Archie Greenshields shares with us this fascinating extract from his book, written in memory of his parents, about his beloved, wonderful Granny:

Granny's house was older, by far, than the one our family lived in and was only a short distance away, across the street and at the bottom of a similar Court, of which there were several in Tower Street. In actual fact I was born in Granny's house in 1920 and lived under her roof for nearly three years. Her cottage was quite simple, having two rooms downstairs, and two bedrooms above.

It had a stone-flagged scullery with a butler sink and cold tap, a copper with a boiler underneath, and immediately you entered, you felt its coolness. By the side of the doorway into the living rooms, stood a large stoneware pot with a lid where Granny kept her bread.

Her lavatory was outside in a corner, away from the path which lead to the two doors to her cottage, and had a wooden seat, so common in old conveniences. They were more comfortable than the modern designs of today. I remember a young nephew of mine remarking, after using one in another old house I lived in, 'I do like your toilet, it's so comfy!'

Of course, in the 1920's she had none of the luxuries given to us today, for there was no electricity connected to any of the houses found in the Tower Street Courts, neither was there mains gas. However, a lucky few did have gas lighting, but Granny used paraffin lamps and candlelight, as we did also in the house Mother and Father eventually found.

All Granny's cooking was carried out on a coal burning kitchen range. One can imagine the poor coalman struggling with a sack on his back, bending low in the Court-way arches, through the terraced houses to deliver coal to his customers at the end of the passageways.

Granny did not read books often, but did enjoy the ladies weekly's that were very popular, one in particular being 'The Red Letter'. When I was old enough to run errands, I collected it for her and when read, she would pass it on to my mother.

There were one or two Victorian editions that I was given to look at on visits after we had our own home. They contained here and there little homilies, and one I remember in particular, which I did not understand fully at the time, was that 'an ounce of help is worth a pound of pity'. I believe they were bound copies of a children's periodical of the time called 'Chatterbox', which can still be found in antique book shops.

Granny was a kind and wonderful person, full of love for children. If any of us fell ill, she was quick with advice to get us well again, with old wives cures and apparently was well known for her kill or cure remedies. To name a few would raise many of today's eyebrows and give good cause for shrieks of horror to suggest using them today.

Most people of my generation must have heard that if suffering toes were immersed in the contents of a used chamber pot, it would ease the pain of winter chilblains. Or how about, easing a sore throat by wrapping a well worn woollen sock round one's neck, and wearing it in bed. Both of these were on Granny's list.

However, I cringed when I learned that she suggested to Mother's sister-in-law, that if she soaked my young cousin's foreskin in a cup of very hot water, it would resolve the swelling of an infection he was suffering from.

She also suggested that drinking an infusion by boiling a dead mouse could cure persistent bed-wetting. I can imagine that quite the reverse might happen if administered.

An even stranger one was when she encouraged us to collect the oozing tar from the sides of the roads, especially if they had been recently tarred and chipped. With what was collected, she made it softer still and with a dusting of flour, rolled it into little balls and, by shaking these round and round in her flour sieve, she created little pills. Believe it or not, she was convinced these would cure the female ills that were whispered about if we were present.

She insisted that Mother put all of us children to sleep in one bed, top to toe, should an unlucky child catch measles, mumps, or chicken pox. In that way childish illnesses such as those mentioned could be got over all at once, and I suppose it made sense to a busy mother.

Granny was a great one for sewing and mending and on more than one occasion I was held over her knees to have a hole in my short trousers mended whilst they were 'in situ'. These were possibly trousers that she had made, for my mother was no expert in needlework herself. Granny's disappointment must have been great to learn that her daughter had no aptitude with a needle, and so Father had learned to turn up or adjust the length of any of his newly acquired trousers.

I often accompanied Granny to a weekly matinee at the pictures, and whichever cinema we visited, she hardly ever neglected to inform the cashier in her kiosk, 'This is my grandson, you know'.

At the Picturedrome in South Street, I was intrigued with the painted stars on it's ceiling that were lit up before the film started, and would wait for them to go out when it did. I watched too, with amazement, an early advertisement shown on the screen describing instruments you could buy at Storey's Music Shop, then near The Cross in North Street. The figure of a man blew an instrument, similar to a hunting horn, to make the title of the shop appear in letters from it.

Sadly, like all grandmothers have to, she became frail and eventually died in 1952, but she has a special place in my heart as, no doubt, other people have for their grandmothers too.

Archie Greenshields with his sister Winifred and brothers Kenneth and Thomas.