Number Seventeen---Sex, The Cane And Naughty Schoolgirls, Smoking Cigarettes. 17
Without Prejudice
We've moved again but at last it's to the house and we have so much room. Jenny and I are sharing a room upstairs and Mum and Auntie Pam wallpapered it in Barbie wallpaper. It has its own little lacy fireplace and its right out of the way up the top away from the other bedrooms. Jay and Dennis have a massive room all to themselves and Mum and Dads is at the top of the landing. We're right next to the bathroom and toilet. The house is ages old and historic.
It has stables that are used as garages a massive cellar and a cold larder at the top of that with stairs down to the cellar. It's spooky down there, it has a light and a little room off it but none of us are game to go in it. Looks like a dead body could be in there from years ago. The lounge room is massive and there is another exactly the same on the other side of the staircase. I love it. Its so big.
Granny Wilsher gives us her "Whatnot", which is a massive big cabinet made of wood and we can put things on it, like Mum's Wedgwood and stuff. There are dried flowers in a vase and Dad says it only needs a stuffed owl or two to look the part. We sit the telly in the corner of the room and behind it are red wine velvet curtains on a brass rail that must be at least 12' high. We call it the drawing room after some posh movie we saw once. The kitchen is big too and we eat in there and it has a funny wooden line thing that hangs above the fire and you put your washing on it and pull it up.
Outside is a door to the coal cellar and you can reach it from inside the kitchen as well. All the fires are coal fires and I get the job of keeping them clean and swept and ready with paper and kindling for the next day. I am trying to get really good at twisting the paper just right so the fire catches properly. On a cold night a warm coal fire is so lovely to sit beside and burn your legs till they are red. I love staring into it, so much better than Auntie Pam's electric with it's fake flames.
Jay and Dennis get the job of bringing in the coal to the coal scuttle and we have a poker and fireside tools of brass. Mum hangs old fashioned brass plates around the walls and we look very English and Upper Class, now. The windows are long all covered in warm velvet drapes and the ceiling in the kitchen is so high when you haul up the washing it's all far out of the way. There are two other houses in the mews. They belong to rich people and we are a big rowdy family so we just stay to our own selves. There is a bit of common ground across the way which belongs to everyone.
Up the road is a tiny little shop which lucky for us is open a lot as Mum is always running out of fags and we can go and get her some. They have milk here called sterri, which means sterilised and other milk that has a lot of cream on the top. Guess who is not going to be drinking that? We have the grand front door but no one uses it we use the kitchen door and when we come in of a night Mum usually always has something on the stove. Bubbling away. I love the house, it's so grand and I go to a Grammar so toffee nosed me !
Mum shops at the co op in Ossett and there is a tiny little bull ring, town centre with a chemist, small supermarket, butchers, bakers and a bus station a library too. It's just like being in a village. I sort of expect dancers to come out on the first of May and dance around a May pole on the round of grass at the centre but I am being silly mum said. It's so pretty with its cobble stoned streets and you can hear the men in their steel capped boots clacking down the streets very early in the mornings. Clogs, they call them as in "popping your clogs" is when you die.
There's a chippy up the road and everyone here eats a small tea and then about 9, you have a supper, which is once a week fish and chips and mushy peas. You can eat them with lots of salt and vinegar and a pickled onion if you want. You can ask for a scoop of "bits" which means all the crunchy batter pieces. The fish is North Sea Cod and melts in your mouth. I love English fish and chips and am going to be as fat as mud by the time I get back to Australia. I love all the food here, it's all stodgy and fattening but I walk everywhere and play so much sport it just bums off anyway.
Although Jenny's doesn't and I call her a fat pig and she chases me through the house and wants to slap me silly. Can't blame her but I'm not fat, so there ! I have to have something over her she is always a cow to me. Mum said I can't say Cow as over here it means a really bad woman so I have to stop saying it. It's alright if you say "Poor Cow", but if you just say Cow, it's like calling a woman a loose woman she says and I have no idea what she is talking about. And I am not going to ask.
And the way they talk here! like this rhyme I have known since I was little,
Wheres tha been lad?
Hawking papers
Who For
Me Uncle Jim
Whats he gin ya
A skinny old haypny
The skinny old pig, he ort to dee"
Or the song "on Ilkley Moor ba tat" wihich means on Ilkley Moor without a hat.
Bog, is the toilet, clogs are shoes and you don't say shut the door, you say shut t Door! It's such fun.
We've moved again but at last it's to the house and we have so much room. Jenny and I are sharing a room upstairs and Mum and Auntie Pam wallpapered it in Barbie wallpaper. It has its own little lacy fireplace and its right out of the way up the top away from the other bedrooms. Jay and Dennis have a massive room all to themselves and Mum and Dads is at the top of the landing. We're right next to the bathroom and toilet. The house is ages old and historic.
It has stables that are used as garages a massive cellar and a cold larder at the top of that with stairs down to the cellar. It's spooky down there, it has a light and a little room off it but none of us are game to go in it. Looks like a dead body could be in there from years ago. The lounge room is massive and there is another exactly the same on the other side of the staircase. I love it. Its so big.
Granny Wilsher gives us her "Whatnot", which is a massive big cabinet made of wood and we can put things on it, like Mum's Wedgwood and stuff. There are dried flowers in a vase and Dad says it only needs a stuffed owl or two to look the part. We sit the telly in the corner of the room and behind it are red wine velvet curtains on a brass rail that must be at least 12' high. We call it the drawing room after some posh movie we saw once. The kitchen is big too and we eat in there and it has a funny wooden line thing that hangs above the fire and you put your washing on it and pull it up.
Outside is a door to the coal cellar and you can reach it from inside the kitchen as well. All the fires are coal fires and I get the job of keeping them clean and swept and ready with paper and kindling for the next day. I am trying to get really good at twisting the paper just right so the fire catches properly. On a cold night a warm coal fire is so lovely to sit beside and burn your legs till they are red. I love staring into it, so much better than Auntie Pam's electric with it's fake flames.
Jay and Dennis get the job of bringing in the coal to the coal scuttle and we have a poker and fireside tools of brass. Mum hangs old fashioned brass plates around the walls and we look very English and Upper Class, now. The windows are long all covered in warm velvet drapes and the ceiling in the kitchen is so high when you haul up the washing it's all far out of the way. There are two other houses in the mews. They belong to rich people and we are a big rowdy family so we just stay to our own selves. There is a bit of common ground across the way which belongs to everyone.
Up the road is a tiny little shop which lucky for us is open a lot as Mum is always running out of fags and we can go and get her some. They have milk here called sterri, which means sterilised and other milk that has a lot of cream on the top. Guess who is not going to be drinking that? We have the grand front door but no one uses it we use the kitchen door and when we come in of a night Mum usually always has something on the stove. Bubbling away. I love the house, it's so grand and I go to a Grammar so toffee nosed me !
Mum shops at the co op in Ossett and there is a tiny little bull ring, town centre with a chemist, small supermarket, butchers, bakers and a bus station a library too. It's just like being in a village. I sort of expect dancers to come out on the first of May and dance around a May pole on the round of grass at the centre but I am being silly mum said. It's so pretty with its cobble stoned streets and you can hear the men in their steel capped boots clacking down the streets very early in the mornings. Clogs, they call them as in "popping your clogs" is when you die.
There's a chippy up the road and everyone here eats a small tea and then about 9, you have a supper, which is once a week fish and chips and mushy peas. You can eat them with lots of salt and vinegar and a pickled onion if you want. You can ask for a scoop of "bits" which means all the crunchy batter pieces. The fish is North Sea Cod and melts in your mouth. I love English fish and chips and am going to be as fat as mud by the time I get back to Australia. I love all the food here, it's all stodgy and fattening but I walk everywhere and play so much sport it just bums off anyway.
Although Jenny's doesn't and I call her a fat pig and she chases me through the house and wants to slap me silly. Can't blame her but I'm not fat, so there ! I have to have something over her she is always a cow to me. Mum said I can't say Cow as over here it means a really bad woman so I have to stop saying it. It's alright if you say "Poor Cow", but if you just say Cow, it's like calling a woman a loose woman she says and I have no idea what she is talking about. And I am not going to ask.
And the way they talk here! like this rhyme I have known since I was little,
Wheres tha been lad?
Hawking papers
Who For
Me Uncle Jim
Whats he gin ya
A skinny old haypny
The skinny old pig, he ort to dee"
Or the song "on Ilkley Moor ba tat" wihich means on Ilkley Moor without a hat.
Bog, is the toilet, clogs are shoes and you don't say shut the door, you say shut t Door! It's such fun.
