5. THE BLACK HUTS

One of the Huts, photo Margaret Yip

by Margaret Yip

It is 1977, my children are eleven, ten, seven, six, and three. Elvis has died. His music has accompanied my life since the 50’s, especially his gospel records. My husband Martin arrives home from work at 2.30 pm one day early in 1977 and tells me to pack everything up.

We will be moving tomorrow to  another place!

l ask him, “Where?”

He says “You will see when you get there. The van will be here at 2.30pm tomorrow, so be ready”. 

The van arrives the next day, the driver is Allan. l recognise him. He has a shop in the town, plus a light removal business. We pack the van, and as we set off Allan asks. Martin

“Where to”?

I am in the back with the children, but l hear Allan say: “Why are you going there, Martin? You can’t take your family to live way out there with no services”.  Martin doesn’t reply.                                 

We drive 3 miles to the outskirts of Barrow, up Park Road past the paper factory and turn left down a narrow lane that leads to the cellophane factory, with a social club on the righthand side. The van keeps going onto the beach.

After a mile or so we reach what the locals refer to as The Black Huts.  These huts were used to guard the beaches during the war. Local people took possession of them and became the legal owners. 

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Martin has rented one of the huts – from one of his drinking mates. The rent was £11 per week. The Black Hut had one bedroom, one living room and one kitchen. There was no heating, no running   water, no bathroom, no toilet and no electricity. . . just oil lamps.

The kitchen had a Calor gas cooker, the living room had an open fire. Outside was a decrepit lean to, with a bucket covered by a short plank; our new toilet. The first-time l emptied it, the tide was coming in. As I threw the contents of the bucket into the sea the wind returned the contents – all over me.  Live and learn!

There was one double bed in the one bedroom, all the children topped and tailed in that. Martin and l had a chair each in the living room and we slept in those.           

                              

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Every day the children and l would walk for miles, trudging over the sand dunes to the social club, for fresh water. We used brush shanks which rested on our shoulders, to hold the water containers, plus, any shopping we had bought. Barrow town centre was a good long walk – maybe 3 miles away – to buy shopping.                                                           

Neither Martin nor l could drive, so, the children couldn’t attend school. Instead, when their dad wasn’t working, he took them searching amongst the rocks for covens, as we called them, winkles on the beach. They would be gone for hours, when they returned with buckets of the small shells the little sea snails were boiled. When ready, the children would sit for ages with needles pulling out the winkles, and dipping them in a sauce before eating them. All the children enjoyed them.                                                                        

The spring tides arrived

They were wild. My nerves were shredded. I rarely slept listening to the waves smashing up towards the hut, dreading the though of my family being washed into the sea. The children however, have great memories of living there. They loved the adventures they had playing on the sand dunes. The late nights sitting in front of a drift wood fire; drift wood that they themselves had gathered and lit.  They loved the popping sound of the oil lamps. They would read, draw, sing, or play cards.

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They had no school in the mornings just more adventures to look forward to.  They built camps, or had jumping competitions off the dunes, or went on picnics and ate hot dogs. Then in they would come back home as the sun started to disappear to be bathed in the tin tub. We filled the oil lamps fitted new mantles and settled down in the lamp light and drank mugs of cocoa in front of the fire

One day their dad turned up with a live chicken. It strutted about, pecking around for food. It chased the children; the children chased the chicken.           

A few weeks. Later on, was Martin’s Day off – which was always a Tuesday. He decided it was time to cook the chicken. So, Martin, in his white shirt and bow tie and tailored black trousers, sprinted up and down the sand dunes in his flip flops, along the beach and through the wild grasses, with all the children running behind him chasing the chicken. 

He had to chase the chicken for more than an hour. At last it was caught, he carried it back to the hut and killed it. He dispatched it before the kids came puffing back to the hut along the beach. He plucked it, cleaned it and cooked it with a large watercress in a brandy stock, over the open fire. He called it chicken medicine. None of the children would eat it, having seen it full of life just hours before. Martin devoured every scrap and drank all the soup.

We had been here a few months now. This adventure couldn’t continue. The children were missing a lot of school. A new Labour government came into power in 1977. The housing act of that year said that local authorities had to house homeless families.

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I made an appointment at the local housing office and saw the manager, a lovely man called Mr Stanley. He said he would visit the beach hut the following Friday. He arrived in the afternoon. It was sunny but breezy. He said:

“Well this is paradise your children have their own adventure island. l would love to bring my camping gear and fish here for a fortnight. It’s amazing”.

He looked at my surprised face and laughed.

“I don’t suppose it’s a picnic for you though and the children need to get back into school. So come into Barrow on Monday we will house you in the new hostel, until a house is available.” He looked around again and said.

“There is a high tide tonight, if it gets rough make for that hill over there, you will be safe there. See you all Monday” he shouted, as he walked off along the sand waving and laughing.

No sleep for me again that night.

Monday came and we all arrived at the new hostel laden down with all our belongings. The hostel had been renovated from an old pub hotel. We were shown the room which would all share. We were shown the big kitchen, lounge, dining room and bathrooms which all the residents shared. The warden was lovely and welcomed us with tea and biscuits. A new challenge began. We were living together with a group of families we had never met before.  

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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.