Memories of Childhood
by John Appleby

~ 15 ~

The winters in the north were long and often bitterly cold. The days were short. Daylight would creep into the tall casement windows at about eight o'clock in the morning, and at four thirty the darkness would descend, but often the lights would be turned on at three in the afternoon on stormy days. The lamplighter would cycle up and down the street, using a long pole to bring the gas street lamps to life. Snow, we welcomed with delight, lightening and thunder signified terror - my mother said it was giants rolling tetties down the stairs. For my brother Fred, it was a time of near hibernation in the cosy kitchen, or the feathery depths of our big bed, made warm by reason of a wrapped hot oven shelf. Our two sisters had to brave the daily walk to school, my older sister to the "colliery school", and our newspaper mother would call us down to the candle-lit table, fire blazing, and the smells of breakfast and burning candlewax. We ate such treats as porridge and treacle, Danish bacon and fried apple, boiled eggs and Granny loaf. Regrettably these feasts were perforce preceded, when occasions demanded, by foul potions of liquorice powder, Scott's codliver oil emulsion, and in summer, sulphur and treacle. Our mother would leave us to go to feed the hens over on the allotment and bring back the golden-yolked eggs. In the winter the hens were fed on kitchen scraps and peelings and bran stirred in hot water - strangely named "crowdy".

But winter brought Christmas - what excitement!! On Christmas Eve the long woollen navy blue pit stockings would be brought out and our mother would use a safety pin to fix upon each, our little notes asking Santa to bring us our desires. Then after a cup of cocoa, it was up and into bed, seething with excitement. The carol singers would arrive later on in the night, Wesleyans, Presbyterians and Salvation Army. Mam would identify the Wesleyans, quietly slide open the window and throw down a matchbox containing a few coins.

The call to awake was not needed, and as soon as the fire had warmed the kitchen, had us tumbling down, seething with excitement, to find our stockings now bulging. We would forage down for a Jaffa orange, Brazil nuts, hazels, almonds, silver wrapped chocolate toys and puzzles. Usually there would be an Annual, smelling new from the press and promising hours of comic strips puzzles and pictures. Then when dressed, after breakfast, the front room fire ablaze, we would spread out our bounty and play the morning away with Dad. My aunty would arrive with more little presents, and with the girls, set about preparing the Christmas dinner. During the days before, the girls spent many hours making Christmas decorations from coloured crepe paper, and the walls would be festooned with tinsel and brightly-coloured glass balls. At 1pm dinner would be ready, the table laid by the girls, with white tablecloth, the heady aromas of roasting pork and chestnuts and fruity Christmas pudding wafting on the air from the kitchen. Here came our Uncle Jack after his brief libation at the "Railway", bringing in the smell of cigar smoke. Dad said grace, and we began our meal, which seemed to go on forever, until all was ceared away and we could lay back to recover. Weather permiting, we would all wrap up and walk out for a breath of sea air.

© 2003 John Appleby, New Zealand

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