From Christine Bate’s document titled Winter on Whitehill.doc
Winter on Whitehill and Other Whitehill Stories
Contents
Heating the house
Cleaning
Gas lamps
We have been enduring our frosty period in northern California.On Tuesday morning the temperature was hovering around 32˚F. This was unexpected since the weather forecast had not predicted low temperatures. At lunchtime it seemed like too much trouble to think about covering the tender plants, but by 5:30 I was outside covering the citrus trees with sheets, towels and anything else I could find in the garage. This was justified since two days later, at 2:00 in the afternoon the temperature is in the mid forties. How terrible! I’m staying in and perhaps shall go down to the woodpile for a supply of logs for this evening’s fire if I feel the urge later.
English winters in the thirties and forties were probably no colder than they are now, but life in a semi-detached house in a family with no car demanded a toughness that is not called for in California. There was one source of heat in the house, and that was the Yorkshire range in the living room or kitchen as it was often called. The kitchen proper was referred to as the back kitchen or the scullery, used only for food preparation, washing and laundry. The range was a metal behemoth about three feet wide and four feet high and it was made of black metal with features of brushed steel. At the right was an oven, and the fire grate was at the left. I believe there was an alcove above the oven, a space for warming plates, and the whole was topped by a mantelpiece of metal. Ours was not an expensive range, they could be much more elaborate and varied tremendously. The grate was about 12 inches above the floor of the range and had horizontal bars across it. It was easily 12 inches deep, then there was a slanting throat between it and the chimney and behind this was the hot water boiler. Since the houses were built for miners who received free coal as part of their remuneration, there was no call for fireplaces that could be used economically. Buying extra vertical firebars that fitted inside the grate helped. There was a system of dampers so that in theory one could heat the oven, or heat the water, but our oven never reached cooking temperatures that I remember. Mother used to air clothes in the oven. On the floor in front of the fireplace was a hearth plate made of enamelled steel. Ours was red and white diamonds. I particularly remember this because I can vividly recall pouring my cup of senna tea onto the hearth to avoid drinking it. It didn’t disappear, it just looked like a large yellow pool of water that was sure to be discovered. It was. The senna tea was given to us occasionally to worm us with the admonition, “Sup it up”. The assumption was that all children had worms. A fender surrounded the hearth plate and the whole arrangement was finished off with a fire guard. When we were little, we had a fire guard like the ones often seen in illustrations of children’s nurseries, about two and a half feet high with spaced metal rods topped with a brass rail. It came in handy to hang small items on to dry. As we grew, we moved to a smaller square mesh fire guard that covered the fire grate side of the fireplace and could be folded up and set aside while mending the fire.
Of course, the fire could not be stoked and damped down overnight as with an AGA cooker so the first riser, my mother, came down to light the fire before calling anyone else. During the night the whole house had cooled, and of course, the bedrooms had never been heated anyway. It was not easy to get a coal fire started so kindling was important. Chopping the sticks out in the coalhouse was a regular activity and they were put on the newpaper base with some small pieces of coal on top. To supplement the supply of sticks, we used to make firelighters by rolling up newspaper tightly and then folding the tube over and twisting the end. Some families had a sheet of metal with a handle in the middle that just fitted the fireplace opening. This was use to draw the fire, that is to help it to take hold and burn better. We didn’t have one and mother used a sheet of newspaper until it caught fire and then she pushed it up the chimney with the poker. She also threw a little sugar onto the fire to encourage it to burn, but as far as I could see the only result was a pretty blue flame for a brief period.
When it was time to have the chimney swept the day got off to an early start for Mother. She raked out the remains of yesterday’s fire that were by then quite cold. Then she prepared for the arrival of the chimney sweep by moving everything off the mantelpiece and from around the fireplace. She rolled back the rugs and covered the furniture nearest the fireplace. Chimney sweeping was done by the “road man”. I don’t remember his name because that is what we all called him. I suppose Mother knew it because she went over to his house after he had finished his daily road-sweeping duties to make the appointment. He came early in the morning so that the job was all finished in time for Mother to light the fire and start breakfast before calling us. Also the roadman could be ready to start his day’s work on time. He had a supply of disinfectant, strong brown liquid that turned an opaque beige colour when it was diluted. It was used to put down the outside drains. I suppose he had it because of his road-cleaning duties as it was free; we just went over with a bottle when Mother sent us and his wife dispensed it. All waste water plumbing was on the outside of houses by regulation and the pipes fed into open drains. Having all the waste pipes on the outside could become a problem in icy weather.
On winter evenings we all sat as close to the fire as possible except Father had his chair to the right of the fireplace. When it was necessary to leave the room, there were shouts of “Shut the door” and when the need to use the lavatory arose, that entailed a quick dash outside and back again as quickly as possible. We had chamber pots in the bedrooms; we called them “pos” as in the French pots de chambre. Another name was “jerries” but I never heard “gezunda” (because it goes under the bed) until later. The bedrooms were very cold in the winter and getting undressed to go to bed demanded determination and speed. We never stripped naked, but left our vests (undershirts) on under our pyjamas. When it had snowed overnight, it was usually colder than usual when I woke up and there was an unusual glow through the curtains so that I was not surprised when Mother came in and opened them saying “It snowed in the night”. Then came the challenge of getting dressed as fast as possible after perfunctory ablutions. Since there was no wash-basin in the bathroom, you either leaned over the bath tub and turned the tap on or waited and washed hands and face downstairs in the kitchen sink.
Friday morning was blackleading day. The whole of the Yorkshire range was cleaned, with special attention to complete removal of the ashes. Then all the black iron parts were polished. You could buy a commercial polish called Zebo, but mother swore by her home-made polish that had some furniture cream in it. The shiny steel parts were buffed up with steel wool.
After breakfast, the rest of the Friday cleaning began. This involved sweeping brushes or a bucket of water and a good scrubbing for the floors until Mother bought the Wyld’s old vacuum cleaner in 1937 or 1938. After that, it was only the scullery or back-kitchen, the hall and the steps that were scrubbed. Doing the steps was very important because it signalled to the neighbours that your cleaning was done. Everyone took great pride in finishing off the edges of the steps with a white stone. This was in Yorkshire. In Carlisle, where red sandstone was plentiful, rudd stones were used to make a dark red edging to the steps.
I have been reading a book about Beatrix Potter’s house at Sawrey and she comments that the living room was called the fire house. In Brinsworth, the living room was often referred to as the house, as in “Cum in’ouse”. There were very strict rules of politeness involved in entering any one else’s house. There were no telephones to make arrangements to call so you knocked on the door and then stood back a little. If you were invited in, you tapped on the door again as you crossed the threshold and then as you entered the living room you knocked again. The living room was usually called the kitchen and that was where the only fire in the house was burning. Some cooking was done in the kitchen at the range, but the sink was in the scullery, as was the set pot or copper for washday. As people acquired gas stoves, they were usually installed in the scullery.
The only hot water was supplied by the back boiler behing the range so in the summer when the fire was not lit, there was no hot water. I still appreciate getting up in the morning and washing in hot water. Saturday night was bath night and so there was a good fire going regardless of the weather. Sheila and I took turns having a bath and washing our hair then sitting in front of the fire to dry our hair. I could never understand why hair didn’t dry when rubbed with a towel like my body did. Mother tied our hair up into rags but didn’t do the corkscrew wrapping that produced very artificial looking ringlets like many of the Brinsworth girls had.
When the dark nights came it was an adventure to go outside after dark. There were gaslights here and there, with areas of no illumination.
A week ago our clocks “sprang forward” at the new time, three weeks earlier than the customary last Sunday in April, supposedly to save fuel but it certainly makes the golfers happy. So once more, I am getting up in the dark. This morning Iwent out to get the paper from the driveway and noticed that, even though I could see well enough without a light, all the street lights across the Bay were still shining their orangey glow. It reminded me of the gas light across the street from our house. My earliest memories are of the lamplighter, a small man dressed in dark clothes with a ladder on his shoulder who lit the gas every evening. Later, clocks were installed but I’m not sure how often they were wound up. Then, after I had left home, a new concrete pole appeared and we had one of those garish sodium vapour lights right across from the house.
Wash day. Peggy rugs.