Margaret Yip in the 1970s
by Margaret Yip
It is 1974. Debts caught up with Martin up once again. We left Cardiff and returned to Barrow-in-Furness, where Martin found a job in a new paper factory.
We rented one room in the centre of Barrow from the lady who owned the house. She lived downstairs. We lived upstairs alongside Irish builders who rented the other rooms. They were all kind, hardworking men who brought my children sweets on payday. One day, I was in the kitchen when one of the workers was making stew. l was surprised when I saw him put all the vegetables into the pot without peeling any of them, not even the onions! When l mentioned this to Martin, who was a good cook, he said: “The goodness and flavour of vegetables is in the skin.”.
I would help the landlady of the boarding house every morning by cleaning the rooms. The washing was done daily. There was no washing machine or hoover. We did everything by hand. In the afternoons l took the two younger children to the park, or around the shops, before collecting the older ones from school.
After a few months, the owner of the house stopped me in the hall. She said: “I have sold this house, l have told the other lodgers. You have a week to find somewhere else”. Just like that! We would be homeless in a week if we couldn’t find somewhere else. People were not keen on renting furnished property to someone with four children. But I needn’t have worried. We quickly managed to find a one-bedroom flat. It was on the second floor of a terraced house, again, just a five-minute walk from the centre.
Although Martin’s wages improved with his new job, we were still no better off. He continued gambling: in local pubs, in clubs and at the bookies. Martin’s pub mates and fellow gamblers, included Gareth and David Hughes, brothers of the famous footballer Emlyn Hughes. To try to make up for this Martin worked twelve-hour shifts and he was rarely at home.
When l could find someone to babysit the younger children, I took temporary jobs in hotels cleaning, or in the stillroom: a room connected with the kitchen where liqueurs, preserves, and cakes are kept and the tea and coffee is prepared. This paid the bills and kept us going.
Every Boxing Day we would invite friends and neighbours without families of their own to join us at our house for a meal; a Chinese banquet. We called it a banquet. We organised this banquet for ourselves and our guests even though we didn’t have enough chairs or a big enough table. We placed the dishes on a tablecloth which we spread across the living room floor and all sat on the floor around it on the carpet.
We cooked the Chinese way; by cutting chicken, pork and beef into cubes. We bought whole mackerels, herrings and cod and big bags of prawns. We prepared lots of vegetables, noodles and rice. We couldn’t feed the 5,000 but we fed the twenty people invited to join us. Sometimes there were more than twenty. They all declared afterwards that the food “was fit for a king.”.
One Boxing Day, Gareth even brought his brother Emlyn Hughes. The kids were excited, and a lady l worked with who was present was starry-eyed. She couldn’t believe it was really him. Martin and Gareth stayed friends right up until Gareth’s death.
The main dish on boxing day was Chinese roast duck. We would wash the duck and dry it out and then cover the duck in a black bean sauce. Martin would hang it from a wire clothes hanger from the top shelf in the hot oven. The duck was roasted evenly till the skin was crispy. Then the bird was sliced up and and its meat placed on a bed of brassica leaves. We served it with thin pancakes.
Money was always a problem, but food never was. Like my mum, I could make food go a long way. My friends used to say. “Margaret, you can make soup from grass.”. I couldn’t of course, but a bag of lentils, split peas and a ham shank would feed us all for days. My son David helped me with the cooking and with the vegetable gardening. He became a commis chef at just 15, then worked his way up through the ranks to become a head chef and executive chef. Then he became the manager. My daughter, Linda, helped with the cooking and does so till this day. She bakes all her own bread. She bakes cakes, and her Christmas cakes are especially good. She is an all round good cook .
Our house was ordered. I was the sergeant major. Always helping me with my chores was Suzanne, and she would help me decorate, paint and clean when from when she was young. Martin was the fixer and mender, so good with his hands. Diane, the youngest, was spoiled by all of us. We let her off without having to do housework. But today she can do it all: she decorates, gardens, cooks and even does some carpentry.
My last child was born in 1974. I decided on a hospital birth because it had been a difficult home birth with my son three years earlier. Over the last few years maternity hospitals had changed. I was surprised when I went for my antenatal appointments. They gave me a cubicle to undress all by myself. Instead of just examining me, the doctors now asked if I wouldn’t mind being examined. And fathers were allowed into the delivery room – if you wanted them there.
I gave birth to a girl, 7lb 4ozs and named her Diane. With Christmas around the corner, with four older children and a new baby, I did my best to buy the toys they asked for. For me, a child in the 1950s with eight siblings, Christmas was about church services, visits to neighbours and relatives and making sure people who lived alone had somewhere to eat their Christmas Dinner. lf I asked for a gift – a Cinderella watch perhaps, or an annual – my father would say to us all.
“Over Christmas, you will receive your stocking. There will be a warm fire burning in the grate. There will be decorations, a Christmas tree and plenty to eat . We will have lots of visits from friends and family. This is all we need. And you will count your blessings for it because many will have nothing.”
The stocking, or pillowcase, contained fruit, nuts, liquorice, sweets, and new pyjamas. Our Christmas tree was made from barrel hoops bought for pennies from the greengrocer. They were placed one inside the other, decorated, and then hung from the ceiling. Christmas time for us was busy, colourful and full of aromas. I can still smell the rum butter my mum made. and the smell of the goose we had all plucked together when it was roasted in the oven.
Today, with the exception of Diane, my children are all in their fifties. Most have their own children and some even have grandchildren. They all prefer a traditional, family Christmas with lots of food, music, games, films and laughter, and we remember our Boxing day banquets.
1974, 1975 and 1976 were fairly quiet years. Martin stayed at the paper factory working his twelve hour shifts. The children loved their school, St George’s. Especially David and Martin who were placed in the same school year even though they were one year apart in age . This was made possible when I told the headmistress how upset David was that Martin had started school without him. She said “Bring David in tomorrow. He is four now. There is no need for them to be separated. He can come too”
St George’s head mistress Ms. Marshall and her teachers ran such a great school. My children enjoyed all the extra advantages and activities the school offered: they offered music lessons on a variety of instruments, they had chess clubs, drama clubs, gymnastic clubs and the chance to play on different sports teams. My daughter Diane won the school cup for the best all rounder in her last year as a junior. She went on to senior school and along with her team won the National Rounders Competition. Diane has worked as a civil servant for 30 years .
All my children respected their teachers and were grateful for all they were taught. This has helped them achieve what they have all achieved today. My own school life was less successful because of my own stupidity and misplaced pride. I needed glasses, but my parents could only afford the round wire NHS ones. I used to hide them on the way to school and retrieve them on the way home: everything on the board was lost to me, though it did make me improve my memory skills. Still, I have always read. I do read. I do keep informed.
My late dad had a routine of reading newspapers out loud to my mother as she baked, washed and cleaned. I can hear him now.
“Listen to this Bel. Look what they are doing now.”.
People who don’t inform themselves vote for their ilk . They remain ignorant of all that is happening. But simply because l like to read, I am in despair. Every day I am challenged to change and adapt my opinions and my beliefs.
The lies! The Israel – Palestine conflict is also the history of America and Australia, of the colonies and the commonwealth, isn’t it? Of native people having their homelands stolen, ransacked and destroyed, the people murdered by their colonisers and oppressors. Millions are caused to roam the earth looking for a safe haven which is denied them by the same people who caused their woes. Will things ever change ?
Recently, my eldest son, Martin, who is a train driver was just about to enter the driver’s cab of his train when he recognised one of the passengers; his junior school teacher Mr Betney. He walked along the carriage and introduced himself. Mr. Bently was amazed and asked Martin
“How on earth did you recognise me?”.
My son replied
“You still have the same twinkle in your eye.”.
This made his teacher laugh, and he said that seeing Martin after all these years had made his day.
But little did l know in 1977 that the children’s school attendance would end abruptly for a while. Martin’s gambling habits had caught up with us again . Over eleven years we had had to move house fourteen times. We were homeless once again.
Margaret Yip is a mother of 5, grandmother of 7 and great grandmother of 2. She lives in a small village in Cumbria. She is for social and economic justice, social housing and the NHS and she opposes all forms of prejudice and hatred.
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