Shotton in The Forties/fifties.

I was brought up in a two-up, two-down cottage at No.4, Shotton Lane. These cottages were demolished in the fifties and modern houses were built on the site. Everyone was poor and, during the war in particular, people struggled to survive. My father died in 1940, leaving my mother to bring up myself, my younger brother, Jeff, (now deceased) and my elder sister, Stella (now deceased. Our mother slaved for long hours at Shotton Laundry, scrubbing oily overalls for the men at John Summers' Steelworks. Winters were particularly hard, when our mother had no money to buy coal (our only source of heating), and she burnt two of our chairs, and an internal door, which she took off its hinges. Often, in freezing weather, we children would go to the rubbish tip, and gather cinders to make into a fire at home.Yet, we all survived into adulthood.