Individual results

Interviewee: Elizabeth MacDonald
Logged by Maurice Rattigan

Track 1
Born 20 Aug 1916, in a mining village, near Durham, and went to Council school and won scholarship to Grammar School. Dad was a miner. Mining area. Three brothers, two sisters. Mum was youngest of sixteen. Made own rugs. Coal allowance.

Track 2
Dads wages £2.15s, and walked two miles to work. Two bedroomed house. Two large beds in each room. The street and house still looks the same. Outside privy (toilet) then.

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In winter kept shovel indoors to clear snow to get to privy. Electric put in when I was 16 years old, but no gas. Grew own vegetables in front garden. Never knew until I was 16 years old you needed to boil peas. Made salads.

Track 4
Solid custard. Never saw runner beans. Chicken at Xmas. Always rice pudding, every Sunday. Yorkshire pudding. Mondays had left overs from Sunday. Bubble and squeak (fried potatoes and cabbage/vegetables). Washing took all day on Mondays. I was oldest and had chores to do.

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Helped look after kids, and bathed then in tin bath in front of fire, on Friday night. Mum had asthma and I had to do cooking. Kids sat on long form at table. Lost schooling when mum was ill.

Track 6
1866 alarm clock made in USA. Woke the dead, but not dad. Worth £35, ten years ago. Local man has it now. Still got Family Bible.

Track 7
My infant school was similar to the one in Black Country Museum. Started at 5 years old. Had slates. Mixed. Big school was in church hall. Then moved to new built school.

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Sat two written exams at 11 years old. Then oral exam. I was one of six, to pass. Grammar School was at Bishop Auckland. Couldn't afford school uniform and got grant from British Legion, which dad had founded in 1921, for four years. And paid for school dinners. Am still strong legionairre.

Track 9
Good grub, so too fat to be a ballet dancer. Soup kitchen in General Strike. I was 10 years old. Mum crocheted berets. Went into domestic service in Yorkshire. Near Leeds. Girls went into service because there was nothing else. Much sex discrimination.

Track 10
Mistress had quarter of a million pounds invested. Had billiard room. Wasn't in Morley long, and then got job in London as Cook General, at 17 or 18 years of age. About 1934.

Track 11
Long journey on coach. Went home to Bishops Auckland for holidays. Durham miners Gala. Big brass bands. Really great. Big fair. Didn't like boys to get intimate. Brought up innocent.

Track 12
Bunny Run was two mile walk. Easter Sunday with new hat and frock. Parents didn't like me being out. Had to be in by 9 o'clock. Once was thirty minutes late and got a belting off mum. She was worried. Didn't understand sex. Mum never told me nothing. Big rookery.

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Moved to Hull from London in 1937. Boss and mistress had separate bedrooms. Got sack listening to radio.

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The son had fallen in love with cousin, and they were against it. But eventually got married. In 1938 I joined the ATS. Wasn't politically minded. Evening and weekend training. Fortnights camp.

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Was in farm. After few months they couldn't do without us. On searchlights. Twelve in each battery. Small elements, but they gave out terrific light. I was corporal cook. Stationed near asylum.

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Never had a bath for a month, had one in asylum, in big bath. Moved to Leatherhead. Quinton Hoggs mansion. Cooked Xmas dinner. Officers waited on.

Track 17
Suzette Tarry entertained us. Wore dance dresses and silver shoes. Watched the 'Battle of Britain'. Dogfights overhead. Young captured German airman was only 15 years old, had to be interrogated.

Track 18
Interrogator wanted to cuddle him. Lord Beaverbrook's house. Then Canadian soldiers came prior to Dieppe raid. They were better paid. ENSA concerts. Got leave. Day off a week. Shopping if any money left. Got compassionate discharge in 1941, through mums illness

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but after she moved to Midlands, her illness almost cleared up. Came home to Barwell, and worked in shoe factory until end of war. Didn't like it, noisy, dirty. Had street party.

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Worried about brothers. In Assam, and one in Malta. Both in medical corps. Back to Hove, to old employers. In Brighton in war, kids cinema matinee got bombed. Another time kids got machine gunned picking blackberries.

Track 21
Stopped in service until I got married in 1948, and moved to Newhaven. We met in picture queue. Though Scottish name, he was not a Scot.

Track 22
Paid for my cinema ticket. Got engaged in 1947, and married in Mar 1948. Austere wedding. Family and a few friends. Good wedding cake. Iced. Dad died in 1951, and mum in 1961.

Track 23. My husband died in 1971, 49 years old. Mum had four strokes. I had two major operations. And mum never recognised me, I was so thin. Husband got Tuberculosis during war. I was home help

Track 24
For thirteen years permanent. Then family couldn't afford me after price rises. My husband didn't want to have children, but liked others kids (children).

Track 25
Once my periods stopped. He didn't like it, but was relieved when I started again. Got job in large hardware shop in Newhaven and worked there for twenty years until I was 65 years old. My youngest sister, Emily, never married, and moved to Whoberley, with my other daughter, Ada, and I would come here on holiday.

Track 26
She worked in filthy job at Courtaulds. Collapsed at home. Dead before she hit the floor, and had worked and acted normally until then. I came to help Ada. Emily was only 56 years old. Natural causes, not a scar on her heart.

Track 27
So I came up here permanent, as I was lonely, and lived with Ada, until I got a place of my own. 1982. I loved Coventry. Always had done. Spent all my holidays here before. Like the town centre. Know more about the place than my sister.

Track 28
'Festival of Remembrance', in London. Luncheon Club. Told about Starley Road. Got application form.

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It's changed since. I don't know half people now. Had interview eighteen months after application. Wanted a bedsit but offered one roomed flat.

Track 30
Was accepted and got keys to flat that badly needed decoration. So people on community work decorated it. Hardly any of the original ones left.

Track 31
Woman, housebound, knows more gossip than I do. Not impressed with changes. Young generation lacking in sentiment. Backbiting going on. They'll have to carry me out in a box. Have a good life, with British Legion, Royal Artillery Association, Age Concern. Though I don't do the work I used to do.

Track 32
Now a life member of Legion, Warwick's Club, was on committees and was officer.

Track 33
I didn't think too much about the new Cathedral. Legion helped me in Newhaven when tried to sell house over our heads.

Track 34
Thoroughly enjoyed working for Legion. Helping people younger than me. Did holiday escort work in Age Concern. On Executive Committee. Running Luncheon Club.

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Some old people awkward. People getting on to me for doing too much for others. Have got high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. So retired. Luncheon Club virtually folded.

Track 36
Rising damp discovered, and we had to move into other flat for six weeks, and they stripped everything out.
Took about two years to do the lot. Noise from the ringroad. If went to Council Status, our rent would double. Damp still being found.

Track 37
Am Tote agent for Age Concern. Rising damp everywhere here. Had to move out again for a month. Not a worrier.

Track 38
Independent. Ordered new pine bed in flatpack.

Track 39
Giving old one away. Never hardly hear local gossip. Don't stand on my front step. Recently we had armed police raid after drugs. Ambushed car.

Track 40
Council Monitor said we had not got enough ethnics in street. Now we have six black tenants

Track 41
Now ample mixed ethnics. One Asian tenant makes a lot of noise.

Coventry Lives Oral History Project, date of birth: 20/08/1916