Tag: john

Before I go on to other areas for posterity, it may be useful to list by street the shops that we could use during the mid 1940’s. Admiralty St had no shops other than a hairdresser opposite the railway bridge to Saltash Rd. My cousin daughter Aunty Vera, Mary Monk ran this for several years. Her husband Peter always seemed to pick up draught chits in the Navy and was getting two year postings to ships away for quite a while. He was a carpenter P.O and eventually did end up at Raleigh.

Fleet St from the top, Gilbard’s corner shop opposite Mrs Tremain’s Ironmongers and she was opposite the gents barber. On the next corners were Slade’s facing a row of four shops owned and run by Co-op general grocery, butcher, greengrocer. The off license on the next corner was where my paternal Gran lived most of her time, with her sister Amy who ran the shop. They faced Northcott’s who was next door to Mrs Clark and her sister Mrs Santillo who were both widows running a very successful shop. Her son Tony Clark was probably my closest friend in growing up. At the bottom Ernie Baker, who never looked clean greengrocer next to a chip shop. On the opposite corner was a shop that was always changing in use electrical, furniture never consistent at any real range.

Victory St from the top middle corner was a general store opposite the Victory Hall which will play a big role in later pages. On the next corner William’s opposite the Post Office run by Mr and Mrs Frier and had the only phonebooth in the area. There was always someone waiting as there were very few that had phones. Opposite was Dyer’s butcher and their son Jack a year or two younger than me took it on. At the bottom left hag corner was another small general shop on the back lane. Never did go in here that I recall but I somehow remember a very large guy ran this store but he was elderly then.

Renown Street from the top on the junction with Royal Navy Avenue, there was a large general store. Behind St Thomas’s Church a small shop that had been a barbers years before but again this always seemed to change between times of being empty. Next corner Meager the butcher his son Terry was another I was with a lot but he was a good footballer. Opposite was a chip shop run by Mr and Mrs Hughes. Then at the next junction Maddocks facing Leakey’s two general stores.

Ocean St opposite the Church Mrs Rogers and opposite the school canteen Lethbridge’s whose son Michael grew up with the Keyham boys crowd. The area of Keyham was well provided for shops and most carried a fair range of goods. I would regularly be sent to Maddocks four half a stone of potatoes or a quarter of a pound of cold meat for tea.

Very few if any still survive but for those interested in what Keyham was like growing up at that time it gives a flavour of what you could get in the community. Some were farmers or smallholders who brought fresh produce every day and used the shop as their cash earning outlet in addition to the farm income, but the first years after the end of the war were tough for farmers so the shops did provide other outlets for them.

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In growing up at Admiralty St it was Thursdays that stick in my mind. Just like Monday, it was wash-day whatever the weather. It was a day when the copper would be boiling sheets and pillow cases that were then mangled in the back yard with a tub underneath the rollers. I graduated trolling the handle while mum organised the folding, and it was hard work. If you didn’t catch her fingers you were pretty safe, but she couldn’t half wack your ear if you did.
But Thursday was special because mum’s older sister Aunt Vera would come up from Wombwell Crescent where we’d all go shopping. We would catch a bus at HMS Drake to Marlborough St. On the corner was the Marlborough Hotel which was a huge pub/hotel and next door hidden away was a Chinese laundry. Each week mum would collect and drop off the current weeks collars off Dad’ shirts for starching. They attached with studs to the shirt and looked like razors. I often wondered why they didn’t cut the wearer but they all seemed safe enough.

Next was Earson’s the greengrocer on the right hand side going down to Fore St. It was only the Forum and Midland Bank building stood in isolation after all the bombing. Then we went to a Mrs Goodman’s. She ran a furniture shop that was anything you want really. She was also one of the few who traded on “provi cheques”. Basically to get new furniture or lino you borrowed from the Provident who gave you a cheque for your purchases redeemable only in the named shops. You then repaid weekly at extortionate rates which was collected at your door.For many working class families with no easy access to money this was the only means of gaining anything new.

Then round the corner to Lethbridge’s was the shoe repairers for anything that helped make shoes last a little longer. Then walk back up to Fore St to catch a bus back to Drake.

This weekly trip lasted for a good number of years until we moved when I was about 10 to 67 Renown St. This was a two up two down small kitchen outside loo again no bathroom. But we did now have a gas water heater over the sink so some hot water that didn’t involve boiling a kettle or a copper saved some time.

The other two benefits were next door to Keyham Barton and our neighbours were cobblers so he did loads of work at home and did look after all our needs sometimes in an emergency. The downside was that it was right behind the convent where the school nun’s lived and also very close to the Church.

But more of that later.

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In the aftermath of the War, I suppose my mum was no different to many others. Ration books were in operation for basics like meat, sugar, milk and other commodities that have been taken for granted today. Nothing could be wasted and you could write the menus week by week as regular as clockwork. The only variations would be for  the seasons, obviously more salads in the summer with vegetables being more plentiful. 

On a Sunday it was a piece of beef, rarely pork and occasionally lamb. But that would have depended on what was available and at what cost. Mum did a wet roast with water gravy thickened towards the end of cooking with bisto mixed in a cup. Served with vegetables usually carrots and peas this was a one pot feast. There would then be cold meat from the leftover joint on a Monday with mash. Occasionally, if there was lots of left over vegetable, we’d have bubble and squeak. Anything left after that would be minced up to make a cottage pie on Tuesday. Wednesday would be a season pudding or steak and kidney pie and always on a Thursday train wrecking pasties, which was mother’s speciality. Friday it was fish and chips as good Catholics did on a Friday and Saturday cold meat and mash.This rarely changed and each meal had an afters of jam or lemoncurd tart homemade, suet puddings, Nelson squares or sponges with homemade custard. Sundays, we’d have a trifle which would last for Monday, bearing in mind there were no fridges. At least not in our  house. There was only large granite slabs in a ladder cupboard for us.  It’s quite an ask how these things were cooked and preserved so well.

The surprise was sometimes Maureen would come home with a rabbit from one of the farms the milk was collected from. Mum would skin, dissect it and cook the most amazing rabbit pies. At about the age of ten or so there was a Myxomatosis disease among rabbits and almost wiped them out, so the practice died out too. The rabbit pie is still one of my  favourites, personally I think far more tasty than chicken.

I always felt sorry for my mum as she was tied to the kitchen every day. Dad worked his whole working life at Mile House bus depot as a fitter and turner and insisted on coming home for lunch Monday to Friday. He would catch a special to be through the door around 12:30, have his dinner and catch the return bus back to milehouse at 1:15. It was always tight on time, so dinner had to be on the table for when he came through the door. This however became their way of life for the 49 years that he worked there and a more light tea would follow at about 6ish.

However  looking back the meals were filling, nutritious and always had mum’s mark on them and generally we weren’t hungry throughout the day. Considering the limited range of things available and the limitations on money, she did an excellent job of keeping us all healthy and full. I seem to recall dad got paid on a Thursday and would come home, pass over the money for the housekeeping they had agreed and that was it. I know many years later when mum discovered just how much dad had been earning and she wasn’t at all pleased. I think an exchange of sharp opinion happened. She was a skilled seamstress and could look at fashions and make a dress or trousers, skirts and blouses at will, but that seemed her only hobby. More likely it was the only way clothes could be obtained within their finances. I think she was more than miffed that that may have been avoidable had she known the real earnings of dad at that time. But that seemed to be the common way things were done in most  swirling class households, the male attitudes dominated just about  everything.

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