St Michael’s Church, Rampside, photo Rampside Church
by Margaret Yip
Martin came in late one Saturday night in early summer, 1977. Viv and I had sat up until nearly 1 a.m. to let him in through the lounge window of the hostel.
“I’ve found a job in Bristol,” he said. As soon as we went upstairs, he continued, “I leave on Monday. I’ll phone here Monday night to let you know I’ve arrived and give you the address.”
The following Tuesday, the housing officer arrived at the hostel in the afternoon and asked me why he had gone.
“He’s fed up living in the hostel, plus this new job pays a bit better,” I replied.
“Will he come back if we give you the keys to a house?” he asked.
“Probably,” I said, “but I wouldn’t be able to leave Viv and her little boy here. She was here before me and would find it hard to be on her own again—we’ve become like family.”
“OK,” he said, “I’m sure we can manage that.”
The following Monday, Viv and I were given keys to look at both houses. Viv’s was a two-bedroom with a sitting room, kitchen, and bathroom. Mine was three-bedroom, with a sitting room, lounge, kitchen, and bathroom. Both had large gardens, about 15 minutes’ walk apart. Mine was two minutes from Barrow Park and five minutes from the town centre. I was told the previous tenant of my house had worked at Vickers Shipyard (now BAE), hence the dingy dark green woodwork in every room. Viv’s house was near Roose Village, renowned for St. Michael’s Church—a Grade I listed building from the 1100s with fine architecture and stained glass. There was also a hospital nearby, previously Barrow’s poorhouse (built 1908–1993), demolished later for a housing estate.
Viv and I spent much time walking, especially during school holidays. Neither of us could drive, and we rarely took the bus. We’d explore the Abbey Monastery grounds, a half-hour walk from our house. The Abbey, built in the early 1100s, has been a ruin since Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries in the 1500s. The Norman monks ran a profitable operation. Across the lane lies a terraced grass amphitheatre—steep and large—where the kids raced up and down or kicked balls onto the highest level. Nearby today is the Abbey House Hotel, completed in 1914 as accommodation for Vickers Shipyard workers. It was sold by Barrow Council in 1984 and renovated into a four-star hotel with 14 acres of gardens.
Since Viv and I had been in the hostel, we had no furniture. I owned pots, pans, dishes, and cutlery—nothing more. The housing officer wanted us to move in before Friday and gave me a charity contact for furniture. On Friday, they delivered two green fireside chairs with wooden arms and a bright yellow five-seater A-plan sofa (where my children slept for two weeks). Martin and I slept in the chairs. The kitchen was bare and dingy—no cooker, washer, fridge, or kettle. Back to cooking on the fire. Days were spent scrubbing floorboards with Ajax and bleach, scouring pantry shelves, cleaning windows, and tidying the garden. Viv, a single mum, fared slightly better with a small grant for essentials.
First, the essentials we needed were many; we had nothing coming straight from the hostel. Martin always worked, so no state help was available. The first thing we bought was an electric cooker. Credit wasn’t available—so things had to be saved for, or Martin had to have a win on the horses.
There was a good auction room in Barrow where second-hand beds, sofas, tables, and chairs could be bought cheaply on a weekly basis, run by the Woods family—a brother and two sisters. Bedding, curtains, lamps, pictures, ornaments, electrical too. Not many people had curtain poles or pelmets, which were wooden frames that covered the curtain tops. Most curtains were hung by a stretchy wire covered in plastic—like electric cable, but it stretched to the width of the window.
Barrow in the 1970s had jumble sales on Thursdays—Thursdays were the local payday. Viv and I scavenged for bargains with the kids. These sales have since given way to charity shops.
Most houses had coal fires. Not only was coal expensive, but the fire would only be in the main room. The rest of the house would freeze in winter. Electric fires were available, but not many had them. Coal fires had to be maintained. The dead ash was cleaned out every morning; the tiled surroundings scrubbed before laying the grate with old newspapers, firelighters—if you could afford them—or bits of stick (if you couldn’t). You’d lay a few pieces of coal on top of the sticks, light the paper, then hold another sheet of newspaper across the grate opening to draw a draft, helping the flames take hold. It was time-consuming.
Gradually, the house was painted, furnished, and curtained. Coal fires and a boiler heated water—no central heating. Winter nights meant huddling in the sitting room; other rooms froze. I would make it stretch if I could afford a sack of logs. Summer money went on picnics.
The chimney, too, had to be maintained. A sweep would come yearly with his extending brushes, sweeping the inside until we could see the brushes pop out of the chimney pots. Even though he taped a sack over the grate front, fine soot would escape into the room—another long day of cleaning. Owning a Hoover was a dream for many in the Seventies; most still used brushes.
I did most of my cleaning on my hands and knees, as my mother had done.
We have a terrible history when it comes to chimney sweeps. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, chimneys had to be swept to prevent fires. Boys as young as four were used as sweeps; their destitute families were paid a small sum, or they were taken from orphanages or streets. Off they’d go to climb chimneys, scraping tar with metal blades. These children suffered awful diseases: deformed ankles, lung cancer, and the horrendous “chimney sweep cancer” of the scrotum—the first industrial disease. Some died stuck in chimneys.
They slept in freezing cellars, covered in filthy soot sacks, never bathed, and were poorly fed. Their masters—the head sweeps—would light fires below if the boys took too long, burning their feet to hurry them. Few survived past their twenties. This system lasted into Victorian times, when extending brushes replaced children. I can’t remember the cost of a sweep in the 1970s, but today it’s between £125–£400.
The day Martin returned from Bristol, he contacted Bowater Scott (his former employer) and restarted work the following Monday. Relief! Weekly wages in the 1970s meant we could buy essentials. Martin worked overtime often. We’d agreed he’d give me £40 weekly without fail, covering rent, bills, food, clothes, and sundries. Easter, Christmas, birthdays, and high days were stressful unless Martin had a betting win. If he won, I shared it with Viv—we’d shop or eat out. Bulk food (rice, potatoes, eggs, spices) came cheap through Martin’s old restaurant supplier.
Bowater Scott was a huge paper factory that made toilet rolls, and kitchen towels. The workers in the Eighties were paid weekly, which was helpful. We were not the only family in the Eighties that lived with bare bedroom floorboards or lino in the kitchen; fitted carpets were a luxury for many families. Wages in the factories and shipyards in the Seventies hadn’t reached the dizzy heights of today.
When we first moved to Barrow-in-Furness in 1966, and Martin was head waiter at the Sunlight Chinese Restaurant, a three-course lunch with tea or coffee was FIVE SHILLINGS (25 pence in today’s money). You can’t even buy a small chocolate bar for 25p today. I can’t remember when employers changed weekly wages to a monthly pay system, but it was a nightmare, as it was paid in arrears. Meaning—your last week’s wage had to last a month. Did they care? Obviously not, because the owners have no concept of living on a shoestring!
Our house was on Langdale Grove, part of the Four Groves. Each street was named after Lake in the Lake District. Neighbourhood kids played together—street games, fairs, beach walks, or we went on eight-mile treks to Ulverston’s Chippy Bank and and walked the eight miles back. The Chippy is still thriving today.
By summer 1977, we’d cleared the back garden for vegetables: marrows, peas, potatoes, lettuce, and spring onions. David helped; the others hone their gardening skills.
By the late 1970s/early 1980s, Vietnamese refugees arrived in the UK. Three families settled on our estate—one on our grove, two nearby. The family on our grove spoke English and shared their harrowing escape. A mother described aborting a child mid-journey. A teen in the next grove was harshly punished by his father, leading to a court fine. Years later, all families moved to the Midlands for mechanic jobs. the Vietnamese boy’s beating (reported in the Evening Mail) was for disobeying his father—no reason was given.
Seventies—everything was scrubbed at the sink. Whites were boiled in a pan. Gradually, my eldest daughters, Suzanne and Linda, took over chores: washing floors, making beds, learning to cook just by watching their dad and me. As my children grew older, Martin switched jobs again, cycling 16 miles daily to a Chinese takeaway in the next village (60+ hours a week, one day off).
When Martin wasn’t home to cook, I cooked—or Linda did. Recipes of Martin’s, or filling meals like beef stews, meat-and-potato pies, or toad-in-the-hole (fat pork sausages in Yorkshire pudding). We were lucky—our children loved to eat and never turned up their noses.
Things became easier as the children grew. Life wasn’t all drudgery. In school holidays, Viv and I found time for fun: rounders in the park, walks to Ulverston’s Chippy Bank. We’d feast on fish, chips, and mushy peas, then walk home. The fire hadn’t heated the bathwater, so we boiled kettles. Each child sat on the draining board for a sink bath—scrubbed, shampooed, and doused with a bucket.
High days and holidays were stressful—finding money for treats. The Chinese traditionally celebrate with feasts: dim sum, roast duck, stir-fried choi sum, and red gift envelopes of money. On rare Saturdays, we’d lunch at Barrow’s Cavalier Café: steak-and-kidney pie for me, sausages for the kids, liver for Martin, jam suet pudding for all. The bill? Less than £20 for seven. We missed it when the owner retired.
One Christmas, Martin won the pools and so Viv and I shopped stress-free. He won £2,000! We always hosted Boxing Day feasts—a big betting day for horses and football.
Barrow-in-Furness, a small Lake District town, relied on its shipyard, now BAE’s Trident submarine site. Like many northern industrial towns, its centre has crumbled and it needs to reclaim its wealth and charm.
The 1980s arrived. Neighbours came and went. Then came Thatcher—and things were about to worsen.
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Margaret Yip is a mother of five, grandmother of seven and great grandmother of two. 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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