Frances Laker (b.1928/ female)

We lived in Mill View, that was all right there, we used to have bonfires, you know, all the kids round, roast potatoes, chestnuts, everybody mixed. If anybody was ill the next door neighbour would say, 'Well I'm going into town - anything you want?' or, 'I'll clean up for you,' and you used to do the same for them.

I remember once we had a dog give us, and he came off a farm and it'd got ringworms and I caught them - then you had to pay for a specialist that was two guineas a time, that was a lot of money. If you was ill you had to pay for your doctors. I remember once my mother sent for the doctor. I wasn't very old and I couldn't stand up, I kept tumbling everywhere. Dr. Murray looked at me, 'The girl's drunk.' My mother had made some elderberry wine and you put a big punch in, you know...and I'd only been sitting there sipping it and sipping it. Course, Mum couldn't understand it 'cos I kept tumbling all over the place.

Feverfew we used to have for headaches and comfrey was another one, comfrey leaves for bruises. Marshmallow we used to use that a

lot - I don't know what that were for, and bread poultices, you know, if you'd got a thorn in your finger it started to fester, and you got some boiling water and this bread and they put it in a white cloth and...oh it was red hot, they put it on, tied it round to draw it all out...and boils, they used to do it for boils as well. I know if you had a wart - it was rub it with a piece of raw meat and bury it in the garden and don't tell anyone where you'd buried and the wart'll drop off. Oh dear, silly things.

Scrumping apples - policeman used to box your ears, 'Don't do it again', you know, 'No, we wont do it again'. Putting buttons on people's doors and a bit of cotton and hiding and tapping the window...if my mother got to know the cane used to come out, oh yes, across your bottom. Bulimore - he used to clip you round the ears if you didn't behave yourself. 

I remember my mother taking me to the old police station in Baptist Walk because I'd run away from school one day and of course she'd had a word with this Bulimore, you know, 'Have a word with her, frighten her so she won't do it again!' And all the guns, and there were a cat o' nine tails up there and he said, 'If you run away again you'll have that.' I never did run away again. The birch, I say that up there, because they used to have them on the wall, all on displays.