Friday night was fish and chips night. Dad got paid on Friday and brought the dinner in wrapped in newspapers. I remember the smell, tangy vinegar which made my eyes water and my mouth too. After the fish and chips dad would pull out the Friday treat,  chocolate! It would be sixpenny Cadbury bars or a packet of Rollo’s.

Dad always wore a large green jacket, almost military in style, with lots of bulging pockets all over it. Those pockets contained treasures beyond belief, but they were firmly out of bounds to us kids.

Once a week dad would clear out the living room and mix a huge bucket of water and ‘Aunt Sally’ carbolic acid cleaner. He would empty the contents out onto the floor in one circular sweep of his arms and scrub the whole thing from end to end. This didn’t do the damp walls much good but it did keep the cockroach population down to a mere few hundred. Towards the end of the week, just before the next swilling out and the roach population had had a little time to recover, it was really not a good idea to wander down the stairs in the middle of the night. Opening the living room door would cause panic in the roaches. The resulting spectacle has yet to be bettered by contemporary special effects techniques in the cinema, as the black floor parted from the centre out as if some force had pulled a dark carpet up into the walls from all sides. I still shudder when I think of those roaches and the sound of thousands of scurrying feet across the lino.

Another ‘quaint’ aspect of the property was the outside toilet. Just why it had to be so far from the house I will never know, though it did utilise two existing walls down there, the rear and the side wall of the yard, which both reached the dizzying height of six feet. At least we didn’t have to share it with the street, in Garston every house had its own lav. (I think). Because of all this, we had ‘Chamber pots’ in the bedroom for night-time use. I use the term chamber pot quite loosely as the one in our bedroom was actually a galvanised mop bucket. I really can’t remember ever seeing the one in our parents room. - Curious! Needless to say, the morning stench provided an excellent incentive to get up and out of the bed.

Once up we really did have to make up our own fun and entertainment. Even if there had have been daytime television back then it wouldn’t have mattered to us because we didn’t have a television, not even a radio. It was only a few years later, after we moved to Speke that I remember getting a radio. Instead, we had a piano. My mum could play the piano. It was in the ‘parlour’ along with a few china things on white doilies. The only time we went into the parlour was on Sunday afternoon or when the priest came around to see us. In the winter dad would light the two gas lamps on the wall and we would listen to mum playing the piano. Sometimes I would ‘Vamp’ for her on the low end. Later on dad would get his suit out of the bottom drawer upstairs and go to the pub. He always pretended not to notice the new brown paper that the suit was wrapped in every week.

When mum came out of the pawn shop every Monday morning she would send me to the Tannery office on the corner of King Street and Vulcan Street for a silver shilling for the gas meter. I have never figured out why that office would have all those silver shillings behind the reception counter but I never once came away without one.

Gas mantles could be bought from Rollo’s shop on King Street. Being sent for a new mantle was the most terrifying message a young lad could be sent on. Mantles were so delicate and it is not in a youngsters nature to concentrate on walking slowly and carefully all the way home.  Mr Rollo insisted on opening every box to check that the mantle was in good condition before handing it over so there was no going back with faulty goods. It was a clout around the back of the head if you got home with it in more than one piece - and a tearful journey back to Rollo’s for another.