THE BEST GARDEN WE HAD IN BRIGG

Cliff Turner, now 91 and living in New Zealand, grew up in Brigg and was educated in our town before serving in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. Today's memories are set in the 1950s when he was back on Civvy Street, working on the Keadby Power Station, in the Isle of Axholme. However, Cliff looks back to his boyhood in Brigg and recalls the best garden they had...



After about a year with the Generating Board, Mr Biggin told me I had to go into lodgings at Grimsby because contractors were working at the sub-station there and had to be supervised. 
I told him I would not go and he invited me to give my notice. I obliged him immediately. At this time we were expecting our first child and I thought Nancy would be upset about this but her immediate response was "I wondered how long you would put up with that man."
Within a day or so I got a job on site with the English Electric Company. The power station was only about half built, only three or four of the planned six generators were in commission, and my new job was installing 3,300 volt switchgear which controlled many of the large electric motors associated with the generators. The Generating Board could not evict us from our house but was able to double our rent, and English Electric would not pay me for the days I spent at the technical college. These disadvantages were more than offset by my receiving a lodging allowance and the equivalent of daily bus fares from Scunthorpe although I was living a five minute bike ride away.
We were in fact much better off and I took great delight in paying my rent three or four weeks in advance. One day the Station Administration Officer asked me when we would be leaving the house. 
"Maybe next week", I said. He looked pleased so I said "Maybe next month", and he looked a little less pleased. And then I said "Maybe when we are good and ready". We did not leave until January 1956.
Soon after moving to Keadby, Nancy was given a transfer to a school at Belton, a few miles way. Teachers travelling from Scunthorpe to the school picked her up near home and brought her home in the afternoon. Nancy taught there until the birth of our first child was imminent. 
Our son John was born at Scunthorpe Maternity Hospital in May 1954; we were elated but our joy was soon clouded by the knowledge that he had a heart defect. He and Nancy were taken to a children's hospital in Sheffield but he died a few days later. My most enduring memory of that sad time is of looking through the kitchen window after we had returned home and seeing Nancy's Mum and Dad coming towards the house. We did not know that they were coming; it was touching that although neither was in good health they had made the long journey and then had to walk quite a long way from Althorpe station. 
John was buried at the Althorpe cemetery; only Nancy and I, the undertaker and the clergyman were present. Nancy's parents stayed a few days and I was grateful that Nancy had company while I was at work. They visited Brigg so Nancy's Dad met mine for the first and last time. 
Nancy was soon fortunate to get a teaching post at Keadby, about five minutes’ walk from home. The headmaster had a daughter in Nancy's class and he was delighted with the progress she made during the time Nancy taught her.
I now had a garden for the first time and grew some of our vegetables. Although for most of my boyhood we had not had a garden at home, there was never a time when Dad did not have a bit of land somewhere and I had absorbed some ideas about growing vegetables from him. The best garden we ever had was a piece of land that had belonged to Great-Grandad Leeson. Grandad sold this, when he became older, to a farmer called Mundey and Dad rented it from Mundey.
It was about half an acre, totally surrounded by a hedge, with a lockable gate, and had a glass house and two pigsties as well as two plum trees. It was only about five minutes’ walk from our house in Princes Street. 
We kept pigs; they were bought, usually two at a time, when they were eight weeks old. They needed to be fed twice a day, a job shared by Ken and me. When the time came for them to be converted into pork they were driven through the streets to the slaughter house in Redcombe Lane and Grandad Turner would pay Dad according to their weight, as ascertained by a steelyard at the shop. 
We also started keeping hens for the first time. Somehow we acquired a broody hen, we called her Biddy, and a dozen or so fertile eggs. After Biddy had sat on the eggs for three weeks we had fluffy chicks that could run and peck up their food almost from birth. As they grew they were carefully scrutinised for the first signs of their gender. Pullets (females) were prized more highly than stags (males) as they would grow up to lay eggs. The stags were destined for an early demise when they reached a size that made them suitable to be turned into roast chicken. A couple were kept long enough to make our Christmas dinner and Sunday dinner on the first Sunday of the New Year. Later we would buy day old pullets; their gender was determined by highly skilled people and they were sent out from hatcheries in cardboard boxes which each held a dozen chicks. They came by rail and had to be picked up at the station.
 We usually had about 20 hens and they produced far more eggs than we could use so mother acquired a few customers close to home. On one never to be forgotten day 20 hens produced 20 eggs - the only occasion we had a 100% result.
It is time now to return to Keadby. In mid-1954 I passed the Higher National Certificate exam; this time I did not have the anxious wait for the result as I knew I had done well and so it proved as I had good marks in all subjects. I could now start looking around for a job that would be a start of a better career. I had an interview for a job in Brighton, with the transmission section of the South Eastern Division of the Central Electricity Generation Board, but did not get it. However, it provided us with a little holiday in London, as Nancy went with me to the interview at Kingston on Thames and we went straight from the interview to the races at Sandown Park. It was during the jumping season and we managed to show a profit from our wagers.
I also had an interview for a post just north of London with an electricity board; again I was unsuccessful but again it gave us a weekend in London.
At work, when the fifth generator at the power station was about to be put into service, I was given the job of testing the parts of the system for which my firm, English Electric, was responsible. Normally a specialist from the firm came to do this work but it was agreed by the testing engineer for the Generating Board that the members of his staff that witnessed the tests would "hold my hand". This was a lucky break; the experience I gained from the guidance I was given enabled me to get my foot on the ladder to my later career.
Early in 1955 we knew that Nancy was expecting another baby in October. But in September we had a telegram to say Nancy's Dad was very ill. By this time we had bought an old car but I had not passed my test. One of our neighbours took me to Barnetby and I got my brother John out of bed to ask him to drive us to Bangor. It must have been about midnight when we set off and drove through the night, arriving just in time to see Nancy's Mam and her brother Bill walking towards the house. We realised immediately that Dad had died. Mam had spent the night with Bill and his wife. After some breakfast John started on the return trip to Barnetby.
We did not have a church service for Dad; the vicar of nearby St Mary's church held a short service in the house before the burial. Only close relatives came to the funeral, including Dad's brother Tom who travelled from Sidcup, Kent.
A day after the funeral we travelled home by a hire car, taking Mam with us. Our daughter Ruth was born at home, after a long labour, on 7 October. We were very glad that we had Mam with us at the time as she was a great help. If she had not been with us I would have had to have taken time off from work.
In November I had an interview with the Yorkshire Electricity Board in Sheffield. About 18 people were interviewed for six available posts. The Yorkshire Board differed from most other Boards in telling candidates the result on the day of the interview so it was a long day before I was told that I was among the chosen six, at a salary of £635 per year.
Sheffield is about 60km from Keadby. For the first week or two I would drive, unlicensed, to Doncaster Station and buy a workman's day ticket to Sheffield. Then I realised I could catch the same train at Thorne which was much nearer home. At that time of year the morning and evening trips were both made in darkness.
Further memories from Cliff to come on Brigg Blog.