb in the middle. It was such a treat when it was placed in my bed to warm it through on a cold night or I was poorly.

Georgesgran

In mining villages, the miners put their Davy or Geordie lamps in the outside loos (netties) to stop the water freezing.
Coal wasn’t a problem, as it was seen as part of their ‘wages’ working for the NCB. Sometimes miners would sell half a load for extra money, or give non-mining neighbours a couple of bucketsful. In those days the coal was just tipped - no bags, so the women would turn out with shovels and buckets to move it from the road into the coal house.

In the mid 1940's I remember our coalmen delivering the coal from the back of their waggon and putting it down our coal shute into the cellar. We and our friends (if they came before school time) be out with our shovels and buckets collecting any dropped coal.

Same with horse manure, when the milkmen had been there was always horse droppings from their horse and cart so we went out to collect that too. My dad would put it in an old tin dustbin and fill it with water and then put the lid back on and use the fertilizer to water all his vegetables in the garden, we always had a bumper crop.

Yes, the good old days, coal fires, fireplaces in all the rooms, even bedrooms and if we had enough wood and coal, mum would light fires in the bedrooms before we went to bed but in the morning the fire had gone out and all the windows were frozen up inside. Then it was a rush to use the outside toilet and take the guzunder (potty) with us to empty if used.

We were not poor but did live week to week but our parents gave us a weeks holiday once a year and a lovely Christmas, god bless them. I wish now that I could have told our parents how very much we loved them and thanked them for looking after us and giving my late sister and I memories to cherish.

SunnySusie

I remember very clearly huddling round a fire in the living room as a child. The front of you would be scorching hot and the back draughty and cold. As kids our nightclothes were hung in front of the fire and we got changed before venturing into the unheated bedrooms, sleeping in PJs, dressing gown and nightsocks. We had so many blankets piled on the bed it was difficult to turn over. In the morning we got dressed under the covers and ran into the living room to toast bread on a long brass toasting fork over the fire. The house was horribly damp as well as cold and we had bronchitis, chest infections and earache off and on all winter.

Was there an army greatcoat on top of that bed as well?

When we moved to the coast my dad and I would scrape sea coal from the beach every weekend, dry it off and pack it into twists of newspaper to put on the fire. Added to the joys of the coal fire, we then had the thrill of dodging fragments of red hot mussel shells as they shot out of the fire and whistled past our ears like bullets.

I can remember all these keep warm things.I was born in 1944
Overcoats on the beds, getting dressed under the bedclothes in the morning, my mother warming our night clothes in the kitchen range and getting undressed in front of the fire.
The oven on and the door left open to warm the kitchen.
Paraffin stove in the outside toilet,being warned not to knock it over or you will die!
Coal mining neighbours leaving their excess coal outside of the back door for the res of us t help ourselves to ( we lived in North East, my dad was not a miner, he worked in the shipyards)
Jack Frost drawing patterns on the bedroom windows.