Memories of a Ten Year Old Girl in Ahoghill I was born in Ahoghill on the 23rd of March 1913 ,Good Friday. My father owned the local Creamery which was at the bottom of a long garden where we grew our vegetables. The Creamery made butter and cream and the skimmed milk was returned to the farmer for feeding his animals. My mother had no paid employment. She was a housewife and looked after her husband and six children. The house we lived in had five bedrooms,a drawing room, dining room, living room, kitchen, scullery, an outer kitchen and an outside toilet. Each bedroom had a wash basin and jug and under each bed was a chamber pot. I suppose we were used to the odour. It originally was a Georgian house. It has electricity, a bathroom and a toilet now. These were added on about forty years ago in the form of an extension at the back of the house. My earliest memory was of soldiers marching through the village on their way to the First World War. I was told later that they died at the Somme. A bar of Cadbury's Chocolate cost a penny. We would get one penny's worth of sweets in a wee newspaper poke. The shopkeeper's nails were black and he would put his hands into the jar to give us our sweets ! My chores around the house were to brush the floor, wash dishes and clean the windows. I was the oldest girl so I had more work to do. Saturday night was bath night to get us clean for Church on Sunday. The children washed in an enamel hip bath and the water was changed every other child. The adults washed in a long zinc bath. We did not have electric lighting or central heating. We used candles and oil lamps. Water was got from a pump at the bottom of the garden about 500 yards away and we carried it up in tin buckets. We never knew of heat in the house. It was always cold and the bedroom fires were never lit. I can still remember the frost on the windows in the wintertime. We had a coal fire in the living room and sometimes in the drawing room. There was a range in the kitchen. Apart from coal we used wood from the moss. In the village there was one main shop owned by John McCandless, who sold everything from a needle to an anchor. Smoked bacon was bought by the side and hung up in the pantry along with a smoked ham and salt ling. The ling were hung through the eyes on a long rod. When you needed fish a piece was cut off and soaked overnight and then cooked in milk. Flour was bought in hundredweight bags. We could afford to buy sugar but most people in the village were very poor and tuberculosis was rife amongst them and there were many deaths. Although we did buy some goods we grew our own vegetables, potatoes, scallions, onions, rhubarb, parsley and cabbage. We also grew apples, redcurrants, blackcurrants, plums and gooseberries. These were made into jam or preserved and used in puddings in the winter. There was plenty of sago, tapioca, rice and custard. Perishable food was kept in a wire mesh larder outside the back door and the meat would have been covered with muslin. As we had plenty of space we kept hens. A man came round the village once a week selling meat but you could have soled boots with it. Another man came round, in season, selling Lough Neagh pollin at a shilling a bucketful. We had to buy sweet milk as the only milk available from the creamery was skimmed. We were able to make our own bread, soda, fadge, bannocks, slim scones and pancakes. We ate mostly what we grew in the garden and made at home. At breakfast we had porridge and a fry of soda, fadge, egg and bacon. When we all came home from school we had our main meal. For this we had broth made from shin and potatoes, meat which was usually tough, or champ. Our pudding would be custard or sago or cornflour with the fruit from the garden. In the summer we always had rhubarb and custard. In Autumn we would have baked apples with syrup and brown sugar. At teatime we had jam, cheese, pancakes or slim scones. Sometimes we had a boiled or scrambled egg or occasionally fish. Between meals children would have bread and jam. Food was cooked on the range which was kept shiny with black lead. My mother bought fabric for our clothes and we went to a dressmaker. My father had his boots hand made and his suits were tailor made. My shoes were laced for school. I also had button boots, which were done up with a button hook. With these boots I wore long hand knitted socks. All the girls in the family were taught to knit and we could all knit socks. I am still knitting socks. Monday was washday when the washing was done in an outhouse. The clothes were washed in a wooden tub. They were steeped first, then they were scrubbed up and down on a washboard using Sunlight soap, then boiled, rinsed and finally put through a mangle. Washing soap was bought in buckets. There was a yellow soap for floors and a green soap for washing hair. In those days there were very few cars and only the doctor had one then. My father had a motor-bicycle and side car. It was kept in a shed as there was no garage. When we went to Ballymena we went on a pony and trap. This is how we got to Ballymena train station when we went to Portrush for our holidays each year. We played much the same games as children today; hopscotch, wee schools, skipping, hoops and marbles. I had whooping cough and scarlet fever as a child. I very nearly died but we could afford the doctor not like the poor people in the village. They struggled all their lives and eventually gave in to tuberculosis and other killing diseases that were common, Amadeus J Finlay - P6 - Ballyclare Primary School Another Story Competition Index Return to Main Page