We moved out of our "large" caravan on January first, 1953 and into the little row cottage at Edith Weston. It had one room up and one room down. There was no fireplace, rather the place was heated by a small, and very old, cook stove (coal fired).
The floor of the lower room was made of brick which the landlady insisted be waxed and polished regularly with some rather hideous red wax. The result was that our baby's nappies became pink coloured from her scooting around the red floor on her bottom!
The place was extremely damp and cold in January 1953 and coal was still on the ration list. We were able to supplement our rationed coal supply by obtaining additional coal from the Air Base. So after a while we were able to keep the place reasonably warm and comfortable. However the coal was of a very low grade, with stones embedded in it. Every so often one of those stones would explode from the heat of the fire. It scared the hell out of us the first couple of times that it happened. It also caused our landlady and her husband, who lived in the adjoining cottage, great curiosity as to what was going on in the O'Connor cottage. Who could blame them?
We rented the cottage from an elderly couple by the surname of Andrew.
Updated: April 24, 2003