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Transcription of Page
Lister
House
Feb.
2nd 1992
My dear son,
This is a little saga. Sitting here twiddling my thumbs I thought how nice it would
be for you to know & to
explain a lot of things that happen to us, so pin back your lugs. I should, as Alice said, start at the beginning, so
here goes. I hope you won't be
bored.
As you know I was the 12th child of thirteen, no contraception then, a woman's role was
wife & mother, bed &
kitchen
&
how woman like my mother worked, forever washing & cleaning, scrubbing, blackleading grates, doorsteps & window
sills to the yellow or white
stoned, & no modern gadgets, zinc bath in front of the fire, a boiler in the scullery with a coal fire underneath
to heat the water, but we were
even better than some others, we did have running cold water & our own lav., albeit at the bottom of the
garden — jerry pots under the
bed & Mother slopping out every morning & the trek to the midden, but cleanliness & respectability the
order of the day. We knew nothing
of the outside