Reminiscing.

[Workingman]

Ossie, your description is almost the same as mine. after modernisation, even down to the piano in the front room!

Ria, the living room was aptly named, as it was all about life. We lived in there as the front room, or lounge, was only for special occasions. We did not have a kitchen, as such, until we went all modern in about 1962. The pantry and scullery were knocked through to form a kitchen and the range was taken out and replaced with a gas fire to make a proper dining living room.

Before that the chimney breast was huge due to the range. To the left was the 'kitchen cupboard' where dry goods and cutlery and crockery were kept. Down below were the pans and stuff and there was a drop-down front to reveal the bread and bread board, tea and sugar. To the right was a massive sideboard with the clock, radio and a fruit bowl.

[Kaz]

Does anyone remember those big metal kitchen cupboards, with various things built into them, like a small pull out table or an ironing board?? My Nan had one in her kitchen when I was little, then when I was first married, and living in the basement flat of a huge Georgian house just off of Ealing Broadway, well blow me down if I didn't have the same cupboard in my own tiny kitchen

[Workingman]

Kaz, I was helping out when my ex sold our house and moved, There in the garage of her new house was just such a thing turned into a sort of work bench cum tools and parts store.

They must have formed "the" kitchen in millions of two-up, two downs and back-to-backs up and down the country.

[Paddypix]

Our house was like that too Ossie, but no piano. We had a fire in the back room which we called the kitchen and it was the one that heated the water. We pulled out the damper. In the front room (the parlour) there was an open fireplace but it was only lit at Christmas as the rest of the winter it was like an ice box so we never went in there. The actual kitchen where the cooking was done was the scullery. It's the house I was born in and the one I still live in now because we bought it when my father died and it was too big for my mother, although it's just an ordinary terrace house but with three floors and 30 stairs. We did away with the open fires and had gas fires instead. Up until a few years ago I was still making firelighters out of newspaper and I well remember nearly setting fire to the house when holding a sheet of newspaper across the front of the fireplace to make the fire draw. When my parents moved in there was a black range that my mother had to blacklead to keep it looking good so they soon got rid of that.