| | Winter in Govan | There are 9 messages in this section. |
Jessie Farlow (nee Findleton) from Largs. Posted 12 Aug 2004.
I was born in February 1916, the first child of 8 born to Richmond and Georgina Findleton. My parents rented and furnished a wee one-roomed flat to welcome me to Govan and a long and happy life. In that flat we stayed, growing steadily in number each year, until the year of this story, 1924. Seems strange now, but eight people lived, loved and worked in that one-roomed flat (no bathroom, toilet outside, shared by at least 20 neighbours) but we thought nothing of it for everyone was in the same boat in this Clydeside shipbuilding town.
We did not have much money. My father earned about 19/02 per week (about 80 new pence) to feed and keep us all. We were too young, mischievous and be as idealed today. A bit richer but maybe less happy. IN January 1924 or it may have been a year or so later, Govan was blanketed in deep snow, but the daily shop for bread and milk had to go on. Remember we had no refrigerators, no telephones and very little food storage space in our tiny flat. My mother, pregnant with a seventh child, handed me, her eldest (and wildest) a silver threepenny piece (valued at, perhaps, 1,5 pence today) to fetch the daily bread and milk. Putting on my heavy overcoat and welly boots I may have been happy to help feed the family but I was much happier to escape into the snow where I could create havoc with snowballs and slides. In any case, I pocketed the money, ran about twisted, jumped and shouted until I reached the wee grocer’s shop only to find I had lost the threepenny piece.
I searched and cried and then searched again, probably the coin had fallen out of my pocket as I shouted and Jumped with freedom and joy. I know though, even at eight years of age, the price to be paid for losing the family’s food money. In these days, the lines were clearly demarked, not like today when children don’t know exactly what is right and wrong and the penalties therefore. For an hour more I searched then I retraced my steps home to report the loss. Looking back, my mother must have been at her wits’ end, a 25 year old, with six children and another on the way, the road outside barred by snow, the children, hungry and cooped up inside and now this, the food money lost.
I was instructed/ordered to get back outside, find the money and not to appear again without it. So!! Out I went, played a bit, looked a bit, cried a bit and just about lunchtime I realised the severity of the situation – no coin, no food for me, never mind the kids at home. The tears started in earnest and as the search widened up the street to the grocery store, and my hopes began to fade, my grandfather appeared on the scene – I sobbed out the whole story, how I had been cruelly treated, how it wasn’t my fault that I had rain, shouted, and cavorted and lost the money – What was I to do? Eight year of age and no name or food on a winter’s day?
My grandfather summed the situation up quickly. He knew how full of life I was, and in sympathy for my mother handed my three single pennies to buy the bread and milk - I was so relieved and happy (I had a home again! Parents to look after me and brothers and sisters to play with) that I ran to my mother proudly displaying the three pennies; “I found them in the snow, I found them!” I shouted and opened my hands to display the coins. My mother looked at them, looked at me, and raised her hand, turned me round and slapped my backside so hard that I can almost remember it today. As I’ve said before, lines were clearly marked, lying was much worse than carelessness, and I paid the swift exacting price! Sentenced to home for the day, I watched from the window the other children making snowmen, throwing snowballs and having the time of their lives and learned a lifelong lesson. “Lying did not pay”. Next morning, the snow had almost melted but there were slides and all such other wintery things to contemplate and I was again “a happy carefree Govan child”. |
