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Bicycles, an occasional motorbike and the horses and carts were the only traffic in our small street, wrote Kath O'Sullivan (nee Margerison), who was brought up in Thornbury, a suburb of Bradford, W Yorkshire, before the war. The carts belonged to the greengrocer, coalman, and milkman.
A carriage and horse was used by the Rington's Tea man. In summer an Italian ice-cream vendor brought his donkey and cart, while in winter the same fellow sold hot peas and pies, and sometimes roast chestnuts.
Less frequently we had visits from the rag and bone man. He would give you a gift in exchange for an armful of old clothes or two or three jam jars. Sometimes he gave away goldfish. Another occasional visitor was the knife and scissor man who pushed a little grinding machine. Women would bring out their knives and scissors for him to sharpen.
There were dark-skinned men who carried suitcases, which held ties, silk handkerchiefs and trinkets. These were Lascars, ex-seamen from Goa on the Indian sub continent, who made a living peddling goods.
Sometimes Gypsies came selling clothes pegs made by their men folk. For sixpence a gipsy woman would read your palm. Mum was always kind to them. She would offer them a cup of tea on the doorstep or willingly agree to fill their kettles with water.
This infuriated Dad. He objected to them asking for water. He said they did not pay rates like honest folk. He said that they knew Mum was a soft touch. He was convinced that they had marked the house in some way to show their mates that she would help them. This didn't make any difference to Mum; she still helped them and admired their babies they carried inside their shawls.
The milkman brought a small churn of milk to the door and measured a pint or a gill into the jug we offered him. He also sold cream. The coal man heaved the heavy sacks of coal off his cart and onto his back before staggering up the pathway bent double under the weight. When he reached the coal shed behind the house he heaved the coal out of the sack onto the shed floor.
When I grew older I was often asked to count how many sacks he delivered. Some coal men short-changed their customers if they thought they could get away with it.
In autumn we had visits from the Spanish onion sellers, Basques from Spain, who brought their onions over to England to sell. They rode bicycles with the onions, woven into long ropes by their stringy tops, draped over the handlebars.
Sometimes a 'street singer', who was probably unemployed and trying to earn a few pence, would visit us. If the neighborhood women liked his voice and had a halfpenny to spare they would drop it in his hat.
Occasionally a street singer appeared. These were usually unemployed people trying to scratch a living with their songs. If they were good the women would find a half penny to put in their cap. If they were dreadful someone would offer them a penny to sing in the next street.
The other entertainer was the 'Tinglairy man'. He had a large barrel organ, which he pushed along on two wheels. Sometimes this organ grinder had a monkey, which sat on top of the organ. It would run around with a metal cup collecting coins at the end of the performance.
Kath now lives in New Zealand.
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