Lower Brook Street
I am writing about the street I grew up in, as everywhere I have lived since then has seemed dull and uninteresting compared to Lower Brook St.
Lower Brook Street was named after the brook which ran along one side of it. All the terraced houses had what was known as an "open yard." This meant that there was a pathway between the yards and gardens, through which people had to pass. In the middle of every row of houses was an entry, my grandma lived next door to one, and I remember many occasions when the lads in the yard were playing football in there, and my Grandma would come out shouting because she could hear the bumping in her house.They would stop immediately,they knew if they didn't they'd be in trouble with their own parents. In those days children were taught to respect their elders. None of the gardens were fenced off, but I don't remember any of the children playing on any of the older people's gardens, we never thought of it.
The toilets were in blocks right at the bottom of the garden. My dad fixed up a light on our path, which we very glad of in the dark nights.In winter people used to light paraffin heaters in the toilets to stop them freezing.My dad lagged the pipes in ours with old sacks. One very cold winter ours was the only toilet in the yard which didn't freeze!
On the other side of the entry from us the houses had brick pigstyes. We used to play in the one at the bottom of my friends garden, by now it hadn't been used for years, and was full of a pink weed, I can't remember what it was called, but to me it was as pretty as any flower, I used to pick it and put it in my dolls bedroom. This was a boxroom, which opened up off my bedroom, where my many dolls slept in wooden cots my dad had made for me.
My grandma's house had a large window in the downstairs front room, as it had once been a shop.This seemed much more exciting to me than our house further up the yard, which only had an ordinary window.
There were four shops in the street. Two grocery shops and two "Beer-offs" as we called the off-licences. Children could go to the beer-offs with a bottle and fetch their dad's beer. The shopkeeper would put brown tape round the cork, this was designed to stop the children sampling it on the way home, licensing laws were not so strict then. If my grandma needed any thing urgently she would send me to one shop,where, even when they were shut, if you knocked on the back door, they would serve you. Most shops would allow you to buy things on credit, or "on tick" as it was known then, but if you were unlucky enough not to be able to pay your bill at the end of the week, your name would be displayed in the shop window, for all to see.
