Nella Last in the 1950s

by Patricia Malcolmson

  Friday, 8 December. Every day this week there’s been a power cut. It didn’t come this morning at breakfast time but at 10.30. We got out the picnic Primus stove and I can boil a kettle and heat my husband’s porridge – I prefer cornflakes with cold milk. I’d got the rabbit stew cooking, with carrots and onions, so lifted it on the side of the dining room fire and later added potatoes and sprouts to steam on top. Celery soup too finished cooking by the fire, and later I made custard and stewed dates. Mrs Higham said when her sister was here at the weekend for her wedding anniversary she told her she had been lucky enough to get a gas stove in place of her electric one, and hundreds of people thronged the gas showrooms in Liverpool making enquiries about a changeover. The man emptied our meter this morning. I had £3 0s 1d in the meter and was handed back 15s 5d and the 1s of course left in. We spoke of the ‘good old days’ when I’d have had quite half that £3 back! He knows I’ve only one fire, the rest electric, and said, ‘Considering your stove in which you bake all your bread and cakes, and the fact you have an immersion heater, I think you haven’t used much electricity’. I pointed out I never used the latter when I had a good fire, for with the boiler being behind the dining room fire I had all the hot water I needed. He glanced at my gleaming pans as he said, ‘But you do all your cooking on the stove?’ I said, ‘Yes, but again, one ring keeps three pans simmering once they have come to the cooking point. Electricity is too dear to waste.’ I was amused to find him so interested till he mentioned they were on the lookout for any tips to save electricity, which were passed on to the girl in the showroom, who answers all little baking and cooking problems and has little ‘demonstrations’ from time to time.

  Saturday, 9 December. A parcel came from Edith and Arthur with my husband’s birthday present, and our Xmas gifts to be put aside. When I handled my husband’s soft parcel I decided to unseal one end and see if my fears were justified. They were – and I felt really cross to find a woollen scarf. Arthur had written asking what to buy, and a scarf was not included. It was the same last year. Edith ignored my suggestions and bought a very unsuitable light fawn scarf, far too thick to sit under an overcoat collar. I’ve asked Arthur if it’s possible to change it for something he needs – socks or a tie would be better. Before he got last year’s, he had two they bought at different times, both hardly worn!

  Monday, 11 December [Will’s 63rd birthday]. We stuck to our plan of last night, that I’d do any shopping I need while he had the car out. I got some chocolate biscuits – on points – and a shaving brush for one of his little Xmas presents, and we went for his watch, but was again disappointed. He dropped it and it was to cost 10s 6d, so he asked for it for his birthday gift. When I was in Boots I noticed few expensive cosmetics were on Xmas shopping lists. It was ‘Something about 5 shillings, please’ or ‘Have you that in a smaller size?’ Last week they had such a good choice of children’s hot water bottles made like bears, cats, etc. Today all had gone, and ‘they hoped’ to have more in before Xmas. Mrs Diss was in the greengrocer’s when I was in. She was in one of her least attractive moods, when in a loudish voice she gave her order, as if to impress listeners with the fact ‘Money is no object, as you know!’ It isn’t, either. But to see pots of cyclamens, orange-berried plants, lovely azaleas – at 28s! – ordered in several of each, four very small fir trees – ‘We like a decked tree in each room’ – to see the long list of frozen foods, from dressed crab to fruit salads, cauliflower at 2s – ‘About four, I think; no, better make it half a dozen’ – was to feel you saw in your mind’s eye every coin in your purse and knew how far it should go! She spoke of having ‘No patience with people who gave up making a fuss of Xmas’. I looked at her critically as I thought, ‘Not one worry or trouble in your life. More money than you know what to do with. Two maids and extra help – hmm!’ I felt slight annoyance when she never even asked how my husband was, and when I said, ‘If I don’t see you again before Xmas, all good wishes for both Xmas and the New Year’, and she said offhandedly, ‘Thanks’, silly and childish of me to feel hurt when she didn’t return my good wishes. I often feel I’ve lost or am losing my sense of humour entirely!

  Tuesday, 12 December. At Spark Bridge I went up the road to see how much I owed a farmer’s wife. I met her some weeks ago in Ulverston and asked her if she would take any eggs’ points when she killed a pig and an extra pint of milk, for I thought it the best when I couldn’t get up each week. Although I knew Aunt Sarah had had a lot of odds and ends, she would only take 10s, and I had difficulty in making her take that. She recalled I’d shopped with her points when she had difficulty in feeding extra hands. The wind blew off the snow-covered hills like a knife, and I felt sorry as she spoke of Greenodd people not having a resident doctor. The one who had come had only been able to get accommodation quite three miles away, on a very bleak moorland road. The original doctor, who was well liked and who has been there for a number of years, had no private means and found under the National Health new scheme he couldn’t possibly rear a family and is down at the hospital in Barrow. I felt it wouldn’t do to look for a cottage at Greenodd if my husband always needed medical attention. Anyway, while he is going to the hospital twice a week we couldn’t very well go far out of town. Sometimes I feel I don’t want to make a change at all. I wonder if any change we could make would help him, and I know I’d miss what few contacts I have.

  Friday, 15 December. We hadn’t the snow of many parts, but the roads were like glass. We have a stupid Council. They never seem to take precautions of sand or gravel except in the main bus roads, and at that not in the night, to help traffic for the Yard. I made a pan of vegetable soup which will do three days, washed some towels and woollens, dusted round, and sat down to finish my monkey. He is quite the cutest thing I’ve made, in his little green felt jacket embroidered round the edges with red and yellow, and his red fez with black tassel. I’m sure Peter will love it. Posts are good. I sent the scarf back Tuesday. Arthur must have got it the next day, changed it for two pair of socks and posted them back and I got them today. No parcel yet from Australia. I hope they arrive next week, especially the one for Belfast. I got the monkey finished by the time I had to prepare lunch. The soup was ready, and I fried bacon, boiled sprouts and potatoes and heated rice pudding I had in the fridge.

  When my husband went to lie down I wrapped up warmly and went to the General Post Office. It was so crowded, and I saw one parcel that had been so badly tied it had been pointed out to the woman posting it that it wouldn’t stand the journey to Glasgow so she went off to buy string, after holding all up while she argued it was ‘quite alright’ – and something like a tie could be seen at the end of the parcel already. The ambulance was starting up where there wasn’t houses where anyone would have been likely to be carried out. I asked a passer-by if there had been an accident and was told an elderly man had collapsed with the cold. I didn’t wonder. I felt chilled to the bone when I got in, and glad to make a cup of hot tea. I’d left the kettle by the fire. My husband rose cranky and irritable. He seems depressed because he has had no word to go again to see Dr Wadsworth. He pinned such faith in the ‘wonders’ of hypnotism.

  Saturday, 16 December. So bitterly cold again, but bright sunshine helped me tidy round so we could go shopping to the market. I wanted to get kapok† in, given its rapid upward rise in price, before it rose higher. It was 5s 6d a lb at Woolworths and two finishing shops but when I went to the Co-op to enquire I got it for 4s 9d. And last supply three weeks ago was only 3s 9d. The man who served me said in a puzzled tone, ‘I don’t know what it’s being used for. We are nearly sold out there has been such a rush.’ My sudden brainwave wasn’t as original as I thought! I got 5 lbs. My two really good eiderdowns had 3½ lbs of ‘eider’ at 10s 6d a lb and are ‘plump’ and well filled, but I got the 5 lbs for I plan a quilt to tuck in sides and bottom of the small single bed, and I’ll see how it is going in the making for I plan, too, to make a fairly thick pad to go over the mattress. There’s only
a pad type over a well sprung wire one – it’s the type that the legs unscrew and go away in a corner if not in use … So even with the two or three reels of Sylko† (4½d each) I’ll have a super cover that will be as warm as two ordinary blankets, with perhaps some kapok towards the mattress pad – for about £2 15s 0d.

  My husband had one of his near fits, grumbling about spending money. These moods of his make me desperately sorry for women with no resources at all of their own. My tiny income makes me airily independent if I think that way. When he had looked at horrible flock filled eiderdowns of the usual size priced at over £5, he slightly altered his views! We couldn’t decide what to buy Mother for a little present. She has plenty of everything, and too many sweets and chocolates are not good for her. She never had an affection for any kind of ‘pet’ or interest in books, and never used perfume. I saw some bowls of bulbs at 10s 6d and 12s 6d, just about an inch through the fibre, and we bought a 12s 6d one, although she always said she was ‘not lucky’ with plants – she forgot to water them often. I thought bulbs needed no attention. Eggs are scarce. I’d not had any for two weeks although a few had been in, but today was lucky and I got four, and an unexpected quarter pound of tongue as well. There were plenty of tomatoes, but I don’t like them ‘box’ ripened – they have little flavour whether for table or soup. We got a nice bough of holly and only paid 1s. Next Saturday the price will be at least 2s for smaller, and a big rush for it.

  In the ‘pets’ corner, poor shivering frightened puppies yapped, or sat in dumb-eyed misery, most far too young to be taken from the care and warmth of their mothers to be handed over to unthinking children as pets, none with pedigrees, most being chosen for their ‘cuteness’, none house trained. I thought, as I looked pityingly at the helpless things, how much unnecessary and unthinking cruelty there was in the world – most would have been better drowned at birth. Sorry as I was for the kittens, I always think cats have more sense looking after themselves, can keep themselves clean, etc. Chickens, rabbits and hares were in abundance, notices that ‘Geese can still be ordered for Xmas’, but no signs of turkeys. There’s never been any big demand in Barrow, perhaps because, being a working town – except when big bonuses or a lot of overtime at the Yard – women have considered a goose or a couple of ducks better value.

  I’d left my piece of frozen mutton simmering in a bed of celery, leeks and carrots. I added potatoes to steam while soup heated and was eaten. Tinned peas were well rinsed and drained, and a shake of pepper and dab of butter added and tossed till hot over the fire. We have always said, ‘Thank goodness, no power cuts today’ on Saturdays and Sundays, but there had been one of nearly two hours when we were out. I was glad I’d not relied on the stove – it was thrift that made me leave it by the little fire. I very reluctantly bought a new pan this morning. One of my two 7 inch pans – the most useful size now there are only two of us – has been giving out round the base of the handle for some time now, and I’ve kept dabbing ‘stick solder’ on. In view of the fact aluminium pans will soon be scarce, I made up my mind not to wait any longer – and began to think I’d left it too long to get what I wanted. I could have got a real bargain – one of the very thick pans that last a lifetime – but it was too large. At 24s the price was little higher – they were always very much more – than the ordinary ones. Shop after shop had the same remarks, ‘Only those few oddments, or sets, mostly steamers’, and even pressure cookers were sold out. Then I got just what I wanted – real old stock when the proprietor was turning out the shelves in the warehouse and putting all out for sale, including lamps and one-burner oil stoves he had written off, and even the old-fashioned-looking lamps, some slightly shabby with dust and rust, were best sellers. I only paid 6s 6d. I’d been asked 7s 6d for the same quality in too small a size for my need in a shop up the street. We laughed as we recalled the turn out of shops and warehouses in the war as supplies got worse. Mr Diss and his father before him never seemed very good buyers, and in the big warehouse behind the Disses’ high-class jeweller’s shop were shelves and cupboards stacked with real junk, doll-eyed jam dishes and jars and bricà-brac more suited to present shops in seaside resorts. Brought out gradually, together with good but unsaleable clocks, watches, ugly presentation plate, etc., and at increasing prices, he made a small fortune – out of stuff that had been a debit for at least 20 years!

  I had got all Mrs Salisbury’s plum pudding oddments ready, and added my own, and planned to make them this afternoon when my husband went to lie down, but he said, ‘Let’s go out a while and I’ll rest when we come in’. I jumped at the chance to take two little presents and pay visits I only seem to do about Xmas. My butcher’s wife, an old pre-war hairdresser friend, lives on the Coast Road and I’d made her baby a dollie. An old friend of Hospital Supply days who lives in an outlying village got a dozen chocolate cornflake dainties in a box, and a bottle of pears in syrup. With making a snap decision, my husband hadn’t time to think up objections and I felt really happy to be able to make the two little visits. We were home by 4 o’clock too, so he had his rest before tea. With everything to hand I soon made the two puddings, and the two pans with the basins in simmered on one hot plate of the stove, and I just managed to get the almond paste on my little cake by the time he came down. I made such a nice Xmasy tea – tongue and celery, bread and butter and raspberry jam and crisps, shortbread biscuits and chocolate dainties, some made with puffed wheat, others with cornflakes. We were both hungry, and my husband seemed in a bit less despondent mood.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GETTING BY, GETTING ON

  December 1950–May 1951

  Tuesday, 26 December, Boxing Day. My husband’s cold was still bad, and he said at breakfast, ‘I don’t know what was the matter with me last night. I couldn’t get to sleep for thinking.’ I said, ‘What were you thinking about?’ and he said, ‘Ah, when the boys were small in the war and even when we were courting. You know it doesn’t seem over forty years ago since you used to wear that white fur cap and stole.’ I felt surprised. He doesn’t often reminisce. I only dusted round and washed up. Margaret came in, then Steve Howson, whose cold is really alarming. I’d be making him stay in bed, fearing bronchitis, if I’d anything to do with him. He did look ill. I didn’t bother with much lunch. We had the last of the boiled fowl I had in the fridge, bread and butter, celery, tea and a piece of Xmas cake each. It had not much fruit in, and is a much lighter cake than I’ve made other years. It was very cold. I’d nothing to take me out, and had a really good thriller by Christianna Brand called Death of Jezebel, and when my husband went to lie down I pulled the settee near the fire and curled up till 4 o’clock, when he came downstairs. His cold is still bad, but today he looked better of himself. There was ice cream to the rest of the sliced peaches, bread and butter, mince pies and almond cheese cakes.

  Wednesday, 27 December. Mrs Atkinson and I filled a bucket of coal between us, and she carried it while I took three fire bricks each and some sticks I could spare to an old neighbour across the road who has just come out of hospital. We agreed we didn’t give it with any generous spirit, but we couldn’t see her without coal. She has money enough to live in great comfort, but she has a real miser’s spirit – burns a candle to save electricity, rations every slice of bread, every potato. She cried today when we went in and moaned about ‘being all alone, no one to care whether she lived or died’, etc. I said, ‘You should have let your sister end her days with you when she was over from New Zealand. You knew how unhappy her married life has always been, and how her husband would rather live with the two children of his first marriage and how he longed [for her] to end her days in England. It would have been an ideal arrangement for you both.’ The thin lips pressed waspishly together as she said, ‘But I would have had to keep her – and food costs money’. I said, ‘And you have it, Mrs Townsend. I know all your circumstances, know you got £7,000 for the farm and land and cottages as well as all you had before, and you haven’t anyone to leave it
to, you know.’ As Mrs Atkinson and I said, ‘It’s a religion to a certain type of person to so revere capital’ – and don’t I know it. I see storms ahead when we draw money from the Building Society, or sell War Savings Certificates.

  Friday, 29 December. I saw Gilbert, the apprentice at the workshop, who had come to mend Mrs Howson’s mother’s gate. Only 19, he was hurriedly married to a girl of 20 recently, and they have a baby 5 weeks old. My heart ached for his queerly set face – he was so boyish for his age. I felt all youth had been wiped from his face. He looked so cold. I said, ‘Hallo, Gilbert. Aren’t you going for lunch?’ And he said, ‘I brought a meat pie and a cake. It’s a good way from home and I’ve a lot of little jobs up here.’ I thought Mrs Howson should have offered him a hot drink, but I said, ‘Pop across, love, when I wave and have some hot soup’. He seemed the happy lad who cut the lawn for me and frolicked with Shan We. I’d a teddy bear dollie still in my box, kept for some new baby. I wrapped it up and put 4s 6d in an envelope with ‘Loving wishes for Baby Michael, some socks’, and when he came across Shan We made more fuss than ever of him, though he hadn’t seen Gilbert since early summer. My heart ached so for the lad, living with his wife’s parents, who was a spoilt fanciful child and girl always. I felt I did so hope they could ‘grow up together’ after their bad start …