Name a chore....

I bet nobody had a delightful rickety old tramride on a hard wooden seat-----with mother when she did her " big shop " a few miles away. Well I did !
The shop was called Pegrams and it was in Huyton,nr Liverpool.
I remember having to take care the eggs didn't break. We had to buy eggs if next doors hens hadn't laid any.

Then there was the trolley bus we'd get to the market for sheets and towels.
How ancient was this ?

Marge yes! I can remember crying hysterically as my dad was so upset and being marched round to apologise to the owner of the paper. He was so lovely and told my father he had no right to make a child cry like that and at the end of the day it was just a paper! Lovely man.

Thinking about it now, my father should have put it somewhere safe, not left it lying about!

Cleaning the silver with Duraglit on a sheet of newspaper.
Shelling peas and 'top and tailing' goosberries.

helping my dad light the coal fire in the morning about 6 am. and helping him polish and shine shoes also on a sunday...

Mum had seven children so we did a lot of chores.
We took turns clearing the kitchen after dinner ( tea). One person washed up. Another dried them, cleaned the table and brushed the floor. When it was my turn to tidy I used the floor brush to swipe all the crumbs off the table before wiping it. No one ever found out. I can't believe I did it. the table!

asked my Mother...not ‘other’.

I didn’t have specific chores I had to do, but I remember cleaning silver cutlery with Duraglit, shelling peas and broad beans, ironing the occasional handkerchief, holding the skeins of wool while my mother wound it into balls, drying dishes, helping my mother make sandwich fillings for when my aunt and uncle came to visit. I was never sent to the shops by myself, because my mother liked shopping. I usually went with her to the village if I wasn’t at school. I wasn’t totally responsible for anything except my school work.

My father cleaned all our shoes and did the fires in the mornings. He did all the gardening, too. I never had to help with any of those things, though I do remember a failed attempt to persuade me to do some weeding.

Much later in life I asked my other why so little help in the house was expected from me, and she said “I could never get your brother to do anything, and I wasn’t going to have you doing it just because you’re a girl’”. An early feminist, my mother.

Yellowstoning the top, outside step after a good scrub, then outlining all the other steps with whitestone.

Gypsyqueen13 how fed up you must have been.
How lucky some of us were.

Oh yes Green Shield stamps. I used to love saving those. DH used to smoke in those days and he smoked Embassy cigarettes. There used to be coupons in the packets that you could save and get things from their catalogue. We had loads of household items from there. I dread to think how many cigarettes he used to smoke. He stopped many years ago thank goodness.

Do you remember those books that we had to stick savings stamps into? Co-op, Green Shield and Embassy cigarettes? Mum would save them up and it was our job to stick them into the books with a jam jar of water and a small brush. We had to take care not to overdo it or the pages would stick together. That was a job I didn't mind so much.

My parents had a gas fire in their bedroom with a pull down gas ring. Aged six, I had to go in each morning, strike a match, light the fire and the gas ring, and put a kettle of water on it to boil. Once boiled, I had to pour th water into a tea pot to make their tea. I was terrified each morning that the fire would blow back, or that I would burn or scald myself, but I never did!

Laying the coal fire each morning before school.
Polishing Dad’s shoes (12 pairs)
Putting a new collar on Dad’s shirt each morning and putting his studs in
Taking turns with my brother and sister to do dishes each evening

Oh, and about 8 years old going to the butcher's for steak for our neighbour's dog. We could never afford steak so I knew she must be very rich!

I was expected to do most of the same things as others - loved some of them though, especially polishing an old cherry wood sideboard until it shone red. I even made jobs for myself as, if I had the money, I used to like to buy a 3d tin of 'dolls' lavender furniture polish from the door-to-door salesman and polish my dolls' house. I guess it was a little sample pot really. I also liked cleaning all the family's shoes and I was never expected to do that. Unfortunately DM had a short fuse and would re-do most things as they weren't done well enough for her. Because of that I have never re-done a job if someone is kind enough to do it for me! When washing up, cutlery had to be washed, dried and then polished on another dry cloth, and silver-polished twice a year. I was sent to the shops for a quarter of this or that but because I was so frightened of getting it wrong I invariably did! I'd go to the shops saying 'not Cheshire, Cheddar' and thoroughly confuse myself. Even if I asked for a note I didn't get one - I was told I had a memory and should use it. Strangely the only time I ever got out of helping was if I was reading, as that was educational. I'm sure that's why I still manage to completely lose myself in a book.

I can remember so many of the things you all quote
And the rag & bone nan with horse & cart coming down our road
Remember my Dad taking me to the City of London to see the lamplighter going around to light the gas lights at twilight & those awful thick pea Souper fogs

Another thing I hated doing was going out to the tripe van on Saturday at dinner time, it looked and smelt horrible, put me off the stuff for life!

I've never heard of siding the table, but I have a friend who talks about 'bottoming a room'.
which I think means cleaning from top to bottom.

I remember the co-opy number - 73627

Every hour or so my father would shout, ‘Tea flea!’ And it was my job to make a pot of tea. I never minded doing this as I always had a cup myself which kick started a lifelong romance with the magic beverage and panacea of all ills.

I think siding the table is perhaps a northern thing, it's not something I say now though, it's clear the table. As someone else mentioned, going to the shop with a note and money wrapped inside.

Google says Meltonian for the shoe stuff. Was it Meltonian Easy White or something?

I was an only child until I was sixteen. I came home from school to an empty house from the age of nine, and there was usually a shopping list waiting for me. On Saturday mornings, I was the one who queued at the various co-ops. I also had to go for the paraffin regularly as we used paraffin heaters. I hated that! Some days I had to go to one of the local fish houses to ask (beg) for fish for the cat. I even went to the local shop in the evenings for my mother's cigarettes - even on dark winter evenings. My brother was born when I was sixteen, but was rarely asked to do anything! Then I was the chief childminder, to the extent that, having moved house when he was three months old, the new neighbours jumped to the conclusion that he was actually mine! ( I didn't know that until many years later). Looking back, I think my parents took advantage of me!

I remember that shoe whitener too! It was definitely ‘Mel’ something. In a tube with a sponge tip. Anyone remember the name as it’ll bug me now!

I knew it grannyactivist❗️

I read somewhere that whatever hurts our parents cause, when we are parents ourselves we don’t repeat them. Then, further down the line, our children (who won’t have been upset as they had kind parents) are often harsher with their own children! It was an interesting read.