Edna Perigo (b.1927)

I came up from Wales 55 years ago when I married - I was 21. My husband went to work at Burgess Products 'cos the work was in the Midlands, there was not work in Wales, there was a deep depression on.

My father, he ran away from London when he was 14. His father married again and he didn't like his stepmother so he ran away, you see, and he came up to Wales. He went on board ship...and he was a seaman all his life. He met my mother...there were seven of us altogether. When he was 42 he was drowned. Of course my mother was left a widow at 38 with all us children to bring and they wanted her to put some of us into a home but she wouldn't. And you didn't have help in those days...you'd got nothing like that, they had what they called public assistance - you had to go cap-in-hand and more or less beg to these Board of Governors as they call them. If they thought they'd give you two and six, (12p) they'd give you two and sixpence. Oh it was hard times, hard times.

When I was a child I was very ill with pneumonia, double pneumonia and I can remember them fitting up this tent to give me oxygen, 'cos you can't breathe, your lungs are terrible. They give you penicillin now don't they, in those days they just fixed up a tent to give you oxygen. I was very very ill and it's what they call the crisis, you either live or you die. My mother told me after they put all sand outside the front door and under the window so you wouldn't hear the noise and they wrapped an old piece of flannel

 round the door knocker so it just gave a thump instead of a bang.

I was top of the class at school but my mother couldn't afford to pay for the books and rulers and things for me to go on...so I left at 14 and I went to work in this sweet factory. No - first of all I went to work on a farm on the outskirts but my father didn't like me working there 'cos there were too many men there, he says, for a young 14 year old girl so I came back home and I went to work in this sweet factory. All the young girls worked there and I used to get ten shillings a week.

There was no work in Wales, everyone was out of work, and he (her husband) went to Birmingham and he learnt the metal trade and he went to Burgess Products, got a job there. He finished there and then we took the shop in Trinity Lane - there were some argument with the management. It was a VG shop - we sold everything.

We bought a house on Sketchley Hill. George Clark was building there then and we thought it was ever such a lot of money - £675 for a three bedroomed house - brand new, bathroom, kitchen and there was an outdoor toilet and an upstairs toilet - it was marvellous. And I know our mortgage was £3.17s.6d (£3.88) a month and I used to think, an awful lot of money.



Barwell High Street, Top Town