My Mother was born in 1904. She was the last living child in a family of two boys and three girls, although there had been three more children who had died at weeks and months old.

When my mother was eight months old her mother died leaving my grandfather alone to bring up the family. When my grandmother was alive my grandfather worked as a miner underground but when his wife died he took a lesser paid job on the surface so that there was less likelyhood of him being killed and leaving the children without parents.

My mother said that my grandfather paid housekeepers to look after the children until the eldest girl was 12 and old enough to come out of school and look after the home. He was able to do this because the eldest boy also worked. There was no money to allow the children to have futher education even though all of them passed the exams for the grammar school.

Unlike most men of that time my grandfather could cook a good meal. The closeness of relatives made a very tight knit community, with the chapels supplying the entertainment. My mother said that sermons were long. She used to wait for the preacher to start to 'sing' and take his handkerchief out of the pocket in his tail coat and wipe his forehead. Then she knew that he was coming to the end.

As she got older she used to slip into the Band of Hope to listen to the testimonials of the people who had signed the pledge not to drink. Her father did not like her doing this but he didn't find out most of the time.