The memoirs of Cissie Ewen

Daily life

Feeding the family

I remember we often had dripping on our bread, that Mam used to save from the meat of the Sunday roast: it was quite nice and better than margarine. It was a different margarine to what we get today. If we had margarine on our bread we couldn't have jam or syrup as well: it had to be just one. Sundays were really special, for Mam seemed to make sure we had a good big dinner and rice pudding that day; then scones and a tart, usually rhubarb or apple, for tea. The rest of the week we weren't sure what we'd get. Mam used to send us to the market gardens for three-pence worth of pot stuff; that was vegetables just good enough for making soup. The old lady, Mrs Osborne, whose market garden was the closest to us, was very generous and gave us a good supply of carrots, turnip and leeks. Mam also would make some suet puddings and dumplings to help fill us up. She would make onion ones for those who liked them and plain ones for those who didn't. When we had turnip as a vegetable, she mixed it in with the potatoes for those who didn't like the turnip to help them eat it. During the week, we didn't always have much to eat at all.

There was a very nice man in charge of the store bakery, and when they were there working in the evenings, Mam would send me up to see if they had three-pence worth of broken cakes. If we happened to get that particular man, whom I think was the boss, he was always very good to us and would give us a big bag of cakes. Some had nothing wrong with them. He would even, at times, put in a big cake as well. If Mam had another three-pence to spare, she would send Joseph or Maggie to see if there were any more to have; we used to think it a real treat.

However, things seemed to get worse after about two years after Dad died. Mam met a big Irishman, Jim Mullarkey, who got keen on Mam. She may have thought he would be a big help to her bringing up the children, and she accepted him when he asked her to marry him. It didn't turn out as she hoped. There were always rows; it didn't last long and they separated. They had another try later, to get on together, but it didn't work. I don't know how long he was with us, but it didn't seem very long, and that was the only time when we were really unhappy, for all we were poor financially.

Things then got even worse for Mam because she had lost her pension for herself and us, through marrying. Mullarkey, as we always referred to him, never gave her any money. She used to send me down to the gasworks where he worked, on a Saturday at midday when he got his pay, to get money from him. I do not remember going very often or if I always get anything when I went. I do also remember Mam sending me to the little shop down in North Shields where he used to deal, to try to get groceries from there. He used to live in a dosshouse near the shop.