The winter evenings were quiet, so one Sunday morning dad decided to make a wireless from a blueprint. The kitchen table, with coils of wire and everything else he needed, was wanted for dinner. Transferring it all carefully on to the sofa we could have our meal. He was very strict, always first saying grace despite how hungry we were. No reading comics or magazines, or elbows on the table. The wireless in the end did work but it was only a head set. Years on, when Amy Johnson was returning from her flight to America, dad undid the ear pieces and mother and I heard her plane over the air which was very exciting.

The cottage had no bathroom of course and every morning before I dressed myself, mother brought up warm water and filled the jug and bowl set on my dressing table. We washed our hair in a bowl in the slop stone, as the sink was called and then rinsed off with the pump water. This was cold and came out with such a gush it took your breath away. The lavatory was reached by going all round the house at the back and up the garden path. The hens had a large area in the back garden to scratch about in with sides of wire netting. There was a rain barrel and we grew plenty of vegetables. The walls of the cottage were whitewashed front and back with black sides. By the side of the front door stood the dog kennel. The coal shed was attached to the side of the house, a white building with a horseshoe over the door. There was a lifebelt fixed to the fence with a frame round and further down, inside our front garden, facing the lock, was a large notice board. Written on it were the bylaws of the canal. We had a long garden at the front with a lawn, flowerbeds, blackcurrant trees, a greenhouse and a boxed in run for newly hatched chicks.

The canal was used mainly for transporting unrefined sugar to the Sugar Works at Earlestown. The barges had to be pulled by a horse and mule. There were also three steamboats, the "Bongo", "Togo", and "Dolo". Each steamer would pull two, one behind the other. Michael Devanaugh, or old Mick as he was known, always looked after the horses. He would lead them along the canal bank pulling the barges with a tow rope. The barges were very low in the water when they were loaded. Ladies names were painted on the side such as 'Sarah Jane Burton'. I used to have a ride to visit my cousins at Bradley Lock and come back on a returning one. In extreme weather when the canal was frozen, dad and his workmates stood in an empty, small boat with ropes hanging from the mast. The boat would rock from side to side cutting the ice, "sallying" they called it.

The Boatyard where the repair work was done had a smithy with an anvil, a furnace and a big circular saw. This was a large white building near where we fetched our water from. It also had a small dry dock on the opposite side for the repair of the dredgers and sludge boats. The fire engine they used was also on a boat.