FREDA DAVIS nee DeGROOTE RAMBLES: Door to Door What an innocent time it seems now ! If the knocker on the front door of 5 Boardman Street, Hyde was heard in the 1950s there might be a moment of uncertainty but one or other of us would go down the ‘lobby’ to answer it. It was a cold journey in winter as soon as we opened the living room door. There was enough space down the length of the lobby for the front room and living room doors on one side and a few oddments of furniture on the other at various times in its history; including a wind-up ‘gramophone’ in a rather elegant mahogany cabinet on slim curved legs near the stairs and a colourful print of ‘A Persian Market’ on the wall. (Co-incidentally, my favourite in the collection of records was “In a Persian Market” !) The rap of the front door was not a particularly frequent occurrence in my early memories. In the dark nights of the 40s there may have been the occasional sharp rap and shout ‘turn that light out!’ if there was ever a slip of the blackout material. But as the world began to relax after 1945 the front door saw a bit more action. Someone knocking at the door always brought a frisson of uncertainty and anticipation and a flurry of ineffectual tidying. Regular visitors such as Mother’s friend, Mrs Wharmby, or the next door neighbour, Mrs. Taylor, would come via the back yard and were used to the general air of business or chaos in the house. There were one or two occasions when we may have a done a little bit of door-to-door calling ourselves. Whitsuntide was the time for a new dress, coat and shoes, and there was the custom of going round to friends and neighbours to show our new ‘Whitsun’ clothes and collect a penny or two or threepenny bit. I can only vaguely remember doing it – but it was more likely just Uncle Fred and Mrs. Taylor who would honour the custom. Similarly there would be the May-queen procession (on the 1st of May, just one or two little girls, such as Irene Holt and Rita Philimore and Maureen Bardsley and me, perhaps tottering round the neighbourhood in whatever lace curtains or dressing-up dresses we could muster- knocking on a few doors and we may have managed a few pennies to share out and spend on Jock’s stall. The earliest memory – you will recall the oft’ told story – was of Grandma irritably leaving off rocking the pram in the living room to answer the front door and returning crossly with an ‘Insurance’ man while mother ‘flurried’ in from the kitchen to find the books and the money to pay him. (I don’t understand how I could remember something that happened when I was in my pram but I daresay the pram may have been used for afternoon naps longer than we would nowadays, perhaps. I certainly have a picture in my head of sitting in the pram and observing the whole scene!) After mother had paid the weekly sum and exchanged pleasantries, she accompanied him to the front door while grandma muttered irritably about the ‘smarmy’ fellow – which influenced my own attitude in later life to Insurance men and similar callers. After the war, when there were just four of us living in the house, there were occasional callers selling their wares, far more exotic than Insurance men. Gypsies came, selling sprigs of lavender or pegs; mother was a soft touch even when there was little money around. I often accompanied her to the door when I was about six or seven which is why I can picture the scene of wheedling pathos of the gypsies and the occasional small child. Maybe only once, I’m not sure, there was a visit from a turbanned Sikh selling trinkets, such as bracelets and little bottles of perfume. Mother listened sympathetically and with interest because she loved the romance and mystery of eastern things, but I don’t think she was tempted to buy. (Although, come to think of it, I bet she did buy something because she was so soft-hearted.) Marie and I were not keen on callers, evening callers particularly. They disturbed our pleasant activities of drawing or sticking things or knitting or sewing – or climbing into one of the sideboard cupboards and pretending to be a radio. Mother would prolong the interruption to our pleasant, quiet evenings by chatting to the callers; she was too nice not to listen and would get drawn into conversations and we would glower and mutter or giggle or tut about the draught depending on what we could hear or how long the front door was open. One evening, in particular, an ‘evangelist’ came. I think I’d be about eleven years old then, and Marie around fourteen. Any religious fervour had waned from our interests by then but mother was not so fickle. We kept waiting for her to get rid of him but he was in full flow and she seemed to be fully engaged in the conversation. As time went by we tutted and shook our heads in irritation and impatience, and raised our eyes to heaven, then resorted to opening and closing the living room door and coughing and poking the fire noisily. But he droned on and on. Our crossness and our own antics began to make us giggle after a while and as we opened the living room door noisily, once more, we heard the phrase, “the Bible says, “the vurry ‘ers on your ‘ed are numbered,” we were inspired. (He must have come from Bury or Burnley!) Marie got her white rubber bathing cap and stuffed all her dark curls into it and we waited and waited for what seemed ages, sniggering conspiratorially until at last the front door closed. When mother came back up the lobby and into the living room she was met by one bald daughter and one desperately trying to be serious as we proclaimed solemnly, in unison, “the vurry ‘ers on your ‘ead are numbered!” Her lips tightened and her head twitched. “you daft beggars!” she said and then all three of us fell about laughing. FPD 1st November 2010 (A nice day to be thinking about Gerty – born 1.11.1906)
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 16:02:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015