DILLY DAYS

Memories of the days when many Brigg homes had no mains sewerage system have been revived by Kath Smith (nee Sambrook), of East Parade.
It's always good to get letters from her, and on this occasion she goes back to a time when the horse-drawn dilly cart collected 'night soil' from poorer Brigg addresses - chiefly in the town centre.
Kath's memory was jogged by the receipt of her annual bill from Anglian Water, which these days deals with the sewage and its disposal.
'Prim' Watkins was in charge of the Brigg dilly cart. "I wonder what he would think about the 'improvements' today?" Kath asks. "Soon after the 1939-45 war my aunt and her Belgian companion came over to see some of the family.
"After dark, at the bus stop outside Varlow's (in the Market Place), we saw the dilly cart coming over the bridge - lantern lights on the front and side, and a bit smelly.
"What is that thing?" was the question posed by her relative. "We don't have anything like that in Belgium. It makes my scratchy, scratchy!"
Kath reflects: "Those were the days. We were hard up, but happy. If we ran out of milk, or sugar, or a shilling for the gas meter, we would always find somebody to help us out, as we would help them.
"One neighbour came and asked mother if she could borrow a masking of tea. We didn't know what a masking of tea was!"
Kath, by the way, is the last of the original Sambrook family - eight brothers, two sisters.

Our super illustration, by former Brigg man Stephen Hill, shows The Friday Night Dilly Men, and has been featured in a past issue of the Scunthorpe Telegraph's Nostalgia magazine.