Recorded Memories

Flo Clarke Interview. August 2000.
 

Work, Family and Friendship: ‘Here have my nail file, it’s got my name on’.

‘We went to Blackpool…we went to London two or three times
…took us for a meal’

Flo begins by talking about her mother – she worked at Sketchleys and continued to work while her children were young. Flo was born in 1914 and her sister, Edie in 1918 and there were also two younger brothers. Her father went to serve in the First World War. She talks about her mother as being a very kind person, ‘she was kindness itself’.

It was through her dad that Flo and her husband were able to move into a two bed roomed house on John Street. When they were first married they lived up a yard on Bond Street, she referred to it as a ‘shack’, just one up and down. Her father went to an auction and bought the family house on Druid Street and also the house on John Street for £100 – she paid her dad 5-bob a week. With her two sons growing up, however, she felt she needed more rooms and a house came up for sale opposite her mother – ‘it was in a bloody state’ but her husband Dick thought it would make a good family home and Flo still lives in the same house. Flo and her husband were married over 60 years and were able to celebrate their Golden Wedding before he died.

Flo remembers work parties for which they saved a small amount each week. They had days out on the firm including a meal and they also had trips out with the Union. She remembers visiting The Whispering Gallery in St Pauls and one particular trip that Dick came along on they visited Westminster Abbey and he came out quite disgusted – ‘can’t see the architecture for all the trumpetry’. When she was 17-18, she went on holidays with a few friends, they were able to save their holiday money at work, they caught the midnight train to Blackpool but had no corridor and were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to use the toilet. A little boy, however, got onto the train in Nuneaton and they all used his bucket for a wee! The first thing they did on arriving in Blackpool was to buy the boy a new bucket. They stayed in board and lodgings and went dancing at the Winter Gardens.