THORNGATE ST.

21 Thorngate St.[circa 1960] [MY HOME]

Just a normal street of terraced houses but it was home to me for 20 years .if you drew a circle of 5 minutes walk from my house you would find 2 fish and chip shops, a cobblers, a betting shop, 4 off licenses , 2 furniture shops, 2 newsagents, a fruit and veg shop ,gents hair dressers, a co-op. grocers and butchers , 2 bakers, clock and watch repairer, dress maker,2 schools and a church ,a shoe factory and boot and shoe collage , 2 pet shops and a leather tanning factory [never will forget that smell] a furniture removers, builders and a wood yard all this and milk delivered to you door, a man that sold dusters and brushes, a rag and bone man and a pop [soft drinks] delivery service

And two post deliveries a day A.M. and P.M. If you extend this to 10 minutes walk I would need 3 pages for the list…..

Remember this was normal for dozens of streets all over Kettering how did they all make a living I have asked myself on many occasions.

The streets were swept regularly and the storm drains unblocked and disinfected ,I still remember the man that picked up litter, Spike was his name [ because of his stick with a sharp spike on the end ]once every week our bin was empted [dust bin or ash box as we called it] this was metal so it did not melt if you put hot ash in it, a man would come round to the back yard and tip the contents into a small bath tub and then he would lift it on to his shoulder and return to the lorry waiting on the road [ no health and safety then ]but if you did not give him a tip at Christmas he would spill some of the contents down the path for the next few week just to let you know he was upset.

We did not have a garden just a blue brick yard and a small area of soil about 6 foot by 6 foot and of course the outside lavatory [no bathroom till I was about 10 years old and still no inside toilet] we also had a wooden shed, this was my brothers domain ,just as the brick barn was my dads [always locked we could only look in the window and wonder at all the tools he had and what we would do if we were ever allowed to use them ].

Mum tells me at one time they had chickens in the garden ,but I do not remember them. My sister loved animals and she had a pet duck re homed from my aunties small holding out Thrapston way ,the only duck I have seen that did not like the rain it would run up the yard and jump up the step in to the kitchen at just a hint of rain.

We had cats ,dogs ,frogs , grass snakes ,hamsters, stick insects ,birds, rabbits, fish, just about anything you could put in a cage or jar.

Left and right, three pictures of the garden after extensive landscaping !!!!

Above left to right the wall more of this later,the shed,mum in the [garden] and two foot of snow in the yard

........Next door to our house we had a sweet shop [what more could a boy want] on the other side we had a dress maker and watch repairer and next to them was MR. Cs house he had at one time been the owner of our house, mum and dad rented off him after the war [1939-45]his mother [old MRS.C.] lived in the house with us but that was before I came along. MR.C. had his own company manufacturing anything made from iron and steel, we did not get on with him to well as we had to go down the side of his house to get to the back of ours [he had a drive way with a garage at the bottom ] so I think he had delusions of grandeur ,my brother and I had a few run ins with him because in later year we would park our cars to close to his drive ,not a happy man as I remember …….

Opposite lived MR. and MRS. A. he was a bookmaker and he and his son had jaguar cars [big posh things ] they had a large house but only lived in the front rooms the rest of the house was some what run down, strange. some times if the wrong horse won a race MR.A. would disappear for a time!!!

But he always bounced back .

On the corner next to them was a cobblers shop I cant remember his name but he was a small man bent over from years of working bent over his bench, whenever he repaired our shoes and we went to collect them it did not matter how long he had them his stock reply was they will be ready next Thursday…

3401 a number imbedded in my head for ever more,3401 you may ask ,was it a telephone number ? No we never used them, a hat size ? No that was 6 7/8,was it a car registration ? No ….ask my sisters or brother and I bet they can tell you that this was our co-op. divi. [dividend ]number, this number had to be quoted ever time we spent money in a co-op. shop ,we were given a small slip of paper as a record of what we had spent, and then I think it was quarterly mum would receive a pay out based on the amount she had spent [long before Tesco’s loyalty cards ], also she had a small red book and when she got to the end of her house keeping cash we would go to the same co-op. and buy groceries and tell the assistant to book it, then when dad gave her the house keeping on pay day she would square up her book. The reason we remembered the number was that when the divi. Was paid out we would get new shoes or clothing . The same thing was the pre paid gas meter ,when it was empted there was always a rebate , so if I came home from school and there was a neat pile of shillings [5 new pence ] on the table I knew we were in for a treat, good old mum!!….

CHRITMAS PAST

Christmas would start at the end of November ,well it would start way back in the summer when mum would put the order in for the cockerel for Christmas dinner ,this always came from Joe he lived near Thrapston and had a smallholding where he raised his chickens and pigs ,mum would collect orders from friends and relations and Joe would select the best chicks to fatten up for us ,more of this later.

As I was saying Christmas preparations did not start till after my birthday at the end of November, we knew it was getting close when two or three big cardboard boxes arrived at the door ,dad ran a mail order service, usual thing a book to look through ,pick your goodies and pay weekly ,we would sit and watch wide eyed as dad unpacked the boxes never knowing if one of them was for us ,but we always got the boxes to play with.

We would decorate the living room with home made paper chains and pictures made at school with glitter and cotton wool , the tree would be a real one I do not know where it came from dad would arrive home one Saturday with it strapped to his bike ,we would decorate it with glass baubles and tinsel always the same as the year before ,sometimes mum would by one or two new bits as a treat but mostly it was the same as last year, We always had lights on the tree this was the only contribution dad would make to decorating [he had been an electrician in the army ] Reg my brother tells me that dad had a sideline constructing strings of lights for his workmates [ I cant remember I was to young]

I would save my pocket money to buy gifts for the rest of the family ,most of them came from Woolworths ,

Two days before the big day we would make the epic trip to get the cockerels from Joe this involved a trip on the bus to the other side of thrapston [we did not have a car] then a three mile walk to Joes place ,when we arrived Joe would still be plucking the birds they were still warm and fresh ,when we left we would be loaded down with bags full of fresh cockerels, another walk back to the bus and then home this would take all-day but then you knew it was really Christmas.

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