From what I can recall growing up at 55 Admiralty St, they were happy days. We had radio but no T.V which was unheard of then, the summers seemed long and hot and the community was friendly but not all in and out of each others homes. The house we lived in was a large roomed three up and back kitchen with an adjoining dining room downstairs, a back room and a front room. We had an outside loo and a 6ft aluminium bath for Saturday’s bath. I think I was first in, followed by Maureen and then Mother and Dad. The hot water was provided by a huge copper tank with gas jets underneath from the main gas supply. This was for baths and the weekly wash on a Monday.
The front room was rarely used and special occasions only. It was for visiting priests, birthdays and Christmas. A coal grate, which was only lit on those special days early in the morning, provided warmth but invariably the sash windows and the coldness of the house lost any heat very quickly. The visiting priests must have thought it strange that everywhere they visited was always cold. However they were regular visitors at these times with a big parish to cover and a very large number of parishioners.
Carpet was unheard-of and unaffordable so it was lino everywhere. Stuffed underneath was a mass of newspapers collected from the family. The outside loo used to freeze up in a bad winter. All in all they were happy days but you had to make the best of the circumstances.
Maureen being 10 years my senior moved in a different circle and time frame to me. It really wasn’t till she came back to Plymouth after many years away that I really got to know and appreciate her. She was an extremely talented student at Plymouth High School and apart from her academic brilliance she was apparently something to behold wielding a hockey stick. She was a brilliant student and matriculated in seven subjects. She would have been well sought after for any University but whether it was unaffordable or not, I wasn’t sure if she ever had a wish to go. She later worked for Plymouth Cooperative Society at Radnor Dairy doing the laboratory tests on the milk from the farms.
At that time Plymouth Coop owned much of the local farmland and collected from a wide geographical area. Their milk production was massive so again whilst I’m in school Maureen was working. Not long after she came home I’m in bed ready for school the next day so we never saw much of each other. I think I was more of a pain to her to be honest, more of which later.
We were blessed with the most lovely neighbours from the bottom corner. At No 49 I think lived the Earson family, they were rarely home only evenings as they ran a number of smallholdings including the Earson’s greengrocers at Marlborough St. They were very busy people. Their end wall was a fabulous spot for us to draw a permanent set of cricket wickets for Summer use and a goalpost set for Autumn and Winter. I remember Mr Earson particularly as he taught me how to remember the name sequence of the Keyham streets.
The Admiralty Fleet will win Victory Renown on the Ocean, and 70 years later it’s still as fresh in my mind as it was back then, when he put much emphasis on each of the street names.
Leave a Reply