Now by the time I was 12 in 1934, the depression had reduced our income to an all time low.  My father, being self employed, had no dole to fall back on, no assistance from the state at all.  All the furniture he made was by hand. It would take him two or three weeks to make a bookcase, for which he might charge £3.15s. He commented bitterly about undertakers who would charge £7 for a coffin which was put underground, never to be seen again, whereas his work would be visible for years.  But he could never have become an undertaker.  Mostly he did repairs, repairs to furniture, upholstery and even removals.  We had a brass plate at the front door - G. Jones Cabinet Maker.   When a piece of solid, untreated mahogany came his way he had painted on it G. JONES CABINET MAKER AND UPHOLSTERER   and placed it above the front room window. He did not like upholstery but I often think that the quantity of paper knives I now possess came from the crevices of chairs he upholstered.

Fred Fozard, realising that when he married the 25/- he paid each week would cease unless there was yet another lodger, came up with a brilliant idea. Why not turn the front room into a shop? He needed furniture for his new home and suggested that mother buy a bedroom suite at cost price from a factory and display it in the front room.  He would be buying it anyway, so there could be no loss and if she could sell it to someone else for a modest profit there would be an actual gain and the constant fear of poverty alleviated.

For six weeks my mother slept but little. The thought of losing her front room was not a pleasant one, for there were only two rooms excluding the scullery and we would be reduced to one living room.

What finally decided her was the apparently small matter of a displaced door mat. Each morning when she came downstairs the mat by the front room door was askew. “What an untidy lot I’ve got,” she thought, as she put it straight again. Then one morning it had almost disappeared under the door and had been chewed. Now however untidy we might be we did not chew mats.  Could it be a mouse? A mouse trap was duly set and next morning when father came down to investigate he was horrified to find the largest rat he had ever seen with its tail in the trap.  Mother was called to the scene and together with the coal tongs they picked up the offending rodent and plunged it into a bucket of water outside, while its tail went round spraying water all over the yard in its death agony.  My father took to his bed after this event, so shaken was he.  The landlady was acquainted with our plight, the rat catcher invoked and a broken sewer discovered, whence rats found their way from the entry, under the fire grate and into our front room. The way was effectively blocked after several more experiences with rats, but my mother’s regard for her front room was never quite the same again.

The clearance of the front room began. The piano went into the living room, the grandfather clock upstairs on to the landing, chairs were sold and the new bedroom suite displayed at a price of £20.  She sold that suite five times and so was emboldened to continue her trade with manufacturers, many of whom were in Manchester.  She sold beds, tables, chairs, sweepers, carpets and rugs and would order goods as required. Thus, until the war came, she was able to add a sizeable amount to the family income.

Father was highly critical of the factory produced furniture which occasionally arrived damaged and required him to put it right. He fumed at the hardboard that was put in the back instead of wood, and the way the polish was put on. But he could not deny that there was a profit to be made.

Fred and I spent hours producing beautiful price tickets and the front door was permanently open except in very cold weather.  My mother was an excellent saleswoman and really enjoyed her new role - unlike father who regarded himself as increasingly neglected.  Sometimes on washing days, as mother was engaged in sales, an ominous trickle of hot suds would find its way from the copper in the scullery, along the hall and down the front door steps. At that time we still had the old fashioned copper and the mopping up operation was considerable.

Indeed, because of the weekday pressure of business, my mother finally took to washing on a Sunday, her only free day, when she had always managed a rest in the afternoon. Washing in those days was a complete day’s operation and it was impossible to get into the scullery or near the sink for any other purpose.  Clothes were soaked all night in the sink, then ‘dollied’ in a dolly tub in hot water until presumed clean. They were then mangled through a big wooden mangle and the whites boiled, mangled again, put through a blue rinse, mangled again and put out to dry if the weather was fine, otherwise they were put on clothes horses round the living room fire in which case both rooms were full of washing. When all was done, the scullery floor was scrubbed, the yard was washed down and all the steps, house, outhouse and lavatory were whitened.  We were lucky if the job was finished by tea time and then there was the ironing.

Many of the shop’s customers were people recently re-housed in Hempstalls Lane, which had been Sparch Hollow and a pleasant country walk. Shoreditch had been demolished and replaced by a car park.  My mother had little faith that the habits of the re-housed had improved. She noted the dirty legs of  children   as they came past the house to school in a morning and remarked that they had never been washed the night before.  Women would pass our house on the way to the Post Office to get their family allowance and call on their way back to deposit it on some article of furniture or a rug.  She would keep these articles until they were paid for as a rule, but occasionally her heart got the better of her and I had to go round as an unofficial debt collector.

Fred was duly married and we never had another lodger. By the time the war began things were really picking up. Countless people found this little shop a blessing, for not only were they able to buy more reasonably than any where else in town, they had the bonus of my mother’s radiant personality and willingness to go to any lengths to oblige them.                                

Ever since Neville Chamberlain had returned from Munich waving a futile piece of paper, it had been obvious that war was coming, but  memories of the Great War were still so vivid in the memory that people tried to believe that it couldn’t happen again. If it did it was thought that it would begin where the other one finished, with poison gas - hence the gas masks. If only we had foreseen September 3rd 1939 and ordered huge quantities of black out material we could have made a fortune.  We were able to provide some, however.  The sale of new furniture gradually ceased, especially as father’s contempt of Utility furniture became apparent.  Second hand articles such as sewing machines and prams were scarce and valuable and it soon became known where they might be obtained.

After the war the trade was mostly in rugs and carpets, also bedding. There was always a good profit to be made on Slumberland beds. We kept in touch with warehouses in Manchester such as J N Philips of Tib Streer and AW Keggen for carpets in Swan Street and periodically mother and I would go by train to Manchester and have tea at Woolworths after placing our orders.  Commercial travellers also called from time to time. I remember one,  Dourne Carter, from Keggens  - a most unusual name, and there were several others.  There was  a most amusing incident during this period.  The Goodalls having long been gone, the Lindops lived next door with their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Williams and their family. Old Mrs.Lindop seemed to spend her days at the front room window observing all the comings and goings at No. 6 and must have been intrigued by the visits of commercial travelers,  who seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time chatting to my mother.  There had been an occasion  when my parents were disturbed in the middle of the night by a policeman in the hall because the front door was not properly shut – it had a tendency to stick.  After this, father, just before going to bed each night, would dutifully open the front door and bang it shut.  One Monday evening, mother, having had a particularly tiring washing day had gone to bed at 9pm, father following much later, as usual.  Next day, Mrs. Williams appeared at the back door and reported that her mother, having heard our front door being banged late each night,  was spreading rumours about my mother’s nocturnal expeditions, which appeared to be on a nightly basis and therefore far from innocent.  And commercial travelers did have rather an unsavoury reputation.  I can remember how my mother’s fury exploded.

Our last orders from Keggens were carpets for the bungalow to which we removed in 1956 and they served us well, going with us from home to home until we had fitted carpets in Chadderton.

It would be in 1937 that the Government brought in a scheme by which anyone under the age of 55 could contribute to a pension – to be paid when they were 60 – by buying a sixpenny stamp from the Post Office each week.  Mother was 54 and duly applied.  Unfortunately the powers that be required proof of age – a birth certificate.  This her parents had omitted to provide. In country villages in the 1880s it was probably not an uncommon omission.  Correspondence flew back and forth as  attempts were made to assure them that she was indeed born on the 15th August 1883. She produced a baptismal certificate, but of course, one can be baptized at any time.  One day she made a clearance of unwanted correspondence including several old birthday cards and shortly afterwards a request was made that she produce one as evidence of her age.  One only remained,  from her mother.  This was finally accepted as proof and each week father’s apprentice  bought a sixpenny stamp for mother’s card as well as the stamp he required.  It was the best investment she ever made. She knew that in August 1943 there would be a little money she had not had to work for but the shop continued until we left West Brampton in 1956.

By Betty Preston