Hope Street, Crewe

Image: © David P Howard Taken: 25 Feb 2011

In three of the terraced houses in this block of ten, lived as tenants, my Grandparents, Great Aunt and Uncle, and Aunt and Uncle. There were no bathrooms. The only sanitation was a privy at the bottom of the back garden which adjoined an alley way. This was originally emptied by the nightsoil men, but the privies had been converted to flushing toilets by the time I had to use them. It was still a cold walk down the garden in the winter. Bath time was once a week in a galvanised steel bath in front of the coal fire in the living room, filled up by heating water on the stove in pans. I can remember having to use this on the odd occasion I stayed. Current social mobility means that three members of the same extended family now rarely live in the same street; but for these people it was normal.

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