Looking back over the years, what are your memories on the washing day? Did your family have a certain day of the week when they did the washing?

Yes, very often, yes. I spent a long time in the Tropics, sort of up to about ten, so washing was usually done on a fairly daily basis except on a Sunday. And washing and things were rather primitive out there.

How did .... Was it your mother that did the washing?

No, she had a lot of help from the native population, and so on.

How did they do the washing?

They used to take it down to the near-by stream and bash it on stones, mainly.

Really, What did ....?

That was the early days of course. But later on when we moved back to more civilised venues...., we had a wash house with a copper boiler in the wash house. Mum used to do the washing then.

How old were you then?

I'd be about ten, twelve by then, so that would be coming up to 1935, '36, '37 Something like that.....

Can you remember when you first got a washing machine?

I don't think my mum ever did have a washing machine. 'First washing machine we had was when I was married in about 1941ish, '42.

Did you notice changes about having a washing machine compared with when you were younger- how does it differ, did it make it easier?

Well of course it made life a lot easier, but let me see now, washing machines, yes I think probably washing machines were even later than that. We used to have to boil things up on the gas stove, I think .... and washing in the machine.... yes twin tubs ..... come in about 1954ish '55: twin tub, you know, where you put the washing in one side and a spin drier on the other side.

Right ,okay. We are going to move on to the Hoovers. Before Hoovers ... how did you or your family used to clean the floors?

Well it used to be brushes, and there was a thing called 'the bissel', which was a fore-runner of the Hoover. I suppose we had this thing that you rolled along the carpet, and it swept up the crumbs and what not into little boxes. Then you pulled the lever and the boxes opened up, and you'd toss the rubbish out into the dustbin. Otherwise dust pan, brooms, normal sort of things. 

Who used to do all the...

Mum used to do all that, yes.

Yea, okay, what were your earliest memories of the television?

Earliest memories, I think, Andy Pandy... I think. We had it when the children were very little, I suppose Debbie would be about 3 or 4, so that's 1953ish or something of the sort. I did see a little bit of the television at the coronation, that was before Debbie was born in 1952, we sat round the neighbour's television. As I say, that would be about, I forget the month but about 1951, '52, when was the coronation? That was the first time I ever saw television about 1953.

Now a days, television is used for recreation but how did you see them in your day?

Just as a news medium really. It produced images of things that were happening elsewhere: things you otherwise wouldn't be aware of. We lived in the West London and the coronation was taken up in central London. That would be twelve miles away and we wouldn't have otherwise seen it because we didn't go up, in actual fact, to the centre of town to see the pageantry and everything else.

Was there someone in your family in charge of the TV and of what you watched?

Oh well, I think basically, as parents we were in charge of the television, and we decided what the children were going to watch...

Did the television bring your family closer together, at times when you watched?

Difficult to say really.

Did you all watch it together as a family?

Pretty well all watched it together... Of course, I'd be mostly out at work, so they'd be watching with mother I suppose. And they used to sit around... I remember once when Andy Pandy was on, he disappeared out of the back of the television set somewhere and Debbie went round the back, there, to see where he'd got to. That's just another side.

How did the televisions differ from the ones used today, like the size or how you used it?

Size-wise: Well I think the screens were about nine inches by five, the first ones, black and white of course. Colour didn't didn't come in 'till... can't remember exactly... but you probably have some record about when colour did... and it would be some time before we graduated to a colour TV. So we're talking about 1965- ish, something of that sort.

Okay. Did your TV have a big knob to tune channels rather than buttons?

How did we change channel? Yes we had a knob, I think it was, where you had to actually turn it round, rather like that one on the tape recorder, I suppose, yes. Changing it round from one channel to another. But there was only one channel, basically BBC. The ITV came in and BBC2, and then 'course there was a fair amount of diversity after that.

When you had a radio was there a special day you all gathered around around to listen?

No. I think my first memories of the radio were very, very, very primitive: a big box affair, about twice the size of that tape recorder, I suppose... with valves and all sorts of interlaced, I forget now what they call them - condensers I think. They were they sort of swung around and tuned.... and made a great big whistling whining sort of noise until you got the channel involved. Then we had memories of a little crystal set that I used to play with when I was little. They would be mid 1930's. something like that. It just consisted of a crystal with a little spiky bit of wire that you shoved down on it and listened with earphones...

How big was it?

Oh a little thing about the size of that box there, I suppose; that's about 4x6x2 inches, something of that sort. Then a plug that you plugged your earphones into. And earphones, of course: just normal over the ears and over the top of the head type thing. You couldn't get much of the way of sound out of them. Now a days your Walkman's and things like that have enormous output.

Yes they do.... Okay the telephone: Can you remember how old you were when you first got a telephone in your home?

... 'Be after the war. Didn't have a television until after I came back from the war in 19...

The telephone, yes?

Yes, the telephone, yes. 'Didn't have a telephone until after I came out of the Navy, which would be 1946- 47. I was living in digs... They had a television and a telephone in the house then. But that would be the first contact I had. 'Didn't have much use of it at all. There were call-boxes you could always use.

So, before you had a telephone in your home you went to the call boxes out on the street.

Yes, yes.

And when you first had a phone, what did it look like, and how did it differ from the ones today?

Well, the first telephone I recall was a thing rather like a tall candle stick with a mouth piece and a bracket on which you hung the earpiece. You took the earpiece off and applied it to your ear and spoke in to an open sort of mouth piece on the top of this candle stick. If you imagine a candle stick with a thing at the top, but the top is turned round to face you, as it were, instead of sticking upright to hold a candle. That's roughly what it looked like.

Do you remember what colour it was?

Black. It was black. You could have any colour you liked as long as it was black.

And was it expensive to phone?

I wasn't really very much aware of telephone bills in those days. I think it was about... Call boxes anyway were about tuppence for three minutes. That's two old pennies: the equivalent to about one penny these days, I suppose, for two minutes, three minutes. Then you had to keep on putting more money in if you wanted to go on any longer. There's your local calls... Big calls you had to go through what they called a trunk system. You had to dial another number. You got the operator and she'd say: "Put in six pence, or a shilling or one and tuppence...", or whatever it was. This is all money, of course, which you wouldn't know about I suppose. But you just had to pay as you go. Well, we're back on pay as you go now aren't we? Where you have a little card, where you buy your time on the phone.

Do you remember when you got your telephone in your home? Do you remember, I don't know, calling family more, communicating with your family? Did it bring you together, and closer?

No, no there was very little... very little inter-family calling, and that sort of business. I mean, you only used to make calls if it was something of vital importance or something, you know. You'd try and ring them to tell them somebody was ill, or something like that, but there wasn't much chitchat... I mean, there's a lot of chitchat goes on these days, of course.

Okay... With cooking appliances changing over the years, how did this affect you and your family?

Well, it's difficult to know how it affected the family. I mean, you just took it as it came. The first cooking I can recall was on a kitchen range of the... roughly, the Aga sort of type. But it was an open wood-burning stove with a hot plate on top. You used to sit the kettle on top to boil the water; or an oven at the side where the... You had to, sort of, pull levers and things to make the heat from the fire go under the oven to cook in the oven, and so on. There was very little control of the oven. Later on, of course, when we came home we'd have gas ovens, I think they were... The great thing was the 'regulo', you know, where you could adjust the temperature of the oven to suit whatever type of cooking you were doing. And gas, of course, with the cooker... mostly gas. We didn't have electric ovens until we moved here... never had the electric oven till we moved here. Gas, yes but...

So when your mum or, I don't know, whoever cooked in your family, wanted to make a hot dinner, did it take them all day to do it or was it pretty quick?

Well it would vary. It took quite a lot of time preparing things, and getting things ready, and so on. I had to do my own cooking when I was about twenty, I suppose, and it would be mostly stews and things like that, which are easy to do on the top of a primitive gas ring. By the time we got married we had a gas stove and that doubled up as a boiling thing for nappies, and what not, when the children came along. That was before washing machines of course. What else? Did I cover the subject?

Yes that covers it... Okay your work:

'Work': four letter word 'work'.

Obviously, when you were at work, appliances were changing. What appliances did you use a long time ago, and how did they differ from today's?

That's very difficult, umm, well my work... I was a doctor. At one stage in my life I suppose, we started off with primitive things like stethoscopes, where you, sort of, plug these things into your ear and you listen to people's chests, and so on. Appliances: We had primitive x-ray machines, for taking pictures of people's chests and insides, barium swallows... E.C.G machines were great big cumbersome things with wires running here and there. Now-a-days they're all electronic... little tiny things, moving styluses over a piece of paper... would give you a record instantly of what there was. These other things had to be taken off and developed in the photographic thing, and so on. You would have to have a degree in physical science to read them! All through medicine... I mean you'd have to look in through the development of medical science and so on to find all the various different things there are... and there are instruments in use now that I wouldn't have a clue about. 'Wouldn't have a clue about. You'd have to talk to my daughter about the latest technology, and what not.

Yea

She's a sharp-ender now

What about computers? Did you ever use computers?

Towards the end of my career, I suppose we started installing a computer into the surgical... mainly records of people's names and addresses and so on, and records of their various drugs, and sometimes a few relevant historical sort of thing, you know, past illnesses and what not. There's a lot more of it now, of course. It's developed a lot over the last, what, 10, 15 years or so.

When the first computers came out, were they hard for you to learn how to use?

Well I'm still struggling now

Yeah...

No, I'm not very confident on the computer as far as that goes, My typing skills are virtually nil. I think you have to learn right from basics things like typing skills... That does help a little bit. And of course to know your way about, or what things to call up, and what things you have to develop, and so on.

What about the heating in you're house, was that just the fire? Is that all you had... central heating?

Yes, central heating: Central heating we installed in the house, at the same time as I gave up smoking, so that would be about 1960. I used to say, when I gave up smoking, I could heat the whole house just at the end of my nose... You could roughly heat a four bedroom house for the cost of cigarettes.

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