anonymous ironstone miner

Born in Loftus. Small house. Served time as a painter and decorator. Worked in Ironstone Mines. Drove a steam crane at Skinningrove steelworks. School. Police giving corporal punishment. Getting water. Toilet. Poverty. Doctors and home remedies. Dances - clothes worn. National Health Service

Location: Cleveland
County: Teesside
AUD1990-93

---

Transcript of audio:
Even when I was grown up and I went to dance, I had to learn to dance before he would let me go to a proper dance. I had to go to classes. You see my grandmother - father's mother - was a dancing mistress. So I had to follow - you know.
There was lots of dances, but dad wouldn't let us go to them, some of them he used to call them sixpenny hops. When we went they were different. There was the "Bachelor's Ball" - that used to be ten shillings, ten shillings was! Then there was the Hawker Ball. Conversatione - that was the reading room ball, and the Church Socials. We'd had it then, there were no more, but of course they had more than one in the season.

• Add a comment