Living without electricity

[sean1981]

Not sure how to put this on the villages page but here goes under general interest. not sure if the 'attachment' will work, I am used to sending them attached to an E mail.

John

Attachments:

[vale]

Any chance you could copy and paste the contents, just that some users do not have "Word" software and can not open it.

[sean1981]

Yes I'll do that. I see the space now, it was just when opening a new subject it was not clear.

John

Living without electricity

If we asked our young people today to do without all their electrically driven gadgets I think we might find some resistance. Even thinking about it makes one think of third world countries or some far flung island off the coast of the UK. But no I am thinking of my childhood in Haworth.
A little while ago a 99 year old woman belonging to our church told of her early life on a farm and what it was like to live without electricity. It made me think that you don’t have to be 99 and live on a farm to have experienced that.
My early memories were of open fires, well one in the living room; those in the bed room were only lit when someone was ill, and gas lighting. Even as a young boy it was a ‘Wee Willie Winky’ candle holder to light my way to bed. The living room had a triple cone type mantle fitting with a draw wire to pull it on and another to turn it off. I was rarely allowed to light this because you must not touch the mantle with the match, though I was allowed to light new mantles because until you set fire to them once fitted, and burned off the cotton, they were tough.
The mantle in the kitchen was a vertical cylinder mantle about 4 or 5 inches tall and burned very brightly.
Once in the bed rooms we had fish tail burners, a sort of porcelain cap with a slit set on top of a bracket that could be folded against the wall. Once up there it was easy to light the burner with the candle and there you had it, a fan shaped flame (like a fish tail) blue with white tips. This light was nowhere near as good as those downstairs but they were not so easy to damage and better than one candle.
Our radio was driven by a glass accumulator for the low tension of the valves and a large square battery (the size of a biscuit tin) for the high tension. The battery lasted ages but the accumulator needed charging once a week. On my way to school I would drop one accumulator at Ramsbottom’s on Station road and pick up the one he had charged on my way home. Mr Weller was the man in the shop and had the equipment to do this. I think that he also boosted the radio relay out on cable to those houses that had that. Radio programmes for those people who only needed a slave speaker and either had no electricity or no mains radio. Listening to Dick Barton on our radio was great as long as the power from the batteries was up to it. I actually remember going with my father to a house in Oxenhope to look at and buy our radio which was second hand. I would not yet be 10 years old at that time.
Cleaning carpets with a brush after scattering damp, used tea leaves was no fun, on a sunny day you could see the dust rising. Smaller mats were of course taken outside to be beaten on the clothes line.
Washing clothes was hard work. We had a tub that was heated underneath with a built in gas ring and once the white clothes were in with the soap there was a sort of handle on top, like a tram driver had, and this moved an internal paddle. That was hard work for a young lad even worse than turning the wringer handle to get the water out.
Bathing was fun, I was first in being the youngest and since the tin bath was in front of the fire you needed to keep away from that edge it could be hot. Heating and carrying water for the bath was hard work but it was only once a week. Top and tail had to suffice for the other days.
1953 when I was 10 my father decided to have the house wired for electricity and pay for this. The land lord had shown no interest in bringing us into the modern world but had no objection to this modernization. The rest is history as they say; we eventually had a vacuum cleaner, a washer with heater, paddles and wringer. It was an eye opener and I remember well the first night I went to bed with the flick of a switch.

John

[fsharpminor]

That brought memories of visiting my Great Grandma in the 50's, she lived at 8 Croft St, a back to back style house ( where the Medical Centre is now). No electricity and one single gas mantle in the middle of the ceiling. I was sometimes sent to buy a new one at Bowmans shop at the corner of Croft St and Oakworth road.
The house had a large fireplace and oven alongside. I remeber roasting chestnuts there.