I often wonder how Mary Ann passed the days once Joe had gone to work. She was 27 when they moved into their newly built house on Beech Road, facing the Rec. Of course there were all the usual chores, from cleaning and washing to shopping and preparing a midday and evening meal but there must have been quiet times.
Sitting in our dining room and looking out Mary would have had an interrupted view across fields all the way to the Brook and beyond.
In the winter I guess there were the fires to see too. Ours can be a cold house, especially the front rooms which face north. Even in summer with the sun cracking the paving stones there can be a chill about these two rooms.
Now I would like to think that we who followed Scott have always been sympathetic with the original design when doing things to the house. Alas this hasn’t been so. John who bought the house when Mary Ann died in the mid 1970s ripped out the fire places, took down the picture rails and even took out the copper from the cellar. In turn I took out a lovely bathroom cabinet and managed to find a builder who could put picture rails on upside down.
And there are salutary lessons to be learned. In blocking up the fire places, and in one case putting in a gas fire there could have been real damage done to the flues, damage which can be very costly to repair.
But what John took out we have put back. The original fire placess were very high and to my mind took over the rooms or at least this is what I used to think.
Now I have a sneaking wish to reinstate the originals. But with all things you have to be practical. Houses are for living in, they are not museums, which is why I suppose we will never open up the coal cellar again. I rather hanker after the sound of the coal coming into the house. I remember it as a long roll of thunder followed by a few clunks as the last of the sack’s contents were shaken out, and then the slow slithering noise as the coal slowly settled with that faint odour of coal dust which hung in the air despite a closed cellar door.This I fear may be one restoration project too far.
However there is no questioning the fact that I like open fires and all that goes with having them. This starts with cleaning out the ashes from the night before. This I have learned is best done when I first get up at six, allowing the ash to cool by seven so it can be handled and taken out.
Then after everything has been swept and the hearth given a clean it is time to lay and light the fires. Over the years I have come to know that newspaper, kindling and fire lighters make for a good mix, with one of the two types of smokeless fuel added the flames take hold.
We use two types, a fast burning one followed by a much slower fuel which gives off a terrific red heat. Ofcourse Mary Ann would have used coal which usually burns quicker. Even so sometimes the coal needed a little help and in the case of my grandmother this involved a sheet of newspaper placed in front of the open fireplace. Now I have never had the courage just to hold it there and I well remember on occasion the sheet being sucked into the open fire which for a six year old was a terrifying sight.
Now the sooner you have set them going the sooner they will warm the house. In the case of grandmother this was before seven in the morning, and the combination of the open fire in the front room and the range in the kitchen served to heat her little two up two down house.
But there was a price to pay. On a cold still day when the smoke from countless home fires hung in the air with that distinctive sooty smell which seemed to reach into the back of your throat and coated everything in dark grime. I still remember coming home with sooty hands and smears like skid marks all over my clothes from climbing in the upper reaches of some tree. Or the way clothes out on the line could come in flecked with soot. Lois remembers her mum regularly wiping down the washing line in the winter months before hanging out the wet clothes.
But the Clean Air Acts of the 1950s have banished all that and even those awful smogs which we kids mistook for fog are gone. I have to say that there was something quite magical about the way the fog would swirl around you, deadening the noise of everything and wrapping you up in its silent mist.
My father never shared this pleasure having got lost on many occasions and even on one densely foggy day passing our front door. And of course the smog did nothing for the lungs.
So yes, the open fires are nice as my Italian in laws and Tina’s siblings will testify when they come over to stay, but just perhaps Mary Ann hankered for something a little less messy and labour intensive.
Pictures; the open fire places in Scott's house at Christmas 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson & advert from the St Clements 1928 Church Bazzaar Booklet by permission of Ida Bradshaw
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