Biography, Autobiography, Old Steve of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

1. What can one say about ones own mother when she was, after all, your mother? It is not easy. But after a long and hard deliberation I decided that it should be the truth, as I see it, but ask you to bare-in-mind that she is no longer here to defend herself and perhaps put me right. It would, I know, be very interesting to know what she might have made of some of the things I remember and how I interpret those memories, both as an impressionable youngster and later on as a rational thinking adult.

2. She was not only a twin but was one of six children, four boys and two girls. She married at 25 and had me, a boy and then two girls, my younger sisters. I do not propose to say a great deal about my sisters or my cousins for that matter, or indeed about anyone who is still around and may have seen or interpreted things differently from me. Their lives are their own private affair and I respect that.

3. I have no idea at what average age women, between the war years, got married but I have often thought that at 25, my mother would have been knocking on a bit, but I don't know. However my knowledge of her early life is very sketchy as it was only spoken of when she thought it appropriate to make out some member of her family was something better than they usually were or inevitably proved, later on, not to be. Of herself, she once mentioned that before getting married, she had worked in a mill but had emphasized the fact that it was one of the biggest and that she had one of the best jobs, allocated to only the chosen few. Not bad for someone who left a village school at age 14 and could only just manage the very basic three R's bit, (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic), and who's only claim to academic fame was a prize for spelling 'Phlegm.' Although, it must be said, throughout her life her handwriting, in the style of Copper Plate, was outstanding and a credit to her.

4. Following her marriage and with, the then prevailing 'Geordie' attitude, and their all out opposition towards their married women working, she embarked on the career of 'stay at home, housewife,' and aristocrat; and that, to her included, among little else, indoctrinating us kids into all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas as to who we were and what we were supposed to be all about. You can imagine what happened or what was likely to happen? As kids we took it all in and believed every last little bit of it and I am sure that because we believed it, she convinced herself that it must all be true. What my eldest sister made of it, both then and later on in life and my younger sister, who came along ten years later, I really don't know? All I know for certain is how it affected me.

5. I was born and brought up in a bungalow that was identical to most of the others on the estate but ours, 'had to be and was, better,' because we had chosen it. The fact that my father could not afford it and struggled all his working life to pay for it and bring up a family and keep his wife at home did not come into the equation. But it was justified in so much that it was bigger and better than 'something' or 'someone's,' which was never clearly defined. Then due to the geographical layout of the village, which lay on a steep hillside, there were roughly three areas. That at the bottom end and down the hill, from where we were, and closest to the town of Shipley, were definitely of a lower class, but not as low as Shipley itself, with no reasons given and definitely no evidence to support it. Shipley formed part of our Postal Address but we never included it in because according to mother it was not necessary and to put 'Nr Shipley' in your address was to announce an affiliation with the lower classes. But back to the village! The area at the top of the hill and closest to the open moors was by far the best area and the area from which one should always try to choose ones friends and associates. There were those, of course, who had no right to be there but then they could be ignored. We were the best, despite the fact that we only lived in the middle and that was born out by the fact that we lived at the top of a road that had been called after the local mill. Please note a mill, but 'only a small one', in a very posh area. There was another one, again 'only small' at the top of the village and several in the bottom part. But down there really didn't matter, they were not as good as us in any case. Then there was 'our' village school and one of three that was also called after the local mill. Finally we could always 'prove' we were better than the rest by mixing with those who lived at the top and despise, ignore and privately 'slag off' our neighbours and all the rest. I realised later that those who were considered to have better jobs than my father were especially sort after, although under no circumstances had they to know anything about us and especially about my father, but if they did find out anything or got too close, then they had to be dropped like hot bricks.

6. Do you know we even paid our Rates, as they were then, our Community Charge or Poll Tax as it is now, weekly, because we were on nodding terms with a very high official in the Town Hall, who lived at the top of the village and who was actually behind the counter and actually took the money and handed out real receipts and none of this had anything to do with the fact that we could not afford to pay them, as a one off, annually or twice annually or even at four times, as was standard practice then. No, we were 'Posh' and so paid them weekly in advance. But my parents couldn't be seen doing that too often so, for as long as I can remember, I was sent along every Saturday morning to pay the rates and all the other numerous debts that were paid in weekly instalments, including basic food and groceries.

7. Also we, as kids, had to go round corners and be well out of sight before we dare talk to a lovely man, who we called Willy Bott and who gave us sugar lumps, that he kept for his horse, but who had the misfortune to be employed by the local authority and to go round, with his horse drawn container on wheels and empty the road side drains by hand. Not many owned vehicles in those days, our-selves included, but then that was alright because those who did could not afford them and must have neglected their children to run them. People, who went on holiday, though few people did during the war because of the complications involved, went hungry throughout the rest of the year to pay for it, and all according to the philosophy of mother.

8. Close friends, of any description were actively discouraged because they might find out too much about us, and one youth, who later became my Best Man, was only just tolerated by my mother because he lived in the top part of the village. The fact also that his father was only a Taxi Driver, although he did own his own cab which was a minor point in his favour, was overshadowed and could be pushed aside by the fact that his mother worked, and women who worked only did so because they had top jobs, and hers was with one of the high class stores in Bradford and that had some social standing. My gosh, to be able to say, 'My son's friend's mother works at Marshall and Snellgrove.' must have meant such a lot although no one knew what she did; dinner lady perhaps? Toilets? No, stop, that would spoil everything.

9. Then there were the untouchables, those to be avoided and ignored as if they did not exist: those who lived in Corporation Houses (Property owned by the local authority and rented out). During my early childhood when some of these houses were erected specifically, (according to my mother's definition) for the low life and as an extension to the end of the road on which we lived, my mother, along with many others 'freaked out' and actively campaigned against it. She and they failed to stop the houses being built but they did get allowed and paid for privately, for an eight-foot high stonewall that actually ran between the houses and across the roads. Yes, 'they' had erected a stone barrier that went between gardens, across pavements and main roads. Unbelievable in this day and age but then it happened and effectively blocked off all access and contact, in either direction, for many years. Later a narrow gap was cut into it to allow pedestrian access but it was not for a long time after that, that it was demolished completely and traffic thereafter allowed through, and they thought the Berlin Wall was something new. Up until the time my parents left the area, some forty years later, to become a nuisance to their children, my father was never allowed to drive through the Corporation area and one made massive detours, both in the car and definitely on foot, to avoid going anywhere near it. When the first gap was cut in the wall and some of 'the other side' ventured through I can remember my mother and other neighbours shouting abuse at the kids and telling them to get back where they came from. Then true to form, only muttering under their breath, when the adults did the same. Imagine my surprise when years later I discovered, for myself, that they were very ordinary, decent people and in many ways equal to, and very often, better than us. Imagine also, if you can, my mother's horror, had she lived long enough to find out that her eldest and aristocratic son had ended up as a tenant of the local authority, even though in a different area entirely.

However all that took time.

FAVOURITES.