Jellied Eels and Zeppelins by Sue Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

no idea that Florrie and Alf were courting for about three years. She didn’t tell us, ‘cos her chap was her second cousin. Mum didn’t agree with it, but Dad did. They married when Florrie was 19. They had two black Daimlers for their wedding - £1.50 it cost them.)
    The first proper radio set we had, had a speaker made by wooden leaves pushed into metal ribs. Stuck together, it made a horn. They used to run off the wood in pieces down at the woodyard next to Ensign. You could buy a little tiny set and fit it with the speaker, but it had to be properly done.

    1927: Florrie and Alf’s wedding
    When I first worked at Houghton-Butchers, they used to put me on a bench, where I used to have to stick the wooden leaves into the metal rib of the horn. I used to have to glue all the leaves in. They were similar to the horns on the old-fashioned gramophones, only smaller. I was only doing that for a little while until they got rid of that trade, then I went downstairs onto the presses.

    Florrie and Alf late 1920s
    I never forget, it was during the time that I was making those horns, that I was taking Grandad his dinner - he used to live near us then - when I got hit in the eye with a big spinning top that the kids were playing with in the road. They were ‘sending messages’ they called it - they used to pull this cord and throw the top and I happened to be in the firing line. The next day, I had a black eye and, when I went to work, the manager came up and said ‘What have you done to your eye - yer ‘usband hit yer?’ I said ‘I’m not married yet!’ Everyone laughed. I was only 14!
    I can see it as if it were only yesterday - Mum catching Florrie and Cousin Flo smoking Lucky Dreams in our front-room when they were teenagers. I remember the packet - it was a lovely blue packet, bluey-mauve with a woman dancing in Indian dress. Mum said ‘You can put those out or get out!!’ Mum was very strict about that sort of thing.
    Dad was very strict about boys. If I went out in the evening, I had to be back by 10. If I was even the tiniest bit late, I would be in for a tongue-lashing and be docked the amount of time I was late for the next time I went out. When I went out with a boyfriend, I still had to be home by the allocated time and my Dad used to see the shadow of us coming up the garden path and he would be at the front door almost before we got there. There was never any chance of ‘hanky panky’!
    I once wore a dress with a two-inch split up from the hem. As soon as Dad saw me wearing it one evening, he made me sew it up before he would permit me to go out. He would not allow petticoats to be seen below hems.
    We never thought of having pre-marital sex, for, if you were not a virgin on your wedding day, you were classed as the lowest of the low.
    I remember there was a young girl once. Her father always used to get blind drunk at The Standard every Saturday night. My Dad used to see him when he walked our elk-hound, Laddie, past Coppermill Lane School. He came home one night and said ‘There’ll be trouble there,’ ‘cos the mother used to go and fetch him home and the girl was left to run around the streets. She always had a load of boys around her, even though she was only 12 or 13.
    One morning, my mother met her mother coming along when she was going shopping up the market. I must have been about 17 then - it was after my sister had got married. Mum asked her how she was and she said ‘I’m in a hurry - my daughter’s been queer and I’ve left her with a neighbour and must hurry back to see how she is, ‘cos she worried me.’ My Mum didn’t see the woman for some weeks after that and, when she did, the woman said ‘You know that day I saw you? When I got home, my neighbour told me to get the doctor. When I asked her why, she told me that she was having a baby.’ Yet that girl wasn’t yet 14. Her mother said that she never saw no change in her whatsoever. That woman brought the baby up as her own.