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The following are memories recalled by Nellie Oldroyd, as recorded by Hanover Housing Association in their book 'Tale of the Century' published in 1999.
I think one of the last links with regular deliveries is the milkman - God bless him! It is one of the joys of a pensioner's life to get up in a morning and to see the familiar white shape of the bottle of milk waiting, like an old friend on the doorstep, to augment the morning cup of tea.
And, if one can catch him - they are always in a hurry, but not too much in a hurry to have a few words with a lonely pensioner - then it makes the day of many an old person, to whom it is sometimes the only communication they may have during the course of that day.
Today, the milk has to be pasteurised, sterilised, homogenised and a few more other 'izes' before it is bottled and delivered. I am surprised that so many of us survived what must have been massive attacks by germs when we were young, eighty years ago, when the milkman brought his precious liquid in a can with the pint and half-pint measures hung on the side.
He would remove the lid, scoop out the lovely creamy liquid with his measure and pour it into your jug, sometimes jokingly saying 'still warm yet, lass'. I could swear that the milk was creamier and thicker in those days.
One of the others who came to the door with their wares in those times long ago was Rhoda with her basket of ruddle. White for the edges of the step, ochre for the row of flags.
Then there was the medicine man, who carried a large mysterious-looking wicker basket which contained pills and potions guaranteed to cure every known ailment under the sun; sometimes one make of pill claimed to do the lot!
There were Camomile Flowers for the making of tea to refresh the system, Blood and Stomach Pills to build the system, Senna Pods to clear the system, Fennings Little Healers, Bile Beans, Beechams Powders, Dr Torrens Herbal Pills, Brimstone, Ugh! Who remembers a spoonful of brimstone and treacle every morning in winter before setting off for school?
He also carried a great assortment of cough medicines, all claiming to cure coughs, colds, sneezes, sore throats and chests. Plasters to cure corns, warts and bunions, salts to cure rheumatism, sciatica and arthritis. I wonder now why we are not a race of super humans, with such a battery of cure-alls ranged against the bugs.
We were well supplied with pots, pans, dishes, brushes and bowls, and even paraffin by the pint, by the tinker man. I don't think he was a tinker really, we just used to call out 'here's the tinker man, Mum'. We always knew when he was coming. He had a voice of great power, but unintelligible phraseology. His horse knew every house in the village and always stopped at houses where there would be a lump of sugar for him or perhaps an apple.
There was the shilling a week coalman, the shilling a week clothes-man and the shilling a week doctor's man for those who hadn't the ready cash, was this the start of the never-never system?
People made an early start in those days and so for a penny a week they could be roused by the long pole of the 'knocker-upper' tapping on the window at five o'clock in the morning. One never knew whether it was a man or a woman as the figure was so muffled up in a great-coat, with a wool cap pulled down to meet a massive woolly scarf and thick woollen mittens, that identification was impossible. But this figure played a very important part in the lives of the workers, seemingly never failing in the job, winter or summer. I wonder who knocked the 'knocker-upper' up?
Work was hard, hours were long, especially in the mills and factories - 6 am to 5.30 pm being the norm - but there was cheerfulness and friendliness amongst the villagers to leaven the tiredness and shortages. On summer evenings, neighbours would sit on doorsteps or gather in groups for talk and the passing on of news. There was never a poorly person without help, because everyone knew everybody else's business. Sometimes an embarrassment, but more often than not a decided advantage to the community.
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