‘Life in the 1940s’

The Heanor Empire Cinema; being built in 1911, and it's closure in 1983. "Carry on Showing" by Bernard Goodwin: People find it hard to believe, when I tell them that I have lived in the same house for sixty odd years, and that I have never wanted to live anywhere else. I have happy memories of my father coming home from the coal mine, and bathing in a tin bath in the kitchen. Percy was a local backward chap, who knocked on the back door when your coal had been delivered, and for just two shillings, would shovel the whole ton into the coalhouse. In 1951 we bought the property from the National Coal Board for three hundred pounds, with an acre of garden, and the first thing my parents did was to take out a loan for another hundred pounds, so we could have electricity installed. Traders came to the door then, the local farmer brought our milk, and a travelling general store on wheels, built on an old Morris lorry, carried everything, from paraffin to gas mantles, along with pots and pans. Twice a week my father and I would go to the radio shop in town, and take the 'accumulator' off the radio set to be charged, and bring back a couple of flat battery packs, so we could listen to the BBC. Then we invested in an upstairs bathroom, so we didn't have to cross the yard to the outside lavatory as they were called. People were friendlier then, and we could go to town and leave the door shut, but not locked, and things would be the same on return. On Sunday nights our next door but one neighbour would come and collect another child and myself, and with her boy, would give us a bath each, put on our pajamas, and take us back home. Every Friday morning we went to the clinic to collect two tins of 'National Dried Milk', a bottle of Cod Liver Oil, and a bottle of Concentrated Orange Juice. In sixty-two years I've watched the family grow up, with memories of a wonderful mother who helped us all when we needed it. Recollections of sorrow, but lots of joy and happiness, as the years rolled by. I realised just how much I would miss the old home some years ago, when I was told I had cancer, but I had hope and faith that I would come through. I'm not expecting to ever leave here, except of course when my time comes. 1 ‘Meccano for the Man in Your Life’ As a child I always had an enquiring mind, or so my parents told me, so it was no surprise to them when I said I would like a Meccano Outfit, for my sixth birthday. I had played with one which belonged to a school friend, but the war was just over, and due to the fact that the government had taken all available metals to make armaments, there was no way could my mum and dad get me one. At that time my dad worked for the local bakers, Rowe’s of Heanor, and I was a big friend of their sons Michael and Peter. We had great times together; they had a donkey, an orchard, and an endless supply of ‘hundreds and thousands’ which we used to steal from the bake-house on Sunday mornings, when I went with dad to clean the ovens. That was until someone found us out! Mr. Rowe had an American ‘Shooting Brake’ car at the time, and on Christmas Eve 1946, he presented me with a Meccano No. 1 Outfit, which I will never forget. On a recent trip to London, he had found one in a back-street toy shop, and remembered me. I played with it for years afterwards, and even purchased a clockwork motor, so my cranes would really work! My pride of joy came some years later, when another friend who visited, said he would construct for me a giant aeroplane from all the pieces I had collected, or swapped, over the years, and it became the admiration of all my school friends. Three years later I swapped the kit for my first reel-to-reel tape recorder, (joy-stick controlled), called a ‘Playtime Plus Tape Recorder’. The following year I part-exchanged it again for a guitar, while going through my Tommy Steele period, and then finally for an ‘Eagle Annual’ No.1. On reflection, the latter was probably the best deal, and I wish now I had kept the annual instead of swapping it for a pair of rabbits, and a hutch. I would have been quite rich by now! If you never owned these things from the fabulous fifties, then you never lived; they were a part of our ‘growing up’ of a time which I for one, will never forget. 2 ‘More from the 1940s and 1950s’ In the 1940s and 1950s, most people went to the cinema, and over a period of time, we built up a love of horses, from watching our cowboy hero’s. Along with guns and holsters, some of us were lucky enough to be brought a Mobo horse, to boost our true cowboy image. To sit on a Mobo was sheer luxury, and to move it along the pavement was even better. They lasted for years, and were moulded from tin, then beautifully painted. Some people immortalised the Mobo, for after years of use in the family, the twin mouldings were split apart, and filled with liquid concrete, and then allowed to set. Some days later the mould was again opened, and the freshly made concrete ‘Statue’, was used as a monument in the garden, usually placed on a pedestal, in the centre of a lawned area. I recall visiting a friend of mine who loved horses, and had made many of these, painting them in several different colours, and they lasted for years. He also gave them all different names, rather like the horses on a carousel, he had Merry, Taff, Trigger, Bronco, etc; The name of Mobo is now a part of history, but some of these toys still exist today, fetching high prices to collectors. 3 ‘The things we listened to’ At the beginning of the fifties, radio in Britain consisted of just three BBC stations, the Light Programme, the Home Service and the Third Programme. The Light Programme broadcast light entertainment and some popular (though rarely pop) music. The long-running series, "Dick Barton - Special Agent" was broadcast on the Light Programme. The Home Service was a mixture of news and entertainment - a favourite was 'Saturday Night Theatre'. The Third Programme was dedicated to "serious" drama and classical music - it was the least popular of the three. If you wanted to hear pop music, then Radio Luxemburg was the place to tune the dial to in the fifties. In the sixties, it was pirate radio. Until 1967, however, when the BBC broadcast Radio 1 for the first time. Radio sets in the fifties and sixties varied from large valve models to the smallest transistor sets. As the fifties began, all radio sets used valves. Portable sets of the era needed some hefty batteries - up to 90v. There were generally two types - a box that was turned on by opening the lid, and a handbag style with a carrying handle. 4 Please go to the next web page.....