MY BACK DOOR - AND BEYOND

 

 

I remember living in the family house in Jeffries Road, Ware. The 1939-45 war was over, the sun always shone, I was at “big school”, and shopping still meant walking to the local shop. You knew the milkman, paperboy and postman who called at the same time each day. The baker, laundryman, greengrocer, dustman and coalman arrived like clockwork. Now and then a Rag-and-Bone Man would come along the road or a shady looking travelling salesmen would appear on the doorstep, to be hustled away and never seen again. In the summertime a tramp would often shuffle down to the door asking for hot water or tea. To me he always looked like the same one and I often wondered where he went in winter.

Apart from the weekday paper boy – who was never seen but regularly delivered the News Chronicle – they all came to the back door. This involved opening our six foot high wooden side gate, a particularly neglected specimen with life-threatening wood rot, squeaky hinges and stiff latch. No-one came unannounced.

On Sunday mornings Fred Munt, another local, arrived with the Sunday Graphic, Sunday Express and varying combinations of his children. He came round to the back door to exchange local gossip. You knew everyone living nearby and, as few people moved away, there wasn’t much opportunity for strangers to move in. If they did, they were viewed with suspicion until they proved to be of “sound character”.

Twice every weekday and once on Saturdays, “Mr. Page the Postman” happily delivered letters to the back door. Letters only came through the front door when he was on holiday. Mr. Page lived very near in Garland Road. He knew everyone on his round and most of what went on. He soon discovered that he shared his birthday with my sister Margaret and always delivered his own card for her. He and his wife were staunch members of the Congregational Church, a way of life he quietly took out with the post.

I can only remember the baker as a short tubby man with thick rimmed glasses. He came several times a week in a dull red Co-op van, bringing the bread to the back door in a large wicker bread basket – nothing else but loaves, large and small, brown and white, fresh from the Co-op bakery half a mile away.

Washing machines had not yet become a necessity, so the Snowdrop Laundry washed any big items, such as sheets, pillowcases and tablecloths. The first time an article was sent, a small white label with your laundry number in green would be stitched to it. Our number was 242. All items for collection were noted in a green laundry book which was put with the washing in a pillowcase and left by the back door. The laundry man came in a scruffy, flat fronted, faded green van twice a week – the first time to collect the dirty washing and the money for last week’s laundry; the second time to bring back the freshly laundered items, wrapped in a brown paper parcel tied up with white string and with the updated laundry book slipped underneath.

Mr. Bell from New Road came with greengrocery set out on a cart drawn by a bedraggled old horse who couldn’t hurry but knew exactly where to stop. Mr. Bell walked, calling at the back doors of all his regular customers who then usually went out to the cart to choose their goods. He always wore a battered trilby hat, greasy jacket and baggy trousers, but he sold good fresh vegetables. After the war, when I was about 11 years old, I had my first banana from him. The poor old horse, being a creature of habit, was held in high esteem by my father, as manure was regularly deposited in the road. With father at work, it was my mother’s job to harvest this precious commodity before it was shovelled up by someone else.

I was fascinated by one other regular caller, Mr Miller the “Kleeneze Man”, a genuine salesman, who lived in Coronation Road. He came to the back door dressed in a smart suit, tie and highly polished shoes, wearing a trilby hat at a slight angle, and sporting a well-trimmed moustache. He noisily heaved his gigantic suitcase on to the doorstep and opened it with a flourish. It was filled to overflowing with all shapes, sizes and colours of brushes, mops, soaps, polishes, dusters and kitchen gadgets which all looked so new and gave off a wonderful smell. He demonstrated his goods with pride and enthusiasm. I’m sure he imagined himself as an entertainer, revelling in his moment of glory. He seldom left without a sale and it would be no surprise to find that most of his merchandise is still serviceable and in regular use somewhere today.

Our nearest shops were only a short walk away – Harris’, located in what was the front room of a house in Vicarage Road, and Harrington’s, more of a purpose-built shop in Cross Street. Harris’ was a small general store for non-perishable items while Harrington’s sold “provisions”. Most days I would be sent to one or the other for essential items, for none of the families had fridges then and neither did the shops.

Mr Harris had been a seaman for many years and had taken on the shop when he retired. I now realise that he and his wife Fanny spoke with a strong Liverpool accent which, as far as the locals were concerned, was a foreign tongue originating from some god-forsaken part of the British Empire. But this was the day of real shops when you knew who you were dealing with. Responsibility for any “product shortage” was laid firmly at the door of the wholesalers, or the “old sailors” as my Grandmother thought he meant – a misunderstanding easily explained since she was completely baffled by Harris’ strong Scouse accent. His association with the sea, plus an uncanny resemblance to Popeye, only reinforced her belief. Often I went into the shop during the evening, setting the door bell tinkling. This brought Mr or Mrs Harris in from the back room with their mouth betraying intimate involvement with a meal.

The Harrington brothers were completely different. “Pinky and Perky” described them perfectly. Both were round and dumpy, very much alike, reliable and well fed, a perfect caricature of local corner shop owners. Both wore striped aprons. Number One always wore a trilby hat so, not surprisingly, he was known as “Hat”. Number Two never made any effort to disguise his bald head.

Their shop was at the corner of Cross Street and Raynsford Road. There were ornate wooden surrounds to the large low windows and the wide door had a very sensitive bell dangling on the inside. Why this was needed was a bit of a mystery, since one of the “boys” or Mrs. Tomlin, their trusted assistant, was always in the shop. The well-worn mosaic tiled floor had a yellow and blue pattern, and all the shop fittings were wooden or brass. Perhaps the chair beside the counter was an early attempt at “retail psychology”, aimed predominantly at the more elderly customers.

Portions of butter and cheese were cut from blocks. Sugar, salt and tea was taken from jars and weighed out on a set of large antique scales using brass weights, then expertly wrapped in paper or put in a bag. Below the front of the counter and cunningly tilted towards hungry boys were glass topped boxes filled with biscuits. Broken biscuits went in the box nearest the door. What really fascinated me, however, was the shiny red and silver bacon slicer. The smooth wooden handle was used to turn a large metal wheel geared to spin a vicious shining blade at high speed while the joint of bacon was held against it. A smooth metallic ringing sound was made by the revolving blade as it easily sliced through the meat. How I longed to turn that handle!

Each local shop had its own characteristic smell, perhaps bread, bacon, polish, disinfectant or even paraffin. Sadly these friendly shops have gone, replaced by clinical air-conditioned “retail outlets” filled with humming freezers and staffed by dull remote individuals, programmed to carry out their own pre-determined task and then go home.

Mr. Hall, who lived near Harrington’s shop, was our Co-op milkman. He always looked as if he had the worries of the world to contend with. Like all callers he came to the back door and only stopped on Fridays long enough to collect the money, writing out the small receipt slip used to claim the Co-op “divi”.

Once a week the dustcart came round. No plastic sacks or wheelie bins then – every house had a metal dustbin. The dustcart was a strange vehicle with a bench in the cab for the driver and dustmen to sit on, and a noisy engine that was connected to the wheels with a large exposed chain. The controls in the cab looked most complicated. They were mounted on a shelf under the windscreen, a steering wheel and two rotary brass handles – one presumably to control the speed, the other the brake. These controls were spread across the width of the cab, so the poor old driver had to drive standing up. It was a custom-built dustcart designed for receiving the contents of dustbins, each side of the low vehicle having three curved sliding metal lids to keep the rubbish in.

The dustmen fetched the bin from the back of the house, emptied it into cart and then took it back. This involved a lot of loud clanging and clouds of dust. At this time the dustmen wore their own clothes. Not until sometime later were they issued with overalls and a leather shoulder pad to take the weight of the bin. However, they were cheerful and were always known as Mr —. They would immediately clear up any dropped rubbish, and were always helpful and cheerful. When the cart was full it was driven to the rubbish pit in Wengeo Lane, the tail board was released, and a tipper mechanism did the rest. Some of the new houses in The Hyde must be built on that tip, but don’t tell anyone it was me who told you!

There was another way to get rid of unwanted items. Every now and again you would hear a hand-bell, accompanied by a string of unrecognisable words. We children always heard this a long way off and rushed indoors shouting “Rag-and-Bone Man’s coming”, and if there was anything to be got rid of, we would be sent out to call him round. He gave very little money for these items – if any – for he knew that most households were only too pleased to have the items taken off their hands.

Coal for our fires was tipped in the coal shed, next to the back door, by Mr. Harrison who carried each thick black canvas one-hundredweight sack (just over 50 kg) on his back. No-one could convince me that the veins of iron pyrites in the shiny black lumps that thundered out were not gold. We always stocked up during the summer when the coal was cheaper, but by March it had all been used up. We then collected up all the small lumps and all the coal dust, and tipped it carefully into thick paper bags. A sticky black substance was then poured in to hold the contents together. The resulting briquettes would be used on the fires until the next delivery.

Life was more difficult then, needs and expectations were minimal, and life revolved entirely around family, friends and the neighbourhood. This gave rise to a “code of practice” that could well be adopted to advantage in today’s world.

And no-one comes to my back door now.