The Shop in Billinge Road
We had our fair share of characters, awkward customers, and funny ones as well and here are a few of them. Kitty Adamson, now there was a really funny lady. Kitty was well into her 70s when we went into the shop. I don't think that Kitty had ever worn any supports in her life, and as a result everything had sagged downwards. She had a real penchant for sherbet lemon sweets. These were a boiled sweet with an acid lemon shell and a centre of sherbet, and at that time they sold for a shilling (5p) a quarter. Kitty didn't have many teeth and she would murder these sweets, buying a quarter a day until her mouth was sore. She would then say "Ee, as t'ave t'leave um a be fur a bit, mi meaths too sore for t'suck um, bur ah doo luv um." She was married to Billy, who was a bane to all the children as he sat outside the house in Little Billinge Road, pretending to scotch up their bike wheels with his stick. Billy had been a miner but was grossly overweight and had problems walking; he had married Kitty late in life and had never had any children. Kitty's sister Clara lived with them in the stone houses below where we used to live in Billinge Road.
When Billy died, Kitty said that he had to have the best oak coffin that money could buy. I recall that she advertised his best suit for sale in the paper after his death, "Mans blue suit for sale, chest 48ins, waist 48ins, inside leg 28ins!! I don't know if she ever sold it but whoever bought it had a lot of altering to do.
Kitty had some really funny sayings, one of which was, especially if she had been "off side" "Ah've bin off th'ooks" or "Ee's bin shakin t'spade at me agen" Or "Ah've dusted t'policies an pur um away." She could be really funny. I remember walking past their house one day when Billy was still alive, the door was open as usual and Billy was watching the television from his usual spot, sat on a stand chair by the table. They must have been having an argument because I heard Billy say to her, " Kate, stop threuppin' me" It sounded so funny at the time ( nb. threuppin or threppin was contradicting).
She was pretty well off as far as money was concerned and liked to talk about it, but one day, someone knocked her over and tried to steal from her. It unnerved her quite a bit, and she never discussed money with anyone again.
Henry Lomax was another interesting customer. He was an old man who lived in an annexe attached to Walter Jolley's house, and the reason that he was there was that May, Walter's wife had taken pity on him. I don't know how it came about, but Henry had lost his wife through cancer some time previously, when he lived near Landgate. I think that May was on Home Help at the time and somehow she got him to come and live with them. Henry had paid out the money to have the annexe built, and it consisted of a living room/bedroom with a small kitchenette. And bathroom to complete the setup.
Henry was a vegetarian, as he believed that eating meat had contributed to his wife's death. He had some weird ideas about dieting and he used to eat great quantities of onions, in fact, the whole annexe reeked of them! Another thing that he bought was a loaf of brown bread called "Vitbe" it was one of the proprietary brands that Scotts from Liverpool used to make, and I think that Henry imagined that it had magical powers. He used to call it "Vitabread", and he would smother it with olive oil which he bought from Boots or as he called them "Boots, Cash Chemists".
He went off for long trips along the canal bank, clad in sandals, with pants tucked inside his socks, sports coat and hat, and an old leather school satchel across his chest, filled with provisions for the journey. A plastic mac completed his attire. He was trying to walk the whole length of the Leeds/Liverpool canal, in stages, and he would get a bus to where he had left off the previous day and there resume his journey. I never knew if he ever completed the task.
When he finally died he had left instructions for his body to be left to medical research and before he was properly cold, his body was whisked off to some lab somewhere, never to be seen again. We have often wondered if his corpse is still being used to further the knowledge of some budding medic somewhere!
Another family worth mentioning was that of the Martlands. They lived in the house at the junction of Bold and Mabel Street. Polly was a widow and living with her was her daughter, Betty. I remember my mother telling me of Betty's birth, apparently Polly liked to "put it about " and consequently when Betty came on the scene, she wasn't too sure of her paternity. She was wheeling the child out in her pram when she stopped Ma and said to her "Who do yo think oo favvers, Annie?"
Anyway, Betty gets herself married to a man named Reynolds who was quite a bit older than she was. They had a daughter named Anne, and soon after Anne was born, the aforesaid Reynolds "Popped his clogs " as it were, leaving the household with the old lady, Betty and Anne. Betty could talk like a machine gun. I'm sure that she could talk under water!! When she had been in the shop, I would say to Edna "listen, can't you just hear the silence".
Later on, Betty, after the death of her mother, went to live in the tower block in Worsley Mesnes with Anne. She was friendly at the time with Colin Heyes, and Colin, who had a bit of a stammer, would go to visit Betty in the flat on the 13th floor. Betty came into the shop on one occasion and was telling us of Colin's visit. "He just sits there, enjoying the view through the window, " She said. I said to Edna later on, when she had left the shop," I'll bet Colin can't say anything. By the time he has decided what to say, and tried to say it, Betty will have let forth with another barrage of words!!"
Betty's mother died just before we took the shop on, and, as she lay dying, Betty, forever the practical one came into the shop and said to Ma, "Mrs Foster, do you think that you can get me a pound of boiled ham for the funeral?" Ma said to Betty, "I didn't know that your mother had died "She was a bit taken aback. Betty said, " Well no, she's not dead yet, but it won't be long before she is!! Nothing like being prepared!!!
There is another tale to be told of Betty's mother. She came into the shop when Ma was serving, and said, "Gi'us five peand o' pratoes Annie," Ma was just starting to weigh them when she changed her mind " Nowe, gi'us two un a hafe, they'll only eyte um" John Rowe's wife Nellie was in the shop at the time and she said to her "Bloody 'ell, missus what d'yer want um do wi' um?"
Another family worth a mention was the Bolton's. They all lived together. At one time, they had lived in the old stone houses in Billinge Rd. next door to where we lived at No 67. They moved from there and bought a house in Edinburgh Drive, where they lived for quite a while, they moved from there into 126 Billinge Rd, the house where I was born, and finally they moved to Billinge Road just above Little Lane. Living together were Mr. and Mrs. Bolton, Betty and her husband Amos Hilton, and their two daughters, Margaret and Geraldine. The two women would come shopping, sometimes together, and sometimes separately, but when they did, it was "Book half for me and half for her," (At that time we used to give people weekly credit, and it was something that had carried over from when Ma had the shop.) They would argue sometimes that we had booked something twice, due to the fact that they always wanted to split the bill. Finally, one day, Edna had had enough and she said "We are going to stop booking stuff altogether and go on cash only".
This giving credit was the source of a few amusing tales. Some women could never "keep straight" One of these would come in all sheepish and wait until the shop was empty before asking if she could "leave a bit on until next week" This was a regular pattern until her husband was made redundant at Pilkingtons where he was working at the time. He got about £75 redundancy pay, which she promptly put in her purse.
She came into the shop and said. "How much do I owe you?" We couldn't believe it!! She paid all that she owed and then said "I'm going to pay cash from now on, and I won't be booking again." Well, this suited us. I said to Edna at the time, " How much will you bet that the money runs out in less than a month?" It lasted about 6 weeks!!
We watched every time she paid us, as the money at the back of her purse dwindled away. Finally came the day "Can I leave it until Friday, because he only gets his wages then?"---- "Yes, that's OK"----- I said to Edna, "It's not taken her so long to get rid of it "
Some of the excuses were legendary. One came and said that she had thrown her husband's wage packet on the fire with a fiver still inside!! Another said that she had been to the pictures and lost a fiver there. We had to stand there with a straight face and sympathise with them!
When we started to sell drapery, we allowed people to pay weekly for it. There was a very good mark up on drapery and we had some decent customers, who never missed a payment, but others left a lot to be desired. One lady had taken some drapery and we hadn't seen her for a week or two. Neither of us had had any experience of collecting bad debts, so I drummed up some courage to go and see her.
I kept thinking to myself, "It's our money that she owes, why shouldn't she pay." When I got to the door my heart was pounding. "What shall I say?" I thought. Anyway, when she came to the door, she said, "Oh I was just going to come down to the shop with some money" I thought "You two faced liar!!"
This owing of money reminds me of a tale that was told to me when I was in Jack Mason's warehouse one day. There was a "Scotch Draper" there who was getting a few things and we got to talking about bad debts. He said " One day, I was out on my rounds and had called on this woman who owed me some money. I went into the house and there was no sign of her, but boiling on the stove was a pan of potatoes. I thought to myself 'she must be next door', anyway, I waited and waited and realizing that she had no intention of making an appearance until I had gone, I decided to write the debt off, so before I went, I turned up the gas on the potatoes and waited until they had boiled dry, and started to burn. I knew she wouldn't come in until I had gone, and she could smell the potatoes burning, it was sweet revenge!!"
We had quite a good cooked meat trade, selling sausages, pork pies and black puddings from Mark Williams, after Marsdens had closed down. Tins of tongue that we got from the cash and carry, I used to love this, because whenever I opened a tin of tongue, I would eat all the jelly, and as I sliced it up on the machine, I would leave a spare slice for myself!! It's no wonder that my weight shot up to fourteen stone.
We cooked our own hams, roast or boiled and roast pork for which we made stuffing. We also cooked pestils and ham shanks, which were very popular, especially when the weather was cold. Customers would wait for them to finish cooking; they could smell the aroma as they came into the shop. Another meat that we cooked was the roll ends of bacon. These I would skin and boil, shredding and pressing the meat in a dish with a weight on top. When it was cold, we kept it in the fridge and cut it on the machine. It was a good way of using all the waste up. We had one customer who would come in for some roast pork. She would only buy 2oz but by the time that she had asked for crackling and stuffing, which weren't charged for, she had enough for her husband's sandwiches and the rest of the family's teas. We sold Spam i.e. pork luncheon meat, cut into slices on the machine, and at that time it cost a shilling (5p) a quarter. One lady wanted 2oz twice a week for her husband's sandwiches. I said to Edna "he'll not get fat on those sandwiches!"
There was another pair of characters that are worth a mention. We never had a lot of bad debt, but there were two outstanding ones.
First of all there was the Wright family. If ever there was a misnomer, that one was. It should have been the "wrong" family. Let me explain, Maurice Wright was a painter and decorator by trade, and he was also a rogue and a con artist. The family came to live in the house next door to the chapel in Mitchell St. One day, Maurice came into the shop to see if I could change him a cheque, which someone that he had worked for had given him as wages. I told him that I could change it, but I couldn't give him any money until the bank had cleared it for me. He agreed to wait, and about 5 days later, the bank cleared it and I gave him his money.
Then came the sting. He came with another cheque and said that he was waiting for clearance at the bank and could I let him have some groceries on account. He didn't give me the cheque, but just showed it to me. Of course, having seen one cheque clear, I assumed that this one would clear as well. IT DIDN'T!! He bought a few things there and then, and booked them. This was the start of a string of similar purchases, all of them "on the slate". Finally, I had to call a halt. He had about £40 on the book and no signs of the cheque clearing. I was finally left with £34 owing and that is still outstanding today.
I made the Wright family pay cash for anything else that they came into the shop for. Later on, they turned the house in Mitchell St, which incidentally had belonged to a very clean lady and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Broomhead, into a veritable pigsty. Mrs. Wright, who was pregnant and who already had three children, told us one day that she was "going to have a miscarriage" that afternoon. She must have gone off to an abortionist because she came back there were no signs of the pregnancy. Wright himself had been to the Hare and Hounds and stuck him with a dud cheque; in fact his name was mud all over the district.
They applied for an improvement grant for their house in Mitchell St and got it. They approached a builder who agreed to do the work, and he made a good job of it, putting in a new bathroom, renewing the gulleys and rainwater pipes, in fact, a full refurbishment. When Wright got hold of the cheque he took the family to Pontins Camp for a holiday, and bought himself a car!!
The builder tried for weeks to get his money but without success, finally, his patience exhausted, he snatched back all the materials that he had used in the refurbishment. I went down to the house one night on a fruitless quest for my money and as I stood by the door, water was dripping onto me from the roof where the gutters had been removed!!
Finally, after the builder had bought the property from the one who was selling it to the Wrights (it must have been a private sale), he removed all the window frames, I came by the house one evening and I could see a flickering candle behind the upstairs curtain covering the space where the window frame had been, the house being without electricity, because they wouldn't pay their bills.
Later on that week, one of their children came into the shop and said to Ma, who was serving for us at the time, "We are going to live in an hotel" We thought that the child was romancing, but it was true, Wright had been to the Council and demanded living accommodation, and the Council put them into the Grand Hotel in Wigan as a temporary measure!!
Later on, they were re- housed in a council house in Broom Road, and Wright had the gall to call into the shop before they moved and give me his address. I never collected any more money from the debt. The last that I heard of the Wrights was when I saw a piece in the paper. The Electricity board had been to their house and had dug up the supply cable to cut off the power, because Wright had re-connected it so many times previously. I don't want to set eyes on them ever again!!!
The other really bad payer was Jimmy Morgan. Just as a coincidence, he was a painter and decorator too. The other similarity was that they were both scousers.
Morgan came to the shop on quite a few occasions before asking for credit, usually riding his bike. They lived in the stone houses near Tunstall Lane, and they had four children, his wife was quite a smart looking woman, who had worked in a clerical job from what I could gather.
After asking for credit, he would pay and then leave some on, saying that he hadn't been paid by his boss. He then got out of work and the credit went on and on --- His favourite expression was "I'll pay you everything back, you've been good to us to let us have these goods, I won't let you down" It's a good job we weren't holding our breath for the repayment!! I even found him work, painting inside the Chapel at Mitchell St, and this way, I got a bit of money back.
Sometimes, Dad would come into the shop when Mrs. Morgan had sent her children down for groceries, and he would say, " They don't look so bad on strap jackbit!" I used to feel embarrassed, but he was only telling the truth.
Finally, Morgan got rehoused in Skelmersdale New Town and he came down to the shop to say that he would make sure that I got my money every week. I gave him a paying in book for the bank, so that he could pay me back, what a fool I was to even think that he would pay me!!
After a month, there was nothing in the bank so Edna and I went up to Skelmersdale to see what was going on. We got the old story---going to pay etc.etc.He gave us five shillings and that was the last that I saw of him. We tried to get the money through a debt collector but it never materialised so we wrote it off as business losses.
Nellie Rowe was another character worth a mention; She lived with her husband John in a small house opposite the hospital. She was very blunt in her approach to life, and she and John lived a life of good-natured animosity! They never had a family, I don't know why, but they doted on their pets. They had two dogs at home and John, who had been a railway man before his retirement, used to go down to Springs Branch depot every day, riding his push bike, bag on his back, to feed the cats that were in the depot. The obsession with animals apparently all started when John had brought a kitten home years previously, for until then, John's hobby had been motorbikes.
I recall John having a Matchless bike that was a pre war model and it was immaculate. Apparently, every time that the bike had been out in the rain, John would take it into the kitchen and strip it down on the hearth, to give it a clean. Nellie told us that they even had motorbike wheels stacked under the bed!
Later on, however, John bought a Vincent Black Shadow 1000cc, and it was fitted with a "Bullet" sidecar. It was a magnificent machine, a real crowd stopper, John said himself that when they stopped outside cafés, the "ton up" men were all over it, wanting to buy it from him. He finally sold it to Bill Hancock, who was an enthusiast.
It was amusing to watch, when John and Nellie were going out with the bike, because the dogs went as well. Nellie would tell one of the dogs to jump in, she would then follow, with the dog at her feet, and the other one jumped in and sat on her knee! When the weather was fine, Nellie would wear a leather helmet and John, a peaked cap with goggles, this of course being before the advent of hard hats.
Nellie, in her younger days, was a keen motorcyclist herself, and when she and John were courting, she had her own bike. She told the story of when she was riding pillion with John, she was "backseat driving" and giving John an earful, when John stopped the bike, got off and said to Nellie, "Get on and drive it!" She told him that she didn't want to do, so John said, "Well. Sit there and shut up then!" As she was telling us the tale she said "Ah darsent say another word"!
John had been, in his younger days, a keen cyclist as well, and had ridden in races. He once showed us a medal that he had won for a 25-mile race in Leigh. To win this, John had done a full shift, stoking on a train, gone home and changed, and then ridden to Leigh to take part in the race. Talk about stamina!
When he had the Vincent, he also had an old Royal Enfield that was an ex WD bike, and he would go down to Springs Branch on this, but one day, he had an accident and was knocked off the bike and this seemed to finish his motor bike days, as it un-nerved him. They got rid of the bikes soon after this and John started to ride a pushbike again.
John's sister Helen, had a dress shop near the station in Wigan, and she kept a cat there. John and Nellie were going through Wigan one Saturday night when they passed the shop. They saw the cat meowing in the window so they bought a fish from a nearby chip shop and pushed it through the letterbox!! I'll bet it did Helen's dress shop trade a power of good, as she opened up on the Monday to a smell of stale fried fish!!
Another chap worth a mention was old Sam Melling. Sam had the biggest hands that I had ever seen, they looked like spades. He was a harmless old chap who had had a really rough life. Sam had been married to Jinny Adamson, the sister of the aforementioned Billy, he with the walking stick. All the Adamson's were known as "Keks" I never knew why. Sam once told us of Jinny's evil temper. When they were courting, Sam worked on the wagon road at Blundells, lowering wagons down to the screens, and Jinny worked on the picking belt. They had had a bit of a tiff the night before and as Sam was passing under the screens, Jinny dropped a lump of pit dirt on his head, splitting his scalp!!
Sam and Jinny had two children, Gladys, who was normal, and who had married, and Jackie who was backward. It was said that Jinny had blamed Jackie's backwardness on an accident with a coal lorry when Jackie was a small boy, but nothing was proved. Ma told me that Jinny had had quite a bit of money from the owner of the coal cart, as compensation.
Jackie was about five years older than me, but when we were children, he played alongside us. As he grew older, however, he got spoiled by his mother and allowed to have anything that he fancied, and of course when she died, Sam was left with the problem. Sam had an account at Callands toys in Darlington St, and Jackie was allowed to go there and buy small dinky cars. He must have had hundreds. Jackie also had a couple of bikes, which he would pull to pieces on a regular basis, and then re-assemble. He was a great cinemagoer and rode his bike in the heat of the summer, clad in a long overcoat and gauntlet gloves, as he pretended to be his hero "Captain Video".
Although he was a bit backward, he was very astute. His mother, when she was alive, had been a smoker, and had encouraged Jackie to start with the habit. Sam never smoked, and he was attempting to get Jackie to smoke less, so he would give him a note to bring to the shop, allowing him 10 cigarettes, which Ma would book down and Sam would pay for at the weekend. This was working alright but then Jackie realized that if he kept the note, he could come again for some more!!
The ruse worked one time and then, Ma asked him for the note and kept it! He looked daggers at her as he handed it over!!
As Jackie grew older, he became more and more unmanageable, and when we were in the shop, Mary Rudd, who cleaned for Sam, would tell us of Jackie's behaviour, She would come in and say "He's bin thunerin' agen" Meaning that he had been shouting at Sam. Jackie finally got to the point where he would lie in the chair, covered in his overcoat, and not move all day. Sam was afraid of him and was unable to do much about it. Jackie wouldn't wash or change his clothes; he never took his boots off for months. The result was that Sam had to seek help, and Jackie was taken away to Brock holes Mental Hospital, near Blackburn. It was said at the time that his socks had to be cut from his feet, which were bleeding.
When Jackie had been re located, we were told that his health had improved and he was working in the hospital gardens. Sam used to go and see him regularly and would come into the shop before going, to buy " Some chocolayte for our Jackie". Later on, Sam went to live with his daughter, Gladys in Westhoughton, and died there some years later. We never found out what happened to Jackie.
Continued...