ELECTRIC LIGHT
My father looked after the electric light installations, the generator and in addition he looked after the cars. At Pendrell they had electric light before anyone else in Codsall. When Mr Gaskell went to live there in 1910 he wanted electricity installed. At that time my father worked at Bellis & Morcom in Birmingham. Mr Gaskell knew one of the managers there and asked if he had anyone able to do the work. My father was asked and took the job.
He was probably attracted to it because it was in the country, as my father was a country-bred man from Worcestershire. Of course many people had to leave the country and go into the towns in order to find work. My father was about 29 when, having got married, he took up this new position. Another attraction was that a house went with the job. It was a good house too for those days. It was built in 1910 and very well built too, with cavity walls. There was indoor sanitation and electric light. There were not many people who had those in 1910.There were three bedrooms.The two larg-est had a walk-in cupboard with hanging space. There were two good living rooms, a kitchen, a scullery, a toilet and a coal house out at the back � all under cover. There was no bathroom upstairs but downstairs in the scullery there was a 'tip-up' bath. It was lowered from a cupboard on bath night. The hot water came from the boiler behind the fire and we put a hose on the tap to fill the bath; if there was no hot water we had to heat the water in the copper and carry it to the bath in |
