25 Jul 2022
MARYPORT MUSINGS
As a child, I spent a lot of my school holidays with my grandparents in Crosby. They lived on Parkside, opposite the ‘big house’, my grandma a part-time dinner lady at Crosby school, my granda, a retired farm-hand-turned-factory worker.
Their house, a two up two down affair, was spotless and smelled of Lily of the Valley (or baking on Fridays) and ‘Jinny’ steadfastly believed in the ‘make do and mend’ philosophy. She sewed all her own clothes (sensible dresses in a variety of sensible colours) and knitted all her own cardigans (as well as ours.) The front steps were swilled down daily and one of my lasting memories is of her out ‘on the fronts’ sweeping the pavement. Headscarf knotted, and apron on, she’d be out with the besom, ‘getting shot’ of the coaldust from the passing Greggains’ wagons. It was a losing battle, but she never gave up.
My cousins and I spent as much time as we could at Crosby. We were allowed to have tea in the parlour which always felt ridiculously decadent. Freshly baked scones and teacakes with jam or peanut butter, all laid out on the shiny coffee table that was covered neatly in a chequered table-cloth made from curtain offcuts (lovingly washed and ironed each week on washday). We had Underwoods yellow lemonade in brightly coloured plastic cups. My granda had brought them home from the ‘button factory’ where he’d worked and we all had our favourite colours. We stuck to it religiously, a private little ritual that felt so important to our juvenile sensibilities. Apart from a large plastic doll called Susan that had belonged to my aunt (she had once ‘talked’ but the rudimentary ‘voicebox’ had long since perished) and two card games (Can U Go and Whot) there were very few toys. But it didn’t matter because our favourite games involved a jam jar of white buttons, an upturned metal paper bin used as a drum, and my grandma’s faded plastic peg bag. We spent hours in the garden digging up potatoes under my granda’s watchful eye, building dens with a sheet draped over the wooden clothes horse and playing imaginary cafes. (The customer was never right).
After the household chores were done (set days for set tasks) and my granda was tired of drinking invisible coffee, we would pile into his cream fiesta, proudly purchased from Ian Logan’s garage on Mealpot, and head off to Allonby for a walk on the shore. The Underwoods bottles would be returned and we’d either swap them for new ones or get the 5p deposit back to go towards a Twentyman’s ice-cream. Trilby on and stick in hand, my granda’s eyes would stream from the cold, and we would run along the beach ‘getting the stink blown off.’
Afterwards, we’d go back home and eat boiled bacon and homemade fritters and, with tummies full, we’d get ready for bed, because we always managed to turn it into a sleepover. Costa del Crosby was the place to be. We didn’t want to be anywhere else.
This piece was originally published in edtion 25 of Maryport Matters, July 2022