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George Spenceley recalls his childhood memories of Middlesbrough and how his large family coped with life in World War II and with the happy and sad events of family life.
The children who lived close to the steel works in Middlesbrough, Cargo Fleet, South Bank and Grangetown often had a grey pallor about their faces due to the polluted, gritty, smoky, sooty atmosphere that always hung over the area, not a very pleasant place to bring up children.
The Brambles Farm Estate in Middlesbrough was built to house the town's increasing population because of the expanding steel and chemical industries. Our house was a three bedroom terraced property with a garden front and back.
A picture of the house George Spenceley recalls his childhood memories of Middlesbrough and how his large family coped with life in World War II and with the happy and sad events of family life.
It housed thirteen of us! The present day generation find it hard to understand the conditions of that time. There was Edna, Emily, Ronnie, Lena and Hilda though she went to live with Aunt Hilda, not a real aunt but Hilda Murtha.
I believe our Hilda went to live with her because of the overcrowding. After Hilda was Lena, Betty then me and Margaret, Olga and Sylvia, plus Mam and Dad whose names were Eleanor and George.
Imagine enough members for a football team all living in a three bed-roomed house. Pauline the eleventh member came along later. You may well wonder where we all slept. As youngsters we slept top to toe, some at the top of the bed and the others at the bottom, quite a sight really.
There was no birth control here. I cannot remember any friction between us although there must have been disagreements from time to time.
Sadness! Yes, especially at the loss of my sister Margaret Rose. Instead of the chatter of youngsters, the older members of the family were talking in whispers.
They had tears in their eyes and Mam picked me up and carried me to the corner of the room and as I recollect, in what looked like a lovely new cradle covered in silk and lace lay Margaret. She lay so quietly.
Mam tried to explain to me that Margaret had gone to be with Jesus. 'Where?' I asked. 'Jesus has taken her to heaven' she said. I couldn't understand. How could she have been taken anywhere when she was still asleep in the corner of the room?
'She's gone to heaven in the sky' Mam cried, 'she's gone to be an angel'.
I didn't see Margaret again. I would look up towards the sky hoping that maybe sometime I would catch a glimpse of her.
George Spenceley, 2002
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