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Jimmy Rich or ‘Our Jim’, as he was affectionately known by his family, was proud of his home and even more proud of his wife Ethel, who was expecting their first child. Although times were hard Jim and Ethel considered that they were lucky. Unlike many of their contemporaries, who lived in lodgings, they had managed to rent a house and Jim was employed in a reserved occupation at the munition factory at Radway Green and therefore did not have to go away to war.

The house was 29 Edmund Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent and, from Jim’s point of view, was convenient because it was just ‘down the road from his mothers’. This was not always a situation that pleased Ethel as he always called at his mothers on his way home from work and, despite having a home of their own, Jim would refer to his mother’s house which was number 43 as ‘Up ��ѿ��ý’. Number 43 was the ‘big’ house at the top of the road. Downstairs it had a large parlour, living room, kitchen, bathroom and coal store which had once been a stable. Upstairs were three good size bedrooms and a hayloft above the former stable. At the top of the yard was a pair of double gates, which had once allowed access for a horse and cart. The house also had a cellar to which access was gained from the living room. This was lime washed regularly, kept very clean and usually full of jars of preserved fruit. During the war years it was a safe haven, shared with neighbours, during air raids.

When Jim & Ethel had moved into their ‘two up two down’ house it had a small parlour, a living room known as the kitchen, and a tap outside the back door. In common with number 43 it also had a cellar which was kept scrupulously clean and was used whenever there was an air raid warning. Jim built a wooden structure over the tap and installed a sink and a gas cooker. The dolly tub, posser, and free standing mangle were also kept in this area. On washday the tub would be filled with hot water, which would have been boiled in pans on the cooker. Washing soap would be grated into the water and the ‘posser’, a ‘modern’ device, with a hollow copper base on a stick like a brush tail, would be used to pound the dirt out of the clothes or other items in the tub. The mangle would be used outside in the yard

Very occasionally, some large items to wash might be taken to number 43 where they had a ‘washing machine’. This was nothing like the washing machines that we have today. It had an attached electric driven mangle, and would be filled ‘automatically’ (a tap near the bottom) from the gas heated copper cylinder that was housed on a ledge at one end of the bath, a gas burner being lit under the cylinder with a long spill. The family was very proud of these up to date amenities, which were rare in that neighbourhood of small terraced houses. Sometimes, if a neighbour had an important appointment such as a job interview, they would ask if they could use the bath at 43!

Resident at 43 were Jim’s mother, the widowed Mrs Emily Richardson, her son Albert and her sister Miss Louisa Alcock. Louisa, a volunteer nurse with the St. John Ambulance Brigade, was very well known as she would provide first aid for all sorts of catastrophes and was called on to do so on a very regular basis. She was later to be honoured as a ‘Serving Sister’ and the first ever non-professional ‘Serving Officer’ of the St. John Ambulance.

The houses in Edmund Street had a front entrance on the street and a back entrance in the cobbled ‘Lady’s Walk’ which was parallel to Edmund Street. The only property with an address in Lady’s Walk was number 1, a very tiny cottage that shared the back yard of number 29. Mrs. Hazeldine, an elderly widow, occupied this. Mrs Hazeldine and Mrs Lawton the neighbour from no 31 would share the cellar whenever sirens warned of an air raid.

In October 1940 Ethel’s baby was due. The baby was to be born at home with a midwife in attendance, which was usual in those days. Ethel went into labour during an air raid and Jim was despatched to fetch the midwife. “Not in the cellar” said Ethel, when the baby’s birth was imminent, “My baby will be born in a proper bed in the parlour”. And that, I am told, was where I arrived on the 10th of October.

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