Recalling the magic of a poor but happy 1950s childhood

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Dolly tubs and the dolls’ hospital, the shrinking man and Hoover ads, a mum who couldn’t swim or cycle but tried to do both – they are all fond memories of a magical 1950s childhood recounted here by Susan King, of Derby.

Bold Lane, Derby. There used to be a dolls’ hospital there

I have so many vivid memories of my 1950s childhood. I remember the weeks before Whit Sunday when there were rows and rows of beautiful dresses, in every colour, hanging up on the Morledge open market.

At Whitsuntide, everyone, no matter how poor they were, had a new outfit and we would all call for each other, excited to show off our pretty new dresses.

The highlight of Sunday was to listen to the Jimmy Clitheroe programme on the radio. Then, as soon as Sing Something Simple came on, it was off to bed.

We would play on the waste ground on Gisborne Street, sitting round a fire on stools made out of bricks, telling each other ghost stories and frightening the younger kids to death, especially when we ran off and left them there.

There was a doll in Miss Newbould’s shop in Nuns Street that I wanted. It was dressed in a traditional Scots outfit. It cost 19/11d and my mother would give me threepence at a time to pay for it. When it was all paid, Miss Newbould handed me that doll. I was so happy. I played with it for hours.

Then, after some weeks, its leg came off and my mother took me and the doll to the dolls’ hospital in Bold Lane.

It was a frightening place. There were dolls’ legs and arms, all different sizes, hanging up. It was where everyone went to get their dolls mended, if you were lucky enough to have one.

Pickering’s pawn shop in Brook Street, left. In the 1950s, there was a dry-cleaning service down the side

In Brook Street, there was a combined clothes shop, pawn shop and hardware store called Pickerings. At the back, down the entry, there was a dry-cleaning counter. My mother would take me to pick up the cleaning.

There was a large poster at the back of the counter on the wall, showing two butlers face to face – one small and the other very tall. Underneath it read: “Curses, they’re shrunk.”

I used to hold my mother’s hand so tightly when we went in there, even though Mr Pickering was very nice. He looked like Alistair Simms, the actor, but his big grown-up son terrified me.

I thought he was the shrinking man and he was going to shrink me like the man in the picture. I was too young to know the poster was referring to the trousers pictured and I daren’t tell my mum in case they shrunk her as well.

Our doctor’s surgery in Lodge Lane was just as bad. There were two rows of benches facing each other, two old-fashioned gas fires and some awful pictures of ladies with white faces, who all looked sad and ill and worried.

I always thought they were Dr Honan’s family because he and his sister, Dr Mary Honan, looked like the people in the pictures. They both had white faces but Dr Mary always wore bright red lipstick. She had yellow teeth and was always smoking a cigarette when we went to see her.

Gary Warner, next door, was one of the first to get a TV in the street. He would tell us he was allowed to have a friend in to watch Torchy the Battery Boy on Sunday afternoon, so we would all be nice to the little wretch all day until he ran off home, shouting he was only kidding.

Shortly after, we got a TV. The commercials fascinated me. I would sing the Hoover advert: “All the dirt all the grit, Hoover gets it every bit. Hoover beats as it sweeps as it cleans” and then everyone knew you had a telly.

When I told my grandchildren about dolly tubs and mangles, they laughed and didn’t believe me. And when I said there were icicles on the inside of the windows in winter, they asked why we didn’t have the heating on.

We used to stand in front of the oven in the morning to get dressed before the fire was lit to keep warm.

We were lucky in that we were well fed and well clothed and our home, though sparsely furnished, was scrupulously clean.

My mother told us that she was once a very good swimmer like Esther Williams, the famous swimming film star. I felt so proud that I asked her to come swimming with Marilyn, my sister, and I. She told me to go to Hartshorne’s and get her a swimming costume.

The only one they had was a leopard print. She was not pleased but came anyway. When we arrived at the baths, Marilyn and I dived in. Mum jumped in and disappeared. I thought she was swimming underwater until the lifeguard jumped in to save her. She couldn’t swim at all. She was banished to the shallow end and we didn’t speak to her.

But mum was a good sport. We all owned 30 bob specials from Luigi Tessa. They were old bikes he made up out of scrap bits. Mum borrowed Marilyn’s to come on a bike ride with me and I was amazed when she went flying past me. I thought: “Wow, she’s brave, going that fast.” Then I saw her dragging her foot, trying to stop it. The damn thing hadn’t got any brakes –but she took it all in good fun.

Mrs Osborne, next door, taught us all to play Chopsticks on her piano and we thought we were as good as Liberace. I still keep in touch with her daughter, Yvonne, and my friend, Susan Smith. We have had many a laugh at some of the things that happened when we were kids.

We enjoyed the magic of childhood imagination and no-one really fell out with each other. We were just kids being kids out playing until bedtime, looking forward to the next day’s adventures.

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