Mary Malim

I was seven at the start of the 1950s so my recollections of those years are of my childhood.

We lived in a prefabricated bungalow in a small site that had been constructed for RAF officers during the war. The kitchen was tiny with a sink and wooden draining board, an ancient cooler and mostly shelves to store things on. We didn’t have a fridge, but my mum had a ‘meat safe’ to keep meat in, but it had to be used straight away .I remember the milk standing in a bowl of water with muslin over to soak the water and keep it cool. There was a toilet but no bathroom and only cold water on tap. On bath nights my mother had to boil buckets of water and then we took turns. I was first and then mum and dad. My twin brothers were born in 1951 and my mother had to boil every drop of water for the washing and use a mangle to wring out the water. I don’t know if twins were rarer then but whenever my mother took them out in the pram they always attracted attention, with people trying to peer into the pram to look at them.

My father was a barber and was very well known in Oxford and my mother was a housewife and worked incredibly hard – as did all the mothers. Thursday was half-day closing in Oxford and my dad came home for lunch on that day but had to work all day on a Saturday.

On a Sunday I went to Sunday School. It was always a quiet day because I was not allowed to play outside and, apart from cooking Sunday lunch, no housework was done on that day. I went to Brownies and later on to St John’s Ambulance Brigade.

The Festival of Britain was held in 1951 and my grandparents were able to go. They brought me back a little brooch of the logo that I treasured.

We lived fairly close to the middle of Oxford which was handy for the shops, but my school was about two miles away and we had to walk across Oxford to get to it. My mother first having to get my brothers ready to take me to school; no car and an erratic bus service.

Primary School was quite strict back then. We queued in the morning for a spoonful of cod liver oil and then a glass of National Health orange juice. All children had a bottle of milk at playtime. School dinners were dreadful. Ours were brought halfway across Oxford from a central kitchen and I vividly remember tapioca pudding and bread and butter pudding that I hated. I have never touched milk pudding since. The mashed potatoes were equally revolting and we were forced to eat everything on our plate. I think they cost about sevenpence (3p).

Only one of our neighbours had a TV. No one that we knew had a car or a telephone, but I was able to go out to play safely with the other children in the site. We did not have many toys but I remember having a pair of heavy roller skates that were strapped on over your shoes and we had skipping ropes and whips and tops and played ‘twosey’ balls and generally games of make-believe. Sweets were still rationed and I remember having a Mars bar, which was cut into seven pieces so that I could have one piece each day; I think it cast threepence in old money (about 1p today). Smiths crisps also cost threepence and had a little twist of blue paper for the salt. I used to get sixpence a week pocket money.

My biggest dream was to have a walking doll, which somehow my parents managed to get for me for Christmas. Christmases were spent with my grandparents who lived on a farm. It was a magical feeling going off to stay with them. There was always a big Christmas Tree but no lights. There were little candles and these were lit at tea time on Christmas Day when everyone was in the room so that they could be closely watched. We didn’t have turkey then but a big chicken which my grandfather had reared, and was still a real treat then. My grandparents made their own butter with fresh milk from the dairy; both of them sitting with their kilner jars of creamy milk and shaking them until it turned into butter.

We had an old radio and I listened to ‘children’s hour’ every day with much enjoyment, and Uncle Mac who used to play suitable records for children. If I was off school then I listened to ‘Listen with mother’. Fortunately, I was an avid reader but we had games like Ludo and Snake and Ladders, and puzzles. We also had an old wind-up gramophone, but there weren’t many records for children in those days. I remember Spark’s Magic Piano and Run Rabbit Run! I played games in the evening with my parents or read. We had comics like Sunny Stories and Chicks Own, and later School Friend. I read a lot of Enid Blyton books which seemed to be about girls’ boarding schools and thought that was what would happen to me.

My mother made all my clothes. I had one dress for best but she made me pleated skirts and smocked dresses, all made by hand, and knitted jumpers and cardigans. Girls didn’t wear trousers then and in the winter I used to get chapped knees because the skirts were short and the long socks only came to your knees. We all seemed to wear something called a liberty bodice over our vests and had pixie boots. My mother was adept at using up old items. I still have a table cloth that she made out of an old sheet and embroidered. She would use her old clothes to cut down to make clothes for me, including coats and rugs out of any odd scraps of material. I remember her and my dad sitting by the fire making two matching rugs.

In 1953 we had moved to a semi-detached house, with a proper bathroom and hot running water! There was a coal fire to heat the living room and an ‘ideal’ boiler ran on anthracite (coal) in the kitchen to heat the water – very hot in the summer. We also had a Valour Stove which was a heater run on paraffin. A little tank was filled with paraffin and a wick was lit. It was very effective and it was used to heat the bathroom when everyone had a bath. I think they have probably been banned today.

We all celebrated the Coronation. There was a big Coronation Party in a field at the bottom of our road where everyone had to contribute food and drink and there were races and a roundabout – but I managed to break my arm, which curtailed my enjoyment somewhat. It was splintered by a St John Ambulance man, but I refused to go to hospital until I had had some of the special tear. I remember that sandwich spread and paste sandwiches featured a lot. We had jelly and there were cakes and biscuits, all of which had been brought by the families attending. I had a white skirt with a and blue and white motif and a blouse to match and red, white and blue ribbons. Everyone chipped in and there was a great sense of community. All of the houses were decorated and there was  such a feeling of optimism. We flew the Welsh flag on our house because my father was Welsh. Our school took all of the children on a trip to London to see the decorations and I can remember being amazed at the crowns hanging over the Mall. The traffic was dense and in stead of returning to school at 6pm it was nearer ten, with parents getting really anxious. No mobile phones then, Every child had a Coronation mug which I have still got, and we also had a little model of the Coronation coach and horses. We watched the Coronation on television in our next-door neighbour’s house in black and white and on a tiny screen. Everyone provided refreshments and it was also exciting. Later on, we watched it in colour at the cinema, or in my case, at school.

Travel was very different. We used to visit grandparents on the farm in Gloucestershire and to my dad’s relatives in Wales for holidays. These journeys could take all day with several changes of coach and which would take only a couple of hours now.

There were no supermarkets, only a few local shops and a lot of things were delivered; the milk, of course, the baker, and there was a man who came in a van with vegetables and fruit, and a big mobile van with other groceries. There was a van delivering paraffin and the rag and bone man came regularly, who was popular with the children because they would give out goldfish if they received enough rags. The ice cream lady would come in the summer but I wasn’t allowed to have ice-cream because of some health scare, but I could have an ice-lolly. The blue ones were the best because if you were lucky the stick would be marked and you could get another for free. The postman came twice a day and even delivered on Sundays. There was also a van that came around selling corona drinks, but four had to be bought at once so we didn’t get them very often. Also, the coal man delivered coal and coke.

After the Coronation things settled down somewhat, although there was more excitement when the Queen and Prince Philip did a Coronation tour. Once again we were glued to the neighbour’s TV to see them leave and again when they came back six months later.

The later 1950s started to see more affluence. Rationing ended and different foodstuffs became more plentiful. Many people were able to take foreign holidays and I went on a trip to Paris with my school-class, which was quite an event then. All children still had to sit the eleven-plus, which I passed but my friends didn’t and so they wouldn’t speak to me!

In memory the 50s were a happy, much more easy, time to live, but then, memory can be deceptive.