My maternal grandmother Polly - real name Mary Elizabeth Lowe nee Shaw lived at 23 Rectory Road. They had previously lived in Spindle Hillock but after their daughter Lily was born they decided to move to 23 Rectory Road. The house was the middle of three houses overlooking the green in Downall Green. The neighbours didn’t want Polly to know the state of the house before she moved in because they knew she would clean it up. My grandfather Thomas was a joiner and they knew both of them would work to put the house in order.

After they moved Lily shouted down one evening that there was a ladybird on her pillow. The two of them shot upstairs and realised it was a bug. They then started to take the house to pieces. Grandad stripping all the door jambs and burning of the infestation of bugs. Polly burning all the clothes which were affected. They eventually got the house clean and breathed a sigh of relief.

My earliest recollection of my grandmother Polly was when I was five years old. I had to stay with her for a few days while my Mum was in hospital. She had a large feather bed which I had to have a stool to climb into. At 3 p.m. she put some pieces of wood and bricks into the oven. I found out later these would be wrapped in woollen blankets or old woolly jumpers and we would take them up to bed and put them between the sheets. The bed was lovely and warm and the bricks and wood stayed hot for quite some time. She had a chamberpot under the bed as the lavatory was down the yard.

During the day she had a large piece of canvas and some wooden pegs and we sat putting pieces of cloth into the canvas to make peg rugs. She had boxes with different coloured cloth pieces in them. Her daughters had all been seamstresses and the remnants of woollen cloth from dresses and coats were cut into oblong pieces and these were used for making rugs. Graded into colours first.

My memories of Grandma’s home was a comfortable place where grandma lived alone as grandad had died before I was born. Trinity Sundays the house was full of all the family and grandma made trifle and cakes for tea. Another day when all the family were there was Christmas Day. My father always bought a very large turkey and took it to Grandmas. She cooked the turkey and we had home made plum pudding for afters. At tea time she made sherry trifle. One with real sherry in for the grownups and another without sherry for the children. The children sat at a small table and the grownups at the large table which sat about twelve people.