Ita McClelland

In the country area where I lived we did not have mains electricity or running water until the mid 60’s. Prior to that people had Tilley or Hurricane lamps which were fuelled by paraffin oil and mentholated spirits and had little paper globes and wicks.  The globes or mantles were very delicate and I remember always being fearful of breaking it. Some houses had gas lighting which ran from bottled gas.

I remember before we got the mains electricity my father purchased a generator, promptly dubbed ‘the engine’ and got the house wired for lighting and certain appliances.  We were one of the first houses in the area to have a television and some of our friends used to come and watch it.  The Marx Brothers were a big hit then. I think it was the only programme we were allowed to stay up late to watch at the weekend. In later years my father and six or seven neighbours got together to pay for the mains supply to be brought to the area because it was so expensive.

All water supplies were from wells. The water was pumped into buckets and carried into the house. As for bathrooms, they were non-existent in country houses, except the grand ones. We had a dry toilet in a little shed about ten yards from the house. It was referred to as "the wee house” and in the winter evenings we girls used to take a parent or a brother to stand guard outside as it was very dark in there.

Now my Aunt Mary who lived with us always kept a commode under the bed “just for emergencies”. This appliance was referred to as “Mrs. White”. Having still cousins in Scotland she used to go off to visit them almost every year unless it was their turn to come to us. When she was there we used to walk to Lislea Post Office and ring her from the public phone box. On one such occasion after she’d been gone for about three or four days she whispered down the phone to me “I think I forgot to empty ‘Mrs. White’”. There was quite a scurry up the stairs when I got home because Mary wasn’t due home for another week or so!