• Ref.Number: FB015
• Date: 4.3.07
• Interviewer (I): Liz Rice
• Subject: Life as a child on Calgarth
• Period: 1949-1961

I

Can you remember the house? Can you take me through it?

R

Yes, yes, I can take - yes. It was funny talking about it, as you went in the back door, as such, there was a kitchen and the kitchen had a black range on and the fire in the living - you went through into the living room - and the fire was just as you went in your right hand side - and that were on the oven. The fire were on the oven. You know.

I

I see.

R

Yes, I know, how’s about that for a bit of - worked.

I

A bit of an innovation.

R

Yes, that’s right, it did. The fire were (inaudible) and they were only fairly basic, you know, they were brick and, you know, asbestos roofs type of thing. It had inside, course you went through into - there was one, two, three bedrooms, bathroom and a toilet. And that was it really. You know, they were bungalows. They were fairly basic but it was home I suppose, you know, as I say.

I

Yes. What was on the floor?

R

It was an asphalt floor. They were all asphalt floors, yes.

I

Like lino?

R

No it was like a - it was called asphalt - it was like a compound, you know, a brown compound, yes. We just had rugs on the floor. We never had fitted carpets or anything like that. And there was only the fire. We’d no central heating or anything. And you could draw pictures in the wintertime, you know, on the windows. They were iron windows, they were metal windows. You know. Metal frames anyway, you know, fairly cold, but yes. But I mean you had a good supply of logs and things, you know, loads and loads of them.

I

Did you go into the woods?

R

Yes you used to go and get them out the woods, yes.