Autobiography

It was very difficult to get the thing started
again, probably because the chimney badly
needed sweeping. Sometimes my Mum would
tell us that we were going to have a sack of
coal delivered and the house would warm up
for a while. During November and December
we would be paid by my Uncle Dave for the
Christmas garlands we had made.
I realised later that the money helped to pay
for coal during the coldest months. Not that we
made a lot, because we sold them on to a
middleman who still had to make his profit. Of
course we made more profit on those we sold
on the stall.
Etched in my memory are the days when we
had no coal at all. When the fire was out I
really felt the cold. I would go to bed in my
clothes because I couldn’t bear to take them
off, as the bed would be cold and damp. I
remember doing it time and time again. I was
often freezing cold standing outside by the
stall. So cold, in fact, that we invested in a
second-hand paraffin heater; something else
that constantly needed repairing. Mum
received much of the stock for the stall from
my father, who would reappear from time to
time with odds and ends of stock for us to sell.
He once brought a parcel of buttons and we sat
and stitched them on to cards to make up sets.
He would pick up any number of things like
this on the cheap and other items he brought
were in need of repair, which I would
do. Godfrey never had a regular pitch but
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