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Phil Bell was born in 1949 in the Ancoats district of Manchester.
I was born and brought up in Ancoats, Manchester. Some will never admit to it, thinking it is below their present status in life to even acknowledge that they had lived in this 101% quintessential working class area of the city.
They seem to forget that some had to tear newspaper into equal squares and carefully thread a loop of string through the corner and attach it to the hook in the lavatory, and the only illumination in the nether regions of the outside toilet was by candle light with wax dripping all over your clothes.
Your mam had to have a 'tick book' to survive the rigors of the weekly food trial. Without Mr Banks and Mr Shilco, the 'tick men', we would never have had new furniture or clothes. Maybe you had to go to a neighbour's house to borrow ten bob until payday or a cup of sugar or some tea.
Jam buttie's for dinner on a Thursday and Friday, until your dad came home with the wages. Those of us who lived in rented accommodation private or council in post war Britain would have experienced something similar to this.
The community still existed, no phoning your friends and relations, no one had a phone. You visited, just a knock and a shout and walk in, it seemed most anyone always had the time to spare.
I was born in the Queen Victoria Public House, Canning Street in the Ancoats district of Manchester, next door to Pessagno's dairy and stables. We moved to Emmet Street, Newton Heath when I was three or four.
We had struck gold, we had an inside toilet, a garden, an air raid shelter, three bedrooms, a Black Iron Leaded fire place in the living room, a Yorkshire Range in the kitchen and a gas boiler. We also had bugs, although there was no extra charge for them in the rent!
The iron door of the Yorkshire Range was the best bed warmer ever, wrapped up in a blanket so you wouldn't burn your feet, bliss on a freezing cold winters night.
Me, my mam, our Dot (my mothers sister) granddad and grandma evacuated the narrow cobbled streets of Ancoats for the garden suburbs only a mile away, my dad followed later, he was in transition. My mam and dad had split up, got back together and split up again. I didn't ask why, I don't believe I was that concerned.
I had my mam, my grandma my granddad and our Dot. Dot was a rebel. I eavesdropped on family mutterings, 'she's up to no good' and so on, I don't believe there was any malice in what they said, it was their way of showing concern. All I knew was she was like a second mam to me.
I loved her like a mother. I can still see her and almost smell her face powder and perfume. I can picture her putting powder on her face from a gold coloured compact, with her shiny blonde hair.
She went out on her forays into the city with her friends and sometimes she took me with her, Chinese food, coffee bars, I was a lucky little boy.
They worried about her, my gran and granddad, but then again they concerned themselves about everyone's welfare especially Dots, she had the same complaint as my gran, asthma.
Older members of the family were suffering from another post war ailment, a mixture of guilt, jealousy, envy and self-pity. A fusion of two wars, being told you are working class and accepting your place in society and a complete lack of confidence.
Couple this with a third rate education and the Victorian values that still hung around this social class, and maybe you would be naturally suspicious of anything different.
Anything that strayed from that which had always been the norm was deemed to have dire results. 'Our Dot will have to be careful', some said, 'she's knocking about with a strange crowd, Americans, you know what they are like'.
Not for my grandma and granddad. They had befriended a young American service man during the war, I think he was seeing my Aunt Millie, he was called Johnny Turpac and he came from Pittsburgh. They exchanged letters and Christmas cards for years.
This paranoia that existed in the UK stemmed from some envious wit that made the proclamation 'They are over paid, over sexed and over here' about the Americans during the war.
'Yes, they did have more food more money and better uniforms, they had more confidence, could dance better and drink more' said my friend's father 'They said the same thing about the British in the Mediterranean'.
In fact, if the older family members had been more open minded, they would have seen she was having what was universally known as a 'damn good time'! It was called enjoyment, something the British working class couldn't cope with then.
I would wait on the corner of Queens Road for her and my mam coming home from the Acme Tin Factory on Churnet Street, we could hear the whistles blow for home time where we lived.
She would ask me to go to the shop for her, always telling me to keep the change. The change from an errand was always welcome as I could buy Pontefract cakes, hard juice liquorices and soft liquorice, red-hot pokers and Spanish pipes.
Our Dot was seeing an American called Johnny Mauger, they all rode up Emmet Street on motorbikes looking like film stars.
Dot was seriously courting now and she brought home records by Billy Eckstine, Elvis Presley, Johnny Ray, all 78's. I got real American comics, chocolate bars and chewing gum. Yes, it was good that our Dot going out with an American, well it was for me!
Then came a bombshell, our Dot was getting married and she would be going to live with all those cowboys and Indians in America. The thought of her going away didn't affect me then, it never registered that I wouldn't see her again for years.
Then the day came when Dot went to America. We all went to Manchester Airport to wave her off, my mam cried, all the aunts cried, my gran and granddad wept buckets, I heard my grandma say I'll never see her again. Her prophecy would come true.
We had a party at 22 Emmet Street on the same day Dot married Johnny in America. We kids had a ball, all the family were there, they drank champagne to toast the couple in a far off land, loads of food, lots of beer, lots of singing and crying, and then drunken crying and drunken singing!
Then the parcels started arriving from the USA! An American Football Kit, it didn't come close to fitting, they must be giants in America! More trophy's to show off though to my friends in the Black Hand Gang.
Phil Bell, Greater Manchester, 2001
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