Year One Blog

Dear 1JE.

Here are the answers to your questions.  I hope you enjoy reading them, and that you have answers from lots of other people about their childhoods. My own childhood was very, very happy. Although we didn’t have much money we loved each other and my parents looked after my sister and brother and me very, very well and we had lots of fun. Your teacher Miss Etchells is my eldest grandchild and I love her to bits.  I think you will enjoy being in her class, especially if you try hard with your lessons and behave yourselves!!

I’m thinking of you all, love from Miss Etchells’ Grandma.

  1. What toys did you play with? My sister and I had dolls that we loved.  My mother and Grandma used to knit clothes for them.  Mine was called Dinah.  Also we loved our crayons and paint-boxes and used to do lots of colouring in big scrapbooks.  We played draughts and Ludo and when we were given a game of Monopoly, we quickly became very expert players.  I still like it and have often played Monopoly with my grandchildren.  My sister and I enjoyed reading, with the result that we always did well in English at school.

 2. Where did you sleep when you were a baby? I slept in a wooden cot in the same bedroom as my parents.

 3. Where was your toilet? Our toilet was in a brick building in the backyard.  We used to use squares of newspaper instead of the toilet tissue that is used today.

4. Were your teachers nice at school? Most of my teachers were nice, but very, very strict.  I remember once I spilt the inkpot on the headmistress’s desk and didn’t own up.  I got into trouble for that, but I wasn’t smacked – only told off because I was only about six years old at the time.

5. Did you ever get the cane? No, I was never caned as far as I remember.  I don’t think I was ever smacked, either.

 6. Where did you live? What was your house like? I lived in an industrial town in Lancashire.  All the buildings were very dirty because of all the smoke that came from the chimneys of the cotton mills in the town.  Our house was a two-bedroomed terraced house, with no front garden and just a backyard.  I’m really sorry I can’t tell you I was a princess who was captured and kept in a white castle on a hill until I was rescued by a handsome prince!

 7. What did you eat? We ate all our meals at the dining table in front of the fire in the living room.  We had lovely food, because my mum was a good cook, but no pizzas or burgers, though we did sometimes have fish and chips from the chip shop at the corner of the road.  We used to go home from school at mid-day for our dinner, which was the main meal of the day.

 8. How did you keep warm in the winter? In winter we kept warm by wearing our winter clothes and staying near the fire, as there was no other form of heating in the house.  When it was very cold we had stone hot water bottles in our beds, and our Dad used to warm our pillows in front of the fire and run upstairs ahead of us to put them in our beds.

If you want to know any more, tell Miss Etchells and I’ll answer more questions.