Smelly Bugs!
I thought you would like to read a little story I wrote two years ago I am now eighty years old.

I was born into a family of five brothers and one sister, who was 14 years younger than me.

We lived in a drab little street in Manchester. Like most of our neighbours we were very poor. I remember my mother shouting us up for school, no duvet then on our bed, just a thin flannelette sheet with our coats spread on top to keep us warm, we slept four to a bed – two at the top and two at the bottom. No spring interior mattress just a flock mattress, which got very hard and lumpy with us kids moving about during the night. Getting out of bed onto bare floorboards no carpet or even oilcloth.

My mother would shout to us; “First down, best dressed, hurry up.” We would sit down, some of us on boxes (because there wasn’t enough chairs) with a newspaper table cloth and tea in jam jars because we probably dropped any cups we may have had. There would be toast with margarine on and the choice of either condensed milk or sugar to go on top; no marmalade or jam, they were luxuries.

The living room was the same as the bedroom in as much as there was no floor covering only old sacks and a gas light and if we were lucky a small fire in the grate, with the kettle on the side to keep the water hot.

In the tiny kitchen there was no hot water to wash in, just a coldwater tap running into the slop stone (Sink) and a very wet towel when it came your turn to dry yourself!

The summer months were not much better but with the warmer weather our lack of clothes was not a problem, we would play out in the street in our vests not even shoes on our feet. (No vile people about then) We would tie a rope to a lamppost for a swing; play allies (Marbles) hop scotch or just chasing around until we got fed up.

Then mother would make some meat paste butties, fill a bottle with water for us and off we’d go to the local park, it was lovely. There was a paddling pool, sand pit and swings to play on. There was sometimes a band on the bandstand playing a tune: To us this was our Blackpool.

Back at home the night time was worse, these old houses were all distempered in dark green or brown and with the hot nights out came the bugs. In the beds and up the walls they’d climb. All the houses in our street were the same, no one escaped the bugs, smelly things! My mother and father used to light candles to try to burn them off the walls, the bed rails and bed springs, they’d take the flock mattress outside to give it a good shaking. My parents and the neighbours used to sit outside on the kerb until all hours, people used to say “You can’t sleep for the bugs” and it was true in those old houses.
Mrs F. Finlay