I
interviewed my grandfather, Sam Glass, who was
born in 1931 in Cogry. The village itself was
demolished many years ago to make way for a new
housing development. The time he is telling me
about is when he was seven years old, the age I
am now.
Cogry village
was built at the end of the last century and was
owned by the McMeekin family, who also owned
Cogry Mill. The houses were built in rows of
about fifteen . Sam was born at 39 Cogry Square.
They had two bedrooms upstairs, a bedroom
downstairs, a kitchen and a small scullery.
There was no electricity in the houses. The main
room was the kitchen. This was where the fire
was and was the only warm room in the house
because they had no central heating. The kitchen
was like our living room today. There was a
sofa, two chairs, three stools, a big kitchen
table and a big cupboard to keep the food in.
Any food, like milk and butter, that needed to
be kept cold was kept in crock pots in the
scullery.
There was no
water in the house. All the water was carried
from the pump. There was only one pump for the
whole of Cogry.There was no bathroom in the
house, only a dry toilet in the yard. When you
used the toilet the poo dropped into a pit
below. A man came with a pony and cart every two
weeks and shovelled out all the mess. In hot
weather the smell from the toilet was really
awful.
Upstairs all
the boys slept in one room and all the girls in
the other. If you had a lot of children they
slept three or four to a bed. The only other
bedroom furniture was a chest of drawers and an
oil lamp for light at night. There were no
carpets, only lino on the floor because it
lasted for many years and was cheaper to buy.
Sam's family couldn't afford the nice things we
have in our homes today so his mum tried to
brighten the place up with coloured wallpaper
and lots of pictures on the walls. Sam's mum was
called Lizzie and even though she had eleven
children she had to work in Cogry Mill every day
from eight in the morning to six o'clock because
the family needed the money. Lizzie got up at
six o'clock every morning to light the fire and
cook the breakfast.
This was
always a fry and with eleven children she had a
lot of cooking to do before she started work in
the mill. She had to do all the housework in the
evenings after work. In those days men didn't do
any housework at all. Sam can't remember his dad
even making a cup of tea for himself. Every
Monday was wash night. Lizzie had to heat all
the water over the fire in big kettles and pour
it into the tin bath which stood on two kitchen
chairs. Clothes were washed on the washboard
using Queen's Pale Soap. There were no washing
machines or spin driers then. All the wet
clothes had to be carried out to the yard and
put through the mangle to squeeze the water out.
Lizzie had to carry the damp washing to the
clothes lines which were about three minutes
walk from the house. That was a long way to have
to carry lots of heavy, wet washing.
Tuesday
evening was when the ironing was done. Lizzie
didn't have an electric iron like my mum does.
She had to heat her iron on the fire. One was
left heating in the fire while the other was
being used. She had to spit on the iron to make
sure that it was hot enough. Wednesday was
baking night. Lizzie made her own soda and
potato bread on the griddle over the fire. The
Inglis bread man came twice a week. The house
was cleaned from top to bottom every Friday.
Lizzie scrubbed the floors on her hands and
knees and put newspaper down to make sure they
stayed clean. The newspaper was left down until
Sunday morning when she used it to light the
fire.
All the
shopping was done at Stevenson & Sons. This
meant she had to walk two miles from Cogry to
Ballyclare or get the bus if the weather was
bad. Lizzie gave the grocer her order and he
wrote it down, added it all up and took the
money. All the shopping was delivered to Cogry
on Friday evening because in those days nobody
had cars. The usual order would be for flour,
eggs, butter, potatoes, bacon, cheese, jam and
tea. The oil for the lamps was also delivered by
the grocer. The milk man came every day with a
pony and trap. The milk was in big metal cans
and Lizzie had to collect her milk in a jug. The
milk man measured out what was needed. There
were no glass bottles or cartons of milk then.
All the food was fried and you had potatoes for
your dinner every night, usually with bacon or
sausages. Sam and his brothers and sisters
always had a bowl of porridge before they went
to bed at night.
Saturday was
bath night so all the children were nice and
clean for Sunday school the next morning. The
water had to be heated on the fire and poured
into a tin bath. A lot more work for Lizzie. To
save time two or three children had to use the
same bath water. Every one used Lifebuoy soap
even to wash their hair. Sam remembers his mum
using a nit comb every week on the children's
hair to make sure they didn't have head lice. At
night all the mums used to knit or crochet and
most of Sam's pullovers and socks were hand
knitted because it was cheaper than buying them
out of the shop. Some women made rag mats
because proper mats were very dear to buy. It
was very important to all the women in Cogry
that the front doorstep and the pavement outside
the house was always spotless. They used to
scrub them with bleach every week and it was
like a competition to see who could have the
whitest doorstep.
The women in
those days had to work very hard and they did
not have any machines like Hoovers or washing
machines to help them. Sam never remembers his
mum sitting down and relaxing. She was always
busy doing something. He also said she was quick
tempered a lot of the time, but he thought he
would be quick tempered too, if he had to work
as hard now as his mother did then. My mum gets
cross with me and my sisters sometimes because
we give her so much work to do. Now I have done
this project I can tell her she shouldn't be so
bad tempered because she doesn't have as many
children or nearly as much work to do as my
great grandmother Lizzie had.
Keith
Graham - P4 - Fairview Primary School
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