Memories Of Somercotes by Mary Bullock (4/4)
by Mary Bullock on
Friday 25 March 2016
Another favourite pastime in summer was going for long walks on a Sunday after tea. Dad would like to walk through woods which ended up near Birchwood Lane…was this the Pennytown ponds area”? I know we used to walk along Nottingham Road towards Nix’s Hill and then turn off to the right onto a leafy lane. Towards the end of the walk we would “call” at a pub for a drink in the pub yard. There were the Top, Middle and Bottom pubs on this road. I have no idea what they were called, but I just remember Dad would say we’ll “call” at the Middle, or Top or Bottom.
My sister and I would be given the rare post-war treat of a bottle of pop and a bag of crisps (with the little blue bag of salt). Luxury indeed! Those were the days when Black Jacks were 4 for a penny and gob stoppers were a penny each and lasted for hours. Sweets of course were still rationed and I went to our local corner shop, Sam Wests, in Coupland Place for two “penneth” of sweets when “me mam” had tuppence to spare, which wasn’t often. They were put in little cone shaped paper bags. The front window of his little one room shop was always full of sweets. We also occasionally went to the Miners’ Welfare at Leabrooks. This was a real family place and there were lots of children to play with. I remember it was always well frequented in the 1950’s. There was a little shop opposite the Welfare that used to sell orange “suckers” (ice lollies) and we were always under the impression that they were made from the orange juice that was issued by the government for a period of time after the war. We loved them.
We were from a very non-religious family but we were sent as children to the Salvation Army Sunday School at the top of Sleetmoor Lane, probably to give my parents a bit of peace on a Sunday afternoon. We used to enjoy the Sunday School Anniversaries, which meant new clothes for me and my sister.
My younger sister Janet and I before the Sunday School Anniversary concert. If you look carefully there are pennants behind us so it may have been coronation year and, therefore, our last year at Coupland Place.
Another Sunday School event was Harvest festival. I think most of the churches and chapels celebrated this. We would take decorated baskets of fruit and vegetables to the Sunday School and they would be distributed to the needy. It was a throwback to the agricultural past and there were still quite a few farms around in the late 40’s and early 1950’s. There used to be a barn and cow yard opposite my Aunty Hannah’s on Sleetmoor Lane, just down from the old Co-op shop ( opposite Leamoor Avenue). The farmer’s name was Don but I can’t remember his surname. I also remember that we were given a daffodil on Mother’s Day to give to our Mothers when we got home. It is interesting to note that amongst many mining families the Anglican Church (St Thomas’s) was considered to be the church for the “toffs”! The only religious institution my Dad had any time for was the Salvation Army because they helped the poor. He always bought their paper, “The War Cry”, at the pub on a Saturday night.
I attended the infants/ junior school in Somercotes for 3 years ( I think it was that time span) and I do remember its high windows and rather austere appearance. I can’t say I remember a great deal because I was very young but I can vividly recall my first day. My mother picked me up at dinner time and I asked her if I could go back again in the afternoon as I liked it! We were given our own brown cardboard box, called a Tidy Box, with our name on and inside there was a chalk board, some chalk and a little duster. I loved spelling and remember in one year the class seating arrangement being based on one’s performance in the spelling test!! Like many children from mining families of that era our parents had had minimal education and so school offered us mental stimulation and the opportunity for a different future. I used to walk to school on my own and cross at the Belisha beacon crossing on Leabrooks Road/Sleetmoor Lane intersection. Funnily enough, a future headmaster of the school became our neighbour for a while after our move to Alfreton, Mr Thomas Foye (deceased).W
henever I see a bar of Pears soap today I can smell bath time as a child. The weekly bath on a Saturday night must have been a chore for my mother but we kids loved it. Hot water was ladled from the hob on the range into the tin bath, then cold water had to be brought in from the kitchen to get the right temperature. Our towels would then be put in front of the fire on the screen to be warmed for when we got out. The coal fire would be blazing and we would have a lovely long bath. In summer, or when it was warm, we would often have the bath outside! The water then had to be emptied, which was really a two person job! No wonder it only happened once a week! Imagine the state of the water if you had 6 children to bathe. In between times we had what my mother called a “good wash”.T
he only shops I can recall at this time was Wests (Sam West always seemed ancient and bad-tempered to us) and Abbotts, which was opposite. This was more of a “proper grocers”, with a high counter and properly attired assistants. It always smelled of cheese to me. You could have most things weighed…..an ounce of this or that. Cheese was sliced with a wire cutter and bacon was sliced fresh; few, if any, pre-packaged goods. Sugar used to be weighed out into blue bags, as was tea. Biscuits were sold from a tin and we often went for the broken bits from the bottom. They were cheaper of course. Some families used to pay “on tick”, as it was called, when their money ran out half way through the week. The balance was settled on payday. There was a fish and chip shop at the top of Coupland Place on Nottingham Road. We used to love getting fish bits from there. These were just bits of left over batter from the fryer! The main staples were bread and potatoes. Potatoes were often bought direct from the farmer, by the sack! Families often had a dustbin by the back door for scraps, which were collected by the farmer for pig swill. I do have a memory of milk being brought round in churns and it being bought by the jug. The rag and bone man was still a frequent street sight in the early 50’s. My sister and I got many a goldfish for our household rejects! The other regular street visitors in Coupland were the “midnight riders”, that is the poor men who had to collect the refuse from the outside lavatories. I suppose they came in the dead of night to prevent being seen?
The Empire cinema was in full swing in the 50’s. I saw “Gone with the Wind” there with my two aunties. The “Prem” (Premier) cinema was where youngsters went to see the Saturday matinees and teenagers went to “snog” on a Saturday night. You could buy 5 Park Drive or Woodbine “fags” there, even if you were underage. I think the description of the Prem was, “flea pit”. What more can one say?
The area where the Aertex was built used to be called “the goss”. Did that stand for gorse?? It was a wild, uncultivated area and we were forbidden to go there but I never found out why. Apart from that mystery we always felt safe in Somercotes during that post-war period. Families were often deep rooted in the community and supported each other in tough times. Living in such close proximity meant there was little real privacy as we know it today. Everyone knew everybody’s business! A bus trip to Nottingham or Derby was a rare event and one to be anticipated with great pleasure. An outing to Trent Bridge at Whitsun was a very special treat. Most people were strugglers and lived simple, unpretentious lives, rarely leaving the village.
The coming of TV, advertising, further education and the search for a better life changed all that.
I would have been this age when we moved to Alfreton: 1953