3 PIECE SUITE AND A PIGS HEART!

I remember when we first moved into our rented House, we had hardly any furniture, coming from a one roomed place!

So we had Second Hand Stuff, I remember going to a Second Hand place with Susan’s Dad, cant remember exactly what we got , but I remember getting a Black Plastic and green Material 3 Piece Suite and a Large Rug for the Front Room………………From my Parents, I cant remember them buying us anything!

I also remember being taken to a Furniture Store in Town (with Susan) by Susan’s Dad, He brought us some New Furniture, a Bed and some Wardbrobes, it was a case of “you’ll have that and this and that overthere”

We were Grateful for the Help, apart some Carpet my Father got us, about 3 years later, that was the only Help we ever had off both sets of Parents!

Things were going Great in the new House, we had started Decorating all the rooms, this is where we were to find out Susan was a better Wallpaperer than me!

Its the same now, I can do all DIY apart from Wallpapering, Susan is much better than me and anybody else I know, she has Wallpapered all our Houses we have lived in!

My one and only attempt at Wallpapering was in our Front Room in our first House, it was a patterned paper with circles, and after I finished putting it on the Walls it looked like a Aero Chocolate Bar,,,,Full of Bubbles!

Most members of the Family remember my attempt at papering!

As for work , that wasn’t going to bad, I never really liked Serving Customer’s though, and as I said before, I did’nt like the Manager too much either!

Some of the Tricks they used to do, to make the Meat look Better always made me Laugh, the main thing that they would do (but would not get away with these days), was put Pig’s Heart in the Beef Mince, to make the Mince a better colour of Red, in turn the Customer’s thought the Mince was lovely and Lean!

Trading Standard’s couldn’t have been that Hot, back then! and I never heard of any Customer Complaining either!

THE BIKE WHEEL & THE SHEEPSKIN COAT!

Firstly, my last Blog Entry (on my Life), I thought I changed Jobs before we moved!

That was wrong, after writing the last Blog Entry it got me thinking about what happened first, and an incident that happened back in 1979 reminded me of which came first!

I used to Cycle back and forth to work back then, which was a fair few miles about 4/5 each way! I must have had a Puncture in one of my Bike Tyres, I cant remember that, but can remember what happened when I was taking the mended Bike Tyre back to work to fix back on my Bike!

The Bus Stop was down in the High Street about 5 minutes from where we lived, and I can remember running along carrying the Bike Wheel , I was about 2 minutes from my House, when I passed a couple of Shops, I can remember a Woman standing there with a Nurses Uniform on (I believe there was another bus stop there, she was obviously waiting for a Bus, but this wasnt the bus stop I needed) she was waiting to go to work by Bus!

That day as I remember I had my Full Length Sheepskin Coat on, and I was running quite quickly (I must have been late for work/bus) and some how my Coat got tangled with the Bike Wheel , and Crash???? I fell over on to the Concrete Pavement right in front of this Nurse, near enough right where she stood!

I remember looking up and she was laughing her head off, I felt such a Prat, but all I could do was laugh as well, me and Susan often have a laugh about that incident, to this Day!

I Loved that Sheepskin Coat!!!!!!

NEW JOB, NEW HOUSE!!!

I have tried hard to think of the correct dates and times around this period, but I cannot remember, firstly did we move House first or was it my new Job first! and what month did this happen!

I guessing this, but I think I changed Jobs first, which would have been around September / October of 1979, and we moved around middle to late October 1979!

But whatever the facts were, it was a busy time, not forgetting as well Susan was Pregnant!

I was working as a Butcher for Dewhurst’s, which included getting meat ready to sell and serving Customer’s!

I say “getting meat ready to sell” in my case as I was the new chap in the Shop, a couple of my main jobs were getting the Mince ready and cutting up Chicken’s into portion’s, not too taxing, as specially as I had been a Chef for about 5 years, so cutting up Meat and the Cuts of meat were quite easy!

Cutting up Steak and the better cuts of meat was down to the ” more experienced Butcher’s”, who worked in the Shop, I always found this a bit ridiculous, as I had probably cut and cooked more Meat/Joints/Steaks than most of the other workers put together!

I got on with most of the worker’s and actually eventually lived next door to one of them, about a year or to later!

I didnt like the Manager that much, a Chap called “Ernie” cant remember his last name though, I dont think he liked it because I did’nt need too much Teaching, because of my previous Job!

When we eventually moved from our One Room Accomodation to our rented Three Bedroomed House, It was Great, all that space!

We had permission to Decorate anywhere we liked, which eventually we did, from top to bottom!

Every Friday night I had to go to the Landlord’s House (it was only 5 minutes away) and pay the Rent, a grand total of £7.00 per week, but over 30 year’s ago, that was quite alot out of my wages!

See picture above, I went back to our first House (pictures are of front & back of house), it still looks the same, we actually past it at least 4 times a week, its about 2 miles from where we live now!

BABY, HOUSE and JOB!

By about July /August 1979 Three Major things were happening in our Life!

Baby, House & Job!

Firstly Susan was Pregnant, the baby was due March 1980, Nathan was’nt quite one yet, so two small Babies together , anyway the new Baby was planned!

Our One Bedroomed place in a shared House, was alright but as you can imagine, very cramped, but as I said in previous post we got on well with a couple of different people, one being the unofficial Person in Charge of the House, Shirley was her name, the other Person was the Head Council Woman in Charge of our House, a Woman by the name of Phyllis Flaxman, who I mentioned her in a previous Post!

Now Mrs Flaxman had said she had a Landlady Friend who was soon having a Property empty, & would we be interested in a Move!

Of course we said “Yes” to her, and now just had to wait for news on the possible move!

The Third about to happen was concerning my Job, I had just found out I had Passed my Catering Exams, I had taken them about May / June earlier that year!

In the Exams I took to become a Fully Qualfied Chef, you had Three Levels of Pass,

1. Distinction 2. Credit 3. Pass

I got a “PASS”…………………. so not the Best Brains!

But I could Handle working under Pressure in a Hot Steamy Kitchen as good as most, & thats what really mattered, A person can have as many Qualifications as he wants, but when it comes to the Nitty Gritty of Hard Work in a under pressure situation of a Hot Kitchen, can he handle it!

& the answer in most cases was……………. “NO”

So with the Passing of my Final Exams, We had to make our Minds up what was I going to do for a Job!

I definately knew I was finishing with being a Chef, seems strange after doing 4 Years at College on day release from Work and 1 year when at School (at college) that I finally passed all my Exams and the first I do when finally being a Qualfied Chef, was Leave the Trade!

But when I started 5 years previous I was a single man, now I was Married with a Kid & one on the way, Cooking was not a Married Man’s Job!

Too many Long Hours and too many differing Split Shifts!

So I decided to either try to become a Butcher or a Baker, so I set about writing off loads of letters to different Butcher’s & Bakery’s in my Home Town!

STILL HOMELESS! and FINALLY SOME HELP!

This is the house we moved into, front and side photos. We lived in the room, 1st floor on the right, our room included the side window!

So now we had a Sick Son and nowhere to live again, Susan had came out of Hospital the day Nathan had his Operation and and we were staying with my family, who luckily lived 5 minutes from the Hospital.

We had no money to buy a House and in them days there wasn’t to much private rent unless you had a well paid job, which I didn’t!

So we started visting the local Council most days to try and get on the Housing Waiting list, to get a Council House!

I remember visiting there loads of times, without luck! and then one Day we met a Lady by the name of Phyllis Flaxman, I believe she was the Housing Officer, anyway after a few visits she said she may be able to get us a room in a large local Council House with about 9 other Families, you had to share all other facilities, ie Kitchen, Dining Room, TV Room etc.

We stayed at my Parents House for about 2 weeks, this was not ideal as my Parents, really did not want us there! especially my Mother, who did not like Susan, so the quicker we got out of there, the better!

With having a Sick Child and nowhere to live! you would have thought both sets of Parents would have put their differences aside, to help us! but they didn’t!

With the help of Phyllis Flaxman (which we were always grateful for this help), we finally got the move to the council house and out of my Parents House, which was a relief!

This was around the last week in September 1978.