Trams, Trolleys & Trains.

In the 1940's and 50's there weren't many cars on the roads of Cleethorpes and Grimsby.  Kids could play in the side streets without the fear of being run over and it was generally much quieter. 

Trams operated from Grimsby to Immingham along the coast of the

The route of the Grimsby & Immingham
Electric Railway.

Humber Estuary.  They ran from 1921 to (surprisingly for me) 1961!  Now I don't remember travelling on them for general day to day purposes but I can remember my mam taking me on a "pleasure ride" from Grimsby, along the Humber bank to Immingham and then back on the return service.  From memory we got on near Corporation Bridge in Grimsby but I don't have any memory of  the Immingham end.  I

A Grimsby/Immingham tram, built in 1915
passing the Pywipe depot outbound for Immingham.

can remember the trip along the sea bank close to the River Humber, it seemed really close to the tracks.

The trams were standard gauge and ran for 7 miles between Grimsby & Immingham which was a developing seaport needing lots of contract workers so the tram system was well used.  

The headquarters for the trams was in Victoria Street, Grimsby and that was where the tramsheds were.  They are still there to this day having been utilised as the towns' bus depot and workshops when busses replaced the trams.     

The former Tramsheds of the Grimsby Corporation Tramways.  I took this photo in 2014, until
recently it was still being used as the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Bus Depot and workshops.
New, modern premises have been built next door. 

Trolley busses also operated in Grimsby and Cleethorpes while the

A trolley bus operating in
Cleethorpes, the overhead wires
can be seen, they were suspended
on steel poles.

trams were still in use and ran from Corporation Road, Grimsby to The Bathing Pool at the South end of Cleethorpes.  Trolley busses were powered by overhead wires as trams were but whereas trams ran on rails a trolleybus ran  on pneumatic tyres along the roads.
Trolley busses ran in from the 3rd of October 1936 until the 4th of June 1960.  They were replaced with petrol engined busses, noisier and smellier than the electric trolley busses and nowhere as pleasant to travel on.

At Sandtoft in Lincolnshire is the National Trolley bus Museum where restored examples of these
lovely old vehicles can be seen and ridden on.  This image shows the overhead system of wires
suspended from the arms on the distribution poles.

Some of the splendidly restored trolley busses at Sandtoft showing the arms on the top of the vehicles that take the power supply from the overhead wires.  

From time to time the arms would drop from the wires, usually if a driver took a corner too wide, the conductor would take a long wooden pole from under the bus and manually re-attach the take off arm back onto the wires! 

For all other long distance journeys people would take the train. 

Trains played a very big part in the development of Cleethorpes as a seaside resort.  Cleethorpes Railway Station was opened in 1863 and Cleethorpes soon became a popular destination for the Victorians to bathe in the sea.  It was later in the 20th century that the resort enjoyed it's boom times when the workers in the coal mines and steelworks of Yorkshire  came to Cleethorpes in their thousands for the annual "Wakes Weeks".  This was because the government declared that a working man required a paid holiday and so they could afford to take their families away for a break!  

The owners of the mines, steelworks and cotton mills took this opportunity to carry out necessary maintenance so they all shut down for the same two weeks in the summer, the last week in July & the first week in August and the whole workforce headed, by train, to Cleethorpes. 

I intend to devote a whole posting to this annual invasion so will finish here.

Photo's used in this posting: The 3 large colour images are my own, all others are courtesy of Wikipedia.

Retail Therapy and the Butcher who Played Away!

The Corner Shop.

In the late 40's & 50's there were no supermarkets and people had to go from one shop to another to get the weekly shopping.

Most communities had a corner shop where the housewife went to get her groceries, this was done every couple of days and not as now with one visit for the whole weekly shop.  There were no fridges so perishable items had to be used quickly and then replenished.  Our local grocery shop was "Kenningtons" on the corner of Taylor Street & Phelps Street.  Here my grandmother & my mother bought all their groceries, no self service here but a lady behind the counter would take your list and get it for you.  I often went with my mam, my favourite item was boiled ham or bacon. This would be sliced off a larger piece of meat on the bacon slicer which was a fearsome implement like a circular saw that traversed back and forth slicing thin slices.  

There was often a queue at the counter and you had to wait your turn but sometimes someone would rush in and try to jump the queue with the excuse "sorry, can I but in?  I've left a pan on the cooker".  Nobody believed this of course.

My grandmother often only wanted a couple of things so she would send me with a note and some money.  Sometimes it would be for a plain bread loaf and I would bite off the corners on the way home!

Going to the Library.

Another "shop" we went to was the "Green Circle Library" which was a private commercial lending library located in a shop. There were several of these but I can't remember when they disappeared.

A local man made good.

On the main road between Grimsby and Cleethorpes was Ron Ramsdens Hardware Store.  As the name suggests it sold all manner of hardware and home cleaning products required for the housewives' daily cleaning and washing tasks.  I remember going there with my mam and seeing dolly tubs, washboards, buckets & mops and all manner of things hanging up at the door and displayed

I can't find a picture of Ramsdens original shop
but this one in Horncastle is very close to how
I remember it looked.

across the pavement outside.  Ron Ramsden, the owner would have a conversation with my mam or grandmother.  He went on to expand the business over the years and it's now a very well known large department store and supermarket.  It occupies the most of the block of shops where his original hardware shop once stood.

Shopping areas.

Grimsby had two main areas for shopping, one was Freeman Street which was close to the Fishdocks and was a thriving hub of shops

Freeman Street. 

where you could but just about anything you needed.  The other shopping area was known as "going up town" and the shops were considered to be a bit more "up market" and was where people went for that special item.  Once a year, at Christmas time, we went up town to a large "posh" department store called Guy And Smiths.

House of Fraser, formerly called Binns and
before that Guy & Smiths.

I really looked forward to our visit, for one reason, they had a lift! 

The lift took shoppers from the ground floor up to the two upper floors, it was basically a large wire cage with two sets of doors so as it traversed up or down you could see the floors falling away or rising up to you.  It had a lift attendant and I can still remember the excitement of travelling on it.

The Co-Operative.

One of the best shops a small boy could go to though was the local Co-Op store, for one reason only.  The "change machine!"  When you walked in the first thing that hit you was the lovely smell of roasting coffee beans in the coffee grinder and the polished wood counters.  I also remember that it was always dimly lit and so the electric lights were always on.  My grandmother or mam would get  their items at the counter and then came the high spot of the visit when the counter assistant operated the "change machine"!  Unlike today there was no cash register or checkout, you gave the assistant your money and she would put it into a metal tube attached to an overhead wire wire system rather like a cable car.  Details of how much change went in too and it was "fired" along the wires to a central cashiers office, the cashier removed the money, put the money back into the tube to the correct amount for your change and fired it back to the front counter.  Pure magic for a small boy and something I never tired of watching.

The Butcher who often "Played Away!"

Going to the shops wasn't my favourite pastime and my grandma knew this so one day, to encourage me, she said she was going to take me to see a real live footballer!  When we entered the local butchers shop though I began to smell a rat!  I'd been tricked into shopping I thought, but no, my Nanna never told a lie.  Behind the counter was a huge chap in the familiar butchers striped apron and I was told that he was indeed also a footballer and played for Grimsby Town Association Football Club!  He came out from behind the counter to tell me all about being a footballer and I was in awe of him, even though I wasn't much of a football fan then and I'm still not now.  In the 1950's most professional footballers were only part time and had to have another full time job to earn a living, a far cry from the hugely over paid Premiere League footballers of today.  Why did he sometimes "play away" away though?  It wasn't what you might think, Grimsby Town Football club played then, as they still do now, at Blundell Park Football ground which is located in Cleethorpes so, in effect, they play all of their games AWAY from home!  The only club at that time to do so but I think there are one or two others that have relocated to grounds away from their hometown since then. 

Freeman Street Market.

I said earlier that there were two shopping centres in Grimsby but there was another quite separate area in Freeman Street with a character unique to the area.  Freeman Street Market was established in 1873 and was, until the 1960's an open market of stalls on a large cobbled area.  The Friday market was the big market day and I would go there with my mam or grandmother, they always said it was the cheapest place in grimsby to buy almost anything.  It's still there but since being covered over it's lost a lot of the charm and atmosphere it once had.

Freeman Street Market spans the years and has survived to this day and so I think that's a suitable place to finish my memories of shops in my early life.

Freeman Street Covered Market, still a popular place for Grimsby & Cleethorpes residents.

           

        

Early memories.

This time I shall try to recall some of my very early memories from my childhood.

The very earliest recollection I have goes right back to being a baby

An advert for an early type
of disposable nappy.

when I can recall having a nappy changed and my mam sprinkling talcum powder on me!  In those days before disposable nappies mums used towelling nappies that had to be washed and sterilised before re-use and they were held in place by a quite big nappy safety pin.  Later in life, after marriage and my own children came along we still used towelling nappies but, although I tried to change them, they always ended up sliding down to the floor!  

Disposable nappies solved all the problems of sterilisation and where so much easier to apply.  However they have to be disposed and so take up landfill.  One problem solved but another created!

"In the 19th century, the modern diaper began to take shape and mothers in many parts of the world used cotton material, held in place with a fastening—eventually the safety pin. Cloth diapers in the United States were first mass-produced in 1887 by Maria Allen. In the UK, nappies were made out of terry towelling, often with an inner lining made out of soft muslin".

(Above information courtesy of Wikipedia)

As I grew older my mam would put me outside in the garden in my

Me outside in my pram, 1947.

pram, it was what all mums did to give their babies plenty of fresh air.  I can remember this too and looking up at the sky before drifting off to sleep.  As I got older she would put me onto a blanket spread on the grass with a makeshift sunshade over me to keep the sun off me.  I can remember laying back and watching a spiders web above me on one occasion.

Still on the subject of prams mam used to take me in the pram to get shopping, go to pay for things or visit people; on one occasion however she took me to get

some logs for the fire. We had been on this errand before, mam would pile a few logs onto the apron of the

pram, with me inside, and bring them home to my grandma's house.  On the way back she went down a particularly high kerb and the pram tipped up, all the logs tumbled down into the pram hood on top of me!  I wasn't hurt but I still remember it quite clearly.  I don't remember ever going back for logs after that!

We had no pets when I was born but when I was about 2 - 3 years old my dad came home with a tortoise for me.  Tortoises are not the best of pets for young children!  They do very little to entertain other than eating and biting anyone who gets their fingers too near if they are feeding them!   A tortoise is quite a commitment too, you've probably all heard the phrase "a dog is for life, not just for Christmas"?  Well that applies equally to a tortoise but with a very real twist, the "life" referred to is YOUR LIFE, not just theirs.  I still have my tortoise, called Joey, and I'm going to be 68 years old next Friday!

This is my tortoise Joey, photographed a year or two ago in the garden with my old dog Jasper.
We lost Jasper almost two years ago and now have another Cavalier called Suzi but Joey just keeps going year after year and will probably outlive me!

When I was  about 3 years old  I had to go into hospital to have my tonsils & adenoids removed.  It was quite an ordeal for young children in those days, my main memory of it was being told I was going to the theatre!  I imagined it was to see a film but no!  I can remember having what looked like a tea strainer put over my face and a horrible smell which I now realise must have been the chloroform anesthetic.  The best bit though was afterwards only being fed jelly and ice cream!

One of our neighbours was Kathy Marsh, a nurse at the hospital who was also considered by all the local mums to be our own unofficial district nurse.  If the were a medical crisis the shout would go up "quick, send for Mrs. Marsh!"

My grandma liked Mint Imperial sweets and would sometimes let 

me try one.  On one occasion I swallowed one whole and got it stuck in my throat, I was choking and can still remember the feeling!  "Send for Mrs. Marsh!" She came quickly through the back ways and hung me upside down while slapping me on the back, out it popped.  I've never been able to have another Mint Imperial to this day!      

My final memories are of the way the weather could affect children.  In the winter we all got colds and coughs and the remedy was to have Vick Lotion rubbed on the chest.  I can remember being woken up to have this rubbed over my chest at what seemed the middle of the night but was probably only at mam's own bedtime!

The summers in the 1940's were always long and very hot, at least that's how I remember things but they were probably no better than what we experience now!!  What we did get then though were "heat bumps".  On looking back these were probably caused more by vitamin deficiency but whatever, the remedy was still the same.  Again, in the dead of night, mam would wake us and slap freezing cold Camomile Liquid all over us, it was horrible!

In the summer we always wore thin cotton vests but come the autumn when the weather became cold mam would bring out the WOOL VESTS!  they were horribly itchy but we were told they were for our own good and would prevent us from catching a cold.  I still have an aversion to any clothing with wool in it and can't stand "itchy clothes"

Most of my memories though are happy ones and I recall them with a great deal of nostalgic pleasure.

     

In the Kitchen.

Christmas is all over again for another year and I hope you all had a good time.  Here at Cleethorpes we enjoyed Christmas day despite our oven breaking down in the middle of cooking the Christmas dinner!  Our daughter and family had come for dinner and, as they live quite close, they were able to rush everything to their house to finish the cooking in their oven.

Modern kitchen appliances make life a lot easier these days but when I think back to my Grandmothers' kitchen I wonder how people coped in the 1940's.

In her kitchen a very basic gas cooker was the only "modern" appliance she had to cook on.  Although there was an electric light I remember her lighting the gas light late in the day.  

Housewives in the 40's tended to cook the same meals on each day of the week, this was in part due to the fact that there were no fridges or freezers so food had to be used very quickly.

Leading off from the kitchen was a pantry, a cool room used for storing all the kitchen food items.  On the back wall, at floor level,

A meat safe similar to the one
my grandmother would have had.

was a brick built shelf or step called the gantry.  On it was placed items that needed to be kept cool, butter etc and milk.  In the summer the milk bottles would also be kept here stood in a bucket of cold water.  They would only need to be kept for 24 hours as there was a daily delivery by the milkman.  Also in the pantry was a meatsafe, resembling a small cupboard it had panels of perforated metal in the sides & doors to allow air through but keep flies out!   

Other items such as tins and baking items would have been kept on shelves around the pantry.

Another essential appliance I can remember using myself was the

Blown up diagram of a mincer.

meat mincer.  This was a funnel shaped item that fastened to the edge of the kitchen table, leftover meat, cooked and uncooked was fed into the top and, on turning a handle would go through a set of mincing wheels and be forced out of holes on the side.  Minced meat would be used to make pies and

Sausage meat.

I said earlier that housewives tended to cook the same meals on each day of the week and from memory my grandma did the same.

A typical weeks' meals would be something along these lines:

Sunday:  Roast dinner and vegetables (beef, pork or mutton.)

Monday: Sliced cold meat left over from Sunday with Bubble & Squeak (cold mashed veg and mashed potatoes saved from Sunday and quickly fried).  Monday was wash day so there was no time to cook a full meal. 

Tuesday: Maybe a pastry pie or Sheperds Pie made with minced up

Showing how the
meat was forced
out of the mincer.

meat either left overs or a very cheap stewing steak.

Wednesday:  Possibly a stew of some of the stewing steak from day before with various vegatables all cooked in a large earthenware pot over the fire in the "middle room".

Thursday:  My granddad liked his fried food so Thursday was a fried lunch.

Friday:  This day was traditionally reserved for fish, we had plenty of it!

Saturday:  Another day for a fry up.  My granddad would wait until everyone had been served and then ask for some "dip" to be put on his plate.  This was the left over hot dripping from the frying pan containing flavours of fried tomato, bacon and egg!  He liked to dip his bread into this.  Not really approved of these days!!
The last thing that I remember in my grandmas' kitchen was the door that led to the cupboard under the stairs.  Because of the sloping ceiling in there it wasn't used for much at all, the gas meter was in there and a few items put out of sight.  What I do remember though is that every month or so my mam would stand us up against the wall, just inside the door and with a ruler placed on the top of our heads she would draw a line on the wall to mark our heights with our age and the date.  Over the years we lived there you could plot our growth rate by the measurements drawn on the wall.  I often wonder what became of those marks.....maybe they're still there?

Obb Wool Socks & The Hallelujah Chorus.

Christmas at my Grandparents house was always a very happy time, the weeks leading up to it seemed to go on for ages.  There would be several trips to the toy shop to see everything on show, my mam would say "if you're good maybe Father Christmas might bring you one of those", referring to whatever must have toy I was looking at.  Of course, the next time we visited I wanted something else entirely!  I realise now these trips where to get some idea of what to buy for me.  There were a lot of things to choose from, toy shops in those days were a riot of colour and things that made noises or performed various movements after being wound up.

There were standard items that all kids received at Christmas, things like Comic Book Annuals, games compendiums, tinplate toys made by a German firm called Shuco.  These are now collectors items and fetch quite a lot of money, whatever condition they might be in.  Another modern collectable from the 40's & 50's is toy soldiers made from lead!  Although quite simply painted they were in fact quite accurate replicas of whatever branch of the armed forces they were meant to represent and were a must have for any small boy to re-enact battles and wars!  They were hollow and, being made from lead, not too tough, so in no time at all the soldiers heads came off!  This was no problem to us, just jam a matchstick into his neck leaving a stub protruding, force the head onto the stub and he was ready to fight again.

The ultimate toy for boys though was a train set, clockwork driven but soon to be superseded by electric.  Mine was an O gauge Hornby Double O set.  I played with with for ages, at least until dinnertime!!

We also received a chocolate selection box, on looking back I see now that after the Second World War finished sweet rationing didn't end until the 5th of February 1953 so my mam must have saved up her ration coupons to get us a selection box which must have required a lot of points.   

The great night finally arrived though and off we went to bed, the way lit by candlelight and to hang up our stockings at the foot of the bed ready for "him" to visit and hopefully fill it up.  Our stockings were obb wool seaboot socks that my dad wore at sea!  I still remember the feel of those socks, bulging with items such as an apple, an orange, some sweets (more ration points!) and small "stocking filler toys".

Christmas Day always followed the same routine.  My grandma would be up very early at some silly time to get the bird into the oven and start on the vegetables and other trimmings, the smells would start to drift up the stairs quite early in the proceedings.  In those days Christmas was the only day of the year that we had a bird for dinner, usually a chicken, and it would be made to last for several days.  These days people eat chicken in various forms at least once a week, but they don't taste anywhere near as good as those chickens did back then.

We weren't allowed downstairs until the adults had gone down and

then we always knew when it was our turn to go down.  My Granddad set up his wind up gramophone in the front room (possibly the only time that room was used between funerals!) and played the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handels' Messiah at full volume!  Whenever I hear that piece of music I'm transported back to those wonderfully happy Christmases at my grandparents house.

Dinner was soon eaten and over and so, after requesting permission to leave the table, we would be allowed to play with our toys or read our "annuals", mine was the Beano and my sister usually got the Dandy.  We would swap later.

All to soon it was over for another year and so time to light the candles and return to bed.  

Christmas days over the years since have been spent in many ways, we've raised children of our own and now we are going through it all over again for a third time with our grandchildren.  

I hope you all enjoy your Christmas Day this year. 

Here are a couple of Christmas Card to finish with, one from the 1950's plus one that I've made.

Christmas Card from the 1950's, courtesy of
Ann Kennedy.  Please see her blog at
http://www.annbkennedy.blogspot.co.uk/

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year from David Bennett and
my little dog Suzi.

From an original watercolour painting by my wife Carole.

A Wartime Wedding and a life on the waves.

Last time I talked about the ancestors on my granddads' side of the family (the Connolly's) and the hard life they had.  This week I want to tell you about my fathers side, the Bennett's. 

My dad, George Alfred Bennett was born in 1920 into a fishing

An early photo of my stood outside
"Granny Bennett's house in Hildyard Street.

family and lived in Hildyard Street in Grimsby.  He had a poor upbringing, his father deserted the family to live with another woman in Hull and was never seen again.  This left my dad and his mum, who we always called "Granny Bennett" to fend for themselves.  He had a sister called Gertrude (Gertie) and to help out my dad did various jobs, before going to school, to supplement their income.
He would go to the local bakery at 5AM to collect bread to be delivered to houses around the area.  This was probably as a delivery boy but he also had his own firewood round where he sold firewood to regular customers.
One of the house he would make deliveries to was my grand

My dad (on left sat crossed legged) with workmates
outside the Service Farm Foods garage.

parents who were living on Albert Street in Grimsby.  He met my mother there and they became friends, later to marry.
When he left school, instead of going fishing as most lads did he started work at a farm delivery company and later became one of their drivers delivering food stuffs to farms all over Lincolnshire.
He joined the Territorial Army and went away most summers to the annual summer camp.  While in the territorials he learned to work repair and drive all manner of lorrys.  

 When WW2 broke out dad was on a summer camp and was in the

first wave of men called up to fight.  He went into the Royal Artillery ("The Gunners")  and, as he was a trained driver of military vehicles became a driver.  He was posted to India and Egypt and drove a variety of vehicles including tanks.

Like many young couples during the war my parents didn't know what the future had in store for them so in 1940 they got married.

Mam & dad on their wedding day, "Little Gran" on the right and "Granny Bennett" on the left.
They are stood outside Little Grans house I believe, see the tape on the bedroom windows.  This
was to stop glass flying into the room in the event of a nearby bomb burst!

 My dad was one of the lucky men who returned home safely after hostilities ceased but, like most men who served in WW2, never spoke about what he saw or experienced.  Any details I know came from my mam. 

A bit now about my mother, Kathleen, Rachel Connolly.  She was

My mam aged 18 in 1939.

born in 1921 in Albert Street Grimsby. 

On leaving school she had one or two jobs but a couple of those I remember her telling me about were at at a local bird/animal food firm called The Liverine.

She also tried her hand at Brading, that's the process of making trawl nets for the trawlers that sailed out of Grimsby.  When she married though she stayed home to help her mother with the house work which, as described in a previous blog entry, was a very full time job.  Remember, my dad would be away in the war for another five years so my mam continued living at home with her parents which was the usual thing for a war-time bride to do.  No point setting up home just yet!

After the war my dad was restless, I don't know if he returned to his former job driving the farm deliveries.  All I do know is that like a lot of men in Grimsby he "signed on" to become a fisherman on a Grimsby trawler.  He was always a bit of a joker so when he came home one day to say to my mam "I've signed on and I'm going to sea" she didn't take him seriously but soon realised he was telling the truth!  He sailed in a variety of boats doing different jobs and sailed to most of the destinations that Grimsby boats fished at.  His first job was as a "decky learner" learning the skills required for working on deck and handling the catch.  This was very hard work in all weathers.  The trawlers were coal fired steam driven boats and needed huge quantities of coal to keep them going, this meant somebody had to keep the huge boilers fed with coal and my dad became a fireman, shovelling coal into the boiler furnaces. 

Later on he decided to try to get his engineers "ticket" so trained and went on the course at Rushden Bucyrus engineering works at Lincoln where the huge trawler's engines where mostly built.  He got his ticket and became a 2nd engineer on steam driven boats.  In the following years diesel engines replaced steam and he retrained to get his "diesel ticket", 2nd engineer.  Finally he trained again and successfully got his 1st engineers ticket, known locally as "Chief Engineer" and got his own posting and his own engine room!

He sailed out of Grimsby until the late 1970's.  

In those boom times for the fishing industry fishermen had guaranteed employment and could pick and choose which boats to sail on and have a trip off if it suited them!  They could earn a lot of money but were only in port for two, sometimes three days so had to spend it quickly.  The fishing trips lasted for up to three weeks at sea with only two clear days at home before having to set sail back to the fishing grounds!  While at sea they worked continuous shifts of 4 hours on and 4 hours off, around the clock, for the whole of the time away! Hence the need to make merry while they could, they earned the nickname "3 day millionaires"!  It wasn't always profitable though, if the weather was rough or the fishing simply poor then the catch might not make enough money to cover the costs of the trip.  The crew might not get paid for that trip, or could even end up owing the company money, as they would be charged for the food they ate during the trip! 

For the most part my dad sailed for the same fishing company, H & L Taylors and spent the last twenty or so years in the same boat, the "Yesso".

The Yesso, entering the lock-pit after returning from it's latest fishing trip.
Most of the crew are on the bow, looking to see if relatives are waiting for them.
My dad however would be down below tending the engines for the last part of the voyage.  

Any fisherman had to be registered with the Port Authorities and undergo an annual medical to show they were fit for work.  They would be issued with a Port Record Book to allow them to sign on for service and all the boats they sailed on would be recorded in this book. Below is one of my dad's Port Record Books.

One perk they had was the "Bonded Stores".  This was quantities of tobacco, cigarettes, soap and other items that were bought duty free ashore, similar to airports, and sold to the crew at sea, beyond the coastal limits.  Most of it was brought back home as duty free and shared out amongst family.  One of the items was large tins of Quality Street Chocolates so my sister & I always wanted to know what was in dads' sea-bag when he came back from sea!  The other item dad brought home was FISH...LOTS OF IT !  When the fishermen went to get their pay for the trip they would also be given a generous allowance of fish to take home to their families.

Deep sea fishing was officially the most dangerous job in the world resulting in more loss of life and serious injury than any other industry, including coal mining!  
I will have another story to relate to you regarding the dangers of deep sea fishing but I'll tell that in a future blog entry.

This is the last part of my family history, the next few entries will be more of my own memories from my early life.

Hard Times and Heroes.

Last time I talked about daily life at grandma's. This week I want to go further back in time, by a whole generation, to talk about my Great Grandparents on my Grandfathers' side of the family.  Some dramatic events in their lives had far reaching effects on the descendants of the Connolly family, for many years to come, as you will see. 

Alfred Thomas Connolly.

(Born 1872)

My GT. Grandfather,
Alred, Thomas Connolly.

Alfred Thomas Connolly was my Great Grandfather, the son of a master gardener.  He was one of a family of 5 and when his parents died in 1875 & 1879 he went into an orphanage near Woolwich.  He then ran away to sea.

This is the earliest photo
I have of Emma.

On January 29 1896 he married my Great Grandmother,Emma Dowson at St. Andrews Anglican Church, Grimsby.  

Emma was born in 1874 in Grimsby and her Father was a trawler Skipper. 

They had 4 children:-

Alfred Edward, my grandfather who's house we lived in 'til I was 7.

born 1896

Lorina Harriet, born 1898

Emma  born 1901

Henry "Harry" born 1907.

Alfred Thomas was a fisherman sailing out of the fishing Port of

A newspaper report i at the time in the
Grimsby telegraph.

Grimsby and in 1906 he was serving as third hand on the trawler "Victoria" owned by the Standard Steam Trawling Co. of Grimsby when a severe storm struck the vessel.  The master's name was Hill and his son, W. Hill, (the Second Hand) was swept overboard.  My great grandfather swam out with a rope attached to him and retrieved the stricken fisherman but the man was dead before they got him back aboard.

The exposure caused Alfred Thomas to contract pneumonia and he was put ashore in the Faeroes Islands.

On January 17th 1907 he died of his illness at the age of 35 and was buried at Klagsvig, Faeroes Islands.

My Great Grandfather was presented (posthumously) with a medal from the Grimsby Humane Society.  It was presented to his widow Emma, along with a small sum of money from the Society's funds

"in the hope that the children would regard the medal in the light of public appreciation for their father's gallantry".

Emma was left a widow at the age of  33 with no means of support and 4 young children to bring up!  There was no Welfare State in 1907, that wouldn't start until July 5th 1948.  The only income she had was 6 shillings from the Parish and whatever other money she could earn.  

She took in washing, wallpapered and  whitewashed,cleaned and did dressmaking for people. She made shirts for people and sold them for 1 shilling each!  She did all these things and yet still managed to keep a clean house and raise 4 children, a huge achievement but all the more remarkable as she only had 1 hand!

Emma was born with only her left hand.

In spite of all this though Emma had to part with her 2 eldest children Alf (my granddad) and his sister Lorina and send them to The  Sailors' Orphan Home at Newland in Hull.  Hull is on the other side of the River Humber so visiting them was difficult. While they were there she only saw them for 1 day every 6 weeks,

they were there for 4 years.  Alf returned home in December 1911 but sadly, Lorina died at the Orphanage in January of that same year.

The other 2 siblings each took their turn at the Sailors' Orphanage,

Harry emigrated to Canada many years later and Em was to marry a butcher and live in East Marsh Street, Grimsby.

Alfred Edward Connolly.

(My granddad)

While he was at Newlands Sailors' Orphanage my Granddad was educated to the standard of the time.  He had a bad chest and the people there advised him to take up playing a wind instrument to strengthen his breathing.  The orphanage had a tradition for teaching music and had a well respected band.  Alf took up the clarinet and learned to read music, it soon became apparent that he had a natural aptitude for music and many years later became an accomplished musician to professional standard and played in many well known bands and orchestras around the Grimsby area.

However, while learning music at the orphanage he was invited into the band and immediately accepted,  for two reasons.  Firstly it would mean going out every weekend in the summer, to play at concerts in Yorkshire at places like Filey, Scarborough and Harrogate.  The other kids at the orphanage would be kept in to do cleaning etc.  The second reason was the cream teas and meals that were provided at the concerts!  To be a member though meant he had to have his own instrument, he'd only been using a borrowed one for tuition.  Once again Emma (his mum with only the 1 hand) came to the rescue and did extra washing and dress making to buy Alf a brand new Boosey & Hawkes clarinet which must have been a big expense.
There is a lot more I could tell you about my granddads' musical career but I'll save that for another time.
When Alf returned home he became an apprenticed metal turner on Grimsby docks and continued in that trade for the whole of his working life.

one of the earliest pics of Alf taken in
1943 holding my sister Kathleen.

While still at the sailors Orphanage Alf met a girl there called Rachel Younger.  She had also been orphaned and sent there after losing both parents who were Scottish.  Rachel was born in 1899 and when she left the orphanage went to live in Grimsby and later married Alf to eventually become my grandma, "Nanna".  They were childhood sweethearts and, many years later, helped raise me until I was 7 years old.
I know an awful lot about my other ancestors but that is all I know about Nanna other than that she was kind to me and my sister Kathleen and had a great sense of humour!

At the outbreak of World War 1 my granddad was a turner on the docks and was issued with a "Certificate of Exemption" from the Military Authorities which prevented him from being called up for service as he was employed in an exempt trade that would be valuable for the war effort as he was employed repairing ships.

    
He was also issued with a War Service Badge to wear to show why he, as a young man, had not "joined up" to fight in the war.  A certificate was also issued to verify the badge.

Many young men who didn't "do their bit" were branded cowards so the badge was very important.

I'm at the end of this weeks' entry and I've found it a bit harrowing recalling these events, although I've always known them the details are quite upsetting, I think you'll agree.
I called this entry "Hard Times and Heroes" and I'm sure you will agree that my Great Grandfather was certainly a hero but equally heroic was my Great Grandmother Emma who we always called
"Little Gran".  To be left a widow in those days was a terrible situation to be in, especially with her handicap, these days she would be described as a "single mother" and get all the help that the state has to offer. 
Little Gran was a survivor however and lived a long life.  Despite being "bombed out" of her house in 1941 during WW2 she lived for many more years and died in 1969 at the age of 95! 

There is another final story to tell about "Little Gran", a very happy tale and I hope to amuse you with it at another time later on.