Then we bought little toys, sometimes candy ones, to hang on the mistletoe. I remember spending all my money at one go on a wax angel. It was so beautiful with its little gilt wings I couldn’t leave it in the bag. I was taking it out to have another peep when I let it fall. I remember I said “aoh-ah” and that lived with me for many years. The poor angel never reached the mistletoe. I can still picture father teasing us on a New Year’s Eve telling us to go to the bottom and we would see a man with as many noses as there were days in the year. After looking at all the men we saw we would come back and tell him they had all only one nose.
My mother had to explain, because he just went on teasing. We all had to sit very still when he was using his cut throat razor, getting ready for going out “where are you going Da?” we would say, “to get my ears pinned back” “Are you going to the doctors then?” “Aye my doctor”, he would say meaning the pub but we didn’t guess. When he came back we would examine his ears very closely, but could see no sign of any shifting but he would insist we were blind. The next time he would say he was going to have his lugs put back again and there was the same performance. He used to get 2/- or 2/6 every fortnight for pocket money, and every Sunday following the pay day he would send us to old Janey’s shop to buy some sweets. This cost him 2d. He would share the sweets amongst us. We had to choose small sweets so that they would go round.
This always happened after we had been to church on the Sunday evening. We couldn’t wait for the service to finish. In the later years, as we got to thirteen or fourteen we were allowed out for a while after evening service. Everybody made for the terrace at Seaham Harbour. Boys and girls would follow each other, exchanging chat, from the Railway Street corner to the old infirmary and back again. The Terrace was brightly lit with sweet shops and it was a great attraction. I bet every couple in that generation met and courted on the Terrace. Very few young people ventured beyond the old infirmary, it was a dark stony frightening road beyond. Yet in daylight we loved to roam down Lover’s Lane, now Denehouse Road but when we got to the sea we turned back again. On summer nights Saturday and Sunday it was a great delight to go into Adam and Eve’s gardens. These were beautifully kept gardens, where bunches of flowers, fruit and drinks were served. You went down Chapel Road as far as the police station and opposite was an opening. You walked down a bank, across a foot bridge over a stream and into the gardens. There were stone effigies of Adam and Eve set in the flower beds.
Talking of the police station reminds me of our village bobby. He lived in the first house of the Cottages. The mistress of the school, a Scots lady lived in the same street. The policeman was a big, strong fellow, magnificent in his uniform. He was a friendly, fatherly figure, but mind you everybody had the greatest respect for him. Boys used to get up to tricks but anything beyond the limit and they got a severe clout across the face with his gloves. They seldom repeated the offence. Everybody went to him with their troubles and he always lent a willing ear. He had a big family himself and understood young people.
He joined in all activities so there was always order. I remember only once Jack Blake had had too much to drink. He had the horrors as they were called. Bring the police. Now, he would whip him into custody but not our village man. He sat on Jack, douched him with cold water, undressed him, put him to bed and stayed until he was sound asleep.
Our doctor lived in Seaham Harbour. He was six feet three, a very fine looking Irishman. He had great respect for mother. He thought she was the best and most efficient housewife he had come across and told her so. When the last of her nine children were born, he asked her what she was going to call it. She said she had run out of names, so he suggested calling it Gerald after himself. This mother did and he gave the baby a threepenny bit. He sometimes rode on a horse to pay his visits.
I seem to be hopping about like a cat on a griddle. I am back again to New Year’s Day. This was Mother’s Day. Father would say “let ma alone today, look after yourselves because it’s her day off”. You see the neighbours had parties in each others houses. Mother’s was always on New Year’s Eve. There was singing, dancing, joking, eating and drinking. Mother always boiled a ham, a big piece of beef, a pig’s head which was pressed in a dish with a plate on top and on top of that the flat iron. She did a big dish of spare rib and rabbits made into a pie. With the stock she made a furnace pot full of broth.
It would take my father a whole day to chop the vegetables. We had plenty to eat for a full week, so that the celebrations could go on. You see life was still good even on ginger wine. She was due to this week of celebrations because she had papered and painted and scoured and washed and made mats all in preparation, and all with the greatest enthusiasm and anticipation. She was a great dancer. I can still see her twinkling toes whenever she heard music. Father never danced but he would sit in a corner and enjoy watching.
Of course we had ‘broken up’ at school. We had had ‘the scramble’. This was a ritual always held on the last day of school. The Marchioness of Londonderry supplied an orange for each child. Then she supplied a big sack of mixed nuts. The centre of the big room was cleared and the nuts were thrown onto the floor and we all had to scramble to get at them. The thickest skin held the longest out. Needless to say the boys did better than the girls but it was all hard fun. Sometimes Lady Londonderry would visit the schools when in residence at Seaham Hall. We were taught special songs, mostly patriotic to sing to her. She was a singer herself with a deep contralto voice. I remember she sang for us once, ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’. I can still see this well made woman, weighed down with a big hat trimmed with huge ostrich feathers. I thought my mother looked far nicer in her new hat with the bird’s wing in the front, which she bought to go to Stockton, and she had a much smarter figure. In fact she was more commendable in all ways to our minds, but don’t tell the Marchioness.
The big day in the year for the men was ‘Cavel Day’. This was a draw at the pit to see where the putters and hewers worked for the next so many months. Some places were good and some were very bad. On Cavel Day all one could hear was “what’s thee cavel Dave”? “Oh in the watta”, was the reply. This meant he worked in a seam full of water, which brought their skins out in great big boils. It was the dread of every man to ‘get in the watta’. Some families were very lucky and got good cavels, others always seemed to be dogged with bad luck, so there was either great despondency or great joy. These men worked in teams, called ‘marras’. “Wee’s the marras?, one would ask another, when the man told his enquirer “bugger my” you knew the poor fellows marras weren’t up to much. The putter filled the coals into tubs. The coal hewer hewed the coals and the putter filled them into the tubs and hung a token on each one as it was filled. There were ‘token slingers’ at work sometimes.
This was a man who changed the tokens on another man’s tub. They were hard to catch, but when they were, they were either heavily fined or dismissed. His life wasn’t worth living if he was caught for he was never forgiven by his workmates. These hard working men had Saturday and Sunday off, but maintenance men had no respite and men like my father only had a Saturday. Mind you they could be sent for at anytime of the day or night for an extra shift, which was always reckoned a ‘god send’. Sometimes father would work a double shift. A boy would call for extra bait to be sent down to him.
I remember my oldest sister writing on the bait poke Father’s name, The Maudlin, Staple Top. The ‘Mauldin’ was the name of the seam. Then there was the ‘the Main’ and many others. My father’s ‘marra’ lived at Seaham Harbour but they always met at the crossing to travel along pitman’s walk over a footbridge onto Seaham Colliery Road, then up the Black Road to the ball alley, across the railway bridge and into the pit yard. It was a long way on foot especially in the winter, and it was very, very lonely and dark. I remember I once walked up the Black Road in daylight as I was going to visit my grandmother, then on my way back I had to call at the overman’s office and collect my father’s pay note. This was every other Thursday just after tea. As I went up the Black Road, two pitmen were walking in front of me. I kept well behind and when they came to the high wall around the pig field they stopped. So did I and they shouted “away hinney we’ll not hurt ye”, but I off back home without the note. This was a terrible thing to do, as you had to have a very good excuse for not collecting the note at the proper time or place, otherwise it was returned to Londonderry Offices where all the knobs worked and they could treat you with great disdain.