My dad’s name was Arthur Booth, eldest of five children with younger brothers John, Des and Brew and a sister, Pat. My dad started work at 13 down the coal mines, after the first day he said, I am not going down there again to his dad, (John Willie Booth), his dad said keep going you will get used to it and 50 years later he retired, but never got used to it. He was a quiet but tough man but easy going with a great sense of humour, he was brought up to protect his siblings quoting Uncle Des he had a fight on the Lamb-sicks most days coming from school and never lost one.
My mum’s name was Louisa Ann Waller, the second youngest of 12 kids, she had 5 sisters and 6 brothers, and they all lived in a 2 up and 2 down cottage in the British Oak Row. All the brothers were first class footballers, sometimes all 6 making the local team, Mosborough Trinity. All 6 brothers worked down the mines as did her dad, (James Waller).
My first memories were of Owlthorpe Lane, about a mile north of the village centre. We had no electricity, only gas lamps and coal for heating, that was one thing we had plenty of. There were 6 cottages up there and a large, detached house a few yards away. At night you could hear the rats running under the floorboards. The outside toilets were at the end of the first house, there was 2 toilets for 6 cottages with 2 seats in each toilet so you could find yourself sitting next to your neighbour.
Mum’s day started at 3 am, lighting the coal fire to boil the kettle on and cook breakfast. His time at the coal mine started and 6 am, down the mine as most men in the village were miners. He worked at Westthorpe pit about 4mile away so most mornings he had to walk to work.
Down in the village at the British Oak Row lived grandma and granddad Waller at number 9. At 17 lived Uncle Joe, mum’s brother. At 21, lived Uncle Ern and at 23 lived Aunt Edith, mum’s younger sister, so it was also known at Waller’s row. Across the road lived Auntie Mary, mum’s elder sister, who had twins Dave and Pete, Hazel, Willis and Stuart.
Just below the British Oak Row was the Westfield estate where nan and granddad Booth lived, so we had frequent visits between the two grandparents.
The first two years of my life Uncle John was in the war, he was in Dunkirk, Italy, North Africa, Austria and Germany. He got wounded twice and made sergeant in the Sherwood Foresters infantry. When he come home in1945, the family went down to the local pub, The Brown Cow, and celebrated.
My granddad, John Willie Booth had an allotment up in the grounds of Mosborough Hall and used to bring sacks of apples and fruit and veg and tip it across the floor for me to play with.
My first days at school a character stood out for me, Alan ‘Tup’ Nicholson, a lively, lovable rogue and Stalin ‘Stal’ Harris, his family were evacuees from London, they had moved up during the war.
At seven, we moved to Killamarsh, 33, Rotherwood Road and to my delight, my mate, Ray Garfit moved in down the road. I had a few friends, but one special friend, Joan Staniforth. We were there about 3 years when we had a chance to move into Uncle Joe’s house in the British Oak Row, he got a house on Ash Street, Westfield estate.
Life was a big adventure in The Row. Auntie Mary had now got the pub, the outbuildings, the lawn was always busy. At the weekends they had a little shop on the lawn, it was a big pub, there was loads to keep young lads busy.
I was about 10 years old by now, the twins about 20, Hazel 15-ish, Willis 9 and Stuart 8. Across the road were Mick and Tony Havenhand. Down the road lived my new friend, Keith Wainwright and his brother, Terry ‘Tich’ and also ‘Tup’ and Stal. All of a sudden, the world was my oyster. Bonfire Night was something special for us, we spent weeks chopping trees down, collecting wood. We would visit the local drift mine down Bramall’s Lane across from the pub and treat ourselves to a few pit props. Then we would get their grease tin and put grease on all the shovel handles and barrows. Bonfire night lasted three days for us and we had it in the pub orchard.
Life at 17, Mosborough Moor was good, every house had an allotment, so me and Stuart Buckwheat by now would help my dad with the allotment. Granddad Booth gave us an old pigeon coot which we turned into a hen house and my dad got me 5 banty hens. That was my job in a morning, go and feed the hens and collect the eggs, usually about 3.
The outside toilet was about 100 yards across the yard and was full of big hairy spiders, so you would not go until you were desperate and the newspaper, we had in there made your arse sore.
Uncle Ern had pigs, so we had to save all potato peelings and veg to make pig swill.
Every Friday mum would come home with 200 fags and put them in the pantry, so I used to take 10 and put them on the floor, just out of site, so it looked as though they had fallen there. If nothing was said after a couple of days, they were mine. 20 Woodbine via Willis (Porky) now, from the pub, life was good.
One night mum and dad went to the pub. Dad used to take a bag full of coal to the pub and put it on the fire. So, me and Willis decided to make some chips. All of a sudden, the chip pan was on fire, so what should we do? I know, chuck a pan full of water on it, that should put it out. It didn’t, it went up like a bomb, BANG, FLASH, FIRE, FIRE all the shelve above the cooker were on fire. Quick, we had to run down to the pub, ran inside and shouted mum, quick the house is on fire.
As it happened, it was soon put out and there wasn’t much damage, but on the same night, my old friend, Knucky Staton had a fit just outside our house and because my dad was in St John’s Ambulance, he knew what to do. He took him in our house, put him on the settee and gave cold compresses on his head and later took him home.
Our Robert was born a spastic and never walked but had a great sense of humour and me and dad used to sit and tell him jokes. They lived at 23 with Uncle George Webster.
On Saturdays we went to the swimming baths at Sheffield then went looking round the shops. We went to Woolworth’s and pinched 4 pipes. We went to the den. The den was tree that at the top of our garden that hung right down to the floor and we dug a small tunnel under it. So we sent Willis to the pub for some tobacco. That was a mistake because as we sat there puffing, we all felt sick and turned yellow.
During the holidays and weekends was time to go bird nesting. Me and Stuart were the tree climbers as we went mostly round Eckington woods. We only took one egg and only if they were several. We had a great collection and kept it under my hen house.
When the Queen’s coronation came round there was only Mick and Tony Havenhand’s with a TV, so we all piled in there. There must have been 40 – 50 in there watching a TV 6-inch square.
During the summer me and dad used to go up the Bridle to watch Mosborough Trinity football and cricket teams. They had a small pavilion where you could get tea, coffee, buns and things. It was a lovely afternoon up the Bridle meeting all our village friends
When I got to 11 years old, having failed my 11+, although I was living in Mosborough there was no secondary modern school, so we had to go to Killamarsh. We had a free bus there and back. It was a decent school and I was always I the top 3 in exams despite hating English. Looking back, it was the teacher, Mr Thornton, I hated. If you made a mistake, he would have you out at the front of the class and make you explain yourself. He wouldn’t let up until you were cringing and one day, he had Keith Sharp crying then he slung a blackboard rubber at him going at 100 mile an hour, much to the delight of some of the kids who thought it was funny.
Music was OK, Mr Bolsover was a decent guy. First lesson you had to stand up in class and sing a song, which didn’t bother me much, but some of the kids were distraught much to the amusement of Lance Royston who pissed himself with laughter every time someone got up and I thought I can’t wait till he gets up good disappointedly.
Everyone was terrified of Mr Hurst the science teacher, he looked and spoken.
As time went by my friendship with Keith became stronger, he was very funny and made me laugh. All the time his humour was sharp, sarcastic and very clever he could make someone feel 2 inches small with just a remark, that’s why I think he liked me because hanging round with ‘Tup’ and Stal and Keith, the confidence rubbed off and I became my own man. I became less emotional and probably less caring. Tup, Stal and Al became a unit like big fish in a little pond. We really thought we were somebody until we met the Eckington were who much tougher. There was not just 4 of them, there was 10 -15 so we avoided and kept in our own little pond. Tup was the smartest of us and had an answer to everything. To sum it up I think our strength was not our physical attributes, but the fact we could make a person feel small and insignificant with just a look or remark which would hurt people emotionally, but we didn’t realise we were doing it all. It came so naturally we were in our own little world and was full of ourselves. WE THOUGHT WE WERE THE DOGS BOLLOCKS.
As I approached my 15th birthday, I had to start to think what I was going do for a job, my dad wanted me to go in the Police, but I thought, nah that’s not for me, so he said you must learn a trade. Thinking about different trades I thought I don’t want anything to do with heights can’t stand heights, which ruled a few ones out. Dad said you’re not going down the mines. At school I learned there were different courses going at Westfield night classes. I enrolled for a metalwork class machining metal. After a few weeks on a lathe, I turned up at home prized it a try musical and me and Keith got picked to be demon dancers, I felt a right twat I was bad enough. Keith had two left legs and it wasn’t long before we got the sack, I liked woodwork it was interesting but if you cut yourself, you got the cane strangely enough.
I made a few friends at school but one special was Geoffrey Wright (Wrongy). What’s it mean when you put two fingers up to someone, he said it means I want to f**k you, so I thought I would try that on a couple of girls and was pleasantly surprised that they did it back, it wasn’t until a few days later it meant f**k off and I felt a right plonker.
When I left school at 15, my Uncle George Webster got me a job in the machine shop at Hattersly and Ridge. I left school Friday and started work at Monday. On the first day I went with George Webster to the company. We got a lift with Brian Whewell’s fish van. Because there wasn’t room inside it to sit on the back it was open, the van is very cold. When we got to Sheffield to catch a tram to Club Mill Road then we had the mile walk down Club Mill Road. The road run alongside the River Don. We got there at 7.00 am, but the machine shop didn’t open until 8, so I spent an hour watching Uncle George in the forge, he worked on a drop stamp forging steel ball, it was very hot and noisy.
At 8 o’clock, he took me round to the machine shop and introduced me to my foreman, Fred Axe, a nice old man nearly ready for retiring. The machine shop is in the corner of a large press shop where they made agricultural implements. In the corner of the machine shop was the tool room where they made the tools for the presses.
Thank you to Alan Booth for sharing his memories and to Carol Stocks (nee Waller) for retyping them up.
