Upstairs, the bathroom had an iron bath with ball and claw feet, plus a washbasin. The separate toilet was in the next room and had a gas jet for lighting in cold weather to keep it from freezing up. I recall standing on the toilet and burning feathers in the gas jet and then swearing blind that it wasn't me !  The rear double bedroom used by Mum and Dad had its own washbasin, and a fireplace and gas fire. Maureen slept in the small corner bedroom and I used the third bedroom, which was also equipped with a fireplace in which stood a gas fire. The lounge had a wireless with the tiny dial typical of the time - many people still used crystal sets. We also had an electric gramophone on which a favourite record was the Teddy Bears' Picnic. All the house pipes were lead and the lack of lagging meant they froze and burst in cold weather. I can remember Dad running a blow torch along them in the loft space to unfreeze them, and a burst which spilt water down through the books in the lounge dining room book-case. In cold weather, there was also an electric bowl fire - sometimes used in Maureen's bedroom - which had no other heating. On one occasion, when the element burnt out, Dad rewired it using an element from a broken electric fire, which was far too long and drew so much current that it bypassed the light switch and nearly caused a fire. He never really understood electricity and his penknife always had nicks in the blade caused by cutting live electric wires !

I can only vaguely remember visiting Grannie and Grandad Ellis at Beaconsfield Street, to which they had moved before the First World War because it was one of the new houses which had a bathroom. But we used to visit them for Sunday tea after they moved to 17, Wavertree Nook Road. They had brought much of their Victorian furniture with them and the horse-hair filled seats of the chair used to prick one's legs. A dutiful kiss for Grandad was always prickly too, because he had a beard. Nor did her moustache make one from her any less trying ! Above the fireplace in the lounge was a picture of a blacksmith shoeing a horse. The wash-house also housed an old fashioned clothes wringer with big wooden rollers, in which my father had caught and seriously damaged his fingers when a boy. In their bedroom upstairs, was fitted a bellpush attached to a overhead cable which ran across the road to Maureen's bedroom in Number 24. This could be rung if they became ill in the middle of the night and it required a special licence to be obtained before it was erected. The garden was a big one and contained lots of fruit bushes : raspberries, blackberries and loganberries, as well as rhubarb and gooseberries.