Memories of The 1930s

Sometimes in those early days we went on holiday to Mam’s mother and father in Brotton. This was a small village about two miles from Saltburn, a Victorian holiday resort on the North Yorkshire coast. I recall the pier there, where you feel you are out at sea when the tide was in. A journey up and down the cliff on the funicular railway was always a thrill. It is still there and is still quite exciting as I discovered to my delight a couple of years ago. Grandma and Grandad lived in a small terraced house on the High Street. number 41. Grandad had a rocking chair beside the fire and a spittoon beside it. The spittoon was filled with fresh sawdust every day and was black-leaded every day also. There was a large open range, itself also black leaded daily, and water for the house was heated in a side part of the range. Grandad had been an iron miner at Skinningrove iron mine nearby, in his working days. I remember him leaning against the wall over the road talking to the other old men. The toilet was across the cobbled back street. Each house had its own. It was a dry toilet without any refinements! You sat on a hole in the centre of a long board. The deposit fell into a zinc long box, which the men from the Corporation came and emptied into a wagon every week. Afterwards they dusted the tray with antiseptic powder and replaced it. The closet was a little room kept scrupulously clean and whitewashed regularly. It must have been cold in winter though, especially if you had to go in the middle of the night. No wonder that there was a good market for chamber pots in those days.