The Bacon Banjo
Without Prejudice
A bacon banjo is a bacon sandwich in Yorkshire speak, a delight I was introduced to by my Aunties Pat and Betty from Wakefield. My Mothers birthplace. How proud my Mum would be of her children had she lived past 53. Auntie Pat Elms and Auntie Betty Basson became our substitute Mothers for many years. Auntie Pat a black curly haired beauty who was large and jolly and Auntie Bet the tightly permed and stricter one. She the eldest girl of three has out lived all of her siblings, brother Jack, ( our Jack ) my Mum, Natalie, and the baby, Auntie Pat.
They stayed with me a few times and groaned at the meagre amount of bacon we had and went out together and bought a kilo of it, just for one breakfast. Many bacon banjos made that day. Just bread, bacon dripping and bacon. My Mother said when they were kids it was bacon for her Dad, the coal miner, and bacon dripping and bread for the kids.
They lived in a terrace house, post World War Two, with no bathroom, a concrete block of toilets up the road for toilet facilities and a tin bath on Saturday night's for a once a week bath. How the kitchen heated up then and Grandma had a " turn " of vertigo in the heat and steam, one night. We had just arrived from Australia and we're living there for a time. Mum and Dad went to the Council Office on the following Monday and insisted Grandma and Grandad be moved, immediately.
The gave them a " bungalow " ( one storey house, instead of two up two down) no stairs for my elderly grandparents. My Grandad, George had bronchitis and the thought of him struggling up to the toilet block in the snow was enough to make me at 12 want to cry. We had a commode upstairs there but never wanted to use it unless we were desperate.
Everywhere, was stone cold except for the coal fires which we just about had to climb on top of to get warm. But the fascination and dreaminess of an open fire was exotic after our sojourn across the Ocean in warm climes and our home base of The Gold Coast in Australia. The coal was delivered once a week into the coal scullery by a couple of sooty faced men and milk on the doorstep by the Milkman. One or two normal milk bottles with thick cream near the silver foil cap and one of " sterri" ( sterilised) milk.
The food was as unlike anything I had ever had to then. Yorkshire Puds and Yorkshire Parkin, bonfire toffee, Pontefract cakes, Eccles cakes, boiled bacon and streaky bacon. School dinners of fish fingers with parsley sauce and mash with baked beans and spotted dick and custard. I went there barely seven stone and came back as a yorkshire Pud of nine and a half stone four years later. I was in live with the food.
To be continued......
A bacon banjo is a bacon sandwich in Yorkshire speak, a delight I was introduced to by my Aunties Pat and Betty from Wakefield. My Mothers birthplace. How proud my Mum would be of her children had she lived past 53. Auntie Pat Elms and Auntie Betty Basson became our substitute Mothers for many years. Auntie Pat a black curly haired beauty who was large and jolly and Auntie Bet the tightly permed and stricter one. She the eldest girl of three has out lived all of her siblings, brother Jack, ( our Jack ) my Mum, Natalie, and the baby, Auntie Pat.
They stayed with me a few times and groaned at the meagre amount of bacon we had and went out together and bought a kilo of it, just for one breakfast. Many bacon banjos made that day. Just bread, bacon dripping and bacon. My Mother said when they were kids it was bacon for her Dad, the coal miner, and bacon dripping and bread for the kids.
They lived in a terrace house, post World War Two, with no bathroom, a concrete block of toilets up the road for toilet facilities and a tin bath on Saturday night's for a once a week bath. How the kitchen heated up then and Grandma had a " turn " of vertigo in the heat and steam, one night. We had just arrived from Australia and we're living there for a time. Mum and Dad went to the Council Office on the following Monday and insisted Grandma and Grandad be moved, immediately.
The gave them a " bungalow " ( one storey house, instead of two up two down) no stairs for my elderly grandparents. My Grandad, George had bronchitis and the thought of him struggling up to the toilet block in the snow was enough to make me at 12 want to cry. We had a commode upstairs there but never wanted to use it unless we were desperate.
Everywhere, was stone cold except for the coal fires which we just about had to climb on top of to get warm. But the fascination and dreaminess of an open fire was exotic after our sojourn across the Ocean in warm climes and our home base of The Gold Coast in Australia. The coal was delivered once a week into the coal scullery by a couple of sooty faced men and milk on the doorstep by the Milkman. One or two normal milk bottles with thick cream near the silver foil cap and one of " sterri" ( sterilised) milk.
The food was as unlike anything I had ever had to then. Yorkshire Puds and Yorkshire Parkin, bonfire toffee, Pontefract cakes, Eccles cakes, boiled bacon and streaky bacon. School dinners of fish fingers with parsley sauce and mash with baked beans and spotted dick and custard. I went there barely seven stone and came back as a yorkshire Pud of nine and a half stone four years later. I was in live with the food.
To be continued......
