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Bright Street.

Memories of Bright Street. Early to Mid 1950's.

On most Saturdays during my childhood we, my mother and father, brother and myself went across town to visit my grandmother on my mother's side. My father's mother somehow missed out from our visits; she lived in the opposite direction when we got off the bus. Sometimes I used to visit her because I felt sorry that she had been left out from the whole family's excursion. Sometimes my father would visit her alone. His mother lived with an ex-boxer who I was told, used to get punch drunk, I wasn't quite sure what that meant at the time. There was also mention of cauliflower ears, and a boxer's nose. Not long before my grandmother died he hung himself from the banister. What I remember from the visits were the scatterings of the magazine 'Tit-Bits' on the furniture. Tit-Bits wasn't quite the Playboy of its time, but it was the kind of magazine that was found in men's hairdressers.

My grandmother on my mother's side lived down Bright Street, down the Holderness Road, on the east side of town. From the bus stop we could see an old bombed warehouse from the Second World War that waited like a skeleton waits for disposal. We passed houses with paved areas between them; there were no gardens or parks. We passed alleyways that led to the back entrances to the houses. Each street looked like the one before it and Bright Street was no exception. The house number was 48; it was neither a lucky nor an unlucky number. The front-room window and the front door faced the street directly. Passers-by could sit on the window-sill if they wanted. For this reason the window was dressed with heavy lace curtains and old-gold drapes. Old-gold seemed to be a popular colour of the time, perhaps it gave the illusion of relative wealth. Once, my mother left me outside in the perambulator – later I was found to be missing, someone had taken me; I had been kidnapped. There was a police operation to find me. A young woman had taken me, she was not quite right in the head, my mother said. I was too young to remember. As we approached the house, on our visits, I would run up and lift the doorknocker then ram it into the door so that the resulting sound echoed across the street and back. My uncle, Uncle Harold, lived with my grandmother, if he was up it would be him who would answer the door to let us in. We stepped into the hallway; greetings went to and fro, like tennis balls between players.

The hallway was decorated with a heavy embossed kind of wallpaper. It was about head or shoulder height when I was a child, and it was painted brown. We called it post war brown paint. Brown paint was the only colour people could get at the time. It wasn't a very attractive colour. I remember two other colours being talked about when it came to repainting the hallway – post war green and maroon. Maroon was a slight improvement to post-war brown, green was out of stock. Above the post-war browness there was a floral patterned wall-paper that was beginning to brown with age, though I don't think you would be able to find the species of flowers in any garden catalogue. There were stained-glass panels above the door that barely succeeded in bringing colour into the hallway. The ceiling hadn't been white-washed for years and bits of plaster were flaking off, evidence of which was usually to be found on the brown geometric patterned linoleum that attempted to imitate parquet flooring. There were two doors on the left hand side of the hallway, the first led into my grandmother's bedroom, the other led into the sitting room. Facing the front door just past the sitting room door were the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. There was no lighting in the hallway or on the landing. At night it was feel your way up to bed or take a candle. The brass stair rods attempted to gleam in the dim light but failed. I was not allowed to go upstairs to the bedrooms, and I was definitely not allowed to go up the other flight of stairs to the attic.

Before my grandmother became bed-ridden we used to go straight into the sitting room. I remember my grandmother being dressed in a long navy-blue dress with very small white spots, black leather boots and a hairnet. I never saw her with an outdoor coat on, but I did notice her collection of hats and hat pins. She was slim, quite small and softly spoken. She was kind, house proud and never swore or cursed. She might have been god-fearing, but never went to church nor did any clergyman ever visit the house, that is as far as I knew.

The focal point in the living room was the kitchen range. It was black, and covered about half the wall that was opposite the hallway door. A couple of hot irons sat in the warm blackness. It usually had a coal fire glowing or burning in the grate. As we entered the room a kettle would be put on for a cup of tea. The table would be set for afternoon tea. Afternoon tea consisted of: tea, bread and butter and onion and cucumber slices in vinegar. The bread might have been Hovis – for the roughage. To the right of the range was a black trunk with a hump lid – what it contained I can't remember, linen perhaps. Above the trunk was a glass cabinet with the best china in it. We never had an occasion to use the best china, and I could never fathom out why we had any best china at all! To the left of the range was a cupboard – from floor to ceiling. It was painted – post-war brown. It was a food cupboard. I remember: Lyles Golden Syrup, Robertson's Jam and Kellog's Cornflakes. At that time Cornflake packets had cut out masks printed on the packet. One Saturday, my cousin Bobby cut out a mask and wore it. He jumped out at me and yelled when I came into the room. I was not very happy – I yelled blue-murder! There was a brass fender before the range, and a rag-rug before that. Beneath the rag-rug was coconut matting. There were no pictures on the walls – it was not because my grandmother did not have any, she did. Both my mother and grandmother considered them dust harbourers. Hidden in a cupboard upstairs were two pastel paintings of my great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather. Some people would pay a great deal of money to have portraits of their forefathers on their walls. We hid them away because they harboured dust. I now live in a two room flat; I have 130 paintings on my walls. Where do I get it from? From the ceiling hung a low gas light, occasionally the mantle would catch fire and fall to the floor. A frantic search for a replacement mantle would ensue, then after a delicate operation the light would be restored. Late Saturday afternoons were a depressing time especially in winter. We would sit in near darkness due to the expense of keeping the room lit up. As soon as the football results came on the wireless the gas mantle was lit. My uncle ticked off the draws on his pools coupon. My brother and I were instructed to sit in silence on the couch which had been recovered in a brownish imitation leather material. After its refit it was never quite as comfortable as before. The couch was on the left-hand wall as you stepped into the room. Opposite was the window that looked out onto the back yard.

In front of the window was an old wind-up gramophone, it had needles that were like nails. It was covered by an oriental looking piece of material with small tassles. An empty crystal fruit bowl sat in the middle, idle, because it was empty of fruit. Above the empty fruit bowl hovered a fly killer disguised as a basket of flowers. It had probably lost its potency some time ago. The women of the house preferred it to the brown sticky rolls that attracted flies and bluebottles, and that never let them go. There was one of these sticky fly rolls in the corner shop – above the meat counter. It looked pretty disgusting even to me at that age. Not that we cared to ask where the dead flies were in our sitting room. To the left of the wind-up gramophone was a cabinet with a wireless on it, to its right a dining-room chair and the scullery door. Above the dining-room chair was a mirror with a hair-brush on a ledge. It was the age of Brylcream, and my Uncle Harold plastered it on his head before he brushed his hair back. Opposite the scullery door was a door to a cupboard that was under the stairs where my grandmother and her children sheltered during air-raids in the Second World War. I don't know what protection they would have had if the building came tumbling down, but no doubt they felt as safe as they thought possible in the circumstances. In the alcove between the scullery and 'cubby-hole' door were a number of coat hooks for the hanging of overcoats. Between the cubby-hole door and the hallway door there was an ornate dresser with Victorian vases and other ornaments. In front of the dresser was a table where meals would be served. My uncle, uncle Harold had a reputation for being lazy, he seldom worked. My mother called him a lazy sod. My grandmother would pour milk on his cornflakes the night before he was due to go to work in order to encourage him to work. It didn't work. Often on Saturday afternoons the soggy cornflakes would still be there, waiting to be eaten whilst Uncle Harold still slept in his bed. When he was up he sat in 'his' easy chair that was in front of the radio. Usually he would be reading a Zane Gray western; why he was interested in the wild west I don't know; he was anything but wild.

The scullery was a small narrow room. On entering the scullery from the sitting room there was a step down on to a stone floor; on the right there was an oven, which was a square box contraption that blew up once whilst my grandmother was lighting it. My grandmother was shaken but not badly hurt. Beyond the oven was a gas ring, a cupboard, and the end wall with a larder built into it. On the left was the door into the back yard, a stone sink of an indeterminate brownish grey colour and a draining board. Above the sink was a window.

The back yard had a lean-to glasshouse that was never used, that is, except for the sole purpose of storing maggots for fishing. Where I fished I can't remember – it might have been the ponds in East Park. I remember this because a couple of weeks later I went into the glasshouse to bring and show my mother the tin; when I opened the lid a swarm of blue-bottles flew out. My mother wasn't very pleased – the sitting-room was full of blue-bottles. In addition to the glasshouse in the backyard there was the outside water closet that was equipped with a candle, and Izal toilet paper. Izal toilet paper was shiny on one side, it was pretty rough, but it did smell of disinfectant. There was a door to the alleyway that was always locked from the inside. There was an outside tap from which my grandfather would wash himself, whatever the time of year. Or so I was told. Very little light came into the sitting room, or into the back yard due to the surrounding windowless high buildings.

Ever since I can remember the front room has been my grandmother's bedroom. The bed was a double bed, It stood in the corner of the room between the door and partly in front of the window. Against the wall facing the window was a tallboy. It had boxes and things on it. One of the boxes was a circular Kraft cheese box, it contained a collection of threepenny bits. Every time we visited my grandmother another threepenny bit would be added. There was a fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the door. It was a dead fireplace. There were more ornate, Victorian vases on the mantelpiece; they had views of the countryside on them. There was a sick clock sitting between them. By the bed, and in front of the window there was the table. It was a large table. It had to be a large table to accommodate the large collection of medicines that my grandmother took. At the centre of the table stood the ubiquitous aspidistra. It was modest in size. The bottles of pills stood around it like disciples. And there was the smell of Vic and liniments in the air.

A trip to my grandmother's meant a trip home from my grandmother's - a bus from the East of Hull to the centre of town, and a bus to the western fringes of Hull. Either way it was a long walk, particularly at the western end. My mother had two sisters, Emma and Doris. Harold was her only living brother. Two siblings died soon after birth.

Before I leave Bright Street and my visit down memory lane I would like to add an account of an incident that took place outside the front door on a sunny day. The sun always shone on the other side of the street. (My grandmother's house was on the north side.) The following story is told by my two aunts.

Piggy-dogs.
 
" 'e didn't think of sex - yha know,
whell, yu don't w'en yha four,
du yha? Sunny day it was too -
Saturday, at 'is gran's.
 
Of course, it wuntt 'ave been
anythin' we would 'ave thought
tu comment on. In fact,
we would 'ave looked the other way.
 
Whell 'e wasn't to know that,
waz 'e?" 
         "W'at waz it then?"
"Whell, It waz these two dogs
yu see. One was givin' tuther,
whell, a piggy-back ride.
Anyroad, that's w'at 'e thought.
 
'Cum,' 'e showted, as yha du
w'en you wont ev'ryone t' cum-n-look,
Whell, it was 't first time - yha see.
I think 'e knew better afta that."
 
"Why? W'at 'appened?"
"Whell, 'e ran along 't 'allway - like,
shoutin', 'Kwickly - cum, a dog iz 
givin' tuther, see,  a piggy-back,'
 
'e turned, followed by 'is mother, 
father and 'is Gran."
"Did they all stand an' watch, then?"
"Did-they-'eck-uz-like."
 
"They dragged 't lad inside,
an' slammed t' door be'ind 'im.
'e just stood there, waitin',
waitin', for an explanation."
 
"An' did 'e get wun?"
" Did-'e-'eck-uz-like.
D'ya know w'at 'e sed t' mi,
years later of course?"
 
"Did it stay in 'is mind then?"
"I s'pose 'e thought, the thing
'd-be explained, afta a wile.
Az yha du."
"Aye-bar-gum.
 
An' did 'e 'ave to wait long?"
"Ar 's'pose it dawned on 'im,
bit-be-bit, like things du. Mind you..."
"Tell mi w'at 'e sed then."
 
"Let me see, 'I remember thinking,
there are some things you don't 
notice in front of grown-ups,
and some things you don't talk about,
to grown-ups,' that was it."