Les Simpson:

Some thoughts and comments regarding the recent submission by Ian Giles, in particular the part describing the area and house where his Gran lived. The house where Ian's Gran lived was in fact almost identical to the ones which my family and thousands of others inhabited in the 'older' Burton, the only difference was that we did have about 50 feet of garden. Thousands of the terraced houses remain in Burton today, certainly in the area where I was born, now with some mandatory tarting up since the 1960's.

One thing Ian omitted to mention was that there was only one tap over the sink and that dispensed cold mains water. Hot and cold running water in privately rented properties was generally unheard of (Council rented properties built just before and after the war did have such facilities) and the weekly bath night was usually taken in the kitchen using a zinc bath - otherwise kept hanging on the wall in the yard - which was filled with water heated in the copper. I do remember around the late 40's our copper being knocked out and replaced by a free standing metal boiler heated by gas and fitted with a tap thereby filling the bath much more easily than with the buckets and ladle used to empty the copper. The same problems prevailed though when the time came to empty the bath! What a difference when we moved to Mosley Street in 1954, to the only detached house in a street of terraced and industrial properties, to have hot and cold water, a bathroom and a toilet upstairs and down. 

Another item that was not generally found in the kitchen at that time was a refrigerator, hence most kitchens had a pantry off, which utilised as many outside walls as possible. Ours was at the end of the kitchen and had a low solid shelf, called I think, the thrall, which had a surface of stone or later quarry tiles, which also supported a meat safe with its wire mesh door. The thrall was generally used to store foodstuffs that needed to be kept cool and didn't need protection from flying insects etc. Around the walls were erected shelves on which were stored the rest of household culinary requirements which did not need a moisture free environment. The ventilation of the pantry was usually via a wire meshed orifice in the outside wall. 

If the above way of life seemed pretty hard, and I suppose it was compared to the many things that are taken for granted in today's world, some were worse off that we were. My gran lived in a house similar to ours but with less garden and her 'front' door was in the covered passage which allowed access to the rear of two properties either side. She lived there until the early sixties and even then the only way to get hot water was to heat a kettle. My auntie with whom my mother and I spent quite a lot of time during the war as my father and uncle were away serving in the North Staffs Regiment, lived in an even smaller house. She lived in the last house of a terrace in Wellington Street West, which were two up, two down. The room size was significantly smaller than ours, being about 9 or 10 feet square, the living room contained a sofa, a fireside chair, a sideboard and a treadle sewing machine and a couple of dining chairs and it was cramped with those! The kitchen/dining area was about the same size as the other room but included the pantry, coal fired copper, and contained the mangle, the dining table and four chairs. There was storage area under the stairs behind a door in the corner and the stairs rose steeply between the two rooms with coathooks on the wall at the bottom but only one door which closed off the front room. The sink was under the window between the copper and the back door, and sink was all it was, there was no running water into the houses, it had to be collected in whatever receptacle was available from a pump about 3/4 the way down the row. A large key was used to open the valve to obtain the water, this being kept on a hook on the wall of the property adjacent to the pump, and should be replaced after use. Toilets were across the back yard and unlit by electricity, yet strangely enough were flush operating. The two bedrooms were more or less equal in size and big enough only to accommodate a double bed, a small wardrobe and a chair.

 I know my auntie lived in that house until the 1960's with her husband and two sons before moving to a 3 bedroom place just across the road. I don't know whether Wellington St West still exists, although if it does, for sure if will contain several less than the eight houses it had in those days unless some developer has built a load of flats. (It goes without saying that the innumerable organisations that exist today to prevent people living in such conditions in rented property would have had a field day back then.)   I have attached a photo of my Gran early one Monday morning sometime in the thirties. Note the beer barrel in the back ground to collect the soft rain water to fill the copper for the washing instead of using the hard tap water.

Life at the Grammar School:
A few more thoughts on life at BGS in the 1950s before the move to Mill Hill Lane:
Games Periods: Rugby:-  If you weren't in the 1st or 2nd rugby XV then you would generally have to board a hired Burton Corporation double decker bus in Lichfield Street at the bottom of the driveway to BGS playing field, to be taken to Shobnall Fields to play on the pitch(es) there. Of course in those days Moor St Bridge with it's very low headroom was still in use so the bus had to travel the long way round to get to Shobnall which made for a quite short games period.
Cross Country:-  As was remarked on by Keith Dadley, Junior Cross Country was from the pavilion across Lichfield Street, down to the Ferry Bridge onto the Ox Hay, up to the Cherry Orchard gate, then back along the path, under the Ferry Bridge and round an old concrete pill box by the side of the Trent. On past the pumping station, round another pill box and back again to the Ferry Bridge, returning to the pavilion.
 The Senior course went straight across the Ferry Bridge, turning left at the end, across Main St (take care!) and up St Peter's St and Wood's Lane, over the fields and hills to The Clump (The Water Tower), down a footpath which came out in Elms Road by the side of The Cemetery. Across Stapenhill Road (don't forget to look both ways!) then down through Stapenhill Gardens (near the old Bandstand) alongside the river back to the Ferry Bridge and then to the pavilion. The start was at the pavilion and the finish at the end of the Ferry Bridge, but whoever was at the finish usually disappeared after the first twenty were home. You got back as quick as you were able or wanted to (did you want a fag on the way round the agricultural bit, or was it such hard work you needed a rest?), but the good bit was that you could go home once you had showered and changed. Every now and then a staff member would be strategically placed somewhere on the course with a list of starters to check which of the early finishers had 'taken a wrong turning' out in the country and missed out the hilly bits.
Statutes not very Fair (or being in the wrong place at the wrong time):- John Smith's mention of The Statutes caused me to recall that once on one of the two days that the Fair operated, going home for lunch and being unable to catch a bus back to school at the right time because primary school kids were given the afternoon off so they could be taken round the Fair by their parent(s) and the buses between 1pm and 2pm were packed with mothers and kids going to the Statutes. By the time a bus actually stopped with room, it was getting late and the fact that the closest the bus (a No.1) got to school was the top of Station St., made matters worse. To cut a long story short I ran back to school from Station St., got back late, they wouldn't believe my version of the events and I got a DT!
Swimming Period :- Swimming was always the last period(s) of morning school. I remember we had to walk from school, down Bond St, past Headquarters through the Memorial Gardens, the Market Place, Friars Walk and across The Hay to Burton Baths. Anyone who was going home for lunch by bicycle had to walk with their bike at the back of the column. The biggest problem with swimming is that the period finished at normal school time (12-25pm) which was when you got out of the water, so getting dried and dressed was always in your own time!