My earliest memories of living in Pompey (portsea)

I am now 67 years old, I was born in 1946 at 78, Privett house ,Portsea , Portsmouth.my mother was Beatrise May Blake, There was 11,children in my family, Mum had 6 ,Girls and 5,Boys

I was the second to youngest, boy.

My earliest memory was as a young boy perhaps 5,standing with my elder brother, Peter older by one year, at the bottom of our flats, when two people ,a man and a woman, asked if we knew where Mrs, Blake lived, being young children, we said , yar dats ur mum wheel show u der way, and started to climb the three long flight of stairs ,Behind me , I can still hear the woman, saying to the man, My god Harry, look at the poor children’s pants. They have got big holes in them, you can see the cheeks of there bum.

This is the earliest photo of yours truly, I am between my sister Shirley and Lilly Sprawls , she lived two flats below ,Inor , her sister was a friend of ours .


In them days we did not have under pants like we do today. We were poor , there were 11 of us, we used to sleep 5 Boys to one bed. Mum did her best, there were no carpets, just the odd mat and floorboards, I can still remember mum on her hands and knees scrubbing the hallway floorboards, with a brush, bar of soap, and a bucket of water.

We did not have toilet paper as you do today ,we used to go around to the shops and get the news papers, fold and cut them up using a ruler, then when we had cut them all up into squares of about 8 inches by 6 inches, we would get a large needle with a big hole or meat skewer to allow for string to go through, stick the needle through the corner of the paper squares until the paper was about 2 inches thick, tie up the string loop and place it onto the hook, we should have put a notice up to say, crunch the paper up in both hands before use, the paper could be very hard.

Bath time did not come round to often, first mum would boil the sheets in the large copper that was in the kitchen, about once a month, when they were all clean and white, we would put them through the ringer(mind your fingers !! )and put the hot soapy water back into the copper, the copper was connected via a pipe through the wall and onto the hot tap of the bath, we would fill the bath up then mother would have her bath, when she finished she would call my brother Peter and I in for a bath, I was very glad mother did not put starch in with the sheets., we would have got out of the bath as stiff as boards .

There used to be an attic opening in the hallway, the wind used to lift the hatch cover

When it blew hard , it would move about 3 or 4 inches, and leave a gap , we did not know it was just the wind , as children , we used to think there were monsters up there , so we would always take a run and jump over that part of the hallway.

Christmas was always a good time , cheerful , lots of laughter and happiness , not a lot of food , you would not get fat , but we enjoyed ourselves , Mother would make a few Christmas puddings , with a suit topping , after boiling we would beg for our share of the topping , for presents , we would wake up and find at the bottom of our beds , a bag with a apple , orange , a three pence bit , and a couple of sweets , we were ecstatic , overjoyed , once I even had a plastic Banjo , it only lasted two days but it was fun while it lasted. (if you did not have much , what you had went a long way .) I did not have toy guns to play with, no such thing as a new Bike, or even second hand for that matter, on the roll up just before Christmas , we would make up our own decorations , using coloured strips of paper we would make the loops to make a chain , place the chains all around the room to make it Christmases , we would make our Christmas dinner hats out of News paper , I can not remember what we had to eat ,but it must have been food of some kind.