The Marshalls were a comparatively wealthy family for the time. Granddad (William Marshall) owned rows of houses and a couple of boats (dredgers that worked the Welsh coast). One of the boats was called the 'Angello.' My Dad (Reginald Marshall) owned a couple of houses and a half share in a boat.
The daughters did not go out to work but stayed at home to help Grandma with the housework. They were up at six on a Monday morning to light fires under the boilers in the outside washhouse. It took them all day to do the washing.
On Friday, it was black leading the stove-cum-fireplace. It had a tall mantelshelf with Wally dogs (more like King Charles spaniels but that's what we called them) sat at each end.
Granddad retired early and my memories of him are that if we went to see them after lunch no one, not even Grandma, was allowed to make a noise, as he was asleep on the chaise long. Being a little girl myself, he looked huge, especially his tummy. However, it was so peaceful - just the ticking of the Grandfather clock in the hall.
They were good and generous and, as staunch Methodists, they didn't do anything on a Sunday except to read the Bible and go to the Chapel in the morning, afternoon and night.
Auntie Hilda who died in 1999 was the only one who rebelled and went out to work saying there were enough of them at home. She soon married and went to America in the 1920s. She sent us wonderful parcels during World War II that included nylon stockings (unheard of in Britain at the time). We wore silk or Lyle or even browned our legs with gravy browning drawing a black line down the back of our legs as a seam.
Horace died at sea in his early twenties and Maggie died after she was married to the brother of Auntie Hilda's husband.
Grandma gave us a threepenny bit every week. That was a lot of money in those days. If Grandma gave us a biscuit, I remember Auntie Elsie would have a little brush and pan sweeping up the crumbs before we had finished eating it.
They all had three sets of clothes - playing, school and best. As the play clothes wore out, school clothes became play clothes, Sunday clothes became school clothes and a new set of clothes bought for Sunday.
My Dad sold his share in the boat and bought the Lyric cinema in Price Street, Birkenhead. When the War came, the houses around the cinema were bombed and Dad closed the cinema down. He then went to work in a factory for a while. After the War, he tried to open the cinema again but it didn't do very well and he sold it. (It then became a shoe factory).
Dad then semi retired and had a fruit and vegetable round selling from a van for a couple of days a week. He died in 1948. He was a very clever man who left school early (about twelve I think) because he was the top boy in the top class. There were no hard and fast rules then, the teachers said that they weren't able to take him further. He built our first wireless (crystal set) and developed his own photographs on glass negatives (left outside in the sun to develop). He did a correspondence course to get his Engineer's certificate and was one of the first in our area to have a car (before the Second World War). He also loved books.
By Hazel Flood, nee Marshall (1929 - )