Memories of Mum and Dad

by Sylvia Kenyon

My Mother was a cotton mill worker at Eckersley Mill and my Dad was a miner at John Pit. Both these jobs were very hard and, when Mum and Dad married, they were still due a few hard knocks. Two
children died of convulsions and two survived, my brother and me.

Not long after I started school, I became ill with whooping cough. Mum had the single bed brought down to the back kitchen. Dad received concessionary coal from the Coal Board so this fire was kept alight most of the time. For three months, my Mum cared for me day and night along with all her other tasks. She must have been exhausted.

hen the cough finally subsided, I was still reluctant to get up because this had brought fits and spasms of coughing so many times. One afternoon, Mum put her best glass bowl on the table and put a few pieces of fresh fruit in it. At six years old, I did not know that some foodstuffs were still scarce and expensive after the war so, although I adored eating fruit, I was normally only able to have one piece at a time. So, there it was, on the table and I got across the room to it - her ploy had worked. Mum had pulled me through and used a bit of child psychology to help me over the last hurdle.

had been back at school about a year after my illness when Dad was badly injured in a roof fall at his pit. He was scrambling over some fallen rocks when a stone fell past his face, scraping his left cheek. He fell and another rock fell on his leg injuring but amazingly not breaking any bones.

He was badly cut and bruised all over and spent several days in hospital.

n his return home, Mum kept his cuts and bruises clean and re-bandaged his leg twice a day. He looked a mess. At story time, this was the first time I had not been allowed to sit on his knee but he promised that when he was all better, I could choose which knee to sit on again.  He may have looked scary but I wasn’t scared of him because underneath all the ugly marks and big purple and blue patches, he was still my Dad.

Now and again, we all had a grand day out. The excitement of going on a steam train to Southport to play on the Peter Pan Playground! Other times we would go to Manchester Zoo to see animals that we had only ever seen in picture books. Then, on our journey back, we would have a sing song and one of our favourites was chanting “money-for-nowt, money-for-nowt” as the metal train wheels clattered
over the rails.

These days out were magical and weren’t they so richly deserved?