bit of Brasso,
greeting passing neighbours cheerily as she knelt on the
door mat and went at the trimming hammer and tongs.
'Hello, Mrs Duff . . . Just off to get your paper? . . . Mind
yourself then, love . . . "Jesu dulcis memoriaaa!"' she
screeched.
'Is there any need for that?' said Chrissie, raising her eyebrows
and picking a bit of tobacco off her bottom lip. 'Talk
about a one-note friggin' canary.'
A dirty step was the hallmark of a slovenly housewife, as
was a pair of grubby net curtains hanging at your window.
'Have you seen the colour of that one's nets?' was a damning
question heard during many a doorstep bitchfest. Aunty
Anne's nets were beyond reproach; when not hanging in the
window of the parlour they could be found steeping in
the kitchen sink with a bag of Dolly Blue for company. The
parlour was forbidden territory, used only on special
occasions. A smell of lavender polish hung in the air, the floor
was covered with blue shiny lino; against one wall stood a
piano that nobody in the family could play, but a piano was
an essential addition to the décor in most working-class
parlours.
Vera Lalley , Aunty Chrissie's friend who lived further up the
street, had the reputation of being 'better than Winifred
Atwell' in the pubs and parlours of Birkenhead. She was
indeed an accomplished pianist, self-taught and able to play
any tune by ear, as she never tired of telling people, and after a
few whiskies and brown ales would happily sit down at the
piano and give an impromptu concert. She was very popular at
parties, and as long as it meant 'free ale' Vera would pull up a
chair and oblige with a few tunes.
In the middle of the room, arranged in a semicircle round
the fireplace, was a 1940s three-piece suite covered in fading
grey leather, piped round the edge with a red trim. It had
smooth rounded arms ideal for sliding down, which if you
were caught meant a dig in the back from one of Aunty Anne's
arthritic knuckles followed by a 'Gerrowt an' play!' In the corner, in the spot where the bed that my grandmother had
died in had been, stood a Dansette record player, leaning
drunkenly to one side as it balanced on four wobbly 'screwin'
black legs, lurching dangerously close to a table under the
window where the obligatory aspidistra, an unhealthy specimen
with dull, leathery leaves, sat hunched in its pot like a
depressed vulture.
All the residents of Number 29 Lowther Street , with the
exception of Aunty Anne and my cousin Maureen who was
too young to smoke, smoked like chimneys. Aunty Chris could
kipper a net curtain just by walking past it. She was an
inveterate smoker, never without an Embassy hanging out of
the corner of her mouth. Her dressing-gown pocket was full of
half-smoked cigarettes, or 'dockers' as she called them, handy
for hard times when she ran out.
Smoke permeated the whole of the house, and although the
parlour was only ever used for 'best' somehow the smoke
managed to curl under the door and through the keyhole and
get at Aunty Annie's nets, dulling their pristine whiteness with
a nicotine tinge. This was the house the Savage sisters had been
born in: end of terrace, three bedrooms, kitchen, parlour, no
bathroom, and the lavatory outside at the bottom of the yard;
a house similar to the many other back-to-backs built for the
working classes in industrial Birkenhead in the early 1900s.
It was a mainly matriarchal society as most of the men were
away at sea for long periods of time. My uncle Harold was a
master baker and confectioner for the Cunard Line . My
cousins John and Mickey were stewards, and all three could be
away from home for as long as six months to a year, depending
on the trip. Annie ran the household, keeping a tight rein
on the purse strings. If towards the middle of the week she
found herself short she could always rely on a bit of tick from
Johnstone's, a corner shop in Bentinck Street that at best could
be described as Dickensian.
When the tray in Ma Johnstone's window wasn't
greeting passing neighbours cheerily as she knelt on the
door mat and went at the trimming hammer and tongs.
'Hello, Mrs Duff . . . Just off to get your paper? . . . Mind
yourself then, love . . . "Jesu dulcis memoriaaa!"' she
screeched.
'Is there any need for that?' said Chrissie, raising her eyebrows
and picking a bit of tobacco off her bottom lip. 'Talk
about a one-note friggin' canary.'
A dirty step was the hallmark of a slovenly housewife, as
was a pair of grubby net curtains hanging at your window.
'Have you seen the colour of that one's nets?' was a damning
question heard during many a doorstep bitchfest. Aunty
Anne's nets were beyond reproach; when not hanging in the
window of the parlour they could be found steeping in
the kitchen sink with a bag of Dolly Blue for company. The
parlour was forbidden territory, used only on special
occasions. A smell of lavender polish hung in the air, the floor
was covered with blue shiny lino; against one wall stood a
piano that nobody in the family could play, but a piano was
an essential addition to the décor in most working-class
parlours.
Vera Lalley , Aunty Chrissie's friend who lived further up the
street, had the reputation of being 'better than Winifred
Atwell' in the pubs and parlours of Birkenhead. She was
indeed an accomplished pianist, self-taught and able to play
any tune by ear, as she never tired of telling people, and after a
few whiskies and brown ales would happily sit down at the
piano and give an impromptu concert. She was very popular at
parties, and as long as it meant 'free ale' Vera would pull up a
chair and oblige with a few tunes.
In the middle of the room, arranged in a semicircle round
the fireplace, was a 1940s three-piece suite covered in fading
grey leather, piped round the edge with a red trim. It had
smooth rounded arms ideal for sliding down, which if you
were caught meant a dig in the back from one of Aunty Anne's
arthritic knuckles followed by a 'Gerrowt an' play!' In the corner, in the spot where the bed that my grandmother had
died in had been, stood a Dansette record player, leaning
drunkenly to one side as it balanced on four wobbly 'screwin'
black legs, lurching dangerously close to a table under the
window where the obligatory aspidistra, an unhealthy specimen
with dull, leathery leaves, sat hunched in its pot like a
depressed vulture.
All the residents of Number 29 Lowther Street , with the
exception of Aunty Anne and my cousin Maureen who was
too young to smoke, smoked like chimneys. Aunty Chris could
kipper a net curtain just by walking past it. She was an
inveterate smoker, never without an Embassy hanging out of
the corner of her mouth. Her dressing-gown pocket was full of
half-smoked cigarettes, or 'dockers' as she called them, handy
for hard times when she ran out.
Smoke permeated the whole of the house, and although the
parlour was only ever used for 'best' somehow the smoke
managed to curl under the door and through the keyhole and
get at Aunty Annie's nets, dulling their pristine whiteness with
a nicotine tinge. This was the house the Savage sisters had been
born in: end of terrace, three bedrooms, kitchen, parlour, no
bathroom, and the lavatory outside at the bottom of the yard;
a house similar to the many other back-to-backs built for the
working classes in industrial Birkenhead in the early 1900s.
It was a mainly matriarchal society as most of the men were
away at sea for long periods of time. My uncle Harold was a
master baker and confectioner for the Cunard Line . My
cousins John and Mickey were stewards, and all three could be
away from home for as long as six months to a year, depending
on the trip. Annie ran the household, keeping a tight rein
on the purse strings. If towards the middle of the week she
found herself short she could always rely on a bit of tick from
Johnstone's, a corner shop in Bentinck Street that at best could
be described as Dickensian.
When the tray in Ma Johnstone's window wasn't
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