Dorothy – 11/11/99
Growing up in the first quarter of the twentieth century Con Davidson nee Clegg (born 1907) recalls how her mother coped as bread
winner.
Life around Lyttelton 1907-1915 My life began in Cass Bay near Lyttelton, the port of Christchurch, where
my father managed the slaughter works. As the youngest in a family of four
I was probably a little spoilt, but discipline in the family was strict and
I had to obey.
Life was not easy for our family. My father changed his job and opened a
business in Lyttelton. He was loath to be tough on debtors and my mother
had to work hard in the shop to compensate for his kind-heartedness. The
shop was a dairy that supplied milk to the boats in the harbour and involved long hours.
This left me to make some of my own decisions and make choices for myself.
For instance I would be sent on my own to the shoe shop to get new shoes
and I think I damaged my feet by choosing shoes that cramped them.
Prisoners from the Lyttelton Gaol As a child I was told nothing of the Lyttelton Gaol which I now know is
believed to have accepted the worst criminals and lunatics from all over
the South Island and put them to work building roads and stone walls around
Lyttelton. I vivdly remember my father taking me for a walk and seeing the
prisoners from the jail building stone walls. They were roped together and
a warder supervising them walked up and down with a rifle. My father explained to me that the prisoners had been naughty!
Troops leaving to fight in World War 1 I also remember the sound of the cheering as the troop ships left the harbour to take the soldiers to fight in World War 1. My father was too
old to go to the war and my brother was too young so I did not lose any of
my immediate family in the war. My brother was very ill in the influenza
epidemic that followed the war, but he was one of the fortunate people who
recovered.
My mother as bread winner when my father became ill When I was eight my father became sick and we left Lyttelton and moved to
Christchurch.
Cleaning offices My mother supported the family by doing cleaning. I used to go with her to
help. We cleaned with brooms, dusters, buckets, and scrubbing brushes. We
scrubbed wooden areas with sandsoap. For washing the linoleum we used Sunlight soap and kept it on a saucer beside the bucket so that it wouldn’t
soften in the water. Then we knelt on the floor and polished the linoleum.
The laundry routine For use at home my mother made her own soap with fat saved from the Sunday
roast, or bought bars of cheap soap and cut it into pieces and left it to
harden so that it would last longer.
After the roast dinner on Sunday cold meat was served on Monday with mashed
potato and vegetables. It needed to be an easy meal as Monday was washday
and especially busy. The white washing was boiled in the copper with the
fire lit underneath. As the sheets and pillowcases, the tablecloths and
serviettes and most of the towels were white these were large loads.
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Bricked in copper |
Then
the steaming load was lifted on the copper stick and rinsed in cold water
in the tub beside the copper. Next it was put through a wringer screwed to
the division between the two tubs. Turning the wringer was hard work. In
the second tub it was soaked in the blue rinse (made blue with Reckitts
blue bags) and finally it was put through the wringer again and carried in
a basket and hung on the outside clothes line supported by a clothes prop.
The sheets were not ironed but were put through a mangle – like a large
wringer – which flattened them.
The shirts and tablecloths and serviettes were dipped in starch before they
were hung on the line. When they were dry they were damped and rolled for
the dampness to spread evenly before they were ironed with an iron heated
and reheated on the stove. The iron had to be cleaned each time it had
been heated so that it would not leave black marks on the clothes.
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Con Clegg aged three |
Clothes like Con wore in her photograph were the fashion for little girls
and like the white shirts and tablecloths demanded very careful laundering.
Economical housekeeping My mother kept house economically and cooked all the meals herself. When
pineapples first became available she would do without something else and
buy two pineapples. One we would eat fresh. The other she would bottle in
a preserving jar and keep as a treat for one of the children’s birthdays.
For a celebration she would make a jelly in a mould, and serve it with cooked pear halves trimmed to look like mice with almond ears, liquorice
pieces for eyes and mouth and liquorice strips for tails.
She had a treadle sewing machine and mended everything. When the sheets
wore thin she cut them down the centre and sewed the outer edges together
so that the good parts were in the centre.
Playing as a child I remember my childhood as a happy time. In Christchurch the street I lived in had a park at the end. My favourite toys were a bat and ball. I
loved hockey and basketball. The pupils were taken from school to the tepid
baths until they could swim. I wore a cotton swimming costume reaching to
my knees and with sleeves to the elbow.
I studied diligently and always did my homework and took sitting Proficiency in my stride. Once I had finished at primary school I had to
leave day school and continue my education at evening classes at the Technical College, but my attendance was spasmodic as I often had to work
with my mother instead. I had to catch up my work through books.
One place where my mother and I cleaned was the premises of a dental mechanic. I became so interested that I would go after school and watch
the mechanic at work. I decided then that it was the job I would do when I
left school. When I was fourteen I was apprenticed to a dental mechanic
for a five- year apprenticeship. I walked to and from work and worked long
hours.
Looking back at my mother’s life
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Alice Clegg – always cheerful |
Looking back I marvel at my mother who worked so hard and never complained.
Once when she was gardening she got a rose prickle in her leg and it caused
problems which in those days the doctors could not cure. She suffered a lot of pain as she worked at her cleaning. Eventually she
lost her leg below the knee, but it did not stop her from working. Even
when she had a peg instead of an articifial leg she was quite mobile and
used to say it was better than the specially fitted leg. Her motto was,
“When you have a worry’, and she had plenty of worries, “go and do some
work.”
Having to work hard myself was good training and has done me no harm. When
I married I had all the skills I needed to keep house and to manage a budget because of the training I received from my mother.