Roger's early years

I don't want to turn this Hundleby blog into an autobiography, but thinking about family history has made me nostalgic. It may be of interest if I indulge myself and reminisce.

If my calculations are correct, I was conceived in Matlock, Derbyshire, but that's probably too much information. I was born above a baker's shop in Kirton, Lincs. No maternity hospitals then for the likes of us, nor for my sister, Janice, who was born two years later. By that time I think we may have been living in Stickney.

My grandfather, Henry (Harry), died before I was born. He was a farmer in the Butterwick area. Whether he owned his own land, I don't know, but I do know he was his own boss,because my grandmother was appalled when, after the war, my father, Ernie, and his brother, Ron, went to work for others. She considered this to be going down in the world.

She died soon after I was born, and so I have no memory of her. I do have a few letters that she wrote to my mother, Doris, after I was born. I might publish them here some time.

I also have some letters written by my mother and father to each other during their courtship. I have never read them, because it seems too intrusive, even sixty years later.

My grandmother may well have been right about her sons leaving the farm, because, according to my mother, we were very hard up in the early years. In Sibsey (about 10miles from Boston), my father used to sell firewood from a horse and cart and food was in short supply. But by the time I was five things had taken a turn for the better. Dad had got a steady job, probably lorry-driving for Firth's of Kirton, though that may have been later, and he received a legacy from his Uncle Alf. This was about £1,000 and enabled Dad to buy a bungalow in Wyberton West Rd, Boston.

Like so many houses in the area, there was lots of land, even though the house itself was small. It had two bedrooms, a dining-room, a kitchen and a front room. This was supposed to be a drawing-room, parlour, lounge, what you will, but we called it 'the room' and it was rarely used. It contained a three-piece suite and the best china, again rarely used. Only when my sister and I grew too big to share a bedroom did the room serve a useful purpose when I was moved in.

Outside was a small brick building, containing the toilet, the coalshed and the wash-house, complete with 'copper' (boiler), 'dolly tub' with a big stick for mashing the washing, and a mangle. Hanging somewhere was an aluminium bath which was carried into the kitchen once a week to be filled with laboriously boiled water on bath night.

No central heating of course, just an open coal fire in the living/dining room which Dad had to light, with much swearing, every morning. Many a time he would set a newspaper on fire when he spread it across the grate to 'draw' the fire. And sometimes he would give up and use a drop of paraffin. My father would, of necessity I suppose, have a go at most things, but he did lack a certain something in practical matters. I remember that once he borrowed some rods and tried to sweep the chimney. Oh dear!

To a child, the lack of heat, apart from a hot-water bottle, made bed-time an ordeal. I'm sure getting up was even more difficult then than it is now. But the one thing I miss is the frost on the windows on winter mornings. We were told, of course, that during the night, Jack Frost had painted them.

The land behind the bungalow was probably 150 yards long, room for a kitchen garden, and orchard and a penned off area where we kept chickens, geese (vicious birds who got their just deserts at Christmas) and sometimes pigs.

The memory of the pigs brings to mind an odd event and I wonder if it still occurs. Was it called a 'pig-killing party'? The pig would be professionally slaughtered and butchered and then friends and family would congregate to carve it into chops and joints and meat for sausages, haslets and pork pies. How all this pork was preserved I don't know. We didn't have fridges, let alone freezers. Salt?

When it was all done, I was given the pig's curly tale and told to put it under my pillow for luck. I did as I was told and I would say it worked reasonably well.

Roger Hundleby