Random musings of a geriatric delinquent – The great depression – first published 11 February 2014

It’s hard to believe that today it will be a whole year since we lost my amazing Father In Law, Albert Keates, affectionately known as Commando Senior. It seems fitting then, that I revisit some of the memoirs he wrote in the last year of his life. Apologies to anyone who has read these stories of his before but, as they were lost when my old blog was hacked, it seems only right that I republish them now in tribute to him. The first instalment tells of his childhood in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a time when poverty meant a completely different thing to our idea of poverty today. Back then there were no TVs,  no mobile phones or computers, in fact none of the electrical gadgets and labour saving devices we all think are essential now. A trip to the loo often meant going to the bottom of the garden. Poverty meant a choice between food and shoes as you will see if you read on…

Written by Albert Keates, AKA Commando Senior

I was born on November 29th 1931 at the peak of the depression. Not the best of times to enter the world. My parents had rented a room, with use of a kitchen, from Aunt Li (Eliza). The house, 5 Northam Street Southampton, was a typical terraced cottage with two rooms on the first floor and one ground floor front room reserved for ‘occasions,’ such as funerals.

The remaining ground floor room was the kitchen, also used as a living, cooking, ironing, eating and everything else space. It had a black leaded coal fired range serving as the only heat source for cooking, water heating and space heating. The remaining ground floor consisted of a small scullery (a room traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes) with a brick built copper (wash boiler) for boiling whites. Water was provided by a tap affixed to the outside wall of the scullery. A stand alone, brick built W.C. was situated at the end of the garden back to back with the one on the neighbouring property. This was known as the dunny or dunnykin in South Hampshire vernacular.

Like most men, Dad was often unemployed for quite long periods. After any entitlement to unemployment benefit (dole money) expired some public financial assistance was available. This was the cheapest option, since the workhouses were unable to accommodate the numbers of destitute individuals concerned. This assistance was conditional on the couple being married and having no disposable possessions to sell.

This latter was the dreaded ‘means test’ whereby only absolute essentials were allowed to be kept. For example, a family of three with a table and four chairs were forced to sell one chair before being considered for assistance. As a married man with one dependent child, me, Dad was allowed £1 – 10 – 0. (£1.50 today) per week to cover everything. We were so poor, on one occasion, Mum sold her shoes in St Mary’s Road for 4d (1.7 pence today) to buy some offal from the butcher and walked home barefoot.

My own recollections date from our rehousing to a modern flat at 9 Utility Flats Canute Road. These have now been upgraded to ‘yuppie’ apartments in Ocean Village and renamed Consulate House. This was a superior, albeit basic, accommodation with a taproom cunningly situated higher than the bathroom so that hot water from the copper could supply the bath by gravity. A further benefit was the flat roof. Dad could scramble onto it very early and have a panoramic view of the ‘old’ Eastern docks to see which vessels had arrived overnight and thus the best opportunity of finding a day’s work.

At about four years of age I tumbled down the concrete stairs and all but lost an ear. A neighbour, Mr Spencer, carried me the two miles or so to the hospital on his shoulders, there being no money available for tram fare. He also brought me back after I had had the ear stitched back on. Although we were all as poor as church mice community spirit was at a level no longer with us, regrettably.

We were unable to stay at Utility Flats, however, as Mum’s health deteriorated. She suffered badly from throat accesses or quinsies, dermatitis, particularly on her hands and feet, and badly ulcerated legs. The latter was the reason for relocating to a house. It was many years before it was realised the dermatitis was an allergic reaction to both rubber and plastics. We moved back again to Northam Street, now to number 55, where my brother, Alan, was born.

Regarding the NHS medical costs. Mum’s troubles and my ear would have incurred horrendous costs which we would have been quite unable to pay. However, Dad was paying two old pence every week, collected through the union, for hospital funds and all costs were allowed.

It seems impossible that a whole year has passed. So many times I’ve seen something and thought, ‘I must tell Albert,’ or ‘I must ask Albert.’ So many times I’ve walked along the Boardwalk, past the spot he and Commando waited for me after work on that last outing, and seen him there smiling in my mind’s eye. He was so frail then, so very ill and far nearer to death than any of us wanted to believe but that smile lit up the world.

Albert was a man who loved to talk. He entertained us with his tales and his knowledge. These short posts are the last of them, the ones that live on…