When we first moved into the Portwey my father worked on the railway and used to keep his bicycle in the kitchen, as he started as a knocker-up then a cleaner and finally as a goods checker. His father and grandfather had both worked on the railway. Sometimes he worked days and sometimes he worked nights and his cycle was the property of the railway. My joy was to light the paraffin lamp on the front of the bike which had to be filled with paraffin; it was on a hinged bracket which clipped to the lamp bracket of the bike. The wick was trimmed and lit, the top casing hinged backwards so the tank with the wick alight could be put into the housing, the wick turned up and trimmed and the case closed up. It had a vent on top and a spring mounting for the lamp bracket. The bulls-eye glass at the front was clipped closed and it had two coloured glass windows at the side, port and starboard, red and green. When all was assembled the flame burnt steadily and brightly without smoke. It was vented at the top and you could warm your hands there although the vent at the top got very hot.
Although my father worked hard and long peculiar hours, he always had time for the children, both me and my sister, and I remember well sharing his meal when he arrived home and sitting in a large chair on his knee while he sang to me.
My mother augmented my father’s wages by taking in washing which she used to do for a family on the Uppingham Road. It had to be done immaculately and ironed and folded exactly. All the preparations were well known to me. First the dolly tub, then the clothes and sheets etc. into the boiler, after boiling transfer to the dolly tub with huge ladles of scalding water. There, the clothes were pounded with the dolly pegs which later graduated to a punch. A cup of Camomile tea and back to work! The clothes put through the mangle and all the soapy water extracted, the dolly tub emptied refilled with clean cold water and the clothes rinsed to get rid of the soap, mangled again and into the blue water. From there. they were folded and mangled again, then to the starch for the articles that needed it, on to the clothes line—carried out in what to me was an enormous basket—to be pegged out neatly along the line. When they were dry, the next ritual of ironing, then a neat parcel of clothes tied with string and placed on the end of my pram for delivery to collect a very small amount of cash and the possibility of a couple of sweets on the way home.
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