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SUNDAYS |
Sunday was always a day with a difference, there was little movement of traffic of any kind. I do not suggest that people were more religious but they certainly needed the time to relax after the hard physical efforts of their working week. How people looked forward to midday Saturday, to finish their labours for a day and a half. Off to football matches at St. Georges or on Owen's Field at Oakengates.
Sunday morning meant putting on your best clothes - that is if you had any. The general attire of us children was a 'Gansey' jersey, the modern pullover, a white celluloid collar, two different types of trousers, one buttoned just below the knee, held up, of course, by a pair of braces, then long stockings pulled up above the knee but under our buttoned trouser legs. The stockings were held up by garters, usually a piece of string, elastic or some sort of material. How these garters cut into the back of your knees and sometimes made them quite sore. My best suit was a 'sailor suit' which was the fashion. The trousers did not button at the knee as they were only knee-length (like a pair of shorts), and there was a small jacket with a big sailor collar which hung down your back for quite a way and fitted over the lapels of your coat. The little girls wore an assortment of long dresses and pinafores. Their hair styles varied, some shoulder length, some in long plaits and quite a few short haired styles among them, which suggested that they had been the victim of head-lice. Saturday night was quite an event in my home, when my sisters had their hair washed, sometimes with paraffin added to the water or maybe 'lysol', to keep the vermin at bay. The girls shoes were sometimes laced up and sometimes button-up. To fasten the button-up type one had to use a button hook, a metal device which enabled you to pull the button through the corresponding hole. Colours were only black or brown.
Stockings were mainly black, knitted, pulled over the knee, but on Sundays some would wear white socks. The boys shoes or boots had hob nails, also sparables, in their soles to make them wear longer and would be passed down from one member of the family to another. I often had to wear a pair belonging to one of my sisters. Getting father's white starched collar and shirt front ready for Sunday morning was the pride of so many women. NO matter what type of shirt was worn underneath, the collar to which was attached the shirt- front would reach almost to the waist and when the jacket of the suit was worn it would look like a full white shirt. Hard hats (bowlers) or silk toppers, always black, were normally worn, but at other times, caps of varied shapes were worn.
The women's dresses were long and flowing, underneath these one would wear corset, also a hurden apron, laced up at the back. Talking about their figures and their corsets was the main topic of conversation. Hats were another talking point. Some ladies wore hats with wide brims, pulled well down onto their head and then fastened with hat pins (long steel pins) through the hat and into the hair underneath. Ladies hair styles varied, some wore it brushed severely back and then wound into a round 'bob' on the top of the head. I can't recall any ladies hairdressers but barber's shops were numerous - usually a striped pole fitted over the doorway indicated the place where men went for a shave, an open hollow-ground razor (cut- throat) being used. Many men had their own particular mug which was kept on the wall of the shop, in which the barber mixed or rather made the lather from a piece of soap. I was fascinated by this performance. Sometimes a young boy of about 12 to 14 years would be employed as 'lather boy'. The barber would put on the lather with a brush and the boy would rub it in the beard. Then the barber would attend to another man, shaving him with great dexterity. Trimming the moustache was also part of the service, perhaps reluctantly, as with a licking, sucking motion they would drain the overgrowth of its adhesions. Hair cutting was mainly done with scissors and a comb. The gossip in the shop, which I didn't understand, was mainly about the ponies who worked down the pits and some of the antics these small animals got up to. In the winter some miners hardly saw daylight, they went to work in the dark and returned home again in the dark.
Many people attended the local chapels and churches. I have seen crowds of men coming out of the 'Brotherhood', held in what is now the baby clinic in Stafford Road. This was on a Sunday morning and later all the public houses would be crowded. Sunday School was a must for most children, but not for me. I was bullied being small and having a name like Moses. I would NOT go, calling me names was just too much! So with other lads I went off to play various games.
These included hide and seek. This proved to be a fatal game on one Sunday afternoon. We boys were always told not to play under the trucks. These were the wagons, some empty, others with coal or steel in them, which were left in the wharves or different parts of the railway. To hide under one of these meant that you took a lot of finding. There would be as many as a dozen playing and while in itself this game was quite innocent, some of the older and more adventurous boys among us would lift the brakes off the trucks in order to make them move. On this particular afternoon, one little chap of my age, about 8 years old, was getting between the two buffers at the end of the trucks when the trucks moved and his head was crushed to pulp. I can still see his friends covering his body and his feet adorned by his sister's lace-up shoes, protruding onto the railway lines.