Remembrance of Things Past

It comes as no surprise to anyone, with first hand experience that is, that 1950s National Health orange juice sticks in the mind; it stuck to everything. Even the wasps were wary, landing nearby and completing their investigation tentatively, on foot. It came in cough mixture type bottles and was the very epitome of post war rationing; an artificial and disappointing unctuous goo. After a few servings, congealed content clogged the threaded bottle neck, guaranteeing that the next user would require an oxyacetylene set to remove the cap. But it was all we had, so we drank it and it was only some years later when the 'pop man' came round in his lorry every Friday afternoon, that we were able to savour the exotic delights of Dandelion and Burdock, Cream Soda and Tizer.

Little Grandma, so called because she was only four feet nine inches tall, always added a bottle of Tizer to her shopping order, a special treat for whenever we visited. It arrived by van from the Co-op store at the top of the street, their week's victuals lying resplendent in a cardboard box on the cellar head, topped off with two ounces of Condor pipe tobacco for Grandad.

Grandad had retired from his job as a boiler maker at the Railway Works and now dedicated himself to filling their cosy home with pipe smoke, a task he performed with pensive relish. Mesmerised by the gentle tempo of his rocking chair, his smoke rings entranced as they floated delicately upwards, before melting away into Grandma's washing. Rows of boiled and dolly-bagged whites suspended from the drying rack hoisted against the ceiling, the whole spectacle illuminated by shafts of sunlight streaming in through the back room sash window.

The back room was the beating heart of the home, with its imperious Yorkshire range kept lit Winter and Summer. A black leaded leviathan with oven and hot plates and warming boxes, quietly dictating the tempo of life from its fiery grate, its polished brass door handles, hinges and footplates sparkling against heavy obsidian plate.

On Winter nights, before being banked down for the night, hot coals were reluctantly coaxed  from its glowing mouth and tipped into the long handled copper bed warmer. This was then hastily carried upstairs and inserted between the sheets of each bed in turn, rendering them now fit for human habitation.

Their house was on Spansyke Street, one of several identical rows of two-up two-down houses surrounding the Railway Works, known in the town since 1853 as The Plant. A two hundred acre sprawling complex of assembly sheds, foundries, repair shops and paint shops, all collectively responsible for the employment of four thousand six hundred men in the creation of the great railway engines of history. Mallard, Empress of India, Dominion of Canada and Flying Scotsman.

The word 'Spansyke' fascinated me, creeping into my mind when least expected, bouncing around and taunting me. A disquieting word full of mystery and jagged edges; a word that could tear open careless flesh, just like the vicious grappling hooks that were used at the end of the street, on the loading platforms of the mysterious and strangely disturbing Ice Works. Here, huge, coffin sized blocks of ice were manhandled into the loading bay from within the frozen belly of the beast; brutal hooks biting into the slithering blocks as they were propelled onto the backs of waiting flat bed lorries by cold, haggard men. We chased the frozen coffin waggons to the end of the street and watched with relief as they disappeared into the unknown.

Rigid routine dictated life then. Washing on Monday was the major event of the week, when a fire was lit under the copper boiler encased in one corner of the scullery and filled with endless buckets of water from the single tap above the chipped stone sink. Like the engine sheds at the end of the street, steam was the overriding memory. It filled the house, rushing to the ceiling before slowly returning transformed via Lincrusta walls and tired windows until finally, the deed was done. Hours of hard labour, of heaving and pouring and scrubbing and rinsing and all topped off by mangle time; an instrument of the inquisition designed to trap fingers in heavy rollers and wring grey water from sheets and shirts. And then, just when you thought it was all over, the ironing. Two heavy metal smoothing irons warming themselves on the Yorkshire Range,  ingesting its heat ready for action and used in rotation until they were exhausted and returned to the hotplate to recuperate. Even as a boy, I could feel the exhaustion at the end of the day. Little grandma, a four foot nine inch human dynamo, unflinching in purpose and determination, but human and fallible and warm.

I remember the warmth most of all, the affection shown by two grandparents who had known hard times and war and grief and constant deprivation, but had conquered them all by means of honest endeavour and indomitable purpose. They had little in terms of material wealth, but what they did have was hard earned and generously shared.

One lazy Summer afternoon, out in the fierce heat in Gran's south facing back yard, I was up to no good as usual, with my back against the gently baking brick wall, deep in thought as to whether the zinc bath hanging on its hook by the back door could possibly be hot enough to fry an egg. I was just at the point of plotting how to smuggle one from the cellar head without being caught, when the door suddenly opened and Gran emerged with a clear sense of purpose and a large Ever-Ready wireless accumulator supported by two stout arms dangling menacingly in front of her apron. I thought she was about to hurl it over the wall into her neighbours yard, like a Highland games hammer thrower, but instead, she dropped the dead weight onto my four-pram-wheeled trolley and pressed a shilling into to my hand with a look of mild panic.

Radio transmission of the Test Match had apparently been rudely interrupted by sudden and unexpected accumulator failure and Grandad was apoplectic. A fast Yorker from Ray Lindwall had rapped Len Hutton squarely on the boot and a fierce lbw appeal screamed by the entire Australian team. At this vital point in proceedings, the illuminated radio dial dimmed alarmingly, John Arlott gently  faded away and silence filled the room. Deeply concerned about Grandad's mental health, Grandma pleaded with me to rush the accumulator round to McCoy's hardware shop for a recharge.

This wasn't the first time I had been tasked with this errand, as a similar incident had happened the previous year during a particularly tense episode of Dick Barton,Special Agent. Grandad didn't walk too well now and Grandma had gone to great lengths to explain to me why she didn't like going into McCoy's.
As a young girl in 1912, she'd overheard grown ups in the busy hardware shop talking about a huge new ship called the Titanic sinking on its maiden voyage and more than a thousand passengers losing their lives. With childish enthusiasm she'd rushed home to tell her mother, but rather than being a welcomed centre of attention with important information, had been slapped on the back of the legs for telling such wicked lies. She ran out of the house bemused and crying and carried the sense of injustice like a shrapnel wound for the rest of her life. McCoy's was now an errand for anyone available at the time and a task worth a shilling.

A shilling converted into wondrous treats for a post war baby boomer. Penny Sherbets, Liquorice pipes, Aniseed Balls and on special occasions, a Fry's Tiffin bar. Tiffin, like Spansyke, was also a word that haunted. Rattling around, attention seeking. An opulent post war feast of chocolate, biscuit and raisins, a childhood fantasy, a flight of imagination. With Tiffin fraught anticipation, I set off for McCoy's down the maze of back alleys, the accumulator carefully balanced on the flat board seat of my trolley.

The store stood, brazen and inviting on the village High Street, luring it's customers with come-hither displays of exotica. Bird cages, zinc buckets, besoms, toilet seats, utensils, Tilley lamps and myriad marvels from distant worlds. Stacked, tubbed, shelved and suspended across the front of the shop; pavement bait, beguiling and captivating. A heady whiff of paint, polish and paraffin lured the unsuspecting inside this Venus fly trap, where a brown overalled Mr McCoy stood proudly behind his heavy mahogany counter, the floor to ceiling shelves behind him overwhelmed by heavy boxes of everything. I was a helpless captive and my Tiffin shilling doomed.

Bemused and overwhelmed by such powerful alchemy, I eventually escaped the clutches of McCoy's with a newly charged accumulator and a neatly wound plastic coated washing line from the shilling sale box. I hurtled homewards on my trusty steed, lassoing everything in sight, just like my cowboy heroes Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy and Tex Ritter, knowing that waiting for me on the cellar head at Little Grans would be that ever-ready bottle of Tizer.