'A Slice of My Life' by Rosie Pugh

As I sit here in my warm centrally-heated home, watching television and drinking champagne, I think about how I lived a different type of life as a child.
Once we shared a house with another family, the McNulty’s. Things were very basic. The tin bath used to be filled with hot and cold water in front of the fire and we made sure we got the right temperature before we entered in case we were scalded. The outside toilet had hard paper from orange wrappings and newspapers and not the fancy types of toilet paper we see on sale today. Now it is velvet to the touch with Aloe Vera to protect those sensitive parts of our body.
We all used to get together in the evening around the fire to converse with one another about the daily happenings that would have happened in the street. There was lots of laughter as we sat and listened to the entertainment on the radio and I have to admit that I really enjoyed listening.
When I was nearly six we moved to a home of our own with our own inside toilet and with a bath. But it was a great sadness to leave the Mc Nulty’s. There was no floor covering till a few years later when Mum could afford some and when we bought bright orange and red linoleum, that was new on the market. There was no need to polish Mum had been told. She was proud of her new floor covering but a few extra shillings every week had to be paid. There was no central heating in the house, just a big black range that was a cooker as well and was kept clean and shiny with black lead. The pipes were polished with Brasso. The front step was washed and polished with cardinal red. It made your hands feel funny when you used it.
In some of the little cottages off the beaten track they had no electricity and lamps were lit with meths, then pumped up to create a blue flame. To me it was pure magic and I never realized the hardship that those people were in. In the winter when it got very cold, we would pile our coats on top of the bed to keep us warm. There was no fancy fluffy duvet, soft, next to your skin, but instead coarse dark grey blankets which would peep over the white sheet when pulled closer. We had to use the chamber pot under the bed, to save going downstairs in the night.
I had a good pair of legs, which was just as well, as we did not possess a car or a bicycle. I learnt to ride a bike on my brother Philip’s godfather’s bike.. To get my leg over the handle bar was quite comical. I would have to stand on the pavement or a brick and lower the bike trying to keep it still and not fall off. What fun and what a sight.
The highlight of the week was when the groceries were delivered on Fridays. This was the day Mum got her money telegram. The grocer would put a poke of sweets in the box and they would be shared between us.
Every morning we would have a dose of malt, cod liver oil and emulsion, which was a white liquid taken from the whale which would was meant to do me the world of good. The best thing about Halloween, believe it or not, would be to put an apple in a basin of water and try to bite it with our hands behind our backs. We had monkey nuts and the bakery would make special fruit bread. Inside would be a toy wedding ring, so who ever got the slice with it in would be sure to married.
I had simple things in my life when young. No elaborate toys, just make believe and imagination. Life was hard as we did not have much, but I had a freedom of a different kind.