ABSTRACT
The area was distressing. All poor types of streets. Very poor furniture in the houses. Nobody went in for new furniture. If somebody got a set of drawers all the neighbours used to go in and look at them as if it was a wonderful thing. They used to have these brass fire irons round the fire. Some would have steel ones. It used to be quite a thing polishing them up, getting the brass all clean or the steel all burnished up. Then they used to go knocking at the neighbours. ‘Hey, come and have a look at my fire irons.’ They’d probably spent all afternoon. People then had no ambitions. They were all used to the same thing. Ordinary houses. Furniture handed on. The rooms weren’t even decorated, just whitewashed. Like anything else, you’d get them that had a bit more flair, and they used to get dolly blue and all kinds of things and put it in whitewash to colour it. There’d just be an odd house that had a very thin stair carpet. Some had bits of lino on. Some had nothing at all. Just the bare boards. Kitchens was the same. It was all peg rugs. People used to go to the grocers for sugar bags and they used to make all kinds out of them. Peg rugs, aprons for washing with. Kitchens were mostly flags, and of course they used to get down and clean them. In the old days they used to get a hard stone, like a pebble, and rub it on to get all the dirt off. When the donkey stone came out they used to call the women who used it lazybacks. In place of getting this pebble and having to graft and graft, they’d just wet the flags and go round with this soft donkey stone.
