Bullpot 1934.
Bullpot where
I lived in 1934, of course there was no electric light, only paraffin lamps and
candles. No hot water, only what was in the boiler by the side of the old black
range.
I still have
what we called a ladling can, with a handle, with which we used to get the hot
water out.
No bathroom or
toilet, but there was a little WC in a building alongside the back door.
I remember cutting old clothes up to make
hearth rugs and little door mats, we still have two door mats, I just can’t
throw them away, sentimental. There were no fitted carpets, bedroom floors were
covered in oilcloth, with our homemade mats jotted around.
We made
butter, I still have mothers butter bowl and the acorn print she used to stamp
on the blocks of butter.
The postman
came three days a week; just fancy walking all the way up and down that long
road to Kirby Lonsdale. I picture the journey he had every time we ride up to
Bull Pot. There was no tarred road in those days. We always had to walk down
the fell onto the Barbondale road, we had a hut at the bottom of the fell for
our bicycles, then we rode on to Barbon. I had an auntie who lived at High Bank
and we always called there, perhaps to change our wet clothes.
Bull Pot
seems to be going into decay now with no farmer to keep things up. The walls
are falling down, there used to be a good wall around the cave. The old barn has
tumbled in. The field across from the house was a hay field called Moss Meadow, it is all rushes now.
There was no
machinery in those days, all the work was done by hand rakes, one horse did all
the mowing of the grass, when I
look back I just don’t know how we got through.
The big
kitchen in the house was used when the shooting parties came and had their
meals.
I would like
to see the rooms again and picture what
used to be.
A lot of
potholers came around in our day
from
I left Bull Pot when I married. Well now, this is just a little peep into bysgone
days.
R. A. Bindloss.
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