WHEN YOU COULD BUY 3 MARS BARS FOR SIXPENCE IN BRIGG

PART TWO OF THE LIFE STORY OF CLIFF TURNER, NOW 91, WHO GREW UP IN BRIGG AND NOW LIVES IN NEW ZEALAND

A few years before World War II, Grandma sold Oakleigh House to her step-son Fred and moved to a little house at the corner of Bigby Street and Cross Street.
Aged 85, she was still living by herself and coping well when the war came. In the early hours of 4 September 1939 we heard the wailing siren of the air raid warning for the first time. Grandma went downstairs in her night gown, sat in a chair and died. My Nana Turner who lived nearby found her soon afterwards.
Nana Turner came from an old Lincolnshire family, the Leesons. Her father, my great grandfather Henry, died when I was 12 so I remember him well. His wife Rebecca died in 1910 and for many years he had a housekeeper, Miss Dawson. I hasten to add that the word "housekeeper" was not a euphemism. He lived on Bigby Road, about a hundred yards from our house in Princes Street, and when Miss Dawson left to look after a member of her own family he looked after himself for a while. My mother used to cook him a mid-day meal once a week and I used to take it to him. He would always give me sixpence which in those days bought three Mars bars. Later he went to live with his son Percy and died in 1938 aged 82.
Nana had three siblings that I remember: Alf, Mary and Percy. I have vague memories of another one, Charlie, who I think was a postman. He never married but lived with his father and died at a relatively early age. Alf prospered; he married a woman who had a grocery shop in March, Cambridgeshire. He used to come to Brigg occasionally to see his father and I know I met his sons but have no real memories of them.
Mary married a man called Joe Holmes. They lived in Doncaster but visited Brigg occasionally. Uncle Joe would always give my brothers and me a few coppers to buy "spice". For some unexplained reason "spice" meant “sweets” in South Yorkshire. I last saw Auntie Mary when I was in Brigg on compassionate leave when my mother died in 1944. She was visiting my Nana and heard that I was in the nearby barber's shop so she poked her head around the door to have a few words with me. I do not know whether or not Auntie Mary and Uncle Joe had any children.
Percy was the youngest and was an uncle as soon as he was born! My Dad, who was his nephew, was a few months older than his uncle Percy. Percy had four children who were of course my Dad's cousins but they were all younger than me. He worked for J T White who had a small factory in Brigg making lemonade, and used to deliver to pubs and shops in the Brigg area by horse and cart. On 16 July 1953 the horse ran amok in Bridge St; Percy tried to hold on to its reins but was killed. At the time, I was working in the transmission department of the British Electricity Authority based at Keadby power station. Travelling to Grimsby sub-station my colleagues and I stopped in Brigg to buy a newspaper. On opening it I read about Uncle Percy's death on the previous day. Many years later I met Percy's son Ron in Christchurch, New Zealand, and he told me that Percy had received a posthumous award for his bravery from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
Uncle Alf died in the summer of 1954, trying to get his beloved Humber motor car out of its blazing garage.
Recently, I learned that Nana had two other brothers, John and Harold. John was killed in the 1914 war. He had two children, Les and Edna, who lived with their mother close to our house in Princes Street, both of whom I remember quite well. I had a vague idea that we were related but now know that they were first cousins to Dad. My niece Gill Greenfield knew Edna, who lived to a great age and who once told Gill that she remembered going to our house in Princes Street to see the new baby; Gill is not sure if the new baby was me or my brother Ken. I know nothing about Harold except that at the 1911 census he was 17 and an apprentice cabinet maker.
It seems strange that there was never any talk about my Nana’s two brothers and that I have only learned of them late in life.